My breathing started to take on the rhythm of the flashlight—long gasps broken up by choppy wheezing. I was sweating all over. I felt light-headed.
I kept pushing away a thought that didn’t help: if the lights in the tunnel weren’t working, then neither were the vents. Maybe I wasn’t panicking: maybe there really wasn’t any air to breathe. And maybe I wasn’t hallucinating: maybe the tunnel really was narrowing, the walls closing in.
Just as I’d done on the diving board all those years ago, I got on my hands and knees and crawled forward. Anybody watching would have thought I was chasing after the flashlight’s spastic bursts, the way some cats will chase the beam of a penlight.
And then, when I thought I couldn’t take any more, when I thought I really would pass out, I nearly smacked my head on a metal sliding door. I poked at it with my finger to be sure it was real. Yep, this was no mirage: I’d reached the end. I got to my feet, thinking, Now’s the time to be afraid. Now is when the real danger begins.
But I wasn’t scared. If anything, I felt a strange surge of confidence, as if I’d burned up all my fear in that tunnel and was ready to conquer whatever waited for me on the other side.
Chapter 43Serena Flores
THE MONEY just kept coming. One bundle after another until the columns nearly reached the chandelier. More cash than I’d ever seen at one time. The kind of cash that does things to men—especially men who spend their lives looking for easy ways to get rich. Men who take and give nothing back. Men like Defoe and Broch, who’d snatched us off the street and tied us up and pointed guns at our heads.
I watched Anna, watched her hand moving in and out of that bag. She seemed steady, strong, unafraid. This was a new Anna Costello, different from the woman who skulked around that ridiculous castle, hiding from her marriage in plain sight. I didn’t know what she was planning, but I knew there had to be a plan. And I didn’t believe for a second that Sarah had run off. That she was scared, yes—but Sarah was the type to stare down her fears.
The stacks of bills kept climbing. Defoe was trying hard to look unimpressed, but Broch was another story. His mouth hung open as though he’d forgotten how to breathe, and he shifted his weight back and forth from one foot to the other. He looked like an inflated toddler who had to pee. Even Lindsey seemed mesmerized. There was more money on that table than a nurse could hope to make in a lifetime. Maybe two lifetimes.
“Almost there,” Anna said. “Bet you boys are dreaming of a cabana in Barbados right about now.”
Her voice rose as she spoke, as if she was calling to someone in another room, the way she used to call for me to bring her things—a glass of water, a bottle of aspirin, a pair of slippers she’d left downstairs. Broch was too busy salivating to notice the rise in volume. Defoe stuck by his blank expression.
“Last one, coming up,” Anna said, her voice louder still.
But when she pulled her hand back out of the bag, it wasn’t holding money; it was holding a silver handgun—the kind that’s small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. In a single, smooth motion, she pivoted and pointed it at Defoe’s head. But before she could say anything, I felt the barrel of Broch’s cannonlike revolver pressing against the back of my skull.
And then the shot came. Not from Anna’s gun or Broch’s gun, but from somewhere close by. An explosion so loud it toppled the stacks of bills and had my ears ringing and buzzing as though I was trapped underwater. And then Sarah appeared in the doorway, looking out at us from behind the long barrel of a rifle.
I could sense Broch’s head turning. I reached up, grabbed his wrist, yanked it forward, and bit until I tasted blood. He howled, stumbled backward. I looked down and saw his revolver lying at my feet. Forgetting I had one hand tied to the chair, I reached for it and went tumbling over, landing flat on my back with the chair beneath me.
But I had the gun now. I trained it on Broch. I had no doubt I’d shoot him if he took a single step forward. After what we’d done to Anthony, it would have been easy enough to pull that trigger. Broch must have seen it in me because he backed away with his hands held high.
Over the droning in my ears, I heard Lindsey scream “Anna!” I glanced sideways at my former boss, saw that Defoe had taken her gun and slipped behind her. He had the snub-nosed barrel against the small of her back and stood with his chin nearly resting on her shoulder, as if he was playing peekaboo.
Lowering his hands, Broch took a quick step forward, but stopped short when I swung my head back and cocked his revolver. The truth is, I wanted to shoot him. I was done being afraid of violent men. I didn’t want to kill him: I wanted to cripple him in a way that would keep him from ever hurting anyone again. But the giant was afraid of me now. He threw his hands back up in the air, retreated until his shoulders hit the wall.
My ears popped as if I was on a plane that had just cleared twenty thousand feet, and I heard Sarah’s aunt playing negotiator.
“No one needs to get hurt here,” she said, “so how about you all just set your weapons on the table?”
“I’ve got a better
