Secret Passage

by Amanda Stevens

  Tingles stole up and down Zac’s spine as he gazed at Von Meter. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a secret passage. A time tunnel, if you will. A wormhole that links the present to the past. To 1943 to be precise.” The old man’s smile deepened Zac’s chill. “We’ve found it, you see. We know the location of the wormhole, and we have every intention of sending someone through it. Someone who is uniquely qualified for such a mission. That someone…is you, Zac.”

  Chapter Two

  She dreamed that Adam was still alive. The vision seemed so real, it was as if that day in the park had never happened.

  But even in her sleep, Camille knew it wasn’t real. Adam was dead, and no amount of wishful thinking was ever going to bring him back.

  But his voice… She could still hear it in her sleep.

  “Mom, can you really teach me how to play baseball?” he was asking her.

  In her dream, Camille grinned down at him, her heart swelling with love. “You bet I can. I’ll teach you just like my mother taught me.”

  “Why didn’t your dad teach you?”

  “Because my dad died when I was little. You know that, Adam. We’ve talked about it before.”

  “Did my dad die, too?” he asked solemnly. “Is that why he’s not here to play baseball with me?”

  How was she supposed to answer that question, Camille wondered sadly, when the truth was something she still hadn’t come to terms with herself? Adam’s father wasn’t dead. He simply…didn’t remember them.

  Luckily, the child suddenly became distracted by something else, and he let the matter drop. “Mom, why is that man watching us?”

  Startled, she glanced up. “What man?”

  “That man over there.” Adam was holding her hand, and his grasp tightened almost imperceptibly, as if he somehow sensed danger.

  Camille followed her son’s gaze. About thirty feet from the path, a man stood in the shade of an elm tree. Sunglasses obscured his eyes, but she could tell that he was staring at them.

  A chill ran up her spine. There was something…unnerving about the way he watched them. As if…he knew them.

  Camille was certain she’d never seen him before. She would have remembered. He had a striking appearance, the kind you didn’t forget. Dressed all in black, he was tall and thin, with silvery-blond hair combed straight back from his face.

  Camille shivered again. She and Adam had purposely drifted away from the more populated area of the park so that they would have plenty of room to play pitch without worrying about stray balls hitting toddlers. She suddenly found herself wishing they hadn’t wandered quite so far away from the swing sets, jungle gyms and mothers pushing babies in strollers.

  “Adam, maybe we should go back—”

  “No, Mom, please.” He squinted up at her. “You promised you’d teach me today. Can’t we just stay for a little while? Please? Pretty please?”

  It wasn’t in her son’s nature to remain obstinate for long. If they left now, he’d soon get over his disappointment. He was an easygoing child. Loving and affectionate although, like his father, he had a bit of devilment lurking in those dark, soulful eyes. Eyes that could melt her heart with just once glance. And when he gave her that look—as he was now—she didn’t stand a chance.

  “Okay, just a few pitches,” Camille relented, her gaze moving back to the stranger. Surely he meant them no harm. They were still within shouting distance of the playground, and they were visible from the street. It was broad daylight, a beautiful summer’s afternoon. What could possibly happen?

  She spent a few minutes showing Adam how to hold the ball. “Your hands are too small now to grip across the seams, but we’ll work on that as you get older. Right now, just try to get the ball out on your fingertips. See? Like this.” She demonstrated the technique. “And keep your wrist loose and cocked back. That way you can use it as part of your throwing motion.”

  After a few more minutes of instruction, she backed up and tossed Adam the ball. “Now, throw it to me, son. Just like I showed you.”

  After a few tries, he was able to get the ball to her with some accuracy and catch it when she threw it back.

  “I did it, Mom! Did you see me?” He jumped up and down in his excitement.

  “Good job! I knew you’d be a natural!”

  It was true. He’d inherited his father’s athletic prowess along with his dark good looks and innate charisma. Someday he’d be a real heartbreaker. Just like his father.

