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It didn’t interest her, not in the slightest The base a metal pick out froe for ait into the top of thefraes I was at her heels, then, and she handed it up to ust asked, behindoff at Greystone right now" She dusted off her hands "Coe rooh the door into a roo For co in the middle of the floor lined with tape On the walls were knives and wooden staffs, a set of fencing foils, a pistol with the orange plastic ring around its mouth that hter to disarh to be blindfolds, and below that were coils of rope, a wooden chair with its seat cut out I didn’t look too closely After allof the training I could get fro and deduction, how I could be transformed into a weapon at their hands, and here it was, the proof When I’d asked hiiven me spy novels to read, but Alistair and Eleamed like blades

The basement smelled like cedar chips and mold A set of stairs led up to the main level Already Holmes was at the door at the far end of the rooain and got to her knees

"This door isn’t ever locked," she said to herself, as if in confirmation

The door was reinforced with steel bars The lock was the old-fashioned kind, with a large keyhole you could peer through I was reue What had Holmes said were behind them? Tourist shops? I peered up at the doorfra up "There must be a keypad on the other side, soust asked "I know this house The only entrance into that room is from this door"

"What’s inside?" I asked him, but he looked away

Holht, and paused "The silent alarm is about to sound If we haven’t been detected already, ill be now I don’t want coment I want you to follow me in and then we move out"

She looked ill Pale, drawn, her eyes flat as coins

And with that last confir I’d known since we boarded that flight back to England but hadn’t wanted to believe Leander was being kept in this house In this rooh I hadhie, tuneless melody under her breath--even now, she was a creature of habit--I tried not to think about ould happen next After

If he was still alive in there

A click A creak Hol past me to follow, and all I saw, at first, were their coats as I pushed in after them There was a low buzz in the air, like the vibration of a phone going off in a pocket, but a between these cinder-block walls This lightless rooenerator was powering a series of beepingthat beeped and so else that had clear plastic tubes and wires that wound up from its base and over to the hospital bed where Leander was lying, in a blue cotton gown, his hair lank and greasy like it hadn’t been washed since we’d left A tube taped to hiswith bags that didn’t hold saline and blood I knehat saline and blood looked like I’d been in the hospital enough myself The room was scattered with crutches, a wheelchair, what looked like a Persian rug It was a h to stop me dead, more so than if the rooh, now that I looked ht I saw the metal hardware for hooks and chains still attached to the walls and the ceiling--the idea that Leander had been here, underneath everything, sedated to be kept out of the way of whatever plan was in play

Except that he wasn’t sedated He ake And Emma Holmes hovered over hiloved hand

Then she reached over and yanked the cord from the security camera in the corner

Instinctively, I searched ust did the sa but the stained knife he’d pulled out in theherself into her hter, the other pulling off herHe’s fine to travel We have about four minutes Move"

UNDER EMMA’S SWIFT DIRECTION, AUGUST HELPED HER remove the IVs I took socks and a sweater from the suitcase in the corner--Leander’s--and helped hi care to lean in closely to his ear to whisper, "Is she hurting you?"

"She isn’t," he said, his voice strangely strong "He is"