“He certainly is,” Victor said, watching Tuney’s face as he saw the drawing of the little black pawn.
Tuney shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Nope,” Brooke said cheerfully. “None of it does, but we know that Colda has been here and left a marker for himself.”
“Good enough for me,” Stephanie said, shouldering her pack. “Let’s go.”
Victor checked the time on his luminous watch.
Stephanie perused the map she’d borrowed from the room upstairs. “I don’t understand these markings. There are three squares scattered throughout the tunnel work but there’s no indication of what the squares represent.”
“Pumping stations, maybe?” Victor suggested.
Brooke nodded, and he could see the glitter of excitement in her eyes and knew his must reveal the same.
“This could actually be it,” she said, her voice hushed. “We could be close to finding my father’s Tarkenton.”
Or not,
he thought.
We could be one step closer to finding out your father had something to do with Colda’s disappearance. Or that Donald stole the painting from someone else and had to cover his tracks.
If Donald was a thief, then there was every reason to believe he’d arranged for the theft four years prior and hired the thug who crashed into Jennifer’s car.
Then I’ll prove it.
I have to.
For Jennifer.
He looked into the endless hole before them, with the strange feeling that the world would be different when they emerged back into the light.
If he believed, if he could bend his heart to the faith that warmed Jennifer and seemed to sustain Brooke, he would pray for…what?
Vengeance, at long last?
Or something else?
He stepped toward the pitch-black passage.
* * *
Brooke felt as if she was being swallowed alive by the darkness as she followed Victor in. Their headlamps made small inroads, illuminating the curved walls that stretched before them. Pipes of various sizes snaked along the ceiling, dotted here and there with cobwebs.
Victor stopped every ten feet to spray a small arrow with his can of glow-in-the-dark paint. The arrows pointed the way out. Small comfort as they followed the passage along. The air was still warm, the floor dry, which encouraged Brooke.
Victor brought them suddenly to a halt when the tunnel split off in two. “Right or left?”
They looked closely, but it was Tuney who spotted the hand-drawn chess piece. “Left,” he said, jabbing a finger toward the pawn.
As the moved along, Brooke felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. She stopped and looked around, shining her light into the dark crevices of the tunnel.
“See something?” Tuney said, voice tense.
“I guess not.”
They continued on until she felt it again, a faint stirring in the air, or perhaps her imagination.
There’s nothing here that can hurt me,
she thought, and whispered a prayer for courage.
Stephanie edged next to her, reaching up to tap on the metal beams above their heads. “These things haven’t been tended to in decades.”
Brooke looked above at the cracks running through the surface. “Looks like stone up there.”
Tuney suddenly turned. “I heard it. A groaning sound. You don’t think…?”
Victor turned his light into the tunnel ahead and they all saw reflected back at them a dozen sets of eyes. Then the rats were upon them, skittering over the pipes, rushing along the floor in a moving pack.
Brooke screamed and jerked back, as did Stephanie. Victor pressed through the furry bodies and joined them, flattening himself against the wall as best he could. “Something scared them,” he yelled over the noise.
Tuney leaped up onto one of the pipes that jutted from above and hung there, monkeylike, as the rats continued to course by, pattering across his fingers. Over the sound of their nails whisking over the floor came a louder noise as the tunnel seemed to groan around them.
“It’s coming down,” Victor yelled.
The ceiling was trembling now, bits of rock flying through the air. Tuney hung there in the tumult, his face frozen in shock, until the heavy piping began to tear loose from the ceiling.
With it came an enormous chunk of stone that crashed down, scattering the rats and shaking the tunnel around them.
Tuney dropped and rolled.
Brooke temporarily lost sight of him as she tried to stay upright against the trembling that threatened to knock her over. A choking cloud of dust enveloped her.
She felt Victor grabbing her hand in a death grip and then she was being hauled farther down the tunnel. “Come on,” he shouted. “This way.”
