The Iron Gate by Harry Connolly

Author:Harry Connolly [Connolly, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781951617028
Publisher: Radar Ave Press

Chapter Thirty

The larger of the two brothers came to the bottom of the stairs. The bare bulb shone on his black ski mask, and for the first time, Annalise noticed little blond whiskers visible through the mouth hole. Good. There probably weren’t that many 6’4” blond guys in the area. That would make it easier to find him later, if he somehow managed to get away.

He had a black cloth in his hand. He held it up. “Huh. I brought this all the way from the house, but I forgot you already had hoods of your own.” To Becca, he said, “The hood’s not for you, honey. Don’t worry. You look like a real and actual woman. Not like this other one.”

Tossing the extra hood beside Annalise, he undid his belt.

“She stays alive and unharmed, you stay alive and unharmed,” Annalise said again. Cameras or not, she was going to keep that promise.

“She’ll be fine after,” the big guy said. “Grateful, even.”

“There’s a camera,” Becca said, her voice urgent. “Two, actually, that we know of. You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to commit a crime on camera. You don’t want to be on a videotape the DA will play in court showing you committing a crime.”

That stopped him. “Yeah. Okay. I guess I’ll go turn it off.”

“It won’t work,” Becca said. “You just opened your pants on camera, then the camera gets turned off? What will the jury think? They’ll know. Everyone will know.”

There was a pause while the big guy pondered the risks he was willing to take. As far as Annalise was concerned, it could go either way, but in the end, he was smart enough to pull up his zipper. Muttering a few curses under his breath, he snatched up the hood he’d dropped and stamped down the little flight of stairs into the darkness. Asshole.

Becca began to cry again. Then she pulled frantically at her cuffs, as though she wanted to break them against the wooden post. “Can you free yourself?”

“No,” Annalise said. Becca shot her a look, and Annalise did her best to put extra meaning behind her next words. “And be careful what you say. We don’t know who’s listening or watching.”

“Is he going to come back?”

“Probably. Once he remembers he’s wearing a mask.”

Becca started crying again, which made Annalise restless and annoyed. In a sudden surge of fury, she tested the handcuff chain and felt it start to give.

Then she stopped. She absolutely had to play this smart. Her usual strategy—charge ahead and disassemble people with her bare hands—could make her life worse instead of better if some offsite asshole recorded everything she did. That’s when the aggravation would really start.

“Cry later.”

Surprisingly, Becca took his advice to heart. “You’re right. You’re right. I have to pull myself together.” And she did. “Why do you think he came down here? I mean, I know why he came down here, but why now?”

“I think the other two are off ditching the RV, and he was sitting up there in the house, eating fish sticks and thinking about how helpless we are.

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