How to Rattle an Undead Couple - Hailey Edwards Page 0,28
a palm out in front of him, Linus navigated through the illusion to the other side and froze on the threshold of the industrial gray bunker. “They were here.”
Dried blood smeared the lower half of the walls and covered the floor. Hand and footprints stamped the surfaces, their sizes indicating both male and female combatants. From his count, he distinguished four different shoe treads. That could indicate Boaz was with his mother, but who were the other two?
All the signs of a struggle he had expected to see at his mother’s home he found here instead.
“I’ll take samples.” Linus held out his hand for a crime scene kit, and Corbin provided. “Can you tell if they activated the door?”
“They didn’t.” Corbin shook his head. “They would have been locked up tight if that had been the case.”
“You’re that certain?”
“I’ve seen it in action. I’m telling you, nothing gets in or out once the door is locked.”
The more Corbin shared with him, the more certain he became there were other things Corbin wasn’t telling him. He was a sentinel, not an Elite. He ought to be too low on the food chain to be aware of the bunker, let alone been keyed to its wards. His Deathless status had given him more cachet than even Linus had anticipated. The familial link didn’t hurt. His mother preferred to keep her business all in the family.
Done collecting evidence, Linus pocketed the samples. “How many people are authorized for this area?”
“Six.” Corbin had snapped a series of photos on his phone then moved on to video. “The Grande Dame, you, Grier, Boaz, me, and the engineer charged with monitoring the bunker for activity.”
Linus finished what he was doing and stood. “Did she plan on telling us about this place?”
“I assume.” He put away his phone. “Like most things, I’m guessing your mom hoped to get away with it for as long as possible. That’s why she tapped a sixth man. Boaz and I will be notified when the bunker is in use, and it’s our duty to evacuate anyone inside, but in the event of an emergency, if neither of us are available, then it falls to him to assess the issue and call for outside help if required.”
A swirl of crimson near the doorframe caught Linus’s eye, and he bent to inspect it. “Boaz was here.”
Corbin brightened at the good news. “How can you tell?”
“He wrote it.” Linus pointed out the words. “Right there.”
Boaz was here.
The grim circumstances kept Corbin from laughing outright, but his lips did twitch.
Linus searched the room from corner to corner, careful not to let the door shut once they were inside. Corbin had explained occupants and a closed door was all it required to go into lockdown mode. That meant all Boaz had to do was get his mother in here, which he had done, and shut the door behind them. What had been strong enough to stop him?
“There are camera feeds.” Linus made it a statement. “They ought to fill in the blanks for us.”
A place like this, built with a timer, demanded a means of checking on the inhabitants. As Corbin had said, in the event of a medical emergency, they would want to extricate them as soon as possible.
“I checked those before we arrived.” Corbin ducked his head. “The feed is static, and the cloud backup has been erased.”
The void began to roar, but he willed it back into silence. “You withheld that information why?”
“I didn’t want to upset you before there was cause.” He surveyed the bloodied room. “Seems to me there’s cause.”
The flippant answer didn’t sit well with Linus, who was certain Corbin was still holding back.
Black wisps curled off Linus’s skin. “What does it mean that the feed shorted out?”
“Either Boaz killed it, your mom killed it, or the person or persons who dragged them out of here did.”
He could think of no reason why his mother would impede an investigation into her own disappearance. From a quick search of the bunker, he could also be certain no one without intimate knowledge of the bunker could quit the feed, let alone erase what the cameras might have recorded.
In control of his temper once again, Linus exited into the tunnel. “Who is the engineer?”
“I would rather not say in a compromised area.” He started down the tunnel leading out the way they had come. “I’ll take you to him. We’ll see if he’s got any answers.”
He himself had kept dangerous secrets pertaining to