Never Forget: A Novella in the Echo Platoon Series (12 page)

“Me neither,” piped up the third man.

Curtis held his breath while praying for deliverance.

“Then what do you suggest?” Tom mocked. “We’ve made it this far. NCIS has nothing on us. We’re practically in the clear. We let them out of here, this one’ll go running to his mother. Even if we move our stash, his testimony alone would sink us.”

A thoughtful silence filled the chamber. Curtis overheard a distant rumble of thunder.

“So we lock this one in.”

Will’s suggestion turned Curtis’s blood to ice-water. He glanced at Santana, who fixed his wide eyes on Curtis and said nothing. “I promise, I won’t tell anyone,” he swore, wishing his voice hadn’t cracked.

“Shut up,” Tom bit out. “Lock him up where?”

“Where we hid the boxes,” Will continued. “We gotta move them now anyway.”

“What if he crawls up the tunnel and gets out?”

“Number one, he won’t fit. Number two, that line leads to one place and there ain’t no way out of it. I saw to that. He’ll be trapped in there. Ain’t no one going to hear him yellin’ for help, neither. In a few days, he’ll die on his own.”

Curtis’s legs threatened to give out. They wouldn’t really leave him locked behind the grate, would they? He suddenly remembered his cellphone and hope bolstered his quaking knees. He just had to hide it before they realized what he had.

“Where can we put the stash?” asked the third man.

“I’ll put the tubs in the crawlspace at my sister’s until we find something better,” Will offered.

“No, I’ll take them,” Tom decided. “That way your nephew won’t be helping himself.” He sent Santana a hard glare. “You’d better not say a word, kid, or I’ll kill you myself,” he threatened.

Caught in the cone of the flashlight’s yellow glow, Santana’s eyes resembled underwater pools. He shook his head, unable to speak.

“He won’t talk,” Uncle Will said with absolute conviction.

“All right then.” Tom wrestled Santana in the opposite direction. “Time to put this rifle back with the others,” he said.

Uncle Will swung Curtis around, propelling him on weak legs to follow.

As they moved deeper into the sewers, Curtis slipped his fingers into his pocket and pulled out his cheap flip phone, hastily shoving it under the waistband of his pants and into his underwear. For the first time ever, he was glad his mom still bought him uncool tighty-whities.

These men were going to lock him into a narrow, concrete pipe thinking they would leave him there to die. Hah. He’d call 9-1-1 as soon as they left, and he’d be free by nightfall.

I’m going to be okay,
he assured himself.

Chapter Twelve

‡

S
UMMONING HIS SELF-RESTRAINT,
Rusty pressed Maya gently back upon the towel he’d spread across the sand. She lay back, her skin luminescent in the fire’s glow, her eyes wide with wonder. The dark sky overhead gave a rumble that reflected the desire fulminating in Rusty’s bloodstream. Bracing his weight on one elbow, he lay next to her in lieu of stretching his body over hers. A gentleman never took advantage on the first date.

Her kisses would suffice.

As he’d imagined from the moment he’d met her, her lips were heaven to kiss. She tasted of the mellow wine they’d imbibed, and she responded with a willingness that humbled him, taking off her glasses and setting them in the sand.

Mesmerized by the pale depths of her green eyes, he gave a groan of hunger as he fastened his mouth to hers. With his free hand, he stroked, the indentation of her narrow waist and the sweet flare of her hips, stopping short of palming the swells of her breasts or, better yet, sliding his fingers up under her skirt toward the heated juncture of her thighs.

And before he took this any further, he owed it to her to be completely honest, confessing something that might send her running in the opposite direction.

Ending the kiss with reluctance, he drew a deep breath to diminish his lust. He cleared his throat. “I need to tell you something.

She blinked up at him, and the film of desire lifted from her eyes.

Did he really have to do this? The last thing he wished to do right then was scare her off. He queried his conscience one last time. Yes, he did. She deserved to know what she was getting into.

“I’ve seen a lot of men die, Maya. Whether it’s the death of an enemy or a colleague, it makes no difference. They’re all human beings.”

She nodded slowly, searching his face as if it were a mysterious map.

