Colby Core

Her gaze dropped back to the stairs winding downward. Whatever was going on, the trouble had apparently settled in the questioning room.

Another shudder rattled her bones as she considered that room … the basement.

He’d turned it into a chamber of horrors. Steel bars had been erected at both ends of the massive area for using as cells. Every square foot of the floor space between acted as a stage for terror.

Torture devices.

Tessa closed her eyes and summoned her fleeing courage yet again. The silence closed in on her, crumbling away at her fragile bravado.

Just go.

Blocking the warning voices inside her head, she descended quickly to the second floor. She hesitated on the landing. More of that consuming silence. The soldiers who used the second floor for sleeping quarters were either rallied for whatever was going on or adjourned to their rooms. It was past curfew, but until a short time ago there had been much coming and going. That she could not be certain of their status made her decision to get a closer look at what was happening even riskier.

Had the Master summoned his entire team for some impromptu action?

Perhaps the police had finally discovered his identity and this hidden compound. Tessa had prayed for years that the police would come, that somehow she and the others would be rescued.

But he was too smart for the police. Eventually she had realized that no one was coming. There would be no savior … no rescue.

Unless she stepped into the role and organized her own rescue.

The first floor proved equally quiet. She made her way from room to room and from window to window, using her memory as her guide since she didn’t dare turn on any lights. Her breath hitched when two dark figures moved past a rear window. The perimeter guards. Two men walked the grounds twenty-four/seven. The Master never relied solely on security cameras or other gadgets.

So … whatever was happening was in the questioning room. Her gaze lowered to the wood floor. She moistened her lips and swallowed back the confirming lump of fear that had lodged in her throat.

Trouble.

Someone had either been identified as a potential informant or an enemy had been captured. Only once since she’d been with him had an informant been uncovered. He had forced her to watch the slow, agonizing torture and ultimate murder of the man.

Two other times an enemy had been brought here. Most of the time anyone presumed to be the enemy was simply killed on the spot. But if there was information to be gained, the enemy was interrogated. Always here. Always mercilessly.

Tessa returned to the wide entry hall and held her breath. She listened, straining with the effort. Silence. They had to be in the questioning room. That level had been meticulously insulated to ensure no sound escaped or invaded the space.

The original entry point had been in the hall, but the Master had long ago closed that access and created a hidden entrance in his library.

Directly across the entry hall from the parlor, the library had provided hours of escape for her in the beginning. It had taken almost a year for her to accept her new lot in life, then she had turned her attention to gaining trust and responsibility. One day, those years of planning and praying would provide freedom.

Inside the library, bookshelves lined the walls, floor to ceiling. A massive desk sat in the middle of the room, flanked by four chairs. This was where he held his strategy sessions. Only recently had she been allowed to attend the sessions. She had not gained a chair as of yet, but she was allowed to sit on the floor in one corner. A trusted member of the family was assigned a corner and eventually a chair.

A section of the shelving, four feet wide and nine feet tall opened, revealing a wide staircase that led down to the questioning room—or dungeon as she preferred to call it.

There would be only one place she could hide from view and that was about one-third of the way down. She would be able to see around the wall that ended at that point while still concealing her presence—if no one stood at the bottom of the stairs or happened to be coming up as she started down.

She removed the book that concealed the button, then pressed. The section of shelving with its faux books slowly, quietly moved open via its hydraulic hinges. Raised voices vibrated on the cool air. The temperature down there was kept at a steady sixty degrees, adding to the discomfort of those imprisoned and/or being interrogated.

The instant Tessa moved down to the first step she pressed the closing mechanism. The door crept closed behind her. She shivered, as much from the cold as from the fear.

She stood very still and listened.

The Master and his two deputies were grilling a fourth man. Tessa didn’t recognize his voice. She needed to see. She bit the inside of her jaw and considered whether she dared.

The timing was too close to her plans to ignore the situation. If operations or schedules were about to change related to the capture of an informant or an enemy, she needed to be aware.

