Cornered: A Kira Brightwell Novel

Chapter 6

6

The interior of the townhouse was dark. Kira stood still for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Trevor slipped though the door behind her, pulling it shut.

“Lock it,” Kira whispered to him.

She heard an answering click.

Aside from the front door, she suspected the side door was the only other entrance. It led to an ungated backyard. If any of Ginette’s men were following them, a locked door would at least make matters a bit more difficult. Once she was sure of her surroundings, Kira ghosted down the side hallway toward the front of the house to make sure the front door was still locked.

“Now what?” Trevor asked once Kira was satisfied both doors were secure. The darkened townhouse was silent.

Kira squared her shoulders. “Now we look for something to connect the Procurer to Reid.” She forced herself to talk in a normal tone of voice. It seemed silly to keep whispering just because it was dark. She took off the ridiculous baseball cap and shoved it in her bag. “We’ll start in the basement and work our way up.”

The sky outside wasn’t light yet. It would be far less conspicuous to turn on lights in the basement. By the time they got back up to the main floor, the sun would be up and it wouldn’t matter.

Kira led the way back down the side hallway. They passed a modest-sized living room, and a set of carpeted stairs that led upward into darkness. A combined kitchen and dining room dominated the back of the townhouse. Kira wrinkled her nose.

The air smelled like disinfectant.

Kira stopped in her tracks. She cursed as Trevor bumped into her.

“Whoops, sorry.”

He didn’t sound particularly sorry. And between the darkness and the caffeine she had just ingested, she was hyper-aware of how close he was standing to her. She forced herself to take a small step away and turned in a slow circle.

The basement stairs had to be around here somewhere…

She closed her eyes and drew a mental map of what she knew of the layout of the house. There was the entryway and the living room at the front, the stairs leading up in the middle… It didn’t make sense to have the basement stairs in the living room. But maybe in the kitchen?

She crossed the threshold into the kitchen/dining area. Her damp sneakers made a slight squeaking sound against the linoleum floor.

She passed the dull, gleaming surface of a chrome fridge with Trevor following in her footsteps. She reached out to brush her fingers against the smooth edge of the counter top, using it to guide her. Faint, gray light from behind the blinds of the kitchen window revealed the outline of a stove in the corner. She continued to follow the line of the counter past it.

There was a large gap between the end of the kitchen backsplash and the far wall. Kira skirted around it, probing with her fingers.

Sure enough, there was a door. She fumbled for the knob. It turned easily. She pulled the wooden door outward to reveal a yawning corridor of darkness.

“This must be it,” she said, speaking in a soft voice once more.

She took a step forward and probed for the edge of the stairs with her toes. She suddenly regretted not taking her shoes off.

Even though she was being careful, the edge of the first step caught her by surprise. She wobbled for a moment on her unsteady right leg. She almost uttered a yelp as a hand snaked out from behind to grip her shoulder.

“Only me,” Trevor said in a dry voice.

Kira gripped the door frame with her left hand and shot him a dubious look. Trevor drew his fingers away from her shoulder with a mocking bow.

“Sorry if I didn’t want to see you go flying down another set of stairs tonight.” He rolled his eyes and corrected himself. “I mean today. Whatever time it is. You already shaved at least a year off my life back at the estate.”

Kira’s lips pressed together in a tight smile. “Thanks,” she made herself say.

She used her right hand to feel the stairwell wall. It took a few moments, but she eventually found the light switch. She blinked as a light bulb turned on to reveal a wooden landing a few steps below.

“Do we really have to start in the basement?” Trevor asked with a sigh.

“Scared?” Kira asked with a smirk as she began to descend the slatted steps. They gave a slight creak beneath her weight.

Trevor snorted. “Of course not. But it still wouldn’t hurt to check out the creepy basement in the daytime, would it? I mean, if the Procurer really is making this his lair, there could be anything down there.”

The words seemed to tumble from his lips in a breathless rush. Kira guessed that was the Monster and the energy bars kicking in. She was feeling a little buzzed herself. She resisted the urge to run down the rest of the steps and fought down a wave of dizziness.

They probably should have asked the doctor about combining stimulants with whatever medication he had given them…

Kira forced herself to descend the rest of the stairs at a normal pace. Despite Trevor’s concerns, the basement was disappointingly normal.

More naked bulbs revealed a laundry area. Both the washer and dryer were empty. Clothes were folded in almost compulsively neat piles on top of the dryer—jeans, button-down shirts, socks, and boxer-briefs. Kira inspected the jugs of laundry detergent and fabric softener. Everything was scent-free.

Did Simon Reid have some kind of sensitivity, or had the Procurer used it to avoid any telltale smells on his own clothing?

“Huh,” Trevor said as he surveyed the piles of clothes.

Kira raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

He shrugged. “I just assumed both Reid and the Procurer would be brief guys, if you know what I mean.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the neatly folded boxer-briefs.

Kira snorted. “I’m sure the Procurer didn’t borrow Reid’s underwear.”

“Hey, if you’re impersonating someone, you’ve got to be thorough. What if Reid had a lady friend who might notice?” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I’m a boxer-brief man myself, in case you were wondering.”

Kira rolled her eyes at him. “I wasn’t.” She ignored Trevor’s sly smile. “Anyway… I’d like to think if Reid actually had any ‘lady friends,’ they would have noticed the difference before the Procurer took his pants off.”

“You’re probably right. Besides, the Procurer probably picked Reid because he was a loner in the first place. If his impersonation is doing Reid any justice, he doesn’t really seem like the life of the party.”

Trevor still seemed to be having trouble talking at a normal speed. His blue eyes darted wildly around the basement.

Kira moved away from the laundry area with a shake of her head. The rest of the basement was pretty bare. A furnace in the corner, along with a water heater and fuse box, a large, chest freezer against the far wall…

Trevor visibly steeled himself before opening the lid, but there was nothing in it other than food.

Several plastic storage containers were stacked under the stairs. All of them were labeled. Most of them contained files and paperwork from Reid’s accounting clients. One of them held personal mementos, including a high school attendance award with Reid’s name on it. Kira shut the bins in disgust.

Useless.

She rose to her feet and took one last look around the basement. The chill from the concrete floor was seeping up through her wet shoes and socks. She rubbed at her arms, grateful that she at least had her hoodie.

She took a deep breath and stifled a cough. Beyond the ventilated laundry area at the foot of the stairs, the air was thick with fine, white dust. It danced in the glow of the light bulbs and settled on the dark fabric of her hoodie and jeans.

She had thought the basement would have been the most promising place to start. After all, hadn’t the Procurer hidden her and her fellow captives in the basement of the abandoned farmhouse four years ago?

Her green gaze swept the smooth, white drywall around her. There was no sign of any secret room, and the dimensions of the basement seemed to match those of the rest of the house. Pale sunlight was beginning to shine through the small, basement windows located near the underside of the main floor on the eastern side of the house. Time was slipping through her fingers. She stifled a hot surge of disappointment.

If the Procurer had left anything behind for her to find, it wasn’t here.