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The doors did not open.
I heard the sounds of another car arriving to wherever we were, maybe the jeep. Then silence.
The stillness and quiet outside the van told me that all the men were gone. When I peeked out of the driver’s window, I saw we were inside a dark garage.
My pulse sped up when I glimpsed a blue Rolls-Royce Phantom.Marco’s car! We were in Marco’s garage at his house!
I climbed over the van seats and eased open the door, cringing in case an alarm went off. But it did not.
There was no sign of Marco’s midnight blue Bentley Continental, the car he drove most of the time. He wasn’t home.
I hurried to the button on the wall to open the garage door, but nothing happened when I pressed it. The door would not slide open.
Damn it!
I ran to Marco’s car, looked inside to see if I could spot the remote control. It was likely in his glove box. When I tried the driver and passenger doors, both were locked.
My heart was racing and my hands were sticky with perspiration. I was scared that one of Jacob’s people might spot me on the security cameras in the garage. I prayed they had disabled the system for their gold bullion heist.
I ran to the garage roller door. This house was on a London street. If I could only force the door open, I could run out for help.
A scream came from inside the house. Shrill, high pitched. Distant. From upstairs.
Chiara!
The scream got louder, as if she was being dragged nearer. I heard her cursing and yelling at someone, and then the slamming of a door and her voice became muffled.
Anger surged through my blood. That door slamming had come from nearby. The basement.
“No, no, no,” I murmured, running to the interior door that connected the garage to the house. They had left it ajar when they went in.
I snatched up a metal golf club from Marco’s golf bag. Gripping it for dear life, I ran into the house. To the nearby shut basement door. Pressed my ear against it.
The house had two basements. This one for storage and a wine cellar. The other I had never been into. The other was secure. Now I knew why. The other was where the bullion vault was.
All around me was quiet. I could hear no voices inside the house. I had the sense that Jacob and the other men must be in the other basement.
Through this door, I could hear Chiara screaming. “Get off me, get off!”
I wrenched open the door and raced down barefoot, and saw the filthy shaven headed creep on top of Chiara.
I hit his skull with the metal golf club. Hard. He dropped like a stone. Chiara shoved him off her, scrambled back, her face white.
Dropping the club, I knelt beside her, hugged her as she gasped and wept. Hugged her until her panic subsided.
“Beth,” she kept saying, as if she couldn’t believe I was here.
When I tried to ease away, she clung to me.
“It’s going to be alright,” I whispered. “We have to tie him up.”
Looking scared, she let me go.
The creep was lying unconscious, head bleeding, still breathing though. And we had nothing to tie him up with. Nothing to gag him with.
“Crap! Crap!” I whispered.
Chiara had gone mute with terror, and was cringing away from him.
