She glanced back at him. At once, she caught sight of the blood that had seeped through the bandages around his midsection and left thigh. Her heart leapt into her throat. He wasn’t healed enough yet for all of this.
They traveled a distance further before the tunnel ended in a steel door. It looked like the kind you’d find in a submarine, with the giant wheel used to pry the door open.
There was a circuit breaker box on the wall beside the door, and next to the box was a strange key pad. Jack popped the door open on the box and ripped out every wire, leaving them dangling free. The lights went out. No one moved.
In the darkness, Annabelle could hear Jack and probably Sam working on the wheel of the submarine door. Far down the tunnel, in the darkness they’d left behind, there was an explosion. It rocked the corridor and particles of dirt and rock fell from the ceiling above them to skitter across the ground.
And then Jack had the metal door open and light streamed into the tunnel. No one wasted any time climbing up out of it. Jack stayed behind long enough to turn back to the key pad on the wall and punch in a series of numbers.
Then he, too, climbed up through the exit and he and Sam swung the door shut behind them. It automatically sealed itself tight, emitting a slight popping noise as it did so. From beyond it, Annabelle could hear the sound of sudden, rushing water.
“You flooded the tunnel,” she stated. It wasn’t a question. She was simply recalling the metal door in the ceiling that they had run underneath when things had gotten more damp and cold. It must have been an opening to a body of water above them.
“Yes,” Jack said simply, and they all stood up to look around.
They were in a ditch next to a taller mound of dirt, covered with vegetation of different kinds. Annabelle pressed against the mound of dirt and climbed up, peeking her head over the edge. Before she even looked, she knew what she would find.
Blue water stretched out before her, and in the distance, she could see the trees that surrounded Jack’s mansion. They’d just tunneled underneath a small lake.
“Cor, tha’s bloody brilliant, da’,” Clara said from where she’d climbed up beside Annabelle.
Behind her, Jack leaned against the opposite mound of dirt and watched Annabelle climb back down the other side. She was still holding something in her right hand. She’d been holding on to it ever since her escape from beneath the bed during the grenade attack.
Though he was practically dizzy with pain and waning adrenaline, his curiosity got the better of him. “Bella, what have you got in your hand?”
Annabelle turned and straightened and then looked down at the smudged bit of white in her right palm. She carefully dusted it off and unfolded it, revealing two small booklets of Wild season tickets. She gave a small shrug and, without looking back up at him, she said softly, “I really wanna go.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Sam’s boat settled into a rhythmic bouncing motion as it rode the waves of New York’s harbors. Annabelle could tell that they were headed back in the direction they’d originally come, but Jack was being particularly close-mouthed about their next destination.
She chalked it up to exhaustion and blood loss and tried to relax.
Poor Reese had been let out of his trunk days ago and had been under close guard by Sam’s men on the boat, in the open water. Jack wanted him alive for questioning, and Sam had to agree it was a good idea, as long as Reese was in the middle of a vast expanse of murky water, unable to either retrieve or give away information that might put Jack and their group in any further danger.
For the most part, they’d kept the assassin drugged up. It gave Annabelle chills to think of how many times they must have stuck needles into his arms. Still, she realized it was probably the best way. He wouldn’t fight if he was asleep, and the men guarding him could take breaks to use the restroom and eat. It made sense. It was just creepy.
Right now, the well-dressed balding man was seated on the very trunk he’d been trapped in several days before. He still wore his suit and wool trench coat, though his attire had taken some understandable damage. His glasses were also missing.
His wrists were secured behind his back in a pair of metal cuffs that Annabelle had never seen before. They were smooth, devoid of key holes or notches and she wondered how the hell they came off and on.
The rest of them were standing more or less on the opposite side of the cabin, except for Craig, who’d gone to use the boat’s tiny restroom, and Beatrice and her daughter, who were seated side by side on the ship’s prow, holding on to the railing as they enjoyed the roller-coaster-like rise and dive of the boat’s movement over the waves.
It looked like a lot of fun, actually, and Annabelle would have joined them if it hadn’t been for her shoulder. The sprain hurt a little more today than it had yesterday and she wasn’t sure she could hold on to the railing tight enough to keep from going overboard.
The others were busy talking about Max’s suicide letter. Annabelle wasn’t sure whether she was toning out because she really wanted to go and ride the waves or because she didn’t actually want to talk about Max.
Either way, when she mentally rejoined them, Dylan was sulking on one of the attached wooden and metal stools beside the captain’s table. His expression said that he had once more surrendered to his deeper thoughts.
“They certainly messed up the suicide, itself,” Cassie was saying. “It’s really hard to kill yourself with Klonapin. At least, quickly.” She paused. “But the medical records were fixed, and whoever took care of that did a really good job.”
“Godrick Osborne hired more than one man to clean up his mess,” Sam told them, his tone even, his voice soft.
“The Colonel said as much when we were at his warehouse,” Annabelle offered, deciding to join the conversation. She distinctly recalled the Colonel’s troubled expression when he’d mumbled that he hadn’t been the only one hired to solve Osborne’s problems.
Jack spoke up then. “Osborne has pulled out all the stops, I can assure you.”
Sam glanced at him and their gazes met.
Annabelle’s own gaze narrowed. “Okay, so who was the man outside the mansion, Jack? The one whose voice you so obviously recognized?”
Jack turned to look at her, his brows raised in slight surprise. She rolled her eyes. “Oh come on – there may as well have been a text box above your head with scene directions that said, ‘character recognizes a voice from the past’.”
Jack blinked and then smiled. Sam whistled low. Craig came out of the bathroom and Beatrice and Clara chose that moment to head back in through the glass opening that led to the stern of the boat.
Jack glanced at them and then looked back at Annabelle, who was waiting expectantly. “Very well, luv, you’re right. I know him.”
This had everyone’s attention. Even Dylan came out of his own personal hell long enough to listen in.
“Know ‘oo?” Beatrice asked.
“The guys who were shooting at us at the mansion,” Virginia filled her in. Beatrice nodded, her eyes widening.
Jack sighed. “His name is Adam Night.”
Annabelle gave him a disbelieving look. “You’ve got to be kidding me. No one is named ‘Adam Night’.”
Jack shrugged.
Sam cut in. “No one knows his real name,” he told them. “He’s probably forgotten it, himself.”
“He’s been Adam Night since we were kids,” Jack explained.
“Since you were kids?” Annabelle asked. “You mean, together?”