Page 65 of Z For Butterfly Man
I remove each of the pins carefully; I won’t damage my display. Then I unbuckle the straps, disconnect the IV, wrap her in the blanket and lift her into my arms.
CRACK. The sound of metal giving way.
I write my final commands quickly on the computer and activate the defense program. Then I hit the switch concealed in the wall above the monitors. The butterfly cases slide aside, and a door hisses open, revealing the tunnel entrance.
This tunnel was sealed years ago when the water flooded it, and I made sure it didn’t show on any current blueprints of the property. The police might be tearing this house down, but they’ll be looking for a hidden room in a basement or similar. They won’t know where else to look or what’s coming.
I run the sequence in my head one more time: sealed tunnel access, Beneteau, open water and the final step…
Detonator.
CHAPTER 30
Jacob
The reinforced basement panel finally gives way with a screech of tortured metal. I’m through before it fully drops, gun drawn, flashlight cutting through the darkness.
“BIRDIE!”
A narrow passage opens up before me, leading toward what seems to be an unused utility room. The team breaks it open and swarms in with me. There’s a narrow set of wooden steps. We descend, yelling her name, but no one answers. My light sweeps across the space. Butterfly cases line the walls, dozens of them, their glass surfaces catching my beam and throwing it back in fractured pieces. In the center: a surgical table. Straps hanging loose. Wet spots on the surface. Blood on the floor.
I touch the table. Warm. “She was just here. Right here.” My stare tears through the place. There are no doors or windows, only another flight of stairs on the other side. I run up, and there’s a metal door with a huge padlock and a deadbolt. “Up here! Break it down!”
The battering ram smashes the lock, and the metal gives. I dart, gun ready, into another passage. Adrenaline through the roof, I inspect every corner until I find myself running back toward the utility room. “Fuck. That’s not an exit. It’s a dead end. The fucker is messing with us.”
I rush back to that table and dig deeper. My stomach turns at the details. An IV stand. Medical equipment. Pins—long silverpins—arranged in a case on a bench. The mirror mounted on the ceiling above the table.
What did he do to her here?
“Detective Torrance!” One of the officers gestures to the far wall. “There are surveillance monitors over there. Still warm.”
I cross to the station. Twelve screens, all dark now. A laptop open, cursor blinking on a blank command prompt. He was watching us. Watching us breach and search the whole time.
My hand slams down on the desk. “FUCK! Search every inch of this room. There has to be another way out. He didn’t just vanish with her.”
They spread out, tapping walls, moving butterfly cases, checking for hollow spaces behind the displays. I stand in the center and force myself to think like him. Like a man who has planned for every contingency, who has been building this place for years.
Underground hidden room. Soundproof. High-tech surveillance. Dead-end passages designed to waste our time. This isn’t just a hiding spot; it’s a fortress with a maze. And every maze has…
“Every fortress has an escape route. Every maze has a way out we’re not seeing just yet,” I breathe. “Get me ground-penetrating radar,” I tell the nearest officer. “Now.”
“We have the handheld unit upstairs—”
“Bring it down.”
The officer returns with the GPR unit. I take it, run the scan along the wall. The readout shows exactly what I suspected: a void.
“Tear this fucking wall down. That’s the exit.”
The table is positioned facing south. The equipment station is east. The entrance we came through is west. Which means behind those goddamn butterflies is north.
The wall cracks along the lower seam. Not enough. Not nearly enough. And then something changes in the air. I feel it before I understand it, a pressure differential, a shift in the way the cold is moving.
Water. Moving water carries sound differently than still air. My father taught me that on a fishing trip when I was nine years old. I’ve never once had reason to use that information until now.
“The beach.” My skin breaks out in gooseflesh. “He’s already out there. How far is the ground unit from the beach?”
“They’re staged west of the cabin. No sign of a boat or anyone making for the beach. They’ll move on your call.”
