Both were neutralized within a minute.
Quickly, he pulled the prone bodies into the next room—a front room, from the looks of it, swathed in darkness, where they wouldn’t be easily spotted.
Meredith was upstairs. He knew that. He passed the basement stairs, where the faint sound of music could be heard, and crept down the dark hallway. At the bottom of the stairs, he paused to listen for any approaching footsteps. He still wasn’t sure where the third guy and Cal had gone.
Sure the way was clear, he went up and checked the first room. Empty, but the messy bed told him someone had been in it recently. He glanced into a bathroom that was also empty save for a roll of toilet paper, paper towels, and several used syringes lying on the counter.
He found her in the next room. Alone.
“Mer?” He slipped in and knelt next to her on the bed, loosening her restraints. “You okay?”
She nodded. “He went back downstairs.” She sat up and rubbed her wrists, no longer encumbered. “There’s a basement.”
“I’m heading there next, after I’ve checked the last two rooms up here. Just to be sure.”
Meredith swung her legs off the bed and stood. “I’m coming with you.”
No way in hell was he risking her following him to the basement, but he’d humor her for now, since as far as he could tell, the men had gone downstairs, leaving the upstairs unguarded.
He crept to the next room and looked in. This room, like the others, was dark, with tarp- covered windows. The only light a small night-light near the floor. And empty.
Across the hall was the last room, and certain no one was coming up the stairs, he and Meredith crossed to it and peered inside. This one…wasn’t empty.
A still form lay on the bed. He tried the light switch, but nothing happened. Meredith’s eyes had taken longer to adjust, and when she finally realized there was someone there, she raced in, sitting on the end of the bed.
Dark hair. Definitely a girl.
The stillness of the form didn’t bode well. He couldn’t risk Meredith unraveling. Especially if…
As if reading his thoughts, Meredith looked up at him, fear in her eyes, and he grabbed his phone from his pocket. Using the brightness of the screen, he lit the room. And the figure on the bed.
She had a young face that was probably once pretty but now in death was robbed of innocence and life.
Meredith drew in her breath as she leaned forward, clutching her stomach, breathing becoming shallow. But the girl’s hair was almost black, silky, unlike the light brown of Meredith’s daughter.
She finally spoke. “It’s not her.” Her voice rang hollow. No emotion.
The eyes that looked up in eerie silence were odd in color, clearly holding no life. From the makeshift tourniquet around the arm, he was certain it had been an OD. Drugging the girls, ensuring their compliance with a drug-induced state of euphoria certainly would have benefits to an enterprise like this. But as evidenced by the poor girl before them, it also had its risks.#p#分页标题#e#
Travis had needed proof that something illegal was going on here. The girl alone might not be enough to prove his entire theory, but her death warranted a call. She needed to be taken care of. “Mer? You still have your phone?”
She pulled out the phone, still tucked in her cleavage, and held it up.
“I’m going to take a look in the basement. You call the police. Report her death.” His voice turned hard. He couldn’t have her follow him. “And stay here.”
Meredith turned to look at the girl. “Okay. I’ll stay with her. Go find Darcy.”
He didn’t hesitate and turned to retrace his steps all the way back until he reached the landing to the basement. There was a closed door at the bottom of the stairs, preventing him from knowing what he was about to walk into.
The music grew louder as he reached the bottom and stopped at the door, straining his ears to hear beyond the door and the music.
Rutting. That’s the best way to describe what he heard. And whimpering.
A hot, angry rage surged through him. His gun in his hand, he opened the door and was embraced by more darkness.
He shut the door quietly behind him and waited, his eyes adjusting again. A dim light threw a little brightness farther on down the empty hall. But the hall turned right and extended farther, to where he didn’t know. Maybe that’s where the last two guys were now.
The sounds, though, the rutting, were coming from behind a sheet to his left. The whole hallway was a makeshift motel almost, with sheets strewn over rope to make doorways. He pushed the sheets to his left open, his gun at the ready.
A guy with a flabby white ass was gyrating over a young girl with bright blond hair who was staring up with glazed eyes. She was barely even conscious. The pervert hadn’t yet noticed Travis’s presence behind him.