A pause follows, but he’s quicker than I thought. His face clears with understanding. “She’s pretending to be a baby monkey.”
“Yep. And I bet wherever you took her, that’s where the big monkey is about to go.”
He gazes at me for a beat, and then motions for the others to stand down. They lower their weapons—a bit reluctantly it seems—and stand in tense readiness.
“And then what?”
“My best guess? He’ll take her back to whatever rock he crawled out from under.” My chest tightens at the thought of Tabby alone with S?ren, and at the reckless, desperate thing I think she’s about to do.
Downs stands. He takes out the bottle of Tums. He shakes a few into his mouth and starts to crunch. “There are miles between those dots you’re connecting, Mr. Hughes. And even if you’re right, you and I both know he can’t just waltz into a secure government facility and whisk away a detainee like he’s escorting her to a school dance. Where she went makes Fort Knox look like a wide-open door.”
“And yet you don’t look like you’re not buying it.”
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
“Had a little convo with the director of the NSA on the way over—well, you know. Anyway, it seems they’ve been aware of Killgaard for a while now. More like, they’ve been aware of the effects of Killgaard. Described him as a black hole. Things within his orbit get all”—he makes a wiggly gesture with his fingers—“warped. But the man himself is invisible. He can only be detected by indirect observation, by looking at the distorted things he’s left his fingerprints on.”
Warily, he adds, “Meaning no disrespect but…like Tabitha West.”
Whatever he sees on my face makes him take a small step backward. The agents by the door take a step in.
“Does the NSA know where he is?” My voice is an animal rumble in my throat.
He shakes his head. “Unfortunately, no one knows where he is.”
A movement at the door catches my eye. I turn and see two agents walking past. Miranda Lawson is sandwiched between them. She glances over, our eyes meet, and she pales.
It hits me like a lightning bolt.
Heart pounding, I say, “Wanna bet?”
Thirty
Tabby
In the dark I sit, waiting. Listening. Because the walls are made of concrete, there’s nothing to hear except my shallow breaths and the thrumming of my heart.
And Shaggy withdrawing his gun from the holster at his waist.
“If you move, I’ll put a bullet in your brain,” he says quietly. “Nothing personal.”
“I don’t know, that seems pretty personal to me.”
He doesn’t answer or make any other sound. I feel him listening, feel his attention intently focused into the darkness that surrounds us, and on the door.
The electrically operated door, which, with the power out, is more like the lid of a crypt. We’re not getting out of here unless someone lets us out.
Shaggy says, “Just stay put. The backup generators will come on in a second.”
That’s what they all say.
After a while when nothing happens, I start to count. It keeps my mind occupied, keeps me from thinking how Shaggy might actually be able to see in the dark with those cat eyes of his and decide to pull the trigger even if I don’t move. Keeps me from thinking about Connor, and what he’s thinking right now.
Keeps me from focusing on how much I wish he were here with me.
Finally, when I’m nearing six hundred, I hear a noise.
Bang.
It’s far away, the sound muffled by the thick walls, the reinforced steel door. It comes again several seconds later, louder and closer than before.
Bang.
“Did you—”
“I heard it,” says Shaggy grimly.
“Gunfire?”
“Or explosives. Charges of some kind. Hard to tell.”
Another thirty seconds and then—
BANG!
The floor vibrates. My gasp is audible.
Speaking low and rapidly, Shaggy says, “Tip the table over. It’s steel, heavy, you’ll have to put all your weight behind it to get it over. If you can, drag it left a few feet so it’s parallel to the door. Then get down behind it and don’t get back up until I tell you to.”
I move without thinking. I’m on my feet, the chair kicked out from beneath me, my hands curled around the cold edge of the table, lifting with all my might. When my biceps fail to do the job, I crouch low, set my shoulder under the edge, and shove using the strength of my thighs.
The table topples over with a crash.
I drag it blindly by one leg to the left as instructed, guessing how far I need to pull it to put it parallel to the door. The sound of metal grinding against cement doesn’t mask the next earsplitting bang, which produces a tremor in the floor that I feel to the marrow of my bones. I quickly kneel behind the table, listening to Shaggy mutter a curse.
“Drop your weapon,” I urge, stress making my voice hoarse.
His laugh is hard and short. “There’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. Whoever’s coming through that door is getting a belly full of lead.”
“If you resist, it will only piss him off! Just lay down your weapon and get behind this fucking table—”