‘Anne?’
Nikki’s voice bounced off the walls, the echo seeming to drift upwards until it died away. There was no response. Somewhere above Nikki’s head a bird shrieked and she could hear the sound of frenzied flapping before silence fell again.
Poor thing. It must be trapped.
Striding towards the fire stairs, determined not to give in to the uneasiness that gripped her, Nikki climbed to the mezzanine level and continued straight on up to the next floor. Here the space was divided into a series of smaller rooms, presumably once offices, along a long, narrow corridor. It was a lot darker than downstairs, with the only available natural light coming from only one side of the building. And there was an awful smell, the unmistakable stench of human feces. Reaching up, Nikki touched a switch on the wall. With a flicker, then a glare, and a loud buzz from the revived electrical current, all the strip lighting along the windowless walls burst into life.
Nikki screamed, a shrill, strangled sound that half-caught in her throat.
There, nailed to a wooden beam against the wall with outstretched arms, like a grotesque parody of Jesus, hung a naked, bloated male corpse. Beaten and bloodied almost beyond recognition, it took Nikki a moment to register who it was:
Willie Baden!
Someone had stuffed a wad of money into his mouth, presumably a final insult in what looked like a gruesome ritual killing. Nikki felt the bile rise up in her throat, partly in disgust and partly in terror. She was no expert, but from the blood still dripping from the wounds on his groin, Baden didn’t look like he’d been dead for long. If whoever did this was still here …
‘Nikki! Over here.’ Anne’s voice sounded reedy and thin.
‘Anne!’ Turning away from Baden’s corpse Nikki blinked, her eyes stinging under the bright lights. ‘Where are you? I can’t see you.’
Like a faun stepping out from the protective cover of the forest, Anne emerged from one of the box-like ‘offices’ into the long corridor where Nikki was standing. Barely glancing at the crucified body hanging only a few feet away, she stumbled towards Nikki. Only as she came close did Nikki see the bruises, from Anne’s eye, all the way down the right side of her face and neck, where the skin was blue gray and swollen.
Nikki rushed towards her. ‘He hit you?’
Anne looked down, ashamed, biting her lower lip.
‘Did he kill Willie Baden, Anne?’ Nikki put a protective arm around her as she turned back to the grisly apparition nailed to the beam. ‘Did you see what happened? Were you here? The poor man was obviously tortured.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Anne mumbled. She was obviously still in shock.
‘What for?’ said Nikki. ‘It isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Anne sobbed, shaking.
‘Listen, we need to get you out of here.’ Nikki’s practical side kicked in. ‘Whatever’s happened, neither of us are safe—’
‘It is my fault,’ Anne interrupted her. ‘I wish … I wish things could have been different. But he made me do it. He made me watch.’ She looked at Baden’s corpse then, for the first time. ‘He made me film it.’ She held up her phone to Nikki with a shaking hand. ‘And he made me bring you. He wanted you to see. I’m so sorry.’
From the rooms behind her, two heavyset men in dark suits suddenly appeared. ‘This way please, Mrs Rodriguez,’ one of them said politely, while the other one firmly grabbed Anne by the upper arm. With a lurching stomach, Nikki noticed that his hand was covered in dried blood. Presumably poor Willie Baden’s. Although what on earth Baden had to do with any of this she couldn’t imagine. ‘We’ll escort you to your car.’
Nikki watched helplessly as a sobbing Anne was bundled into a different, smaller elevator and disappeared from view.
‘Wait!’ she called after them. ‘Don’t hurt her! Don’t you touch her!’ But the doors had already closed.
Frantically, Nikki tried to gather her thoughts. Anne had been upset to see the two men, but not surprised. She knew they were coming, knew she’d be taken away. What was it she’d just said? ‘He made me bring you. He wanted you to see.’
Nikki had seen enough. She had to get out of here. Had to save herself, even if she couldn’t save Anne. Turning around, she started back the same way she came in, averting her eyes from the hunk of flesh that had once been Lisa Flannagan’s lover and running along the corridor. But before she’d gone more than a few yards, a tall, distinguished-looking man in a dark suit stepped casually in front of her, blocking her path.
He was relaxed and smiling, and she recognized him instantly from the picture on Google that Derek Williams had shown her.
‘Mr Rodriguez.’
Luis nodded, still smiling all the way to his brown eyes.
‘Dr Roberts. We meet at last. So glad you could make it.’
Pulling a pistol out of his inside jacket pocket, he pointed it right between Nikki’s eyes.
Mick Johnson looked at Officer Latisha Hall as if she were something unpleasant he’d found stuck to the bottom of his shoe