One of the firemen held up a blackened coffee can. “Here’s your culprit. We found it on the floor below one of the burned up shelves in the cellar. Whatever was in here is what started the fire.”
I knew immediately it was the can that I had placed the rags in that Sara and I had used to oil the cellar shelves. I had set it on a shelf and forgotten about it. The window was hinged at the bottom of the frame, and we had left it tilted open to air the room out after we painted the walls and oiled the shelves.
With the window ajar, the rays of the sun radiated through the glass, which was at just the right angle to beat on the metal of the can, heating it and the rags inside. The rags combusted and caught the oak shelving on fire. I never knew that could happen.
“Race, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He wrapped me up in his arms. “It was an accident, Cammy. Everyone’s okay. That’s all that matters.”
The ambulance took Race and me to the Medical Center to have his lungs checked.
“This feels like cheating,” said Race as we rode in the motorized vehicle down the streets of St. Gabriel.
“Most people who set foot on the island will never ride in an automobile when they’re here. This is number two for us, Mr. Coleman.”
“Well, I’m kind of glad I don’t remember the first time. Let’s make this the last, okay?”
“That’s a deal.”
When we got back to the lodge, Kurt and Lisle, Joel and Ralph were waiting for us.
“What’s the plan, Chief?” Joel asked when we walked through the front door.
I cried.
Race held me and said to our friends, “Give her a minute.”
I needed a few minutes, but then we all went into the dining room and hammered out a plan to get the damage repaired and the lodge reopened.
I had intended to call all of the people who had made reservations and tell them we had to cancel, but James called and told Race the View Point Hotel would put up any of our guests for the same rate they would have paid at the lodge, until we could open back up again.
So, instead of cancelling, I called and proclaimed, “This is your lucky day. We had a fire and now you get to stay in the nicest lodging on the island for the same price.” Surprisingly, a couple of the people sounded disappointed, but they didn’t turn down the offer.
Calls came in from family and friends who had heard about the fire. Marni had called Loretta, who told Janie, who called Paul, who called Race’s folks. Sara had talked to Frank. Within hours, they all knew that I had not only almost burned the lodge down but could have been responsible for the death of all of our guests. I still get a sick feeling when I think about it.
Jeremy had decided he would go back to school that fall and was preparing to leave when the fire happened. He offered to stay, but Race and I insisted that he follow through with his plans. Frank flew to California in his Cessna to get Paul and they showed up ready to pitch in.
I thought we had seen the last of the demolition at The Lake Lodge, but we were back to the worse before it gets better stage. All of the burned wood, plumbing, electrical and damaged drywall had to be removed, and every room that the smoke and water had touched had to be cleaned and repainted.
Sara, Marni, Race and I were in the kitchen washing all of the dishes and cleaning every surface when Kurt climbed up the ladder that was the temporary access to the cellar, popped his head out of the hole in the floor and asked, “You guys want to see something cool?”
We all climbed down the ladder and Kurt led us to the spot where Lisle was standing. On the wall where they had pried a burned shelf from its anchors, was an opening the size of a small doorway. Out of the passageway a humming sound was echoing.
I grabbed Race’s hand, Sara grabbed mine and the three of us exchanged wide-eyed glances.
“Look inside,” said Lisle offering up a flashlight.
We all took turns peeking in the hole.
“What is it?” asked Marni.
“A tunnel,” answered Kurt.
“To where?” I asked.
Kurt shook his head. “I only went a short ways. I didn’t see the end.”
“Let’s go,” said Race.
Sara and I instinctively grabbed onto each other, the brave gals that we are. I’m a wee bit claustrophobic and she’s just a scaredy cat.
“Okay.” Race had a huge smile on his face and was rubbing his hands together. “Marni, go get Joel and Ralph and tell them to bring their flashlights. Sara, see if Frank and Paul are back from the Disposal Center, and see if you can find George. And Cammy, go to the pantry and get any flashlights and batteries you can find.”
Minus George, who had gone to visit Lucy, the rest of us were crowded in the cellar at the entrance to the tunnel. Race and Kurt had rigged up a shop light that hung down in front of the doorway and everyone was arming themselves with flashlights and extra batteries.
I walked up behind Race and whispered at his back, “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes, it’ll be fine. You can stay here if you want. We’ll check it out and come back and tell you what we find.”
“No, if you’re going, I’m going.”
One by one, the ten of us walked through the opening and followed Race down the tunnel. I was second in line so that I could keep a death grip on the back of my husband’s shirt. Sara was behind me with the back of my shirt clenched in her fists. I had to keep reminding myself, breathe, breathe.
The tunnel wasn’t straight and after we had walked for a while, I looked back and couldn’t see even a faint glow of the shop light anymore. I whispered to Race, “How far do you think we’ve walked?” I don’t know why I was whispering, but we all were.
“I’m not sure, not far.”
We kept walking and I asked again, “How far now?”
“Fifty feet, maybe.”
“How ‘bout now?”
“Sixty.”
A little further I asked, “How ‘bout now?”
“Cammy.”
“Okay, okay.”
I felt a tightening in my chest and heard Sara taking quick breaths and whimpering. I looked back and encouraged her, “Breathe.”
