Allison Brennan - Fatal Secrets

She felt around the wet, muddy slush for her gun. Damn, where was it?

A bullet hit the muck inches from her leg. No light reached this far down, which was the only reason he missed. Unless the bastard enjoyed this game of cat and mouse. She prayed Clinch or someone heard the gunshot and was close by. If she could stall Marchand just a few minutes, her team would be here to arrest him and toss her a rope.

She focused on staying calm, but the pitch-black of the hole, the small space, it all conspired against her. She was trapped. The panic started, escalating, and her hand shook as she continued to search for her gun. A sob escaped her chest, a barking pain. No, Sonia! Don’t give in to the fear!

She heard Dean’s voice in her head. You’re the bravest woman I know .

Her father laughed from above and fired his weapon again. This bullet hit a good foot above her head.

“I’m not your papa, Sonia. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now, haven’t you?”

She didn’t respond. He was goading her. He wanted to hurt her, or maybe he was low on bullets and wanted her to talk, give away her location in the pit.

“Your mother was a whore,” he continued. “She worked for me and my father. She took four, five men a day. No one knew who your father was. We’ll call him John.” He laughed again, a low, creepy laugh that sounded almost crazy. “My father had a soft spot for Gabrielle. She was just a manipulative whore, like you. You could be my sister, since my father fucked her often.

“Sergio Martin worked for me. He was supposed to take Gabrielle to town for an abortion. Believe me, no one was more surprised than I was when the doctor called and said she’d never arrived.”

Sonia didn’t want to listen, certain Marchand was lying. Wasn’t he? Why would he make up a story so insane?

“They hid for years. I never stopped looking. No one defies me. Not Sergio, not Gabrielle, not her daughter. I should have slit your throat like I slit that whore’s throat. Painless, compared to poor Sergio’s fate.”

Marchand fired into the pit again. The bullet clipped one leg on the side of her thigh. She bit back a cry and rolled to the side. It hurt, but it wasn’t serious.

She felt her gun under her back. It was wet and slick with the mud, and she tried to clean it as best she could with her damp shirt.

Sonia closed her heart and mind to what Marchand said. He wanted to scare her, to divert her attention from the danger she was in. And it was working. Her panic, her anger, everything. She was losing.

She barely remembered her mother. Only the sadness that spread like a sickness through their small cottage. But Gabrielle had risked her life, had died to save Sonia. Sonia would not allow Marchand to win after everything her mother had sacrificed.

“Why didn’t you kill me then?” she screamed up the shaft. “Why play daddy to a four-year-old?”

His voice was cold. “Because everyone trusts a widower missionary traveling with a child.”

Sonia’s claustrophobia disappeared, dwarfed by the anguish and anger she felt at being used. She aimed her gun at the silhouette of the bastard up top and fired. The gun worked, and she pressed the trigger again. Again.

Marchand’s body jerked against the sky, as each bullet hit its mark. He fell into the pit with her.

* * *

Sonia quickly rolled to get out of the way, then scrambled to gain hold of something as she started to slip. But everything was slick and wet and she rolled down, through loose, wet soil. Down, down, down faster and faster until she screamed, and her mouth filled with mud. Dean came up with the last of the Chinese girls. It took only ten minutes to get them all out once Charlie got the elevator working. When he reached the landing, he saw Lawson sitting up against the wall with a bullet in his leg. He’d been given a field dressing. Another man he didn’t recognize lay dead. The entrance had disappeared.

Brian Stone was on the radio, looking frustrated.

“What happened?” Dean asked

“Two men came in and then one turned and ran back out when he saw Lawson. The dead guy panicked when he saw us, started firing. There was a small explosion of some sort-I think he hit an old lamp, but I don’t know what caused it. Then the ceiling came down. We fired back. It was a righteous kill, Agent Hooper.”

“Did you search him?”

The SWAT leader tossed him a wallet. “Jerry Ignacio, lives in Sacramento. There’s a passport on him, too, and about three thousand dollars. Couple guns, a knife.”

“Have you tried to get out?”

“We’ve been in contact with Callahan, they’re right on the other side. There’s a small crawl-through. We’ve been sending the women out one at a time.”

Dean spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Agent Knight? Callahan?” Nothing. “Clinch? Anderson? Anyone?”

“Hooper, it’s Trace Anderson.”

“Where’s Sonia?”

“She and Clinch pursued the other suspect.”

“The curator?”

“The guy with glasses? He’s fine, sitting in my car. We came across a truck on the road. They fled when they saw us and went over the cliff right at the bend not half a mile down the road. You might have heard the explosion.”

“It caved in part of the mine.”

“You okay?”

“Yes. The women?”

“We have a sheriff’s med unit and van here, and an ambulance on its way.”

“Good. Now find Sonia and Clinch.”

Cammarata heard the conversation. “She went after Marchand, did she?”

“I don’t know.” But Dean feared she had.

“Shit.”

Dean was itching to get out and find her himself. His skin crawled, thinking about what might happen in a confrontation between Sonia and her father.

Clinch shined his light down the hole. “He’s dead.” “Where’s Sonia?” Sam Callahan looked around.

“Sonia! Sonia Knight!” He asked Clinch, “Are you sure there were only two of them?”

“Yes,” Clinch said. “Dammit, where is she?”

Sam took out a heavy-duty light and shined it into the hole. “Do you hear that?”

Clinch listened. “It sounds like running water.”

Sam called Brian Stone on the radio. “We have a situation. We need rope and lights. Tell Hooper that Agent Knight may be in trouble.”

Dean followed Trace and Brian to the edge of the hidden shaft that Sonia had fallen down. “Where is she?”

“Dr. Sheffield thinks she fell into an underwater river,” Trace said.

Dean couldn’t have heard that correctly. “I don’t understand.” His skin prickled and his chest tightened. “Where is she?”

Sheffield shined a heavy-duty light on the blueprints. “This river is flowing toward the mine. It was a huge problem for the original miners before they-”

“Stop,” Dean said. “I just need to know where she is.”

Sheffield continued. “It flows east to west, of course. It’s heading toward the mine, but it’s more a pool of water this time of year. If she didn’t drown-”

Dean closed his eyes. “I’ll go in. Get the rope, Brian. Lower me down.”

Sheffield shook his head. “Not a good idea. All this movement and activity has disturbed the sediment. But I know where she’ll end up.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Cammarata exclaimed. “She could be hurt, she could be-”

“Lower me down,” Dean repeated. But it was too late. Cammarata jumped into the shaft and disappeared.

“Shit!” Dean turned to Sheffield. “Take me to where she’ll be. Right now.”

“It’s dangerous-”

“I don’t give a shit how dangerous it is. I need her back.”

I need her alive .

Sonia coughed up muddy water. It was pitch-black. She couldn’t see anything, not even her hands in front of her. She shivered, soaked through.