Hungry Ghosts (30 page)

My arms jerked, slipped inches at once, they were almost vertical, near useless. I couldn't keep on hunting for the walls like this. I thrust one foot back, one forward, and then caught wall. The back-forth wedge wasn't as reliable as the side-to-side, but it was better than freefall. I slow-skidded the back heel until it found something that might be a ledge or a pimple-sized bulge; there was no way to tell. “Please,” I said to the outcropping, “just a little longer.”

With side wedges you can press the edges of your shoes into the wall and do a very controlled skid. But front-back was too unsteady. Very slowly I wiggled my foot downward, feeling the rock through the rubber sole, trying to tell whether the space was narrowing. My arms slipped again, only this time I was braced. My hands were still outside the hole. The black was unrelenting; I couldn't see anything. The smell—must, brine, decay—forced me to breathe through my mouth.

“Darcy, you okay?”

“Mmm.”

I wiggled my toe an inch lower. My rear foot was losing traction. Jamming the front toe hard into the rock, I slid the back foot. It went fast, too fast. I couldn't find purchase. It was slipping. My front knee was bending. I thrust my hands to the sides and caught wall. I was hanging on my outstretched arms now, feet dangling. The rock cut into my hands, and still there was too much mud; the friction was going. My hands were slipping. I rammed my feet out to the sides and caught wall again.

My feet skidded. I pressed the sides of my shoes into the walls, but that only slowed the skid. Something flitted over my face, but I didn't dare take my hands away from the walls. My hands slid.

The wall was gone. My hands were in air. My feet sliding fast. I covered my face and fell.

I hit bottom with a crunch. My feet hit hard, my ankle bones jammed against the sharp angles around me.

“What happened?” Grace sounded terrified, her voice miles away.

“I hit bottom. I thought for a minute I'd snapped my ankles. But it was something else breaking.”

“You didn't land on the purse! Is it intact?”

“Oh, shit. Let me see. This is going to be tricky. It's too tight here for me to bend over. I'm going to have to see if I can ease it up with one foot. While I balance on the other.”

“Be careful. If the bottle's broken and the poison spilled . . . If it gets in a cut, it'll kill you before you get out of the hole.”

I shivered so violently I hit the walls. Then I couldn't move at all. I heard myself moan.

“Something the matter?”

A laugh, near-hysterical, shook me. “No, Gracie, it's fine down here now that I know there's not as much danger of being buried
alive
.” Grace didn't
know the half of it. If I balanced on my ankle and it was broken, I wouldn't be able to wedge my way far enough up to even grasp the end of the belts. If I bent over and got wedged in, I was dead. I would be stuck with my hands down and there would be nothing in the world she could do to extricate me. Even the fire department wouldn't be able to get me out.

“Darcy—”

“Let me think! This is what I do for a living, plan moves like this. Just give me a minute.” Slowly I bent my knees. My ankles screamed, but I didn't dare move my feet. I sank, squatted until my back was against one wall, my knees against the other. Still, I couldn't reach the purse. Down here at the bottom, the chute curved in on all sides like a colander.

I shifted my shoulders. They touched wall on both sides. But I couldn't reach any farther than my ankles. If I could see the purse . . . If I had the torch . . . But I didn't. There was no way but to wedge onto one ankle, lift the other foot, and hope I could get the purse loose. I shifted; the ankle screamed. With my free foot I felt with my toes. Something moved. I didn't dare kick it up and break the poison container. Instead I moved my toe back and forth until it got under something, something I hoped was the purse, and inched it up against my braced foot. When it was ankle-high I caught my toe under, bounced it up.

“Got it!”

“Great.” But there had been a little pause while she caught her breath and I realized that she hadn't believed the retrieval was possible, not really. Not that that had stopped her trying, or had me try.

“Lower the belt and I'll send it up. Shine the light down, at an angle, not in my face.”

As soon as the purse was gone, I took as deep a breath as I could stand in this putrid air, ran my hands up opposite walls till I found the narrowest route, and began wedging my way up. My ankle ached, but it was on
its own. Maintaining movement was vital. If I paused even momentarily, I would slide all the way back to the bottom. I wedged elbows and feet until the chute widened and it had to be arms and feet, touch, dig in, lift, touch, dig in, lift.

“Grab . . . me!”

“I'm ready.”

Grace was so small I was afraid, but I was wrong. When I got my head out of the chute, she locked onto my shirt and gave me enough support to thrust my shoulders up. Somehow she pulled and I shot out of the chute like an easy birth. We both ended up in the mud.

It was a minute before she said, “I have good and bad news.”

“What?” I forced out. I was shaking so hard I couldn't think.

“Good: you were right, the vial was in the purse. Bad: it's not there now. The purse, it's got a Styrofoam insert, whittled down to fit in. But the center, where the poison vial was, is empty.”

I pushed myself up. “Worst possible. She had it and somebody killed her for it. Jeffrey realized it. It was the first thing he'd think of. And that got him killed.”

“And the killer has had that poison for two days. Darcy, there's only one thing you hold on to something like that for.”

I waited.

“To sell it. It's as bad as it gets.”

But Grace was wrong about that. It wasn't as bad as it gets. Not for another ten seconds, when the grate to the sidewalk slammed shut over us.

C
HAPTER
29

“H
EY
,
LET US OUT
!” Gracie yelled.

The only reply was the metal doors reverberating as they settled in flush with the sidewalk.

“We're down here! Open up! Hey!”

“Save it, Gracie. If there was anyone else around, whoever's done it wouldn't have slammed down the doors.”

“Maybe it was a mistake? It could be, right? Someone sees doors open at night; it's just the neighborly thing to do, to shut 'em. It could—”

“No one's up there. It's four-thirty in the morning.”