He pressed on. “When you’re with people you care about in the moment that they cross over, it’s like . . . you’re in a holy place. That’s the only way I know to describe it. It’s holy the way church is, only it’s scary as hell.”

Her gaze took on an anxious quality, but she kept quiet, clearly sensing he had more to say.

“Sometimes, the men I’ve been with at death come back and visit me.” There. He came right out and said it.

A tiny frown appeared between her finely drawn eyebrows. She reached for her glasses and slipped them on to see him better. “What do you mean?”

Crap.
This was going to sound really hokey to a woman who, by virtue of her profession, believed in hard, factual evidence. “Ian came to my room the other night. He stood there looking at me while I talked to you on the phone.”

He held his breath, waiting for her to say something, but she only blinked, perhaps wondering whether he was pulling her leg.

“He’s not the only one. I see them all—every man who’s ever died while I was with them. It’s not as uncommon as you might think,” he added—at least not according to the Edgar Casey Foundation that dealt with the supernatural. He’d visited them on a couple of occasions and found comfort in their assessment that he was perfectly normal.

“Do they . . . um . . .talk to you?” she asked, a thread of reservation woven through her voice.

He couldn’t lie. “Sometimes.”

Her gaze looked suddenly guarded. “Did Ian talk to you?”

“No. Not yet.”

The admission that he fully expected to chat with Ian one day clearly rattled her. She squirmed away from him, signaling her desire for more space.

Damn it
. He shifted away, berating himself as she sat up slowly, staring at him like she’d never really seen him before. Something hard and uncomfortable wedged itself beneath his breastbone.

“I guess I shouldn’t have told you,” he added, as the silence stretched thin between them.

“You’re not making this up,” she said. The regret in her voice was obvious.

“No.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded weary. Why the fuck would he make up something that made him sound crazy? He’d hoped maybe Ian’s spirit had visited her, too, and that she’d understand. But, no. Apparently, only he’d had that dubious honor.

“Okay.” She nodded, her gaze sliding toward the fire to gaze at embers. “I need to think about this,” she stated in a distant voice.

The ache under his breastbone increased. “Of course.”

Just then a loud crack exploded overhead and lightning lit up the beach as bright as day. Darkness followed just as quickly, along with an ominous rumble and a few fat drops of rain.

“I guess we’d better pack up,” he said, grateful to the weather for dignifying his retreat by providing an excuse.

What a hell of a way to ruin a perfect evening. Why, oh why, did he have to be so freaking honest?

*

C
URTIS WAITED UNTIL
the last echo of the men’s footsteps faded. Total darkness pressed in on him, hemming him in like the narrow tunnel he’d been forced to crawl up inside.

They’d searched his pockets for a phone and ended up taking his money. Then they’d swung the tubs full of guns out of the tunnel and forced him to crawl inside, face first.

As he’d craned his neck to look back at them, they closed the grate behind him and replaced the padlock. Then Tom, having dragged a confession out of Santana as to how he’d opened it in the first place, had taken the screwdriver and tamped the screws down tight.

“There’s no way he’s gettin’ out of here now,” he’d declared.

They had finally left him there—to die. And not a word or a look from Santana, reassuring him that he would come back for him or call the authorities.

Curtis had watched them walk away, taking the light with them. With the hard plastic of his cellphone bruising his nuts, he hadn’t cried or begged for mercy. He couldn’t wait for them to leave.

At last, when all he could hear was the steady trickle of the water chasing through the pipes, he reached inside his drawers and pulled his phone out.

The green glow of the keypad drove back the shadows, staving off his panic. He deliberated a moment—call his mother first or 9-1-1?

He opted for his mom. The phone chirped as he pressed the keys. Then he put it to his ear, breathing heavily as he rehearsed what he was going to say to her.

He waited for a ringing sound . . . and waited . . . and waited.

Oh, no
. He glanced at the bars on his screen, and his hopes plummeted. One bar. He didn’t have enough cellular reception.

Oh, God, no
. He’d been counting on the phone to get him out of there. But the depth of the tunnel and the density of the earth above it kept his phone from working.

Don’t panic!

