Serial Escape Page 19

  She closed her eyes, waiting for an argument. For the dispatcher to point out that she couldn’t possibly be that certain of something she couldn’t see.

  Instead, she got a carefully spoken reply. “And you’re calling from Detective Match’s phone now?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “And it’s been in your possession for all of the twelve minutes in question?”

  “It has.”

  There was the briefest pause, and Raven abruptly knew what it meant. They hadn’t considered the cancellation of the request to be problematic because somehow, it had come from Lucien’s cell phone. Hanes might not have changed his game, but he’d sure as hell upped it.

  “Ms. Elliot.” The dispatcher’s voice barely carried over the rush of blood, coursing through her head. “I’ll send somebody right away. Stay on the line with me while I—”

  She hung up before he could finish. She knew he’d argue with her, and she knew she wouldn’t listen anyway. So there was no point in wasting time she didn’t have. Ignoring the almost-immediate ring of the phone again, she focused on what had to be done.

  First...

  “I need a weapon,” she murmured.

  She was sure that Lucien didn’t have a gun or anything like that—if there was anything that could be called “like that”—stashed away in the SUV, or he would’ve mentioned it.

  Something else.

  Riding the line between urgent and frantic, she started her search with the glove box. A quick pop and she found nothing but vehicle insurance, a set of handcuffs and a first-aid kit. She eyed the cuffs for the briefest second before deciding they’d be useless unless she’d already subdued someone. She slammed the glove box shut and moved on to the center console. There was nothing inside but a dented aluminum can. Trying not to lose hope, she twisted around and climbed to the back, folded down one of the rear seats and at last found something that might prove fruitful. A bright orange emergency bag. Her confidence buoyed, and visions of action-movie-style, weaponized flare guns filled her mind.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” she said aloud to the empty vehicle. “Give me something I can work with.”

  But the hurried unzip and dump of equipment yielded little. Another first-aid kit. A silver emergency blanket. Three flare tubes that were small enough to fit in her palm, and no flare gun. There were some tools that might’ve sufficed if she wanted to get close enough to an attacker to use them. But she had no intention of engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Fighting tears, Raven started to shove everything back into the bag. But she stopped as her hand landed on an item she hadn’t spied the first time. It was a cylinder. An inch around, and four inches long. And as she lifted it up and read the label, relief washed over her.

  Bear spray.

  Something she could use at last.

  Gripping the bottle, Raven opened the door to as narrow a space as would allow her to fit through it, then slipped out. The temperature seemed to have dropped a few degrees since leaving the house, and she fought a shiver as a gust of cold wind penetrated her clothes.

  It’s not a sign, she told herself firmly. It’s just the weather.

  But her feet still tried to slow a little. She didn’t let them. She’d watched Lucien make his way up to the house, so she decided it was best to follow his path. But she did it at a run.

  Car to bushes to fountain to arbor over the back gate.

  Raven paused to catch her breath. It was hard. And not because the quick run had stolen much of her oxygen, but because this spot was where she’d lost sight of Lucien. Where she’d sat—helpless and alone in the SUV—as he’d disappeared from view. She’d been chanting ten minutes in her head like a personal mantra. And yet he hadn’t come back.

  And you’re standing here, wasting time thinking about it.

  Shaking off the thick worry, she grabbed the gate and eased it open. She stopped again, just on the other side, eyeing up the entrances to the house. What would Lucien have decided? She was sure he would’ve put his training and experience to good use. But what could she use? She didn’t have over fifteen years as a cop under her belt. She’d never questioned a killer or sought a confession or put together the pieces of a crime. Not until now, anyway. But she had been inside Hanes’s game before. And she knew both how clever he was, and how clever he thought he was. And Lucien would’ve known that, too.

  She stared up at the house for another few seconds. Two doors. Both still. Both dark.

  Both obvious.

  She took a small step back and looked for something subtler. And she found it right away. A set of curtains, flapping in a window overhead. The glass pane had been pushed open, and there was no screen. Raven knew right away that Lucien had to have made the climb up. So she took a breath, tucked the bear spray into her waistband, and followed suit. Up, up she went, surprised by her own agility. But she didn’t take time to be pleased. She quickly slipped through the frame, slid over the desk just under the window then eased to the carpet. Retrieving the bear spray, she made a beeline for the door. Her heart tripped with nervous anticipation, one part fear, and another part hope. But the latter was dashed by the next series of events.

  Her fingers found the knob. They gave it a turn, then a push. But the door wouldn’t budge more than a quarter inch.

  “No,” she whispered. “This isn’t happening.”

  She pushed again. It still didn’t move.

  “Come on.”

  It wasn’t locked. But it was holding firm. She leaned closer, trying to gauge what was holding it in place.

  Duct tape.

  The sticky, metallic substance was just visible along the frame.

  She gave it a poke. Then went still as a rumble carried to her ears. It only took a second to realize that it was the sound the garage door opening.

  Abandoning her examination of the tape, Raven raced back to the window. From her position, she couldn’t see the detached garage. But she knew it was there. And as she contemplated how many bones would break if she simply jumped out, she heard the crunch of tires, the light squeak of brakes, then a second rumble.

