Sinister Sanctuary: A Ghost Story Romance & Mystery (Wicks Hollow Book 4)

by Colleen Gleason

  “Good plan. What’ll we do with them till then?” Misty asked, apparently in agreement with the idea and having no qualms talking about Oscar and Teddy as if they were inanimate objects.

  “Just leave ’em here.” Rob glanced toward the interior of the room.

  Oscar liked that idea. Not getting shot yet meant a chance to figure out an escape, so he tried not to look too enthusiastic.

  “They’re not going to go anywhere with these.” Rob reached into one of the plastic tubs and produced a handful of zip ties. “Storm’s a couple hours away. We’ll have time to do a little diving before then—and this time, it won’t matter if they see us walking to and from the beach.” He gave Oscar and Teddy a cold smile.

  “What are you diving for?” Teddy asked as Rob maneuvered over toward them.

  “Buried treasure,” Misty said with a laugh. She kept the gun trained on Oscar as her partner zip-tied Teddy’s ankles then wrists together. And then she transferred her aim to Teddy when it was Oscar’s turn.

  The plastic bit into Oscar’s wrists as Rob yanked the thick strip tight, restraining them behind his back. When Rob shoved him roughly to the floor, Oscar’s head bounced off one of the plastic tubs and he landed awkwardly, twisting one of his wrists. The zip ties on his ankles were just as tight.

  “Buried treasure? Like what—a shipwreck?” Teddy, of course, had to ask the question.

  Even though Oscar’s mind was filled with options for escape, he appreciated the fact that the more they knew about who these people were and what they wanted, the more it could help he and Teddy know what they faced. And potentially assist with an escape.

  Still, he wasn’t all that optimistic at the moment. Especially since he thought he might have just sprained his wrist.

  “The granddaddy of all Great Lakes shipwrecks, in fact,” Misty said as she stripped off her shorts and shirt to reveal a swimsuit. She pulled a wetsuit out of one of the tubs and began to shimmy into it, all the while talking. “Everyone else thought the Catherine went down closer to Chicago, but we were the ones who really found her.”

  When Rob tried to hush her up, she turned on him. “Who the hell are they going to tell? We already know where she is. We’ve already got plenty of the cargo up—and there’s more to come. No one can stop us now.”

  Oscar felt Teddy bristling next to him, and he almost smiled. But his wrist was screaming with pain, and his head pounded from where he’d hit the edge of a plastic tub. Those things were harder than they looked.

  “You’re talking about the Catherine Teal?” Teddy asked. “The ship that went down in the late 1890s.”

  “That’s right,” Misty said.

  By now, their captors had donned diving gear. Rob helped Misty hoist the heavy oxygen tank onto her back, then, with face mask in one hand and gun in the other, he tucked a pair of flippers under his arm. Giving Oscar and Teddy a salute, he said, “See ya in a bit. Enjoy.”

  And with that, Rob closed the door, leaving them in darkness.

  Eighteen

  “Oscar,” Teddy said the moment the door was closed. “Are you all right? You took a hell of a fall.”

  “My wrist is pretty effed up, but other than that, I’m fine.”

  “Okay, good. Just give me a minute.”

  In the pitch dark, Oscar couldn’t see what she was doing, but he could hear what sounded like a sharp slap, followed by a soft grunt of pain. “Damn,” she whispered. “That freaking hurt.”

  “What are you doing?”

  But she didn’t reply, and he heard the same sound again—a swish through the air, then a slap—sharper, harder, and more violent. But this time, there was another sound, too, a faint little snap. She gave a cry of pain, followed by a gush of, “Oh, thank God.”

  “What the hell are you doing? Teddy? Are you all right?”

  “Just give me a sec,” she said, her voice tense. “That hurt so bad. I’ve got to get my ankles free, then I can help you…”

  “What?” He heard more moving around, and by now realized she’d somehow freed herself from the zip ties. “How did you do that?”

  “Do you know where the flashlight is?”

