Fatal Exchange (22 page)

E
mily locked the door of the one-stall bathroom behind her, then braced both arms against the sink. She closed her eyes for a moment and drew in a slow breath. She’d hoped it would be quieter in here so she could think, but instead a speaker blasted music from the bar. Not that she really wanted to think. Or remember. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach had yet to disappear.

She hadn’t wanted to tell Mason that her escape from their table had been more than just drinking too much lemonade. Despite his efforts to calm her, she still struggled to breathe. Struggled to stop her heart from pounding in her throat.

She splashed water onto her face. All she really wanted right now was to identify the man they were after so she could leave. And he would come. He had to come. Because he was their only lead to Tess. Which was why she needed to pull herself together so she could go back out there and find the man behind all of this. She grabbed a paper towel to blot her face, then looked back into the mirror.

Emily felt her stomach drop. Felt the sharp surge of adrenaline hit. He stood behind her, his image reflected in the mirror. Hat, black-rimmed glasses, deep shadow across his jaw . . . But it was the eyes she recognized. His arm snaked around her
shoulders, knife pressed against her throat. All before she’d had a chance to react.

He shook his head, warning her.

“Don’t make a sound.” The blade of the knife glinted in the mirror’s reflection. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve always liked knives better than guns. They’re quiet, while just as deadly.”

Panic swallowed her. This was no random mugging. He recognized her. Had come for her. She could tell in the slight curl of his lips. The satisfaction in his eyes. The same eyes that were still able to look straight through her. A chill ripped down her spine. Mason had been right to be concerned about her safety. She never should have left that table.

The window behind the stall banged in the wind where he’d entered the room. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Mason’s right outside the door,
Emily. A few more minutes and he’ll come busting
in here to save you . . .

Nerón pulled her phone from her jacket pocket, shut the sink drain, and turned on the faucet. Emily watched the lifeline disappear under the water. So much for the distress word. The officer listening would simply think she was standing too close to the faucet.

Which left her with one other option. To scream. But if she did that, it would still take Mason seconds to break down the door. She caught the intent in Nerón’s eyes. She’d be dead before she hit the tiled floor.

“Your boyfriend thinks he’s smart. Another uppity cop trying to save the world. Thinks he out there protecting you. That you’re safe.” Nerón’s smoky breath against her face made her want to vomit. “At least he lets you get out and play.”
Oh God,
please . . . don’t let me die this way.

She stood perfectly still. Needing to keep him talking. Needing time to think. “You were at the safe house.”

“Yes.”

The man shifted his weight. Lowering her eyes, she could just see the patch of blood seeping through his pant leg. He’d been shot and patched up. Which might prove to be her one and only advantage. Because this was no simulation. Her father had insisted she take self-defense classes. There she’d learned that no matter what they showed on television, escaping without injury from a determined attacker with a knife pressed against your throat was virtually impossible. Add to that, he had at least thirty pounds on her, and he’d killed before.

“You play hard.” He pressed his mouth closer to her ear. “You and your friend who gave me the nasty bump on my head.”

He slid the side of the blade against her skin. Her chest heaved, lungs ready to burst. This wasn’t Rafael, trying to save his mother’s life by holding a class hostage. This man was an agent for the cartel, who hadn’t thought twice about murdering two agents earlier today. Who would have no qualms about killing her.

She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “Nerón . . . or should I call you by one of your aliases. Scorpion or Rojo Fuego?”

He caught her gaze in the mirror. “They’re good names, aren’t they. Shows the fear people have in regard to me.”

“Maybe that’s true . . . Nerón . . . but it’s over.”

His laugh pierced through her. “Apparently, you’ve forgotten one thing.”

“What?”

“That I clearly hold the advantage. Though, I almost missed you with this blonde wig and glasses. Clever. Thought you could slip in safely, identify me, and be home for supper.”

“How did you know I was going to be here?”

“Charlie might be currently indisposed, but he isn’t the only one in my pocket. And I can’t exactly leave alive my only witness.”

Emily’s jaw tensed. “What do you want?”

His lips curled into a smile. “To watch you die.”

“Emily?” Mason’s voice sounded from outside the room.

Nerón pressed the knife into her flesh, allowing a trickle of blood to run down her neck. “Tell him just a minute, and he better wait, because if he comes in, you’re dead.”

She was as good as dead anyway.

Emily forced herself to ignore the pain and the rising panic. “Just a minute, Mason. My stomach’s upset.”

Emily stared at her reflection. He was enjoying toying with her. The trail of blood running down her neck dripped onto her white tank top. After everything that had happened today, she was about to die by the hands of the man who started all of this. A silent killing. Easy escape out the bathroom window. He’d been behind the kidnappings and murders. Behind the distribution of drugs that leaked poison into its users. Young men like Eduardo. She might not be able to stop them all, but she had to find a way to stop this one.