  Desperate, she turned back toward the door. She ran straight at it, shoulder first. Once. Twice. And on the third time, it wasn’t the silver tape that gave way—it was the frame. With a crack, it flew out. Raven landed on the floor in the hall. But she knew it was too late. No matter how fast she got up, not matter how quickly she ran down the stairs, it wouldn’t be soon enough. Lucien was gone. Hanes had him, and even when the sirens at last filled the air, Raven had no idea how she was going save him.

  Chapter 18

  Lucien woke up groggy. His head ached worse than he’d ever felt it ache before. For a few seconds, disorientation reined. Why did he feel like he’d been chewed up and spit back out again? He moved to lift a hand to his throbbing skull. Except his arm wouldn’t budge. And that’s when it all came rushing back. The climb into the house. The family tree. The fake scream and the realization that Hanes had outsmarted them. Then the abrupt blackness. But one thought rose above all.

  Raven.

  He resisted an urge to futilely holler her name. Where was she now? He hoped to God she was okay. In fact, he wouldn’t even entertain the idea that she might not be. Backup had to have arrived at Sally Rickson’s house by now. There wouldn’t have been enough time for Hanes to grab Raven, too. Not while also securing and transporting Lucien himself.

  Speaking of time and transportation...

  How long had he been out, and where the hell was he? If he wanted to get back to Raven—which he did, more than anything—he needed to figure out where Hanes had brought him.

  Fighting the fogginess of his mind, he took a slow, deliberate inventory of both himself and his surroundings. Aside from the thick ache in his head, the rest of his body appeared relatively unharmed. His shoulders hurt a bit, which he suspected was owing to the wa
y his arms had been drawn back and secured behind him.

  No. Not just behind you, he corrected silently. Behind you and around something.

  He flexed his fingers a little, trying to get a feel for it. The object in question was cold and metal and a couple of feet wide. He gave it another poke and decided that he was about 90 percent sure that it was some kind of pipe. Not residential, though. Its breadth was too great for that. Commercial, maybe? Or industrial? Wherever he was, it wasn’t in the basement of someone’s home. Though that being decided...he did think he might be at least partially underground. There was almost no light, and the air had a certain smell. Earthy. Dank. On top of that, his clothes—particularly the underside of his pants—felt damp. Soaked through, almost.

  Soaked through.

  Lucien blinked as he realized his pants didn’t just feel wet. They were wet. Very wet.

  He cast a glance down and spied the reason. Even in the dark, he could see the shimmer of water, catching what little light there was and reflecting it back to him. He was sitting in a puddle, maybe an inch deep.

  He lifted his eyes and took a wider look around. Walls surrounded him. Or at least they did on the three sides he could see, and he thought it was a safe assumption that a fourth stood behind him. But there was something off about them. They appeared to be painted, but they didn’t look like finished drywall at all. He could swear they almost seemed to be made of a concrete. As he tipped his attention up even farther, he saw that the oddity didn’t end with the walls. Or at least not with what they were made of. There was also the fact that they led to blank space. No ceiling.

  Lucien craned his neck. Way above was a roof of some kind, but he couldn’t quite make out what it looked like. He dragged his gaze over the walls again, this time downward. When his eyes hit the floor, his puzzlement doubled. It appeared to have a steep slope, and he was mostly definitely at the bottom.

  A room inside a room?

  The suggestion didn’t quite fit, but he really felt like he ought to have a clue as to what his whereabouts meant. Yet the answer remained just out of reach. The pain in his head was trying to expand, too, and that was bogging him down even more. Trying to fight the fog, he closed his eyes for a second. Slowly and silently, he started to count down from thirty. He only got as far as twenty-one before a new awareness crept in. The darkness held a sound. A trickle. So steady that it actually bordered on a stream. It was deeply disconcerting, and Lucien didn’t know how he hadn’t noted it first. Maybe because he’d dismissed it as wind, or maybe because the thump of his headache had blocked it out completely. Now, though, it seemed all-important.

  He opened his eyes and searched for its source. His efforts drew a blank. Shifting a little in place, he tried to get a better view. Instead of spying anything more, he just sloshed in the puddle beneath him. He adjusted again and realized something. It didn’t matter so much where the dripping was coming from. What really mattered was that it was coming in at all. More significant than that was the fact that it was staying. The puddle was growing. The inch-deep water already felt more like two—though maybe his mind was exaggerating it, at least a little—and getting free abruptly superseded the need to understand his surroundings.

  Lucien closed his eyes again, this time to search out a solution. A twist of his wrists told him his bonds were of the zip-tie variety, and also that Hanes had used more than one. Not ideal, but slightly less secure than a set of cuffs. He filed away the detail and moved on to the next. His arms were able to move up and down the pipe a little, and that gave him some time-buying hope. If the water rose too high, he could probably force his way into a standing position. At the thought, a vision of himself, standing helplessly in chin-high water filled his mind.

