Paige MacKenzie Mysteries Box Set

by Deborah Garner

  September 22, 1959

  Tally: Landscapes (212 – 218) – 7, Tribal Conflicts (233 – 238) – 6, Covered Wagons (244 – 247)– 4, Horses – (261 – 265) 5, Bison (286 – 287) – 2, Maiden on Blanket (279) - 1, Dust Storm (293) – 1, Wolves (257 – 259) – 3, Winter Scenes (226 – 227) – 2

  Pulling out the diary, she compared the pages to those still attached. Looking at the damaged, torn section, it made sense. The frustrated artist had destroyed much of what he’d recorded. Or had he?

  She slid the pages into the diary and sighed. She would have to keep looking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Paige calculated the distance from Timberton to Great Falls and back. Betty and Mist had gone to buy supplies and ingredients for meals and would be gone for at least four hours, plenty of time for Paige to get into the basement and back out before they returned. Finding the key quickly would be important, which could pose a problem. She had no idea where Betty kept it, only that the basement was locked for the safety of guests until the rotted sections of the interior could be stabilized – just one of many needed repairs to the hotel.

  The desk in the front lobby was the likely place to start. Downstairs, Paige stepped behind the heavy, mahogany counter and faced the back wall. The cubbyholes of the mail slots each held one or two keys. Since each compartment was numbered, it seemed clear those keys corresponded with guest rooms rather than the basement door. She ran her hand across the top of the highest shelf, but found nothing. She also found nothing when she peeked under the lowest row of compartments.

  Paige studied the drawers below the counter. There were dozens of them, in all sizes – some slim enough to hold only a few sheets of letterhead, others deep enough for vertical file folders. The drawer handles were intricate in design and polished, in keeping with Betty's careful upkeep of the hotel's interior. Works of art, these built-in components of old hotels.

  Pulling up Betty's desk chair, Paige settled into it and prepared for a detailed search. She searched the front counter and desk drawers for fifteen minutes without turning up anything more interesting than office supplies and hotel files, Betty’s secret stash of caramels, a shawl and three romance novels. The discovery of Betty’s personal items sent a ripple of guilt through Paige. She didn’t mean to snoop, just to investigate, but she realized the line between these two behaviors was a fine one.

  Paige stood back and placed her hands on her hips, fingers facing backwards. It was an odd pose that she fell into when frustrated, a childhood habit. A critical uncle had once told her it made her arms look like chicken wings, angular and out of alignment. Sometimes she stood this way just to spite him.

  Paige took her search into the kitchen where she pulled open more drawers and found only the expected cooking utensils, pot holders and recipe cards. There was no sign of a key until she stood up straight and looked below the cupboards. Hanging on a hook next to the suspended coffee mugs was a key ring. She snagged the jangling cluster of metal and headed for the back hallway.

  The overhead light was dim near the basement door. Paige fumbled around, inserting one key after another into the lock, but each key jammed halfway in. Reaching the end of the ring's circle, she went through the process again, this time forcing herself to maneuver the lock more delicately. The metal clattering of the keys grated against her. Finally one key slid in farther than the others. With one hand, she jiggled the doorknob while working the key with the other until the key slipped the rest of the way into the lock, and a twist of the knob opened the door.

  The lighting above the basement stairs was even duller than it was in the hallway. Paige was relieved to find a switch just inside the door, feeble though the illumination was when she flipped it on. She stepped forward, reaching out to test a wooden handrail to her right. A light touch revealed the railing was too shaky to bear any weight. She withdrew her hand and focused on keeping her balance. The first few steps were sturdy, but others creaked underneath her as she descended the stairs, causing her to pause more than once. Each time she bolstered her nerves again and continued downward until she reached the bottom of the staircase.

  The space was nearly the same size as her room, two floors above, just a few feet wider. Stacks of boxes, dusty shelves and abandoned appliances surrounded her. The old boiler, prone to periodic bursts of noise, stood in the far corner. She moved forward, shuffling her feet slowly across each rickety floorboard to make sure there was nothing to cause her to trip. The wooden slats rocked back and forth with each step, making it a challenge to keep her balance. A dank smell of dirt accosted her nostrils.

  She found a flashlight on a worktable, switched it on and scanned the wall for openings. It was solid, as she expected. She swung the light up toward the ceiling, hoping to see an open vent, but found only old tools hanging from hooks, mixed in with a few dusty, ripped flour sacks. Something touched her cheek and she spun around to feel a cobweb wrap itself across her face. She shuddered as she wiped it off.

  Paige refocused her attention across the dismal room. The boiler gurgled in that rumbling, deep tone she recognized as one of its many sporadic exclamations. It seemed more dramatic from her current perspective, certainly louder in the cellar than from two floors above. Perhaps the leak that Betty had referred to was what gave the fixture its varied repertoire. How old was it? One hundred years? More? It deserved to be cranky at that age, leak or no leak.

