Between the Cracks and Burning Doors: Book 2 of The Extraction List Series by Renee N. Meland Read Free Book Online Page B

stepped back to give him a chance to grab a second wad of cash out of his pocket and add it to the first. I threw a bag of heroin at him as he dashed away.
    That night, Nick walked next to me in silence as we made our way back to the church. He didn’t speak again until we were safely locked inside. “Hey Jack?”
    “Yeah?”
    He stepped real close to me. “Would you’ve killed that guy? If he hadn’t given you the money?”
    I paused. To be honest, mentally, I hadn’t really gotten past the knife at the throat. “I dunno, dude, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
    It felt good to be honest for a change.
    I was just tossing my coat on the banister when we both heard a frantic knock at the church door, loud enough that each knock seemed to bend the wood in toward us. I told Nick to stay back and went toward the peephole. A little girl with thick blonde curls and a pink dress was standing on our porch. I couldn’t believe she could knock with that much force, until she did it again while I was watching. I guess when you really wanted something you found strength from somewhere.
    I was still watching her when Nick shoved me out of the way. I was about to scold him when he started yelling at me. “Open up, that’s Heather. She’s one of Maureen’s. We gotta open up.”
    I undid the locks as quickly as I could and shuffled her inside. Heather’s clothes dripped all over the entryway and she took short, fast breaths. She had a wet piece of paper in her hand. “Maureen told me to give you this…to bring it here as fast as I could…you gotta come over right now.”
    I took the note from her. “What does it say?”
    “Don’t know. She told me not to look at it, just to get it to you right away.”
    I kept my eyes on her for as long as I could while I unfolded the tattered paper. I lost my breath as I took in every word:
    Cain Foley, I know who and what you are. I need your help. –M
    Without telling Nick or Heather why, I shoved them out the door and locked it behind us.
     
    This time, Nick had to sprint to keep up with me. I flew up Maureen’s porch steps. I hardly noticed them sagging under my feet, like they could cave in at any moment. Only one thing played over and over again in my brain, screaming at me with every step: How does she know?
    I threw open the door and was greeted with silence. Nick and Heather were close behind me. I looked at Heather. “There’s no one here.” That’s when I listened closer and heard it: faint crying from the basement.
    I took the stairs two at a time, with Nick and Heather following close. Before I reached the bottom, Maureen blocked us. “They stay upstairs.” By the time I turned around to echo what she said to Nick and Heather, they had already ran upstairs and shut the door behind them.
    Seven girls were sitting in the middle of the room, ashen and shaking. One sat in the middle of them, leaning against the others while a girl dressed in a red corset held an icepack on her head. The girl in the middle was covered in blood.
    Behind them, the body of a man lay dead on the floor.
     
    A pool of blood under him grew before my eyes. I looked over at Maureen. It was only then that I noticed her clutching a butcher knife in her hand, so hard that her knuckles had lost all color. She must have never put it down. “What happened?” I reached to gently take the knife from her, but she just grasped it tighter.
    “I was upstairs in the kitchen when I heard the girls screaming. Clients get rough sometimes, but not like this. I could tell that what was happening was on a complete other level. I grabbed the knife to protect myself, just so I could talk to whoever was causing trouble.”
    One of the girls, the one dressed in a low cut black sequin dress, interjected. “She saved Emily’s life. The bastard was gonna kill her for sure.”
    “When I got downstairs the blue room curtains were ripped down. All I saw was his fists flying. A couple of the girls tried to get him