Disclaimer: I do not own the Stephanie Plum universe, the characters, or places therein. I'm just playing with it for my own amusement. I do own Haley, Enrique, and the St. Louis peoples. But if someone really wants them, I'm sure we could negotiate a deal. Lol.
Note: Thanks to everyone for the wonderful comments and reviews. I'm flattered people are actually reading this AND enjoying it. Please continue to tell me your thoughts, etc
Shivy: Sorry, but your review confused me (granted, it's easy to do, lol). Stephanie was the one narrating the last chap, until Rico's part. As for Ranger he will be back in the next chapter. If you were asking about R/S interaction? That's for later. Hopefully :)
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Chapter 9
Lester carefully made his way back down the shadowed hallway to the study. Once inside he shut the heavy oak door behind himself and crossed the plush Oriental carpet to where the spy cam remained hidden beside the battered copy of "Leaves of Grass."
A smile crossed his tanned features as he replaced the gadget in his pocket. 'Candy from babies,' he thought, walking toward the large fireplace. He reached up to the small gargoyle statue residing on the mantle and poked it in the eye. The back of the fireplace obligingly slid out of view to reveal a set of shallow steps leading down to the hidden laboratory. He was halfway expecting cobwebs and maybe a few flickering torches, but it was actually lit with recessed lighting, and not a cobweb in sight. Maybe not so Vincent Price after all.
He pulled his gun from its holster, released the safety, and began his descent. No boogey men or Frankenstein monsters leapt out at him as he came to the foot of the stairs, instead he found himself standing on a platform overlooking the room below- a large and obviously high tech lab. Overly white, shiny, and frighteningly sterile. There was a large assortment of tubes containing a variety of substances scattered across one table, a bank of computers, and what looked like a large deep freeze at the far end of the room. The one thing missing was any sign of Haley.
Lester took his time on the stairway leading to the ground floor, moving cautiously and keeping his weapon ready, but no attackers or alarms went off. Reaching the floor, he slid the gun back into the holster but didn't fasten it in. Then he headed for the computers and hooked in the small PDA device Ash had given him. There was the hum of the computers gearing up and a whir as the modem kicked in. Dante had said the thing would connect anywhere on earth, but Lester had his doubts. No way could the little piece of plastic and silicone be connecting to anything from a secure bunker underneath an island in the middle of the damned Caribbean...
"You've got mail!" the piece of plastic and silicone chirped happily.
Lester rolled his eyes. Space age technology at its best. He typed in the commands and blinked in disbelief as the PDA quickly bypassed any and all demands for passwords or security procedures, starting the file transfers immediately. 'Wonder if this thing works that well on all systems,' he thought, the possibilities of banks flitting through his mind. Les shook his head to bring himself back to the current situation. Robbing a bunch of rich guys blind could come later. For now he eyed the actual hard drives and considered taking them as a back up plan, but disregarded the impulse- there was no telling when Deering might return or if he would get a second shot at the lab to replace them. So while the PDA began storing the contents of the entire computer bank in its seemingly diminutive memory banks, he rifled through the various cabinets and shelves, looking for the medications listed in the files.
On the far side, almost to the deep freeze, he hit pay dirt. They weren't even locked up; the bottles were sitting in plain sight, organized in a neat row- beginning of the process to the maintenance phase. Some were bottles of pills while others were in liquid form, meant to be administered via shots.
It took some time to take a sample of each individual substance, and label it in sequence, so the PDA was finished before he was. Lester glared at it again. "Show off," he muttered as he unplugged it. When it was safely stowed away he took another look around the room, his dark eyes searching out every detail.
Time to find out what Masters had done with Haley. He had taken her into the study, which was the entrance to the lab, and she had never come back out. She hadn't been in the study, and he was pretty sure she wasn't here. The room was obviously empty and there was nowhere to hide. He frowned and swept his eyes over the stark white furnishings, the tables, and the computers. Nowhere at all, unless... His eyes focused on the large white box at the end of the room. Unconsciously he found himself taking a half step backwards, further away from the deep freeze, a chill running down his spine and pictures of frozen bodies drifting across his mind.
