Glancing at Laurel over his shoulder, he rubbed the back of his neck and dove headfirst into trouble against his better judgment. “Laurel, I think I’ve found something.”
She pivoted and shot him a strange look, one eyebrow raised.
He pointed at the liquid. “What does that look like to you?”
She came closer and stared at the dark smear. “Blood.” Not a question. Not a doubt. A pronouncement.
When she turned her gaze on him, he knew what she wanted him to do. He braced himself against the shelving unit and pushed. The unit rolled on casters, revealing an opening, the secret passage that somehow Laurel knew existed, the hidden entrance to the tunnel that she had been determined to find. How did she know? He was beginning to form some conclusions that he didn’t much like.
She stumbled as if something bumped her and then seemed to jolt out of her weird mood. “Wow!” Surprise lightened the otherwise intense expression on her face.
“Why are you surprised? It’s almost as if you knew it was there.”
She turned to him with wide eyes. “Why are we doing this?” Fear resonated in her reply. Terror flashed across her face. “What’s happening?” She backed up and gripped the stair rails behind her, placed one foot on the bottom stair while still facing Chase. “Why did we come down here?”
“I don’t know. This was your idea, remember?”
She loosened her grip on the stair railing and pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Chase, I don’t feel right.”
The lights flickered and then dimmed. Something was definitely off.
“We should forget about this and leave. We can’t go down there without a flashlight anyway.”
He offered her a way to back out and hoped she would retreat quickly, ending this exercise in stupidity. Nothing good could come of wandering down the tunnel to meet whatever was at the end of the darkened passageway.
Then her attitude changed again, hardened, an almost maniacal gleam glittering in her eyes. “That’s what we came down here for, isn’t it? There’s a flashlight in the kitchen. I’ll go get it. You stay put.” Pushy. Demanding. Almost aggressive. Not Laurel. She raced up the stairs. Gone in a flash.
He shivered. He didn’t like being alone in the basement. The place was creepy, and it had a strange psychological effect on Laurel. Maybe he should throw her over his shoulder and get her out of the house, even if she kicked and screamed. The place had become very unhealthy, very quickly.
He turned to peer through the entrance down the tunnel. Something beckoned him. Whispered in his ear. Pushed him toward discovery. The intense desire to find out what was at the end of the passage overwhelmed him. He jerked and shook his head. Was this strange feeling what had gotten to Laurel? If so, it wasn’t natural.
Footfalls creaked on the stairs behind him. Was Laurel returning? That was fast. Too fast. No, that couldn’t be Laurel. He pretended not to hear anyone behind him and pulled the gun from his waistband and the ammunition magazine from his pocket. The mag slid into place with ease. His fingers automatically wrapped around the grip in the standard firing position. Before he could turn to confront the person sneaking up on him, a sharp pain shot through his head and the lights went out.
****
Laurel rushed down the stairs with the flashlight, pushing past her overwhelming fear and the desire to flee.
“Chase—”
As she cleared the last step, she slid to a stop when she saw him lying on the ground. A fresh wound to the back of his head leaked red. She pressed her hand against her mouth. Willed her heart to slow its frenetic pace. Before she could react, someone grabbed her hair and twisted until the hair shafts screamed with pain.
“You couldn’t leave it alone, could you, Laurel?”
The sneer sent cold shivers down her spine. She tried to turn and get a glimpse of her assailant, but he held her hair with a firm grip.
“Who are you?” Her shaky voice pushed through trembling lips.
She quit resisting because each tiny movement sent a stab of pain through her head from her tortured scalp.
“You don’t know me?” His malicious laughter sent shockwaves of terror through her.
He twisted her head so she faced him, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming.
“Didn’t Sam tell you about me? You know, Sam, your cousin.”
He seemed amused at his supposed revelation, but the cop had already told her about her relationship to Sam Richards.
“I don’t know you, and I’m not sure I want to.” She spat her reply.
Tears flooded her eyes from the blinding pain in her head.
