LAST RESORT

Part 18

It started in the pit in her stomach.

That low, rolling weight that had settled just beneath her ribs and refused to move. She’d tried to eat earlier—A bite of toast, some scrambled eggs and mashed avocados—but she lost her appetite. Her tongue felt foreign. She didn’t know why she was anxious for the past few days.

Vivian stared down at her phone, thumb hovering above the Find My App she’d opened and refreshed too many times already.

Still nothing.

More than an hour ago, the blue dot had blinked just north of town, past the lake and to the mountains. That was the last time she’d seen it move. Then, radio silence. No more updates. Just a frozen pin on a jagged patch of green like a breadcrumb. She refreshed again. Still no service.

Still nothing.

She knew where that dot would be: the former asylum.

“Come on, Xav,” she muttered under her breath. “What are you doing up there?”

Last she heard, the job that Uncle Kevin was working on up there was already completed because he mentioned it to Grandma Margie during dinner a few nights ago. She finally thought that she didn’t have to worry about Xavier going up there. Lauren’s words still lingered in her mind. She wanted to go back to her house and demand for her to explain what the reading meant. Vivian wasn’t a strong believer of Madame Dallaire’s craft or that she could wield magic, but she was a little annoyed how it was affecting her life for the past couple of days. Maybe all those readings the psychic had done to her clients and how they swore it came true, or the things Lauren said were true, was getting to Vivian’s head.

It’s not real. You have nothing to worry about. Xavier will walk through that door at any moment.

She looked at the clock.

It read: 8:50 PM.

Vivian hadn’t seen her brother since this morning, before he left to help Uncle Kev with moving some equipment. That’s all he’d said without elaborating further. Like she wasn’t supposed to notice how twitchy his voice was or how he avoided eye contact when she’d asked where, exactly, they were headed. He’d been like that for the past couple of weeks since he started working for their uncle.

Vivian pulled on her puff jacket and grabbed her keys.

She reached out to open the front door.

“Hey, honey! Where are you going this late?” Grandma Margie asked as she took a bite out of her apple crumble pie. She never pried her eyes away from Family Feud on TV.

“Oh, I’m just gonna go and pick up Xavier, grandma. I’ll be back soon.”

“Oh, okay, honey. Stay safe. Love you.”

“Love you, too! Don’t watch too much TV or it will melt your brain.”

Grandma Margie laughed. “Oh, shush! I’m supposed to say that!”

“Love you, grams. Be back soon.”

Vivian turned around and opened the front door and walked into the night.

The roads were quiet. The traffic was thinning out and the town was falling asleep around her. She passed through downtown, the high school, the chain-link fence sagging outside the rec center. She turned into the outer strip where the KY Landscaping was, and turned to the gravel lot and slowed to a stop right in front of the landscaping office.

The parking lot was empty.

No Lope. No Ray’s stupid lifted truck. Uncle Kevin’s white van wasn’t in its usual spot, and the office lights were turned off. Even the adjacent unit where Nina kept her tech shop—the one with the neon placard that read “Virus Removal Guaranteed $49.99” sign—was dark.

Now she was sure everything’s weird. She’d known those guys since she was young. They would hang out all the way until midnight, watching football and playbacks at the back room, playing cards, and drinking beer. She didn’t like how quiet it was.

Vivian got out of the car anyway. She tried the front door of the KY Landscaping office, but it was locked. Knocked on the metal roll-up of the computer shop, but there was no answer. No buzz, no hum, not even the glow of a forgotten monitor through the blinds. Nina was a known night owl and she always hanged around the building until midnight with the boys. Vivian noticed that her car was not here, too. She stood in the middle of the lot, breathing cold air through her teeth, phone clutched in one hand like a lifeline. Still no signal. The dot hadn’t shown back up after it disappeared into the mountains.

“Oh my god, where in the hell are you guys?”

Vivian got back into her car and started driving. She listened to some Lana Del Rey playlist on Spotify just to break up and drown the silence. She took the northern road out of Point Hope; the mountains loomed in the horizon. Her knuckles tightened on the wheel as she passed the last businesses and blew through the town limits. The cell reception flickered and died. She was determined to find Xavier and drag his ass from whatever he was doing, and go home.

