"Lucky for whom?" she muttered.
"Come on, help me pull this rug back." He was tugging at the old braided rug that lay in front of the hearth.
"What for? Is it a magic carpet that will waft us out a window and fly us away?" She rolled off the rug and helped him pull it away from the fireplace. Another bullet zinged overhead and she winced but she didn't stop tugging.
"Good girl." Sam's smile gleamed in the firelight and, illogically, Babs felt better. If he could smile, then maybe things weren't so bad after all. Moving the heavy rug wasn't easy when they didn't dare lift their heads much above knee level but at last it was rolled away, revealing more wood flooring, a great deal of dirt and... a door.
"What's that?"
"It's a trapdoor. There's a tunnel under it that leads to a root cellar in back of the house. When Dad bought the place, the tunnel was collapsed but we restored it. I guess the people who built this place wanted a way to get to the root cellar without going outside. It looks like it used to be big enough to walk through but it's more of a crawl space now."
He was shining the flashlight into the opening as he spoke. The empty black space seemed to swallow the light like a greedy animal. Babs stared into the blackness and swallowed. Then she swallowed again.
"You want me to go in there!"
"Sure. We'll come out in the root cellar and hike across the old fields to the road. We can find someplace to sleep for tonight and then tomorrow we'll be able to hitch a ride to the nearest phone."
Another bullet shattered a window. Babs looked over her shoulder at the front of the house where killers waited. Then she looked at the yawning black hole, which looked bigger than it had a second ago, as if it were a mouth opening, waiting to be fed. Until this moment she'd never appreciated the true meaning of being between a rock and a hard place.
Chapter 12
Babs had never realized just how dark dark could get. This was real dark, as in no light, as in pitch black. Ahead of her the beam of Sam's flashlight was swallowed up by the darkness, its pathetic attempt at lighting the way nullified by the all-consuming black.
The tunnel had settled since Sam had last been through it. His broad shoulders brushed the dirt walls on either side, creating tiny avalanches of soil and pebbles. His bulk blocked any light that might have filtered back to her, leaving her to feel her way along. At least if there were any rats, Sam would encounter them first. She immediately regretted the thought.
Rats did not bear thinking about. On the heels of that thought came another, equally unwelcome. Spiders. She shuddered and inched her hand forward. If she touched something that moved, she would probably pass out and die, stuck in this stupid tunnel. Really, when you thought about it, guns weren't so bad.
"You okay?" Sam's voice sounded muffled.
"Fine." Babs gritted out the word. She wasn't fine at all. She was suffering from an advanced case of claustrophobia, along with acute anxiety regarding any wildlife that might inhabit this awful place. But there was nothing either of them could do about it.
She closed her eyes and then opened them again. It made little difference but, at least with them open, she could just make out Sam's silhouette. There was a scuffling noise ahead and her heart stopped, picturing all the horrid possibilities. Sam was grappling with a rat the size of a small pony, struggling for his life. There was a spider the size of a Great Dane and he was trying to kill it before it could devour them both. He'd had a heart attack and they were both going to die in this damn tunnel.
Before her imagination could present any more scenarios, there was a thud and she realized that Sam's silhouette had disappeared. She stopped, staring into the blackness. He'd fallen into an old mine shaft that went hundreds of feet down.
"Come on." His voice sounded reassuringly close. If he were lying at the bottom of a mine shaft, he wouldn't be urging her to join him. She edged forward again, aware that she could see light up ahead. It was faint but, after the darkness of the tunnel, it looked like heaven. She crawled to the edge of the tunnel and found herself at eye level with Sam. He'd set the flashlight on a shelf and it cast just enough light to give a vague impression of the old root cellar.
"Put your hands on my shoulders and I'll lift you down. I guess the original owners must have had some steps here but there's no sign of them now."
She set her hands on his shoulders and he reached up to grasp her waist, lifting her easily out of the tunnel and setting her on the dirt floor. Babs looked around uneasily. Cobwebs hung from every corner, dust was thick on every surface. In some places there were vague marks that might or might not have been tracks. She didn't want to know.
"Do you think there are rats or spiders or anything in here?" Her voice was hushed as if she were afraid she might wake some of the residents.
"I'm sure there are spiders. I don't know about rats but there might be frogs." Sam was moving away as he spoke.
"Frogs?" Babs took a quick step to catch up with Him. "Frogs that jump?"
"Most frogs do." He picked up the flashlight and shone it around the cellar, giving a pleased exclamation when it illuminated a warped wooden door.
Babs stayed right on his heels as he moved toward the door. It was impossible to look in four different directions at once but she was giving it her best shot. Spiders and rats were bad enough but something that might actually jump out of nowhere at you was more than she could take. She had a vague image of large green slimy creatures with big teeth, lunging out of the darkness to attack her. Logically, she knew that wasn't a very accurate picture but she'd left logic behind somewhere in that awful length of tunnel.
"Now, when I open the door, I'm going to go out slowly. Since we don't know exactly where the bad guys are, I don't want to walk into a bullet. You wait here until I signal you. Try to be as quiet as possible. Got it?"
