“Ready?” Eck asked, taking the keys when Joey handed them to him.
Joey nodded, standing to the side of the front door while Eck unlocked it, his gun to his side. Two more deputies were stationed behind the house. He wondered if they felt as nervous as he did. Probably not. They’ve been cops for a lot longer than I have.
Eck inched the door open first, then shoved it the rest of the way, dropping to one knee, his gun at the ready. Silence greeted them and Joey felt foolish. Then they heard a muffled sound which seemed to come from the basement.
“There,” Eck mouthed, pointing to a door they could barely see through the arch to the kitchen.
They inched forward, the crepe soles of their shoes silent on the linoleum of the kitchen floor. When they reached the door Eck tested the handle then opened it slowly. With no lights on, they could barely see the flight of stairs leading down.
Eck signaled for Joey to stay where he was and then, testing each step, he went down to the basement. Joey’s finger tightened on the trigger of his gun. He forced himself to relax even as he waited tensely, certain that at any second he’d hear gun shots.
Instead, a few minutes later, Eck called out, “Found him. He’s alive.”
Somehow that didn’t ease Joey’s fears as he raced down the stairs, almost tripping over the last of them, realizing as he did he should have turned on the light. Alive doesn’t mean he’s alright.
He saw an open door to the right, a dim light showing. Taking a deep breath he entered what looked like a small storage room. Eck was kneeing over a prone form, hiding most of it from Joey’s sight.
“Call it in, and get an ambulance out here.”
Stepping to the side so he could see, even as he made the call, Joey sighed with relief. Nate looked like hell, blood caking his hair and one temple, but his eyes were open and when he saw Joey he smiled weakly.
“Remind me next time I get nosy to ignore my instincts to see what’s going on,” Nate murmured.
Joey chuckled. “I have the feeling Rory’s going to tell you that more times than you want to hear it.”
By then Eck cut had the ropes binding Nate’s wrists and ankles. When Nate tried to sit up Eck put a firm hand on his shoulder to stop him. “You don’t move until the EMTs tell you it’s okay. Got it?”
“Can he talk?” Joey asked, kneeling down beside Eck, brushing Nate’s hair back off his forehead as much as the dried blood would allow.
“Depends. If you want him to tell us what happened, no. I think that should wait until the bigwigs are around to take his statement.”
“Alright. I just wanted to know,” Joey looked at Nate, “did you see who did this to you.”
“No.”
“That answer’s that.”
There was the sound of sirens and moments later the EMTs came down, turning on the lights on the way. After checking Nate over they loaded him on a stretcher and got him upstairs and into the ambulance to take him to the clinic. Once there, the doctors would make a decision whether he needed to be transported to the county hospital in the next town.
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