“Hold it. Everyone turn your flashlights off,” ordered Ralph. We all did and Ralph said, “Look down there near the ceiling.”
We walked ahead about twenty feet and looked up. Where the wall of the tunnel and the ceiling met was an opening about the size of a small sofa cushion, and from it a stream of light was spilling into the tunnel.
Race grabbed the ledge of the opening and pulled himself up to look through it, and then he dropped back down and said, “There’s an overhang of rock. I could see the trunks of trees, and I felt a strong breeze. That’s where the humming is coming from. It’s the wind blowing through. Where do you think we are right now?”
“Maybe above Grayson’s Pass, north of Tunnel Rock,” answered Joel.
The other guys took turns pulling themselves up to look through the opening then Race said, “Let’s keep going.” He turned his flashlight back on. We all did the same and followed him.
After we walked for almost a half an hour, Race stopped short and announced, “That’s it.”
“That’s what?” Paul asked from the end of the line.
“That’s the end.” Race slapped his hand on a wall of mortared rocks.
When Kurt stepped to the wall and pushed up against it, Sara said, “Stop that.” And she grabbed the back of Kurt’s shirt and pulled him away from the wall. “You could cause a cave in.”
“Look at these walls.” Kurt directed the light at the side of the tunnel. “They’re braced good. There’s not gonna be a cave-in.”
Frank and Ralph stepped forward and they kicked and pushed on the rocks, but the wall didn’t budge.
Race asked Joel, “Now where do you think we are?”
“We’ve gotta be close the View Point Hotel,” answered Joel.
We turned around, walked back down the tunnel and to the l
odge. Then we hiked to the back of the property, out the back gate and followed Grayson’s pass, looking for the opening Ralph had spotted at the top of the passageway.
We were just north of Tunnel Rock, right where Joel guessed the opening was, when Paul pointed up the side of the hill. “Look up there.”
In the hillside was a sort of half cave that none of us could stand straight up in and only four of us could be in the space at a time. At the back of the cave, near the ground, was the opening that the men had looked through. On the ground inside, we found aluminum pop cans and candy wrappers, and hidden behind a big boulder were a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt and torn open United Parcel packages addressed to residents and businesses on the island.
We walked back to the lodge like a bunch of kids on the first day of summer, everyone talking at once. “Who do you think dug it?” “It must have been some sort of escape tunnel from the Fort to the north side of the island.” “Do you think it’s the only one?” “What do you think will happen when people find out it’s there?”
“If the end of the tunnel is near the View Point Hotel, like Joel said, do you think it goes into the hotel?” Race asked.
And then Sara said, “Well, so much for the ghosts.”
“What?” Marni asked, and everyone stopped walking.
“The ghosts that Cammy and Race heard,” Sara elaborated.
“Dad, you heard ghosts too?” asked Paul.
Joel laughed. “You heard ghosts?”
“We heard sounds, voices,” answered Race. “It must have been the wind and voices of whoever left the trash.”
“But you thought it was ghosts?” asked Kurt.
“What would you have thought it was?” I asked.
When we got back to the lodge, George was home and we told him what we had found.
“Did you know about it?” Race asked him.
“Nope,” George answered, and he looked genuinely intrigued.
Race called Vernon at the police department and let him know about the packages in the cave we found when we were out walking. He didn’t tell him why we were out walking.
Vernon stopped by the lodge once they had checked it out. “Yep, those are the missing packages, and one of the teachers from the school recognized the Packers sweatshirt. She said she thought it might belong to one of the high school boys. We went to his house and his little sister spilled the beans, told us everything, how she found out he’d been taking the packages and followed him to the cave where he was hiding the stuff. The boy finally confessed.”
Race called James and said, “Hi James. It’s Race. There’s something we want you to see.” He took George and James down the tunnel and James agreed with Joel, the mortared wall of rock was near or led into the View Point Hotel.
James stayed for dinner and while we were eating and discussing the tunnel, James said, “My brother Stephen would turn it into a tourist attraction and charge by the head.”
It was decided none of us would say anything about the tunnel. When the season was over, we would take down the wall and reassess after that.
Lisle and Kurt sheetrocked the cellar and when the room was painted, it bared no resemblance to the cold and musty space it had been. They installed a new window and custom built a door they hung in the tunnel opening. The two carpenters got pretty creative when crafting the door. It would have looked perfect in the home of a hobbit.
New shelving lined the room and Lisle and Kurt mounted caster wheels on the bottom of the shelf that was in front of the tunnel opening. We didn’t have ghosts, but we did have a secret passageway that was no longer a complete secret. One mystery down and a new one to take its place—who dug the tunnel and what was it used for?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Let it Go
If finding the tunnel wasn’t enough excitement for one week, Frank got a call—Dawn Dawson was at the island airport and wanted him to pick her up.
“Hi, Cammy, this is Dawn. Is Frank there?”
“Yes.”
“I’m at the island airport. Can I talk to him? I couldn’t reach him on his cell phone.”
I called Frank to the phone and waited until he was done.
“Frank, what is she doing here?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even tell her I was here. She said she wanted to surprise me.”
