Jolene looked at it then glanced through the shrubs toward Sticks and Stones.
“Electromagnetic interference,” she said.
“What?” Luke wrinkled his brow at her.
“There’s something weird going on at Sticks and Stones. I’m not sure if it’s the building or the land but every time I go there I feel a surge of energy. My hair gets all staticy and stands on end. It’s weird.” Jolene turned to face him. “If there was some strange energy field there, would that interfere with your device?”
Luke pursed his lips together. An electromagnetic energy field? It seemed rather farfetched, but then some of the other things going on around the Blackmoore sisters were pretty farfetched so why should this be any different?
“I suppose it could.”
Luke tapped on his headset to communicate with the rest of the team. “Does anyone have a good display?”
He got five negative responses.
“So no one can see or hear what’s going on?”
More negative responses.
“Anyone have a visual with binocs?”
“I think she’s still inside. I’m looking at the back door,” a voice replied in his ear.
Luke grabbed his binoculars and trained them on the cottage. They were situated about one eighth mile away, on a ridge behind some shrubs facing the south end.
He didn’t see anyone.
He jabbed at his tablet again, his stomach clenching when neither the visual or sound worked. If he couldn’t see or hear Morgan, then she could be in real danger.
“There she is,” a voice in his ear announced and Luke picked up the binoculars again. This time, he could see Morgan come out the back door of the shop with a piece of paper in hand. He watched her grab a trowel and head off to the east.
Beside him, Jolene raised her binoculars, pointing them in the same direction as his.
He scanned the woods, looking for movement.
No one else was near.
He turned the binoculars back on Morgan just in time to see her turn and disappear behind a tree.
“Shit,” Jolene muttered beside him.
The thick tree trunk blocked their line of vision. Morgan must have been traveling straight north because Luke couldn’t see her at all.
He glanced down at the tablet, his heart thudding against his ribcage. It was mostly static, but he could see flashes of video now.
The woods looked clear.
Another flash of video and the angle changed, as if Morgan was bending down. In the next flash, he saw the trowel move toward the dirt.
Luke alternated between the binoculars and the tablet, his muscles tense, heart racing.
And then he saw an explosion of activity from several places in the woods. His heart lurched in his chest as he saw the men were dangerously close to Morgan. He dropped the tablet and binoculars and burst out of his hiding spot, heading straight for the woods as he gave the command on his headset.
“Go! Go! They’ve got her!”
As he ran toward the woods, his heart sank to his stomach. The static on the video had caused them to miss the bad guys’ arrival and had given them an advantage. He hadn’t planned on letting them get anywhere near Morgan, and now it looked like they’d gotten very close.
He burst into high gear, his legs pumping faster than they ever had.
He didn’t know if the GPS tracker on his devices would work with all the static interference and he had to get to Morgan before they took her anywhere, otherwise he might not be able to track her.
He just hoped he wasn’t already too late.
Chapter Twenty Three
Morgan slowly drifted out of the darkness to consciousness. Her back pressed against something hard and damp. Her nostrils stung with the sharpness of the salty sea air. She opened her eyes for a second then had to squeeze them shut to fight a wave of nausea.
Where was she?
Through half opened eyes she saw that it was dark, wherever she was, but she could see a light a few feet away. Some sort of lantern. She opened her eyes all the way. Above her was solid black, no stars or moon.
She was inside somewhere … no, not inside—underground.
She rolled to a sitting position, thankful the nausea seemed to be disappearing. Her pulse quickened as she looked around. She was in some sort of cave. The walls were rock and the floor hard, compacted dirt. It was damp and smelled of the sea—was she below sea level?
The room, if you could call it that, was big with a few empty crates in the middle and a large iron door that was set into a stone opening on one end. She could see a tunnel and flickering light through the open bars. Her heart stuttered when she saw iron chains bolted unto large metal plaques in the stone wall in various places around the room.
Was she in an old pirates’ dungeon?
She heard voices coming from the direction of the iron door and her blood turned cold.
Was it the men who captured her?
What did they want with her?
She could hear them laughing and her nerves zinged with anxiety as the voices drew closer.
“Oh, I see you’re awake.” A large man with an unruly red beard unlocked the padlock on the door and came into the room along with another dark haired man.
Morgan backed up as they approached her. Red beard stopped about a foot from her. He smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a month and she could see crumbs in his beard. Her stomach turned over and she tried not to gag.
“What do you want?” She tried to make her voice sound strong and powerful, but it came out in more of a squeak.
The two men looked at each other and laughed.
“We want to know where the treasure is,” dark hair said stepping a little closer.
“I don’t know where it is.” Morgan touched her earrings, wondering if Luke could hear what was going on. Do these things work in caves? She tilted her head to the side so the barrette faced the two men, just in case.
“Sure you do. You found the map by now, didn’t you? The real map I mean, not that fake one you had when we nabbed you.”