Show me
the way out, Jesus . . .

She had to keep it together. To think straight. Mason was close. She had to find a way to communicate with him. But she still had one more question.

“Where’s Tess?”

“Your niece?”

“You took her. Where is she?”

“Funny thing is, if you hadn’t shot Charlie, I would have.”

“Why?”

“Charlie was a fool. He thought he’d found a way to keep both shares of the money by taking her behind my back.”

So he really didn’t know?

She forced her mind to concentrate. If this was going to end, she needed to find an advantage. Something that would slow his response time. She stared at him in the mirror. He was cocky and wanted to savor her death, but he’d been shot. Beads of
sweat glistened across his forehead. His hand shook. He was in pain. She had to find a way to take advantage of that pain.

Someone banged on the bathroom door.

Nerón glanced away. Emily reacted in that split second. She kicked his injured leg as hard as she could with her heel, while shoving his hand away from her throat. Nerón groaned and dropped to his knees. The bathroom door slammed against the wall behind them. Officers swarmed into the room, dragging him away from her. Mason threw him against the wall and handcuffed him.

Tory pulled her out of the bathroom and into the hallway, her eyes on Emily’s neck. “Are you all right? Your transmitter went out so we decided to move in.”

Emily could only nod. She wiped her hands against her neck, then looked down at the red stain on her fingers, terrified at how close she’d come to dying. Tory grabbed a square of gauze from a first-aid kit and pressed it gently against the cut. Someone shouted, music blared, incandescent lights above her flickered, but Emily could only think of one thing.

Charlie isn’t the
only one in my pocket.

“Wait.” Emily stepped back into the bathroom where they were reading his rights to the man who’d almost killed her. He’d known she was going to be here. She reached into his jacket pocket, avoiding his piercing gaze, and pulled out a cheap burner phone. She redialed the last called number.

A phone rang behind her.

She looked to Mason, then to the source of the call. “Charlie wasn’t the only mole.”

Russell Coates started to run, but it was already too late. Officers had him handcuffed before he could even consider pulling his gun. Emily slid down the wall until she was sitting against the tile floor, as they led the two men out of the hallway. Numbness had completely set in.

Mason sat down beside her. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared. I’m so sorry . . . so sorry I wasn’t there. I never should have let you go in there.”

She took his hand and looked up at him. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have anticipated a second leak.”

Her legs shook beneath their clasped hands. “He was going to kill me. Just like the others. Said I could recognize him. But that wasn’t everything he told me.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“He told me he doesn’t know where Tess is. That Charlie took her on his own, intending to keep all the ransom money. I think he was telling the truth.”

“Charlie’s still unconscious.”

“What now? The temperature outside is dropping. She might not make it till morning.”

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against him. “They’re still out there looking. They won’t stop until they find her.”

She drew in a slow breath. She felt like she was in a tunnel. Dark with no light. She paused and turned around to face Mason, her heart skittering within her chest.

The tunnels.

“What if Tess never left the school?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before, but it was so long ago.” Emily sat up straight. She had to be right. “Avery and I went to high school at Dogwood Academy. Charlie did too. He was three years ahead of me, so I didn’t really know him back then.”

“Okay . . .”

“There are tunnels beneath some of the buildings. Not many people know the story, but sections of the original buildings were once used as a mental health hospital.”

“I remember hearing about the hospital, but the tunnels . . . what were they for?”

“The tunnels were used as a morgue during a yellow fever outbreak, and to hide runaway slaves during the Civil War.”

“That’s quite a story.”

“It’s not just a story. Those tunnels really exist.”

She definitely had his attention now. “There wasn’t anything mentioned about them on the blueprints.”

“I’m not surprised. They’ve been closed for decades and most people think they’re nothing but a ghost story, but I went in them once. Years ago. I took a stupid dare from a group of friends.”

There was a hint of surprise in Mason’s eyes. “Somehow you don’t seem like the type to take a dare.”

“Let’s just say that I had nightmares for weeks after that, convinced I was going to come down with yellow fever—which probably would have been a better option than if my father had found out.” Emily pressed down the memories. “The bottom line is that it’s possible Tess never left the school grounds.”

E
mily’s heart felt as if it were about to explode. She led Mason and two uniformed officers down the familiar stone path toward Chalkley Music Hall, feet crunching on the snowy path while old memories forced their way to the surface. She’d been thirteen. Her best friend’s brothers decided to amuse themselves that Friday night by daring Julia and her to spend thirty minutes inside the tunnels. She’d never been sure why she’d agreed to the dare, because she’d been forced to suppress the haunting memories ever since.

