A pall of deadly silence filled the air a moment before the inevitable protests began.
“Are you accusing one of us?”
“We’re all gonna die.”
“We have no means of contacting anyone?”
“Who would do such a thing?”
“Who took it?”
“Who hates us that much?”
Hannah fisted her hands to combat the contagious wave of panic. “Shut up! All of you!” She centered her glasses at the bridge of her nose and stared them all down. “If we could think rationally for one minute—if we could work together as a team instead of wasting our energy making excuses and accusations—if we could set aside our egos and fears—” she swung her arm toward Rafe “—and actually listen to someone who knows how to lead us…then maybe we could finally get the hell off this mountain!”
That burst of temper left her feeling light-headed. It also left her feeling as if she’d finally broken free of the Randolph College curse. Copperfield stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her. Irene covered her gaping mouth in shock.
Rafe grinned as though something about her tirade amused him.
And then the clapping started. One solitary set of hands. Charles Defoe sat up on his stretcher—his clothes torn and dirty, his bald head bruised—wearing the biggest smile she’d ever seen on the man. He finished his round of applause and winked at her. “Now that’s what I’m paying my money for. It’s about time somebody stepped up and kicked this outfit into shape.”
It wasn’t exactly the breakthrough moment of the bonding retreat that Irene had been training them for, but it was enough to unite them. For the time being, at any rate.
“All right. So what now, Kincaid?” Keith Robinson groaned as he and Rowdy set down Charles’ stretcher. He nodded toward the pool of boulders and trees. “Can we cross it?”
“Not with all this loose rock. There could be cave-ins, or more slides if we take a wrong step. We can’t risk it without the right equipment. And not with an injured man.”
“We’ll have to go the other way then, won’t we?” Dick Copperfield suggested. “Through the high caves and crevasses you pointed out earlier?”
Hannah read the tension that wiped out the last vestige of humor in Rafe’s expression. She knew a thing or two about phobias; she’d figured out that he had a secret, too. Rafe Kincaid would rather don a suit and tie than take them through the narrow passageways and dark confines of the erosion tunnels.
“Turn around, folks. We’re going through the caves.” As everyone shrugged into their packs, Rafe reached out and squeezed her hand. Was he offering reassurance? Or seeking it?
His grim apprehension was a tangible thing that radiated through his fingers into hers. “Your spider’s forcing us into his trap.”
“Hell.” Rafe wedged his body through the narrow passageway that had been used by Native Americans and outlaws more than a century ago. He’d bet damn good money that none of those cowboys and Indians topped out at his size and weight. With his neck bent at an awkward angle to dodge the low ceiling and his body twisted sideways, he found it hard to breathe, much less make much headway.
Of course, his stopped-up lungs and the cold sweat beading across his forehead had as much to do with the haunting scents of dirt and damp that filled his nose as they did the crick in his neck. Though the tomb that had claimed his mother’s life and forever cursed him with this irrational fear had been man-made, these corridors that had been carved by Mother Nature felt just as close, just as confining. And as he scraped his cheek across the cold, wet slime of niter clinging to the granite, he felt as if these walls were trying to bury him, too.
But eight people were counting on him to lead them to safety. Hannah was counting on him. He’d promised he’d get her home. It was a promise he intended to keep.
They were nearly through the length of the corridors formed by shifting tectonic plates and erosion. Maybe an eighth of a mile more, and the mountain would open up into a cavern and out onto a cliff where the only dangers he’d have to worry about were steep drop-offs and snakes and slippery footing. But he’d be able to breathe. He’d be able to see illumination beyond the beam of his flashlight. He wouldn’t be so damn afraid of a cave-in that he could barely remember someone wanted them dead.
In his eagerness to find freedom and fresh air, Rafe turned to squeeze through a narrow archway. But he knocked his elbow against the wall, hitting his funny bone. His fingers popped open and the flashlight crashed at his feet, went out and rolled away into the darkness.
