Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(90)

“Drop your firearm, or I shoot,” Mal said into his ear.

Private Mullins complied immediately.

“Arms out.”

Holding the gun steady on Mullins’s neck, Mal reached in and took his com device. “Where’s your phone?”

“Don’t have one.”

Liar. They all had them.

“Boots off,” Mal ordered, backing away but not taking his aim or eye off the guard.

He obeyed again, and an iPhone fell to the ground.

“Give it to me.”

Mullins didn’t move. “You won’t kill me. I heard about you. You’re legend around here.”

“Don’t push me, kid. Give me the phone.”

Mullins dropped slowly, got the phone, and Mal tossed it out the open door. He ripped the keys from Mullins’s other hand and didn’t wait for one second to let the young guard remember his training.

He closed and locked the door and ran toward the back entrance that only employees knew existed, but just as he stepped outside, he saw a light flicker on and off from the third floor. No one should be up there. Not anymore. That was all over.

No one should be in those hideous, heinous rooms where men had been reduced to animals and treated worse.

The light went out, nearly as fast as he thought it had come on. Was it Mal’s imagination? Who could be up there?

The pain in his arm stabbed, like a reminder of the pain that could be inflicted in those rooms. But it wasn’t his problem anymore…his problem, the one that mattered most to him, was Chessie.

The light flickered again, and suddenly he knew exactly who could be up there.





Chapter Thirty





It was so cold. Bitter, freezing cold. Not like anything she’d ever felt, even in the worst winter in Boston.

Chained to an iron chair in the dark, Chessie felt a fine mist of icy water fall over her, making her teeth chatter and her bones feel like they could break like icicles.

She barely remembered getting here, with Drummand’s gun in her back while he whisked her through what felt like the back alleys of this hellacious prison.

Every inch reeked of death and misery, making Chessie want to hold her breath and force images of torture out of her head. That’s what they’d done in this room.

What he was doing to her now.

Starting with the brutal, frigid mist that caused a different kind of pain than she’d ever felt before. The kind that made you want to give up. The kind that made you want to tell anyone whatever it was they wanted to hear just to get relief.

It was pitch dark, impossible to see, except for when it was as bright as looking into the sun, the light right in her eyes, blinding and painful, then it would go black again.

It was the not knowing when it would happen that created the first level of torture. The actual misery wasn’t as bad as the anticipation.

“So what exactly were you doing on that computer, Ms. Rossi?”

Drummand’s voice kept coming from a different place in the room. He was circling her, and with no light it was impossible to be sure where he’d be next. Behind her. Next to her. Close to her ear.

“M-m-moving money.”

“Where?”

She jerked back when the words came at her an inch from her face, and the barrel of that pistol stabbed in her chest.

“T-t-to…your…a-a-account.”

She screamed when the light came on, like fire pointed at her eyes, then it was gone, and all she could see was the burning white spot against the black.

“Francesca.” He breathed her name into her other ear, the syllables that sounded so poetic when Mal whispered them merely offending her now. “Tell me the password for that account.”

And never clear Mal’s name? She bit her lip hard, refusing to even think about the simple password she’d just made up.

She’d been so close. She almost proved he’d stolen it, but she’d been one freaking keystroke away when he caught her. One more keystroke, and she would have cleared Mal’s name.

Now she’d probably die in this place, and Mal…what would happen to him?

“We can go back there now. Just tell me the password and this”—the blinding light burst like an explosion in her eyes—“will be over.”

“I w-w-will if you clear Mal.”


He laughed in her face. “Making deals, kiddo? Of course. You’ve got a pair like your cocky-ass brother.” She heard him step away, maybe back to the light, maybe somewhere else.

“The password, Francesca.” He flashed the light on and off, on and off, on and off, like a strobe. And then the mist turned into a drenching of freezing misery from above that made her choke and squirm and want to die.

“Tell me the goddamned password!”

She opened her mouth, but it filled with water.

Another light flashed, and something crashed, making her scream again and get another mouthful of water. A gun fired. A man yelled.

Choking, gasping for breath, she tried to see through the downfall of water that poured from some hole in the ceiling. But the water was rushing so loud she couldn’t hear what it was or see anything.

Another shot and lights came on. Soft lights. Warm lights. And the water stopped.

“Chessie, oh my God, Chessie.” Mal nearly sobbed the word as he fell to his knees in front of her.