Hell, my entire week.
"Get Atkins to open the door," I suggested, "but keep your gun on him, Hank. He'll use any opportunity to his advantage."
"Uh…where is he?"
I swung around to where I had left Atkins. "Damn it, he got away."
"We'll find him, Danny," Ian said. "Let's concentrate on getting Abe out of there first. We'll worry about Atkins later."
Right.
I felt tears well up in my eyes again as I walked over to the glass wall. "The only thing we can do is start pushing buttons, but watch Abe carefully. If he starts to twitch, stop."
"I got this, Danny."
I felt helpless as I watched Abe while Hank pushed random buttons. Maybe if we brought in some sort of torch or something? Or a glass cutter. There had to be some way to free Abe without hurting him any more than he already had been.
"Let me wrap your arm, Danny," Ian said. He had a length of cloth in his hand. It looked as if it came from someone's shirt.
I nodded, but didn't look away from Abe as I dropped my hand from my arm. The man still hadn't moved from his spot on the floor, but he didn't look as if he was in pain anymore. Considering the man had been in the hospital for a concussion and skull fracture just hours ago, he could have been in worse condition.
"Freeze!"
Now what?
I turned to see two uniformed police officers pointing their guns at us.
Well, this was going to be interesting to explain.
Hank slowly leaned down and set his gun on the floor. "I'm Lieutenant Hank Moore. Our friend here was kidnapped from the hospital. We followed the kidnapper's van here. When we came in, we found this room." Hank nodded his head toward the glass. "Our friend is in there. We can't get him out."
I slowly panned to Hank. What he was saying was essentially true, but he'd left out a whole lot of crap. He totally hadn't mentioned my participation in this mess at all.
Was it on purpose?
"Everyone move back." One of the police officers motioned with his gun for us to move away from Abe's cell.
We all took several steps back.
"Watch them, Stan," the officer said as he moved closer. His mouth was hanging open in shock when he reached the cell. "Shit, Stan, you'd better call for backup and the paramedics," he called out. "There is a guy in here. He's not moving."
"He was in the hospital with a skull fracture and a severe concussion when he was kidnapped," I said quickly, hoping it would get Abe some medical assistance faster. "He just got out of the ICU yesterday."
The officer glanced at me. "How'd he get hurt?"
"He was on a training mission with his unit when he fell and hit his head."
"A training mission?" The guy sounded skeptical.
"It was an unsanctioned training mission with the members of his Marine unit," Hank said. "We were hiking through the woods when he fell. It took us a little bit to get him to the hospital, but the doc said he should be fine with a little rest." Hank waved his hand toward the cell. "After what he's been through, I don't know if that's still true."
"What exactly happened here?" The guy glanced around the large room, his mouth falling open just a little. "And what is this place?"
"It's the collection room of one Mr. Robert Atkins," Hank said. He waved his hand around the room. "As you can see, he likes to collect all manner of things, most of it probably bought off the black market. And if he can't collect it, he kidnaps it or steals it. I'd be willing to bet if you ran just about anything here through your police database, you'd find it stolen from somewhere."
"Where is Mr. Atkins?"
"We don't know," Hank replied. "He got away while we were trying to get our friend out of that cell."
