by Dana Mentink
“Careful not to touch them,” Victor warned. “They’re hot enough to burn.”
A skittering along the walls startled him.
Tuney snorted. “More rats. This place keeps getting better and better.”
In fact, it grew darker and hotter. Their clothes were nearly dry. Another hour of walking, and he could feel Brooke beginning to lag behind. “Let’s rest,” he said. They sat on the floor, sharing the last of the water bottle. Tuney settled with a grunt near them.
Above was a series of pipes covered in chipped red-and-blue paint. A network of wires webbed the ceiling, as well, some chewed through by the rats, Victor guessed. The floor bore traces of rodent droppings, but at least it was dry. Above them, about every four feet or so, was a dark hole, covered by a rusted grate, like a series of dark eyes peering down at them. His skin prickled and he felt the sensation of being watched. It was probably his imagination due to what Brooke had mentioned earlier, but nonetheless he kept a wary eye out as Brooke closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall behind her.
Victor checked his phone, a useless gesture as it had been soaked recently. He wouldn’t get a signal anyway. Fortunately, his watch still functioned. “Just after noon. Luca’s plane should have landed. They’ll be on their way back soon.”
“What if they go back to the office?” Tuney said.
“They’ll come here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know my brother. He’ll want in on the action as soon as he possibly can manage it.”
Brooke gave him a wan smile and he was glad his remark had cheered her. Inside he felt more concerned than he let on. His brother and sister would find the blocked tunnel fairly quickly, but it might take them some time to get through. In the meantime, Denise was still nowhere in sight and Brooke was looking more and more fatigued. The walls were closing in on Tuney, from the look of the man. He rocked back and forth, the glint of his silvered hair eerie.
“What am I doing here?” he mumbled, jerking at the sound of a rat scuttling along the pipes overhead. “Never should have joined up with this insanity.”
“Beginning to think it wasn’t worth what Lock is paying you?”
Tuney glared at him. “I told you I can’t let things go, even if I wanted to. If Lock has been playing me, then he’ll pay for it.”
Victor pitied him in that moment until he came to the uncomfortable realization that he was not altogether different than the doggedly determined Tuney. Determination had allowed him to be a great doctor at one point in his life, and a successful treasure hunter. And it had kept the injustice of Jennifer’s death burning in his chest for four years. There would be no relief, no quenching of that inexhaustible flame until Donald Ramsey paid for what he did.
He found Brooke watching him, her eyes shadowed with fatigue. He wished he did not feel strange when he gazed back into those blue eyes, off-balance and uneasy, filled with the insane need to crush her close and leave her breathless.
Tuney leaped to his feet so suddenly Brooke cried out. He spun around, wielding the flashlight like a weapon before he slumped back against the wall. “Just the rats. They’re fighting over something in the corner.”
Victor walked closer and the rats scattered. One big hairy rodent with a mottled tail glared at Victor, his prize clenched tightly between yellowed incisors before scampering away into the darkened recesses behind the pipes.
“Brooke, what did Denise put in her pack to eat?”
Brooke joined him, hand on his shoulder to look past. “Your sister gave us packages of dried fruit. Why?”
“Because I just watched the head rat scamper away with a bag of dried apricots.”
* * *
For a moment, Brooke’s heart could not seem to figure out what to feel until one overwhelming thought rose to the top.
Hurry.
Like the crush of water she’d felt before, the impulse to find her aunt and get out of the tunnels rushed wildly inside. “She came this way. We’re close.” Brooke started down the passage, heedless of the fact that she had only a small penlight loaned to her by Tuney. Victor caught her arm and pulled her to him. “Careful, the pipes.”
She felt the heat not from the metal conduits, but a delicious warmth trickling through her body where it made contact with his. He murmured in her ear again, which sent a network of sparks down her side. “Let me go first.”
She acquiesced, as much to get her nerves in check as anything else. Tuney seemed relieved to be moving again as he brought up the rear. The passage grew lower until Victor had to hunch over to continue on.
A pitiful wail echoed through the tunnel causing them to stop dead.
Tuney wiped a hand over his face. “Man or woman?”
“Can’t tell,” Victor said. “Which direction?”
They waited. Brooke’s heart pounded so forcefully she was not sure she could hear anything until the wail came again from somewhere ahead of them. “Leave me be,” it shrieked, making the hair on the back of her neck prickle. So distorted was the voice that she was not able to tell if it was her aunt.
“Whoever it is, they need help,” she said, pushing ahead of Victor and moving as fast as she could up the tunnel. A strange flickering light appeared ahead. It must be Denise’s lantern. She ran, the light gradually illuminating another chamber, again set high in the wall. A pile of stones on the tunnel floor provided an easy step up into the chamber. She had not quite crested the top when there was a deafening explosion, the sound of a gun firing.
Ears ringing, she found herself pulled back as Victor grabbed her around the waist and hauled her into the shelter of a brace of pipes. Panic seized her. “My aunt. Colda shot her,” she panted, clapping her hands over her mouth to contain the scream that threatened to bubble up.
He squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll help. Stay here. Please.” His look calmed her, momentarily overcoming the terror in her gut. What would they find in the chamber? Thoughts crowded into her head leaving her dizzy with horror, terror as bad as she’d felt when she’d been close to drowning.
Victor and Tuney took up positions on either side of the gap. Tuney took the lead now, gesturing to Victor silently that they would go on three. He stabbed a finger in the air to count. One. Her breath caught.
Two.
Was the shooter still on the other side, waiting to catch the two men in the crossfire? She couldn’t stand it. Crawling out from behind the pipes she screamed, “No, wait!”
Too late.
Tuney used the piles of stones and popped up, giving him a view of the space while Victor, keeping low, looked over.
She heard his intake of breath.
And then he was up and over the opening, followed by Tuney.
Her body went rigid, waiting for another shot, but there was only a faint scuffling from inside. Darting to the opening, she climbed on the step and peered in.
A body lay on the floor in the farside of the chamber, hidden by shadows.
Fear clawed at her insides and the room swam before her eyes. Forcing her legs to keep moving, she climbed up and over, ignoring the scrape of brick against her shins. She wanted to run, to see who it was lying there under Victor’s ministrations, but her feet would not cooperate. The best she could do was stand there, horror prickling through her body, until Tuney noticed her and nudged Victor. He moved slightly and she saw that it was not her aunt but Stryker who lay on the floor, face pale and blood leaking from his side.
She ran now, crossing the floor and kneeling next to Victor.
Stryker was alive, his eyelids fluttering open and closed, dirt streaking his dark skin. She found his hand and held it, squeezing the fingers, which were still mercifully warm.
Victor’s face was grave. Tuney offered him a small first-aid kit and he ripped it open, using the scissors to slit Stryker’s shirt.
Stryker moaned as he applied pressure.
“Can you talk?” Brooke asked, leaning close. “What happened? Who did this
to you?”
But Stryker did not look at Brooke. His eyes were riveted instead on Victor. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a whisper.
Victor didn’t answer. His concentration was on the wound he was treating. Stryker reached his free hand and grabbed Victor’s jacket. “I’m sorry, man. I wanted to get back to my girl, you know? To have a start for us. That’s all it was. Being a cabbie didn’t pay enough and I had the chance to make a big score.”
Victor stopped as if he’d been slapped. “What are you sorry for?”
“I didn’t think anyone would get hurt,” he mumbled. His face twitched in pain.
Victor leaned close to Stryker’s face. “Tell me what you did, Stryker.”
Stryker groaned and his eyes closed, tears leaking out and streaking through the grime on his face. Victor tried to rouse him with a gentle shake to his shoulders.
Stryker remained unconscious.
Brooke’s heart was in her throat as Victor checked him over. “He’s alive, and I think the bullet missed any organs, but he’s bleeding heavily. I’ll try to stop it, but he won’t be able to stay down here long.”
Brooke handed Victor a roll of bandages and continued to stroke Stryker’s arm. What had he just confessed to? There was no gun around, Tuney had checked thoroughly while Brooke watched, so the gunshot was not self-inflicted.
“No sign of the shooter,” Tuney said as he returned from the outer corridor.
“And no sign of my aunt?”
“No,” Tuney said.
Brooke caught the tone in his answer. “Before you start spinning theories about any more members of my family, my aunt did not shoot Stryker. First off, she’d have no reason to, and second, she had no gun. I watched her fill her pack. Are you satisfied?”
Tuney shrugged. “That leaves Colda, or some other psychopath who happens to be wandering the tunnels.”
Brooke suppressed a shiver. Just keep out of sight, Denise, until we get to you. She took a moment to examine the bomb shelter. This one was empty of supplies, just a bare circular chamber with the holes set halfway up the walls.
Much better if the place floods, she thought grimly, willing away the memory of her near drowning.
When Victor finished applying the bandages, he sat back, exchanging a look with Tuney before unrolling the map again.
“One of us has to get out of here or at least get to a spot where we can call for help. Stryker’s going to need an ambulance. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for my brother and sister anymore.”
Tuney shook his head. “I’ll go.”
Brooke heard Victor grind his teeth before he turned to her, moving her away to the farside of the chamber. His face was grim. “I think you should go with Tuney. I don’t entirely trust him, but you’d be safer than staying here.”
“I’m not going.”
His hands fisted. “This isn’t the time for stubbornness. Someone is likely to die down here.”
“Then I have to make sure it isn’t my aunt.” She thought to herself, or you.
“Brooke,” he started.
“Listen to me. It’s not about the painting anymore, or my father or anything else. It’s about that poor man there, hurt and possibly dying, and my aunt who needs rescuing whether she knows it or not. I’m staying.”
An arrogant look flashed across his face. “I don’t need any more patients to treat.”
“I promise I will do my best not to become one.”
“That’s not it.”
She crossed her arms. “This whole thing has been about family to me and you happen to hate my family.”
He caught her by the shoulders. “You know that isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” She looked deep into his eyes. “Hasn’t the last four years been about punishing my father?”
He looked away. “It was about finding justice.”
