Chapter 11
“I can help,” Bailey said as she reached out to the side of the elevator for support.
Ice shot her a sideways look. “That statement would carry more conviction if you could stand on your own two feet.” Her voice was calm.
“Just give me a moment,” Bailey said with a half laugh. “I’m not used to being held at gunpoint.”
“You may not be used to it, but you handled yourself well.”
Bailey shook her head. “All I could think about was the number of times, when my husband was dying, that I had wished I could die instead. The number of times since his death where I had wished the fight would be over, and I could go join him. And then suddenly, a gun’s at my head, and all I can think about is how much I want to live.”
Ice turned to look at Bailey and smiled a breathtaking smile. “And that was the right decision. Because, even in death, those left behind have to grieve. But when you do accept there is a life for you again, and you understand you have to struggle, it doesn’t matter what happens. The future is about having a chance at life, and it’s worth it.”
“For a moment, I could see my husband’s face. That smile he had just before he passed away,” Bailey admitted, feeling tears clogging her throat. “And I thought I would join him. And then there was this split second … like I was shifting through time, and I saw Dakota’s face.” She shook her head. “I’m sure he’d be laughing at that right now.”
“Dakota would not laugh at that. He’d be honored.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“You know what’s important about him. You know he’d never leave an injured woman on the street. You know he’d never leave anyone unprotected and in need of assistance. You know he’s honorable, has integrity, and would do anything to help anybody. It doesn’t matter what other qualities he has when those are at the core. You can work with all the rest.”
“I don’t even know if he has a girlfriend,” Bailey said quietly, in case anybody else was within hearing range.
They exited the elevator, walking down the hall toward the medical clinic. Bailey almost ran to keep up with Ice—her long legs ate up the miles.
In the medical clinic, Sienna and another woman stood at Merk’s side. Sienna looked up with relief. “I can’t find any other injuries. Looks like one blunt force trauma to the head.”
Ice nodded. “It could be much worse,” she announced.
“It could. This is bad enough though,” the other woman said.
Ice reached over the table Merk lay on. “Katina, he will be fine. If anybody in this house has a hard head, it’s Merk.”
Sienna chuckled. “I would’ve said Rhodes deserved that award.”
Bailey stood at the man’s feet, her gaze studying his posture. “Did you check for breaks or anything else?”
Sienna nodded. “A quick search. Why? You see something?” She joined Bailey at the table.
“His knee looks off,” Bailey said.
“Head trauma first. Knees later,” Ice said.
She set about cleaning the wound, and Bailey watched in astonishment as Ice clipped and cut the hair back, checked the bones around the wound, telling Katina to grab the portable X-ray machine. Instantly a professional stainless steel–looking machine was wheeled over, and Ice took images. When she returned with a digital copy on the tablet in her hand, she said, “He has a concussion, but no bones were broken from that wound. We can deal with this.”
She quickly set about stitching the wound closed. With that done, she turned and checked out the rest of him. “His blood pressure is fine. He’ll have a nasty headache, and he’ll be plenty pissed when he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up,” Katina said in a small voice.
Bailey understood how Katina felt. The number of times Bailey laid beside her husband when he was so ill, and she knew waking him up was for her sake, not his. It would have been so much kinder if he’d just closed his eyes, took his last breath and left this existence. But still all she wanted was for him to wake up.
Ice did a quick physical check of his knee. “It’s puffy, as if he’s fallen on it. We’ll ice it, but there’s good movement, no breaks that I can see from here. I’ll go ahead and X-ray anyway.”
Bailey realized how silly she was to think she could help. Ice had this more than in hand. And, with two other assistants, Ice didn’t need Bailey. She slowly made her way to a set of chairs off to the side and sat down.
Ice glanced at her sharply. “Are you okay?”
“Just realized you don’t actually need me here.”
“It depends,” Ice said. “The night’s young. I’ve had as many as four in here at a time. And then there aren’t enough spare hands. I can’t do everything all at once.”
“And if it gets really ugly?”
Ice raised her head from studying Merk’s knee and stared at Bailey. “If it’s that bad, I warm up the chopper, and we fly to the hospital. Every one of these men and women who live in this house are under my care. I’ll do my damnedest to make sure they get the best care that’s available.”
And Bailey believed Ice. This place was one hell of a unit. They were all so very blessed to have this home and each other. “Did anybody find Alfred?”
The two women looked at each other. Ice said, “I believe the men are searching for him now.” She glanced over at the second bed. “Chances are he’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Bailey stood back up again and walked over to the double glass doors, stepping into the hallway. “Where’s his room?”
Katina walked to her. “Let me show you.” Katina led Bailey to one of the lower floors.