But this was his job...
Reluctantly he approached the deep freeze, all his other career possibilities flashing through his head. He could just do security, watch a parking lot or something... eat jelly donuts and scare teenagers... Keeping his new future firmly in mind he lifted the lid. What he found inside scattered the thoughts to hell and back.
It wasn't a freezer; it was a sarcophagus. With water.
Haley lay inside the thing, floating in several inches of water. Her arms and legs were held in strange gel-padded restraints, a mask of similar material covering her eyes and ears and a few electrodes were attached to her forehead. But she wasn't dead, he realized with a swell of relief. No, her chest rose and fell in regular if shallow breaths. Her chest... it took a moment for the last and most glaringly obvious detail to sink in. She was naked. Les blinked once; half-praying he was hallucinating.
Nope. There was still a naked female floating in a sarcophagus. No wonder the poor kid couldn't tell what was real anymore, he himself was half-convinced he'd stumbled into some fucked up version of Snow White. In fact if seven midgets toting uzis had walked out right then he wouldn't have been surprised.
"Haley?" he said softly. No response, not that he'd expected any. Lester shook his head and took a moment to evaluate the situation- it always helped to have a plan. She was in sensory deprivation, which meant that that son of a bitch had just left her here for however long he was going to be gone. No that wasn't right: Alec wouldn't risk Deering's wrath by killing off an experiment. So maybe there was a timer on this thing? He didn't have the time to wait and see which theory was right. Masters had been pissed enough to leave her in this thing for at least two days- how much longer would she last, both mentally and physically?
"Damn it," he whispered, reflecting on his distaste for situations like this. Leave her and risk half the reason for this insane op dying or take her out and risk getting found out? He looked back at the girl floating in the tank, oblivious to him, oblivious to the entire world. Pale, thin, frighteningly still- a far cry from the spunky kid he'd known, but it was still her. She at least deserved a chance. "You owe me," he whispered finally.
The decision made, he still had the problem of how to wake her up. Lester stared down at her and tried to remember every training session he'd ever gone through on dealing with hostages, prisoners, kidnapping victims... nothing had ever mentioned sensory deprivation though. Well, this ought to be interesting.
After another moment of hesitation he decided to get the blindfold and earplugs off her. He didn't know how she was going to react, so maybe it was best if she was tied down to start with.
He pushed the blindfold up, revealing her eyes to be closed. Apparently she was asleep... He touched her arm. She flinched, but didn't awaken. Fuck, he didn't have time for this, he thought as he pulled off the electrodes and earplugs. "Haley?" he whispered. No response. "Alia?" he tried. Still nothing. "Damn it, sweetheart, wake up..."
He started work on her restraints. They were simple clasps- apparently whoever was held in this thing was not going to be in any condition to get loose. The thought turned his stomach. He didn't even want to imagine what waking up in there would be like. Dark, alone, no movement, no sensation whatsoever? That was a couple steps past Hell as far as he could see.
Masters was going to die a slow and horrifying death, he decided as he unfastened the wrist cuffs, picturing the girl he'd come to know those few weeks in Trenton and comparing her to the still, lifeless little thing in front of him. He wondered how long she'd been there, and how many times before. How many times Bombshell had been here, as well...
As soon as the last clasp was open, he tried touching her again. He cupped her face in his hand, moving his thumb gently across her cheek. "Come on, sweetheart I haven't got time for this!" he said. Haley's entire body jumped at the touch; her eyes fluttered open as he spoke. She whimpered in pain at the light, and closed them again quickly. Les smiled.
"Hey, gorgeous. I know, fluorescent light sucks, don't it?" He toned his voice to a whisper, guessing that her ears might be sensitive as well. Haley winced, but didn't respond. Sighing, he grabbed her hand and pulled her up to a sitting position. Her eyes opened again, blinking rapidly then staring at him in a look of shock. He sighed. This might take some getting used to for her. Sensory overload... but there wasn't time for that.