  When she took a step forward and shifted her weight onto the next floorboard, it sounded like it snapped. She froze in place for a moment, then rocked her foot back and forth before she determined the board was stable and then continued. Two steps later, she felt her toe catch against something solid and lowered the flashlight's beam toward her foot. A second layer of planks had been placed above those closest to the boiler – reinforcement for the original flooring, Paige realized, eyeing the layer of damp, rotted wood below. Backing up this theory were heavy cables attached to the boiler and bolted to the brick wall, taking the weight of the heavy unit off the floor itself.

  Paige was just musing that Betty needed to take care of the water damage and replace the old boiler with modern heating when another step resulted in a sharp crack. In what seemed like a split second, she felt the dry boarding slip beneath her, sending her knees into a slimy puddle of rotted wood. When she tried to stand, she slipped again, landing on her side this time. Determined, she propped one elbow up and was drawing herself up on her knees when she felt the decayed wood below her give out altogether. As mildewed mud slapped her face, and a thick, slurping filled her ears, she felt herself sliding downward. Grasping frantically, she caught the edge of a wooden beam, but couldn't hold on. Falling was all she remembered before blacking out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The first thing Paige felt when she came to was a throbbing pain. She lifted a shaky hand to her head to find a thick stream of liquid stuck to the side of her face. Blood.

  Disoriented, she opened her eyes, blinked and fought to engage her senses. She was lying on her side. The air was cold, but not freezing, and there was no wind, no sound. The smell of damp earth surrounded her. Was she outside?

  Paige struggled to sit up, which sent a flash of pain across her forehead. Shaking her arms and legs, she determined she hadn’t broken any bones. But her head was bleeding. What had she hit it on? How far had she fallen? When she patted the ground around her, she felt dirt and gravel, but nothing else. She pulled her sweatshirt from around her waist and pressed it against her forehead. Removing it, she felt for the cut with her fingers and winced as she located it just inside the hairline. It was long, but shallow. The bleeding had stopped. How long had she been out?

  She groped the area around her, and found the ground was uneven and piled with mud and debris. She jerked her arm back as a sharp spike stung her hand – a nail. Twisting, she reached out to search another direction, finding more of the same – dampened piles of dirt and splintered strips of wood. Finally her fingers landed on a solid obj
ect with a smooth finish. She wrapped her hands around its familiar shape and her heart leapt. It was the flashlight.

  Its beam was dim but strong enough to help her take stock of her surroundings. She aimed it first at the ground and then upward, blinking with disbelief at the gaping hole above her. The faint glow and recognizable rumbling sound overhead erased the last bits of confusion. She had fallen through the basement floor of the Timberton Hotel. But, into what?

  Paige lowered the flashlight and explored her surroundings more closely. On two sides, dirt walls faced each other, with eight to ten feet between them. The two opposing directions were open. A ditch, Paige thought. She had fallen into some type of old drainage ditch that ran below the hotel. Somewhat calmed by the knowledge that she was not enclosed in an eight by eight foot space, she struggled to her feet. Aside from the gash on her head, the throbbing headache, muscle pains and bruises from the fall and having no conceivable reason whatsoever for having been in the cellar to begin with, her situation wasn't all that bad, was it? After a hot bath, some painkillers and a cold compress across her forehead, she might even be able to think up a way to explain it all to Betty.

  Paige reached for the closest wall and leaned against it for support. Expecting the texture of dirt or mud, she was surprised to find a rough, scratchy surface. She swung the flashlight around quickly. The light revealed a timber beam, securely wedged inside the packed dirt and another, just like it, a few feet away. She moved forward, stepping around the scattered debris. Yet another beam came into view, this one attached to a crossbeam above.

  The ceiling was barely a foot above her head. She was no longer standing under the hotel's flimsy basement. Lifelong claustrophobic tendencies aside, she was now growing concerned. Why would a ditch have such a carefully constructed interior? Unless…. Paige aimed the light at the ground and scuffed the surface with one shoe, brushing dirt clods and gravel aside. A glimmer of metal appeared. As she continued to clear the floor, the dull, scratched surface of a rail became visible. She had fallen into an old mining tunnel.

  Despite a rising panic and a pounding headache that was growing worse by the minute, Paige couldn't help feeling she might have accidentally kicked the article for The Manhattan Post up a few notches. After all, she'd fallen into good stories before, though not literally. If she could tie in the tunnel discovery with Timberton's sapphire mining history, she'd have an exceptional piece. That is, once she got out of her current predicament.

  Paige returned to the spot where she'd originally landed and looked up into the hotel's basement, turning the flashlight off to save the battery. The distance she'd fallen was no more than twelve feet. Given a tall ladder she might have been able to climb out. But with nothing to stand on, her five-foot plus height wasn't going to get her anywhere. She had to find another way out.

  In the dim light, Paige assessed the tunnel’s directions. Surely there was an opening at one end. Mist had described Hollister's compartment under the trestle. Could the tunnel's entrance be there? It was her best hunch.

  Visualizing the layout of the town, Paige figured the Timberton Trestle was no more than a half mile away to her left. Or was it to her right? She looked up into the gaping hole above her again and gathered her bearings. Left, definitely left. Clicking the flashlight back on, she started in that direction.

