He ran toward her, his heart still beating at a dizzying speed. She crawled toward him and began to cry. Before he reached her, she got to her feet and raced toward him, slamming into his chest and holding tightly to him. “Somebody grabbed me,” she managed to gasp between sobs. “He tried to drag me down the tunnel.”
Josh peeled her away from him. “Get out of here and get into your house. I need to check it out.”
She grabbed his arm. “Be careful.” She quickly turned and hurried toward the exit. Josh shone his light on her until he saw her leave the tunnel. Then he turned around and headed forward.
Every nerve, every sense he possessed tingled with hyperawareness as he approached the passageway where, according to Savannah, somebody had jumped out and grabbed her.
He didn’t even want to think about how frightened she’d been, how filthy she’d looked and how helpless she’d appeared crawling along the floor out of the unexplored tunnel.
When he reached the place she’d crawled out of, he shone his light to illuminate the utter blackness of the underground. Nothing. He couldn’t see anything as far as his flashlight beam could reach.
Tightening his grip on his gun, he walked down the unfamiliar tunnel. There was nothing to distinguish it from the one he’d just left. He followed it until he came to a fork and didn’t know which way to go. Uncertain whether he could find his way back if he ventured too far, he gave up the hunt. Besides, he imagined Savannah’s attacker was long gone by now.
He turned back, eager to get to her and find out everything that had happened. Who had been down here? Who would have attacked her? Hopefully she had managed to get a glimpse of whoever had grabbed her.
As he headed toward her house, he checked the yard but saw nothing amiss, nobody hiding in the shadows of night. When he reached the back door, he saw her seated at the table. She got up and unlocked the door to allow him in.
“I didn’t see anyone,” he said as they both sat down. She looked like hell. Dirt covered her white gown, and the absence of the white makeup she used showed in the tiny trails of her tears. Her eyes still held the haunting vestiges of horror.
He reached across the table for one of her hands. She grasped onto him, hers trembling. “Tell me exactly what happened,” he said.
“I waited for you.” There was no censure in her slightly breathy voice.
He squeezed her hand a little tighter. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. I had a domestic call I had to respond to.” How he wished he had been by her side. Nobody would have touched her if he’d been down there with her.
She nodded. “I finally went and did my walk, and when I was coming back, somebody from that connecting tunnel reached out and grabbed me by the arm. I managed to jerk away, but I fell down and lost my penlight.”
She paused a moment and drew a deep, tremulous breath. “Then whoever it was grabbed my foot and started to drag me.” She looked down at her fingernails. He noticed the dirt beneath them. “I desperately clawed at the ground and kicked as hard as I could, but whoever it was, was strong...too strong for me to get away. As soon as you called my name, he let go of me. Thank goodness you showed up when you did.”
“Did you see anything? Get a glimpse of his face?” Josh asked hopefully, but she shook her head.
“He had a bright light shining in my face.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I think the light was on a hat.”
“You mean like a miner’s hat?”
“Yes, like that.” She pulled her hand from his and instead wrapped her arms around herself as if chilled to the bone. “I thought he was going to drag me off before you could find me, and nobody would ever know what happened to me. I thought I was the only one who knew about those tunnels, besides you. Why would anyone else be down there? Why would they want to attack me?”
So many questions, and he had no answers for her. “We need to call Trey,” he finally said. “It’s time he knew not only about the tunnels but also about somebody being down there and assaulting you.”
He pulled out his cell phone and made the call to the sheriff, who indicated he’d be there in the next twenty minutes or so.
“He’ll think I’m crazy,” she said and uncrossed her arms from around herself. “He’ll have to know about my ghost walks, and he’ll write me off as a nut.”
“I won’t let that happen, Savannah. I’m not going to let anyone write you off as a nut. I’m on your side.” As he should have been two years before.
“I think for the first time in a long time I need somebody on my side,” she replied, and as she held his gaze, he swore to himself that he would do whatever possible to find the person responsible for the fear that still shadowed her eyes.
* * *
SHE DESPERATELY WANTED to shower. She needed to get the dirt off her body and out from under her fingernails and the last of the white makeup off her face. But Josh insisted she wait until after Sheriff Walker arrived and she spoke with him.
When the doorbell rang, Savannah remained seated at the kitchen table while Josh went to answer the door. She was still shaken to the core. If Josh hadn’t heard her scream, if he’d been five minutes later, who knew what might have happened to her? Any thoughts in that direction terrified her.
She sat up a little straighter when Josh came back into the kitchen, followed by Sheriff Walker. Trey Walker was a nice-looking man in his early forties, but she’d always believed he’d let down her entire family by not doing a thorough enough investigation when Shelly had been murdered. He’d been so certain that Bo McBride had killed Shelly. She believed he’d never really looked at anyone else.
“Are you dressed up for Halloween already?” Trey asked as he entered the kitchen and looked at her. Josh sat next to her, and Trey took the chair across from her.
“No, I’m dressed like Shelly’s ghost who walks the night for the amusement of silly teenagers,” she replied. She explained to him about pretending to be Shelly’s ghost for the last year.