“Why would Alfred have his rooms down here?”
“He actually has an apartment here all to himself. It’s not belowground on his side.”
They walked up to an unassuming-looking door, and Katina rapped on it hard. There was no answer. She tried the handle and pushed it open. “Alfred, are you here?”
There was no answer.
Katina flicked on the light switch. They both did a quick search to make sure he wasn’t lying injured somewhere.
Bailey noticed the glass doors on the opposite side, set into a rock wall. “Amazing. How did he end up with this?”
“The room itself was here before, actually built into the rock, but Levi and Ice finished it for him.”
Bailey loved the natural beauty of the room, the light shining bright inside. She turned and headed back out. “We should tell Ice that he’s not here.”
“Absolutely. Let’s do a quick tour down here to make sure he’s not anywhere else.”
With Katina once again leading the way, Bailey visited a massive fitness room, various storerooms, multiple cold rooms, and a myriad of empty rooms. The place seemed to go on forever.
“This place is huge!” she exclaimed when they opened another room that appeared to be a huge walk-in storeroom.
Katina nodded. “It is indeed.” Up ahead was a large double freezer door with a lock on the outside. She pulled the key from the side, unlocked the door, and, with Bailey’s help, they pulled them open to reveal a huge walk-in cooler. Thankfully no Alfred in there. With the doors closed once again, and the lock back in place, the two women retraced their steps to Ice.
At Ice’s look, Katina shook her head. “No sign of him anywhere, and, yes, we checked inside the cooler.”
“I’ll take that as a good sign.” Ice nodded. “The defense team hasn’t found a second intruder yet. But they are on it. With Merk taken care of for the moment, I’ll join the search for Alfred.”
“Where else could he be?” Bailey asked.
“This place is massive. So in any one of the bedrooms, storage rooms, closets or offices.” Ice shrugged. “We’ll do a full-on search now.” She motioned at Katina. “You sit and watch Merk.”
Katina stepped up, held Merk’s hand and whispered, “Always.”
Ice dragged over a desk chair to the side of the bed. “Here. Make yourself comfortable, and call me when he wakes up. I’ll lock you in.” She hit a sequence of numbers on the keypad inside the room.
This time Ice led the way out. Once again her long legs ate up the distance so Bailey had to run to keep up. And so did Sienna, which made Bailey feel somewhat better.
Instead of taking the elevator, Ice took the stairs, two at a time down to the first floor. There she started in the kitchen, checking the pantry, any space big enough to hide Alfred.
When she looked in the commercial dishwasher, Bailey’s stomach sank. Was it really a viable option at this point? She hoped not. Because that would mean somebody had folded up the poor old man and stashed him away where he wouldn’t be seen. Even worse would have been if the assholes had turned on the damn thing. Thankfully it contained dishes only.
But slightly unnerved, Bailey moved a little slower as she followed the women while they went systematically through the kitchen, dining room, the extra seating area with the small tables, the massive living room, checking behind all the nooks and crannies, and then they came to a set of mirrored double doors off the main entryway on the left-hand hallway.
Ice opened them up with a cry of surprise, and she caught Alfred as he tumbled to the floor.
Bailey ran to Alfred’s side. She fell to her knees and then checked for a pulse. “He’s alive.”
Ice went into action, doing a full-body check.
Bailey stared at the space where they’d found him. It appeared to be a broom closet. Somehow Alfred must have been taken unawares. But not here. He wasn’t delivering hot coffee and muffins to the first floor. He was attacked somewhere else and stowed away here. And where was his tray? She studied Alfred closer and found blood on his left temple, although not as much as had been on Merk’s head. And Alfred had been propped up against the one door; the other door had then been shut on him. When both had been opened, he fell out.
Ice pressed something in her ear. That was the first time Bailey realized Ice had been in communication with the control room the whole time.
“We found Alfred. Also injured. Another head wound. Front closet,” Ice said.
A weird static-crackle followed as somebody answered. When she was done, she stood and walked over to the front closet and looked to see if anything was different. Ice said, “I’m the last person who would actually know if anything was missing or had been added or changed in here.” She shook her head.
Then the paneling on the opposite wall opened up, and Dakota came running through. He held a weapon in his hand, and a rifle was slung over his shoulder, hanging on his back.
Bailey straightened in surprise.
He came to a sudden halt, his gaze going to her and immediately dropping to Alfred, then back to her. “Are you hurt?” Dakota barked.
She shook her head mutely. Outside of having surprised her with his sudden appearance, she wasn’t sure what to think of his fully weaponized garb in warrior mode. Her gaze drifted to the double doorway behind him. “I didn’t even know those doors existed,” she explained. “It just looks like the hallway paneling.”
