She shifted slightly. Almost instantly, an ache sprang up her arms and settled into her shoulder blades. She tried to rub the sore spot, only to realize her hands were tied behind her back. The ropes were tight, chafing at her wrists. She shifted her feet. Also tied. Something rubbed across her face, making her nose itch — a cloth of some sort. She took a deep breath, and then blew it out. The black cloth puffed away from her face, momentarily giving her vision. She was in a van of some sort. Out the back window she glimpsed golden pines, and then the cloth settled back into place.
The vibrations through the floor stopped. Doors slammed shut, and then the door near her feet opened. Hands grabbed her roughly. Her immediate instinct was to fight, but until she knew exactly what was going on, it made more sense to play possum. She went limp, feigning unconsciousness.
Hands slipped under her shoulders, and suddenly she was free from the metal flooring. Gravel crunched and more doors opened.
"Any problems?"
Jack's voice, coming from a doorway to her left. So, she'd been right. He wasn't dead, and he was mixed up in whatever was going on. For a moment, it felt as if someone had knifed her heart.
"No trouble whatsoever." The slight hint of Irish brogue in the speaker's tone was definitely familiar. She'd heard it before — on the phone, asking to speak to Jack.
"Take her down to the holding cells. We'll let her sleep it off for a few hours."
The man near her head grunted, and the two men moved off again. They carried her down a flight a stairs, and into a room that smelled musty and old. But it was occupied. She could hear soft conversation to her right — female voices.
Another door creaked open, and she was thrown none too gently onto a mattress. The cloth over her head was pulled away, taking with it more than a few strands of hair. She bit back her yelp of pain and kept her eyes closed. The two men moved away, and the door slammed shut.
She waited several minutes before opening her eyes. Her prison was a red brick room, maybe ten feet long by six feet wide. The door was metal, with a small barred opening in its middle. She looked behind her. There was another window on the back wall, probably a couple of feet in diameter. Big enough to crawl through, if it wasn't for the thick metal crossbars.
Sunlight streamed in, warming the chill from the air. She'd obviously been out some time, because the sun seemed to be riding high in the sky. She swung her feet off the bed and stood. The red walls swam momentarily, and a bitter taste rose to the back of her throat. She swallowed and tried to ignore the churning in her stomach. Whatever drug they'd used to knock her out, it obviously didn't agree with her system.
The rope around her ankles was thick and tight. If it weren't for her boots, it would probably be cutting off her circulation. She blinked. Her boots? She was dressed — still wearing the same clothes that she'd worn last night. Had they re-dressed her, or had she never undressed? All she could remember was getting to the bedroom after Karl had bandaged her wounds. She had a vague memory of the softness of the mattress, but she couldn't remember stripping or climbing into bed.
Had Karl drugged her drink? Had Jack been at the house all the time, simply waiting for Karl to do his dirty work? If that were true, then maybe the SIU bombing had saved Gabriel from being captured — or even killed. Or maybe he was the reason it had been bombed — to get him away from Karl. And her.
She shuffled to the window. There wasn't much to see outside, just several feet of concrete and another wall, this one bluestone. A breeze whispered in, carrying with it the stench of rotting rubbish. Maybe her cell was near a dump of some kind.
She shuffled back to the door and peeked out. The main room was full of shadows. The two women were still talking in one of the cells to her right. To her left, a set of stairs curved around a wall and disappeared. No one stood watch.
She looked at the door lock. Key coded. The decoder was still in her boot — she could feel the end of it digging into her ankle beneath the ropes. If she could somehow get it, she might be able to get out of the cell. Then all she had to do was find out what Jack was up to.
She shuffled back to the bed and sat down. Twisting her legs up beside her, she leaned sideways, and reached with her fingertips for her boots. Her shoulders cracked, and pain slithered down her spine. She bit her lip and reached a little more, trying to get closer. No matter what she did, she couldn't touch more than a fingertip to the top of her boot. There wasn't a hope in hell of pulling anything out.
She cursed and slammed her feet back to the concrete. Then she stared at her boots for a moment. Why didn't she just take them off?
If there was enough leeway in the rope to do a shuffle walk, surely there was enough leeway to kick off a boot. Raising her legs off the floor, she forced her left leg a little in front of the right. The rope rolled off the top of her boot and bit into her leg, sawing at her flesh. She ignored it, and tried to catch her left heel with her other boot. After a few minutes, she managed to hook the heel and force the boot off her foot, though the effort left her whole body trembling.
She dropped her legs back to the floor, took a deep breath, and blew it back out, lifting the sweaty strands of hair off her forehead. Then she took a look at the damage. The rope had dug deep into her leg, and red trails of blood were beginning to wind their way through the flower patterns in her socks. And rope burns hurt. It felt as if someone was holding a flame to her ankles, burning her flesh. But she had no time to sit and feel sorry for herself. First, she wanted to find out who else Jack was keeping locked up, and then she had to get the hell out of here.
She rose and shuffled over to her boot. The rope around her ankles was looser, though not enough to actually get it off. She crouched down, and felt around the inside edges of her boot until she found the decoder. She carefully pulled it out and shuffled back to the door.
The key-coder beeped after several seconds, and the door clicked open. She peered out. No one lurked in the shadows. She pushed the door open with her shoulder, and then she headed toward the cells at the far end of the room.
The talking stopped as she neared. She hesitated, listening. Inside the end cell, someone breathed heavily, short sharp gasps that spoke of fear.
"Hello?" she whispered. "Detective Samantha Ryan, State Police." She was suspended, but that wasn't a point these women needed to know right now.
A white face appeared at the barred window to her right. "You're here to rescue us?"
She snorted. Some rescue. She was tied up tighter than a turkey on Christmas day. "Not exactly. Step back, ma'am."
She turned around and placed the decoder on the lock. The door clicked in response. She pushed the door open and shuffled in. The two women inside looked at her for a moment, and then they shared a glance. It wasn't hard to see the disappointment in their eyes. Neither were tied, which wasn't a good sign. At the very least, it meant Jack was very, very sure of his security.
"Officer, you seem to be in worse trouble than we are," the woman with the white face said.
"For the moment, I'd have to agree." She held out her tied hands. "I don't suppose one of you ladies could get these ropes off?"
The older of the two stepped forward. She had long brown hair swept into a ponytail and held by a red and purple scarf. Her loose fitting pants were also purple, while her jumper was vibrant white. Karl's wife. She had to be, because there was no other explanation for his betrayal of Gabriel. Even in the brief time she'd seen them together, it was obvious they shared a deep friendship. At least now she understood the anguish she'd seen in Karl's eyes. To save his wife, he had to kill a friendship he held dear.