Together.

But she had a bad feeling.

SCENARIO 4

09:30 PM

10 Hours Until Dawn

10 Delvers Waiting…

For almost ninety-minutes, the manor was unraveling under greedy hands.

Nina was kneeling on the kitchen counter, pulling delicate bone-china teacups from a glass cabinet, wrapping them in a linen napkin before stacking them into a box. Sheila found a mahogany jewelry box in the master bedroom, lifting pearl-drop earrings and an emerald pendant one by one, her eyes catching the green like a cat in the dark.

Daryl worked the liquor cabinet, sliding a bottle of thirty-year-old Scotch into his coat, then stuffing three more into his backpack until the zippers strained. Ray stripped a hall table of its silver candelabra, then unhooked a gilt-framed portrait from the wall, propping it against the entryway like he might come back for it if he had extra muscle. Xavier had a leather-bound first edition copies of several books cradled under one arm and a bottle of perfume in his jacket pocket, the glass ticking against his ribs when he walked.

They grabbed many more of what they fancied within sight, placed them into the boxes, and then carried them into the back of Daryl’s truck.

“How long’s it been?” Daryl asked Sheila when they ended up grabbing the wares from the dining room.

“That woman sure could take it,” Sheila said. “Respect. But it’s not long now. She’s gonna crack eventually. We got some good stuff though.”

“Hey, the vault ain’t open yet. We need room for that.”

“Fine, fine. I won’t grab too much silverware.”

“Heard from Kate lately?”

“She’s still at the concert, but I hope she got the guy distracted for a long time. I told her to purchase a hotel room to—”

“Did you just pimp out your sister to some billionaire?”

“It’s not like that!” Sheila rolled her eyes. “After tonight, we’ll be rich and she has nothing to complain. If I were in her shoes, I’d do it without question. She knows that.”

“If you say so.”

Behind them, Xavier got more and more uneasy, but he tried to distract himself by looking for things that were valuable to steal.

Back upstairs, Jessica still hadn’t spoken. Kevin dragged a chair across the floor and sat directly in front of her, knees nearly touching hers.

“You think your employer thinks you’re special? Rich men don’t care about people like us. Let me remind you that you are only a glorified secretary. Disposable,” he said. “We turned off the cameras around the property. No one knows this is happening until tomorrow. You think your boss will care more about you than what’s in that vault?”

She blinked slowly, but said nothing.

Lope sighed, rolled his shoulders, and slapped her. Not hard enough to knock her back and make her go unconscious again.

“You’re wasting our patience, Miss Jessica,” Kevin said. “And believe me, that’s expensive and you are already accruing a giant tab, plus interest.”

Jessica spat a small slob of blood. She raised her chin. “I told you. I don’t know how to open it.”

“You know, I pride myself in being a good read of people, Miss. Jessica. And what you just did? I know you’re lying.”

“Please…just let me go…”

Kevin sighed. “Oh well. Let’s try this one more time.”

The room ticked with their rhythm: Kevin’s questions, Lope’s quiet threats, the occasional blow when she refused to answer. Outside the library, footsteps padded and floorboards groaned with the looters’ back-and-forth routes.

From the cabin a couple of miles away, Oracle showed me on the computer a security feed from the concert hall in Brighton fixed on Henry and Kate enjoying the music with the crowd. Well, Kate was trying to. It was an intimate mid-sized music venue that could fit eight hundred people, and it was entertaining a pretty packed house. The band was already playing their third encore, and then the concert would be over.

Right on time, I thought. Brighton was only a twenty-five-minute drive away from North Cedar Lake, so they’re not very far.

After the concert, Henry gave an excuse to Kate that he has an early work commitment tomorrow, so they wouldn’t be spending more time for the rest of the evening, which only made the woman more nervous, scrambling to think of a way to keep and distract Henry away from the manor, preferably by staying in Brighton.

