Prologue
Jonah
Two hours later, I arrived in the small town near the New Mexico border. The address hadn’t shown up on GPS, so I had to drive the roads of the town until I found what I was looking for. It was a cracker box house on the outskirts of town. A one-car detached garage sat off to the side.
Tom Simpson’s hideout.
I parked a block away to hide my car and then walked stealthily to the small abode.
I didn’t bother knocking, just turned the knob on the door. Oddly, it was open. I walked in. A nice enough home, sparsely furnished.
“Tom? Come out here, you sick son of a bitch.”
No response. Not that I thought there would be. I walked through the living area, down a hall, to a couple of bedrooms. One was clearly being used, but no one was there. The door to what turned out to be a bathroom was also closed, but I opened it and walked in, not caring if I might catch Tom Simpson in the middle of a crap. But it was also vacant.
On the other side of the bedrooms was a small kitchen. Supplies had clearly been laid in. One more door. I opened it. It led to a dank basement surrounded by dark concrete walls. As I descended the stairs, eerie fingers seemed to crawl over my body.
The steps. The walls.
I inhaled, nearly gagging. Waste. Whether it was human or animal, I didn’t know.
I looked around once I got to the bottom.
My heart nearly stopped. It was exactly how Talon had described it. I could almost see the phoenix on the dark-gray walls, taunting him.
I had just walked into the cave-like cellar where my brother had lived for two months when he was a child of ten.
My skin tightened around me. I could hardly catch my breath. Was there no oxygen in this place?
I suppressed my fears as best I could and looked around. No windows, which was odd, and the room was pitch black. I waited for my eyes to adjust, feeling the wall for guidance, and I checked out the space. The rough concrete walls scratched at my—
I jerked.
A groan had come from the corner. I inched forward slowly, and a heap of blankets emerged in my field of vision. More groaning.
Someone was here. Someone in this basement where those three psychos had kept my brother.
I didn’t dare speak. I made my way slowly and quietly to the blanketed lump on the floor and removed the dirty covers.
The body, bound and gagged, recoiled away, whimpering.
My God.
It was alive.
“Hey, hey,” I whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
It was a male, naked, his bony body streaked with blood and grime. His head had been shaved.
“I want to help you. I’m a friend. I’m going to take the gag off you, but don’t scream. All right?”
The man whimpered and nodded.
I removed the gag carefully. “Who are you?”