Morgan’s heart squeezed and she thought about the leather map. She hesitated too long before answering which set off more laughter. Then red beard got right in her face and his eyes weren’t laughing or smiling—they were hard and cold. Her blood froze in her veins.
“No more games now. You’re going to show us what’s on the map or that young sister of yours is going to have a very bad day.”
Morgan’s heart clenched. “What do you mean? Have you done something to her?”
Black hair laughed. “Not yet, but if you don’t give us what we want, she’ll wish she was never born.”
Red beard looked at black hair out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah and she’s just your type isn’t she?”
The two men laughed lewdly and Morgan remembered Celeste’s warning to memorize the map. Could this be why? Was she supposed to tell them where the treasure was?
“If I tell you what’s on the map, how do I know you still won’t hurt my sister?”
“You don’t, but you also don’t have any choice, so you might as well spill or we’ll let you watch us hurt all of your sisters before we do the same to you.”
Morgan’s heart dropped in her chest. She didn’t have much of a choice and drawing them a map would buy her time and hopefully in that time Luke would be able to find her and dispense with the bad guys.
“Okay, I’ll draw it for you.”
Red beard produced paper and a pencil and Morgan used one of the boxes as a surface for the drawing. She contemplated drawing the map wrong, but her gut feeling told her to go with what was exactly on the leather map as she had memorized it.
When she was done, she handed him the paper. “Are you going to let me go now?”
The two men laughed.
“Do you think we’re stupid? We’re going to check this out and then … maybe we’ll let you go,” he said then glanced down at the paper. “Unless you tried to trick u
s with a fake map. Then we’ll come back and make you wish you hadn’t.”
Morgan shivered at his words, rubbing her upper arms as the men turned to leave. She watched them slam the iron door shut and lock it then listened to their retreating footsteps echo off the walls.
As soon as they were out of earshot, she ran over to the door. She pushed. She pulled. It wouldn’t budge. She looked down at the lock, remembering how Jolene had popped the lock on the box with a hairpin in the attic. It wasn’t the same kind of lock but she took the barrette out of her hair and tried anyway. The only thing she succeeded in doing was mangling the barrette.
Morgan pressed her back against the wall, her stomach sinking like a lead ball. She was trapped. She slid down the wall, to a sitting position and put her face in her hands.
“Mew.”
What was that?
Morgan jerked her head up and looked toward the iron door. Nothing was there.
“Meeew.” More insistent this time, but the cave like walls acted as an echo chamber and she couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Meeeoooow.”
That sounded just like Belladonna.
Morgan stood up, swiveling her head from side to side. She walked to the far end of the room, the one that was furthest away from the lantern. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she saw the cat sitting near one of the chains that hung from the wall.
“Where did you come from?” Morgan bent down to pet her. She must have snuck in through the bars of the door when Morgan had her head in her hands.
Did that mean Luke was coming?
The cat weaved her way around Morgan’s ankles, then headed over toward the wall.
“Meow.”
Morgan looked over. The cat was in front of a giant iron plaque that held in one of the chains that came out of the wall.
Then suddenly, she was gone!
Then back again.
Belladonna was going in and out of a big hole in the wall just behind the plaque!
Morgan rushed over and poked her head in. It looked like there was some kind of passageway or tunnel behind there. Too bad the opening was only big enough for her head.
If she could just move the plaque a little more …
She pushed, but it didn’t budge.
Belladonna poked her head out of the opening. “Meeeooow!”
“Okay, okay. I’m trying.”
Morgan braced herself against the floor and pushed on the plaque with her feet.
It moved an inch.
She pushed harder.
Another inch.
She pulled back her leg and kicked out with all her might and the plaque slid about six inches. Just enough to fit her body through.
Belladonna poked her head out again, then turned around and flicked her tail as if for Morgan to follow.
Morgan took one backwards glance at the room then wriggled through the hole into the tiny tunnel on the other side.
###
The smell of rotting seaweed and dead fish made her want to vomit. Morgan had to crawl on her hands and knees as the tunnel wasn’t big enough to stand in. The bottom was slimy and she shuddered to think what that slime was. Every so often her fingers would touch something squishy and her stomach churned wondering what icky creatures lived there.
It was dark in the tunnel. She could barely see Belladonna’s white tail, like a flag, waving in front of her. As she crawled along behind it, she realized she had no idea where she was.
Underground somewhere, but where?
And how far underground?
The smell of the ocean was strong, so she figured she must be on the coast, but that could be a dozen places near where she was captured. She realized she had no idea how long she was unconscious—they could have taken her anywhere.
It seemed like she was going uphill—hopefully toward the surface. She’d had about enough of the damp underground.
The passage got increasingly larger until she could almost stand up. Her hands and knees were bruised and bleeding from crawling so she stood as best she could. She still had to bend over a little, but walking upright was much faster.
After a minute or two, she noticed it was getting brighter in the tunnel as if there was an opening not too far ahead. At least she hoped that’s what it was. She picked up the pace.
