The Black Coats(67)
When she stepped back, Thea saw that it wasn’t actually a sweater draped over her shoulders. It was a black coat. Louise continued to fight as a fourth man stepped up behind her holding a silver pipe. Chris McCray was yelling now, her voice bouncing off the back of Thea’s skull. “Get her down, but don’t kill her!”
Louise twirled, her fist flying forward, but it was too late. The pipe slammed across the back of her head, and she collapsed to the ground like a rag doll. Thea screamed as she was pulled down into the swirling black, her thoughts discombobulated and firing randomly as her limbs went limp. At least Bea isn’t here. I didn’t tell Drew . . . I’m so sorry, Mom. My team . . .
Her lungs burned as she breathed in the cloth once more. I can’t die on Natalie’s birthday.
Her vision tunneled before her. There was only the sound of rushing water, and then what she had feared most: a nothingness that swallowed her whole.
Twenty-Five
Thea woke up with her back burning, a painful stabbing sensation tracing from underneath her ribs to her right shoulder. She twisted her neck, trying to remember exactly what had happened. Her thoughts were fuzzy and slow. Where am I? She blinked. “Hey!” whispered a voice. “Hey, she’s awake.” She felt something pressing up against her, shoving her sideways. Why couldn’t she use her hands? She slumped forward and felt a wave of nausea rise up inside of her.
“Swallow it.” She knew that bossy voice. Everything came flooding back. Chris McCray. The office. The men. The pipe. Bile rose up in her throat.
“Swallow it. If you throw up in here, I swear to God . . .” Mirabelle’s perfume enveloped her. She turned, gagging, but the bile didn’t come up. After a few dry heaves, Thea took a deep breath in.
“There you go. Breathe.” That was Casey’s voice.
Thea finally found her own—a strangled sound, foreign. “Where is Louise?”
“She’s not awake yet, but she’s breathing.”
She leaned back, her shoulders pressing up against something hard. After a minute, she felt like she could open her eyes, her lungs greedily pulling at the cool air. They were in an empty storeroom, lit by a single flickering light bulb. Boxes of paper goods and office supplies were stacked all around them. Her hands and shins were bound together with duct tape in front of her, along with a piece that ran across her chest and strapped her to a ventilation pipe that ran through the middle of the room and up into the ceiling. Mirabelle and Casey were seated in front of her, bound in the same way but taped back-to-back. Louise lay curled in the corner, asleep, a lump the size of a plum on the side of her head. Thea could see her chest rising and falling, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“You’re okay. You’re okay.” Mirabelle’s voice was soothing now.
Thea let out a strangled cry. “I led us straight into a trap. Oh God, I’m sorry.”
Casey nudged her foot against Thea’s. “How could you have known?”
“I should have.” Her mouth trembled. “Your hand!”
Casey nodded. “I can’t tell because of the duct tape, but I’m pretty sure at least three of my fingers are broken. No piano lessons for me this month.” It was a joke, but in Casey’s somber delivery, Thea heard a real fear.
“Phones?”
Mirabelle shook her head. “They took them.” She twisted around so that she could rest her head against the cool pipe. Thea pulled against her restraints, exerting every sliver of energy she had left, her head still buzzing.
Casey raised her head. “It’s not going to work. We’ve tried for the last thirty minutes. Might as well sit tight, wait for whoever’s coming to pack us into a railcar.” Her voice turned angry. “Oh, Thea, now that you’re awake, there’s something I’ve been wondering about: What the hell does your boyfriend have to do with this?”
Thea looked at Mirabelle, who simply shrugged. “There is something about being tied up, about to be murdered, that makes me not want to keep secrets anymore.”
Thea focused on pulling her hands apart, or sliding them backward through the duct tape. Nothing moved. “Arrggh!” She sat back, her chest heaving, her eyes meeting Casey’s accusing glare. “I should have told you. I should have told all of you. I’m sorry.”
Casey settled back against the wall next to her, wincing as she flexed her hand. “Tell me everything. From the beginning.”
Thea closed her eyes and began talking, twisting her hands back and forth, hoping to loosen the duct tape. The longer she talked, the stranger the story became, each thread tangling tighter and tighter: Drew and Adam Porter, his interest in the Black Coats, the empty file on Natalie, what she had overheard from Julie and Sahil, and finally, what Drew had said about the Monarchs.
Casey sat forward, pulling Mirabelle backward. “Ow!” she screeched.
Casey didn’t notice. “The Monarchs?” She sat back with a shake of her head, her darkly lined eyes widening. “That makes so much sense. For a long time, I’ve wondered what the Black Coats’ real purpose is. I mean, yes, we are serving justice and all that, which is, I have to admit, incredibly intoxicating, but how does that really serve the Black Coats? What is their endgame?”
“We wash the floors,” mumbled Mirabelle. “We fold cloth napkins.”