Victor was down there. Maybe hurt. Maybe dead. “Lord, help me,” she breathed.
Slowly, as quietly as she could, she sat on the edge of the opening and dangled her legs into the gap. The air shivered up at her, warm, too warm, black as oil and quiet as the grave. After a deep breath, Brooke dropped down into the darkness.
TWENTY
V
ictor was so intent on the man in front of him, he didn’t hear Brooke until she stepped close enough for the lantern on the floor to illuminate her.
“Brooke,” he said, both exasperated and oddly pleased to have her there. “I’d like you to meet Leo Colda.”
Colda sat on a chunk of cement, his face pale and despondent. His clothes were soiled and a scrape on his cheek was angry and swollen. A slight man, he sat with his knees nearly drawn up to his chin, arms folded around his legs. He peered at Brooke as if he couldn’t quite place her.
Brooke pressed her fingers to Victor’s arm. “Your brother’s here. They’re tending to Stryker.”
Victor laughed. “And Luca couldn’t fit through the tunnel?”
She nodded.
“I’m surprised he isn’t hacking away at the cement.”
“There wasn’t a crowbar handy.”
Victor felt his muscles relax for the first time since they’d started the whole adventure that morning. “I was just asking the professor why he shot Stryker.”
Colda started. “They’re after me. They want the painting.”
Brooke moved closer. “You mean my father’s painting?”
He peered at her and blinked. “You’re Ramsey’s daughter?”
“Yes. Professor, why did you take my father’s painting?”
He rocked back and forth. “They were after it.”
“Who?”
“All of them. I turned on the water to flush them out.”
Victor whistled. “So Tuney was right. You nearly drowned Brooke.”
Colda sighed. “The dean came to visit when he heard a package arrived from Donald. He saw it, the Tarkenton, and he knew right away, just like I did, and he wanted it for himself.”
Victor heard Brooke’s sharp intake of breath. “He knew that it was authentic?”
Colda nodded. “I was running tests, but it was a formality. I had to hide it until I could get it back to Donald, but the kid came after me.”
“So you shot him,” Victor said, watching Colda squirm back and forth.
“No. He tried to shoot me but I spun away and the bullet got him.”
“Ricochet, probably.” Victor locked eyes with Colda. “Where is the gun now?”
Colda shrugged. “I took it and ran.” He patted his pockets. “I must have dropped it somewhere.”
Brooke edged closer and crouched down next to Colda. Victor tried to give her a warning look—
he might be lying. Colda could still have the gun on him somewhere
—but she paid him no attention.
“Professor Colda, did you really steal those paintings from my father’s museum like you said in the suicide note?”
Colda’s face went wild, eyes popping.
From above them, someone called out. “Brooke? Are you down there?”
“Aunt Denise,” Brooke cried. She ran to the opening and called up to her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m banged up, but all right.”
“Hey,” Victor shouted as Colda bolted to his feet and careened toward an opening Victor had not noticed. “Stop.”
He grabbed the lantern and took off after Colda. Brooke yelled something to her aunt and then he heard her start down the passage behind him. Pipes crowded the ceiling above them and his senses pricked at him, trying to send him a message.
He was so occupied trying to hold the lantern and avoid the piles of fallen rock on the floor that he paid no heed at first.
“Colda,” he yelled at the darting figure. “It’s over. You’ve got to stop running. Let us help you.”
Colda didn’t stop.
Wires brushed Victor’s face and he pushed them aside.
Again the odd sense that something was amiss floated into his mind.
Brooke panted behind him, adding her plea. “Please, Professor Colda. We can help you try to make amends.”
“Stay away,” Colda screamed. “Stay away from me. They’re after me. They’re going to kill me.”
He vanished around a sharp turn and the odor became unmistakable.
Gas.
Victor stopped abruptly. “Gas leak,” he called as loudly as he could. “Get out.” He turned to grab Brooke but she had no time to slow and she plowed into him. The old lantern sailed out of his hand and arced through the air, smashing into the cement behind them.
They had only a split second.
He pulled on her arm and they ran farther up the tunnel as the gas ignited. The explosion ripped through the tunnel, illuminating everything in a blaze of white-hot fire that moved toward like them a hungry beast. Ahead was no shelter, no place to escape the fury that was almost upon them.
