AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m scared too. The trick is to not let the fear paralyze you, freeze your brain. We can do this.”
“Okay. At least we know whoever is behind our kidnapping, Rule Shaker or not, doesn’t want us dead yet. We’re leverage, though for what I don’t know. They’ll need us for some sort of ransom demand.” Molly pressed her palm against her temple, cursed. “Why won’t the headache stop?”
“It will, keep breathing lightly and don’t move. You’re right about the ransom. They know Ramsey will demand proof of life. Nero’s a stone-cold killer, but they’ll have to keep us alive until then.”
“He’s evil. He killed Pope without hesitation, shot him like he was nothing to him at all, like he was flicking away a fly. Even Domino was terrified. She realized he could do the same to her.”
Sherlock said thoughtfully, “I do wonder if Pope’s mistake was the only reason Nero shot him. I mean, it seemed so unnecessary, killing him right then.”
Molly said, “Maybe so, but Pope is dead.”
Suddenly, unbidden, Sherlock saw Nero shooting Pope between his eyes, heard again the sharp, loud explosion of sound, smelled the acrid cordite in the air. Molly had screamed, unable to accept what had happened in front of her. Sherlock swallowed. She wouldn’t accept it either. She put the thought away.
Molly said now, “We don’t know how long we have before Nero and Domino come back.”
Sherlock rose, felt a moment of dizziness. “You’re right, I need to hurry. I’m going to check those windows, see if it’s still daylight, maybe get a clue where we are.”
She took a step forward and nearly fell, braced herself against a paneled wall.
Molly moved to get up.
“No, no, stay there.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Don’t worry.” Sherlock walked to the side door and opened it, saw it was an old-fashioned bathroom with a pedestal sink, a toilet, and a small shower. She called out, “We have a bathroom.” When she came out, she walked to the main door and turned the handle. It was locked, no surprise there. She hadn’t noticed before, but now she saw their captors had left them bottled water near the door. Had Nero and Domino left the house for some reason? She looked back at Molly, still sitting against the wall, her eyes closed.
“I need a couple more minutes,” Molly said, “then I’ll visit the bathroom. Sherlock, if you had to guess, where would you say we are?”
“Somewhere in the US, maybe even in the Caribbean, like St. Thomas or one of the smaller islands. They would have stayed clear of customs. Time for me to check those windows.”
Sherlock pulled over a discarded chair from the fifties, swiped away the spiderwebs and checked to see it would hold her weight. She climbed up and reached, but it wasn’t enough. She spotted a coffee table, pulled it off a jumbled pile of furniture, moved it under the window. She set the chair on top of it and carefully climbed up on top of the chair. It wobbled a bit, but thankfully it held her weight. She pulled at the rotting plywood nailed to window frame, but she couldn’t loosen it by hand. She climbed down, looked for some kind of tool she could use as a lever. She saw a bridge stick with a metal head in the mahogany cabinet, hefted it in her hand, and climbed back up to the basement window. She managed to force the metal head of the bridge stick under an edge of the damp plywood and lever it partly away from the frame. She called out, “It’s daylight, but it’s hard to tell how late because of the thick oak and maple trees. But this isn’t the Caribbean or the Nevada desert. We may be able to get through this window, but it’s going to be very tight. We might have to break out the frame. When you’re up to moving around, we’ll give it a try.”
To be careful, Sherlock pushed the plywood back in place and put the chair and coffee table back with the discarded furniture. She saw Molly still had her eyes closed. She crouched down beside her. Molly whispered, her voice shaking, “I feel like I’m a complete drag on you, Sherlock. Maybe you should get out of here and leave me. I’m the one they want.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Don’t forget, we’re a team, together we have genius IQs off the charts. And we’ve got grit and guts. In addition we’ve got our cavalry looking for us. They’ll find us if we can’t get away.” She picked up a bottle of water, twisted it open. “The water isn’t drugged, the seal’s still on it. Drink this down, then we need to move.”
Molly drank. “First he sent his thugs after Emma, but she was too well guarded and he had to settle for me. I’m sorry, Sherlock, you shouldn’t have been with me.”
“Don’t make me hurt you, Molly. How do you feel?”
“Better, the headache’s easing.”
“And the nausea?”
“It wasn’t as bad for me as it was for you.”
Sherlock got to her feet, grabbed another couple of water bottles. “You go ahead to the bathroom. I’ll wrap up the water in the blanket and when you’re ready, we’ll try the window, if we can get through.”
Sherlock waited until Molly came back out and checked her over. She looked stronger and she was standing tall, her back straight.
“Ready to do this?”
Molly gave her a fierce smile. “Our team can do anything, right?”
Sherlock wished she could sound as full of bravado, but she knew in her gut it was a desperate plan, the odds stacked against them. And how could Dillon find out where they were? Nero wouldn’t have filed a flight plan Savich could follow. Maybe he could track the jet, unless Nero had thought of that, too, which she’d bet he had.
Before Sherlock could reposition the coffee table and chair, she and Molly froze at the sound of voices coming toward the basement door.
