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27
Annie
"How much security is awake and around at night?"
I was struggling into a t-shirt and my running tights that had been provided for who knew what reason. I had decided not to bother with shoes. We were going to be in the house, not going outside, though if something happened and we found an unguarded, unalarmed exit, my feet getting cut up on stones and thorns was the least of my problems.
There'd been talk of two staying behind and me and someone else going in search of information, looking first for the home office Bevington was sure to have. The two staying behind would be there to fend off security if they showed up. Only that was feeling pointless.
"Most of the time security is outside," Nikki said. "They patrol there. At night sometimes one stays outside Bev's room. They're not around in the house."
I thought about that. "Because the exterior is locked?"
That just got me a curious look from everyone but Lettie, who was squinting. "You mean are we locked into the house?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, they don't care if we're in the house itself," Mia said with a yawn. "But we kind of stay here. Because security – sometimes they take advantage. Who are we going to tell?"
Bevington. And it was unlikely he'd do anything on their behalf. He'd discipline or even kill his guards maybe, but because this was his property. Not because they'd hurt or raped a girl.
So the doors to the outside world were locked and probably set with an alarm that went to wherever security stayed. Definitely not to a police station.
Which meant within the house itself we could move around.
That more than anything made me start thinking the girls here were exactly what they seemed to be: Sexual prisoners, not moles, not rats. They were trapped and they weren't from walks of life where breaking in and out of locked rooms was the norm, or going up against people who had the complete freedom to hurt them with impunity.
It answered a lot of my questions. Taking them with me to Bev's office was still a gamble but one I was willing to take. They were part of this.
We were out the door in minutes.
The house was vast. As huge as Cole's compound was with the underground labyrinth, this was far more enormous. Mia was the one who went out to forage, and she only took food. She went stealthily at night to avoid the guards and maybe because there was an element of fun, or of getting back at their captor. She only took food because there was nothing else to take. Books were considered too noticeable by their absence, and there was no way to play movies. She was also the only one to go out. At first that sounded like they'd given up – they were trapped behind unlocked doors and hadn't they even tried to find a phone that worked or an exit that was unguarded? But it turned out Mia had. All those things and more. And that while she might be the only one to forage, the others had been out at night. There were landlines in the house because cell service was uncertain in the hills, but Bevington's office was locked up.
There just wasn't anything useful to find.
Until now. Because they hadn't given thought to finding information about Bevington to bring him down. That made sense. They wanted to get away. Not investigate.
I thought that meant we could go directly to his office and not wander the house unless we wanted to. Mia knew where Bev's office was.
The house was creepy. I unlocked the door to Bevington's office with a nail file, appalled to discover his lock was nothing more than a normal interior door lock. I'd been popping those open on my sister's bedroom doors since I was 12.
Bevington's office was just an office, though the office of someone rich enough apparently he could load it with laptops so if he wheeled away from his desk, he didn't have to go back to it to reach another laptop. It was a wanton display of money. What did I expect from someone who bought humans? But Cole had bought me and he was still working for mankind with his pharmaceuticals and his charities.
There was a landline on Bevington's desk. I looked at it. It was one of those office systems still in use, cord and everything, the kind used in hospitals and sprawling offices, with extensions and buttons and lights, the ones that blinked when a line was on hold. That lit up when a line was in use. If I made a call on it, other extensions in the house would show it was in use.
And I add have proof yet. Sometimes the minute I'm undercover I'm looking for a way out. It's a type of claustrophobia I can usually control.
It was harder this time. Everything about Bevington was ugly.
Also, I had a life I was more invested in getting back to.
So do your job and go home.
Bev's desk produced a laptop. I sat and started going through recent online searches and orders. "He watches a lot of porn," I said.
Someone in the mostly dark office laughed. Mia went through one of the file cabinets, discovering information on the house we were in – rented from some agency though she couldn't tell if he'd meant to buy it or not, or if he had other properties. This one was pretty empty. Even the desk was a standalone in the room, one desk, two chairs.
I took the desk, ignoring the snoozing laptop at the moment in favor of the file drawers. Lettie took a different file cabinet. Nikki took the laptop.