None of it was landing, not even when she tempted him with getting a hotel room in town and sleeping with him as Sheila told her to do. But Henry was an expert charmer thanks to the amount of skills I invested in his Charisma attributes. He managed to talk his way out of staying at Brighton, and bringing Kate back to Point Hope instead. And since she insisted on getting a hotel room, he offered the manor.

“My place is free and it’s close by. You may not know it, but I’ve recently done some renovations, and the manor’s becoming quite romantic and picturesque at night. It made me enjoy my nightly walks and haunts more.”

“What? The manor?”

Henry noticed her nervousness. “Contrary to what the locals say, it’s not really that haunted. I’ve never seen any ghosts around the property.” He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “Or maybe I’m the ghost. Maybe you’ve been dating someone who’s been dead a long time. I’m Bruce Willis in this scenario.”

But Kate didn’t laugh at his joke. “Oh, its not that, Henry…”

Henry dropped it. “Kate, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want, but I want to let you know that I have plenty of spare rooms. Twenty-two of them and counting. And we’ll be mostly alone in the wing that I’m staying at. My staff will obviously take care of you when I’m gone in the morning.”

“Um, I totally forgot that I have an early shift tomorrow. I’m gonna be super busy. I’d rather you drive me home instead.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at my place? I can have someone drive you to work.”

“Yeah. I’m so sorry. I totally forgot that I had work, and my stuff are back at the apartment, especially my work clothes.”

Kate hoped Sheila and the others got what they wanted at the manor. She thought that maybe if she led Henry to her apartment, and enticed him to stay, he wouldn’t be able to go back until the next morning. But it had been a long, long time since she got laid. How long has it been? A year?More than that? She lost count, and Henry was being such a perfect gentleman she wished she could just tell him to stop it, take the hand she was offering, and jump in bed with her. Preferably in Brighton. She kissed him of course. Kissed him all throughout the concert. Her hands were all over him and Henry welcomed it.

But the man wasn’t going to budge and stay at Brighton. He was a total brick wall she could not tear down with her charms. What the fuck am I doing wrong?

“Okay. I’ll take you home,” Henry said.

“You will?”

“Perhaps you can come visit the manor some other time. You can bring your sister with you.”

Kate forced a smile. She knew that day would never happen. “That’s nice.”

“Shall we go?”

Kate nodded.

As they headed toward the car, Kate pulled out her phone to warn Sheila that the concert was over and that they were going back to Point Hope. But thanks to Oracle, her battery was at one percent. The moment her screen turned on, her phone died.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What the hell?”

“What’s wrong?” Henry asked.

“My phone’s dead. I thought I charged it when I was getting ready for tonight. I’m pretty sure it was at seventy percent before the concert started. Do you have a charger in your car?”

Henry looked at her phone. “I think that’s one of the old iPhone models, right? Sorry, I only have the USB-C.”

“Oh. That’s fine. I’ll just…”

“Do you want to borrow my phone?” Henry offered.

Kate thought about it for a moment, but shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Sorry for making a big deal out of it. I’ll charge it when I get home.” She didn’t think it was a good idea to text her sister and warning her about the heist on Henry’s phone—the man they were stealing from. It would be extra suspicious if he saw her delete the text. She’s pretty sure Henry could recover the text message in the future. Even if the text just said she was heading home, it’s better to not leave a trail of evidence, even if it’s circumstantial, in case they got caught.

Better be safe than sorry, she thought.

I teleported back to the manor’s library with Many-Eyes and signaled for Jessica that Henry and Kate would be heading back soon.

“Don’t open the vault,” Jessica pleaded after ninety minutes of questioning since they dragged her to the library. “Just take everything around the estate. Lord Duncan is a very rich man. Everything around you already has a significant dollar value attached to them that will set you for life, especially the paintings. Just not the vault. Leave. Please.”

That caught Lope off-guard. “Why? What’s in the vault?”

Jessica stared at him. “Death.”