  “I slipped it into my pocket. Right side, upper… Yes. There.” Her hand digging around next to his thigh made him think of other, more pleasant things than being zip-tied and left in the dark, or shot, or otherwise killed, and that renewed his anger and determination not to let those assholes take Teddy from him.

  Suddenly, the flashlight was on. “Oh my God, Oscar, you must be in agony. Your wrist is purple and so swollen. The plastic is cutting into your skin.” She sounded like she was going to cry.

  “I’m aware of that,” he said, gritting his teeth as her movements trying to free him made the pain even worse. “How the hell did you get yourself free?”

  “Hold on,” she said. “There’s probably something in here I can use to cut you loose. You won’t be able to do what I did without really hurting yourself—”

  “Teddy. If you don’t tell me how you got yourself free—”

  “All right, all right. Geez. It’s really easy, but it hurts.” By now she was back behind him with the flashlight and something she’d found in one of the tubs; Oscar realized he preferred not to know what sort of sharp implement she was going to be using to cut the plastic away from where it dug deeply into his swollen wrist. “You lift your arms up as high as they’ll go, then you bring them down and to your sides in a really fast and hard motion. It snaps the plastic. Did I mention it hurts?”

  Oh my God. Talk about hurting… He ground his teeth and closed his eyes, breathing deeply against the pain, as the plastic she was working on moved against his tender wrist. Then, suddenly, the restraints were gone.

  “Thank you,” he said, bringing his arms back around to the front and gingerly feeling around his swelling hand. Yep. If not broken, then it was badly sprained.

  “Now your ankles,” she said. “How bad is your wrist?”

  “It’s not great. But it could be worse.” It felt like his wrist had been placed on an anvil and someone had pounded on it. “I’m guessing you’ve done some research on how to escape zip ties.”

  “Yes.” He heard the smile in her voice. “I was so happy he had zip ties and decided to use them instead of rope.”

  “Or shooting us,” Oscar said as the tie around his ankles fell away.

  “Right. Well, Misty had a point. It would have been a mess.”

  “Let’s not talk about that right now, hmm?” He pushed himself gingerly to his feet, taking care not to put any weight on his wrist. “We need to get out of here while they’re out on their dive.”

  “Okay, but I want to see what else is in these tubs,” Teddy said, waving the flashlight around.

  “No,” he replied firmly, starting for the trellis-hidden door. “That’s how the good guys always get caught—they spend too much time messing around looking at things when they should make an immediate beeline for freedom and safety. We’re getting out of here now and calling Joe Cap, and then— Dammit to hell.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I can hear them out there, Teddy.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “I don’t know. Sounds like they’re arguing—yes. He wants to dive now, but she wants to wait because of the storm coming. Well, maybe it’ll keep them busy for a while. But we can’t go out there now.”

  “There’s that other door that leads somewhere inside the lighthouse,” she said. “We can go that way. If we can get it open.”

  She brought the flashlight over and shined it on the padlock.

  “If we had a screwdriver, we could just unscrew the lock plate from the wall, there,” he said. “Did you happen to see anything like that over in their stuff?”

  “Philips or flathead?” She walked away with the light.

  “Flathead.”

  He heard her rummaging around and went to join her. “Look at this, Oscar!” she said in a low voice. “They really hit the jackpot.”

>   Inside one of the larger tubs was an array of gold and silver objects: plates, cups, flatware, candlesticks. Much of it was covered with algae and seaweed.

  “If this is from the Astors’ ship, it’s going to be solid gold or silver,” Teddy said. “I wonder what else they’ve found. There’s got to be jewels and all sorts of other treasure down there. No wonder they’re willing to kill for it.”

  Oscar dug out a silver butter knife. “This’ll work. Bring the light, Teddy—but let’s listen at the door first. Maybe they’re gone.”

  They didn’t hear the sounds of voices until Oscar cracked the door and listened at the trellis. “They’re still out there—but now it sounds like they might be on the porch.”