Rafe closed his eyes and swore, damning the darkness, damning the walls that rushed in at him, damning his own useless hide. This was panic, pure and simple. It was a weakness. A curse. A horrible reminder that—
“Rafe.” He heard Hannah’s voice and snapped his eyes open. He felt her hand on his shoulder and inhaled a welcome breath. “I’m here with you. Let me squeeze past you. I can see the light from outside. We’ll be okay.”
“I should be able to handle this.” He squeezed the unconvincing protest through his teeth.
“We can handle this. We’re a team. Over?”
He wanted to smile at that reference to their conversations over the radio—how she’d intrigued him even then. “Got it, boss.”
“You forgot to say over.”
Her voice was as hushed and seductive as it had been that first day on the radio. And with every fiber of his being, he homed in on that sound. Even when he removed his pack and she squeezed past him, rubbing nearly every delicious inch of her body against his, Rafe was listening for her voice. Then she had his hand in hers. She kept talking, asking about things he could barely remember. His brother’s name. How old his father was. Why he loved the mountains so much. That voice eased his fear, strengthened him, lured him like a siren.
“You can open your eyes now. We’re here. It’s…” She fell silent for a moment and he reached for her, wanting to hug her, thank her. But she pulled her hand from his, disappearing into the darkness.
Her soft gasp cut through his hazy gratitude and lingering fear, leaving deadly suspicion in its wake. “Kansas?”
Rafe blinked his eyes open to four feet of head room, the dim light shining in from outside, and the sight of a silver-haired stranger holding a gun to Hannah’s head.
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
Hannah cringed at the lyrical recitation, fully grasping its deadly meaning.
“Nice sentiment, old man. Now get the hell away from her.” Rafe’s low-pitched threat rattled along her nerves, but the distinguished gentleman with the gun wasn’t fazed.
“I don’t think so, Mr. Kincaid. Allow me to introduce myself.”
But Hannah whispered the announcement first. “Cyrus Randolph.” She cleared her throat, shivered against the gun at her temple and spoke more loudly. “The Merchant of Venice. So you know your Shakespeare. Is that what this has all been about—revenge?”
“I knew you were the smartest one of the bunch, Miss Greene. I could leave clues and you’d worry, become frightened. And when I needed you to follow them, you did.”
Dick Copperfield stepped forward, shaking in his boots, though whether from fear or anger, it was impossible to tell. “You killed Natalie.”
“You destroyed my school. So we’re even. And technically, I didn’t kill her. I only moved the body.” Cyrus Randolph, retired president of Randolph College, the last surviving member of the school’s loyal old guard now that William Hawthorne was dead, swept his gaze around the stunned faces inside the cavern. “Clean-up will be so much easier having you all die in one place like this.”
Rafe, ever alert, was looking up. Hannah nudged her chin up to follow his gaze. She saw them, too, the wires running across the mouth of the cavern from one brick of putty to the next. She’d only seen them in movies and television, but she recognized explosives. “You’ve r
igged this place to blow.”
“Yes, and if my accomplice hasn’t completely muffed his instructions the way he did with you, Miss Greene, then the entrance where you came in will also collapse.”
Lydia squealed. “You’re burying us alive.”
“All but Miss Greene here. I believe I’ll use her as insurance to keep Mr. Kincaid from trying anything heroic.”
“What about the rest of us?” Keith Robinson challenged the real enemy this time. “What if we get a heroic urge to stop you?”
Cyrus laughed. “Not likely. I’ve been watching you people for the past three years, tearing apart everything my family built over generations. Dick and Natalie stealing money from the college accounts.” He turned his attention to Copperfield. “Do you know that even after you took that bimbo to bed, she continued siphoning funds into her own private account?”
“What? No, we did that together. We agreed. A million dollars and then we’d…” He stopped when he realized how his words damned him.
Nodding with contempt at the president who’d replaced him, Cyrus moved his accusations to his next victim. “Ed and Keith. I hired you both for your ideas to revitalize the college. But I didn’t know how lazy and decadent you could be. I found that young man whose research you stole, Keith. He’s bussing tables at a fast-food establishment, trying to raise money to sue you and the college. I paid him ten thousand dollars and promised to save him the trouble. And Ed…” Cyrus clicked his tongue with disgust. “What you have done to the reputation of my college. How many girls filed protests against you? Six? Seven? Did you pay them off to drop their suits and leave Randolph?”