  Whatever panic Paige had managed to avoid so far came rushing at her twenty yards later. The light from the basement had been more useful than she had realized. As soon as it faded behind her, the flashlight's beam became nothing but a small blur. She pictured the buildings above ground as she moved forward – the candy store, the saloon, the gem gallery. But her imagination was no match for the oppressive darkness. She fought back tears as she followed the tiny light in front of her feet. She could almost hear her grandmother reproaching her with one of her standard clichés: “Curiosity killed the cat.” This had to be the worst situation Paige’s curiosity had ever gotten her into.

  Progress through the tunnel was slow. Paige took small, cautious steps to avoid stumbling. She fought to control her breathing, to keep her fear from causing her to hyperventilate. What structures were above each section of the tunnel? If the floor beneath the hotel was unstable, what was to say the same wasn't true of other places along the tunnel's route?

  Some self-preservation instinct made her raise her free hand toward the tunnel ceiling as she moved forward, just in time to keep her head from smacking against a low crossbeam. She touched her forehead just below the wound.

  A sudden clanking echo from behind her sent her into a panic. She held her breath, listening for movement, then exhaled. It was yet another of the hotel boiler's outbursts. She continued to make her way through the tunnel.

  She aimed the flashlight at her watch to see that it had taken the better part of an hour for her to reach the part of the tunnel nearest the trestle. She had managed to stay calm by reminding herself that each step brought her closer to the end. The longer she walked, the sooner she’d be out. Those hopes came to an abrupt halt when she reached her intended destination. Instead of an exit there was only a wall. Frantically, she moved from one side of the tunnel to the other, certain there was a way through. Yet she found nothing but a solid surface. Had she chosen the wrong direction? It didn't matter. Either way, she'd come to a dead end.

  Paige retraced her steps, arriving once again below the hotel’s crumbled basement floor. Swallowing her pride, she shouted for help and waited for a response. When none came, she yelled a second time and a third, pausing between shouts when the belching of the boiler drowned out her cries. Exhausted from the physical ordeal and emotional stress, Paige found the thought of sitting down to rest almost irresistible. Someone was sure to find her. But what if no one noticed her missing until the next day? The thought of spending the night alone in the tunnel terrified her. She had to find a way out.

  If the first route she had taken was the dead end it appeared to be, the exit had to be in the opposite direction. Yet again she looked up into the hotel basement and cried for help, but it was clear that no one could hear her. Betty and Mist weren't likely to be back until later. There was no way she was willing to wait hours for them to return. The only reasonable option was to follow the tunnel to the opposite end and find the exit.

  Paige was relieved to find the second route straighter than the other, allowing her to cover more ground before losing the light from the basement. She kept the flashlight turned off until it became absolutely necessary to have it on. Once the light behind her faded into black, she clicked on the dim light, willing it to last until she reached the tunnel's exit. Aiming it alternately at the floor and the ceiling, she sidestepped rocks that might trip her, as well as crossbeams that could break her head wound open. Continued outbursts from the boiler caused her to jump a few times.

  Just a little farther, she told herself. She forced herself to take one exhausted step after another.

  Noticing the flashlight growing dimmer, she shut it off and extended both arms out in front of her. If her forward motion angled off-track, her arms would let her know she'd turned toward a wall. She could then straighten out and continue on. After she’d covered several segments this way, her arms brushed the wall. She adjusted the direction at a right angle and began to move forward, only to find herself up against the wall again. Puzzled, she assumed she had over-corrected and angled back. Still she came up against the wall. With a rising knot in her stomach, she placed her hands flat against the wall and patted her way along it, finding that it angled sharply into another wall and, after that, yet another. There was no way around it. She had come to a dead end, just as she had when she sought the exit in the opposite direction.

  Tears of panic welled up. How could there be no exit? What meager amount of energy she'd had after tumbling through the basement floor was gone. She fell back against the nearest wall and slid to the ground. Hugging her knees, she let the sobs come.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  B
etty and Mist stumbled in the front door, Betty laughing and Mist following behind, smiling. Both held hefty boxes, two of many still left to be unloaded. They'd stocked up on every conceivable grocery item, plus numerous non-edible purchases, ranging from paper towels to cleansers. It was enough to help keep Timberton fed for a good two weeks without needing another out-of-town run.

  Setting the boxes on the kitchen’s center table, Mist went back to the car for another load. Betty switched the radio on, determined to continue the light mood they'd caught while running errands.

  “Sometimes it takes getting out of Timberton to bring a little pizzazz back into it. Yes, it does,” Betty said to herself. She turned up the radio's volume and tested out a few dance steps on her way back to the boxes.

  “You love to dance,” Mist observed as she returned with a box of fresh produce.

  Betty hummed and nodded. She pulled a gallon jug of maple syrup out of a bag and set it down next to stacks of eggs in square trays.

  “I danced when I was younger. My sister and I both did.” Betty paused, remembering. “We didn't take lessons or anything like that. But my, oh my, we loved to dance. We could put on any type of music and come up with the most splendid routines.”

  “I didn't know you had a sister.” Mist's voice was soft against the bold volume of the radio, but Betty either heard her or knew instinctively what she would say.

  “Her name was Abby. She's passed on – cancer, horrible. She was only a little older, but we got along fine, though we had our differences and could be competitive, like ordinary sisters.”