Bold Tricks

CHAPTER TWELVE

Scattered Spanish entered my dreams until my brain somehow figured out that this was reality and I needed to wake up. Camden’s hand on my face helped too.

My eyes flew open and I immediately froze as I remembered where I was. I was lying down on my stomach on the loft of Travis’s library. Camden was across from me, his head inches from mine, one hand stroking my face, the other on his gun. He implored me with eyes not to make a sound or panic. I swallowed hard, trying to still my heart, and listened.

A bunch of men were yelling in Spanish to each other. It was coming from outside the room, most likely from outside the house. My suspicions were cleared up when I heard the front door slam and someone stomped inside.

“Idiots,” a man yelled angrily.

Travis.

I knew that voice too well. I had to fight against the urge to pick up my gun, leap off the balcony and hunt him down. It would be so simple. I’d probably die in the process but for a split second I didn’t care. I only wanted him dead. Then I realized how badly the revenge still ran through me, the pain his presence still brought me.

Knowing this, knowing everything about me, Camden brushed the hair off my face. And my thoughts went to him. How silly we both looked in the daylight, dried mud caked on in splotches all over ourselves.

There was someone else walking out in the hall, the footsteps going past the library and stopping not too far away. Perhaps by the laundry room. I prayed they wouldn’t need any towels.

“Is everything all right, sir?” the person asked in a near perfect American accent.

“No, it’s not fine,” Travis answered rather snidely. “I don’t understand how they haven’t been found yet. When was the last time they were spotted?”

“Aguascalientes,” the man answered. “Still nothing different. We are trying—”

“They should have died. They should have been in that car. I don’t understand how something so god damn simple can go wrong.”

“At least they were heading north. Not coming here.”

“I couldn’t give a shit if they were coming here or not. I want them fucking dead so I don’t have to worry about them fucking things up again. They made me look like a damn idiot. The whole cartel, we looked like damn idiots. All of us.”

“If you don’t think they’re coming here, then why don’t you just …”

A pause. “Just what? Kill her? What kind of barbarian do you think I am? She’s my wife.”

The word wife stabbed me. My eyes flew to Camden. He couldn’t have been talking about my mother. Could he?

“I don’t mean any disrespect,” the man said quickly. “I just figured from the way you were … talking … the other night. From what she’s gone through … that it was on the agenda.”

Travis chuckled maliciously. “Agenda? There is no agenda. I will deal with Amelie when I am ready to deal with her. Until then, keep her down there.” He grunted, his footsteps echoing down the hall. “Fix me an omelette, would you? It would be nice if someone here wasn’t completely incompetent.”

Amelie. My mother. A bunch of thoughts flew into my head. My mother was Travis’s wife, even though that made no sense at all. I never saw a wedding ring on her finger and my father had died. But he had mentioned she was “down there” which I had to assume meant someplace in the house like a basement. That at least gave us a direction to go in and I could try and make sense about all the other shit later.

Then there was the fact that he didn’t once mention Gus.

At least Este’s hunch about Javier not being expected here was true. Then again, if he said the last place that we’d been spotted was Aguascalientes, then whatever happened to Javier and the crew out there in the jungle wasn’t orchestrated by Travis.

Which meant … oh fuck.

My eyes widened and judging from the way that Camden narrowed his eyes into a steely gaze, he was realizing the same thing. Nothing had happened to Javier.

We were set up.

They had planned for us to come here.

And here is exactly where we were.

Motherfucker.

I was pretty sure my blood was boiling over. I could feel my veins pulsing at my temples, my face growing hot and red. I was ready to go fucking apeshit. I was ready to lose my fucking mind.

Camden let go of his gun and put his other hand to my face and held me firmly.

“Hey,” he whispered softly. “It’s going to be okay.”

I tried to shake my head but his grip increased.

“Ellie. It’s going to be okay. We know your mother is here. We can get her out.”

“We were set up,” I hissed harshly. “And Gus?”

“We’ll get him too.”

“Where is he?”

“If he’s here, we’ll find him. But we find her first. She can help us.”

“They probably know we’re in here.”