Ed seemed stunned to be the current focus of Cyrus’s vengeance. “I talked them out of it. They got the grades they wanted. They were of legal age. It was their choice.”
“Getting rid of you now is my choice.”
“And us?” Charles Defoe had taken his wife’s hand to protect her as well as a crippled man could.
While Cyrus explained his disappointment in his wealthiest alumni for not safeguarding the college following his departure, Hannah tried to piece together everything she’d seen and read and heard thus far. An accomplice. Cyrus hadn’t killed three people on his own, hadn’t tried to murder her without help. He had an inside man.
Who?
Who had been unaccounted for the morning someone cracked open Professor Hawthorne’s skull and Natalie had disappeared? Who would be strong enough to overpower Frank Brooks? Who would Cyrus trust? Who could he blackmail or pay into helping him? “…I loved Bernice, but she chose him. And then William let her die. I could have loved her better than that.”
Like the killer, Irene had provided them each with a daily quote. Was that too easy? Too much coincidence?
All that Shakespeare and Chaucer and Latin crap.
Rowdy had said that. At the suspension ferry before he’d run off to get sick. The kid who couldn’t tell e.e. cummings from a Yeats ode had named the classic quotations and Latin language—even though he’d never seen the note on Natalie’s blouse!
Hannah defied the gun at her temple, interrupting Cyrus’s neatly rehearsed list of accusations. “Who’s Rowdy Trent to you?”
The older man stuttered in the middle of his speech. Then he laughed. It was a cold, heartless sound that echoed through the cavern. “Bravo, Miss Greene. Rowdy’s my grandson. Who, by the way, had a very good dissertation presentation until you stood up and ruined it for him.”
Oh, God. That was the crime she was being punished for? “He didn’t know what he was talking about. His facts were wrong, his conclusions made no sense—”
“He was a Randolph heir!”
“You wanted us to make Randolph College a better place. I stood up for the truth and the reputation of the department and school.”
“You… You four-eyed twit!” She’d just dug the first chink into his choreographed plot for revenge. Cyrus’s cheeks burned bright red and he looked as if he wanted to curse. But such a basic expression of honest emotion was beneath his skewed sense of values and honor. “Rowdy! Did you set the charges the way I showed you?”
“Yeah, Grandpa.” Rowdy sidled around the group and their mute threats at the surfer dude who’d fooled and betrayed them. “But I didn’t think we were supposed to act like we knew each other. Do I need my gun now?”
“It’s over now, you idiot. Yes, point your gun at the mountain man and get outside.”
Rowdy reached into his backpack and pulled out a black steel gun that looked as big and deadly as the one grinding into her skull.
“Do you have the detonator for the rear entrance?”
“In my pocket.” When Rowdy pulled the device from his pocket, it caught on a wire and dragged out Rafe’s radio with it. The radio dropped to the ground and skidded across the floor toward Hannah’s feet. “Oops.”
“You were supposed to destroy that one, too.”
“I didn’t have time. The big guy was watching. I’ll get it.”
Cyrus shoved him back upright when Rowdy bent to retrieve it. “Leave it.” He dug his fingers into Hannah’s arm and dragged her with him out onto the ledge beyond the cave’s mouth.
The heat from the sun beat down on the top of her head, raising goose bumps on her skin after the cold, damp night of the cave. Hannah’s stomach lurched with concern. Rafe couldn’t stay in there. His claustrophobia would make entombment a particularly cruel way for him to die.
“Rafe?” She looked straight at him. Gray eyes met brown across the gulf of a few feet that spanned an eternity of unspoken feelings and hopes and regrets between them. “This isn’t the end. I won’t let him do this to you. I’ll find a way to help you.”
Rafe’s eyes never left hers as he stripped off his pack and dropped it to the cavern floor. His expression was still as a stone mask. His knife. Did Rowdy remember that Rafe had a knife?