  “They’re probably drinking our wine!” Teddy said, sounding outraged about the least of their problems. “But damn, that means we can’t go back to the cottage. Unless we go from the inside. All right, let’s get to work on that padlock.”

  A butter knife wasn’t the best tool, but it eventually got the job done. There were three screws that held the latch to the wall, and by the time he finished with the third one, Oscar’s fingers were cramped from working in the small location and maneuvering the makeshift screwdriver with his left hand.

  But at last the latch fell away. Teddy carefully pulled the door open, and they slipped through into a small hallway that didn’t look familiar to Oscar.

  “Oh, this is the way to my bedroom,” she whispered, gesturing to the left. “And straight ahead is the door to the staircase that leads to the lantern room at the top.” She pointed up.

  “Can we get out without them seeing us if they’re on the porch?” he asked, for he could hear their voices very close by. Apparently, Misty had won the argument and they were delaying the dive.

  Teddy shook her head. “My room is right next to the porch—remember? And we’d have to pass through the connecting door, and you can see that from the porch too.”

  Damn. And they couldn’t go back around through the trellis door, because there was nowhere to go from there but down to the lake without being seen.

  “All right. Let’s just wait here for a while until they—uh—go somewhere else.”

  Until they come for us.

  His suggestion was punctuated by a distant roll of thunder, and that reminded him of the plans Misty and Rob had made for them. Oscar reached for Teddy’s hand with his good one and squeezed tight. “Is there a closet or somewhere we can hide in case they start looking for us?”

  She shook her head, her eyes narrowing in the dim light. “I don’t think so. There isn’t one in my room, and the one in the bathroom is much too small for even one of us.”

  “All right. We’re safe here for now. Let’s just…wait.”

  They sat next to each other, leaning against the wall in the small, dim, and dingy hall. Oscar turned off the flashlight, for it seemed to be a little dimmer than it had been.

  “Oscar,” she said, tilting her head onto his shoulder. “I just want you to know, there’s no one else I’d rather be stuck in this situation with.”

  He caught himself before he laughed. “I’d rather not be stuck in this situation at all,” he said. “But thank you for the sentiment.”

  Then he drew in a breath, because there were things that needed to be said, and in case he didn’t have the chance to ever say them, he knew he’d better now. Before whatever happened happened.

  “Teddy, I…realize that you were in a particularly festive mood last night. When I got back here. And you were probably a little bit—um—relieved not to be alone—or having to learn the hard way there wasn’t any water after the power went out.” She gave a soft, muffled laugh, and he smiled. “Anyway, look…I…”

  How did he say this?

  “I—uh—well, I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you were so—um—”

  “Oscar?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

  “Neither do I.” He sighed. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing—putting his emotions into coherent words. “Look, I guess I just want you to know that I came back last night because I was—am—really falling for you. But I don’t know whether you were so, well, exuberant and, um, not so very mad at me for leaving and coming back because you were just glad not to be alone and you were celebrating your book being turned in, or…or not.”

  “Is that your way of asking if last night was just me being celebratory and not really about you and me?”

  “Well, yeah.” For once, she’d been remarkably succinct—and he’d been the one floundering around with random phrases and clauses.

  “Well, you’re right about one thing. I should have been more annoyed with you for leaving and then just coming back like—like some prodigal son,” she said. “You really were a jerk.”

  “Right.” He wasn’t certain whether this was going well or not.

  “I mean, I didn’t make you grovel or anything,” she said contemplatively, “and you really probably should have been made to do so, considering that you left me to go back to your former fiancée after sleeping with me for the previous two nights.”

  “Well, we didn’t technically sleep together—”

  “And if it hadn’t been for nosy old Maxine and Iva and her love for ghosts, we probably would have actually slept slept together before you found out that Marcie wanted you back—”

  “She never said she wanted me back—”

  “Oh, phfffft. Of course she wanted you back, Oscar.”

