The Safest Lies. Debra Webb

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      Taking her time she toed off her boots, peeled off her socks, then unbuttoned her shirt. When the shirt, the boots and socks were in a neat pile next to the provided bag, she shucked her jeans and added them to the pile next.

      When she reached for the bag, the man with the gun at the ready protested, “Everything comes off.”

      She figured that would be his next order. Sadie reached behind her and unhooked her bra. She allowed it to fall forward and drop to the pile. Then she swooped off her panties and added them unceremoniously to the rest.

      The man nodded and she reached for the bag. Inside was a pair of gray sweatpants and a white tee. No underwear. No socks. Thankfully there was a pair of plastic flip-flops. The cheap kind found in bins near the checkout counter at discount stores. She donned the provided outfit and slipped her feet into the flip-flops.

      The man who’d brought the bag grabbed her things and put them into the empty bag. She hated that her cell phone was in that bag. Besides a gun, it was the asset she depended upon most.

      Oh well.

      “Let’s go.” The man with a bead on her motioned with the barrel of his weapon toward the back of the church.

      “What about my car?” she asked as they marched toward the rear exit.

      “A friend will pick it up and dismantle it for parts.”

      She stalled and glared at the man. Was he out of his mind? “Wait just a minute. That car cost—”

      “You won’t need it where you’re going.”

      * * *

      THE DRIVE TO their destination took half an hour, give or take a minute.

      Sadie had counted off the seconds and minutes, in part to distract herself from the sorts of thoughts that wanted to crowd into her brain. But mostly because it was important to maintain a sense of location. Half an hour from the church was a reference anyone coming to her rescue could use to facilitate the task.

      Except there was no one coming. This mission was basically off the books. Ross and his friends would get worried when they didn’t hear from her in a couple of days but there wasn’t a whole lot they could do other than beat the bushes and rattle a few cages looking for her. Finding her would be difficult if not impossible. The tracking devices in her cell phone, in the soles of her shoes and in her bra were who knew where. Unless someone had been watching her and followed this caravan, she was probably out of luck as far as backup was concerned.

      Frankly, she had been surprised by their vehicles. She’d expected big four-wheel-drive trucks caked with mud and decked out with gun racks. But that wasn’t the case at all. The two vehicles were both new top-of-the-line SUVs. Sure, they were four-wheel drive, but they were sleek and almost elegant looking—unlike the men inside.

      The younger of the group had been tasked with her personal security. He’d secured her hands behind her back and dropped a cloth bag over her head. He sat in the back seat with her. Another one drove. The other two men were in the second vehicle, with Prentiss, no doubt. No one in this vehicle had said a word en route. Music had played just loud enough to prevent her from noting another reference—any sounds in the areas they drove through. Animals, trains, construction, whatever.

      When the vehicle rolled to a stop and the engine cut off, the music died. The doors opened and low voices rumbled around her. Beyond the voices was quiet. No city sounds. No traffic sounds. Not even any animals.

      Fingers wrapped around her upper arm and tugged her from the center section of the back seat. A hand guided her feet so she wouldn’t break her neck climbing out. When she was steady on the ground the sack was dragged from her head.

      Her first thought was that she had gone back in time. The towering stone walls made her think of the ones surrounding a castle she’d visited in Edinburgh, Scotland. The walls were massive, at least thirty feet high. There were what appeared to be guard towers built into the wall. A large, square stone structure stood in the center of the expansive grounds that were like a quad on a college campus without all the fancy landscape. Like the primitive keeps she’d seen in her travels, the windows were tiny in proportion. There were other buildings beyond the larger one, but she could only see the rooftops in the distance.

      She stared overhead. Frowned. There was no sky.

      She scanned what should have been the sky for as far as she could see. Steel and some sort of panels stood high above her. Reminded her of a massive warehouse. But no clouds or sun or anything else that said sky.

      Wherever they were, they were not outside. But the SUVs had rolled to a stop right here. She glanced over her shoulder at the one she’d only just emerged from. The ride had seemed to stay on level ground. There had been no downhill or uphill movement. The ride had been smooth but not so smooth that she wouldn’t have noticed a change in elevation. There could have been an elevator somewhere that brought them below ground. But that didn’t seem right, either, since they hadn’t stopped long enough to roll into any sort of elevator until a minute ago, when the engines shut off and they got out.

      The man behind her nudged her forward with the muzzle of his weapon. She took in as much of what she could see as possible, committed it to memory as they moved forward. Wherever they were, the place was certainly fortified for battle. If they were underground as she suspected, she supposed the purpose was for surviving a nuclear attack. Additionally, being underground would explain why the feds and local law enforcement hadn’t already spotted the compound from the air.

      By the time they rounded the corner of the largest building she’d seen so far, only two of the men remained with her. Prentiss and the other two had gone in a different direction. The one with the gun at her back kept her moving forward with the occasional nudge. Beyond the large building were increasingly smaller ones. Along the east side of the wall the smallest structures were numbered. They sat in a long row like cabin rentals at the lake. Only there was no lake—not that she’d seen so far anyway—and this was no vacation. The long, low building that stood the farthest west from the center of the grounds had no windows and appeared to be their destination. The squat roofline told her it was one story. She saw only one entrance along the front, assuming what she was looking at was the front.

      The second of the two guards unlocked and opened the door. Number one nudged her to go in. The guards followed close behind her. An immediate left took them down a long white corridor lined with doors on either side. No windows on the doors, either. Midway down the corridor, they stopped at a door and number two guard unlocked it with a few clicks of the keys on the control pad. Once the thick door pulled outward, Sadie understood this would be her accommodations for now. Until they decided what to do with her, she imagined.

      “I’m supposed to be meeting with the man in charge,” she reminded number one.

      “Tomorrow.”

      The door slammed in her face.

      She turned around. A dim light came from around the perimeter of the room. There was a steel cot, a toilet hanging on the wall with a sink formed in the tank. Just like the ones she had seen in the few prison cells she’d visited.

      With a quick drawing back of the covers, she checked the mattress, ensured the sheets weren’t tainted with anything she could see or smell. Fabric smelled clean enough. She paced the small room and considered her options. There had been four men with Prentiss. She hadn’t seen any others when they arrived but that didn’t mean there СКАЧАТЬ