Nowhere to Run (A Harley Cole FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 3)

PROLOGUE Spencer leaned against the tour boat’s metal railing and stared into the cavern growing larger along the shoreline. There was something menacing about the way the cavern rose from the earth like a greedy mouth, eager to swallow them whole. If the Rio Grande rose a little higher, he wondered, would it fill the cavern? Or did the cavern keep going deeper and deeper into the earth, like a stomach that could never be sated? Something smooth and cold pressed against Spencer’s elbow, startling him. “Come on, have another,” Jordan Armstrong said, lofting a beer. He was sweating in the early morning heat, which was just beginning to penetrate the blanket of cool air that had covered the river during the night. There was a riotous gleam in his eye, the kind that usually signaled he was going to lead Spencer into some kind of trouble. The bachelor party on the river had been Jordan’s idea. It had also been Jordan’s idea to bring along Ed Mullins and Jaylen Ware, both of whom had been in Spencer’s dorm back at the University of Claxton. All four had graduated five years earlier, each with plans for conquering the world. What happened to us? Spencer wondered, glancing toward Ed and Jaylen, who were engaged in a sidebar about the pros and cons of cryptocurrency. When did we get so old? It seemed like just a few months earlier they had been making plans to get Mr. Reynolds’s Kawasaki onto the roof of the gymnasium. Life had been fun then and full of excitement. Now? Well, now life was about responsibility—bills, IRAs, water cooler politics, and of course, planning the wedding, a task that was never finished. When did it all change? Pondering these thoughts, his gaze continued past his friends to the group of people filling the rest of the pontoon boat, strangers with whom Spencer had exchanged no more than a few polite lines of conversation. At the far end, piloting the boat, was their tour guide Colin Sharpton—a bronzed, bearded statue of a man straight from antiquity. It was not Sharpton who caught Spencer’s eye, however, but rather the passenger beside the tour guide—a young woman about Spencer’s age wearing a crop top and swim shorts. There was a pleasant sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and Spencer couldn’t help noticing the tone of her abs—a striking contrast to the flab his fiancée Sandra had recently put on. The woman caught him looking and smiled. He glanced away, feeling guilty for the comparison, and reached into his pocket for the wedding band he had recently started carrying with him everywhere he went—as if by constantly reminding himself of his decision he might finally make peace with it. He found only his phone, which was supposed to be waterproof for up to half an hour, and remembered he had left the ring at home rather than risk losing it in the river. He felt the ring’s presence, nonetheless. “It’s your last chance to live a little,” Jordan was saying, pushing the beer against Spencer’s white polo. “As soon as Sandra gets you in her clutches, your life will be nothing but folding fitted sheets and endless agonizing about whether the end table should go on the left side of the couch or the right. And then if you have kids…” Jordan turned to include Ed, the only one of the four who had kids of his own—probably the only one who had ever changed a diaper, Spencer supposed. Ed, however, was too absorbed by his conversation with Jaylen to notice Jordan, so Spencer was spared the lecture on the pitfalls of parenting. “Look,” Jordan continued, stifling a burp, “all I’m saying is you don’t want to look back a year from now and regret the things you didn’t do, okay? There’s a golden age that dawns in every man’s life when he sets out from his parents’ house to make his own fortune, and it ends when a beautiful woman convinces him to beat his sword into a plowshare.” Spencer arched an eyebrow, impressed by the metaphor. “Come up with that one yourself?” “Ancient History, 101.” Jordan waved his hand, dismissing the thought. “The point is, there’s no going back.” Spencer turned his body toward him, still clutching the rail with his right hand. His eyes wanted to drift to the freckled girl—he felt an urgent need to see if she was watching him—but he forced himself to keep his attention on Jordan. “No,” he said, “the point is, you’re drunk. You’re supposed to be helping me have a good time, not telling me why I’m making a huge mistake.” Jordan placed his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. Before he could offer whatever defense he had prepared, however, the engine died and Sharpton dropped the anchor over the side. The gleaming metal plopped into the water and vanished. “This is as far as we go,” Sharpton said in a voice of cheerful command. “Anyone who wants to see the cavern: stow your beers, grab a life jacket, and hop on into the drink.” Spencer slipped out of his flip-flops, tossed them into the compartment beneath one of the seats, and stood on the edge of the boat like a condemned man before a pirate’s plank. He stared at the impenetrable darkness of the cavern and had the odd sense he was looking into his future—a murky, unknowable mystery. Was it a mystery worth exploring, or would it really be as bleak as Jordan suggested—a life where his only escape became the office and every vacation involved packing the stroller with every item a child could possibly need? “Come on, already!” Jordan said, giving him a nudge. Spencer’s feet slipped off the