I wonder which one of them was Rod?
He unhooked his weapon from the mount and set it back in its long case.
Below him, somewhere in the house, glass broke.
“What the fuck?”
Elmore got to the hole and jumped down into the attic. With extreme caution, he crawled down the stairs from the attic onto the second floor of his home. He had to get to his pistols in his office. He had no weapon on him and no way to defend himself.
It has to be Rod.
How did he miss him? He moved along the hall, sweating at the anticipation of a bullet at any moment. Near the end of the hall, he stopped and took long, deep breaths. He had to stay alert and focused. He had to try to not let the fear cause him to make a mistake.
At the corner to the stairs, he slowly peeked around the edge. The stairwell and hall to the kitchen below appeared empty.
This is it. I will be exposed all the way down those stairs, but I have no other choice.
He turned the corner and started down the carpeted steps, one by one, going slow enough to be quiet, fast enough to get to cover.
At the bottom, he breathed out, not even realizing he’d been holding it. A quick hop across the hallway and he entered his office, where he discovered no one waiting.
He ran over and opened the Mambas’ cases. He pulled both out, clicked off their safeties and held one in each hand. Back at his office door, he felt a lot better. Whoever had entered his house would know the four men out back were dead and that coming here had been met with extreme force. Whoever had entered his house would be frightened and he intended to shoot them in the face.
Elmore began a systematic search of the main floor and found the point of ingress — the back kitchen door — but he didn’t find anyone hiding in any of the available places.
That only left the basement.
He silently walked to the basement door and discovered it unlocked.
A master locksmith, are you, Rod?
He stood to the side and opened the door. He jabbed at the light switch and turned it on. His nerves were playing on him now. It had been at least five minutes since he’d first heard the glass break and he couldn’t stand much more of this tension. Killing those men in his backyard had meant nothing. He’d killed before and actually found pleasure in the act. But the feeling of being hunted in his own house caused him great stress.
He used the back of his forearm to swab at his forehead and then flipped onto his stomach and edged to the door to look into the basement.
From his vantage point, he could see the bottom front of Drake’s and Sarah’s cells, but not their feet. Something was wrong. They would’ve heard the door open. Usually the prisoner stepped forward and awaited Elmore’s arrival in the basement unless they were sleeping.
But things were different this time. They had Rod for a visitor.
He knew no one would be joining them. With the cell phone blocker, there would be no way for the visitor in his basement to get word out for backup. The five-man assault team on his house would have had no legal backing. It was a black operation. Since no one knew the visitor was in his basement and no one would be coming to rescue him, Rod was stuck. Getting past Elmore would be his only option.
He got up, closed the basement door and locked it. He walked over to the hallway cabinet and maneuvered it in front of the door. The lock was only accessed from the hall side in case a prisoner ever got past him like Jackie had. The remote to unlock it was always in his pocket. Unless Rod, or whoever was in his basement had a remote, that door would remain locked until Elmore chose to unlock it.
He holstered his two guns and went to the garage where he grabbed a wheelbarrow. First things first. He would pick up the four dead men in the back and wheel them into his garage for disposal later.
Then he would come back to the basement and deal with the intruder.
Elmore was already working on a plan to flush him out.
He was pretty certain it would work.
Chapter 27
The basement settled back into darkness as Elmore clicked off the light. A flashlight flicked on and Rod shined it on his face for Drake and Sarah to see him.
“Rod, he’s gone for now,” Sarah whispered. “But he’ll be back. And I’ve got a question for you.”
“Ask away,” Rod said.
“Why the fuck did you put one of those tracking devices in my neck? That’s over the top, you know? I should be seriously pissed at you — but I’m happy to see you because you’re our only chance out of here.”
“If I hadn’t stuck a VeriChip in you, I think the guy upstairs would be putting something else in you. You’re lucky I’m such a bastard.”
“He’s got a point,” Drake added. “He is our chance out of here.”
“Where are the keys for these cages?” Rod asked, spanning his flashlight around the basement and stopping on tables and shelves. “And how come my cell phone doesn’t work? Do either of you know what the reason is?”
“He always has the keys on him,” Sarah said. “It’s some kind of electronic device. He uses a cell phone signal jamming device. It’s plugged in over on the far wall.”
The flashlight raced along the far wall and found nothing.
“Shit,” Rod said. “He must have it upstairs with him.”
“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked. “This guy is seriously sick. These cages have a long history.”
“What kind of history?”
“A history of females, mostly late teens to early twenties. He’s been kidnapping girls and keeping them locked up here for his personal pleasure.”
“He’s lying. There’s no way anyone can carry on that long without any authorities getting suspicious. Impossible.”
“Do you really think it’s impossible or are you trying to convince yourself that it is?”
“From what we’ve seen,” Drake added, “we feel it’s true. He’s ruthless enough to’ve done it.”
Drake gave Rod an overview of what Elmore had told them about his photo studio and how he got the girls here.
“There is something to be said about a man who builds an observation point on his roof and hooks up machine guns to it to cut down anyone who enters his property. He just shot four of my best men. They’re outside either wounded bad or dead. For that alone, I will not let him breathe another day.”
Sarah stepped back from the bars of her cell to think. Too bad she had no way to write something. Maybe the recently quiet Vivian would tell her what to do if she could write.
“He’ll be back soon,” Rod mumbled to himself in the far corner as he continued to search the basement. “I’ll be waiting. Also, he can’t know that I don’t have backup coming. He will have to assume I do. This’ll be all over in no time.”
Somehow Sarah didn’t believe him.
Saul, Jonas
The Hostage
Chapter 28
Elmore had handled the four bodies. They were all stacked in his garage waiting for burial later that day. Elmore removed the belt from one of the men and took another wide walk around the perimeter of his property. Nothing unusual stood out. He’d deal with Rod and then come back up to bury his friends.
He reentered his house and pulled both Mambas from their holsters.
“Showtime,” he whispered to himself.
He shoved the cabinet away from the door and pushed the button on his key fob to unlock it. He moved to the side, in case his visitor stood at the top of the stairs, and opened the door, his weapon aimed to fire, the safety off.
But the stairs were empty.
He flicked on the basement light and got down onto his stomach on the cold tile floor of the hallway. He edged around the trim of the basement door and peeked down the stairs. From where he lay, he could see Sarah’s ankles and feet and Drake’s mid-thigh area. No sign of Rod. Elmore carefully aimed his weapon and fired.