“I know. I’m okay. I promise.” As we started down the stairs, Remington glanced around as she said, “There’s not much to this place, is there?”
“No, but we can make it work.”
Once we were in the basement, Menace started opening random doors. “Wonder if he has any blankets around here.”
“If not, I’ll head upstairs and see what I can find.”
“Surely there’s something around here.” When he opened one of the doors, he shouted, “Holy shit!”
“What?”
Menace stood frozen as he stared into the room with a horrified expression. “Get over here, brother. You’re not gonna believe this shit.”
Curious, I rushed towards him, and as I got closer, I was hit with a familiar rancid smell. “What the fuck is it?”
When I peered through the doorway, I was surprised to find a man sitting on the floor with his hand cuffed around a support beam. He was beat all to hell, so much so I wasn’t even sure the guy was still alive. There was blood coating his soiled clothing, and he was barely breathing as he sat there squatting in his own feces and vomit. A dirty mattress and a bucket sat in the corner, but there was no way the guy could even make it to the damn bucket. It was clear from the smell he’d been locked up in there for a while. I was trying to make sense of what I was seeing when Remington gasped. “Oh my God! Who is that?”
“No idea,” Menace responded. “Definitely looks like this guy’s seen better fucking days.”
Remington stepped forward, but I quickly reached over and stopped her. “Hold up, babe. You’re not going in there.”
“We’ve gotta see if he’s alive, Noah,” she argued as she slipped by me and entered the room. When she got closer to him, she knelt down and whispered, “Hey, can you hear me?”
The man moaned, then let his head fall back loosely as he opened his swollen eyes. He stared at Remington for several moments, then said, “It’s you.”
“You know me?” Remington asked, shocked. “How do you know me?”
“Madeline.”
“Madeline?” Remington stepped closer to him, trying to get a better look at the guy. She brushed his hair out of his face, but he was so busted up, there was no way she could tell who the guy was. Remington wasn’t one to give up, so she kept studying him, looking for something that might help her identify him, and then it hit her. “The watch. Look at his watch!”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“I’ve seen it before. It was Thomas’s.” She glanced back at me. “Do you think it could actually be him?”
“Don’t know why Mathews would’ve kept him alive all this time.”
“I really think it is.” She turned her attention back to the guy and asked him, “Thomas, is that you?”
“Mmmm...yeah...It’s me.”
“Mathews has had you down here all this time?”
“He wanted...the password...to my files...wanted to wipe my computer, but...I wouldn’t give it to him.” There was no missing the desperation in his voice as he mumbled, “Please get me out of here.”
“We will, but we’re gonna need your help.”
“I’ll do anything you need me to.”
Our attention had been so focused on Long that neither Menace nor I had noticed that Remington was fading fast. Her face had grown pale and her eyes heavy, and I could barely hear her when she whispered, “I don’t feel so good.”
“Damn it. With all that adrenaline she’s got going on, the drugs Doc gave her are kicking in fast,” Menace replied. “We need to find her a spot to lie down before she passes out.”
“You go get her settled, and I’ll give Long the rundown.”
“You got it.”
While Menace took Remington and found her a place to hole up, I explained our entire plan to Long. I wasn’t sure if he was coherent enough to keep up with everything I’d said, but when I was done, he looked up at me and said, “You just get me outta here…I’ll handle the rest.”
“We’ll do our best. Just hold on and we’ll have the cops here as soon as we can.”
I hated to leave the guy cuffed to that fucking beam, especially when he was in such bad shape, but I didn’t have a choice. They’d need to find him like that in order to make the kidnapping charges stick. I just prayed that he’d be able to hold on long enough to handover the intel he had on Mathews to the right hands. If so, the kidnapping charges would be the final nail in Mathews’ coffin. By the time I was done with Long, Menace had Remington set up in the small room next to Long’s. He’d laid down a few old worn-out blankets on the floor, and Remington was sitting on them with her back against the wall. While she was still somewhat awake, she looked white as a ghost, and with her dingy attire and grungy hair, she definitely looked like someone who’d been held captive for the past few weeks. I knelt down in front of her as I explained, “We’ve gotta get going, baby. As soon as we’re out of the house, we’ll make the call and help will be on the way.”