Easing forward, she peeked around the wall. A man wearing gray coveralls was secured to the interrogation chair. Her heart bumped her chest. His face already showed signs of torture. The Master stood back and watched as his deputies, Brooks and Howard, questioned the man. The man looked young. Brown hair. Definitely no one she had seen before.

She waited a moment more for her heart to stop pounding, then she moved.

Without daring to take a breath she descended the steps and moved around to hide beneath the stairs. Supply containers provided cover for her crouched position. She willed her heart to slow once more, thanked God the fabric of her gown hadn’t so much as whispered against her skin. She inhaled slowly, soundlessly until her breathing returned to normal.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and maintained her balance on the pads of her feet. They called the man “Smith.” Tessa knew no one named Smith.

“Considering your fear of capture,” the Master said, his deputies falling silent as he spoke, “why make contact with us? Why not go into hiding?”

Smith stared up at the Master as if he had no fear at all. Tessa’s eyes widened in expectation of retaliation.

“I had no place else to go,” he said with no humility whatsoever. “That’s why I took this job in the first place. I’d run out of other options.”

Brooks, the taller of the two deputies, backhanded Smith, almost toppling the chair.

“You believe,” the Master went on, “that we have an obligation to take you in? “ He laughed, that deep ugly sound that haunted Tessa’s dreams far too often. “This is no halfway house, Mr. Smith. In fact, in your case, it’s the end of the line.”

The Master turned and started toward the stairs. Tessa held her breath.

“Finish this,” the Master ordered, “and feed him to the alligators.”

Howard, the bald man with the big nose, who leered at her whenever the Master wasn’t looking, chuckled. “Guess you aren’t as smart as you thought, Mr. Smith.”

“I’m smart enough to know when I’ve grown overconfident. Maybe your Master would be better served to recognize that in himself.”

Silence fell over the room. The Master paused before reaching the stairs and turned to face the man who dared to challenge him.

“Your soldier, Kennamer, liked to brag about how you’re fearless,” Smith continued. “How you’re untouchable.” He shrugged. “Seems funny to me that if that’s the case, you just had a major operation go south on you. But then,” Smith added, “maybe that’s why he also bragged that your god complex would be your downfall.”

A moment, then two, of thick silence.

Tessa’s heart stumbled to a near stop.

“Can we kill him now?” Brooks suggested.

More of that heavy silence.

“Perhaps not just yet,” the Master said.

Surprise flared beneath Tessa’s breast. The Master never showed mercy like this. Did he fear that Smith was right? She gave her head a little shake. Impossible.

“Perhaps,” the Master went on, stepping back toward Smith, “we’ll interrogate Mr. Smith once more after we’ve all had some rest. We’ll have a fresh perspective then.”

Tessa tilted her head back and watched the Master climb the stairs. If he checked her room and found her missing … No, stop, he wouldn’t. He trusted her to do as she was told after so many years.

Howard kicked Smith’s chair and cursed about the missed opportunity to feed the pets.

Tessa shivered at the thought of the swamp surrounding this awful place. Howard and Brooks fed the gators regularly to ensure the beasts considered the area a generous feeding ground. Anyone who stumbled onto the property would likely never make it even close enough to enter the electronic surveillance field.

The whole compound was off the grid. No landlines for communications. Even the power was provided by a massive generator. And the water was obtained from the property and directed into the house via a state-of-the-art filtration system.

Tessa doubted there was more than a dozen people who even knew of their existence deep in the wooded swampland outside New Orleans.

But now someone did … this man, Smith. He knew. He was here and still alive.

Anticipation fired through her as Brooks and Howard stomped up the stairs. The overhead lights extinguished, leaving the room in almost total darkness. Only the dim lights from the electronic equipment provided minuscule illumination.

Did she dare question this Smith herself? Could he possibly possess information that would help her? Hope bloomed despite the years of desolation that had left her soul barren.

Smith would die in a few hours. That was a certainty.

