CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
The alarm was deafening.

We dropped to the floor of the pump house, hearts hammering, waiting for guards to burst through the door. My hand found the gun Hank had given me, fingers clumsy on the grip.

But no one came.

Through the window, I saw guards running—but not toward us. They were converging on the far side of the property, where something had triggered the motion sensors.

"What's happening?" my mother whispered.

I risked a look through the window. The guards were clustered around a section of fence, shining flashlights into the woods beyond. One of them was yelling into his radio.

Then I saw what had set off the alarm.

A deer. Just a deer, spooked by the storm, running through the grounds.

The guards were laughing now, one of them kicking at the fence in frustration. False alarm. They started to disperse, heading back to their patrol routes.

"We need to move now," I said. "While they're distracted."

We slipped out of the pump house, using the shadows and storm as cover. The route to the main house was exactly as Hank had mapped it—a blind spot in the camera coverage, a gap in the patrol pattern.

Except the patrol pattern had changed.

A guard appeared around the corner of the house, flashlight sweeping the grounds. We pressed ourselves against the wall, holding our breath. The light passed inches from my face.

He kept walking. We waited thirty seconds, then moved again.

The service entrance was locked, but I still remembered how to pick a lock. My hands shook as I worked the tumblers, very aware that every second we stood here was another second we could be spotted.

Click.

The door opened onto a laundry room, warm and bright and completely at odds with what we were doing. I could hear voices somewhere deeper in the house. Male voices, laughing about something.

"Stay close," I whispered to my mother.

We moved through the house like ghosts. Past expensive artwork, past rooms that probably cost more to furnish than I'd earned in my entire LAPD career.

The voices were coming from a study down the hall. Through the partially open door, I could see men in expensive suits. Vincent was one of them. I recognized him from Maddie's photographs tall and lean

"The shipment arrives tomorrow," he was saying. "Three girls from Portland, two from Boston. All clean, all verified. We'll process them here, then move them to the staging location before the auction."

My stomach turned over. This wasn't a historical crime. This was happening right now, tonight, under our feet.

"What about the other problem?" another man asked. "The detective and her friends?"

Vincent laughed. It was the coldest sound I'd ever heard. "Let them come. I have a welcome prepared."

My mother's hand tightened on my arm. She'd heard it too.

He knew. Vincent knew we were coming.

This was a trap.

Before I could process that, I heard something else. A sound that made every protective instinct I had scream to life.

Crying. A girl, crying, somewhere upstairs.

I looked at my mother. She looked back at me. We both knew what we had to do, even if it meant abandoning the careful plan.

We found the stairs and started climbing.

The hallway on the second floor was lined with doors, all closed. The crying was louder here, coming from the end of the hall. But there were also footsteps, a guard doing rounds, getting closer.

We ducked into a linen closet, pulling the door almost closed. Through the crack, I watched the guard pass. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with a gun holstered at his hip and a radio clipped to his belt.

He stopped at the door where the crying was coming from. Knocked twice. "Shut up in there. Nobody wants to hear that."

The crying got quieter, muffled. The guard shook his head and kept walking.

We waited until he rounded the corner, then slipped out. The door he'd knocked on had a deadbolt, but it was unlocked. Sloppy. Or maybe they just didn't think anyone would get this far.

I opened it slowly.

The room was decorated like a guest bedroom, all soft colors and expensive furniture. But the girl huddled on the bed destroyed any illusion of normalcy.

She was young. Maybe seventeen. Dark hair, tear-streaked face, wearing a hospital gown that was three sizes too big. Her wrists had rope burns.

"Please," she whispered when she saw us. "Please help me."

"We're here to help," I said quietly, moving into the room. "What's your name?"

"Maya. Maya Chen. They took me from Portland three days ago. They said—" Her voice broke. "They said I'm going to an auction."

Emma's last name. Jesus Christ, was she related to Emma?

"How many others are here?" I asked.

"Two more. In the rooms next door. They're not as awake as me. They give us shots, something that makes everything fuzzy."

I heard footsteps in the hallway as she talked. 

"Closet," my mother hissed. "Now."

Maya and I squeezed into the closet while my mother pressed herself against the wall behind the door. Through the slats, I watched the door open.

Two guards entered. One of them was the young guy from before. The other was older, harder, with scars that said he'd seen violence before.

"Boss says move them all downstairs," the older guard said. "Something's wrong. He wants them where he can see them."

"What's wrong?"

"Doesn't matter. Just do it."

They walked toward the bed, expecting to find Maya there. Found it empty.

"What the hell—"

My mother moved. Fast and silent, she brought a lamp down on the younger guard's head. He dropped like a stone.

The older guard spun, reaching for his gun. But I was already moving, tackling him from the closet. We went down in a tangle, his gun skittering across the floor.

He was bigger than me. Stronger. But I'd trained for this in the academy, and I'd fought drunks twice my size in Los Angeles. I knew how to hurt people.

I drove my knee into his kidney, and heard him grunt. He threw an elbow that caught my cheek, sending stars across my vision. We rolled, fighting for position. His hands found my throat.

I couldn't breathe. The room was spinning. My fingers scrabbled for anything I could use as a weapon.

Found his radio. I brought it up as hard as I could into his temple.

He went limp.

I shoved him off me, gasping for air. My mother was already dragging the unconscious guards into the closet, moving with efficiency that suggested this wasn't her first time dealing with violence.

"We need to go," she said. "Now. Before someone realizes these two are missing."

"The other girls," I said. "Maya said there are two more."

"Elise—"

"We're not leaving them."

I could see the conflict in her eyes. The mission versus the immediate victims. Evidence versus lives.

But she nodded.

We found the other two girls in adjacent rooms. Both were more drugged than Maya, barely able to walk. We got them upright, supporting them between us.

"The tunnel," my mother said. "It's the only way out with three girls who can barely move."

We started back toward the stairs. Made it halfway down when lights flooded the hallway.

Vincent Torrino stood at the bottom of the stairs, gun in his hand, smile on his face.

"Hello, Elise," he said pleasantly. "I've been expecting you.