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One of them takes out a phone from his pocket, making a call, presumably to Tiero.
“Abbiamo lei.”
One doesn’t have to be a psychic to guess what it means.
They found me.
While the goon is still talking on the phone, the other keeps his gun trained on us.
We’re pressed up against the door I couldn’t open, the handle digging into my lower back.
Claudette huddles closer and whispers something that sounds a lot like “Push.”
“What?” I whisper back.
“Push the door, don’t pull,” Claudette mumbles under her breath like a ventriloquist, all the while smiling brightly at the goon. His eyes narrow, trying to work out what she’s up to.
While his attention is on her, I bring my hand up my back and grasp the handle. Pushing it down, I lean against the door a little more and, sure enough, it opens a smidgen.
Damn, this stress is making me stupid.
I mentally count to three, throw my weight against the door, and, grabbing Claudette’s hand, pull her inside. The door swings shut before Tiero’s men reach us.
Miracle upon miracle, there’s a lock and Claudette turns it immediately.
Swearing comes from the other side, the door rattling as the men try to pull it open.
We run down the corridor as fast as our legs will carry us, clueless as to where it leads.
I hear shots in the distance. That’s one way to deal with a locked door.
“I hate running,” Claudette huffs from close behind me. “I’m not made for this.”
The corridor seems to go on forever, and we take a few turns whenever we can to make it harder for them to follow us. We don’t stop until we reach another door.
“Have we lost them?” I ask, a little out of breath. All the jogging I did while I was kidnapped is still paying off.
Claudette, however, is huffing and puffing. “For now,” she replies, leaning over to rest her hands on her knees, her chest heaving.
My senses are tuned to the slightest noise around us, but so far there’s only silence.
“They knew it was us, and they were searching the lower decks. Do you think somebody is monitoring the cameras?” I ask.
“Yes, how would they have known otherwise? At least down here, there shouldn’t be any more,” Claudette replies, still catching her breath.
“How are we ever going to find the garbage bay? I have no idea where we are. We must have run past it because it never took that long to reach it from the kitchen.”
Claudette straightens up, her breathing slower now. “It’s on this level. It can’t be that hard to find.”
We open the door and carefully peek out. It’s another staircase, or is it the same one, and we’ve run in a circle?
Yet again, there are two additional doors. Claudette and I stare at each other.
Now what?
Without any warning, the door to the left opens.
We freeze.
