“We might have a problem,” said the first man. “Sven went back to the safe house and your girl was gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
“Don’t know that, but I do know it’s your ass on the line. You’re the reason she’s still a problem.”
“Shit.” They were almost to the opening now. Tina pictured how they were positioned based on the sound of their voices. Seth sounded a little closer to her, his voice more clear, while the other man was a little ahead but probably out of her reach.
She evened her breath, went through her plan in her mind.
The flashlight switched on again and played through the opening. Had she flattened herself against the wall enough? Was she creating a shadow?
Then the time for thinking was over. As Seth stepped through the gap in the wall, she wrenched down on his arm, twisted his body around, then used the momentum of his falling body to fling him at the other man. He was already spinning around, aiming his gun at the unknown attacker, but when Seth’s body collided with his, he lost his balance.
Tina dove for his arm and wrenched his wrist until she heard it snap. She plucked the gun from his limp hand and backed up a step so she had them both in her sights. The flashlight had fallen to the ground, so everything was lit in weird, misshapen shadows.
She bent to pick it up and aimed it in Seth’s eyes. The other man was too busy cradling his hand, moaning and cursing, to seem like an immediate threat. He was wearing a uniform that she could now confirm was U.S. Border Enforcement. Either a fraud or a traitor. Did it matter which?
Seth shielded his eyes with his arm as he struggled to get to his feet. “You’re supposed to be?—”
“Surprise.” She gestured with the gun. “Help your friend up. Let’s go.”
“No, no, we can’t…listen, you don’t want to get involved in this. I don’t want you to get hurt. There’s a bunch of powerful people with big plans and…how does a million dollars sound? Just walk away. Go now, and don’t say a word to anyone.”
“Who do you think I am? Seriously, don’t you know I’m a cop?”
“Of course I know. That’s why I knew you needed the Night Light.” Seth gestured toward the other man. “I want to help you, but that guy is just in it for the money. He won’t care if you get hurt.”
“Listen, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. Maybe you really do have good intentions. How did you come across the Night Light in the first place?”
Seth set his jaw and gave no answer.
“You know, I met your father, the paranoid schizophrenic murderer. You must wonder if it’s hereditary, that kind of psychosis. Is that why you tried to find something that would erase the kind of trauma you experienced? Your own father got you burned in a fire. How does a guy grow up to be normal after something like that?”
“Just stop…talking,” Seth said through gritted teeth.
The guy in the uniform moaned and got to his knees. A swift kick to the jaw sent him reeling backwards. His head bonked against the wall and he slumped to the floor, out cold, at least for now.
She had at least a few minutes to get whatever she could from Seth.
“That’s why you called it Night Light, isn’t it? After the murder that changed your life, forced you to leave the one place where you were happy? Jessie understood that, didn’t she? I could see it in her watercolor, so much love and nostalgia.”
“Don’t talk about her.”
She was getting under his skin. Keep going.
“You know, I can almost see what Jessie saw in you.” Tina tilted her head, surveying him dispassionately. “Maybe you should have walked away from all the criming and stuck with her. You could have had it all. A beautiful wife. A summer place on Sea Smoke Island.”
A wince shivered across his face. “Jessie was too damaged. She needed me. She needed intervention. Anyway, I didn’t want to come back here.”
“Your sister asked you to come, didn’t she? But Celine won’t save you. She’s not involved. You cut her out because you wanted this to be your thing. You wanted all the glory, so you freelanced it.”
He frowned briefly, a quick flash that disappeared almost immediately. She’d gotten something wrong. What was it? She kept going.
“And now you’ve screwed it up completely. I’m surprised you aren’t running out of here and begging Celine to let you hide out on her yacht like a little bitch.”
“Just shut up.”
The panic in his voice echoed off the concrete walls of the bunker.