He presented no peril to her.

Still … he could tell the Master that she’d come down here.

“Are you going to come out now?”

The air in Tessa’s lungs evacuated.

“They’re gone,” Smith said.

He’d seen her sneak down the stairs!

She chewed her bottom lip. Would he assume he’d been hallucinating if she didn’t move and didn’t say a word?

“I know you’re there,” he murmured, his voice weaker now. “You might as well come out.” He made a muffled sound, like a laugh. “I’m obviously in no position to do you harm.”

But getting caught talking to him could get her killed.

Tessa couldn’t bear to think what would happen to the child then.

That familiar ache of fear sliced through her.

“I could use a drink of water.”

Tessa blinked away the terrifying thoughts.

“Please.”

The desperation in his plea touched her heart … but he was one of them.

A man who earned money by stealing children.

She couldn’t trust him.

Defeat pressed in on her.

She couldn’t trust anyone.

Chapter Three

As much as the desperate urge to escape clawed at him, Riley’s fascination with the girl—no, the woman—staring wide-eyed at him held his full attention.

This was Tessa Woods.

He’d carefully reviewed her file. Studied the photos of the sweet seventeen-year-old with the silky blond hair and huge blue eyes. Her friends and family had labeled her sweet and kind. Intelligent and earnest. But naive and far too trusting.

Was that why nearly six years later she was still alive?

Or had she been brainwashed into becoming as ruthless as those who’d taken her while on a high school senior class trip only a few miles from her small hometown in Mississippi?

The well-worn, pink flannel gown fell loosely around her but as she’d moved toward him the soft-looking fabric had molded to her slim frame. He wanted to tell her how desperately her family had searched for her all these years. How they even now held out hope that she would return to them.

But Tessa Woods was twenty-three years old now. Chances were she was not the sweet, naive young girl she’d been when abducted by these bastards.

“Just a drink of water,” he murmured, careful to keep his voice low and unthreatening. “That’s all I’m asking,” he assured her, when in truth he was asking for the world. That she would help him bring down this operation … that she would be unchanged.

She reached up. He tensed. Slender fingers brushed her hair behind her right ear.

As slowly and thoughtfully as she’d approached him, she turned and padded barefoot across the room. He’d already inventoried the array of torture devices. There was an electrical shock station, one for water boarding and what appeared to be a carving area. Lots of box cutters and knives.

Just the sort of place a guy wanted to end up.

The woman he was convinced was Tessa Woods picked up a large beaker from the water-torture area and held it beneath the faucet. She glanced at the staircase before turning on the faucet just long enough to run a few ounces of water. Then she moved toward him once more. She was nervous. She checked the stairs twice crossing the room. Whatever her position in the organization, she obviously wasn’t supposed to be down here.

Standing before him, she hesitated before extending the beaker to his mouth. She kept her gaze on his mouth as she tilted the beaker. He watched her face, assessing her trepidation. She was definitely scared. Of him, of being caught. Maybe of the truth.

Did she remember her life before? Or had these lowlifes ensured that history was buried so deeply that she wouldn’t ever recall? Victoria Colby-Camp had told him of how her son had been brainwashed in just such a way. His memories had been twisted to the point that he had firmly believed his parents hadn’t loved him and had abandoned him. Had this woman suffered the same?

The water trickled down his chin. She drew the beaker away and he licked the dampness. Holding the glass container with both hands, she dared to meet his eyes.

“Who are you?”

His chest contracted at the sound of her voice—gentle, quiet, filled with tentative wonder. “Russell Smith. And you?”

She chewed her lip a moment before answering. “Tessa.”

Anticipation detonated deep inside him. “Tessa what?”

Another hesitation, this one far longer than the first. “Just Tessa.” Uncertainty flashed in her eyes before she looked away. “Why are you here?”

The urge to tell her he was here to rescue her, to stop these bastards, nearly overwhelmed him. But he couldn’t take the risk. For all he knew at this point, she could be one of them.

