Page 21 of Collapse

I drew a couple of deep breaths and started running again. We needed to get to Andrea. One of them had attacked her earlier. She needed out now.

Our running soon turned to steady jogging, but as we neared the house we had to keep low. There wasn’t much in terms of anything to hide behind. The top of the cliff was a windy place and nothing much but grass grew there.

We were about a-hundred-and-fifty feet away from the building when Hansen stopped me by putting a hand on my shoulder. We all knelt down, but all it would take was one glance out the right window and we would be spotted.

“What?” I hissed, still angry about his move back near the beach, and pissed because I knew he’d technically done the right thing.

“She’s in a basement, right?” he asked and pointed to the side of the large stone house. On one side, there was a wooden door to a storm cellar.

“We have to go in there,” I said, no doubt in my mind about that.

“I’ll have a look around outside,” Larkin said. Much as I didn’t trust him, I did regarding this. He wanted me alive, and if any of the kidnappers came when we were inside? Well, we’d have a hell of a time getting out again. I simply nodded my agreement, and we moved at once. Running in silence and as fast as possible. Eyes on the windows the whole time. Not a face to be seen.

Hansen and I stopped by the cellar entrance and pressed ourselves against the wall of the house, hoping not to be spotted. Larkin disappeared around the corner of the building.

“It’s locked,” Hansen whispered, nodding toward the two hatches. A chain with a padlock kept the handles together.

“We break it and they’ll hear,” I whispered back.

“Okay then. This will take a little longer, but it’s quiet at least.” He glanced up at the windows on that side of the house again and then went to work on the padlock with his lock picks. Part of the stuff Larkin had returned to him. I had forgotten to ask him about that skill. Now was not the time, though.

He made quick use of the lock and opened the hatch carefully. No one shot at us, so we went inside.

“Shit,” I heard him hiss as he was about to lower the hatch over us. I climbed back up the stairs to peer out beside him. Far out toward the cliff, a dark-haired man walked down a pathway.

“I recognize him from the farm,” I said.

Hansen nodded beside me, and turned his face toward me, though his eyes remained on the second kidnapper. “That’s the guy that shot McAllen.”

His breath tickled my neck in the closed space we were in, and I suddenly had to swallow hard to focus. What was wrong with me? “He’s going to find his friend down there soon. Hisdeadfriend.” I quickly closed the hatch completely, seeing Hansen’s narrowed and angry eyes looking toward the man out there. He didn’t argue, though. We turned to a dimly lit stairwell. The air was raw and cool, and we hurried down the steps as silently as possible. There were no other sounds.

“Andrea?” I shout-whispered. As we came into a small room crammed with old and dusty equipment. There was a moldy smell that no doubt came from the neglected papers and fabrics stuffed in unsealed boxes.

“Evans,” Hansen’s voice came behind me. “This might…” he trailed off, a half warning not spoken.

I pressed on.

“Andrea.”

I stepped into the adjoining room, a larger space, dingy, lit from another lamp hanging from the ceiling. Some stuff stashed in the far corner. Nothing else, except Andrea in the middle of the floor. The lamplight shone down on her as if she were the star of a play on stage and in center.

Except she wasn’t moving. She lay on her stomach, one arm bent underneath her, the other straight out to the side. Her dark hair lay all around her head as if the wind had taken hold and played with it.

I drew breath and walked closer. Knew what I was seeing. Didn’t want to. I crouched down beside her, saw her face between the dark strands halfway covering it. Pale, unmoving, eyes wide open in shock and fear. I looked down her limp body. Saw the shackles fastened around her ankles. She had been chained to the damn wall. A sink she couldn’t reach. A bucket she could. And that was it. They hadn’t even given her a blanket.

I pressed my lips together in determination and reached out to her. Knew it was folly now, but searched for her pulse nonetheless. She was cold to the touch, the cool basement probably sped up the loss of body temperature. I stopped searching. Had seen the angle of her neck the moment I saw her.

“The fucking bastards,” I whispered and felt a hand on my shoulder. I twisted to get away from it and stood up. “Did you know?” I asked as I turned and faced Hansen.

He didn’t look like he wanted to answer me, but he did. “I suspected. I think she died when we last saw her.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I tried to prevent you from making that deal with Larkin…” He stopped himself and shrugged. “I still needed to come here. In case there was a chance.”

I nodded. He should have told me. I hadn’t seen it the way he had. Hadn’t wanted to. But I understood that he’d had to at least try. Just in case.

I looked down at her still body again, and drew in a lung-full of moldy air before I looked back at him.

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