He smiled, briefly, softly. “They probably do. But we don’t know how this will play out. You want your mother and Gus. They want Travis dead. We might be able to have both those things and walk out of here alive. We at least have to try.”

I understood what he was saying but it didn’t stop the burning pain in my gut, that feeling of utter foolishness. I hated myself for not seeing what Javier had been doing. He was spiteful more than anything, spurned by my devotion to Camden, to the death of his sister, the death that I inadvertently caused. He was a loose cannon, mad for power, and I had told myself that when I least suspected him that’s when he’d pull the rug out from under me. And even though I told Camden I wouldn’t put it past Javier to set me up, I still hadn’t believed it. I thought he loved me enough to want what’s best for me. To see me well. I believed in his love without remembering what kind of love it was.

Gus, my dear sweet Gus, had once told me to never mistake obsession for love. He was so right, time and time again.

Javier had set Camden and I up. To come here. Perhaps to walk free or perhaps to fail. He left me in that forest, using me as a pawn, walking blindly forward for Gus and my mother. He was both doing me a favor, leading me to what I wanted, and cementing my doom. Because whatever Javier was after, it wasn’t my happiness. It was his. And at this point in our lives, what made us both happy was very far apart. I wanted family. I wanted love. I wanted Camden.

He wanted power. Just power and only that.

I closed my eyes, trying to escape the humiliation at how wrong I was about everything. I didn’t handle being made a fool of very well. We listened awhile longer to the sounds of the mansion. It sounded like someone was at the other end of the house, perhaps the man in the kitchen, making the omelette. When those sounds quieted down, I could only assume that the breakfast was being delivered to Travis in some other room in the house.

As long as we didn’t stumble across that room, this was our chance.

I nodded at Camden and we got up.

It wasn’t until we had carefully climbed down the ladder and onto the main floor of the library that I realized how badly I needed to pee. That was the thing about this that they don’t show you in the movies - everyone has to pee at some point, no matter how inconvenient the circumstances.

I grabbed Camden’s arm and whispered, “What are the chances of me finding a bathroom nearby?”

“Are you serious?”

I nodded, eyes wide. “I don’t joke about peeing.”

“Go behind the couch,” he said. “Maybe do it on a stack of first editions while you’re at it.”

I nearly smiled. Pissing on Travis’s floor was a small bit of sweet revenge.

I went behind the couch which was right by the windows and did my business. When I was done I peeled back just the tiniest bit of curtain and peeked out. I could see the wide front steps leading out to the elaborate courtyard in the front, a row of golf carts across it. There were two men with rifles stationed at the foot of the stairs, looking alert, two men we’d probably end up having to take out when it came time to get out of here.

I pulled up my pants and Camden supressed a smile as I stepped out from behind the couch.

“See anything?” he whispered.

“Just the two men with rifles that I saw last night. I don’t think this place is as heavily armed as I thought. Or I’m terribly wrong.”

He rubbed his lips together and breathed out sharply through his nose. “I hate it when you’re wrong.”

“Me too.” I shook out my arms and legs, took my gun out of my boot and said, “Let’s go down and get my mother.”

Of course, we didn’t know where “down” was. We slinked out into the hallway, making sure the coast was clear, and sidled our way down the walls, careful not to brush off any of the ugly paintings. We checked every room down at this end of the house and, with great trepidation, every door. There were bedrooms, studies, game rooms, all untouched and unused, but nothing that would lead to a basement.

We stopped at the end of the hall and I rubbed my palms against my jeans. There was only one way for us to go, in the direction of the kitchen and Travis. I looked to Camden who closed his eyes and took a calming breath before giving me a short nod.

We crept back down the hall, my pulse quickening once we passed the safety zone of the library and the laundry room. Everything beyond this was unknown and occupied. It was going to take either a lot of luck or a lot of bullets to get us through this.

And first, we had to cross through the foyer.

We stopped at the edge of the wall and I peered quickly around it. The foyer was all marble and gaudy accents, tile floors and hanging chandeliers with a giant winding staircase leading up to the second floor. I could see through the front stain glass windows the shadows of two guards outside, seemingly closer to the door than the pair I had just seen.