“Touching final words, Miss Greene. Maybe someone will write them down for posterity.” For a brief moment, he removed the gun from her temple and flashed it at the others to keep them cowering inside the cavern as he backed several feet closer to the lip of the cliff. “The rest of you stay where you are. If it’s any comfort, I’m sure archaeologists will find you in a few millennia or so.”
“I will find you, Randolph,” Rafe promised. Hannah had heard that promise before. She found as much strength and inspiration in that vow now as she had the first time she’d heard his voice. “I’ll find you.”
Cyrus jabbed the gun into Hannah’s temple, knocking off her glasses, plunging her into a blurry world of color and motion. “Make one move against me and I’ll dump her over the side of this cliff.”
“Fine with me.”
Rafe wasn’t abandoning her, he was choosing his target.
A big blur of brown fury charged Rowdy. The two men crashed to the ground. She felt a jerk on her arm, slinging her toward oblivion. Hannah fought back.
“No!” Cyrus screamed and stumbled into her as the two goliaths rolled into his legs. Hannah hit the ground hard. Rocks bruised her bones and cut into her skin. Cyrus landed on top of her, knocking the wind from her lungs.
“Get out! Everyone! Now!” She was vaguely aware of Dick Copperfield shouting orders.
The scramble of feet and panicked cries was soon eclipsed by an awful rumbling noise, echoing through the cave, flying at them like retribution from the bowels of the earth. The ground shook. Hannah and Cyrus slid toward the edge of the cliff. She sucked in a deep, painful breath and dug her nails into the rock, trying to shake loose the man on top of her while she found purchase on a rock, a clump of grass—anything.
A gunshot rang out and Hannah screamed. “Rafe!” A ghoulish scream drowned out her panicked cry. A shower of tiny rocks and debris pelted her. “Rafe?”
“I’m coming!”
He was safe. He wasn’t hurt. Her relief was so immense, she didn’t immediately feel her toe popping out over the edge of the cliff, sliding toward certain death on the rocks below
. “Rafe!”
“No! Rowdy!” A rough hand grabbed her by the back of the collar and yanked her to her feet. Her heel skidded off the edge and Cyrus jerked her back up beside him. “You killed my boy! You’ll pay for what you’ve done to me and my name! Now she dies!”
Cyrus pushed.
Hannah staggered backward, her arms swinging out, latching on to nothing but air. She screamed.
A flash of something, silver and bright, sailed through her line of sight. She heard Cyrus gasp, felt him buckling beside her. Her fingers sank into a handful of his jacket and she squeezed tight, holding on for her very life. But Cyrus was falling, too. Falling faster with the momentum of Rafe’s knife planted squarely in his chest knocking him off the edge of the cliff.
“Hannah!”
She heard Rafe’s shout as she tumbled over. Without her glasses, she couldn’t see the jagged rocks and unbending trees below. All she saw was the wall of gray granite.
And the roots.
Hannah reached.
Her fingers scraped past wood and rock. Splinters rammed beneath her skin. Falling. Flying. Fighting for her life. Her right arm wrenched in its socket as she found her grip at last. She jerked to a halt and swung violently back and forth as her body absorbed the shock of stopping so abruptly.
“Help me,” she breathed, wanting to cry, she hurt so bad. “Help me.” She spoke a little louder, refusing to die. “Help!”
Her left hand found a rock to steady her swing. But there was no place for her feet. Her arm was so sore. Her fist was shaking. Slipping.
“Hel—!”
Five warm bands of steel latched on to her wrist. Five strong fingers. The biggest hand she’d ever seen on a man. A warm, strong, loving hand.
“I’ve got you, Kansas.”
Hannah looked up into Rafe’s battered, bloodied face, and at last the tears fell.
He dangled halfway over the edge of the cliff himself as he latched on to her other arm and pulled her up. Keith Robinson was there, too, anchoring one of Rafe’s legs. Ed Butler braced the other leg. Dick Copperfield crouched near the edge to grab a handful of Hannah’s shirt to help haul her over the edge. Lydia took the blanket that Charles pushed into their hands and brought it over to cover her as Rafe pulled her up into his arms.
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