Death by Denim Page 11

  “Wait. Can you pick the locks?”

  “Me?” I laughed. Well, not really a full-out laugh, but one of those “yeah, right” guffaws. “I’ve never even seen a set of handcuffs up close before now.”

  “But you have picked locks.”

  “Not these kind of locks.” Back at the resort, I’d learned the basics of lock picking from our super, but we’re talking about doors and cupboards. Handcuffs? No way.

  “The concept is pretty much the same, though, right?” Seth persisted.

  I chewed on my lip. I didn’t share Seth’s confidence, but it’s not like we had a whole lot of other options. I might as well give it a try. There was only one problem. “What am I going to use as a pick?”

  Seth scanned the room. “There’s got to be something we can use in here. Let’s look through the bins.”

  Without the use of our hands, even that simple task proved to be difficult. We had to turn around backward to dump the bins and then sift through the fabric scraps with our feet. It wasn’t a very effective way to look for any object small enough to fit into a handcuff lock. Besides, if we happened to find something, how were we supposed to pick it up?

  “This is going to take forever,” I said.

  “Let’s split up.” Seth pointed to the back corner of the room with his chin. “You take that corner and I’ll take the other and we’ll meet in the middle.”

  “I hope we’re not still going at it long enough to reach the middle,” I grumbled. Still, I slogged through the trash to my corner of the room and started looking.

  We worked in silence for maybe five minutes when suddenly Seth jumped back from the bin he was about to overturn. “Holy crap!”

  I spun around, expecting to see Labruzzo holding a gun on us or something. The look on Seth’s face as he stared into the bin was equally as chilling.

  “Aphra … you’d better come over here.”

  The tone of Seth’s voice grabbed my insides and twisted them tight. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head, brows pinching together. “I think it’s that guy … the agent from Seattle.”

  “What?” I rushed over to where Seth stood. There, half buried in rags, lay Ryan, his face slack and pale except for umber streaks of dried blood across his forehead and down one cheek. “No,” I whispered. When I ditched him, Ryan had been on his way to meet my mom. If they found him … I stumbled backward, darkness creeping into the corners of my vision.

  “Aphra? Are you all right?”

  My lips parted but I couldn’t find my voice.

  “You think he’s dead?” Seth’s words sounded far away.

  “I … I don’t know.” The way he lay crumpled in the bin, I couldn’t tell if Ryan was breathing or not—and I couldn’t check for a pulse with my hands stuck behind my back. I raised my eyes to meet Seth’s. “Help me get him out of there.”

  Together, we carefully tipped the bin on its side. Ryan gasped in pain as he rolled out onto the floor. I let out a breath. At least he was alive. But I could now see the gash on the side of his head. That must have been where all the blood on his face had come from. Brighter, crimson blood matted his hair and soaked the collar of his shirt. He was still bleeding.

  As if he could feel us staring at him, Ryan slowly raised his lids. His eyes rolled in their sockets until he finally managed to focus them on me. “Hey,” he said. His voice barely registered above a whisper.

  I bent over him. “How are you doing?”

  He drew in a serrated breath. “Been … better.”

  Seeing him struggle to form the words made my heart lurch. “Shhh. Just lie still. We’re going to get us out of here.”

  Ryan closed his eyes again, but his lips curved just enough to make me think he was trying to smile. He started to nod his head, but then winced and lay still again.

  “That cut looks bad,” Seth whispered.

  “He’ll be okay,” I said automatically. I hoped it was true. It looked as though he’d been hit pretty hard on the head. He could have a concussion. Judging from his coloring and the amount of red soaked into his shirt and the rags around his head, he’d probably lost a lot of blood.

  My wrists already ached where the edges of the metal cut into them, but I twisted and pulled my hands in frustration, trying to work the cuffs off. Trussed up as I was, there was nothing I could do to help Ryan. I couldn’t wrap his wound. I couldn’t make him more comfortable. I couldn’t do anything. He drew in a deep breath and held it, wincing again when he let it out. I pulled against the cuffs even harder.

