Brotherhood in Death (In Death #42)(119)

“Roger that,” Feeney said. “One subject standing, now facing another. Third on that level moving east. Now stopped.”

“Taking shifts.” Eve nodded. “Two upstairs getting rack time. Two down working on Easterday. He’s still alive. Peabody, McNab, take the stairs up on my go. Baxter, Trueheart, hit and split as planned. Carmichael?”

“In position, sir.”

She gave Roarke the nod. He began to work on the locks, quickly, precisely, and the alarm that connected to them. The other teams would use battering rams—fast and noisy.

But she’d have a jump on the basement level before the suspects were alerted.

“We’re clear here,” he told her.

“We’re moving in. Hold your positions.”

When Roarke eased the door open, she went in low, swept with her weapon and flashlight.

Large kitchen, she registered. Empty and dark. And the basement door just ahead—shut.

“We’re in. Feeney.”

“No movement on second floor. Three in a group, basement level, center of the main room. You’re standing on top of them.”

She moved to the door, slowly turned the knob. When she eased the door open, she heard the screams, the sobs, the voices.

“All teams go. Move in. Move in.”

She went down, leading with her weapon while Easterday’s shrieks sliced through the air.

He hung by his arms from a hook and pulley in the ceiling. His body was covered with bruises, burns, sweat, blood.

Charity Downing, stripped down to a tank and gym shorts, held a weighted sap. Lydia Su, teeth bared, shouted, “Harder! Make him feel it.”

“Police! Hands in the air. Now. Now!”

As Eve gave the order, the crashes came from above, and the new screams from the alarm.

Unlike above stairs, the basement lights glared on full. In them Su pivoted, using Easterday’s body as a shield.

“We’re not done! We’re not done!”

Eve dodged the wild stun stream, firing back, a wide stream on low, as she leaped down the rest of the stairs.

“You’re done. You’re surrounded. It’s over.”

“No.” Weeping, Su turned the stunner on Easterday, leaving Eve no choice.

She dropped Su, even as Downing let the sap fall with a sickening thud, her own hands shooting up.

“Please don’t. Please. Don’t hurt her. Lydia. Lydia.” Downing went to her knees, gathered Su in her arms. “Stop, stop. Remember what Grace told us.”

Eyes wheeling from the stun, Lydia shuddered. “Not done.”

“We need the MTs, we need a bus! Baxter, restrain these two.”

He rushed down the rest of the stairs. “I’ve got them, boss.”

“Peabody!”

“We’ve got Blake and MacKensie. We’re secure.”

Eve turned to Easterday, who wept in harsh, racking sobs.

“Help me. Help me.”

“I bet that’s what they said,” Eve murmured, but holstered her weapon. “Roarke, help me lower him down.”

“They hurt me.”

“You’re alive,” she said, without a drop of sympathy.

He was alive, she thought as they brought him down. She’d done the job.

“Have the women taken in,” she told Baxter. “Keep them separated.”

Su, still reeling from the stun, shot Eve a look of tearful hate. “He deserves to die. All of them deserved to die.”

“You don’t get to make that call. Get them out, Baxter.”

She looked down at Easterday as he lay on the floor, moaning. “Medical assistance is on the way.”

“They killed Fred. They made me watch.”

She said nothing when Roarke took a blanket from a sofa, tossed it over the shivering man. But she thought: You like to watch.

She hunkered down, looked him in his blackened, swollen eyes. “I’ll get your full statement after you’ve had medical attention, but for now, Marshall Easterday, you’re under arrest for multiple counts of false imprisonment, for rape, for sexual assault, for conspiracy to rape.”

“You can’t—you can’t—”

“Just did.” She stepped aside when the MTs rushed down, but took one by the arm. “This man is under arrest. When you transport him, he’ll be restrained, and will remain restrained. A uniformed officer will ride in the bus with him, and remain with him at all times. Understood?”

“Got it. Better let us work on him, get him stable enough to transport. He looks in bad shape.”

“Fix him up good,” Eve told them, and as they went to work on Easterday, she read him his Revised Miranda rights.

“Our two are on their way to Holding,” Baxter told Eve when he came back down. “The other two are about to be. They didn’t give our guys any trouble. How about him?”

“He’s been read his rights. I’ll have Carmichael select an officer to stick with him.” She handed her restraints to Baxter. “Lock him to the gurney when they get him on one. I need to check in with the rest of the team.”

“I’ve got it. Some place,” he added as she turned.

“Yeah.” A replica of the room in the recording. Some updates, some additions, but the Brotherhood had probably made the same. They’d brought the men into the nightmare, and turned it on them.