“You know what? I’d sure like to find some justice, too, to let the world know the truth about my father. You want to destroy him. My aunt and I want to save him. Pardon me if I don’t want to leave my family affairs in your hands.”
His mouth closed in a taut line. “Fine. Stay if you want to.”
“I will,” she said softly.
He moved closer, gliding his fingers along her arms, sending ripples of sweetness surging through her. Why did her body not understand what her mind grasped completely?
“But I’m not out to ruin your family. I just…” Victor started.
Tuney cleared his throat. “Don’t mean to interrupt, but I’ve got a long walk ahead through rats, shooters, floods and who knows what else, to find a way out that may or may not exist. Seems like I’d better get started.”
Victor pulled away, leaving Brooke slightly dizzy. He and Tuney scanned the map while Brooke knelt next to Stryker. She took off her jacket and wadded it up under his head as a makeshift pillow and then held his hand and prayed for him.
She looked at the lines of pain around his mouth that even unconsciousness could not erase, and thought about his strange confession.
Oh, Stryker. What have you done?
NINETEEN
Victor and Tuney identified the direction that might be most likely to provide a way out near the Professor House. Tuney gave them a sloppy salute and said in his best John Wayne voice, “Until we meet again, partner.”
Then he was gone. Victor began to pace, following the periphery of the room, which was mercifully dry and warm but not dangerously so. There were broken bricks on the floor, the only objects in the bare chamber with its cold stone floor and low ceiling. Six-inch holes were set ink-dark into the walls. The only light came from his failing flashlight and Brooke’s penlight.
“We should conserve the batteries,” he said, flicking his off and activating a light stick that Tuney had given him before he left. Brooke silently switched off her penlight and they sat next to Stryker, bathed in the otherworldly glow of the light stick.
The silence grew between them. That was fine with Victor. His mouth would not cooperate when Brooke was around, insisting on saying things without the consent of his brain. Why did he forget all thoughts of treasure and vengeance now that she was sitting next to him? What happened to his orderly, meticulously reasoned arguments when her hair brushed his cheek with a satin tickle? He checked his watch, willing Tuney to hurry, or his brother and sister to make it through the grate.
When the feel of her next to him made his senses too jumbled, he busied himself tending to Stryker, checking his pulse and wishing again they had at least a blanket to wrap around him.
“I wonder what he meant,” Brooke said softly.
“I wish I knew.” Victor yearned to pace, but it was too dark now to move anywhere safely.
She startled him with the next question. “Who are Pearson, Jackney and Rivera? The names you mentioned when we were trapped in that hot room.”
“Patients,” he growled, looking away.
“What happened to them?”
“They died.”
She didn’t answer, just looked at him, and before he realized it the words were tumbling from his mouth.
“They died, but they shouldn’t have. I’d lost patients before over the course of my career and after them, of course, but I knew why. Sometimes they were too weak to survive the surgery or infection set in, et cetera. But those three…” He pulled out his wallet and took out a small piece of paper, worn and creased from use, with the three names written on it. “I could not understand why they died. Every day I searched for the answer, researched and went through their medical histories, the moment by moment of the surgery, but I never could figure it out.”
Brooke reached for his hand. “Some things you don’t get to know.”
He felt a surge of anger as he pulled out of reach. “That’s it? That’s the answer? Some things just happen and I don’t get to know or understand why? I just have to accept it, to know that I’m not good enough or smart enough or—” he searched for the word “—or worthy enough to kno
w why?”
She nodded.
“And you accept that? After your father destroyed you and you lost the dream of becoming a dancer. You just accept that it’s not for you to understand why.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t be complacent like that. I’m not that kind of person.”
“Not complacent. Angry, hurt, disappointed, enraged, sorrowful, Victor. All those things, but hopeful, too, because I know there’s something better the Lord has in mind.” She smiled. “He’s smarter than me.” Stryker stirred and she moved to him and took his hand.
“Why do you pray for him?” Victor snapped. “He’s no innocent.”
“Neither am I,” Brooke said.
“He’s probably a criminal.”
“Like Stephanie?”
He stiffened. “My sister made some mistakes, huge mistakes, but she’s past that.”
“Huge mistakes, but you love her anyway.”
“Of course. She’s my sister.”
“So you care for her even though she disappointed you and let you down?”
He waved the question away. “Of course.”
She turned to him. “And that is exactly the way I feel about my father, and I’m going to continue to pray for him, and for Stryker.” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “And for you, Victor, because you might never know why those men died.” She added softly, “Or Jennifer.”
He stared at her, breath held until his body forced his lungs to start up again. “I can’t accept that.”
“It helps when you know that there’s a God up there who loves you. He’s in charge and you’re not. It’s a comfort, actually.”
A rat skittered across the pipe over their heads.
A comfort. To believe. How could she embrace something that ridiculously simple?
He got to his feet, shoved the paper back into his pocket and checked on Stryker again.
Stryker moaned and Victor tried to pour a little water from their scant supply into his mouth. He coughed and his eyes flicked open.
“Is she dead?” Stryker croaked. “I didn’t mean to kill them.”
“Who?” Victor said, his ear close to Stryker’s mouth.