Except for one dark circle set into the floor.
He didn’t slow. They ran to the hole, leaping down into it as the heat began to scorch Victor’s skin.
He crushed her body to his, trying to pull her as far down into the space as he could, feeling the molten cloud of fire pass over them, with a deafening whoosh.
The sound vibrated through him like thunder.
And then it was quiet.
Brooke did not move in his arms.
He allowed himself to imagine it only for a moment.
What if those blue eyes did not open?
If the fire had burned away her life?
His hands began to tremble and he stroked her hair, which was now hot to the touch.
“Brooke,” he whispered. “Brooke.”
She took a slow, shuddering breath and he felt a flood of great joy that filled him completely. He held her for a long time, until she lifted her head and looked at him.
“Are we alive?” she whispered.
“As far as I can tell,” he whispered back, kissing the tip of her nose.
They struggled to their feet in what turned out to be a long cement chute, opening onto yet another tunnel. Brooke shook bits of cement from her hair. “My aunt?”
“I’m sure she’s fine. My brother will find her.” Victor pulled the flashlight from his pocket. The beam was faint, but it allowed him to make out the way ahead of them.
“I can see where Colda went. The dust is disturbed along this path. He’s trying to escape.”
“Or going after the painting.”
Victor pointed the beam back up the chute. “We can’t go back that way, so I guess we have no choice but to follow Colda.”
“Do you think we can catch him?”
“There’s still a chance.”
Her eyes were shadowed. “Victor, I don’t care about that painting. I just want to find him so he can clear my father. Are you willing to help me do that?”
He looked at her, ready with a neutral comment or practical remark. His mind came up with something completely different. He wanted to tell her, to give voice to the incomprehensible feelings in his soul, which had started in the flooded room and come into full flower as he’d felt her breath on his neck, but he could not. “Let’s go,” he said, turning from the questioning look on her face.
* * *
They picked their way along, climbing over rocks, avoiding dangling wires. Brooke was completely disoriented. She had no idea if they were still under the university or if the tunnels had led them miles away. So many questions would remain unanswered if they didn’t prevent Colda’s escape. Part of her was afraid of the answers he might give.
What would happen to her and Tad if Colda did not clear her father’s name? Victor’s hand grasped hers as he guided her around an uneven pile of broken cement chunks. His touch drove the fears away, the memory of his sheltering embrace tugged at her.
He’ll be gone soon, Brooke. Just as soon as you get out of these horrible tunnels, he’ll walk out of your life.
She packed the thoughts away and focused on picking her way over the rocks. A sound from behind them caught her attention.
Victor heard it, too. They stopped and held the flashlight up. Their light was met with another as a figure moved closer through the darkness.
Denise’s face went from tentative to joyful when she saw Brooke. She wrapped her in a hug. “I thought the explosion might have…” She squeezed harder and Brooke hugged her back with abandon.
“Where were you?”
“Completely lost, I’m embarrassed to say,” Denise replied.
“How did you get down here?” Brooke managed.
“Victor’s brother fixed a rope for me.”
Brooke smiled.
“And he’s really mad that he can’t get his big shoulders through,” Stephanie said as she joined them.
Victor kissed his sister and squeezed her tight. “Stryker?”
“Paramedics are loading him now. Cops are figuring out how to get down here and help us.”
Brooke felt a surge of relief.
Stephanie surveyed the tunnel. “We’re still on Colda’s trail?”
Denise sighed. “He’s a tenacious little guy. I don’t know why I thought I could find him or the painting by wandering around on my own.”
Brooke told her what Colda said about Lock.
Denise’s eyes glowed with anger. “So Lock tried to take the Tarkenton for himself. I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Victor looked over Stephanie’s shoulder. “Tuney afraid to come back down?”
Stephanie frowned. “What do you mean?”
Muscles tightened at the bottom of Victor’s stomach. “Tuney didn’t fill you in?”
She shook her head. “I never saw Tuney. Luca and I showed up and found the grate locked at the top of the ladder. We forced it open and came in to get you.”
Brooke bit her lip. “Do you think he didn’t get out?”
“Oh, I think he got out, all right,” Victor said.
