Taken in Death (In Death #37.5)(26)

“We’re here, Henry. I got the pictures—the door, the bathroom. You did really good.”

“I feel sick. I want to throw up, but I can’t. Ga . . . won’t wake up.”

“Keep him talking,” Roarke murmured, tapped his earpiece. “Yeah, we’ve got the signal.”

He circled his finger at Eve, stepped a foot away, and began to talk geek in a rapid, quiet voice.

“Henry, can you hear anything besides me?”

“Uh-uh.”

“What do you smell?”

“The bathroom doesn’t . . . good.”

“Anything else?” Eve demanded as she studied the picture of a tiny john, narrow, wall-hung sink. Cheap, but new, she decided. And the door—new again, reinforced—and standing out against the rough gray walls.

Basement, goddamn it. Basement.

“Cookies. She made . . . eat cookies. I don’t want . . . cookies . . . Mommy.”

“Okay, Henry, just hang on. I’m losing him,” she hissed to Roarke. “He’s starting to break up more, and for longer.”

Roarke shot up a finger to silence her, continued his rapid conversation even as he worked the little toy and his own PPC.

“Henry, look at the walls. You said no windows, but does it look like there were windows and they got covered over?”

“No, I don’t . . . I don’t know. It smells wet and . . . Grandma’s basement.”

There! Eve thought, and considered it confirmed. “Good, that’s good. That’s helping.”

“South, move south,” Roarke said under his breath. “Keep him talking.”

She didn’t question, just began to jog beside Roarke. “Henry, can you hear the evil witch before she opens the door? Do you hear her coming?”

“Gala . . . Daddy says . . . ears like a bat. Gala listens for her . . . talk to you . . . won’t wake up!” His voice broke on a shaky sob. “Did . . . kill . . .”

“West,” Roarke snapped, turning the corner.

“You hold on, Henry. I’m losing him, Roarke.”

“Not yet,” Roarke murmured. “Not yet.”

She glanced up at the street sign. “It’s the pastry shop.”

“Maybe. The trace is fragile, barely there. A bit stronger when he’s talking.”

“Henry, tell me your full name, your date of birth, your sister’s.”

Roarke spared her a glance while Henry recited, shook his head at her shrug.

“Talk to him,” she ordered Roarke, then pulled out her comm.

“Magic Sweets, Lexington at Sixty-fifth. Get me back up, call the rest of the team in, relate to the feds. I’m not waiting.”

She kicked up her pace, listening to the boy’s voice talk about a magic spell and a brave prince, a talking dragon. Listening to the voice fade, fade, fade.

“His battery’s dead. Bugger it.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She stopped, and she drew her weapon as she studied the trim, three-story building. The storefront pastry shop’s display window was empty and dark, as was what she assumed was an apartment above.

But she saw a faint backwash of light spilling out of the back of the shop.

“We’re going in, and going fast and quiet. Maybe she’s upstairs, sleeping. Or maybe she’s in the back there, baking up something to force on those kids.”

“Closed for remodeling,” Roarke said, reading the sign on the door. “You know what you say about coincidences.”

“They’re crap.”

“Alarm? Cam?”

“Both. Let’s see what I can do.”

“Whatever it is, hurry.”

CHAPTER TEN

“Feeney,” she hissed into her comm. “Can you pull up blueprints on this building? Do we have a basement?”

“Let me work on it.”

“No time. Roarke’s through the security. We’re going in.”

“Reineke, Jenkinson, McNab on their way to you. Feds sending men in. Full team heading back.”

“We’re not waiting. I don’t know the status of the girl. Clear?” she asked Roarke.

“You’re clear.”

“Straight through to the back,” she told him. “Clear as we go. Look for a door. She’d have it secured. And if we’re wrong and some nice grandmother type is back there, we’ll apologize.”

“It works for me. On three?”

“One, two—” She went low and left. He went high and right. Skirting a couple of tiny tables, then a long display counter, she moved straight toward the rear and that light. And music, she realized.

The bitch was singing.

She smelled the sugar—the warm, comforting scent of fresh baking.

A moment before Eve reached the door, Roarke grabbed her arm, pointed up.

She saw the internal cam, the tiny red eye of it. Cursing, she started to ease back out of range.

Too late.

The door between the kitchen and showroom slammed.

Eve reared back, kicked it, reared back again. And she and Roarke kicked it together. She caught a glimpse—just the shoulder, a bounce of a blonde ponytail, before the door to the right shut, clicked.

She started to kick again.