“I’ve heard about the ghost rumors, but I’m afraid I never caught one of your performances,” Trey replied with a touch of amusement. “So, why am I here tonight when I should be at home and in bed?”
“Savannah was attacked,” Josh said. “There are tunnels under the town, and she was down there when somebody attacked her.”
“Whoa.” Trey held up both his hands to stop Josh from saying anything more. “Tunnels under the town? What are you talking about?”
“There’s a whole network of tunnels,” Savannah said. “I used one to go from my backyard to the edge of the lagoon where Shelly was murdered, but there are a bunch of them down there.”
Trey stared at her as if she’d spoken a foreign language. “What are the tunnels for? Where do they go?” he finally asked.
Savannah explained to him that she only knew the one she used and had no idea where the others went. “I thought I was the only one who knew about them until I told Josh, but obviously I was wrong. Somebody else was down there tonight.”
Trey scratched his head as if that might help him absorb the information. “I’ve never even heard a rumor about tunnels under the ground, and I’ve lived here all my life.”
“I think they’re old...really old,” Savannah said.
“The whole point of calling you is that somebody attacked Savannah when she was coming back in one of the tunnels from her ghost walk,” Josh said, as if impatient that Trey was preoccupied with the tunnels and not focused on the attack that had taken place.
“Okay, let’s hear what happened,” Trey said.
As Savannah recounted the attack, a cold core built up inside her as she remembered her horror, the shock of realizing not only she was not alone down there, but also somebody had intended to drag her off to someplace unknown.
When she was finished, Trey frowned. “You haven’t given me much to go on. You didn’t see the person, so you can’t identify anyone. Have either of you told anyone about the tunnels besides me?”
“No,” they said
in unison.
“I intended to tell you about them in the morning, but then things went crazy tonight,” Josh said.
“Don’t tell anyone else,” Trey said. “I need to talk to Mayor Burns, and I don’t want a bunch of yahoos going down there before we’ve had a chance to discuss how to proceed responsibly.”
“I’d just like to get my hands around the throat of the person who grabbed Savannah,” Josh said with a touch of fervor in his voice.
“Maybe she surprised whoever was down there and he just reacted,” Trey offered.
“All he had to do was back away deeper into that tunnel and I would never have seen him,” Savannah replied.
“First thing tomorrow morning I’ll be here, and you’re going to show me exactly where the entrance to the tunnel is,” Trey said to Savannah. “Maybe by figuring out where the other tunnels go, we can also figure out who attacked you.”
“I want to be here in the morning, too,” Josh said.
“You can’t work all night and work all day as well,” Trey replied.
“I’ll be off the clock at seven. If I decide to be here when you go down, it’s on my own time and it’s my own choice,” Josh countered. “I can always catch a nap before my shift tomorrow night.”
Trey shrugged. “It’s your call.” He turned to look at Savannah. “Why don’t I plan on meeting you here at nine?”
“That’s fine,” she replied. It was now out of her hands. The secret had been told, and she was vaguely surprised to realize she was a bit relieved that she had little or no control over what happened next.
Once the sheriff had left, Savannah also realized she wasn’t quite ready to be alone. “Would you mind hanging around long enough for me to take a shower?” she asked.
“Of course. I’ll hang around as long as you need me,” he replied.
“Feel free to make some coffee or get anything else you want to drink.” She got up from the table, eager to get beneath a spray of hot water. She felt as if the tunnel dirt had burrowed into her very soul. The touch of a stranger who meant her harm clung to her and needed to be washed away.
“I’m good. I usually meet Daniel Carson at George’s Diner around three thirty, and we grab a cup of coffee together,” he said, speaking of a fellow officer who worked the night shift as well.
“You should be able to meet him as usual,” she replied. “I shouldn’t be long.” She got up from the table and headed for the master bedroom with its adjoining bath. The bedroom was empty of furniture, but she often used the bathroom because it was bigger than the one in the hallway.
She set the water in the shower to hot and then climbed out of the filthy gown, untied the flashlight at her waist and took off the white slip she wore beneath.
All the clothing would go into the garbage. Shelly’s ghost would walk no more. She adjusted the water so she wouldn’t scald herself and then stepped beneath the spray.
She used a small bath brush to scrub the dirt from beneath her nails and then shampooed her hair twice. Each time the horror of those moments in the tunnel tried to take hold, she shoved it back, telling herself it was over now. Josh had gotten to her in time, and there was no reason to be afraid anymore.
And yet the fear didn’t seem to get the message that she was now safe. There was no reason to believe the person in the tunnel was specifically after her, no reason to think she was in any more danger.
By the time she finished her shower, she’d managed to distill some of the fear. She noted on the nightstand clock that it was three in the morning. She pulled on her nightgown and a pink cotton robe and then combed her long wet hair and pulled it back with a clip at the nape of her neck.
She found Josh still seated at the table. His eyes lit up at the sight of her. “Feel better?”
“Tons better,” she replied.
“Savannah, I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you went down into the tunnel.”
She offered him a small smile. “Josh, you’re a deputy. Trust me, I don’t blame you for not being here. You have other responsibilities that come first.”
