Page 100 of Deadly Secrets
Chapter Eighteen
Brooke hurt from one end of her body to the other. The only thing that hurt worse than the sharp pains radiating up her leg was the hammering going on in her head.
She tried to lift a hand to her pounding temple but both were bound behind her, around a wooden chair back that cut into her shoulder blades.
The bare room sported walls made of concrete blocks. The light overhead shone from a single, bare bulb, and was so bright, she had to squint. Because of its blinding brightness, she could barely make out anything more than a few feet in front of her.
Shadows darkened the block walls and she almost missed spotting the outline of a wooden door.
Where am I? What happened?
Her throat was dry, making it hard to swallow the fear rising like bile into her mouth. Fragments of the accident, of Roman, flashed through her memory.
Where was he? Was he hurt?
Of course he’s hurt, idiot. He’d already been shot twice and needed surgery before the ambulance had been rammed by that truck.
Memories beat against her temples. The man who’d pulled her from the ambulance hadn’t been Douglas Weber. He was older, taller. She seemed to remember a gray beard, piercing eyes.
The Reverend?
Her head throbbed even worse, making her sick to her stomach.
Do not throw up.
She had to get free, find Roman.
But how? She wasn’t Julia inOperation Sheba. The self-defense and the shooting skills Roman had taught her would do her no good when she was tied to a chair with a concussion and broken ankle. Especially when a serial killer lurked somewhere out of her field of vision. Any minute, he would open that door and…
Apprehension toyed with her lungs, making it hard to breath.
Don’t panic, she heard Roman’s voice say in her head.Think.
“Shane?” she whispered, hoping her comm might still be in her ear and active. He’d been talking to her right before everything had gone sideways. What had he told her? Something about The Reverend’s sigil not being a symbol, but a letter from an ancient alphabet. Glagolitic? Cyrillic? She couldn’t remember. “Shane, can you hear me?”
“No,” a familiar voice said from behind her, “but I can.”
Brooke jumped so hard, she nearly yanked her shoulders out of their sockets. She whipped her head around, to the detriment of her pounding temples, and tried to get her eyes to find the speaker through the glare. “Roman? Oh my God, is that you?”
“Yep, you can’t get rid of me that easily.”
She felt the brush of his fingers against hers. He seemed to be tied up like her, their backs to each other.
“I’ve been trying to wake you up since I came to,” he said. He sounded as dazed as she felt. “I was afraid your concussion was serious.”
“It may be, since I’m pretty sure I must be hallucinating you.”
“I assure you I’m real. My head is killing me. It wasn’t easy maneuvering my chair so close to you.”
“My head feels like someone took a hammer to it. Did they knock you out as well?”
“Yeah, but I’ll live. How’s the ankle?”
“Hurts like hell and it’s swollen. What about your thigh and shoulder? Your gunshot wounds?”
“Shoulder is nothing but a scratch, and Clarice put blood clotting compound in my leg, so I won’t bleed out.”
“Where are we?”