  He swore he actually heard her roll her eyes. “Well, we’ll never know because I… Well, the simple fact is, Teddy, I’m falling in love with you, and I don’t give a damn what Marcie wants or thinks. I only care what you want or think.” And I hope it’s me.

  “Oh, Oscar.” Now he heard her smile, and the knots in his belly loosened. “The reason I was so mad at you—and I was, and I really did give you a break by not making you sweat it a lot more—was because I’m feeling the same way. And you left me in the middle of it. But mostly I was glad I hadn’t told you how I felt before you left, because that would have been even more awful.”

  “Right.” He thought he understood what she was saying. But even if he missed some of the subtler nuances, he got the gist of it.

  And now he was damned certain he was going to get them both out of this mess, alive and safely.

  Teddy lost track of time—it was impossible to know whether an hour or only minutes had passed, sitting as they were in a dark room with no windows and no way to tell time. They held hands and she rested her head on his shoulder.

  They didn’t need any more words.

  She could hear the storm as it drew near, and she knew that meant Rob and Misty would be coming back for them any time, regardless of how long it had been. And that was when things were going to get hairy again.

  Still, she felt optimistic about their chances of coming out unscathed. After all, she and Oscar were both extremely resourceful and intelligent, and Rob and Misty…well, they probably weren’t the sharpest tacks in the box.

  At least, that was what she told herself.

  And then it happened—Oscar stiffened at the moment she heard the sound of someone in the storage room. Whoever it was, they were on the other side of the door with the padlock. She and Oscar had closed that door behind them, but there was no way to block it, and it would only be a moment before Rob and Misty realized where they’d gone.

  She and Oscar had already pushed to their feet, but to her surprise, there was no shout of surprise announcing they’d disappeared. Still, he had her by the hand and was pulling her toward the door that led to her bedroom—and the rest of the cottage.

  If they could just keep one step ahead of Misty and Rob, who’d surely be coming in behind them, they’d be out the front door of the cottage and running down the road where Oscar had left his Jeep.

  He opened the door to her bedroom, and they slipped through into familiar surroundings. That was when
they at last heard the shout of alarm in the storage room.

  Teddy led the way out through her bedroom to the foyer with the connecting door, pausing to peek out at the porch to make sure no one was there.

  Let’s go, she said with her hands, and Oscar pushed ahead of her to crack open the curve-topped door. He peered around the opening, and was just about to step through when an ugly noise met their ears.

  And stopped them in their tracks.

  It was the sound of a gun cocking. Right on the other side of the curve-topped door.

  Nineteen

  “Thought you were pretty smart, did you?” Misty sounded annoyed. “Rob! Here! I’ve got them!” She gestured with her firearm (Teddy couldn’t see it well enough to tell what kind of weapon it was) as she pushed through the connecting door, forcing them back toward Teddy’s bedroom. “I oughta just go ahead and put a bullet in each of you right now.”

  “Kind of messy,” Teddy said before she could stop herself. “I vote for lightning strikes on top of the lighthouse.”

  Oscar had grabbed her hand again and squeezed hard enough that she gasped. When she chanced a look at him, she saw he was furious—and worried. She squeezed back, still feeling optimistic—quite a bit less than a few minutes earlier, but still. They weren’t dead yet.

  After all, a bullet might be a sure thing, but a lightning strike wasn’t.

  “Get ’em up top,” Rob snarled when he appeared from Teddy’s bedroom. “Storm’s getting nasty—it’ll be the perfect way to take care of ’em, then no one can nail anything on us. They won’t even be suspicious enough to check things out.”

  As if to punctuate his words, a wild flash of lightning lit the room, followed too closely by a loud crash of thunder.

  Teddy’s optimism flagged slightly. As if he understood, Oscar tightened his grip on her fingers.

  “Up we go,” Misty said, gesturing with her gun as she prodded them back the way they’d come, through the room in which they’d waited, and to the base of the hundred and sixty-eight stairs. “No, wait. You go first,” she said, pointing at Oscar. “I’ll keep your girlfriend nice and close to me. Rob, you come up behind.”