The Hours in Between - The Devereaux Case Files Book 5

Chapter 17

Another week passed by and things began settling down. Reed had sat Ayah down and explained about Gideon and Anita being pregnant. But instead of being angry that they had gotten pregnant when she most wanted to, she was happy for them, and Reed was relieved. He wasn't sure where the chaotic thoughts had come from, telling her that she had to give him a son, but he was glad to see that they weren't so solid as to make her hate anyone who managed to get pregnant when she couldn't. It would have devastated Gideon. But thankfully, they had Gideon and Anita over for lunch one day, when Reed had insisted on taking the afternoon off to pick up the kids and allow Ayah some quiet time to write. It had gone as well as they could expect. The girls talked about names and due dates and nursery décor, while Reed tried to convince Gideon that he would make a good dad, and all his worries would disappear the moment he held his newborn baby for the first time.

On that Friday, however, things were slow. There weren't many visitors to the museum so they had closed early and Reed and Reyes had taken the time to do some re-jigging of artifacts since the big exhibition was over. "Did you hear that?" Reyes asked suddenly, stopping his rummage through a packing case so that he didn't make any sound that count account for the strange scraping noise he had heard. But Reed just shook his head and listened a little more carefully to see what it might have been. He certainly couldn't hear anything. "I'll go check." He decided, wanting to make sure that no-one had left the back door open on their way out.

They had far too many valuables to risk ignoring a sound that might be someone breaking in or some sort of janitor or part-time worker leaving an access point for potential robbers by accident. Reed nodded his agreement and continued his inventory.

Reed lost track of time while Reyes was gone, and when he realized he had been gone for over ten minutes, he wondered if he had found something worth investigation. Or if he had simply stopped for a coffee break. They didn't always taken them together, or warn each other when they were both busy working on their own projects that they were taking a moment out. Reed left his work and headed to the back door, first, to check for Reyes. He stopped halfway down the corridor when he saw Reyes, sitting on a chair, inside the closed back entrance door.

His eyes were closed, his arms were crossed over his chest. It looked almost as if Reyes had sat down and then fallen asleep, but Reed knew better than that. Reyes had never fallen asleep on the job in the whole time Reed had known him. Not even when they had spent three days and nights staking out a criminal, and hadn't had any sleep the whole three days. He looked around for a sign of anyone having got into the building or if Reyes had suffered some kind of episode, but there was no sign of disturbance at all.

He went across and gave Reyes a nudge with his foot, gently pushing his shin, only for Reyes to suddenly slip to the floor. He had his confirmation. Something was wrong. He crouched down to check his pulse, relieved to feel a strong beat pulsing against his finger. Just a moment later, he felt something hit his head and everything went black.

Reed woke up with a throbbing head to find himself lying on one of the platform slabs they had set up for an exhibition display about Ancient Egyptian death rituals. With a quick look down for injuries, he saw that his shirt was torn open and he could feel with a little shuffling that his feet were tied at the ankles. Probably also to the stone slab he was lying on. His wrists were tied at his sides and he figured he was being kept alive for some reason, just as Reyes was. He could see someone moving around in the shadows, out the corner of his eye. The moment he tried to move again, to twist to see who it was, he heard that annoying, grating voice and lay his head back down with a sigh.

"It's no use big brother, you're not getting out of those knots in a hurry." Kelly gloated, smiling as he moved so that Reed could see him better. He wanted his brother to know who exactly had got the better of him and his 'second in command' Reyes. They thought they were so great; but they couldn't beat him.