Hold on.
There was one place that only Orbits knew about, and it was definitely not just off the highway.
Feeling like he might have a chance, he continued north until he reached the unmarked dirt road.
Orlando picked up the call after the third ring.
“Nate?” she said, her voice coming out of the speaker.
“It’s all of us,” Nate told her.
“What happened back there?”
“Later,” Quinn said. “Right now you need to keep an eye out for—”
“Orbits?” she asked.
Quinn paused. “Yeah.”
“He buzzed by me a few minutes ago. I’m following him now.”
That explained why her comm wasn’t working. She’d driven out of range.
“Does he know you’re behind him?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t think so. He’s flying down the road, but not any faster than when I first saw him. Please tell me that you got Danielle so I can back off.”
“We didn’t. He still has her.”
She swore under her breath. “What happened?”
“It’s complicated.”
“What about The Wolf?”
“Left her and her people tied up at the gas station and called the cops. We’ve got her Explorer.”
“You weren’t kidding about complicated.”
“Where are you?”
“We blew past Meriden about a minute ago,” she said. “If we’re lucky, the highway patrol will pull him over.”
“That puts us about three minutes behind you. We’ll try to—”
“Hold on, he’s slowing,” she said. “Dammit, I’m going to have to drive by him or he’ll suspect something.” She said nothing for a few seconds. “He’s turning down a dirt road.” She gave a quick description of where the road began. “Okay, he’s out of sight. I’m going to double back.”
“Just wait at the turnoff until we get there,” Quinn said.
No response.
“Orlando?”
“She hung up,” Nate said.
“Get her back.”
Nate called her again but was sent straight to voice mail.
Quinn squeezed the steering wheel.
Dammit!
Orlando heard what Quinn wanted her to do, but screw that. Who knew where the dirt road went? Orbits could be out of reach by the time the others reached her.
“Orlan—”
She turned her phone off and circled back to the turnoff for the dirt road. Orbits’s sedan had kicked up a small cloud of dust obscuring much of her view, but if she was having a hard time seeing him, he’d have the same problem with her.
She turned across the highway and headed down the road.
Not quite a mile in, she came to a T-bone intersection. Once again, it was dust that gave Orbits away. She followed for at least another mile until the dirt cloud disappeared. Ahead, the road was empty.
Had Orbits hidden while she drove by? She twisted around as far as her body would allow, but she could see she was alone.
She backtracked to the point where she estimated his dust trail had ended, but there was nowhere for him to go. It was as if he had vanished.
She killed her engine and climbed out of the car. After a few seconds she heard a motor somewhere in the wilderness on the east side of the road.
She walked down the shoulder, trying to judge exactly where it was coming from. About thirty yards back, she spotted an opening in the brush, just wide enough for a car. On the ground were two wheel ruts, overgrown with grass, and nailed to old fence posts on either side, half hidden by the brush, were faded NO TRESSPASSING signs.
She had no idea what could be back there, but Orbits must have known. He’d headed directly here.
She hurried back to her car.
Orbits parked in the same spot he had the night before. It was different here in the daylight, not quite as eerie.
He opened the back door and felt around under the front seat until he found his gun. After he put it back in his holster, he cut the ties holding the girl’s feet together and pulled her out. “Recognize this place?”
If she did, she showed no sign of it.
Grabbing her arm, he said, “This way,” and pushed her into the woods.
After a few minutes of walking, they came to the barbed-wire fence.
“Sit,” Orbits commanded her.
Once she was down, Orbits looked around until he found a couple of suitable branches of similar size and used them to separate two of the wire strands, creating a hole wide enough to duck through. As soon as he was sure the braces would hold, he made the girl go through first before following.
When they had reached the door in the middle of the clearing, the girl looked at it with a sort of awe, which made him think maybe this was her first time here.
He moved her over to where the tumblers were, pushed her to her knees, and flipped open the Plexiglas lid. “Open it,” he said.
Through her gag, she said, “Go to hell.”
“We don’t have time to mess around. Open it!”
She stared at him, unmoving.
He pulled his gun out and placed it against the side of her head. “You either put in the combination or I pull the trigger. That’s a promise.”
When she didn’t respond, he fired a bullet into the ground next to her leg and then aimed the gun at her head again. “Open it now.”
Dani and Marianne had never discussed this possibility. The assumption was that the location would never be found. That was their job, to keep it out of the hands of others.
She remembered once asking Marianne why they couldn’t just forget where it was and have it be forever lost? But she already knew the answer. The promise they’d made in memory of their mother and to each other. The promise to, if not balance the scales, then tip them a little bit in that direction. It was their duty, their familial penance.
If her captor were not alone, she would have chosen death rather than let him inside, knowing she wouldn’t have a chance of escape. But no one else was here and the man was clearly agitated. He’d likely make mistakes she could take advantage of.
Live, Marianne whispered. Finish our work.
Dani leaned over the tumblers and, with her hands still tied, turned them one by one until she’d input the full combination.
From below the steel rose a soft hum.
Dani jumped back as the hydraulic hinges began lifting the door open.
“Nice!” the man shouted.
When the door was out of the way, he and Dani looked in. A set of footholds were cut into the concrete wall below the door, running down like a ladder to a wide landing about eight feet down. On the left side of the landing was a door.
“What’s down there?” the man asked.
Dani said nothing.
“There’s gotta be some lights.”
She pointed at a junction box that could be accessed once they were on the landing.
“You sure?”
She shrugged.
Hell, yes, she was sure. Though she had never been here, she knew every inch of this place. Marianne had drilled it into her.
He studied the inside for a moment longer, and then said, “Here’s how we’re going to do this. I go first, but you come right after me. I’ll be holding on to you, so don’t even think about trying anything.”
A hand around her ankle, he lowered himself through the opening until only his upper body was still outside.
“Now you,” he said, giving her a yank.
She moved her leg through the opening until her foot found the uppermost cutout.
The man switched his hand from her ankle to the waist of her pants and gave it a tug. “Other leg.” When both her feet were on the cutout, he said, “How do we close this thing?”