  Seth bumped me with his shoulder. “Aphra, stop. Your skin’s raw as it is.”

  When I looked up at him, I wanted to cry. In part because I felt so helpless, but also because of the concern and confusion I could read on his face.

  “I’ve got to help him,” I said. “This … this is all my fault.”

  Seth shook his head. “No. Don’t start blaming yourself for—”

  “But it’s true. At first he was set to come with me to Varese but then I heard him talking on the phone. He was going to try and get me to go to Milan, so I ditched him. Then he had no choice but to come after me. If I hadn’t been so stubborn—”

  “I’m glad you were,” Seth said. “If you hadn’t been, I might never have seen you again.”

  I blinked back tears. “But I led them right to you! This is what The Mole wanted all along. I played right into his hands.”

  “Aphra. Stop it.” Seth’s voice became hard. “He used you, yeah. But what if you hadn’t come? My family would have run again, but we would never have been free. He would never stop hunting us.”

  “I know.” I thought of my frustration in Paris and I couldn’t even imagine how sick of running Seth must be. “That’s why I had to come.”

  His eyebrow cocked upward. “And here I thought you came to see me.”

  I allowed myself a smile at his attempt to make light of the situation. “That, too.”

  At my feet, Ryan moaned again. My smile faded. No matter what Seth said, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Ryan wouldn’t be lying on the floor if it wasn’t for me. When I stepped off the train to Milan, it was a pretty good guess he’d caught the next train to Varese to find me. If he hadn’t come after me …

  If he hadn’t come after me, he would have shown up in Milan empty-handed. Knowing Ryan, he wasn’t going to do that. Which meant he would have had to call someone to explain why we weren’t coming. I sucked in a breath.

  “What is it?” Seth asked.

  “Someone knew where he’d be.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I dropped to my knees next to Ryan and nudged him. “Did you tell them you were coming back for me?”

  He cracked an eye open again and tried to lift his head. “I … don’t know what—”

  “I heard the phone call. I know you were supposed to divert me to Milan.”

  His face went slack again. “Oh.”

  Seth’s eyes flicked from me to Ryan and back again, confused, questioning. I turned away from him; I didn’t want to explain about the shed.

  “Did you tell them I got off the train?”

  With some effort, Ryan nodded.

  “So they knew that you were going to follow me.”

  He nodded again. “They said they would find us here.”

  I groaned.

  “Wait. It could be a good thing,” Seth said. “We need more numbers on our side. Maybe if—”

  “No. Don’t you get it?” My voice rose with my frustration, and Ryan shushed me. I stood so that Seth could hear my whisper. “It’s just like The Mole said. He knew they were coming. Caraday must have told him. And she probably said where The Mole could find Ryan, too.”

  “No,” Ryan said. “Not Caraday. She—”

  “She gave us up!” My stomach twisted with anger. Seth was right; it wasn’t my fault that we were there. The whole thing was one big setup. No matter what I did or didn’t do, The Mole would ha
ve his endgame. He said that he’d released the horseman because Mom had not sent me to Varese as he had demanded, but that wasn’t exactly the truth. I had come on my own. I had delivered myself. That should have changed the outcome, but it hadn’t. It just changed the venue.

  Behind my back, my hands curled into tight, angry fists. My mom was racing into a trap. Seth’s mom and dad as well. Ryan lay bleeding on the floor with Seth and me manacled so we couldn’t help him. I had reached my boiling point. The Mole had taken as much from me as I was going to allow.

  From the moment my mom had become involved in helping the Mulos, The Mole had had a hold over our lives. I thought of all those years on the island, me believing that my mom hadn’t come with us because she didn’t want to when in reality, she was protecting us. She knew how ruthless The Mole could be. As long as he was after her, she’d had to stay away from us. The Mole had stolen four years from my family.

  And what about Seth’s? The Mulos had been on the run since Seth was in grade school. The Mole had chased them, taunted them, tried to kill them.