But Kevin was losing his patience and he shot Lope a glare to stop talking—that he was the one asking the questions. “Listen, woman. If you don’t help us open that vault, we are going to start breaking things. Not just slapping you or threatening you with your financial records thanks to my friends. No we are breaking things. We will start with your thumb. Then your index finger. Now, do you want that—?”

“So you’re never going to leave?”

“Not until we get what’s inside. No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m the one asking questions here, lady. Not you.”

Another beat. “Okay.”

Jessica’s breathing shifted, shallower and faster. She lifted her eyes to Kevin and Lope and studied them, like she was deciding whether to give in or let them try to break her for a little longer. But he already said the magic words.

They will delve tonight, I thought. Said three times. Confirmed three times. They’ve chosen to be here.

“Okie-dokie,” she said at last, her voice hoarse but clear. She wiped the sweat off her face and forced a polite smile. “I’ll open it.”

“You will?”

“Yes.”

Kevin’s smirk was small but beaming. “Good girl. I know you have it in you.”

“Save it. Let’s just get this over with,” Jessica huffed.

“Ooh, bossy,” Kevin said as a joke, but he clearly didn’t appreciate her tone.

Lope took a step back, watching her suspiciously. Thinking they might needed backup, he called for Ray to the library over the radio.

Jessica got up, smoothed the creases on her jumpsuit, and reached for the carved panel, fingers dancing over hidden catches until the bookshelf split open. Behind it, the vault loomed: steel and immovable, a gray mouth in the wall. She stepped up to the keypad and, without hesitation, tapped in a code. The digits beeped in quick, deliberate succession. A heavy lock disengaged with a mechanical sigh, and the vault door eased open on thick hinges.

Kevin exhaled, almost reverently and turned to Lope. “See? Dreams do come true.”

Ray walked into the library with a brown sack filled with stuff he just raided from the other room. “Oh, sweet. It’s open!” He said excitedly. “I never doubted you guys.”

“It took awhile,” Lope said. “What’d you have in the sack?”

“Some cool-looking memorabilia. Like World War I stuff. Super old. It’s almost like a museum back there. Hey, do you think we can sell these for a good buck online?” Ray pulled out an old-looking gas mask and hovered it over his face. “Shit’s fucking cool.”

“You can’t take those,” Jessica said. “That’s loaned from the Natural History Museum. There is a historical importance to those relics and you just put them inside a paper bag without gloves on?”

Ray beamed. “So it’s freaking expensive then? Dude, jackpot!”

“As you said, Miss Jessica, we are taking everything valuable here,” Lope said.

Jessica straightened her back from the keypad, rubbing her wrists. “Since you got what you wanted,” she said, voice steadier than it had been an hour ago. “Just… let me walk away. Let me go.”

Kevin turned slowly. His gaze lingered on her face, taking in the faint bruise, the bloodless lips, the way she still held herself like she hadn’t been tortured a moment ago. Before she could make another sound, his fist came up and connected with her jaw hard. The sound was sharp this time, bone against bone. Her head snapped to the side, hair spilling forward, and she went down hard against the arm of the same reading chair she sat a couple of minutes ago.

Kevin scowled. “That’s for making me wait.”

Ray gasped and almost dropped the bag. Lope glared at Kevin, but the man ignored it. He crouched down and made sure she’s still breathing—still was—and nodded. “She’s alive, but you hit her too hard, man. She might have a concussion.”

Kevin scoffed. “I don’t care. She pissed me off.”

“Boss, we might have a problem,” Nina said over the radio.

“Might? What is it?” Kevin asked.

“I think your niece is here,” Nina said from the truck. She pressed her face close to the laptop screen, looking at the exterior camera above the gate and the car parked outside of it. She recognized the car. “Um, what should we do? Should I let her in?”

“Are you sure it’s her?”

Vivian got out of the car and headed for the intercom next to the gate.

“Yup. Pretty sure.”

Kevin groaned. “Fuck.”

“What should we do, boss?”

Lope started shaking his head. He knew where this was going.

“Open the gate,” Kevin said.

“Are you crazy?” Lope said. “She doesn’t have a fucking clue what’s going on. We can’t bring her into this.”

“Well, she’s here now.”

