Dead Heat by Allison Brennan Read Free Book Online

came down. A ladder lay on the packed-dirt floor below. In addition to the lock, they’d taken away the stairs. But the drop wasn’t far. Rows of shelving revealed hundreds of firearms, from handguns to illegal automatic weapons.
    “Shit, that’s a lot of weaponry,” Donnelly muttered. He grabbed a box of bolts from the counter and dropped it into the hole. No one fired.
    “I’m going first. Crane, guard the door, everyone else follow me.”
    Donnelly didn’t hesitate. He slung his rifle over his back, unholstered his sidearm, and eased himself into the hole, dropping almost immediately and landing on his feet. He searched the immediate area and said, “Clear. It’s only an eight-foot clearance,” he added. “The drop is easy.”
    Lucy dropped down, followed by two others. They fanned out and quickly searched the remainder of the basement. There were six rows of shelving with at least three hundred guns of all types, plus hundreds of boxes of ammo. A door led to a room that was mostly empty, except for a money-counting machine and a computer. A stack of unused plastic bags sat on the small table.
    “Shit,” Donnelly said, “this is bigger than I thought, but they haven’t cleared out. We definitely caught them unaware. Either they’re waiting for a new drug shipment, or they just released their last.” He glanced at the guns. “I didn’t expect the gun operation. The Sanchezes have always been about the drugs, this means—” He stopped for a moment, as if running through a list of scenarios.
    “Someone else?” Lucy offered. “Or expanding his operation?”
    “I sensed something was up. The last gang that Sanchez hit, it didn’t make sense—now it does.”
    One of the Beta team members, Johnson, motioned to a hall that led east. It was poorly lit. Donnelly put his hand up to halt them, then asked the tactical team on the street if they’d found the exit to the tunnel.
    “Affirmative,” Lucy heard through the mike. “We have two men on it. No one has exited.”
    Johnson said, “It could be a maze down here.”
    Donnelly considered, then said, “Delta team, stay on the tunnel exit. I’m going through this end with Johnson. Be alert for us, no one gets caught in the cross fire, got it? Stay up on the com.” He said to Lucy, “You and Rollins stay here, complete the search, secure this door, wait for my orders.”
    Lucy watched them enter the tunnel, then walked the perimeter of the room.
    Nicole Rollins said, “No place to hide here.”
    True. The room off the main storage area had no door. They’d already been in there. Lucy paced, assessing the guns and space. “I’m from California. Most houses don’t have basements. My brother had one in DC, but we didn’t do anything with it.”
    “I lived in Kansas until I was fourteen,” Nicole said. “Spent lots of time in the cellar during tornado season. My dad fixed it up with a television, radio, games—my brothers had an extra game system down there. Lots of batteries.”
    “I’ve never been through a tornado.”
    “Just wait, you’ll experience it soon.”
    Her stomach lurched. Lucy had gone through many earthquakes, but tornadoes freaked her out. It was like God put His finger down on each individual house that was destroyed, whereas earthquakes were just big shakes of temper and everything crumbled.
    “Donnelly will bring in a team to catalog and impound everything,” Nicole said as they finished the second sweep of the room to verify there were no more trapdoors or hiding places.
    Lucy went back into the smaller room where it was obvious that drugs had been packaged and money counted. The computer was new; the electronics team would seize it and analyze the data. She was good with computers and itched to turn it on, but refrained. Instead she looked under all the shelves, for anything that might be helpful to the investigation.
    “How long have you worked with Donnelly?” Lucy asked Nicole conversationally.
    “Awhile,” she