  Like he had tried to kill my dad. My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands. Like he had killed Bianca. And Joe. And Lévêque, and I didn’t even know how many others.

  I thought of The Mole’s smug smile as he hid like a coward in his little room above the working floor. He probably never did any of the dirty work himself. He just sat in the shadows, orchestrating, plucking strings. Well, I wasn’t going to be played anymore.

  “No more talk,” I said. “Let’s keep looking for something to get the cuffs off.”

  “Grab one of those … U pins,” Ryan suggested.

  The little silver pins were scattered across the floor. No doubt they’d been used to secure bolts of cloth. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of using one of them before. It’s just that with those sharp points …

  Ryan must have sensed my hesitation. “They’re perfect,” he assured me. “You just … break one in half. Use the … bent part as your pick.”

  Seth slid me a look. “Will that work?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “We’ve got a CIA operative telling us to use a pin and you’re asking me if it will work?”

  “I was just checking.”

  “Yeah,” I conceded. “I think it will work.”

  We sat on the floor, each one of us feeling behind our backs blindly, fingers skittering over the trash in search of a pin. You’d think it would be easy, but it wasn’t. Finally, Ryan had to push himself up onto one elbow to give us directions.

  “A little more … left. Closer to you. Almost. Right there.”

  “Got it!” Seth whispered.

  “Good.” Ryan lay back down. “Break it in half at … the base so you have a … little hook on the end. Aphra, you move closer to him so he can reach your cuffs.”

  It wasn’t easy, but I scooted backward so that my shoulders were touching Seth’s. He reached out and found my fingers with his.

  “Feel for … the round part of … the keyhole,” Ryan said.

  Behind me, I could feel Seth’s head shake. “Aphra should do it—she’s picked locks before.”

  Ryan raised his brows at me, lips pressing together like he was trying not to smile.

  “Nothing illegal,” I said.

  He let the smile break free then, but it quickly turned to a wince. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He didn’t look good. We had to get him some help. Quickly.

  I stretched my hand out and felt for Seth’s. “Hand me the pick. Carefully. I’ll try.” I stretched my fingers out to take the pick, but our behind-the-back coordination was not great. It dropped with a little klink! onto the floor. Seth tensed. I could literally feel his frustration building.

  “It’s okay,” I assured him. “Just give me the other piece.”

  Slowly and painstakingly, we managed to transfer the piece of U pin from his hand to mine.

  “Okay, I’ve got it.” I said. “Now what?”

  “Feel for the … keyhole,” Ryan said. “It’s round with … a little line coming from it.”

  I fingered the warm metal of Seth’s cuff until I found the hole. “Yes, I’ve got it.”

  “Insert the hooked end into the hole … about one o’clock.”

  I fumbled with the pick to fit it into the circle part of the hole and felt around the mechanism. Like Seth had guessed, the feel was similar to other locks I had picked back at the resort, just much, much smaller. I pushed and twisted and pulled the pick and nothing happened. Again and again and again I tried until my hands grew slick with sweat. The sharp end of the pin-pick poked my fingers and the metal cuffs chafed against my wrists. Meanwhile, Ryan was losing more blood. Getting weaker.

  “It’s no use,” I cried. “I can’t do it.”

  Seth curled his fingers up around mine. “It’s okay. Just relax. You can do this.”

  Warmth spread upward from my fingers and swelled in my chest. I know it sounds sappy, but if Seth had so much faith in me, I wasn’t going to let him down. I closed my eyes and felt for the latch with the pick again. Once, twice, three times. Finally, I felt it move. “I … I think I got it.”

  But nothing happened.

  “Why won’t it open?”

  Ryan blew out a long breath. “It’s probably double-locked.”

  “What?” Panic squeezed my throat like a fist. “What does that mean?”

  “Calm down.” Ryan’s voice dropped and he shot a glance at the door. “It’s nothing to worry about. Double-locked cuffs … have a kind of a bolt that keeps the ratchet from moving. You’ve managed … to release one. The second will be easier.”

