Page 100 of To the Grave

I broke free of Arlo’s grip and screamed at Ruth over the hood of the car, hoping she could hear me through the rain.

“Run!”

Chapter 75

Otis

Ipushed the dead guy off me and got to my feet to survey the damage. My thigh was still bleeding but I was alive thanks to Rafe and his friends, who were pulling weapons off the two dead guys on the floor.

“Fuck,” I said, wiping blood off my face.

I’d hit one of the men when he’d opened the door to the butler’s pantry, but another one had fired at me almost immediately. I’d ducked to avoid the bullet, then been pushed to the ground when he rushed me. I’d been about two seconds away from a bullet to the brain when Rafe and his crew showed up.

“You okay?” Rafe asked.

“Hit in the leg,” I said.

Rafe stalked across the kitchen and grabbed one of the dish towels that was hanging from a hook. He handed it to me and I twisted it to make a tourniquet, then wrapped it around my leg, knotting it tight to try and stop the bleeding.

“We need to get upstairs,” I said. “Daisy and her sister are up there.”

There was no time to ask why Rafe was here, how he’d known we needed help. I picked up my gun from the floor where it had fallen and we started for the back stairs, then froze when we heard a shout.

And it wasn’t coming from the second or third floors — it was coming from the front of the house.

Outside.

I made a beeline for the hall, one word pounding like a jackhammer in my mind.

Daisy.

Chapter 76

Jace

Barreling up the muddy road leading to the house was like riding a roller coaster in the dark. I couldn’t see a fucking thing from the passenger seat, the darkness and rain obscuring everything as Benji bounced over the muddy terrain, Wolf wrestling with the wheel as he drove like a bat out of hell.

We were so close I had to resist the urge to fling the open the door, race to the house in the rain. It wouldn’t be faster but after two helpless fucking hours in the car, I wanted tomove.

I needed to get to Daisy. Because now the pieces were coming together. Piers Cantwell was Michael White. He’d returned to Blackwell Falls on some twisted fucking mission to traffic local girls through Mo’s, which seemed to be one stop on a fucked-up underground railroad of trafficked girls that led to the Velvet Rope.

I thought about the cities I’d seen on the flight plans in the back office, wondered if — and how — they tied into the whole thing.

Then Wolf was turning the last corner leading to the house and my brain tried to process everything it was seeing: the front door wide open in the torrential downpour, firelight and candles flickering from inside the living room, four figures sprinting down the porch steps.

“Get the guns,” Wolf said.

“On it,” I said, already reaching under my seat.

I removed the two revolvers we kept there for emergencies. There were two more under Wolf’s seat and a shotgun under the back, but I didn’t want to waste time waiting when we were facing down a team of four leaving the house.

It wasn’t until I was out of the car — Benji hadn’t even some to a complete stop — that I realized I was pointing my gun at Otis, Rafe, and the two other guys who’d helped us get Daisy out of the dam complex when she’d been kidnapped by Calvin.

“Lower that fucking gun!” Rafe bellowed.

“Where is she?” I had to shout to be heard over the rain and wind. It was fucking relentless, Wolf and I already soaked to the skin.

It was the only question that mattered, although I definitely wanted to know later why Otis’ leg was bleeding, a tourniquet that looked like one of our dish towels knotted around his thigh.

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