They ran as best they could, the floor rocking underneath them. A piece of rock flew into Brooke’s face, cutting her cheek. She fought to stay upright as they ran over a floor littered with debris before they made it to a tunnel that branched off from the main. Victor pulled Brooke and Stephanie close to the wall. Brooke found herself pressed in, her face touching the warm skin of Victor’s neck. She heard the breath shuddering through him, felt the taut muscles in his neck and chest. The sound of collapse grew so loud she thought her eardrums would explode.
All at once it stopped, gradually petering away until there was only the slight trickling of rock fragments and then nothing at all. Dust thick as ash swirled through the air.
The silence was almost more terrifying than the noise. Victor lifted her chin. “All right?” he asked.
She nodded, numbed by the close call and the gentle way his thumb reached up to stroke her chin, wiping away some of the dust. He turned to make sure Stephanie was unhurt.
Stephanie nodded at Victor. “That was exciting.”
“Tuney’s weight on the pipe must have caused a collapse,” Victor said.
They came to the realization at the same moment. “Where’s Tuney?” Brooke whispered, her heart constricting. Victor took off back toward the main tunnel and she followed him, heart pounding in her throat.
“Lord, please,” she breathed as she ran, nameless dread coursing through her veins. He was her enemy, bent on destroying her father, but she did not want to find him broken and bleeding.
Victor stopped short at the connection to the main tunnel. The entrance was completely obscured by a tangle of fallen pipes and chunks of debris. “Tuney,” he yelled.
There was no answer.
All three of them began to yell until their voices echoed wildly through the dust swirled air.
“Quit yelling,” came the faint reply. “I’m going deaf.”
“Tuney,” Brooke cried. “You’re okay?”
“Banged up, and I don’t see any way to get to where you are.”
Victor tried to dig away at the debris but the effort only caused more shifting in the towering mass. He wiped a filthy hand over his face. “Can you get back out?”
After a moment, Tuney grumbled his answer. “Yeah. Think I can see your glow marks. Can’t get any cell coverage down here so I’ll have to go get help.”
“You sure you’ll be all right?” Brooke said.
“What choice do I have? I followed you crazy people down here and now I’ve got to get you out or let you all die down here with the rats. I told you this was a ridiculous idea.”
Brooke, Stephanie and Victor exchanged smiles. Tuney’s stream of complaints grew fainter as he moved away. “And I told them I didn’t like dark places. See what happens in dark places? Things fall on you, and there are rats. Bucket loads of ’em.”
Victor exhaled. “At least he seems unharmed, judging by the complaining.”
Stephanie beamed her flashlight around. “And at least the rats have gone.”
Brooke shivered, remembering the feel of the rats brushing the top of her head. “What caused them to run?”
“Maybe they felt an earthquake?”
“Did we disturb them with our movements?” Stephanie asked.
Victor looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure.”
They were in a short section of tunnel, a tight cube of pipes occupying one corner. The far end was blocked by a metal grate, similar to the one they’d seen in the basement of the women’s dorm. Victor’s tug revealed the lock was sound, the metal bars that crisscrossed the opening too sturdy to break through.
Brooke felt a tingle of panic. “Looks like we’re trapped here.”
“Only until Tuney gets out,” Stephanie said.
“He’ll get out, won’t he?” Brooke asked.
Victor nodded. “He’ll find a way. He’s tenacious.”
Stephanie sat down on the floor and crossed her legs. Her face was sweat-streaked, a coating of dirt marring the normal shine of her dark hair. “Still, if he doesn’t, it could pose a problem.”
Brooke put the pieces together. “Because no one knows about the tunnel map except the three of us. So even if Lock sent a rescue team to find us…”
“There’s no guarantee they’d make it anytime soon,” Victor said. “And I wonder…”
“What?”
“For some reason Lock doesn’t want us in these tunnels in the first place.”
“But he wouldn’t leave us here,” Brooke said in horror. “He wouldn’t.”
Victor’s eyes were flat and cold as stone when he answered. “Wouldn’t he?”
Brooke had no answer. She could not bring herself to believe Lock would abandon them to die. “I can’t accept that.”
Victor’s face softened as he looked at her. “I’m not used to seeing the good side of people. I’m sure you’re right.”
