Page 69 of Diagnosis Attraction

When she didn’t answer, he slapped her hard across the face.

In the basement room, Matt scooted backward so that he was propped against the wall. It was almost pitch dark, and he could see nothing.

He tried to reach out to Elizabeth, but his brain was too fogged to make the connection.

Was she all right? What was Lang doing to her up there? The pictures in his mind terrified him. He had to get out of this room and rescue her, but he had no idea how he was going to do it.

First things first. Southwell had roughed him up, but was there any serious damage? Quickly he began to take a physical inventory. His head hurt where the thug had clunked him, and he knew he was going to have bruises where he’d thumped against the stairs and been kicked in the ribs. But as far as he could tell, nothing was broken, and he had no internal injuries, thank God.

He stayed where he was for several minutes, then pushed himself to his feet and felt the surface behind him. It was a wall made of brick because the house must have been built before the age of cinder-block construction. Next, he walked along the wall, turning a corner where thenew cinder block met the old brick,making him wonder if the room had been constructed as a cell. For what? To discipline women who didn’t want to cooperate?

He grimaced as he thought about that but kept walking carefully and holding out his hands in front of him so that he wouldn’t smack into anything.

When his shoulder brushed something different, he stopped. He’d reached the door where he’d been thrown in here. Positioning himself in front of it, he began to feel his way over the surface. It seemed to be made of wood, and when he thumped his fist against it, it felt very solid. It was not one of those hollow-core jobs, yet somehow, he had to get out of there.

If he could only see the room, he’d have a better idea of how to escape. But there was no light source except for a thin line at the bottom of the door, making him as good as blind.

In frustration, he smashed his fist against the door. Then he realized he wasn’t thinking straight at all. He wasn’t going to break out of here in any conventional way, but he and Elizabeth had used bolts of energy to zap rocks and then the men coming after them. Couldn’t he use that power to free himself?

He backed across the room and braced his shoulders against the wall, then tried to send a bolt of power toward the door. All he got was a massive jolt of pain in his head.

He uttered a string of curses in the little room, then took several breaths, gritted his teeth, and tried again.

Upstairs, Lang backed away from Elizabeth and stared at her, studying her like a rat he’d cornered in the basement.

“You think you can keep from spilling your guts to me?” he asked.

When she said nothing, he shook his head. “What if I told you I was going to poke a knife into your eye? Would that help to loosen your tongue?”

Fear leaped inside her, but she kept her voice even. “If you were going to do that to me, I’d know you were planning to kill me. And what would be the advantage of telling you anything?”

“There are many ways to die, some a lot more painful than others,” he answered.

From the side of the room, Mrs. Vivian was watching and listening to the unfolding scene with a sick look on her face. Elizabeth would bet that she’d never anticipated anything like this when she’d signed up to run Lang’s bordello.

Elizabeth switched her attention away from the woman when she saw movement in the doorway in back of Lang. Afraid it was the henchman coming back, she braced herself.

But it wasn’t the man who had taken Matt down to the basement. It was the guy they’d called Baldy, whom they had encountered outside when they’d scoped out the place a few days ago. The man Matt had disabled with a jolt of energy to his brain.

Down in the basement room, Matt marshaled his energy. He hadn’t been able to blast the door, but that wasn’t an acceptable outcome. He had to get out of there because Lang had Elizabeth upstairs, and the man had already been angry with her. Now that he had her in his clutches, there was no telling what he would do.

Matt clenched his fists, gathering his will, putting everything into his effort to escape. Coldly, he told himself there was no room for failure as he aimed a blast of power at the lock on the door. This time, he felt the mental energy shoot out of his mind and hit the door with such force that he would have beenknocked backward if he hadn’t already stood with his shoulders against the brick wall. The door rocked on its hinges but stayed in place. Matt redoubled his efforts, keeping up the stream of power, praying that it was enough to get him out of there.

The lock finally gave, and the door blasted open, slamming against the outer wall.

For a moment, Matt couldn’t move. The effort had taken so much out of him that he could barely stay on his feet, but he knew that he had to get to Elizabeth. Finally, he summoned enough energy to stagger out of the room. As he passed through the doorway, he felt a jolt of heat and realized that the doorframe was smoldering.

In the outer part of the basement, he crossed the floor as quickly as he could, heading for the stairs. Looking back, he saw that the doorframe was now on fire, and the flames were creeping toward the joists of the floor above.

He and Elizabeth had talked to Sabrina about burning down the house, but not while they were still in it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Elizabeth saw that Baldy’s face was strained, and she felt he hadn’t been doing so well since their encounter outside The Mansion.

She and Matt hadn’t been able to influence Lang’s actions, but this guy was another matter.

She focused on him, using every ounce of power she possessed to send him a message.

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