“She’s a complication.”

“Shut up and we’ll handle it,” Kevin said. “You’re coming with me. Let’s find the other kid.” He pointed at Ray. “You. Stay here and watch her.” He then pointed at Jessica, who was still unconscious on the chair. Still pretending.

“But what about the vault?” Ray asked. “Do you want me to—”

“Leave it for now. I’m gonna deal with my niece and then we’ll get the things out of the vault. Don’t touch anything, understand? I repeat, don’t go in there without us. Tell me you understand.”

Ray sighed. “Yeah. Sure. I understand.”

By the time Lope and Kevin climbed downstairs and reached the front porch, Xavier and Sheila was already in the front hall, standing just inside the open double doors. Vivian stood on the bottom landing, her arms crossed tight, a denim jacket pulled close like she was bracing against more than the cool night air. Nina just hopped out of the truck when Kevin and Lope stepped into view.

“What the hell are you all doing out here at someone’s house?” Vivian’s voice had that high, clipped edge she got when she was holding down her panic. She was already weirded out by the place and how her uncle and her brother were seemingly comfortable walking around the house of a stranger, but the parked truck creeped her out more.

“What the hell are you doing here, Vivian? Go back home!” Xavier spat.

“You jerk! I texted you so many times and you haven’t been answering them. I thought you were dead or something. So, let me ask you again: What the fuck are you doing here?”

Xavier didn’t answer right away. Instead, his eyes went past her, narrowing. Out by the curb, the back of the delivery truck was wide open. The moonlight picked out the silver trays, the gilt picture frames, the crystal and china stacked like spoils in a pirate’s hold.

Vivian turned and saw it too. Her face tightened, the color draining out as it dawned on her. “Oh my God…is that what I—did you steal all this?”

Xavier lifted both hands, like he was calming a spooked animal. “Viv, listen. It’s not what you—”

But Kevin cut him off. “It’s exactly what it looks like. We’re taking what’s ours, and then we’re gone. Set for life, Viv. No more small-town bullshit.”

Vivian’s jaw tightened. “You’re serious? You’re robbing the richest guy in town?”

“Yeah. Pretty much,” Daryl said, shouldering through the doorway like this was all just a normal Tuesday. He lugged a gilt-framed landscape and slid it into the delivery truck, careful as a man loading a baby into a crib.

Vivian’s voice rose. “Are you all fucking insane? He probably has, like, a thousand ways to put you in prison for life. Probably has an army of people who can find you even if you crawl to another country. You don’t think it’s gonna be really suspicious if the seven of you go missing in town? News flash! It’s a small town and everyone talks.”

“Not unless he finds out,” Kevin said, his eyes locking hers. “And by the time he does, we’re out of here. We’re long gone. And you’re not going to tell him shit, Viv. You’re no snitch.”

Her stare sharpened. “Did you hurt him? Did you hurt anyone in there?”

Kevin stepped closer. “Relax. No one’s hurt.”

“That’s true, Viv,” Sheila said from somewhere in the doorway, her tone that strange blend of coaxing and motherly. “The owner’s not here, and we’ve killed every security feed in this place. Nobody’s gonna find out. We’re almost done! Right, Kev?”

She looked past her at Nina, who shifted her weight but said nothing. Then back to Xavier, whose face was caught halfway between pleading and shame.

“You can help us,” Kevin said.

Vivian shook her head. “You guys have lost your fucking minds. No. I’m not fucking doing that.” She turned to Xavier. “Let’s go home.”

“What?”

“You can’t leave, Viv,” Kevin said.

“Oh, watch me. And just so you know, I’m not gonna say anything, but we’re going home, uncle. You can steal all of this by yourself. But my brother is not gonna be a part of it.”

Xavier took a step forward. “Viv, I—”

“I don’t want to hear another word, Xav. Get in the fucking car. I’m driving you home.”

“Hey, Let’s think about this,” Kevin said, his voice softening but not enough to hide the steel underneath.

“There’s nothing to think about! My brother ain’t like you, uncle. You may be content to stay like a piece of shit forever, but he won’t. Xavier, come with me.”