“Emily?”

She felt something rub against her and jumped. Mason stood beside her, his hand resting gently on her arm.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We’re going to find her.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t be out here.” He caught her gaze, worry clear in his expression. “Your heart is racing and you feel hot, even though it’s barely thirty degrees out here.”

“It’s more than just today’s ordeal.” She swallowed hard, not wanting to remember.

“Tell me about the dare.”

“It was stupid.” She tried to catch her breath, hating the
waves of vulnerability wrapping themselves around her. Back then she’d thought it would prove she wasn’t a coward. That she was more than the Goody Two-shoes daughter of the captain. “I’ve never been so terrified in my life.”

“How long were you down there?”

“A couple hours. Michael found me. I was shaking from the cold and spouting off promises that I’d never do something so stupid again. I also realized that I’d never come up with the courage my father, sister, and brother carried with them.”

“You’ve shown enough courage today to make up for a lifetime.” Mason rubbed her arms. She was shivering again. “Emily, I want you to show us the entry, then go back to the school and wait for us. That’s all you have to do—”

“No.” She shook her head. “If Tess is down there, I want to be with you when you find her.”

His hand wrapped around hers. “You don’t have to go down there.”

Emily drew in a deep breath. “Please let me. For Tess.”

She shoved aside the memories and looked up at the second story of the Greek Revival–style house. Fifty years ago, under the supervision of a restoration architect who insisted on keeping the period lighting, pine flooring, and stained-glass windows, the building had been completely renovated. Even the long veranda was still framed by old shade trees. But today, instead of doctors and their dying patients, the hall was filled with a grand piano, violins, and other instruments—not the haunting voices of patients long since forgotten.

Emily led them around the side of the building. The snow had stopped falling, but in its place a gray, hazy fog hung amongst bare, ghostly trees. After her own experience in the tunnels, she’d read about their construction. The passageways had been constructed out of granite from a quarry started at Stone Mountain in the 1830s. Railroads had extended the gran
ite’s reach from Atlanta to the locks of the Panama Canal to Tokyo.

But it was what lay deep inside the tunnel walls that had her feeling panicked. At thirteen, she’d taken a wrong turn and gotten lost. Or maybe it had been nothing more than fear that had paralyzed her into believing she was lost. Either way, she hadn’t been able to find her way out.

“Where’s the opening?” Mason’s question dragged her back to the present.

She walked along the side of the hall, around the veranda. It had to be there somewhere, but it had been so many years ago. So many years of suppressing the fear of that night.

But she wasn’t thirteen anymore. And Mason was with her.

The rough edge of one of the stones caught her eye. “There.”

“It looks as if it’s been opened recently.” Mason pushed on the stone, then aimed his flashlight down the hole as the slab creaked open. “You sure about this?”

She nodded.

The musty smell of mold greeted her as she stepped onto the narrow staircase behind Mason. Damp walls. Dark shadows. Air as thick as her memories. A rat scurried by. Emily pressed her lips together. If Tess was down here, she was going to be terrified.

Mason’s flashlight flickered. He whacked it against his palm until the light brightened again. The night she’d been in the tunnels had been different. The battery on her flashlight had died, leaving her in pitch darkness. Julia had run. Emily had been too afraid to move.

“What do you remember about the tunnels?” Mason asked.

She forced herself to stay in the present. “They spread out under the building like a maze.”

Plenty of corridors for dumping the dead bodies yellow fever had claimed.

“How many ways are there to get in?”

“As far as I know, only one, but I can’t be certain. I’ve heard rumors that there’s an entrance from one of the back rooms of the hall. There was also supposed to be one leading to the cottage located behind us, but that building was torn down a number of years ago, and from what I understand, no tunnels were ever found. I’m guessing if there once were tunnels linking the two buildings, they caved in years ago.”

“Then we’ll focus here for now, but we need to split up.” He motioned to the other officers. “Stay in contact via your radios.”

“Yes sir.”

Emily took the first corridor to the left with Mason, lit only by the light of his flashlight against the stone walls. They took the next right. Past dusty piles of trash and scribbled writing on the wall.

Mason’s radio crackled. “We just found Officer Reed, sir. She’s dead.”

Emily’s chest heaved. For a moment, she was thirteen again. Terrified. And certain she’d never escape the darkness of the tunnels. “If he killed Tess too . . .”

“Don’t go there, Emily. We’re going to find her.”

The beam of Mason’s flashlight caught movement ahead.

“Tess?”

“Aunt Emily!”

She started running toward Tess, who sat on the ground at the end of one of the widened corridors, hands tied behind her.

Emily dropped onto her knees and cupped Tess’s tear-streaked face before pulling her niece into her arms. “It’s over, sweetie. It’s finally over.”