“People could come to work early. They—”

“Gracie!”

“Oh, God . . . I was supposed to be watching the door! That was my job! Darcy, I should have—”

“Stop! Just stop!” Her hysteria scared me almost more than our being trapped. I had the flashlight. “Look at the light. Put your hands out and walk toward me.” When her arm touched, I eased her in and hugged her. I wanted to hold her till she calmed a bit, but there was no time—no time for guilt, explanations, no time to spare. “Do you have your cell phone?”

“In the car.”

“Never mind,” I said. “There's got to be a door switch in here.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes sense. Put one hand on the wall; hang on to my back.” Sliding my feet, I moved toward the slither of light under the metal doors. Grace didn't speak but her tight breaths—each inhalation broken off with a gasp—said it all. How could I have allowed my so good, so committed sister to come charging down into this tomb? All she'd thought about was protecting everyone else. Oh, Gracie! I wanted to say, “I love you, Gracie,” but I didn't dare. Instead, I swallowed, controlled my voice, and insisted, “There'll be an emergency switch because it's a storage area, not a prison. We're not in the nineteenth century; this is now.” I reached around for her hand. “Here's the ladder. Run your hand along the other side. Start at waist level, brush across. Be thorough, but don't waste time.”

She didn't ask why, and I didn't tell her that the biggest danger was not the metal doors closing but the killer pushing those big planters over them. I spread my fingers, swathed my hand back and forth on the other side of the ladder, moving a couple of inches higher each time, desperate for a switch, a button, a chain, anything.

“Darcy, there's nothing here! We're fooling ourselves. There's no way out! That's the way they built these tunnels, so prisoners couldn't get away!”

“Shut up! Just shut up! What kind of role model are you?” I'd almost said,
What would Mom think?
But that would have turned her, and me, to mush. “Keep at it. I'm starting up the ladder. If the switch isn't down here, then it'll be at the top.”

I felt along the right side, and then the left. No switch, no loop, nothing. Panic swirled in my stomach. Why would there be an exit when there weren't lights here? There was no electricity; what was I thinking? How could I have— Stop! In Zen practice we don't push away thoughts, we let them go. But I pushed them out now and focused on my breath. I felt the metal ladder cutting into my hands, my feet pressing against the step, felt
the dank of the tunnel icing the sweat on my back. Felt the moment as it was. Watched the incipient panic recede.

Pencil-point lines of lighter dark outlined the metal doors. “Gracie, I'm going to push the door open. Stand to the side. I may fall.”

She didn't answer.

The doors met to the right of the ladder. I climbed till my shoulders touched metal, braced my feet and pushed. The metal vibrated but didn't give.

I moved up to the next step, hunched over under the door. “I'm trying again.”

Gracie said nothing. The only sound was her short, thick breaths. She was doing all she could just keeping quiet. I inhaled, braced one hand next to my shoulder, shoved with all my strength.

The door shifted; the light was wider, brighter. My feet slipped off the rung. I grabbed. Too late. I heard the metal clank as I landed on my back in the mud.

Mud splattered my face. I gasped for breath.

“Oh, Darcy, are you all right?”

“Uh-huh!” I forced out, and pushed myself up out of the muck. “Yeah. The mud cushioned my fall.” My back throbbed. My head swirled, my vision was blurred, but maybe that was from the mud. I reached for the ladder. “There's something heavy on it, but it's not locked.”

Grace gave an odd squeak, the shadow of a laugh. “Of course it's not locked, Darce, we took the key.”

“We're so good!” I started up the ladder, ribs screaming each time I hoisted myself up. “I have to get more leverage. Come up behind me, brace my back so I can use both hands.”

I climbed till I was squatted double like a power lifter. Grace grabbed the ladder around me.

“If I start to fall, jump. I don't want to kick you.”

“You've finally grown out of that?”

I forced what passed for a laugh. Gracie was trying so hard. “Okay,” I said, “ready? Go!” I exploded up with the fury of childhood. The metal shimmied, gave. Light came through as one door released an inch. But the weight atop it held, and I slammed back down into Grace. “You okay?”

It was a moment before she managed a yes.

She had held, but she was too small to do it again. Still, there was no other choice. I took a deep breath. “Again. Ready?”

I thrust up, catching the edge, pushing with strength I didn't know I had. Metal rattled; something shifted. I shoved my shoulders between the metal doors, twisted, braced it. “Climb around me. Quick!”

She was up and out in seconds, caught the door, and held it till I slid out. The big masonry planter from the courtyard was still caught at the edge of the door, still atop the metal. I let the door bang down.

It wasn't quite five in the morning, but light as noon. I could see everything, wanted to inspect every brick and stone. The air was cold. Rain was starting. It felt wonderful. I yearned to sit there on the grate and suck the clean air down into every inch of my body to let every cell know I was alive.

But there was no time. “We have to move. Come on,” I said, pulling her up. “He's already stabbed two people.”

“He?” she puffed as we ran for the car.

“He? She? Someone strong enough to carry Jeffrey's body and throw it down into the tunnel.”

Grace opened the door of her car, climbed in, and unlocked my side.

“Where to?”

“I don't know. Does this vehicle have heat?”

“It certainly does. And food.” She sounded giddy. She gave the glove compartment a single hard rap. The door flopped and half the candy bars in the city fell out. I snagged a Baby Ruth.

“We could be dead!” Her elation had burst, her voice a monotone now, as if the reality of the tunnel had just intersected with rational thought. “Lying down there dead.”

“Like Jeffrey. And Tia. The killer stabbed her, stole the poison, and then climbed down into the tunnel to stuff her purse back in the corner of the tunnel.”