Page 80 of One More Chance

Kenna whipped her head around to Walter. “We can help you if that’s what you want.” No reason to overwhelm a captive with freedom he wasn’t ready for, but he had to understand what was possible. “Do you have any injuries we need to know about?”

She should ask if he had weapons in his scrub pants pockets but doubted he did. If he had, it was more likely he’d have used them already.

Jax held one elbow, and she held the other, but Walter seemed to walk okay. His shoes were almost silent on the floor. That might be on purpose so he could move unnoticed through the house.

“Are there any more people like you in this house?”

Walter said, “I’m sure he’ll come out soon enough.”

Kenna winced. That didn’t sound good. She wasn’t helping this guy just because he could provide them valuable intel they might not get otherwise, but that was a big bonus. They had to convince him to talk to them. If an ambulance picked him up and took him to a hospital to be assessed, it could be hours or days before they were allowed access to him.

What they needed was for him to talk to them before any of that happened. Calmly and of his own free will. They had to convince Walter to tell them everything he knew.

Jax said, “Let’s go find the others. See what they have.”

She took the first step toward the doors, and at the same time, the doors swung shut and closed. A man stood in thecorner, shadowed from view, but dressed in the same clothes as Walter.

“Hey—”

Before she could finish, he smacked his palm on a button on the wall. An alarm rang through the room, maybe through the whole house, stopping only for a robotic-sounding female voice to say, “Containment protocol initiated.”

“Lorin, what have you done?” Walter sighed.

Jax asked, “Lorin Barone?”

“Congratulations, you know who we are.” Walter’s tone remained flat.

“You aren’t keeping us here.” Kenna strode over to Lorin but didn’t get too close. “Open this door and let us leave.”

The man didn’t emerge from the corner, his face in shadow.

“I mean it, you can’t keep us here.” Kenna could contact Maizie, even though there was no phone or internet signal, and they could get help. But if Jax called it in, the full force of the FBI would show up. These guys had no chance against the FBI’s SWAT team.

She tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. “Open this door.”

He said nothing and didn’t move. She grabbed the guy by his shirt and turned him, slamming him back against the door. She gasped, about to launch in with another demand to be set free, when she noticed his mouth.

It looked like Lorin’s eyes.

No lips.

No opening.

Just scar tissue.

Under her hands, she could feel something beneath his shirt. His fingers wrapped around her wrist. No mouth. What she felt under his shirt must be some kind of feeding tube, a way for him to get calories without eating.

He pushed her away.

“Don’t expect an answer from him,” Walter said. “He’s a man of few words.”

Deep in the house, she could hear banging and yelling but couldn’t tell who it was or what they were saying. Kenna slid out her phone, one hand against the mute man’s chest. She dialed Maizie and said to Lorin, “Don’t move.”

He lifted one hand and drew a cross on his chest.

Cross my heart.

Kenna’s breath shuddered out of her. The phone rang once, then cut off. She looked at the screen and saw she had no connection. “I should be able to get through.”

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