“Still, I should have been here for you.” His features displayed his irritation at himself.
“I’d just like to know who was down there and what they were doing.”
“Hopefully over the next couple of days we can figure that out.” He gazed at her curiously. “How do you feel about no longer doing the ghost walks?”
“Conflicted,” she answered honestly. “Someplace in the back of my mind, I knew it had become an unhealthy compulsion, but it helped me keep Shelly relevant...alive. But I meant it when I said tonight was my last walk.”
“If you got out more, you’d realize that she’s still very relevant. Since Bo has returned to town, he and Claire are asking questions about the night of her death, trying to figure out the truth about what happened that night.”
“And what do you think the truth of that night is?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He said the words flatly, as if he didn’t want to talk about it.
She looked at the clock on the wall. “You’d better get going if you’re to meet Daniel at three thirty.”
“Are you okay to be here alone?”
“I’m fine now. I’m just ready to go to bed and get a short but good night’s sleep before Trey shows up here in the morning.” She stood, a deep exhaustion hitting her out of nowhere.
He got up as well, and together they walked to the front door. Before opening it, he turned to face her. “I was just thinking, you gave me a great gourmet meal last night. How about next Thursday night you let me cook for you?”
“Oh, that’s not necessary.”
“Come on, Savannah. It wouldn’t be nice of you not to let me return the favor.”
She stared at him. He was so handsome, and there was no question she was drawn to him in a way that was both exciting and frightening. It’s just dinner, for crying out loud, a little voice whispered in her head.
“Okay,” she heard herself agree.
“Great. Why don’t we say around six thirty at my place? In the meantime, I’ll see you in the morning.”
He opened the door, but before he stepped out, he turned back to face her. “You know, tonight wasn’t necessarily the end of anything. If you let it, it could be the beginning of a new phase in your life. You don’t have to be alone, Savannah.”
“I know. Good night, Josh, and thank you for being there when I needed you.”
In the back of her mind she wanted to be in his arms. She wanted him to kiss her until she was mindless and no longer had the lingering taste of fear in her mouth. She took a step backward, shocked by her desire.
“Anytime.” He hesitated a moment, as if he sensed her desire. His eyes darkened and her breath caught in the back of her throat, but then he turned and went out the door.
She watched him until he reached his car in the driveway, and then she closed and locked the door. She checked the back door to make sure it was secured and then headed for bed.
It was only when she was curled up on her side that she thought of Josh’s parting words. What he didn’t understand was that she didn’t want a new phase in her life. She didn’t want a new life at all.
What he didn’t understand was that she’d been blessedly numb in her isolation. What she feared most was that if she stepped out of that isolation, she might feel again, and those feelings would truly drive her into madness.
Chapter Five
It was a restless night for Savannah. She tossed and turned with thoughts of the horrifying attack, her confused feelings about Josh and the knowledge that she would never make a ghost walk again.
She didn’t want to, not now that she knew somebody else was also using the tunnels, somebody who had presented a danger to her. In fact, she wouldn’t mind a bit if Josh brought in that backhoe and filled in the entrance to the tunnel in her backyard.
As she dressed for the day, she thought about the dinner invitation she’d accepted from Josh. She sho
uldn’t go. She should find some reason to cancel. It was just a bad idea, and yet when she thought of how his features had lit up when she’d finally agreed, she knew she wasn’t going to cancel on him.
She’d get through the meal, and then that would be the end of any interaction with Josh. She wasn’t interested in a romantic flirtation. She wasn’t interested in finding love.
She’d loved her parents, and they had deserted her. She’d loved her brother despite his flaws, but he wanted nothing to do with her. Finally, she’d loved Shelly, and Shelly had been stolen from her. She would never use her heart again. She would never allow her emotions to return to life again.
Dinner and done, she thought as she worked her hair into a single braid down her back. As an afterthought, she slid a pale pink lip gloss over her lips and then left the bathroom.
Josh, Trey and Mayor Burns should be arriving within the next fifteen minutes or so. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table to wait for them.
She was going down that tunnel one last time with the men. She had to show Trey Walker exactly where she had been dragged and into what tunnel she might have disappeared if not for Josh’s fortuitous appearance.
She was unsurprised when Josh was the first of the men to arrive. He appeared at the back door. His night of work showed in his tired eyes and in the slightly deepened lines on his face.
“Coffee?” she asked in greeting.
“Please,” he replied and plopped down in the same chair where he’d always sat before, as if he’d claimed it as his own.
He’d obviously gone home from work and changed clothes before coming here, for he wore a pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt that did dazzling things to his eyes.
“You look like you need some sleep,” she said as she set the coffee before him and then resumed her seat.
“I’ll be all right. I’ll get a second wind going, and then later this afternoon I’ll catch a nap before heading back in to work at eleven.” He took a sip of the coffee and set the cup back on the table.
“I checked in with Trey a little while ago, and he and Mayor Burns are eager to get down into the tunnels. They’re bringing ropes and colored chalk to mark the passageways so that none of us gets lost down there.”
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