“I thought you said that was over?”
“It is.”
“Clearly, she doesn’t know that, Frank.”
“I haven’t even seen her since she showed up in Anchorage a month ago.”
“A month ago, you were with her?”
“I didn’t invite her.”
“So you kicked her out?”
Frank didn’t answer my question but said, “Look, Cammy, Sara and I haven’t said we’re seeing each other exclusively. We live in different states, for Pete’s sake.”
“Are you going to pick her up?”
“I can’t leave her there.”
“Yes, you could.”
“Cammy.”
“Have Marni go and get her.” I shook my head at him and took a frustrated breath. “Oh, Frank, Sara really cares about you. You know that. Why couldn’t you just stick to your own kind?”
“My kind?”
“Frank, I’m sorry. That sounded awful. I shouldn’t have said that. I just meant—”
“I know what you meant, Cam. I’m not good enough for Sara. Dawn isn’t good enough for me. Who made you the judge of who’s right for who?”
He was right, and Race was right. I needed to let it go. It wasn’t any of my business. Sara was a big girl.
When Frank left, Sara came into the lobby and asked, “Where’s Frank?”
My heart sank and the hurt I felt for Sara made it feel as though it was my business.
“Dawn Dawson called and he went to pick her up at the airport.”
“Oh,” was all Sara said, and she disappeared for the rest of the day.
The next week was awkward and although Frank kept to himself for the most part, Dawn kept trying to drag him off. “Frank, let’s go for a walk on the beach.” “Frank, take me into town for lunch.” She knew Frank and Sara had been dating, and I found out that Sara knew Frank had been seeing Dawn on occasion. Sara seemed to have accepted it. Dawn saw it as a challenge.
I was trying to mind my own business, but finally, I snapped. Sara and I were making lunch for the work crew and Dawn came into the kitchen and asked, “Where’s Frank? I need to go into town to pick up a few things.”
“We’re trying to get some work done here, Dawn. Why don’t you strap on an apron and earn your keep. Frank is here to help, not to be your personal chauffer and whatever else.”
I had thought Dawn’s armor was impenetrable, but she got a sincerely wounded look on her face and her eyes filled with tears. “I know you think I’m a joke, Cammy, but I love Frank. And I know you want Frank to be with Sara, but it’s not up to you.”
“Actually, Dawn, I don’t want him to be with either of you.”
Then Sara blurted it out, “I’m pregnant.”
“What?” I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Cam, I’m pregnant.”
“Frank?”
Sara nodded.
Dawn clenched her jaw and then said, “Oh, well, that’s convenient, now isn’t it? Whatever it takes, huh, Sara?”
“Don’t worry, Dawn, I’m not going to have it.”
“Sara?” I looked at her, and she looked so frightened.
Dawn burst into tears, pushed a chair into the table and stormed out of the room.
I sat Sara down, and she dropped her head to the table and cried.
“Sara, does Frank know?”
She shook her head.
“Don’t you want a baby?”
Sara sat up and sobbed. “I did when I was married.”
“You were married?”
She nodded. “After two years I told Chris, my husband, I was ready to start a family, and he told me he didn�
��t want children, never really had. We went round and round about it for another year. Finally, we decided we wanted different things, and we split up. That’s when I came to the island to work for the summer.”
“Sara, why haven’t you ever told me?”
“It was a long time ago. I don’t even feel like it was my life or that person was me. Cammy, I tried to get pregnant during the last year of my marriage. I was so stupid, what a mess I would have been in, huh? Kinda like now. I had really come to believe I couldn’t have a baby. Wrong again.”
“You don’t want a baby?”
“No, not now and not like this.”
“You have to tell Frank, Sara.”
“I can’t, he’ll think I want something from him. I don’t.”
“You’ll tell him you don’t. I’ll tell him. But he has a right to know.”
Dawn walked back into the kitchen. Without saying a word, she took Sara by the hand, led her into the dining room and shut the door. They were in there for over an hour. When they came out, Sara didn’t talk anymore about ending her pregnancy and Dawn packed her bags, asked Marni to take her to the island airport and she left.
Another week went by and Sara hadn’t told Frank. He was packing to go back to Alaska the next morning, and I asked her, “Are you going to tell him?”
“Would you?”
“I will, Sara, but I think you should.”
Sara told Frank that night and he still left in the morning. She didn’t tell me how Frank reacted to the news or how she felt that Frank had left, but I know she was devastated. I think she would have talked to me about it if he hadn’t been my brother.
I was really mad at Frank. There had been times when I had been disappointed in him, I didn’t always understand him, but I had never been ashamed of my brother.
Sara had said she didn’t want anything from Frank. When she said it, I knew she didn’t mean it. She wanted everything from him—love, commitment, and she wanted him to want their baby. I wanted Sara’s pregnancy to be filled with the happiness and wonder I had felt when I had Paul and Janie growing inside me, but she just felt abandoned and alone.
“Race and I are going to help you. We’ve been ready for grandchildren since Janie graduated from high school. We both love babies.” I set my hand on her belly. “And this baby is going to be so loved, Sara.”
My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) Page 30