“Viv…”

“Come. With. Me. What will mom think?”

The words cut him like a thin wire. She almost sounded like their mother when she scolded them. Xavier’s breath slowed, hands curling into loose fists. He thought of Jessica upstairs and how she was treated—how she was tortured. Kevin promised they wouldn’t hurt anyone tonight, but that was a lie. Two people were hurt. He hated the memory, hated how the sound of bone meeting bone was already burned into him when Kevin knocked Roy out. The plan had sounded almost noble when Kevin first spun it to him: Break free of Point Hope for good. But not like this.

Not like this, he thought.

“What will dad think, Xavier?” Kate repeated.

But something else bubbled up in his chest, and he couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth. “They’re dead, Vivian. Dead don’t think.” The moment it left his lips, he regretted it.

Kate was taken aback, stunned to silence. She held back her tears and shrugged. “Fine. Stay here. I’m going back to bed.”

Kevin was still watching them, not saying a word, just standing there with his head tilted, expecting Xavier to side with him. To leave his sister. To watch her drive away.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Kev,” Xavier said finally. The words felt like gravel.

“Think long and hard about this—”

“No. I’m going home with my sister.” He stepped past Kevin, brushed past Nina’s cool, unreadable face, and climbed into the passenger seat of Vivian’s car.

Vivian stared at him for a long moment. She didn’t want to say anything back to him, and he clearly didn’t want her to tell him to fuck off.

“Okay,” was all Vivian said.

And they left it at that.

Daryl was halfway to blocking them when Kevin raised one hand: Stand down. Let them go.

Vivian started the engine, and the sound cracked the tense air. The headlights swept across the gravel, over the open truck with its stolen guts gleaming like organs in the moonlight. Then she rolled forward, through the manor’s gates, and into the waiting dark of the road. Xavier watched the manor’s porch get smaller and smaller through the rearview mirror.

Kevin stood there in the spill of the porch light, watching the taillights shrink and vanish.

“Do you think that was a good idea? Letting them go?” Lope asked.

“They can stay in that godforsaken town and rot for all I care. More share for us.”

Ray’s eyes kept drifting toward the far wall. Jessica lay slumped in the armchair, her cheek still red from Kevin’s punch, chest rising slow and even in feigned unconsciousness. She looked harmless enough, but something about her still prickled at the back of his neck.

Kevin’s orders rang in his head. But Kevin wasn’t here. Neither was Lope. Or Nina. Or Sheila. Hell, even Daryl. He had no idea what was happening downstairs, but he hoped everything was fine. It was just Ray and the assistant, alone in the library. And the bookshelf, still swung open like a hungry mouth waiting for someone to step inside.

He glanced at Jessica one more time. She didn’t move.

Just a peek, he told himself.

Ray left Jessica and stepped through.

The air inside was instantly cooler, dense with a mineral and earthy tang, like after the rainfall. He’d expected a cramped concrete bunker like a bank vault, maybe lined with shelves and metal-looking boxes like safety deposits. Instead, his jaw went slack.

The chamber was a round and huge. The floor curved gently downward toward the center, smooth black stone glistening as though it had been polished for centuries. Above, the ceiling swept upward into darkness, forming a dome so high he could not see where it ended. Yet there will still light emanating from somewhere in this room.

Seven massive doors were set into the wall, spaced evenly apart. Each was made from a single slab of dark wood, framed by strange runic symbols. In the very center of the room, raised on a circular platform, stood a pedestal of pale marble. Atop it rested an hourglass. Its frame was wrought, faintly etched with curling runes that caught the faint light. The white sands within waited patiently for it to turn.

There was no treasures or stacks of gold bars and cash in sight.

“What in the fucking Lord of the Rings bullshit is this? Where’s the cash?”

Something about it made the skin along Ray’s arms crawl. The pedestal had no obvious mechanisms, but he felt—without knowing how—that the hourglass was not just some decoration. It had purpose.

But for what? He thought.

His eyes shifted to the nearest of the great doors.