  Easy. Sure. Now if I could only make my heart stop racing around my chest and keep the sweat from soaking through my shirt.

  “Aphra, look at me.” Ryan’s eyes met mine, steady, sure. “All you have to … do is find the narrow straight part that … runs upward from the circle.”

  I nodded, clamping my jaw tight, and jiggled the pin until it slid into the secondary slot. Ryan was right about it being easier; I got it after only four tries. With a click and a metallic scrape, the handcuff swung open on its hinge.

  “Yes! Thank you!” Seth whispered. He twisted around and drew me into a backward hug, the handcuff swinging from his left wrist.

  New pain shot through my shoulders from the pressure and I shied away. “Watch the arms!”

  He drew back. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “It’s okay. I’m just a little …”

  My voice trailed off as I caught sight of Ryan. He had dropped back into the rags, face sweaty and pale. He gave me a weak smile.

  “Seth.” I pointed to Ryan with my chin. “His head.”

  Seth touched the handcuffs on my wrists. “Will you be all right for a few more minutes?”

  I forced a smile of my own and tried to ignore the throbbing ache in my shoulders. “I’m fine. Take care of Ryan.”

  Handcuff swaying, Seth quickly sorted through lengths of cloth on the floor until he found a piece long enough and clean enough to wrap around Ryan’s head to try and stop the bleeding. He had just finished tying the knot when he stiffened, head cocked like a Labrador.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  “Do you hear that?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Seth jumped up and tiptoed to the door. He pressed his ear against the worn paint and listened.

  “It sounds like they’re leaving.”

  I struggled to my feet and ran over to the door. Sure enough, I could hear muffled voices, fading footsteps, car engines revving up, doors closing. They were scuttling out of the factory like rats abandoning the ship. Which could mean only one thing.

  We were running out of time.

  CHAPTER 12

  Seth turned to me, dark brows drawn low. “We’ve got to get out of here.” “You think?”

  “Give me the pin so I can get those cuffs off you.”

  The pin. It had been in my hand when I r
ushed to meet Seth at the door. My stomach tumbled right down to my knees. “I dropped it.”

  Panic and irritation clouded his face, but he drew a deep breath, like he was sucking in calm. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I wasn’t sure if he was assuring me, or himself. “We’ll make another one.” He scanned the floor for more U pins.

  “Seth,” I said, my voice small. “We have to stop them.”

  He halted his search and stared at me as understanding dawned. If The Mole’s people were leaving, that meant that the endgame was near. It meant that my mom and his parents were getting closer. And when they came looking for us …

  Seth must have been thinking the same thing. “But how would they find this place? We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

  I shook my head at the irony. The Mole was using us as bait, which was exactly what my mom hadn’t allowed me to be. “I’m sure he left plenty of bread crumbs for them to follow. Besides”—I gave Ryan a sharp look—“I’m guessing we’re on GPS.”

  Ryan raised his eyes to meet mine. He held my gaze for a long time before he nodded miserably.

  “Wait.” Seth shook his head in confusion. “What?”

  “I should have figured it out earlier,” I said. “The Agency does like its techno toys.” Back in Seattle, one of my mom’s old partners had boasted about putting tracking devices in everything.

  Seth threw a sharp look at Ryan. “He’s got a tracker on him?”

  “Either that, or I do,” I said.

  Ryan closed his eyes. “How … did you know?”

  I took a deep breath before speaking. Until that moment I hadn’t been sure, but all the pieces were fitting into place. “You wouldn’t believe the rules I had to follow with my mom,” I said. “No phones, no e-mails, no friends. Keep to yourself, watch your back, don’t draw attention to yourself. We should have been invisible. But somehow you knew exactly where to find us.”

  “Lévêque … could have told us you … were meeting in the park,” Ryan countered.

  “True. But you didn’t find me in the park. You were waiting in the train station. Lévêque couldn’t have told you I was going to go there. He was … dead.” My voice caught on that last word.