  They played for several more minutes. Camille was just about to suggest they head back to the car when her last pitch got away from Adam. The sound of his laughter echoed back to her as he chased after the ball. She laughed, too, at first, enjoying the moment, but then suddenly her breath quickened in alarm.

  Something was wrong.

  The grass should have slowed the ball’s momentum, but instead it kept rolling and rolling, always just out of Adam’s reach. She heard him laugh again as he tried to chase it down.

  She must have thrown the ball harder than she meant to. That had to be it….

  “Adam! Wait! Let me get the ball. Adam!”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Camille spotted the stranger again. He’d moved into the sun, and now she could see him more clearly. As she watched, he slowly reached up and removed his dark glasses. Camille gasped. There was something odd about his eyes….

  A fist of terror closed around her heart. He meant to harm them. She knew that without a doubt. She had to get to Adam. She had to protect him….

  But the harder she tried to catch him, the farther away he seemed.

  He was almost to the street by now, still chasing the ball. Try as she might, she couldn’t reach him.

  “Adam!” She screamed his name, but a sudden gust of wind tore it away. “Adam!”

  The ball rolled into the middle of the street and stopped. Without hesitation, Adam darted after it. He was so focused on the ball that he didn’t see the blue sedan roaring down the street toward him….

  CAMILLE AWAKENED with her dead son’s name on her lips and tears drying on her face. She thought at first the pounding in her head was the echo of her own heartbeat, but then she realized someone was banging on her front door.

  Lifting her head, she squinted at the clock. Just after seven. Had she overslept?

  Her gaze darted to the window where she could see the sun slipping below the edge of a distant ridge. She sank back in relief. It was evening, not morning. She must have dozed off while listening to the news. The radio was still on, and she could hear the transmission fading in and out. She reached over and snapped off the old Motorola, but it took a moment for the static to die away.

  The pounding came again, more desperate this time, and someone shouted her name. She put a hand to her eyes, trying to wipe away the last of the sleep as she swung her legs to the floor. Running a hand through her messy hair, she got up and hurried to the front door.

  The dream was still so fresh in her head that when she glanced through the sidelight and saw the little boy standing on her front porch, her initial instinct was to throw open the door and sweep him into her arms, even though she almost immediately recognized him as one of the Clutter children from down the road. He didn’t even resemble Adam. Her son had been dark haired while Billy was a freckle-faced redhead.

  Camille drew back the door and scowled down at the child. “Billy? What’s all the commotion about? Is everything okay—”

  He grabbed her hand and tugged. “You gotta come, Miss Camille. Davy says you gotta come right now—”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. Come where?” Camille felt as if only half her pistons were firing while Billy operated at full throttle. She had a hard time keeping up.

  “You gotta come to the mine!” His voice rose in agitation. “Davy says—”

  “To the mine? You mean the old deserted coal mine up on the ridge? You boys didn’t go up there, did you? That place is dangerous—” Camille sank to her kne
es and gripped the boy’s shoulders. “Billy, tell me what happened. Is someone hurt?” When he nodded, her stomach lurched. “Who’s hurt? One of the twins? Donny?”

  He shook his head, gulping in air as he tried to catch his breath. “No, not Donny. Not Davy, either. It’s a man. We found him in the mine. He’s croaked and everything, and Davy says he’s a German spy probably!”

  Camille tried to keep her voice even, tried not to let her own panic show in her actions, but she saw Billy wince as her grip tightened on his arms. With an effort, she released him. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  The boy nodded vigorously. “Yes, ma’am, he’s real dead. Davy said to come get you on account of our pop’s not home and you’d know what to do.”

  Camille wasn’t so sure about that. “Where is your father?”

  “He’s at work. He won’t be home until real late probably.”

