Finders/Keepers (An Allie Krycek Thriller, Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

Reassure them that everything’s fine.”
    “So lie, then.”
    “Yes, but maybe don’t say that.”
    She took a breath (and hoped he didn’t see) before reaching for the lever when he put a hand on her arm. In the two to three seconds after his fingers tightened around her wrist, Allie had to battle every instinct to reach for the Sig Sauer holstered behind her.
    She looked over at him instead and matched his intense gaze. He was taller than her, so she had to tilt her head slightly upward to see his eyes. “What?” she said, injecting just the right amount of annoyance into her voice.
    “Don’t tell them anything. About us, why they’re here, and more importantly, where we’re going. The less they know, the more pliable they’ll be. Best-case scenario, remember?”
    “Got it.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yes.”
    “In you go, then.”
    He removed his hand, and she jerked the lever open and stepped inside before he could say another word.
    The room smelled of sweat and urine—and, most of all, fear —despite the ventilation and two high windows that were open to allow sunlight and fresh air inside. There was a single squiggly eco-friendly light bulb in the center, and it was just enough to highlight the frightened faces looking back at her—or, at least, the ones who had managed to overcome their terror to look at all. The rest either had their heads turned so that they faced the walls or were leaning into each other’s shoulders.
    It took every ounce of willpower Allie had not to turn around and leave the room and shoot every single man outside. The only reason she didn’t was because it wouldn’t have done any good…except lead to her death. And for the occupants of this room, her blaze of glory moment would just be another horrifying ordeal for them to survive.
    Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan!
    There was nothing inside to make them more comfortable—there was no furniture or even padding on the hard, heavily scratched concrete floor, though it was probably better than where they had been just three hours ago, in the back of the semi. The girl closest to her flinched when something heavy banged! outside the room. A car door slammed, and voices (all male) drifted through the thin slit under the door. The windows might have offered some semblance of hope in the beginning, but the girls would have figured out pretty quickly that they were too high to even reach, much less escape through.
    They were staring at her—the most courageous among them and the ones that didn’t care anymore. Their faces were dirty, clothes just as filthy and soiled. They were barefoot, and long hair (almost all of them had long hair) hung from their oval-shaped faces like veils of spaghetti strings, hiding their eyes from her.
    Her stomach churned and a sickness washed over her, and the small voice inside her gut had grown louder, yelling at her to Get them out of here! What are you waiting for? Get these poor souls out of here!
    But she couldn’t, because she wouldn’t have made it out of the building alive with one of them, never mind all of them. There were too many men and too many guns outside the room, and more out there watching the roads into the place.
    No. Her salvation— their salvation—lay ahead of them, farther up the road. All she had to do was stick to the plan, and that meant keeping herself, and them, alive until then.
    God, I think I’m going to be sick.
    She looked back at the door, at the black shadows moving back and forth across the small slit at the bottom. Someone shouted orders, and people scrambled to obey. The smell of grease and spilled oil threatened to (mercifully) overwhelm the hopelessness inside the room with her.
    “Help us,” a small voice said.
    She turned around and concentrated on the speaker. The girl was small, or maybe she was just thin from malnutrition. Allie couldn’t imagine how long she had been trapped on this nightmarish trip. Not just her, but all of them.
    She gritted