He wiped his mouth as if wiping his laughter away. “No, I guess you don’t.”
He released her suddenly and she stumbled backward, bumping into the wall behind her.
The sneer on his face made her insides tumble. Her heart raced and stalled and raced again. A flashlight, the large, black kind that law enforcement used, dangled loosely in one hand. Was there a smudge of blood on the light’s shiny surface? Was that Chase’s blood?
The overwhelming urge to run assaulted her, but she held her ground. She couldn’t leave Chase. Her eyes strayed to where he lay prone on the hard pack dirt floor, a steady flow of blood oozing from the wound on the back of his head. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her middle, perhaps in a subconscious effort to protect her vital organs.
“Is he dead?”
The man snorted. “Naw, not yet.” He nudged Chase with the toe of his boot. “He won’t be waking up. I cracked his skull. Probably scrambled his brains. If he’s lucky, he’ll bleed out right there.” He seemed to enjoy giving her the details. “Just like Sam did.”
Her hand flew to her mouth to suppress a scream, but she could feel an explosion of horror gurgling up from her stomach. “Sam’s dead?”
A smile spread across the man’s face. “He was getting out of control.”
Then, he grabbed her arm. “Through the tunnel.”
A wave of cold passed through her, and she twisted to stare at the man, analyzing him, calibrating his ability to follow through on the menace he projected. Was he really up to the fight? He seemed solidly built. Muscular. But how intelligent was he? Could he be manipulated?
“What do you want from me?”
Her tone was so flat and seemed to come from somewhere outside herself as if she was viewing the scene from a distance, as if the moment was happening to someone else. The feeling of detachment should have frightened her. Instead, it exhilarated her. She pulled back, refusing to budge until he answered her question.
He yanked on her arm again, but she leaned against his brute force. She wouldn’t go without a fight.
“You’re going to take your brother’s place.”
My brother? He’s talking about James. “Doing what?”
“He was paying off his debt, and now you’ll pay it for him.”
“What if I refuse?”
Where was the attitude coming from? Shouldn’t she be trembling like a scared little girl?
“Then you’ll end up in the river just like your boyfriend over there,” he replied, easily, evenly, like murder was an everyday, ordinary occurrence for him. “Or in the middle of the highway like James.”
Was that a confession?
She calculated what it would take to trick the man. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt Chase. He doesn’t know anything.”
His ominous laughter rang around the room. “Doesn’t matter. He’s seen the tunnel. He’s as good as dead.” He kicked Chase in the back, but he didn’t move, didn’t even groan. “I’ll have to come back and take care of him myself since I can’t rely on Sam anymore...”
She still wanted answers, and she would ask them while she still could, as long as she could still get the man to talk to her. “What happened to James?”
Her question seemed to shake him out of introspection. “He turned into a problem. Now he’s gone. Problem solved.” He leaned into her, whisperi
ng in her ear. “Are you going to be a problem?”
She recoiled, jerking her head away from his wicked mouth. How could someone discount a human life with such ease?
“How can you be so—”
“Evil? Crazy?” A horrid, twisted laugh underscored the intensity of the life or death moment.
What she said and what she did, how much control she maintained over her reactions, would determine if she would survive.
“Crazy runs in the family. Haven’t you felt it, too? You’re one of us.”
“I’m not as crazy as you are Zeke.” Her derision rang in her ears.
Zeke? Had he told her his name?
“Are you going to try to put me in a hospital? You’ve tried that before and it didn’t work so well, did it?”
Where was this coming from? She’d never met the man before. How could she know anything about him or what he’d done?
He spun her to face him. “It wasn’t that hard to convince the coroner that Celeste was nuts. The woman was delusional. She couldn’t remember who she was. Couldn’t remember who anyone was anymore. Once she went crazy… The order of commitment wasn’t that difficult to get once I convinced her that I was her brother.”
