(Blood and Bone, #2) Sin and Swoon(68)

My stomach sort of drops into my bowels as I turn and run for the stairs again.

“You have thirty minutes,” Antoine says softly. I know he can see everything I can see.

“You’re recording, right?” My voice cracks a bit.

“Yes.” There is no snarky or cheeky tone, just the single word. We are both grossed out. The artwork on the third floor is more personal, more intense. Woman bent over a man’s knee. Woman tied up in ropes. Woman performing sexual acts on many men at once. The drawings are done as if they are funny or comical, but I can see they are not.

At least I do not find them that way, and I suspect Antoine is less impressed.

I hurry downstairs, waving at the FBI agents at the front door as I pass. “So far not much!” I shout.

But downstairs is something different altogether.

Antoine doesn’t seem to be with me now, and when I call to him he doesn’t answer. I turn on my phone, recording with that. The basement appears to be made up of cells and giant washrooms that have a bathhouse feel to them. Large hot tubs and spa-like tables. But I get the feeling it is an area the guests don’t visit. The finery is gone, the area sterile-looking, but that is all.

I flick on lights as I walk past rooms, wincing at the cells with old cots and stacks of clothes. One stack of short plaid skirts and another stack of turtleneck sweaters—all black. One stack is geisha-style dresses and one stack of togas. One stack of clothes is made up of nurses’ uniforms, but they are the kind you don’t actually work in. Another stack is French maid outfits, and the last one I look at is girls’ soccer jerseys.

There is a flavor of every brand of sin a man could think of. Or a woman, I suppose.

I slink down the hall, away from the huge laundry room to a large wooden door. When I open it I see a small sauna inside. I close it and look at the size of the room, compared to the size it looks like it might be. I had expected a huge room, not a tiny little cupboard of a sauna.

I walk along the wall tapping my knuckles, rapping until I hear the hollow sound I want. There is a window next to me, so I look out to see a bit of an overhang on the wall outside. Whatever is behind this wall goes out farther than the rest of the walls. I turn and walk around the wall, but there is no way in from the inside. And when I glance out the window again it seems the wall would be covered mostly by snow by the end of the season. So a door might be unlikely.

I go back inside the sauna, but it appears sound. It doesn’t look like there is a secret door. I touch everything along the walls and benches, and nothing moves.

I turn the camera onto myself. “Whatever is behind this wall is what we came here for.”

I leave the sauna and run back to the stairs, listening for voices as I climb back toward the sunny main floor. My phone gets a text—RUN!

I want in that room; I need in that room. Whatever happens here, that room has the answers, but it isn’t worth me dying. I slink up the stairs to see the guys having a pissing contest with men armed with machine guns. Instead of heading that way, I run for the back hallway, toward the ski and boot room.

“Unlock the back door, Antoine!” I say loud enough for him to hear. He doesn’t respond. I get to the door, unsure if I should open it or if an alarm will go off. “The back door!”

“Got it!” he says with labored breathing as the locks click. I open it and run out into the snow. A second helicopter has landed next to ours. I circle around the house to the front door, giving the guys a look when I get there. “Are you the ones who are supposed to let us in?” I shiver and hug myself, trying to give off a damsel-in-distress air about me.

One of the guys narrows his gaze, lifting his machine gun toward me. “You are trespassing.”

I shake my head, shivering some more. “No, we were told to wait here for someone to come and let us in. We have a warrant.”

He grins. “Warrant’s been killed. Get the fuck out of here before I end all of you.”

I lift my hands in the air, not revealing the gun on my hip. “We’ll be back with that warrant.”

He scoffs. “Try it, bitch. We’ll be waiting.”

I want to punch him in the throat, but I don’t. I let Henrico grab me by the arm and drag me to the chopper. When we get inside and the doors are closed, I sigh. “It’s a brothel of sorts. Something is in that room on the far side. We need to get in there before they try to clean it out, now that they know we are aware of this place.”

I make another call as we take off. “I need to go back, and I need you with me this time, Antoine.”

Antoine sighs. “Why do you have so little faith in me? You think I was just sightseeing like you were? Where do you think I was when you were calling me from the back door?”