He lifted her out of the watery grave and set her on her feet. Or at least he tried to. Her knees seemed to give out and she would have crumpled to the floor, but he managed to catch her. He held her upright and shook his head despairingly. Of course this wouldn't be that easy.
"Let's go, kid. We have to get you out of here..." he looked down at her still naked body, "and dressed. Where'd he put your clothes?"
Haley frowned and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She closed it again, then took a deep breath. She tried once more. "Don't know," she said slowly, her voice barely audible. Almost like she wasn't real sure about how to speak. He shuddered at that thought and shoved it out of his head.
Okay. No time to look around for the clothes. He settled her on the lab table, pulled off his shirt, and offered it to her. She blinked in response, but didn't take it. Mentally tallying up the number of tortures he was personally going to inflict on the two scumbags, he put the shirt on her. Haley submitted to the dressing without a word.
"Can you walk?" he asked. She frowned at him, then looked down at her legs like they didn't belong to her. Huh. Guess that answered that question. "You're right, no time for talking now. I'm going to carry you upstairs. We'll get everything sorted out later." 'Like disemboweling that son of a bitch who put you in there,' he added mentally.
She didn't protest as he lifted her, obeyed his request to wrap her arms around his neck, and didn't make a sound the entire trip up the stairs. The only movement she made was to rest her head against his shoulder. Probably this wasn't a good sign.
Lester breathed a sigh of relief as they walked out of the fireplace and back into the study. He tried to set Haley down in one of the chairs, only to feel her arms tighten around him. "Sweetheart," he said quietly, "I'm going to put you down, now," he said.
"No," she whispered. The fear in that one barely audible syllable was enough to shake him. He sank into the chair, cradling her in his lap and wishing like hell Bobby was with him. He was good with this stuff, knew what to do. He took a couple seconds to calm down, try to think it through. It didn't take to long before he got the problem- She needed the contact. Something about humans needing physical touch...
The ways he was going to kill Masters became even more colorful.
"Ok, sweetheart," he whispered, keeping his voice calm and even. "Seja ainda, tudo será aprovado. Eu não o deixarei, querida." He pulled the radio off his belt and hit the call button. "I found her, boss," he said. "What's orders?"
"Took you long enough!" Enrique's voice was strained. "What'd you do, go on vacation?!"
"Negative. Encountered some... difficulties," Lester replied.
"My offices," his brother said after a moment of silence. "I want a full report."
Lester sighed and looked down at the girl in his lap. "We're going to see Enrique now, ok?" he asked. Her head moved the barest fraction of an inch, which he took as an indication of approval. Even if it wasn't he knew she was too weak to do anything.
He stood up, taking her with him and headed for his brother's rooms. They were halfway there when he noticed her skin becoming cooler. Realizing she might be going into shock, he tightened his hold and walked faster. "Come on, sweetie. Stay with me... Just a little bit further. It's fine now. It's going to be okay... Você está indo ser fino. Tudo será aprovado. Eu não deixarei qualquer coisa acontecer-lhe... " She was beginning to shiver and gave no sign of hearing him, or even recognizing her surroundings. "Estada com mim. Por favor estada com mim. Apenas um pouco mais longo. Você é seguro agora."
The remainder of the trip seemed to be ungodly slow, and avoiding the cameras slowed the progress further. Thankfully Rico had left the door open for them, and Lester slipped inside, kicking it closed behind him as Rico stood to greet him. Whatever he had intended to say was cut off as he saw the look on Lester's face. A scowl settled across his features as he looked at the girl, wet and obviously headed into shock.
Neither brother said a word as Lester carried her to the bedroom.
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Portuguese Translations
Be still, everything will be okay. I won't leave you, darling.
You are going to be fine. Everything will be ok. I will not let anything happen to you... Stay with me. Please stay with me. Just a little longer. You are safe now.