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36
Captivity
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Bile rose in Sherlock’s throat as nausea ripped through her. She lay perfectly still, her head pounding, and pressed her hands to her stomach. She took light square breaths until a wave of nausea passed. She hadn’t felt this miserable since she’d had food poisoning last year. She’d never forget hugging the toilet for what seemed like hours. She would not throw up. She would not.
Molly lay on her side against the wall, still drugged and unconscious, one hand fisted. Her curly red hair covered half her face. One of her black ankle boots was halfway off her foot. Sherlock pressed her fingertips to Molly’s neck. Nice steady beat. She started to shake Molly awake, drew her hand back. No, she’d let her come out of it on her own.
Their wrists were free of the zip ties. Nero had strapped them to their seats with zip ties on the jet, but now he had left them off. He had to believe they were helpless here. It was hard, but Sherlock knew she had to tamp down on the fear. Fear froze you, paralyzed your brain. The good news was she and Molly were together and alive. And no zip ties. She knew Dillon was moving heaven and earth to find her and Molly. She also knew he was counting on her to assess her situation and try her best to get both her and Molly out of it. Slowly, the headache and nausea receded. She drew several deep breaths.
Sherlock looked around the room, surprised at what she saw. They were in a finished basement that looked like an old-fashioned game room from a 1940s movie set. There were thick cobwebs everywhere, like Halloween had come early. An antique mahogany pool table stood in the center of the room with ornate legs and beautifully carved sideboards. An exquisite old Tiffany lamp hung over the middle of the table, crisscrossing web loops hanging off its curved metal arms. Some of the balls sat together on the faded green baize, stuck to it with spiderwebs and dust so thick only a cue stick could move them. A fancy antique mahogany cabinet filled with a display of standing cue sticks behind its cobwebbed glass stood against one of the far walls. They looked protected and pristine, ready for play. There was a seating area with four oversized chairs, much of their stuffing pulled out and examined by rodents. A small cathode-ray tube television stood in splendid isolation in front of the chairs. Beside it was a liquor cabinet, so dusted over she couldn’t see if there were bottles of hooch inside. Piles of boxes and trunks and old furniture were stacked against the far wall. It was a game room for men, expensive and very old, built long before she’d been born, outdated now and forgotten.
She drew several deep breaths, turned toward Molly again. At least they could see each other. They’d left a single light on, one measly overhead that gave off no more than twenty watts.
Sherlock leaned back against the wall beside Molly and closed her eyes. She queried her body and knew that soon she’d be good to go. Her headache spiked only now and then in short, sharp pulses. She’d stopped swallowing convulsively to fight the blasted nausea. But where? She had no idea where they were. It didn’t matter—wherever they were, she’d have to get herself and Molly out of there. She knew they shouldn’t have taken a drink of anything offered to them after the jet took off, but when it came down to it, it hadn’t mattered. Nero would have made sure to put them out some other way so they’d have no idea where they were going.
Sherlock remembered sitting zip-tied next to Molly in the large private jet after it taxied down the long runway and climbed to thirty thousand feet. Molly had been pale and silent. Sherlock guessed she was reliving Nero shooting Pope between the eyes a foot in front of her. Sherlock had been horrified at the naked violence. She knew Molly would relive that moment for years to come, no way to stop it. Then Domino had brought sandwiches and orange juice over, sat down in a seat opposite them, bit into her own sandwich, drank orange juice from a juice box, and nodded toward theirs. She and Molly had followed suit. Sherlock had said, “You look much better as a woman.”
Domino shrugged, chewed on her sandwich. “I like playing parts.” Still, Sherlock saw her hand shake as she looked sideways to where Nero was sitting. He was typing on a tablet on the tray in front of him. Was he emailing Shaker, telling him he had Molly? That they were bringing both of them to him?
Sherlock said to Domino, “I don’t blame you for being afraid of him. Nero shot Pope for no other reason than he’d made a mistake? Or was there more to it?”
Domino kept her head down; she didn’t say anything and chewed faster.
Sherlock took a drink of her OJ, said, “I hope you don’t make any mistakes, Domino, like Pope did. Or that Nero ever decides he’s better off without you. We could help you out of all this, you know.”
