chiming in his head. A clock that would eventually run out.
Reed forced himself to calm down, to focus. Liza needed him now. Arryn needed him now.
Because the cast of characters was complete.
The madman had gathered his players.
With a strangled grunt, born of fear and frustration, Reed headed for the door but turned back when he realized he was still wearing dress shoes and didn’t even have a coat. If he was going to join the search party—if he was going to be an asset to the rescue team—he at least needed boots and a jacket. He ran to his room, kicking his shoes off and pulling a pair of hiking boots from his closet, which he didn’t take time to lace, simply shoving his feet into them and grabbing a waterproof jacket from his closet. As he pushed the door shut, the rush of air caused a pile of case photos sitting nearby on his dresser to flutter off.
Reed didn’t take time to pick them up, simply stepping over them and heading for the hallway. But one of the pictures caused him pause and he turned back, looking down at the photograph from one of the victim’s necks.
The brand.
Buckeye.
That’s where it had started.
At Camp Joy in that cabin where five angels mistakenly sent to hell had first gathered, telling their stories perhaps, sharing secrets that some of them, young and reeling from trauma, might soon forget as life moved forward.
But not one. One had always remembered. One had woven their individual tragedies into a bigger story, trying desperately to find meaning in his own pain.
Something was skating around Reed’s brain . . . something just out of reach. He took a moment, trying desperately to grasp it.
What else had they done there? They’d learned about the Underground Railroad. It felt like a light went on inside his mind.
Liza’s words whispered through Reed: There’s a now-abandoned house near the river where freedom seekers hid in this below-ground storage area that had a water runoff tunnel leading from it that let out on the shore. I imagined those scared people gathered there, crawling into that darkness and then running through the woods in the pitch-black of night, the only light cast by a sliver of moon. The bravery that would have taken, the terror that must have been in their hearts, but they did it anyway, running toward a world that would not embrace them because they decided that freedom was bigger and far more powerful than their fear. Their stories—though vastly different—made me want to be brave too.
Axel Draper had acted out other non-literal commands before—pushing people to their deaths to act out demons falling from power.
Underground Railroad.
Underground lair.
He doesn’t think like you. He’s twisted. You have to try to think like him. Liza’s voice rose up inside him and he swallowed a panicked groan.
Could they be wrong as far as the unused subway tunnels?
No, he could be totally off-base. He probably was. But . . . her words repeated. He’s twisted. You have to try to think like him.
Reed left his room, heading for the kitchen where he opened his laptop and did a google search of the house Liza might have been talking about.
He found it immediately, the images of the home making it clear that it was long-abandoned just as she said. He was surprised that it had sat empty for so long and that no one had bought the property, but he didn’t have time to research why.
He read the address out loud so he’d remember it and then grabbed the coat he’d thrown over the back of a kitchen chair and raced for the door. As he rode the elevator downstairs, he dialed Ransom’s number, swearing as it went straight to voicemail.
Reed stepped off the elevator, dialing Zach’s number. His phone went straight to voicemail as well. Fuck! They were probably already below ground, or very close to beginning the search of those decayed tunnels. This was Zach’s daughter, and no one would have wasted a second. There would be no phone reception down there. They might not even be using radios so as not to alert Axel of their arrival should they find him.
Reed pulled away from the curb, typing the address of the old house into his GPS. There was a team of good men searching the subway—and the streets of Cincinnati. He owed it to Liza and Arryn to cover all the bases.
It took him twenty minutes to make the drive to the