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Murphy
“This it?”
I nodded. “Yup.”
“How the fuck did Brandt get a place like this?” Apollo asked.
Now that I wasn’t running for my life, I could take in the place we had escaped from.
It was a two-story house with wood siding and a black roof. A large porch was on the front, and a cement patio was on the back. There was a glass patio table with four chairs around it and a large umbrella. It looked like a family lived there, not Brandt, the psycho.
We had circled the property carefully and hadn’t seen anyone.
King held up his phone and said, “According to the state real estate registry, Greg Chambers owns it.”
“Are we supposed to know who the fuck that is?” Creed asked.
I nodded to Creed. “Text the name to Leo and see if it rings a bell with him.”
Creed pulled out his phone and sent off a message.
“We gonna just stand here looking at the place, or are we going to check it out?” King called from the sidewalk by the front.
“Well, I’m assuming no one is here because they would have taken their shot at us if they were.” I nodded to King. “You take the front; we’ll take the back.”
Creed, Apollo, and I headed to the back of the house while King and the other guys headed to the front door.
“That the window you busted out of?” Creed asked.
Everything looked exactly as it had yesterday. The shattered glass was scattered around the window, and nothing was moved.
This was fucking weird.
What was the point of kidnapping Tatum and me and then just leaving us there?
Apollo cautiously climbed the steps to the backdoor with his gun drawn and pulled open the screen door.
Creed’s phone dinged. “Leo says this place is listed as a rental.”
“So Brandt was renting it?” I asked.
“Well, sort of. It’s one of those places you can rent for a few nights. Like, when you’re on vacation and don’t want to stay in a hotel,” Creed explained.
“Who the hell would want to stay out here in the middle of nowhere?” Apollo asked. He stepped into the house, and we followed behind him.
“Anything back there?” King hollered.
“Nothing,” Apollo replied.
We walked through the mudroom with a washer and dryer and into the kitchen.
“This where you were held?” Rigid called.
We headed toward the front of the house and met King and Rigid in the hallway while Easy, Frost, and Snapper headed upstairs.
I looked inside the room. “Yup, that’s where they had me.” Nothing was different from when Tatum and I had left. The ropes were still on the floor next to the chair, and the boards I had ripped off the wall were scattered on the hardwood floor.
“I’m gonna check the basement,” Bear yelled. He skirted around us, opened the door to the basement, and jogged down the stairs.
“This wasn’t Brandt’s place,” Creed told King. “He just rented it for a couple of days.”
King walked into the room and kicked one of the boards I had ripped off the window. “I hope Brandt didn’t want his deposit back. I don’t think he is going to get it.”
I moved into the room and leaned out the window we had jumped out of. It had only been yesterday that Tatum and I had leaped out, but it felt longer than that.
“Nothing up here!” Easy shouted from upstairs. “Doesn’t even look like anyone came up here.”
“This is the weirdest shit I’ve seen in a long time,” Rigid muttered.
Easy, Frost, and Snapper clambered down the stairs and gathered around the room I had been held in.
“Where did they keep Tatum?” Snapper asked.
“This is the only room that looks like it was touched. Everywhere else is untouched.” King ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s almost as if he wanted you guys to escape.”
“But why?” I asked. “What was the point of this then? Why put in all that effort to kidnap Tatum, grab me, bring us both here, and then just let us leave?” The pieces we’re gathering were not adding up.
“Yo!” Bear bellowed from the basement.
“What is it?” King hollered back.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” he screamed. His footsteps thundered up the steps as he roared, “There’s a fucking bomb!”
“Holy fuck,” Frost shouted.
Everyone moved at once.
I jumped out of the window with King following behind me.
Frost and Easy spilled out the front door while everyone else ran out the back.
“Run!” King ordered.
Talk about déjà vu.
We both headed to the wood line, but before we made it halfway, we were knocked on our faces as a loud boom sounded, and the house exploded.
“Holy fuck!” Rigid hollered. “Did you fucking see that?”
I flipped over on my back and watched pieces of the house float down from the sky around us.
“Jesus,” I whispered.
“Fuck,” King grumbled. “Leo owes me a new bike.”
I looked where we had parked and winced. “Maybe we shouldn’t have parked so close to the house.”
“Ya fucking think?” King growled.
Part of the roof had landed on four motorcycles, our SUV, and they were now engulfed in flames.
“Everyone make it?” Apollo called.
A chorus of yay’s and yeah’s went up, and we were all accounted for. Thank god.
“I think we know what Brandt’s plan was now,” I sighed. “He knew I would get out and then come back to look for him once I got help.”
King nodded. “I think you’re right about that. Thank fuck Bear went in the basement when he did.”
“You’re fucking welcome,” Bear bellowed. “That place was wired with enough explosives to blast us to the damn moon.”
“You think we need to call the fire department, or the fire will go out on its own?” Frost asked.
King pulled out his phone. “Oh, we’re calling the fucking fire department. There might not be close-by neighbors, but I bet anyone within a two-mile radius felt that explosion. Rigid, call Gravel and tell him to get his ass over here. I don’t think we can all fit in Bear’s Bronco.”
“Got it.”
Debris still floated in the air, and the basement of the house was nothing but flames. The whole house had blown and then crumbled.
We had been damn lucky.
Brandt had expected Leo, Apollo, Creed, and Princeton to return to the house with me to find him, and he had left a big surprise for us.
He was stepping up his game, and we had walked right into his trap.
Next time, we might not be so lucky if we didn’t find him soon.