"I got it."
"Good." He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and tilted her face up to drop a quick but thorough kiss on her mouth. "We're going to be okay. Just wait for my signal."
Sam eased the door open, hesitating as it creaked. He braced himself and then opened it quickly, wincing at the noise it made. Cool night air flooded the root cellar, banishing years of mustiness. Babs lifted her face, drinking in the fresh air, feeling it banish some of the fear. Overhead she could catch a glimpse of stars. The sight reassured her further.
Sam crouched on the steps, a dark shadow against the night sky. He lifted his hand and she saw starlight glint off steel, silent and ominous. He waited without moving until Babs began to wonder how he could hold one position for so long, and then suddenly he was gone, disappearing so quickly and silently it was as if he'd never been there at all.
Wait, he'd said. She would wait. She would give him thirty seconds and then she was getting out of this place. Bullets or no, she couldn't stand it much longer than that. The skin on her back was threatening to crawl right off at the thought of the creepy crawlies that might be lurking in the darkness behind her.
"Okay." Sam's whisper came just as she was sure she couldn't stand to stay where she was for another moment. "Watch your step. The stairs are rickety."
He reached down a hand and Babs took it, picking her way up the stairs, feeling them creak and moan under her weight. In a matter of seconds, she was standing on firm ground with nothing but sky around her. She could have stood there for hours, just savoring the space but Sam had other ideas.
"Come on." He took her right hand in his left, keeping the gun in his other hand. Babs curled her fingers around his, feeling immediately reassured by the firm strength of his palm.
The old farmhouse was a dark bulk to their right. Sam circled around it, heading toward the road. Babs looked over her shoulder at the house. It was silent now. If the killers were still there, they were no longer making any noise. Sam kept the pace at something just under a run, his hand tugging her along, keeping her with him.
"Hot damn! We're in luck." Babs had turned to look over her shoulder. When
Sam came to an abrupt halt, she collided with his back with enough force to rock her back on her toes. Sam barely noticed. He was staring at a small brown car that hardly seemed worthy of such excitement.
"Look at this. Maybe they even left the keys in it." He strode around the front of the car, with Babs trotting along behind him. The driver's door opened to his touch and he reached in, feeling for the ignition switch.
"Damn. No keys." He pulled his handout of the car and looked around before turning his attention to Babs. In the moonlight, his face was all hard angles and shadows.
"A car could mean the difference between living and dying. I think I can hot-wire this thing but I can't do that and keep an eye out for our friendly neighborhood hit men." He handed her his gun. It was warm from his hand. Her fingers curled around it, testing the weight and grip. "If you have to use it, shoot to kill. It's them or us."
"I know."
Sam's fingers brushed lightly over her cheek and then he bent down to slide into the car, fumbling under the dashboard. Babs kept her eyes skimming over the night dark countryside. It seemed like forever, but could only have been a few minutes, before she heard Sam's triumphant whisper an instant before the engine sprang to life. There was a shout from the direction of the house as the killers heard the sound of the motor.
"Get in!" She didn't need Sam's command to scurry around the hood. He had the passenger door open and she was barely in the seat when he put the car in reverse and stomped on the gas. The tires spun in the loose dirt for an instant before catching. Babs's door slammed shut of its own volition as the car rocketed back up the long drive. There was a sharp popping noise. She ducked automatically, expecting to see a bullet come through the windshield.
The tires bumped from dirt onto pavement and they were out of range. Sam threw the gear into drive and they were roaring down the highway. Within seconds the old farmhouse was several miles behind them. Sam slowed the car to a more sedate speed. To anyone who passed them, they would look like an average couple, driving down a country road late in the evening.
"Where are we going?" Babs reached for her seat belt.
"I think it's time we headed back to Santa Barbara. I can take you to my mom's place and you can stay there. You okay?"
"Sure. I'm fine. I've just been shot at, crawled through a tunnel that was built for munchkins, stood in a cellar full of killer frogs and helped steal a car. I can't wait to see what will happen tomorrow."
"Killer frogs?" Sam threw her a quizzical look.
"You know what I mean." Babs stared out the windshield, her face set. Sam could see her expression in the light from the dashboard and he thought he'd never seen anyone look more mournful.
"What's wrong?"
"I guess someone really does want me dead." There was childlike hurt in the words and he realized how much she'd been counting on it all being a misunderstanding.
"There doesn't seem to be much room for doubt."
"If they just wanted to keep me out of the way for a while, they wouldn't have started shooting like that, would they?"
Babs's tone begged him to tell her she was wrong. Sam would have given anything to be able to give her the reassurance she wanted. It just wasn't possible.
"No, they wouldn't have."
She was silent for a long time. Glancing at her, he could see her teeth worrying at her lower lip, her eyes staring straight ahead, focused on nothing in particular. She looked hurt. She looked betrayed. He wanted to offer some comfort but there was nothing he could say to change the facts.
"Do you think they're all in on it? Do you think they all want me dead?"