  Daniel Clutter, a widower, was employed as an engineer at one of the city’s secret facilities, and his work kept him on the reservation for long, exhausting hours at a time. He’d recently hired a full-time housekeeper to watch the boys in his absence, but the woman had to be over sixty and was no match for a precocious seven-year-old, let alone his twelve-year-old twin brothers, who were almost always up to mischief. Davy, the self-appointed ringleader, was cunning and clever and utterly fearless. A dangerous combination, in Camille’s estimation.

  And now it appeared that he’d led his brothers inside a deserted mine. He had no idea of the danger they could have encountered. A dead German spy was the least of it.

  So what was she supposed to do? The cottage didn’t have a telephone and the road back to the mine was overgrown and impassable. She’d have to go on foot.

  “Here’s what I want you to do,” she told the still-excited child. She put a hand beneath his chin. “Listen carefully. I want you to go straight home and tell Mrs. Fowler I’ve gone up on the ridge looking for the twins. I’ll bring them home as soon as I find them. Understand?”

  The little boy swallowed. “Yes, ma’am, but Davy said I wasn’t to tell anybody but you. He said—”

  “Never mind what your brother said.” Camille lowered her voice to a stern, no-nonsense tone, the kind she’d once used to let Adam know she meant business. “You do as I tell you and maybe, just maybe, I can keep you boys out of trouble.”

  Camille turned him toward the front porch and gave him a swat on his behind. “Hurry, now. Tell Mrs. Fowler you’re both to stay put until you hear from me.”

  As the boy shot across the front porch, Camille whirled. Hurrying through the silent house, she grabbed first-aid supplies from the bathroom and stuffed them into a bag, along with a flashlight and her .45. Two minutes later, she was out the door.

  A path behind the cottage led into the woods, but the trail ended after a half mile or so and the terrain soon became rough and overgrown. Darkness was falling, too, but Camille didn’t turn on her flashlight. Batteries were hard to come by, and she’d learned to use them—and a lot of other things—sparingly. But in another few minutes, the last rays of the sunset would fade and the topography would become even more treacherous.

  At least she knew the area. Camille had made it a priority to familiarize herself with every square inch of the surrounding countryside. She’d found all the hiding places and the discreet trails across the ridge that led straight to the city. From one of those hidden vantages, she’d memorized the rotation of the guards, the weaknesses in the city’s defenses, and she knew better than anyone how easily a spy or saboteur—or even an assassin—could slip in and out undetected.

  Breathing heavily, she emerged into a clearing on the face of the ridge and immediately spotted one of the twins pacing in front of the old mine shaft. The entrance had been boarded up at one time, but some of the planks had been pried loose and the rest were broken. The fresh splintering of the wood suggested that someone had come in and out of the mine recently.

  Camille hurried over to the boy, noticing in the fading light the scar above his right eyebrow which told her this was the more docile twin, Donny.

  “Where’s Davy?” she asked anxiously.

  Donny nodded toward the mine. “In there.” He reached for a lantern hooked on a peg just outside the entrance. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  “No, I’ll go in alone,” Camille said quickly. “You wait out here.”

  “But Davy said—”

  “I don’t give a damn what Davy said.” Camille knew her voice sounded harsh, but she didn’t care. She had to somehow make the boys realize how dangerous the mine was. She had to make sure they didn’t come back here. “Do you have any idea how foolish it was for you boys to come up here? Let alone dragging poor Billy along with you? It could be one of you lying dead in there.”

  She waved a hand toward the mine entrance. “This place has been abandoned for years. The supports are all rotting. What if there’d been a cave-in? What if you’d gotten trapped inside? No one would have known where to find you. You could have been buried alive and no one would have ever known what happened to you.”

  Donny’s eyes widened as he listened to her. Good, Camille thought. Maybe she was getting through to him. Maybe if she scared him enough, he’d keep his brothers away from this place.

  “Now—” she reached inside the bag for her flashlight “—I’m going in there to find your brother and then I want you both to go straight home and never come back here again. You understand me?”

  Donny gulped and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good.” She brushed past him to the entrance, pausing just inside to flick on the flashlight and shine the beam around the room.