He gripped her upper arm just a little tighter. “In this county...all you have to do is talk about ghosts running around your house at night. It’s enough to get you locked away in the crazy house.” His laughter penetrated her to the marrow. “The plan would have worked if the old bitch hadn’t already made up a will. This place would have belonged to James and then we wouldn’t have had to go sneaking around at night.” His eyes raked up and down her body before he pushed her toward the darkened tunnel. “We won’t be sneaking around anymore.”
If she went into the tunnel, she’d never come out alive. She glanced at Chase. Where was the gun? It was no longer stuck in the back waistband of his jeans. Zeke obviously didn’t have it.
“Can’t I say goodbye to Chase?” she whispered, trying her best to sound pathetic.
“Now, why should I let you do that?”
“You don’t understand. I can’t—”
“Go ahead.” He sputtered, apparently choking with amusement. “This might be kind of entertaining.” Depraved delight danced in his eyes.
She knelt beside Chase, touched his face, smoothed his hair, and turned him on his side, spotting what she hoped she’d find. Chase still held the gun in his hand. Zeke had obviously not seen the weapon, or he’d have taken it. With her back to Zeke, she stroked Chase’s cheek with her left hand and reached for the gun with her right.
She pulled it from Chase’s fingers and turned on Zeke, jumping to her feet quickly before she lost her nerve.
“Leave my house.”
He laughed at her as if she was a small child defying a giant. She refused to let his condescension intimidate her. She had a gun. He had a flashlight.
“Leave my house and never come back here.”
“What are you going to do? Call the cops?”
His smirk irritated the fury out of her.
Chase had already inserted the magazine into the gun. Her fingers tightened around the grip, and she slid the action.
“Are you going to shoot me, little girl?” Zeke was clearly not impressed by her show of bravado.
He advanced toward her. She released the safety.
“Aren’t you brave for such a puny little thing.”
His demeaning description of her hit a nerve. Her father had always called her puny. That should have rattled her, but it only dissolved any qualms she had about shooting him if he came any closer.
He made the mistake of taking one more step toward her. It was too much. She squeezed the trigger just as he wrapped his fingers around hers, and the shot went astray, grazing the ceiling overhead.
He laughed an evil sort of laugh that chilled her to her core. Waves of cold rushed through her. She twisted out of his grip, stepped back, and fired once more, this time hitting him. He grabbed his upper arm, his face contorting with pain, and fell backward onto the stairs, blocking her exit.
His face blotched red. Rage blazed from his eyes, a familiar anger that reminded her so much of Burt, the man who had adopted her but was never a father to her. The man that Zeke had impersonated. Maybe that’s why Celeste never saw through his deception.
Run. Run now. But where could she run?
She glanced at Chase and then at the tunnel. Where did it go? The garage? She didn’t want to end up in the garage, but what else could she do? She had no choice but to draw the raging man down the tunnel behind her and away from Chase. The monster would be on his feet any moment. Maybe Chase wasn’t hurt as badly as the man implied. Maybe Chase could survive if Zeke was distracted from his hell bent agenda.
She began running down the narrow tunnel blindly as if a thousand hounds from hell were chasing her. Was the man right behind her? She couldn’t be sure. All she could distinctly hear was the pounding of her inadequate shoes and the irregular beating of her overworked heart. She would die trying to save their lives. If not her own, then maybe she could save Chase’s.
She didn’t have the flashlight any longer, and the tunnel ahead was darker than dark. She kept bumping into the walls, the impact knocking her about, bruising her. Pain shot through her elbow. She bent over double. No time to nurse her aching arm. She had to keep moving, so she straightened and began her blind run again. Another hard bump to her shoulder knocked the wind out of her. She had to slow down, but panic pushed her harder. Her heart raced. Panting. Sweating. Frantic when footfalls resounded on the stone floor in the tunnel behind her.
The distinct aroma of wet soil met her nose. Drops of water tap-danced on her head, meandering between shafts of her hair, dropping onto her clothes and her hands. She wiped the extra moisture off her gun hand but kept moving, unsure of where she was going, at a disadvantage. Zeke had a flashlight. The man presumably knew the tunnel.