  Not going to let it get that far, he growled silently.

  He rand his thumbs over the pipe, seeking a physical weakness. The metal didn’t appear to be soft or flimsy in any way, and it was hard not to let disappointment flood in. There had to be a way out. Hanes was crafty and meticulous, but he was also human, and humans made errors. They got overconfident. Let things slide or forgot small details. Especially people like Hanes, who thought they existed outside the law and who believed they were above all others. As if to bring the idea from metaphor to reality, a scrape overhead announced that Lucien was no longer alone.

  He angled his face up and called out softly, “Hello, Georges.”

  “Lucien. Nice to see you again.”

  “Interesting statement, considering that I can’t see you at all.”

  A moment passed, then there was a shuffle, and a pale, white face appeared in the open space at the top of the strange walls. Lucien’s teeth clamped together as loathing filled him. It was the first time he’d seen Hanes since the end of the trial, and he was once again reminded how much he despised the man. With his plain features and unassuming stance, there was nothing about the Kitsilano Killer than screamed evil. He was the mild-mannered bag boy at the local grocery store. The guy who handed back your change at the pet-food supply place, or the one who smiled at the gas station and asked if you needed a fill. Yet under that was the soullessness of a cold-blooded murderer. Lucien hated the contradiction, even though he’d been around similar ones enough times to be familiar with it. Books and cover. Looks and deceptions.

  “Nothing to say to me, Detective?” Hanes called down.

  Lucien unlocked his jaw and forced an even tone. “Nothing nice to say, Georges. How about we leave it at that?”

  “So, then... I take it you haven’t figured it out, yet.”

  “You know I’m not interested in your games.”

  “This one should interest you, though.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  There was a pause. “So it’s your girlfriend who did all the clever legwork.”

  Lucien’s teeth fought to gnash together again. “Leave her out of this.”

  “Oh, I am,” the other man reassured him. “Raven Elliot is quite irrelevant at this stage.”

  A stab of straight-up fear hit Lucien’s gut. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Hanes chuckled. “Not that, Detective. She’s alive, and as far as I know, physically sound. Though she’s probably worried about you. I meant what I said quite literally. She’s irrelevant. She has no bearing on the ‘game,’ as you called it. In fact, she was a previous winner, and I have no intention of overturning that.”

  Even though he knew full well that the man couldn’t be trusted, Lucien couldn’t quite stop a breath of relief from escaping his lungs. After all, Hanes had no reason to placate him.

  “So what is it you want, then, Georges?” he called up.

  “I think I’ll wait just a little while longer, and hope that you figure it out on your own. I’ll give you some more time alone, Detective.”

  As soon as he’d said it, the tap of feet on the ground echoed through the strange space. Then the air went silent, except for the sound of the trickling water and Lucien’s own noisy thoughts.

  * * *

  Time was being wasted, and Raven was being left out. Or at least that was how it felt to her. The police had taken her statement. They’d been attentive to her physical well-being. And then they’d proceeded to speak in hushed tones while they followed up on the leads that she had given them. Even Sergeant Gray—who she was sure knew just how much leeway Lucien had given her during the investigation—wasn’t providing her with any useful details. The scenario was disheartening and frustrating, and she’d finally asked for a few minutes alone.

  The sergeant had complied. In fact, he’d very nicely—almost enthusiastically—suggested that she take a breather in Sally Rickson’s bedroom. The room was away from the noise on the first floor, which was currently being used as a base for the search for Lucien.

  “Conveniently far away from the action, too,” Raven muttered as she sank down on the edge of Sally’s bed and
eyed the door, which was closed but undoubtedly guarded on the other side.

  She sighed. She knew it wasn’t fair to be angry with the task force, which was being made to go on yet another tangent because of Lucien’s missing status. Every person in the living room below was invested in finding him, just as they were hard at work trying to decipher the meaning of the ash from Hanes’s third clue. And they’d been effective and efficient with some things so far. Raven had to admit that. They’d figured out that Hanes had cloned Lucien’s phone to cancel the call for backup. They’d tracked down the real Henry Gallant, and found out that he did live in Toronto, that he had been on a few dates with Sally and also that he was completely clueless as to what was going on. They hadn’t yet figured out if Hanes himself had made the calls or if he’d hired someone to do it, but she was sure they would soon. It was all progress. They had the best intentions and the best resources. Not mention that it was literally their job.

  Except none of them has been in Sally’s shoes, Raven thought. None of them is in love with Lucien. And none of them is sure their heart will be ripped out if they don’t beat Hanes at his game.

  Her throat constricted. She was half-certain her heart was already on its way to being ripped out.

  Burdened by the need to be moving, she stood up and paced the room. Her eyes roved over the space in search of some clue that the officers might’ve missed. They’d gone through it in the same way they’d explored the rest of the house. Quickly. Thoroughly. And fruitlessly.

  But there had to be something, didn’t there? Hanes liked his clues to be challenging, but there was always a solution. The trick was figuring it out before it was too late.

  She slowed both her steps and her gaze. At a carefully measured pace, she scanned the room again.