Page 69 of Traces of Kara

Grant held his hand up, his index and middle fingers spread. He drew them to his eyes, then toward the darkness.

Morris nodded.

Grant breathed in shallow, quick breaths. A thirst to draw a deep breath into his lungs mounted in his throat. Tiny tremors climbed down his arms to his fingers, clasped around the butt of the gun. His skin prickled beneath his wet clothing. He moved one measured step at a time, his mind calculating the what ifs—envisioning the blast of a gunshot, hearing its release too late as he fell to the ground, or Greer jumping out of the darkness, overtaking him and knocking out Morris at the same time.

The muscles in his thighs twitched. He stared into the darkness as he made his way down the narrow corridor. A dim ray of light spread across the ceiling ahead of him, and just beyond, the hall opened up. Grant could only see a few feet into the lighted area, then the light quickly vanished to black. He moved stealthily back to Morris, indicating the path ahead.

Smitty stood in the rain, watching the ambulance pull away. He’d convinced Jackson to go to the hospital and get checked out for shock and trauma. Jackson had initially refused, but eventually Smitty had worn him down, threatening a call to Nancy. He paced, torn between heading inside or standing sentinel outside. It was almost nine o’clock. The violence of the storm had passed. Grant and Morris had been inside for twenty minutes. He needed to stand guard. Smitty knew the dangers of having bystanders in dangerous situations. He already worried about curious teens nosing around once Ted arrived at the hospital and word began to travel. Small towns were like that. The nurse on duty would call her daughter, just to check in, as mothers do, and the daughter would get freaked out and call her best friend, who would tell her own parents. That mother, being the thoughtful friend she was, would call her best friend and neighbor, who would then spread the word through the Williamsport grapevine faster than fire following gasoline.

He had to make a decision. Smitty thought about what Grant would do if he were in his shoes. There was no doubt—Grant would protect his own. Smitty gathered his courage like a cape and stood to his full height, pulling his ample shoulders back. Simulating Grant’s stance, he lowered his chin and set his eyes on the path to the broken fence.

The basement was silent, the scent of coal hung in the cold, dry air. Smitty moved past the pool of Ted’s blood. He hoped the man would live. He’d seen worse off men pull through, but life wasn’t fair. Smitty knew that better than anyone. His father had been a detective in Columbus, Ohio. A stray bullet had stolen his life. He’d entered a jewelry store to buy his wife a necklace on their fifteenth anniversary, and unknowingly walked into a theft in process. He was dead before he had time to react. Smitty swallowed past the memory, which had lodged itself in his throat like a lemon, and moved down the hall in search of Grant and Morris.

Smitty turned right at the end of the hall, listening for footsteps or voices, anything to indicate where Grant and Morris might have gone. The generator rumbled beneath his feet. Above his head were several pipes. Smitty scanned the hallway in both directions, wondering what clues he was missing. The damned basement was like an endless web of hallways.

Grant stood with his back against the wall. Morris stood across from him. They were mirror images of each other: legs straight, elbows pulled in close to their chests, guns aiming straight up, fingers on triggers. Grant was ready. He was glad to have Morris to back him up. He hadn’t felt the confident and capable vibe from Mark that he was accustomed to with his own team. Though he had to admit, it was Agnew’s tenacity that brought them there. Too bad he won’t get to see the perp taken down. Grant took a deep breath, nodding his head ever so slightly. Had Morris not been practiced at reading Grant, he would have blinked and missed the sign altogether. At the third nod they each swung a leg out, arms straight in front, legs bent. They swooped into the room. Grant moved quickly to the right, sweeping the room with his gun, Morris moved to the left. Beneath their feet, shards of glass and metal scraped and cracked. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. They ran on pure instinct.

Morris led the way into the back room. Grant took the backward stance, covering Morris. Morris tapped Grant’s shoulder, indicating the mess of bottles. The site looked like a sick picnic gone wrong.

Grant stared at the grate in the floor. Vomit and shit clung to it. The water below was trickling at a fast pace. The sub-basement. Jackson had described looking up through a grate to where Mimi and Kara had been held. The hair on the back of Grant’s neck stood on end.

“The bastard held them here.” Grant picked through the empty bottles and papers, looking for anything that would give them an indication of where Greer had taken the women, or what he had in store for them.

Morris returned to the first empty room, picking up a broken cell phone cover and gathering papers from the floor. He scanned them quickly, his face pinched, his jaw tight. He rushed back to Grant, shoving the papers toward him. “This is nasty shit, Grant. She could already be dead.”

Grant read quickly. “Antifreeze?” His eyes dropped to the empty bottle of antifreeze laying in the middle of the room.

“Odorless, colorless, sweet—easy way to kill and go unnoticed.”

Grant lifted his eyes. He looked at his watch, then scanned the handwritten notes. “Shit.” He pointed to a sentence midway down the page, “Death depends on amount. Measure!!” He read more. “Born together, die together October 28.” Grant lowered his hand.

Morris took the papers from him, skimming the information. “Grant.”

Grant looked up.

Morris pointed to the paper, which read, “12-24 hours, nausea, vomiting, coma? >24 hours acute renal failure, death.”

Grant swiped the paper from his hands, crumpled it in his fist and threw it to the ground. He stormed from the room into the dark hall, never breaking his stride, as if he had night vision goggles and tunnel vision.

Smitty stared at the elevators, unable to cross into the open space that separated him from the monstrous machine. His legs turned to lead. Vulnerable didn’t even begin to describe the feeling that brought shivers to his spine. He turned his head, debating a quick retreat.

Another shuffling, then a clanking sound came from beyond the elevators.

Smitty startled, dropping into his ready stance, gun aiming across the empty expanse. His heart thumped against his ribcage. It was now or never. He had to move. He willed his legs. They refused. He recalled his father saying, “Those who can’t, fail. Those who can, never give up trying.”

He lifted his right leg, then his left, moving in the direction of the sounds. Each adrenaline-driven step was more difficult than the one before, hindered by fear. His legs felt heavy and robotic, his movements jerky. Smitty swallowed, trying to slow his erratic breathing.

Another shuffle.

He hoped it was Grant he’d heard, and not Greer.

The sound of a door opening.

Smitty passed the elevators without so much as glancing toward them. His eyes remained trained on the darkened hallway before him, his ears attuned to every sound. His eyes were drawn to a broken pipe, hanging from the ceiling at an odd angle. Smitty inhaled deeply. Gas.

The hallway opened up to his right. He stopped just before the entrance, listening. He swore he heard breathing. Did he hear one person breathing or two? Was it his own breathing he was focused on? He stifled an urge to call out Grant’s name, and another urge to turn and run back in the direction from which he’d come.

He cringed at the gaseous odor, steeling himself against his mounting fear. Up ahead, another pipe hung from the ceiling.