edge of the boat and the water rose to meet him, a sheet of glass shattering beneath his knees. The water was cooler than he had expected, and he felt a pleasant shiver course through his body. You gotta stop thinking about it, he told himself. What will be, will be. That’s all there is to it. Just enjoy your freedom while you can. There was a shout from the boat. Spencer pivoted just in time to get hit by an explosion of water as Ed cannonballed into the river. Several others joined him in rapid succession, and before Spencer knew it, he was being left behind. Knuckling the water from his eyes, Spencer leaned forward and kicked his feet as he swam toward the cavern. Something soft and slippery brushed against his toes. Then he touched sand, and he pushed upward, rising into a chorus of laughter. “Swims like a duck!” Jordan pronounced, slapping Spencer on the shoulder. Spencer looked around at the grinning faces, feeling a bit like an explorer washed up on an island inhabited by an undiscovered species of monkeys. Just go along, he told himself. Pretend you’re having fun, and it just might happen for real. Doing his best to live in the moment, Spencer raised both fists. Ed and Jaylen cheered. A genuine smile pulled at the corners of Spencer’s face—and then he saw the freckled girl staring at him from the opposite side of the pool, her sapphire eyes gleaming with an intensity that seemed almost feral. Spencer, to his own surprise, stared right back. With a sly smile, the girl dropped her eyes and turned, moving toward a dead space along the cavern wall where the golden lines of the water’s reflection did not dance. She gave him one more look over her tanned shoulder and winked. Then she disappeared inside the tunnel. Spencer stared after her, unsure what to do. Was it an invitation, an offer? Or had he mistaken her? She might have been blinking away a drop of water, for all he knew. He would feel mighty foolish, creeping up on her while she attended her personal business. “A cavern like this would have taken thousands of years to form,” Sharpton was saying, one foot perched on a lump of mineral that had dropped down from the ceiling. He looked like a conquistador—all he needed was the crested helmet to complete the image. Spencer was not listening. He was still staring after the girl, puzzled by her disappearance. A hand rocked his shoulder. “Look,” Jordan said, pointing to where he had scratched a crude version of tic-tac-toe on the wall with a stone. “An Indian hieroglyphic.” Jaylen started to explain that “hieroglyphic” wasn’t the right word, but Spencer ignored them. Maybe Jordan is right. Maybe this really is my last hurrah, my last chance to live life on my own terms, beholden to no one. And if that was true, what better time to take some risks? He wasn’t getting any younger, and this was probably the least tethered he would be for a long time, given Sandra’s hints about popping out babies as quickly as they could make them. Yes, if he was going to do something a little crazy, if he was going to prove to himself that he wasn’t selling his man card right along with his singleness, this was the time. As for opportunity, she was waiting for him on the other side of the cavern, somewhere in that dark passage. Leaving Jaylen and Jordan to their discussion, Spencer cut across the pool to the tunnel on the far side. He half expected someone to challenge him and ask what he was doing, but nobody said a word. They were engrossed in their own worlds. When he looked back, no one was looking in his direction. She might have gotten lost, he thought, feeling a sudden need to justify his own actions. Sandra would understand I was just trying to help. Yes, that was all he was doing—helping someone out. It was a humanitarian mission. And if the person he was helping just happened to be young, fit, and beautiful, who was he to discriminate? And if something more should happen, if she should want to show her gratitude…well, it wasn’t really cheating until they were married, was it? He wasn’t looking for a relationship, after all. He just needed some…adventure. Something a settled, married life couldn’t offer. He knew he was using Jordan’s logic—a shaky proposition under any circumstances—but he did not care. The truth was he had been playing it safe all his life, the only kid in the group wearing a helmet while he rode his bicycle. That was why he had continued working at his dad’s company for the past five years even though it felt like a dead end, why he had agreed to marry the first girl his parents approved of, and why he had turned down Jordan’s endless attempts to get him to invest in the stock market. He was reasonable, careful, and sensible. Sometimes, however, he just wanted to throw caution to the wind. He tried to remember her name—he knew he had heard it at least once—but he was drawing a blank. She must have been waiting for him to make a move, but he hadn’t. He was the dutiful husband-to-be, after all. He didn’t fool around, just like he didn’t try Jordan’s mushrooms or drink more than he could handle. Heck, he didn’t even go more than ten miles over the speed limit, even on the freeway. Maybe just this once, however, he could experience how it felt to live without the training wheels, to just go for it and see what happened. I’m really doing it, he thought with a thrill as he moved forward. Boy, will I have a story to tell those guys. All he had to do was find the girl. But how hard could that be? It was a tunnel, for goodness’ sake. As he moved deeper into the darkness and