  The evening was hot and muggy, but inside the mine the temperature was a good ten degrees cooler. Shivering in the gloom, Camille glanced over her shoulder. Donny watched her anxiously from the entrance. When he saw her looking at him, he jumped back.

  “Which way?” she asked.

  Tentatively, he stepped back up to the entrance. “See that tunnel over there? When it forks, go right. That’s where Davy is.”

  The series of tunnels had been dug horizontally into the hillside. The passage Camille took was narrow and, except for the beam of her flashlight, pitch-black. Thankful she wasn’t claustrophobic, she followed the metal rails that had once been used to transport loads of coal from the mine. As she approached the fork, she could hear water dripping somewhere nearby and the more ominous sound of the ancient log braces creaking beneath their weight.

  “Davy?”

  “In here,” came the soft reply.

  The opening lay to her right, and, as Camille ducked through, she gasped in shock.

  The dead man lay sprawled on the dirt floor, his face and clothing covered in blood and grime. The stench of unwashed flesh permeated the air, and Camille had to press her hand to her mouth to keep from gagging.

  Davy Clutter, evidently unperturbed by either the smell or the sight of all that blood, squatted on the ground beside the corpse. He’d hung a lantern nearby, and the flickering light cast wild shadows across the walls and gave the boy a strange, demonic appearance.

  He had a stick in one hand that he’d been using to draw pictures in the dirt while he waited for Camille. When he heard her gasp, he looked up, his eyes glowing eerily in the lamplight.

  “Davy? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He rose to his feet. “But he’s not. Someone killed him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “His head’s bashed in.”

  “Maybe he fell and hit his head on a rock.” Camille’s gaze slid reluctantly back to the still form on the ground. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  Davy poked the body with his stick. When there was no response, he shrugged and glanced up. “See?”

  Camille tried not to be disturbed by the boy’s cavalier attitude. In wartime, death was no stranger to anyone, even children. Davy was obviously handling the situation the best way he knew how. He’d convinced himself that the dea
d man was an enemy spy and therefore, unworthy of compassion.

  Summoning her own resolve, Camille decided she’d better check for a pulse, but as she moved toward the body, an avalanche of dirt and gravel rained down in the tunnel behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, then whirled back to Davy. “We’ve got to get you out of here. This place isn’t safe—”

  A low rumble from somewhere nearby caused them both to jump. For the first time, Camille saw fear flash across the boy’s features as he moved toward her. “What’s that?”

  “I think it’s a cave-in somewhere back in the mine.” Camille’s heart started to pound as she grabbed the boy’s hand. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

  Davy glanced down at the dead man. “What about him?”

  “We’ll have to leave him for now. There’s nothing we can do for him anyway. Come on. We have to hurry!”

  Camille propelled Davy to the opening and, once he’d scurried through, she started to follow. But a movement caught her eye, and slowly she turned back to the dead man.

  His eyes were open. They hadn’t been before.

  Camille put a hand to her mouth. He was alive!

  Another shower of dirt and rocks spewed into the tunnel, and Davy tugged on her hand. “Come on!”

  But Camille couldn’t move. She couldn’t tear her gaze from those eyes. Those dark, gleaming, seductive eyes.

  The eyes of the man she’d been sent to kill.

  Chapter Three

  “Are you ready for me to continue?” Von Meter prodded.

  “Why bother, old man? I’ve heard enough of your fairy tales for one night.” Zac got up and walked back over to the window to watch the snow.

  Von Meter’s tone grew impatient. “You call it a fairy tale, and yet I’ve told you nothing but the truth. Why do you doubt me?”

  Zac traced the outline of a snowflake on the frosty pane. “Call me a skeptic, but I have a tendency to believe only what I’ve witnessed with my own two eyes. And I know I’ve never seen anyone—how did you put it?—phase into another dimension. You show me someone who can walk through a wall, and then we’ll talk.”