Page 99 of Deathtoll
“I have a client who is willing to pay generously for a live performance,” Asael said behind him.
Play for time.
“Like what?” Murph walked farther in.
The hitman stopped to his left, leaving plenty of room between them, so Murph couldn’t grab his gun. He was a murderous bastard, but he wasn’t an idiot. “Let’s call it an endurance test.”
He pulled what Murph recognized as a detonation device—with a dramatic red button in the middle—from his pocket. He put it away and pulled out his phone next, scrolled, then turned it toward Murph.
The image on the screen showed Kate, tied up and staring into the camera with wide-eyed terror, crammed into a narrow wooden space, surrounded by two-by-fours and plywood.
Ice spread through Murph, a deadly calm. Because hot fury wouldn’t be useful to Kate. “I’m going to kill you.”
“I don’t think you will.”
“Where is Emma?”
“They’re together. I wouldn’t separate sisters.”
That setup…the two-by-fours, the plywood…“They’re in a parade float.”Shit.“The captain got your picture. He figured it out.” Murph bluffed. “Broslin PD are already there. And so is the FBI. They got in earlier today.”
“There are two dozen floats. I have five devices, hidden where they can’t be seen without the whole structure being taken apart. Same with your girlfriend and her sister. Those floats were put together in the warehouse next door. I had access to them for half an hour when there was a small fire.” Asael’s smile was calm and confident. “How long before your friends start taking apart the floats and come across the float with Kate and Emma inside? An hour is my guess. You spent fifteen minutes driving here, then fifteen crawling in through the back.”
“What do you want?”
“You lie on that table and let me entertain my client. I will not push the red button for as long as you last. Hang in there for more than half an hour, and Broslin PD or the FBI will probably find the women. Grit your teeth and show me how tough you are. Buy their lives with your blood. That’s the deal.”
Murph had been a small-town cop and soldier with the Army Reserves. He was a simple guy at heart. Protect the weak. Eliminate the bad guys. He didn’t think in elaborate evil plans. He sure as hell hadn’t seen this coming.
The problem with fucking evil geniuses was that they were geniuses.
Bottom line: He would die to save Kate and Emma. That wasn’t even a question.
He walked to the workbench.The FBI is on their way.He lay down and put his feet and hands through the prepared restraints. The cold neon light above blinded him. He had to squint.
Asael came over and tightened the straps.
“Think of it as a chance to test yourself,” he said as he set up his phone to livestream, then shoved it into his chest pocket, the camera on top free and unobstructed. “Are you as tough as you think you are? In the next half an hour, you will have your answer.”
And then he put away his gun and picked up a box cutter.
Chapter Thirty-One
Kate
“No, no, no, no, no!” Kate’s protest came out as “Nnnnnnnn” because her mouth was taped shut.
She lay wedged tightly between sheets of plywood, in a dark space, paralyzed from the drug Asael had made her inject into her arm. It hadn’t been a sedative as he said. It was a paralytic.
Normally, she didn’t mind dark, tight places. When she was young, she used to hide from the monster’s beatings in the gap behind the washer. But this current hole reminded her a coffin. And if that wasn’t enough, Emma suddenly kicked her on the head.
“Mmmmmmmmmmm,” came from that direction.
Oh good. Maybe Emma’s shot was wearing off. It’d be nice if at least one of them had working muscles.
Then Kate felt a tingling in her limbs, and her control returned too, little by little. Of course, she still couldn’t crank her neck back far enough to check on her sister, and even if she could, there was precious little light to see by. Only a thin sliver filtered through a crack over her knee, just enough to make out the phobic dimensions of the space, and the red light blinking on a familiar black device at her feet.
Their deadly prison was moving. And outside, people cheered. After Asael had put them in the back of his van, once they lay in there unable to move or speak, he’d driven them over to the warehouse next door and stuffed them into the internal scaffolding of a parade float.