“I’m here to help,” he hedged, choosing his words carefully.

“You’re a new soldier?” She didn’t bother looking away this time, allowing him to see the disappointment tinged with anger in her eyes. The same emotions that altered the pitch of her voice ever so slightly.

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

Her fingers visibly tightened on the beaker. “Why are they interrogating you?”

“Isn’t that routine?” His jaw throbbed from the punches the two goons had taken turns throwing. “Don’t they do this to every new recruit?”

She moved her head side to side. “Only the ones who double-cross them or try to hamper their efforts.”

“What about you?” he ventured. “Are you a soldier?”

Another shake of her head.

“Daughter?” He searched her face for a tell-tale emotional reaction. The guy who called himself the Master was old enough to be her father. But Riley knew better. This was Tessa Woods. “Wife?”

Her shoulders lifted then fell. “I belong to the Master.”

Indignation knotted in his gut. This was going to be every bit as sick as he’d suspected. “The Master?” He knew very well who she meant. The bastard in charge. He hadn’t given his name. The two who’d brought Riley here, and then used him as a punching bag, had only referred to their boss as “Master.” “He doesn’t have a name?”

“We’re forbidden to speak it.” She turned away from him and returned the beaker to its place.

The way she took pains to see that it was placed exactly as she’d found it warned again that she feared being discovered, now or later, down here with him. That she dared to take the risk suggested one of two things. Either the Master hoped her innocence would draw out the truth or she was in the market for help.

Too soon to tell.

What he needed was time.

Unfortunately that was a luxury he didn’t have. The Master and his henchmen hadn’t completely bought his story so far and there was a very great likelihood that in a few hours he would be a dead man.

“Tessa?”

That he called her by name appeared to startle her.

“Any chance you could cut me loose?” He shrugged. “If they’re just going to kill me, I’d rather miss that part.”

Her gaze drifted to the stairs again, before settling on his. “Tell them Renwick was responsible for the ambush. That he sent you, but you’re willing to negotiate your alliance.”

Talk about surprised. Here he’d thought the lady was this innocent little angel but she was talking ambushes and negotiations. “And that’s supposed to keep me alive?” Oh, yeah, he could definitely see how admitting that the enemy had sent him would do the trick.

“His people recruited you.” She thought for a moment. “Phipps. Tall, thin, red hair. He offered you a hundred thousand to set up a takedown. You never met Renwick. Only Phipps.”

“Telling them that I’m a mole doesn’t seem like a good plan to me.” His wrists were burning from the tightness of the ropes but that was the least of his problems at the moment.

Those big blue eyes stared right through him, as if she hoped to penetrate his brain and make him pay attention. “It’s a good plan.”

She turned and started for the stairs.

“Maybe I’ll just take my chances with the truth.” Might as well cover all the bases … just in case.

Tessa paused at the bottom of the stairs and met his gaze once more. “Then you’ll die.”

TESSA CHECKED THE SECURITY peephole before activating the latch to enter the library. She held her breath until she confirmed that there was no one in the room.

The pressure of the air seemed to change as she closed the door leading to the basement and held still to listen. The silence continued to linger in the air.

Counting him, there had only been three people in the questioning room and two patrolling the grounds.

If the others were in their rooms for the night, she should be able to reach her room without incident.

She checked the entry hall before leaving the library. The house was completely dark but she knew every square foot. Learning the furniture placement had ensured she never bumped into a table or chair. The slightest noise would bring trouble.

A loud thump echoed. Tessa froze. Outside, she determined. Another solid thump.

Car doors.

She hurried to the nearest window. Two SUVs had arrived. Five, six, seven … she counted seven men loitering around the vehicles.

The soldiers.

This was downtime. No ongoing operations. Two of the patients were ready for delivery. Risks weren’t taken during this time.

Had the arrival of the man downstairs, Smith, generated all this activity?

“Tessa.”

Her blood froze in her veins. Turn around. Face him. She knew better than to ignore him even for a second.