"I don't think so. When I spoke to your aunts, neither of them sounded especially happy you were alive. I think it's one of them. We just have to figure out which one."
She was silent again and Sam wished he had some clue to what she was thinking. It couldn't be easy for her to go through this.
"How do you think they found us?"
"I've been giving it some thought," he said. "The only thing I can come up with is our friendly truck-stop waitress remembered where she'd seen you and called your family. Then, whoever it is who—" He paused, looking for a delicate way to phrase it.
"Wants me dead?" Babs's voice held a hard note that revealed her pain as clearly as tears would have.
Sam nodded. "Whoever wants you dead passed the information on to their hired killers. They've got my name. I suppose it wouldn't have been all that difficult to find out that my family used to own the old farmhouse. They must have figured we'd be looking for a place to hide for a while."
"But how could they have known it was us in there? It might have been someone else entirely."
"I'm not sure these people care that much if they get the wrong victim. I shut the curtains not too long before they started shooting. They may have been outside watching. Seeing me, they knew it was a sure bet you were with me."
"What would have happened to us if that awful tunnel hadn't been there?"
"We'd have gone out a back window. We'd have made it."
She didn't say anything. After a while Sam looked over and saw that her eyes were closed. He didn't think she was asleep but he respected her need for privacy. She had a lot to think about, a lot to try to work out. The road was empty and allowed plenty of time for thinking.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. The force of his anger surprised him. He was never all that crazy about being shot at but it had happened a time or two before and he considered it an occasional part of the territory. But it was something else entirely for them to be shooting at Babs.
The clock on the dashboard said ten o'clock when he looked at Babs and found that she really was asleep. Highway 5 stretched wide open ahead of him, threatening a case of terminal highway hypnosis. Flipping on the radio, he found a station playing oldies but goodies. It was depressing to realize that some of the songs they were calling oldies were ones he remembered as top-ten hits.
Sometime after midnight Babs roused, stretching and yawning like a child waking from a nap. She looked out the windshield at the empty road and then looked at Sam.
"Where are we?"
"Somewhere between San Francisco and L.A."
"Sorry I went to sleep on you like that."
"No problem. How are you feeling?"
"Okay. You know, I keep thinking about it and thinking about it and it still doesn't make sense. I just can't believe that anyone in my family wants me dead. It's got to be a misunderstanding."
Sam could hear the lack of conviction in her voice but he wasn't going to be the one to make her look at reality. She'd come to terms with it in her own time. In the meantime, he'd be around to make sure she didn't get killed.
"Maybe. But misunderstanding or not, the end result is still people shooting at us."
"True." She stared at the dark countryside as the tires ate away the miles. "You want me to drive for a while? You must be tired."
"I'm okay. You're the one who needs to rest. Whatever is going on, I think we can pretty well bet that it's not going to be a lot of fun. Kidnapping, with or without murder, is hardly an acceptable pastime, even when you keep it in the family."
"I know. I'm not really looking forward to seeing them again."
"Well, you don't have to worry about it for now. We're going to my mother's. From there, we can try to contact Emmet and call the police."
"The police! I don't want to involve them in this."
Sam reached over and caught hold of one of her hands. "We've got to at least call and tell them that you're all right. They think you've been kidnapped, remember?"
"Of course. You're right." She took a deep breath, her fingers curling around his. "Do we have to tell them my family was involved? If the press gets hold of that, they'll have a field day with it. It's bad enough being the 'Malone heiress' without adding this to it. Couldn't we just tell them that you rescued me and leave it at that?"
Sam's response could not lessen the quiver in her voice
. "I suppose that's enough. For now. But if we find out we're talking attempted murder, I won't help you cover that up."
"I'm sure it's all a misunderstanding."
"Some misunderstanding," he muttered but he didn't argue any further. They both knew it wasn't a misunderstanding but he understood her need to keep that hope alive. He wouldn't take it away from her.
❧
It was just after four o'clock in the morning when Sam stopped the car in front of his mother's house. The quiet neighborhood slept, though there were lights on in one or two houses, a reminder that, for some people, it was time to get up and go to work.
Babs woke from a light doze and stretched sleepily. She looked so vulnerable that Sam wanted to catch her up in his arms and take her as far away from her demented family as possible.
"Are we here?"
"We're here." He reached into the back seat and grabbed his pack before opening his door. "Come on."
"Won't your mother mind us getting her up at this hour? Maybe we should wait a while."
"Mom won't mind. She's used to me showing up at weird hours. Besides, it's too cold to hang around out here."
Babs lagged behind him on the short walk to the porch. He knew she was uneasy about dropping in on a stranger at this hour but he also knew he could depend on his mother to put her at ease. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and found the one that fit the door. It felt strange to be doing something so totally normal as opening the front door of the house he'd grown up in.
He pushed open the door and then stood to the side, waiting for Babs. She hung back. "I don't think this is such a good idea. What if she thinks we're burglars? I don't want to scare her."
"We aren't going to scare her." He reached out, catching her arm and tugging her into the small hallway before shutting the door behind them. "Stay there and I'll find a light."
"Sam? Is that you?"
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