Suddenly Belladonna stopped short in front of her. Morgan felt the floor beneath her shake. She heard a strange rumbling sound.
Belladonna looked back at her then started forward at a trot.
Morgan did the same, her heart beating wildly against her chest as she noticed small rocks becoming dislodged from the sides and top of the passage.
Bang!
The explosion rocked the passage. Morgan watched in horror as the walls and ceiling seemed to cave in before her eyes.
Her heart seized as she looked in front of her just in time to see a large rock hit Belladonna. The cat fell, then sprang up again but Morgan could see more rocks heading toward her.
Without thinking, she threw herself on top of Belladonna to shield the small cat from the onslaught of rocks. Two seconds later, the entire tunnel collapsed burying them both.
###
So this is what it’s like to be buried alive.
The stones and dirt lay heavy on Morgan, pressing the air out of her lungs as she waited to die. She could hear voices and wondered if they were spirits welcoming her to ‘the other side’. Maybe her mother and grandmother would be there. She wondered if she’d come back as a ghost and start talking to Celeste.
The voices were getting louder, the air in her lungs getting smaller.
Was the pile on top of her getting lighter, or was that her spirit departing?
She could hear rocks scraping, then she felt someone tugging at her arms.
“I’ve got her!”
Was that Luke?
Morgan tried to open her eyes as she felt the pile being cleared away on top of her. Strong arms tried to turn her over. Someone brushed the hair away from her face.
“Morgan, can you hear me?”
She nodded then slitted her eyes open. Luke’s face was hovering above her, his eyes clouded with concern. He reached down and tenderly touched her face.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said scraping at the rest of the rocks.
Morgan’s heart lurched when she remembered Belladonna. The cat was right underneath her, but she didn’t feel her moving.
Her heart dropped. Was Belladonna dead?
Tears stung her eyes as she wriggled free from the debris, looking underneath where she had been for a sign of the cat but there was none.
Luke pulled her the rest of the way out and took her in his arms, kissing her face, her lips, her forehead. Jolene was hugging her from behind. But Morgan was still thinking about the cat.
“Wait.” Morgan pushed away from them and they looked at her with alarm.
“Belladonna is still in there, she may be hurt.” Morgan practically sobbed out the words.
“What are you talking about?” Jolene raised an eyebrow at her. “She’s sitting right here.”
Morgan looked over to where Jolene was pointing. Belladonna sat on the grass next to the rubble-filled hole Morgan had just come out of, her fur white as snow, no sign of injury, calmly licking her paw as if it was just another regular day.
Morgan felt a surge of relief run through her body as Belladonna looked up at her with big ice-blue eyes.
And then, she could have sworn, the darn cat winked at her.
Epilogue
Two days later, Morgan settled into the most comfortable chair in the informal living room, a cup of tea in her hand and Belladonna in her lap. Somehow she’d only sustained minor cuts when the tunnel caved in on her and those were bandaged along with some small carnelian stones Fiona had shoved in under the gauze.
“How did you figure out what the real murder weapon was?” Fiona looked at Luke who hovered around Morgan making sure her tea cup was full and her bandages were
secure.
“That was easy. When I heard the description of the kettle bells, I knew that it matched the size and shape of old cannon balls. And what better thing for a pirate treasure hunter to use to bash in a rivals skull than an old cannon ball?” He spread his hands. “Then once we found the bad guys’ boats, it was easy to get on board and find the actual cannon ball that did it. We figure the treasure hunters from one group must have killed him on their boat and put him on the cliff as a warning to the members of the other group.”
“I’m just glad you could turn all that over to Overton and get Celeste cleared,” Cal said.
“And put the group of pirates that didn’t blow themselves up in jail so we won’t have to worry about them anymore,” Jolene added.
“Well, Overton didn’t seem very happy about the evidence. He seemed rather disappointed, but he couldn’t argue with it. The two rival groups kind of helped us since they were getting in the way of each other’s efforts. Thankfully they have both now been neutralized,” Luke said.
“Too bad it took blowing up half our yard to do it.” Celeste jerked her chin toward the window and Morgan felt her stomach clench as she looked outside.
The yard was about twenty feet shorter now. A giant half-moon shaped crater had been blown out of the cliff facing the Atlantic during the explosion which had caused the tunnel on the other end of the yard, that Morgan had been in, to cave in. Luckily she’d been near the surface. Otherwise she might not be sitting here today. She shivered and scratched Belladonna behind the ears.
The cat had saved her.
“That old treasure was booby-trapped just like you said it might be.” Morgan looked up at Luke. “I guess I got lucky that I was far enough away. I’m still not sure exactly how you found me, though.”
“You can thank Jolene for that,” Luke said. “The tracking devices didn’t work because of some strange interference at Sticks and Stones so I didn’t see the treasure hunters sneak in. I tried to run over there when they grabbed you, but I wasn’t fast enough. Jolene was the one who figured out to watch the road and then we knew which direction they took you in.”
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