He nodded. “I was checking the tunnel again to make sure nobody had gone in after Levi brought Merk out.”
“And Levi?” Ice asked.
“He should be downstairs any moment with his prisoner.”
“Good,” Ice snapped. “I want to talk with that man.” She motioned at Alfred. “Can you?”
Dakota holstered his weapon, bent down and gently lifted Alfred, cradling him in his arms, heading to the medical clinic with Ice and Bailey and Sienna following.
As they all converged on the clinic, Katina’s gaze widened when she saw Alfred. “Oh, my God! Is he hurt too?”
Dakota carefully laid the man down on the second bed and stepped out of the way. Sounds came from around the corner. He stepped back and nodded to Ice. “That’s Levi.”
In a no-nonsense voice, she stated, “I want that gunman conscious when I get there.”
*
Thank heavens Bailey was okay.
It was hard to explain the sense of relief that washed through Dakota when he realized Bailey was safe. He had had so many close calls in his life that he knew, one of these days, somebody wouldn’t make it. When he’d lifted Alfred, Dakota had had a second shock. The man was lightweight, nothing to him, despite his commanding air. Dakota didn’t even know how old Alfred was. He’d always seemed so fit and capable, but he was slight of build, and, right now, with a head injury, he looked impossibly weak and old.
Dakota stepped back another few steps, leaving Alfred in Ice’s capable hands, and followed the noise to where Levi had taken his prisoner.
The men, when not working paying jobs, were in the process of setting up a makeshift jail down here, not wanting to go through the structural work required to put in a full set of bars and a gate. But Dakota wasn’t sure any other option would work. Honestly, they could probably do the work themselves because no way in hell would they get a permit for this, and they didn’t want anybody to know they had something like that down here anyway.
The Internet made everything accessible for anyone who knew where to look.
Dakota walked over as Levi pulled off the man’s shoe. The gunman was awake but secured, his legs clipped to the chair legs with special bindings; his hand-cuffed wrists duct-taped to the chairback. For added measure his neck had been duct-taped to the chairback as well.
Dakota stepped up behind Levi. “His face isn’t familiar to me. I don’t know who he is.”
“Neither do we,” Levi said. He quickly picked up a cell phone, took a picture and said, “Let’s see if Detective Mannford does.”
“It’s not one of the usual henchmen, so I would presume he’s hired muscle.” Dakota studied the man, watching for a reaction. But all he got was a stone-cold glare. “Although he’s a little too well weaponized for a henchman or hired muscle. He also had seen the blueprints for the property. Sounds like a pro.”
“Isn’t that the same thing the rest of you do?” Bailey asked.
Dakota glanced up and over at her and shook his head. “No. Not at all. We protect, serve and save. Mercenaries and assassins will do all kinds of things, from kidnapping to taking out powerful leaders. They often have a specific target as the job. They take them out and leave—and for a preset fee.”
She shrugged. “Sounds the same to me.”
“Not quite.” But he had watched the intruder’s face at her words. The man hadn’t liked her comment at all.
“Yeah, he’s a pro. Or he wants us to think he’s a pro. He didn’t like the idea of being called the same thing as a mercenary.”
“Pros have professional pride,” the intruder snapped. “Mercenaries just have a price tag.”
“They are the same shits,” Levi said, his voice hard.
“Not even close. One has ethics. The one takes on anything. There is a hierarchy in all professions.”
Bailey snickered. “I’m pretty damn sure any pro’s pride is a malleable thing, based on the paycheck.”
In a move that surprised all of them, she walked up to the intruder, swung back and open-handedly slapped him across the face.
He glared at her.
“That’s for hitting Alfred,” she said. “You aren’t a pro if you have to hurt an old man.”
Although her actions had surprised him, Dakota was in full agreement, though he was pretty sure Alfred wouldn’t like to be referred to as an old man.
Levi spoke to Bailey. “You may want to return to the medical clinic.”
She faced him. “Are you going to kill him?”
Levi’s eyebrows shot up, and he stared at her. “Do you care?”
She thought about it for a long moment and then said, “Can’t say I really want that to happen, but, if he attacks anyone else, I’m okay with it. After what he did to Alfred and Merk, he certainly deserves the same back, but I don’t want you to get in any trouble.”
Levi’s lips quirked. “Okay, then I won’t kill him unless he attacks me.”
“And, if he attacks Dakota, I’ll kill him myself.” She shot a warning look at the intruder, noting the surprised glint in his eyes. And she turned and left the room.
Dakota shook his head, a big grin on his face. “Wow, is it this place, this intruder or has Bailey always been like that?”