It was easily almost twice his height, the surface carved in exquisite, brutal detail. A forest scene so detailed you could almost hear and smell the wind in it. Pines bristled in shades of gray relief, every needle etched sharp. In the center clearing, three wolves stood under a swollen full moon. They weren’t pretty, storybook wolves. Their hackles rose in jagged lines, jaws looking wet and open, teeth catching the faint light in sharp half-circles. The moon above them bulged, almost bloated, the texture of pitted bone. The door handle was nothing more than a wolf’s snarling jaw, jutting outward, teeth bared.

“Oh…um, that’s nice, I guess.”

Ray’s throat felt dry. Exhaling through his nose, his fingers curled around its wolfish handle; the metal cold against his touch. He pulled the door open anyway.

As the door swung open, the hourglass twitched, then snapped upright in a mechanical lurch. The movement was impossibly smooth yet unnervingly sharp, like the pivot of an eagle’s head. The frame rotated with a muted clack, and the sand began to fall in a slow, hypnotic stream.

Somewhere in the library beyond the entrance, he thought he heard the faint creak of a fabric shifting, the sound of someone rising slowly to their feet from a chair. He waited for a few seconds, but no one entered the vault.

Ray turned back to face the wolf door, to another room, and his eyes bulged even wider.

Pallets of gold bars stacked high enough to climb. Towers of shrink-wrapped hundred-dollar bills. An expensive looking painting leaning casually against the wall next to another expensive-looking painting. Glass cases filled with diamond necklaces, Rolexes, Fabergé eggs. Stainless steel shelves lined with priceless artifacts like tribal masks, ancient swords, and vases that looked older than the Bronze Age.

It was obscene, dizzying.

And somewhere, deep inside his chest, Ray felt that same crawling sensation he’d had when he first stepped into the chamber. As if this vulgar display of treasure was some kind of bait.

Bait for what, he wasn’t sure.

Ray shut the door slow, careful. He wasn’t touching a damn thing in there. The treasures were still back there, gleaming and fat with promise. He reckoned the others doors also hid treasures, too. He wanted to touch them the way you wanted to pet a very cute tiger just to see if you can before it mauled you to death. But he wouldn’t—not until Kevin was here. Kevin liked things done in a certain order, and Ray had learned the hard way how Kevin handled disobedience.

He stepped out of the vault.

And saw Jessica’s chair was empty.

It was like a pin dropped close to his ear. His breath caught in his throat. “Shit.”

Immediately, he prowled the library aisles, brushing past the tall, oak shelves. The scent of old paper and wood polish wrapped around him, but there was no sign of the secretary and the trail of where she went.

“Shit!”

Kevin was going to kill him.

He stopped, listening.

Somewhere in the library, he heard a faint scrape. Or maybe it’s just from outside. But it was something, which filled him with hope that he could find her again. A shifted weight on the wooden floor. The subtle slide and click of the door. He darted to the sound’s direction like a dog hearing a bell.

Ray found the balcony doors cracked open, the curtains breathing slow with the draft. Gathering enough courage, he stepped out into the dark. His phone’s flashlight punched a narrow cone, the edges bleeding into absolute black, but the night swallowed everything beyond the beam greedily. That didn’t make him feel any better.

The stone railing gleamed in spots. When he got closer, he saw why. Deep gouges were embedded in the rock, two of them, evenly spaced. But what unnerved him was that they looked quite fresh. Looked like something had dragged claws across it five minutes ago. Maybe less.

Then the foul smell hit him.

First, it was the wet fur. Then rot like flesh left to bloat somewhere in the sun. Under that, something sharp and metallic, like rusting coins in a bowl. The stink curled into his sinuses and settled inside his mouth. The kind of stink that made the back of your throat ache.

Ray swallowed. The hair on his arms and at the nape of his neck stood up and he could hear his own pulse pounding in his ears.

Somewhere out there, in the gloom, something moved.

Ray tipped his head back, as if the answer was written in the sky. The moon stared back at him—full and white and perfect, shining on everything.

On everything.

Fur.

Claws.

And canine teeth.