the voices faded behind him, however, he began to worry he might get lost. It was difficult to keep track of his progress, and he felt the wall twisting beside him, corkscrewing downward as if the cavern were a portal into the underworld. “Hello?” he called, feeling foolish at the tentative sound of his own voice. “Are you back here?” No answer. Where was she? “I didn’t catch your name,” he said into the darkness, trying to steady his voice. Above the undercurrent of fear lay a trembling anticipation, a sense of unknown possibilities that filled his head like a d**g. He imagined how it would feel to touch this girl’s skin in the darkness—just the two of them deep in the cavern, their hushed whispers close in the confined space. “I’m Jordan,” he continued, running his fingertips along the slick wall as he inched forward. He almost said, I’m about to get married, which had become almost automatic, as if it were an integral part of his identity, but he stopped himself in time. He paused to listen. As he waited for a response, a sulfurous, rotten odor reached his nostrils, like the time he returned from vacation to find he had left a carton of empty chicken eggs on the counter, the albumen congealed and stinking. Bat guano, he thought with a shiver. There could be hundreds, maybe even thousands of bats, nesting back here. I’ll have to be careful I don’t spook them. Yes, it made sense there might be bats nesting in a cavern along the bank of the river. Only…why didn’t he feel anything under his feet but smooth stone? And did bat guano really smell so much like…like…well, like dead fish washed ashore, bloating in the sun? He reached into his pocket, remembering his phone. “I’m going to turn a light on, okay? It’s just too dark.” He hoped this wouldn’t ruin the moment. There was something appealing about a tryst in the dark, but that appeal would quickly disappear if he bruised his knee walking into a wall. He pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, revealing a small, oval chamber hollowed out by untold years. The light gleamed off four golden shapes sprawled across the floor. Spencer’s heart jumped. He felt suddenly as if he were in some Egyptian museum, staring into the reenactment of a tomb for Pharaohs. Whether these were wrapped in gold or made of solid gold, Spencer could not tell. If it was the latter, they might be worth tens of millions of dollars. This could be the greatest archaeological discovery of the decade, he thought, burning with excitement. Dimly, in the back of his head, he wondered what mummies would be doing in a cavern along the Rio Grande, but he ignored the question. The answer would come in time. I need to tell the others! he thought. As he turned around to execute this plan, however, it occurred to him how foolish he would feel if he brought everyone back to the cavern with him only to discover these were props of some kind, mannequins staged there for a movie. He would never live it down. No, he needed to know this was the real deal before he told anyone. Besides, if these had been left here hundreds or even thousands of years earlier, they would be no more than skeletons. What was so frightening about a skeleton? But if they’re just skeletons, why do they smell so bad? Again, he ignored his doubts. He wasn’t going to go back and hear Jordan tell him he’d been too scared to get a good look at the bodies himself. He was a man, and he was going to act like one. Steeling himself, he squatted down beside the nearest body. From the feet to the neck, the body was tightly wrapped in a gold blanket that crinkled when Spencer touched it. The face, however, was different. The gold seemed to be painted on, covering everything except the slits of the eyes and mouth and the holes of the nostrils. The gold had cracked as it dried, revealing spider lines of skin beneath. Skin, Spencer repeated with an inward groan. No, it couldn’t be. The skin should have been long gone by then, unless… Drawn by an irresistible curiosity, he reached one questing finger toward the cheek and pressed. He felt the bloated flesh sink against bone. Then, as if triggered by Spencer’s touch, the lips began to quiver, the painted flesh peeling apart as an enormous blowfly wriggled out. Spencer jumped back with a choked cry, striking his shoulder against the wall. It can’t be, he told himself, rubbing his aching shoulder. You’re just imagining things, hallucinating. This has to be a practical joke somehow. Yes, that was it! Jordan had decided to play a prank on him, and somehow, he had convinced the freckled girl to go along with it. It was an elaborate trick, sure, but a trick nonetheless, and as soon as Jordan explained it to him, everything would make sense. “Real funny!” he said aloud, shining the light toward the far side of the chamber. “Joke’s over, so come on out!” No answer came but a chorus of laughter from the main room of the cavern, distorted by distance so that it sounded ominous, like laughter from a grave. I have to get out of here, he thought, growing desperate now. He had stayed too long. He spun around, adrenaline now galloping through his veins, and nearly crashed into the girl with the freckles, who was staring in wide-eyed horror at the body behind Spencer. If a joke was being played here, she was not in on it. Startled by the sight of the girl, Spencer staggered backward, tripping over the gold-wrapped body on the ground. He landed on the torso, and a breath of noxious, pent-up air billowed out through the fat lips and washed over Spencer’s face. He screamed.