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.Shit.Ryder continued on, deeper into the dark.If he didn’t find anything else to arrest Tyree for, he could always use vandalism and destruction of private property—if Daniel Kingston agreed to prosecute.Which he might not, since that would make the real estate tycoon liable for fire-code violations.Seemed that Tyree and Kingston both knew how to work the system to get the most bang for their buck, with the occupants of the Tower paying the price.Tyree pulled up to a halt.“Hang on.” He knelt, examining a transparent line sagging loosely across the passageway at shin level.“Goddammit.Someone’s been coming through here.” He yanked the line, revealing a magnet securing it to the metal shelving that lined both sides of the hallway.Then he bent behind the stack of plastic water containers and reached his arm between the wall and the shelf.He emerged holding a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun.“Drop it,” Ryder ordered, leveling his.40-caliber Glock at the gangbanger.Tyree broke open the shotgun and handed it to Ryder.“They removed the shells.Left the line intact so I wouldn’t know to look.Sons of bitches.”“Probably saved Esme’s life,” Ryder reminded him.Tyree grunted at that and continued down the passage.Ryder left the shotgun—didn’t want his hands full—but mentally marked its location.Double barrel at close range could take the legs off a man.At least cripple him, which was the point.During the next twenty minutes, they found three more dismantled booby traps and had cleared two side passages before Ryder spotted light coming from ahead.The reverb of a voice shouting filled the blackness.He pushed Tyree faster.They arrived at the junction of two wide corridors.Tyree’s light caught another black man in its glare.Standing in front of the man was Angela Rossi.Holding a shotgun.A dog stood beside her, pulling hard against his leash.What the hell? Ryder didn’t have time to finish his thought before a gunshot cracked through the dark.Coming from behind him.A girl screamed.Rossi dropped her shotgun and rushed forward, arms outstretched, as a young girl fell from the darkness above them.CHAPTER FOURTEENEverything happened in a blazing blitzkrieg of action.First, seeing Esme.Alive, climbing out from her hiding place on the top shelf to my right.Then a shot coming from behind us.Ozzie’s howl, the gunshot reverberating as if the sound was ricocheting off the concrete surrounding us, and Devon’s shout of anger and dismay collided.Esme fell forward, her body caught in a crossfire of flashlight beams.Before she could tumble off the shelf and into space, someone reached down from the darkness above Esme and grabbed her.Esme hung there for a moment, one foot caught on the top of the shelving unit, the rest of her body dangling by an unseen person above her, gloved hand gripping her arm.Another shot splintered her cry of panic.Then she was gone.Vanished into the shadows above the pipes.It wasn’t until I was halfway up the nearest set of shelves, scrambling from one handhold to the next, that I registered the third gunshot.Or heard the shouting.Adrenaline must have blocked my hearing for a few moments because then, all the sudden below me, there were men yelling at each other, their voices a shockwave hitting me, punctuated by Ozzie’s barking.“Lower your weapon,” a man shouted.Ryder.I glanced down for a split moment.His gun was aimed at Devon.Had Ryder fired the shots aimed at Esme? No.That made no sense.But the shots had come from that direction.Another man, tall, bulky, carrying two lights, stood to one side.“Now!”“I didn’t do anything,” Devon protested, crouching to set his gun on the floor and stepping away from it.“You’re the one who shot her.”“Wasn’t me.” Ryder’s tone was tight with adrenaline.He kept his gun aimed at Devon but had shifted position so that he could cover both Devon and the corridor behind us—where the shots had come from.“On your knees.Hands behind your head.”I was almost to the top of the shelving unit.Close enough to see, in the scattered light of the flashlight clutched between my teeth, that Esme wasn’t anywhere to be found on the shelves.“Where is she, Angela?” Devon shouted from where he lay facedown on the floor.“Shut up.” Ryder cuffed his hands behind his back.I clawed my way onto the top of the shelving unit, tumbling a few boxes to the ground, glad this unit was securely anchored to the wall.I wasn’t at all sure that the freestanding shelves Esme had hidden on could have taken my weight climbing them.“She isn’t here.But there’s a catwalk above the pipes.”“Rossi, get down here,” Ryder called.He had Devon and the other man both on their stomachs, in cuffs, and was standing with his back to me, pointing his gun into the darkness.I couldn’t see any blood on the shelves where Esme had been.That was the good news.The bad news was that I also couldn’t see which way whoever had taken her had gone.Between the creaks and clanks of the pipes and the noise of the men below, I couldn’t hear any footsteps or any sounds of Esme crying.Had she known the person who had taken her? Saved her, really.Risked their life to rescue Esme.That gave me hope.Still, I was half-tempted to try to follow.Holding on to a pipe for balance, I stood.The catwalk was at my waist.I could have easily climbed onto it.I touched it, felt faint vibrations but couldn’t tell which direction they came from.Ryder shouted my name again.I aimed my light down the catwalk in both directions and saw only shadows.With a shooter out there in the dark and no idea which way Esme had gone, it was foolish to try to follow, so I reluctantly climbed back down.Ryder stood like a soldier, his face closed down, gaze searching for unseen enemies in the shadows.“What the hell were you thinking?”Ozzie came to my defense, aiming a snarl in Ryder’s direction.“We need to get out of here, now,” Ryder said.“No, we can’t leave her,” Devon argued.“Shut up.” Ryder’s voice lashed out at Devon even as his light whipped through the darkness where the shots had come from.“We have two targets now.Esme and the shooter.We need to get more manpower, coordinate a search, get the lights turned on, do this thing right.”I didn’t want to leave Esme behind, but I knew he was right.My one glimmer of hope came from the fact that whoever had taken Esme had been protecting her from the shooter.“We’re too exposed here.We need to move.” Ryder motioned to Devon and the other man to get back on their feet.“Tyree, on your feet.You, too—what’s your name?”“Price.Devon Price.”“Let’s go.” Ryder ushered the two men to march in front of him, his gun still trained on them.I retrieved Ozzie’s leash and joined him.Ozzie tugged, didn’t want to come at first, but then, with a whimper, he obeyed.Ryder frowned and gestured for us to move faster.“I’ve no cell coverage here, and the radio doesn’t work either.It’s a good twenty minutes back the way we came.We need to hurry, get the perimeter shut down before they can escape.”“We’re closer to Good Sam than the Tower,” Devon said.“He’s right,” the man named Tyree said.“That tunnel,” he jerked his chin to indicate the junction we’d passed a few yards back, “goes down to Good Sam’s basement, near the heating plant.It’s the fastest way out.”I finally put two and two together and realized Tyree was the drug dealer Father Vance had warned us about.Up close he was even bigger.Bulky
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