I held up four fingers to Camden, letting him know there were four of them in total now. Four of them, two of us and who knew how many others there were in different parts of the compound. The odds were continually stacked against us.

Lightly, silently, as if we were running on air, Camden and I scampered across the foyer before we were spotted by anyone and didn’t even relax once we were safely behind the wall of the adjacent hallway. I could hear noises, clattering of pots and pans, coming from the room closest to us – the kitchen.

I motioned for Camden to stay still. I didn’t know what I was doing now. The fear inside was struggling to take over, to become free. But I wouldn’t let it. I would control my fear. I would use it in my favor, to work for me.

My fear was about to help me make some very hard decisions.

I crept silently over to the kitchen doorway, crouched low and poked my head around it. There was a man, his back to me thank god, putting away stuff in the fridge. I didn’t know if he was the same man I heard speaking to Travis earlier, but it didn’t matter. He had to be taken out if we were going to get out of here. The risk of him seeing us was far too great.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a silencer on my gun, so I couldn’t shoot him even though I currently had a clear shot. I also didn’t have any means of knocking the guy out without causing any racket. He wasn’t as big as Camden but he was still bigger than me and would put up a fight. At the first sound of struggle, I knew Travis or the guards would come running.

So it had to be me.

I had to do this.

Very slowly, very carefully, I pulled the knife out from my boot. It felt cold and slippery in my sweating hands and I held onto it as tight as I could, channeling my fear through my hand.

I stayed crouched, stayed low, and eased my way toward the man.

I got close.

Really close.

Hoped he couldn’t hear how loud my heart was beating.

I straightened up.

Knife out.

Hand shaking.

The man reached further into the fridge, grabbing something.

I was right behind him.

I raised my arms, one ready to put over his mouth, the other to draw the blade across his throat.

A tear leaked out of my eye.

He suddenly stepped backward, into me, and turned around in surprise. Wide, dark eyes met mine.

He probably expected to see Travis.

Not me.

And before either of us could even react, Camden was sprinting across the kitchen.

Grabbing the knife out of my hand and shouldering me out of the way.

He put his hand over the man’s mouth and pushed the man’s head back into one of the shelves in the fridge.

Camden took the knife with one swift motion, slit the man’s throat.

The man’s eyes widened even more then froze, blood spilling out of him and down his white shirt. Camden held the man there until he was certain he was dead. Then he took the man in his arms and nodded to the pantry, trying to get me to open the door.

I couldn’t move. My body rocked with terrors while everything inside of me froze. Blood pooled toward my boots.

Camden managed to open the pantry and put the body inside, closing the door quietly behind him. Then he came over to the sink, took paper towels from the dispenser and quickly wiped up the blood at my feet. He shoved the reddened towels under the sink, closed the fridge door and grabbed my shoulders. I looked down at his hands, covered in blood, leaving bloody prints on me.

“Ellie,” he whispered, shaking me. “Ellie. Look at me. Look at me.”

I raised my head and looked at his eyes. They were wild, pupils completely dilated, but they were familiar. He was still my Camden.

Oh god, what had he done?

What had I been about to do?

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

“Ellie,” he said again, his voice hoarser now. “I couldn’t let you do it, you’d never forgive yourself. I’d rather this be on my conscience than yours. I’m getting my son back and I’m going to do whatever I can to make that happen.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out another gun. “I found this on him. Do you want it or should I?”

I licked my lips and managed to say, “You have it.”

“I’m keeping you safe,” he said and quickly kissed my forehead. “Come on.”

He grabbed my hand and led me out of the kitchen back to the hallway.

As sick with shock and horror at what we had just done, I felt a twinge of relief deep inside. The man, who would have no doubt killed us, was dead. We didn’t have to worry about him. And I now knew, I saw, that Camden was prepared to do absolutely anything to keep me alive and get back to his son. I could only hope that he’d make peace with it one day, if we managed to get out of this on our own two feet. The human heart had the capacity to take on only so much and I knew Camden’s heart was overburdened as it was.