Without warning, she came to a decision point, almost running headlong into a wall of rock in front of her. The tunnel branched. The only light was indistinct and muted, coming from behind her. Which way to go?
Disoriented and frightened, she stumbled first toward the left, then toward the right. The faintest glimmer of light flickered up ahead to the right. She shot down the right-hand tunnel. More droplets of water cascaded down upon her head. She raced through a small waterfall that spatted and splattered into a puddle on the stone floor. The room opened up into a dead-end, the tunnel ending in a large cavern. Too late she realized she had headed in the wrong direction.
Enough light filtered through a ventilation shaft in the stone ceiling, allowing her to evaluate her surroundings. The chemical stench stung her nose and watered her eyes. Equipment was scattered about the room on makeshift wooden tables, an odd assortment of common household items used in what seemed to be an uncommon way.
“You made a mistake, Laurel.” Zeke’s voice roared from the tunnel behind her.
How close was he? He exploded into the cave, clutching his injured arm, raging mad, like a bull elephant on a rampage.
She backed up from him, bumped hard into the cave wall, and then raised the gun and aimed at his belly, hoping her unsteady hand didn’t cause the shot to miss its mark.
“Are you gonna shoot me again, Laurel?” His laughter filled her with dread. “Go ahead. One spark and this whole place will blow.”
She glanced at the equipment across the room. The set up didn’t appear to be very stable. Was the apparatus on the rickety table already tilting toward the floor? Would the crash of glass and metal set the whole thing off?
“I’ll take my chances.”
Would he see through her desperate bluff? She wouldn’t fire the gun in the room, not with heavy chemical fumes floating in the air.
Flashing the beam of his flashlight right into her eyes, he cackled, but too soon. Blinded and suddenly disoriented, her finger jerked and the gun fired, but her shot went wide, shattering a supporting rock that h
eld up a stone shelf. The large platform tumbled down the side of the cave, but Zeke reacted too late to escape the collapsing cave wall.
A powerful blast of air forced her backward as the rockslide rushed past her. She stumbled and lost her grip on the gun. The weapon slid across the cave floor, skittering out of eyesight into the darkened edges of the room.
Zeke’s flashlight cast a golden glow onto the jumble of stone and rock that was the collapsed wall. She glanced at the body of Zeke Richards, halfway protruding from beneath the heavy rock. She grabbed the light from his outstretched hand and held her breath. He didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Anger had contorted his face into a macabre death mask.
She shuddered as the flash of a memory zoomed across her mind. Once upon a time, she’d seen the exact same expression on her father’s face. The night he had locked her in the garage.
The splash of liquid spilling onto the floor sent a wave of fear through her. She had to get out of the cave and find Chase before the lab exploded. Just as she was about to head back the way she came, old man Cooley rushed into the room through the tunnel.
“What’s going on in here?”
That’s when the conversation with Grayson came back to her.
“We saw Sam about thirty miles down the highway at a roadhouse. He met with your next door neighbor.”
Everything clicked. “You mean Cooley. Why is that important?”
“Cooley is a known meth cooker.”
That’s when she realized just how much danger she was in. Cooley was even more dangerous than Zeke had been.
****
Chase entered the tunnel without even thinking about it. Operating on gut instinct, he pushed forward, certain that Laurel was at the end of the dark passage. Thankfully, she had left behind the flashlight. Had she headed down the tunnel without it? No. It was more likely that the person who smashed him in the back of the head forced her to go down the tunnel.
When he came within a few feet of a junction, footsteps rang from the left-hand passage. He stepped back into the shadows and doused his light. A yellowish glow emerged from the darkened branch of the tunnel and turned right. Laurel must have taken the right tunnel. Not good. Who was between Laurel and him?
Laurel Heights (Haunted Hearts Series Book 1) Page 24
