I pulled my glove off with my teeth, then ran my freed hand along the wall. I tuned my ears, listening to the near-silent sound.
“This hall leads to the office and that’s all.” I turned, looking back down the hall. “This doesn’t seem right.”
I spun around, taking wide steps to get to the office. I stomped over the door that they’d broken down to get in here when they first cleared the house. Look at that, we hadn’t needed the code to get in. I blinked at the ugly as fuck room for a second before I started feeling along the wall.
Catching Jameson’s eyes, I pointed and gave a nod of my head.
There was something behind this wall. There had to be. Unless whoever made this house decided to leave a bunch of dead space hidden behind the hall and the outside of the house, there had to be something behind this fucking wall.
How did we get into it? Where was the entrance?
The wall only held a few big paintings, and it was covered in wallpaper with a crazy enough pattern that a strange seam wouldn’t be seen unless you were looking close enough. There was an uncomfortable-looking couch placed in the middle with a small side table.
Fuck yes!
My hands pressed against a section of the wall where I saw a split that seemed out of the ordinary.
Nothing happened. I let out a frustrated growl.
“There’s got to be a release somewhere in this room,” I said as I started lifting paintings off the wall.
I was convinced there was a release here. If not, then it was likely some remote open and I wasn’t trying to go through the hassle of figuring that out, even if we did have Milo with us to help.
There was nothing under the paintings. I was ten seconds away from finding an ax and breaking through the wall. I took a calming breath and scanned the room again.
Carver and Dune were tossing books off the shelves with the finesse of feral animals. As I crossed the room to the big mahogany desk, I witnessed Jameson yanking a lamp from a side table next to the couch, pulling so hard the cord whipped wildly as it ripped away from the socket. He began stripping the table next, tearing out the drawers and flipping it over just to check the underside.
My eyes scanned the contents of the desk. A gold clock that looked old. Two fancy pens in special holders, also gold. A lamp that wasn’t anything special. Huddled together in the left corner was a glass paperweight, a letter opener that appeared to have diamonds embedded on the handle, and a plain ceramic bowl which held a penny. Yep, one single penny. That was fucking weird. I tipped it over, but it didn’t seem to be anything of use. So then I started pulling drawers, running my fingers over every space I could reach, looking for buttons on the underside or a false bottom. No luck on the left side.
The slim drawer centered in the middle of the desk was locked. I yanked hard, hoping that I could break it with my strength, but of course, that didn’t work. Without hesitation, I snatched up the letter opener and began to pick at the keyhole.When that didn’t work, I shoved the letter opener into the slit on the top of the drawer and forced the space wider until I heard a metal clang and a pop. The letter opener fell to the ground as I ripped the drawer open. The moment my fingers curled under the lip of the desk, I felt it, the button no bigger than a fingertip. Without another thought, I pressed it, not even giving it a second thought. It could have been the key to blowing up the house instead of opening the door.
I couldn’t help but grin when a section of the wall popped open like a door with a small hiss. Thank fuck.
At the sound, everyone stopped looking and followed me to the door.
A pat on my shoulder told me the team behind me was ready to go.
Gun raised, I headed into the room on the other side.
“Fuck,” I said as I took in the hidden office. I would have put money on this being the one that held everything Lipton didn’t want the FBI to know about.
Shit.
There were screens on one wall, thankfully blank at the moment. Another wall held built-in shelves full of what I was going to assume were ledgers, a dozen or so cardboard boxes, rows of disks in cases, and enough VHS tapes to tell me that this operation had been going for a long fucking time.
I pushed down the sickening thoughts.
All I had to do was catch Lipton. Then I could end him because I knew there was enough in this room to prove Ford had been set up.
“There,” I said pointing at the metal door on the opposite side that was less hidden than the one we’d come through.
We moved further into the room almost as one.
Dread set deep in my gut as I turned the handle and pushed.
The heavy door opened slowly, revealing a concrete room. The smell of stale blood and rot and death wafted out, nearly making me gag. I pushed it down and stepped inside.
In the middle, a man hung by his arms. He was still as a statue with his head down, and I would have sworn he wasn’t alive.