We continued down the hall, pausing every few steps to listen. There was some shuffling from one of the rooms at the very end. The door was open and the room faced to the back where the morning sun was spilling into it. It seemed like a place that Travis would sit and have breakfast, perhaps a sunroom where he could sit and think about all the money he was making, drugs he was distributing, people he was killing.

I wondered if Camden was going to take me straight there. Take himself straight to Travis, kill him and have it all over with.

But someone else’s voice came from that room, speaking in Spanish. Travis answered him, also in Spanish, albeit rusty. I couldn’t really figure out what they were talking about, the news perhaps, some event in Honduras. Unfortunately, that made two of them in there. It wouldn’t be so easy now. I doubted we could go in the room the way we were and take them out.

Camden paused then instead of continuing toward the voices, he carefully tried the handle on the first door to our left.

Locked.

And locked for a reason.

He looked to me questioningly. Could I do this?

I nodded and brought out the lock picker with fumbling fingers. I kept hearing Travis down the hall, knowing how close we were to him, how close we were to getting my mother out. Though it took longer than normal, I managed to pick the lock. We carefully pushed the door open and I held my breath waiting for it creak loudly. It didn’t.

And there were a set of stairs leading down into the dark.

We had found it.

Camden motioned for me to go first, the stairs were lit by a bare bulb, and he ever-so-carefully closed the door behind us. We went down slowly, step by step, my legs feeling weak, my jaw clenched hard.

We had found it but I was afraid to see what it was.

I stepped off the last step, my boots on hard concrete. There was darkness all around us, the light from the stairs not reaching very far.

Suddenly a flashback came into my vision. Me, eleven years old, walking down the stairs to Travis’s basement by accident, looking for money that wasn’t there and only finding the chemicals that would change the course of my entire life.

It wasn’t quite ironic but it was definitely something.

A moan came from the corner of the room and I realized that though we couldn’t see what or who was down here, they could see us.

I squeezed my gun for assurance and then took a step forward.

“Hello?” I whispered softly. “Mom?”

The moan got louder. I walked toward it and then Camden quickly brought out his phone, shining the weak light straight ahead of us.

My chest was shredded by what I saw.

There was a cage in the corner of the room, a large cage, like one you’d see when transporting animals to a zoo.

My mother was in the cage.

She was sitting half up, leaning against the bars, wearing what looked like the same dress I had seen her wear at Travis’s party. Her hands were gathered behind her back. Duct tape around her mouth. Her eyes were crazed, filled with tears, pleading for us.

“We need light,” Camden’s voice came through, calm and steady. He got up quickly, shining his phone around and found another bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and pulled the string.

Everything lit up. I glanced around me quickly, taking in a very familiar sight. It was like the same basement he scarred me in but worse, much, much worse. It looked like a meth lab crossed with a mad scientist’s lab. And very close to where my mother lay in her dirty cage were glass jar after glass jar of crawling black insects. Ants. Bullet ants. Este’s assumption about Travis using them for torture wasn’t just a silly hunch after all.

I looked back to my mom and immediately crouched down beside her, trying to ignore the welts she had all over her bare arms and legs. Insect bites.

“Mom,” I said, my voice breaking. “It’s me, Ellie. Your daughter. We’re going to get out of here okay?”

She shook her head back and forth, tears spilling down her cheeks, and I reached into the cage and pulled the duct tape off of her mouth in one go.

She winced from the pain and I whispered, “Sorry.”

“Ellie,” she cried softly and her voice reached down into my very soul. If I didn’t hold it together I was going to lose it.

“Mom, it’s okay.”

“You won’t get out of here,” she cried.

“Yes, we will,” I told her, my throat closing up. “Together. This is Camden. He’s going to help us.” I motioned behind me to Camden who was crouched down at my back. “Where is Gus?”

“Gus?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

My veins had more ice than blood in them.

“Gus,” I said again, fighting to keep my voice steady. “He was taken by Travis. You know Gus, Mom, you know Gus. He came all the way to Mexico with Camden, to get me. We have to get him, I owe him this.”

“I’m sorry sweetie,” my mom said softly, shaking her head. “Gus isn’t here.”