It was the last thing she remembered.
Sherlock reached over now with her free hand and clasped Molly’s. For a second, there was no reaction, then Molly squeezed her hand like a lifeline. They stayed hands-together for a long time.
Sherlock had no idea how long she and Molly had been unconscious, if a day had passed or merely hours. But it was time to get it together, to figure out where they were and how to escape. She reached for the empty holster of her Ruger LCP pistol still strapped to her ankle. Nero had the Ruger now, Dillon’s birthday present to her, only thirteen ounces fully loaded. She remembered she’d weighed it on her palm and laughed, told him it couldn’t be more than a couple of ounces lighter than her current small pistol. He’d kissed her, said every ounce counted if you were running after a bad guy. She’d get it back, she had to believe that, but right now, it meant they had no weapons.
She eyed the two high-set skinny windows that gave no clue if it was night or day because they were nailed shut with plywood planks. She wondered if she and Molly would be able to squeeze through them, if need be. There was the main door, and it would be locked tight. A smaller door was on the opposite wall. A bathroom? She hoped so.
Molly moaned. Sherlock leaned in close, laid her palm against her cheek, and rubbed. “Molly, lie still and take light shallow breaths. You’ll feel nauseated and like your head is going to split open, but it will go away. Lie still, it’ll help. Don’t rush it, okay?”
Molly whispered, “Okay.” She didn’t move. Sherlock saw her hands clench and unclench, heard her breathing light and even.
She said aloud, to distract her, “We’re in a finished basement, Molly, an old-fashioned elegant game room. Now it’s a storage room. There are piles of stacked boxes and trunks along the far walls, and generations of decaying furniture piled high next to them. I think we’re in a large old house, and given the Tiffany lamp that looks quite authentic, and the pool table that had to cost thousands even way back when, it was probably a very elegant rich house once.
“Molly, I don’t think we’re in Las Vegas. From everything I’ve learned about Rule Shaker I can’t imagine his owning a huge house with an outdated man cave in the basement, not anywhere near where he lives, in Las Vegas.”
Molly said, “He lives in a huge suite at the top of his largest and most profitable casino, the Sovereign. The suite is at least four thousand square feet and over-the-top opulent. He refurnishes it every year.”
“Could this large house be a vacation home?”
“I don’t know. From all I can gather, he loves where he lives. I can see him standing on his penthouse balcony, enclosed in reflective glass, of course, since it gets so hot there, looking out over the city, knowing he owns a good chunk of it. If anyone tried to move in on what he has, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill. To him and his kind, it’s only the cost of doing business.” Molly, her eyes open now, gave Sherlock a crooked smile. “Sound familiar?”
“Yep, your daddy.”
Molly paused and lightly ran her fingertips over her forehead. She pointed. “Look at those two ancient trunks, Sherlock. Those suckers are so huge they could hold bodies. And that television, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that old.” She stopped cold and moaned, closed her eyes.
Sherlock waited a moment until Molly opened her eyes again, tried for a slight smile. “Okay, it’s better.”
“Good. Here’s the truth, Molly. Neither Nero nor Domino ever wore a mask. Nero knows we’d identify him, find him, that I’d never stop looking for him. Whatever Shaker wants, once he gets it, they’re going to kill us, which means”—she pointed to the two windows—“we’re going to have to get through those windows or take down whoever comes through that door. Nero took my ankle gun so we need to go through the boxes to find anything we can use as weapons, discarded silverware, cutting knives or forks.” She paused a moment, eyed Molly. “I’m telling you the whole truth because I know you can handle it. You’ve been through fear like this before, when Ramsey was shot and when Emma was kidnapped six years ago. You’re tough, Molly, and we’re going to have to work together. So here’s the rest of it. I have no idea if Dillon even knows we left Washington on a private jet, if they’ve even found the limo or Pope’s body. We don’t know how long we were out and how far we came. We won’t even know if it’s night or day unless I can pull that plywood off those windows. Bottom line, we have to assume we won’t have anyone to help us but ourselves. We’re on our own.”
Molly looked Sherlock square in the eye. “I’m so scared I don’t have any spit in my mouth, but I’ll try not to let you down. Just tell me what to do.”