Brooke wanted to touch him then, to bring the tenderness back to his face that she had seen before. Had he always been so hardened about his fellow man? Or was that a consequence of his wife’s violent death? She was distracted from her thoughts by Stephanie.
“Guys, Lock may not be our biggest problem right now.”
Victor gave her a questioning glance.
“The temperature,” she explained. “It’s rising. Rapidly.”
ELEVEN
V
ictor was amazed he hadn’t noticed the change himself. The temperature was definitely hot and seemed to be edging up with every passing second. He took off his jacket, sweat already dampening his shirt. “This must vent from an active steam tunnel.”
“Active?” Stephanie said. “I thought the tunnels were shut down due to the renovation.”
He shrugged. “Guess they haven’t gotten around to shutting them all down yet.”
Brooke’s face was flushed, cheeks pink.
Stephanie fanned her sweaty bangs with a notepad. “Probably close to eighty in here already, and climbing.”
Victor studied the walls again, which were comprised of rows of neatly constructed brickwork with no exit to be seen. He shined his flashlight through the locked grate again, trying to decide if the air felt cooler on the other side. He looked around for a section of pipe or rock, anything that he could use to hammer at the lock.
Brooke understood and peered around. “Here,” she said triumphantly. “I found a loose brick in the debris.”
He hammered at the sturdy lock, hitting it so hard that sparks flew through the darkness. The brick only seemed to ding and scratch the lock, which showed no signs of weakening. No shoddy construction here. He kept at it anyway, frustration fueling his efforts in spite of the heat that now seemed to press down on him from all sides.
The doctor side of his brain took over.
Hyperthermia would be the result of prolonged exposure to excessive heat. When their bodies became too overwhelmed to self-regulate, their temperatures would climb uncontrollably. And when they soared into the neighborhood of 104, they would all be in danger of heatstroke. He looked at Brooke. Was she acting confused? Dizzy? Was Stephanie’s face still damp with sweat or becoming hot and dry, a sure sign that she was succumbing?
“Drink as much water as you can,” he called to them, pounding harder, harder, willing the lock to give way.
“Stop, Victor.” Brooke held on to his arm. “It’s not going to help. You’re going to overheat yourself faster.”
“I can’t just sit here.”
“Maybe the temperature will stabilize,” Brooke said.
“Or maybe it won’t.”
“Stephanie is trying her phone again. Please, Victor.” Her tone was pleading now.
Stephanie’s slow shake of the head told him that wasn’t going to work. His hands burned from the effort of pounding. Sweat streamed off his face.
“Victor,” Brooke said, tugging at his arm. “You’ve got to stop.”
He turned on her. “I’m not going to sit by and watch two more women die.”
“We’ll be all right,” Brooke said.
“You don’t know that. No one can know that.” Anger spiraled inside him.
She looked at him with a calm that made his rage boil over.
“What do you suggest? Prayer? If you’re so tight with God, why don’t you offer up a prayer now and see if He could help us out?”
She looked down.
“What’s the matter?” he said, feeling the same fury he’d felt after Jennifer died. “Are you afraid He isn’t listening?”
“No.”
“What is it, then?” Victor demanded, body on fire.
She lifted her head then and transfixed him with such a penetrating look, soft and gentle, that it momentarily doused his anger. “He always listens,” she said. “But sometimes He says no.”
He turned away then, trying to collect the thoughts that rose up inside him like a flame. How could she have that soft gentleness about her? How could it survive the bashing and humiliation, the fear that he knew she must have about inheriting the family disease?
“I won’t accept it. I won’t let anything else be taken from me,” he barked as he started hammering away again until his vision started to blur.
Brooke made a move to stop him, but Stephanie called to her. “Come sit with me. We’ll look at the map and see if there’s anything we might have missed.”
They sank to the floor and he shot them a quick look. Red faced, eyes wide.
Soon they would become unresponsive.
Then they would stop breathing, stepping over the void into a place from which he could not bring them back, like he hadn’t been able to bring Jennifer back.
He pounded until his hands bled.
His peripheral vision failed and all he could see was that unyielding metal before him.
Hotter and hotter.