She faced him. “Yes?” Her mind spun with usable excuses for why she was not in her room. The key in her pocket seemed to burn her skin through the flannel.

He allowed her to carry a key. One key that fit the lock to the children’s room and that of the patients as well as her own room. If she angered him, he would take the privilege from her.

“What’re you doing down here?” He turned on a table lamp and assessed her for several seconds. “You should be asleep by now.”

“Everyone else is asleep. The doors slamming outside woke me. I was worried.” She gestured to the window. “Is something wrong?” Her voice sounded a little shaky. She prayed he wouldn’t make something of it.

“There’s nothing for you to worry about.” He motioned for her to come to him. “Your attention is needed elsewhere.”

Tessa moved close enough for him to take her arm. The feel of his hand on her skin made her sick to her stomach. “I guess I’m a little anxious after what happened in Alabama.”

“A nuisance.” He guided her to the stairs. “Nothing more. No need to fret.”

She nodded. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s a busy time,” he offered with uncharacteristic understanding. “I’ll expect you to be well rested in the morning.”

Her head moved up and down of its own accord, proof of her comprehension of his advisement. That he seemed unfazed by her forbidden action made her all the more nervous. She forced one foot above the other, climbing the stairs without looking back and hoping that would be the end of it.

“Tessa.”

Fear swirled wildly in her belly. She turned back, keeping her hand planted firmly on the railing, her feet braced to run. “Yes.”

“Do not mistake my indulgence of your behavior tonight for a softening of the rules.” He pressed her with a harsh gaze. “You know the rules. I will not tolerate another infraction. Not even from you.”

“I understand.”

Turning her back to him and climbing the remainder of the stairs was the hardest thing she had done in a long time. She had taken a major risk coming downstairs after curfew.

If he discovered just how far she’d gone in breaking the rules Mr. Smith wouldn’t be the only one dying tomorrow.

Chapter Four

Chicago, Sunday, December 27, 7:00 a.m.

Victoria Colby-Camp poured another cup of coffee and held it tightly in both hands. She needed the warmth. The city remained blanketed in snow, but that wasn’t the reason she felt chilled to the bone.

Eight hours had passed with no contact from Riley Porter. Levi Stark, another of her investigators, and FBI Special Agent Lee Ross had lost visual contact on Riley before midnight. The tracking devices had been dumped in the parking lot of the rendezvous location.

There had been no word since that revelation.

Victoria had not slept in the same. Finally at six this morning she had joined her son, Jim, here at the office. There was little she could do, other than pray, but just being here made her feel more involved.

Words could not adequately describe the relief Victoria felt at her agency’s accomplishment over the holiday weekend. Sixteen children had been recovered. But the recovery had not stopped this ruthless organization.

She exhaled a heavy breath and moved across the lounge to peer out the window. Daylight had crept across the snow-laden streets, but the sun remained veiled by the heavy clouds. More snow was on the way.

She thought about the file on Tessa Woods the Bureau had provided. The Bureau contacts in Mississippi had insisted on notifying the family. Victoria had considered the move a mistake despite the fact that Von Cassidy, a trusted Colby Agency investigator, had been nearly certain the blonde woman she’d encountered had been Tessa Woods. There was still a chance it wasn’t her.

No matter. Julia and Warren Woods, the parents, had already contacted Victoria. The telephone conversation had been emotionally excruciating. Von had agreed to meet with the parents and answer any questions. The parents had flown to Nashville. Von and Trinity Barrett had left their Gatlinburg getaway long enough to make the trip to Nashville. Like Von, the parents were convinced that the blonde woman was indeed their daughter.

Riley Porter’s mission was to find a way to bring down the organization and to recover Tessa Woods, as well as any other victims.

Worry twisted in Victoria’s chest. She pushed it away and lifted her chin in defiance of the nagging doubts. Riley was highly trained. As a Navy SEAL he had rescued hostages and colleagues amid far more treacherous conditions. Victoria had complete faith in him.