But his lungs labored for oxygen and fear paralyzed him.

No one but Santana and the gun smugglers knew where he was. Santana would be too afraid to tell anyone. He could end up rotting in here, just like Uncle Will had intended!

A sob of fear broke through the stricture of his throat. The cement enclosure magnified the sound, driving home just how terrified he was becoming.

Don’t let fear take over
. Rusty had never said that to him, but Curtis could practically hear him saying that. What would Rusty do under these circumstances? He’d think his way through it.

He knew the grate was locked. He’d heard the distinct click of the deadbolt after they’d shut him in. Then Tom, having gotten a confession out of Santana that he’d unscrewed the hinges to break in, had taken the screwdriver and twisted the screws down tight. There was no getting out the way Curtis had gone in. So, now what?

A distant rumble of thunder seemed to echo down the pipe he was in. In the next instant an unmistakable wetness touched his elbows, then his belly, then his knees. He lifted himself away from it, only to strike his head and shoulders on the ceiling of the tunnel.

Rainwater.

He snatched up his cell before it got wet and faced its dim light ahead of him. It must be storming outside. Clearly, the tunnel sloped downward if the rain was only now reaching him. That meant if he crawled forward, he’d be headed toward better cellular reception.

Uncle Will had said something about there being no way out. But that couldn’t be true if water was coming in. Maybe the line would lead to an opening he could squeeze through. At the very least, he could make a phone call.

Closing his cell with a decisive click, he snuffed out the light. Darkness engulfed him. He slid the phone into his back pocket, swallowed his fear, then started forward. The water that had been seeping down the pipe streamed past his hands and knees, nearly an inch deep. He could hear it pouring out of the drain behind him into the concrete main.

“Oh, come on,” he moaned, wondering what would happen if this line continued to fill. What if he drowned down here?

Stay focused
.

He crawled as quickly as he could, the rough cement floor abrading his palms and his knees. His breath sawed in the enclosed space, louder even than the sound of water rippling around him.

The tunnel seemed endless. He lost track of how far he’d gone. The water level had crept to his wrists. His palms and knees felt raw. Did this line ever end? He paused for a moment, dried a hand on his T-shirt and pulled out his phone to check for reception. Two bars, yes!

Suddenly something furry bumped into his knee. He jerked reflexively, and tiny claws sank into his thigh.

“Aaagh!” Startled, he shook it off, dropping his phone in the process. It splashed into the water. He groped for it, hoping to snatch it out in time to avoid damage. Where was it? Not there. Not anywhere. The current must have carried it away.

“No!” His howl of despair echoed up and down the tight, dark cylinder.

“Fuck!” he added, because what difference did it make? Thanks to his stupidity and his blind trust, he was stuck in this storm drain. He would either drown in the next few hours, or he’d slowly starve to death. Neither option appealed to him in the least.

“Mom!” He yelled the word that had always brought his mother running.

But the only reply was another distant rumble of thunder. It sounded as far away as it had before he’d started crawling.

With a sob that came from deep down inside of him, Curtis started bawling.

Chapter Thirteen

‡

M
AYA PACED THE
length of her bedroom, her bare feet silent on the carpet. Outside her dark window, thunder rumbled, echoing the turmoil in her heart.

Rusty had dropped her off an hour earlier, leaping out of his car to open her door. He’d walked her up her stoop, stopping short of taking her keys to open the lock for her.

A tense silence had enveloped them, making the moment supremely awkward, where she’d hoped it would be silent in an exciting, anticipatory way. If he hadn’t brought up that business about ghosts, then she’d have been deliberating whether they would have time before Curtis got home to make love. Instead, all she’d wanted was some time alone, in which to ponder what he’d told her.

Fortunately, he was an astute man. As her door swung open, he’d captured her hand, lifted it to his lips, and softly kissed her knuckles.

“Sleep on it,” he’d advised before retreating with the kind of stealth she was coming to associate with him.

But she couldn’t sleep. For one thing, Curtis wasn’t home yet. She had called him on his cell and texted him, reminding him he was supposed to be home at ten, but his phone went right to voicemail, suggesting his battery had died. She would have to ground him for ignoring his curfew.