The truth hit her like a sandbag.
Tuney got out.
And he’d left them there.
Perhaps he went to meet up with Lock.
Or the former bad cop had found the painting somewhere and decided to cash in for himself. She sensed that was what Victor was thinking. Once again, Brooke had not been able to see the treachery right in front of her nose. She hadn’t liked Tuney, but she’d believed him.
Victor led them forward. “We can worry about Tuney later. Right now we’ve got to get Colda before he disappears.”
“With the Tarkenton,” Denise said grimly.
Brooke’s frustrations over the past days boiled over. “I don’t care if he has the painting or not. I don’t care if we find the Tarkenton anyway. I just want to get Dad out of the mess he’s in.”
Denise’s eyebrows shot up. “That painting is priceless. We can’t leave it down here. If Colda gets away we might never know where he stashed it.” She gestured to the filth around them and shuddered. “Your father would not agree with that decision.”
“Maybe Dad is wrong, then,” Brooke said, kicking aside a piece of broken pipe. “It’s just a thing, not a person.” Not a living, breathing Tad, or a wounded Stryker, or, she thought with a look ahead, a Victor Gage.
Denise took her around the shoulders as they pushed along. “You’ve been through a lot. I forgot that for a moment. I’m sorry.”
The way narrowed until they moved into single file. The air was still warm, carrying the faint scent of burned wire from the explosion. They came to another dead end and a ladder, which they climbed one at a time until Brooke found herself in a utility room. The sight of painted walls after the endless expanse of concrete was a shock to her vision. “Are we out of the tunnels?”
Victor examined two sets of doors on either side. “Hard to say. Which way did Colda go? He couldn’t have gotten out any other way.”
Stephanie bent over and squinted at the door frame. “This one,” she said, pointing to another pawn drawn on the metal.
They tried the door but it wouldn’t open. Victor kicked at it a few times, hard enough to crash against the metal with an awful din. The door gave just enough for him to push a hand through and remove the chair that was wedged against the handle on the other side. Brooke followed Victor into a bleak hallway, her eyes dazzled by the fluorescent lighting, dim though it was, and the strange feel of smooth floor underfoot.
“Where are we?” Denise said, blinking.
Victor read the sign on the utility room door. “Administration building. Lock’s office is to the left.”
They padded quickly across the linoleum, listening as they did so for hints that Colda was ahead of them.
Victor stopped suddenly, near an open door. Angry voices came from inside.
“It’s Lock’s outer office,” he whispered in her ear before turning to Stephanie. “Go call Luca.” She nodded and moved silently down the hallway.
Brooke finally recognized the two voices, Tuney and Dean Lock.
“You’ve used me from the start,” Tuney barked.
“You were paid well for your trouble.”
“I wasn’t paid enough to lose Fran.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“You don’t care about your missing professor.”
“No, and you didn’t either,” Lock said, voice low and steely. “You came for the paycheck, so my motives aren’t important here.”
Tuney spoke again, his voice so low Brooke almost didn’t catch it. “That’s where you’re wrong. Something you don’t know about me is that I go after the truth like a starving dog after a steak dinner. You will tell me what I want to know,” Tuney said. There was the sound of a gun being cocked. “Or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
TWENTY-ONE
V
ictor was through the door before Brooke processed what was happening. As she entered, Tuney’s face and Lock’s wore the same expression of surprise. Tuney kept a gun pointed at Lock in spite of their unexpected arrival.
Tuney grinned but the smile did not reach his eyes. “I see you got out okay.”
“No thanks to you,” Victor said.
“I finally slogged my way out of the tunnels in time to see your sister and brother on their way in. I knew they’d find you quickly.”
It was probably another in his long string of lies, Brooke thought. “Or you left us there to die.”
He looked at her and she thought she saw a flicker of emotion deep down in his eyes. “Think what you want.”
“Why are you doing this to Lock?” Brooke said.
Tuney kept the gun steady. “You won’t believe what I found walking around those idiotic tunnels.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and tossed it to Victor. “Colda’s. An old model, doesn’t even text, and the professor has no idea how to delete messages. He has over a hundred on there. Took me quite a while to go through them. There’s a very interesting message from the dean here.”