“We’ll get Brandon.”
Yes, that was a good plan. More law enforcement.
But as they hit the first floor in a fast walk, another man approached them from the very door to which they were headed. He was a bulky, muscled man who wore a scowl as if it was his default setting.
She squeezed Derek’s hand and her heart leaped into her throat. It suddenly didn’t matter if Brandon was at his post or not.
“We’re not going outside. Follow me and stay close. I think I remember something.” Derek’s voice was low, and he barely moved his lips.
With the burly man still halfway down the hallway, Derek drew her around a corner. Her shoes slid on the slick marble floor, and she grabbed at him with both hands to stay upright. A heavy, wooden, four-paneled door labeled Janitor stood to the left. Derek jerked the knob to yank it open. He pushed her inside and jumped in behind her.
He pulled the door closed quietly. Inky blackness enveloped them with only a sliver of light shining under the door. The acrid odor of cleaning chemicals assaulted her, and she leaned in to his cotton shirt to use it as a filter. She inhaled deeply of the fresh scent, of a clean breeze in the springtime.
Hannah rocked back on her heels. What was she doing getting so close to him? But then the nasty chemicals assailed her again, and she couldn’t stop herself from leaning in to breathe in his scent again.
The sliver of light from under the door remained constant. Did that mean the man had not found them or even walked past the door? Derek pressed his ear to the door, and Hannah prayed his stillness meant that there was nothing to be heard. But a moment later, he pulled away.
“Here.” He handed her his cell. “Flashlight.”
She tapped the app, and the room glowed in the low light. He stepped toward a wall of wooden shelves laden with bottles of cleaners and disinfectants and paper towels. Moving items aside in a methodical fashion, he felt the wall behind, running his hands up and down the drywall. “Do you remember those rumors that circulated in high school?” His whisper echoed loudly in the small space.
“No. You mean about the courthouse?”
“Yeah, from our history teacher.”
“I don’t think I heard—”
“Shh.” He held out a hand to cut her off, then pointed toward the bottom of the door.
Footsteps click-clacked slowly down the hallway. The echo rolled up and down the corridor and seemed to bang on the closet door.
The light that had crept in under the wooden door from the hallway was suddenly blacked out. Someone was out there, and it didn’t appear to be the janitor.
Hannah froze. The flashlight still shone toward the shelves on the back wall. But it provided enough light to see that the doorknob began to turn.
* * *
He was here. At the door.
“Let’s move it. Double time.” Derek grabbed a rolling bucket and mop and pushed them toward Hannah. He felt steady and sure, and was thankful to be able to perform under pressure like this. Hannah received the mop bucket and gently placed them against the door. He nodded his agreement with the location and handed her a large, half-empty five-gallon bucket. Anything they could place against the door would not only impede the intruder’s entry, even if just for a few moments, but also make a racket when he opened the door, drawing the attention of anyone nearby.
He continued to hand her large containers that had been sitting on the floor. As the space cleared, he ran his hands along the edges of the floor tiles. Surely there would be a finger-hold or a latch to grab on to, if the rumors were true.
If they weren’t, then what? He didn’t have the time to formulate a Plan B.
A poke in the shoulder made him spin around to see that the doorknob had stopped turning. Whoever was out there was ready to push in.
He reached for Hannah to pull her behind him. Her protection was the priority here, and he would go down to keep her safe if that was what was required of him.
Before he could grab her, though, she dodged toward a shelf of containers and unscrewed the lid of a large bottle. The stench of disinfectant filled the tiny area. The door opened, and Hannah tossed the nasty chemical concoction in the face of the man in the doorway.
It was the bulky man from around the corner, and Hannah had judged his height perfectly. The liquid hit his eyes, and he stumbled backward. His arms flailed toward his face as if to scrub away the burn. Derek heard a low moan under the splash of the chemicals.
He yanked the door shut again. They couldn’t leave the courthouse now, but they needed to get out. There was too much chance that the wiry man had exited the building to wait for them, perhaps with the other Mafia thugs if they had avoided capture. And if they were outside, they most likely had weapons.
Dropping to his knees on the floor, Derek shoved aside the remaining bottles on the bottom shelf and pulled away the boards that had been nailed up in a flimsy manner to make shelves for the storage closet. His fingers quickly found a hold on the wall itself, and he pulled away a piece of cheap paneling to reveal a trapdoor about three feet high and two feet wide.
“Eureka!” As much as he wanted to shout in jubilation, he forced himself to keep his voice to an excited whisper.
Hannah peeked around him, her hair brushing against his face and the scent of her shampoo tickling his nose. “We’re free!” She leaned toward him and landed a kiss on his cheek.
His heart in overdrive, he leaned back on his heels. “Not yet, but we’re closer than we were.”
The tunnel inside looked like the movie images of a mine shaft, with packed dirt walls and support beams adding strength to the ceiling. It sloped down steeply, and if the rumors were correct, it angled under the street and reopened...somewhere. Whoever had dug it obviously hadn’t spent a lot of time, effort or money on it. It was purely functional, but he was good with that, considering the circumstances.
Before they could make their escape though, he ought to throw those thugs off their trail. The noise outside the door had subsided—the guy with the chemicals in his face was probably fleeing to the washroom to find relief in clean, clear water. Derek opened the door slowly to find the hallway empty. He grabbed the mop and a couple of the large bottles and, as quietly as possible, arranged them on the floor in the hallway to make it look as if they had taken off from the closet in haste.
Leaving the door ajar, he turned back into the closet and urged Hannah into the tunnel. “Ladies first.”
“I know this creepy tunnel that’s probably full of spiders is better than facing that guy out there, but you’ll be right behind me. Right?” Her voice wobbled in the quiet of the closet.
“Definitely.”
She crawled in and descended a rough set of stairs until she could stand upright, then turned and waited for him, shining the cell-phone flashlight toward the ground in his direction.
Derek backed into the tunnel. Reaching through the door, he hoisted the shelves onto the brackets and pulled what supplies were within his grasp back into place on the shelves. The closet still had bottles and brooms out of place and all over the floor, but perhaps whoever found it would think those things had been scattered in their haste to get out.
The last thing was to replace the paneling that created the wall and close the trapdoor. He backed down the stairs since he was too big to turn around in the narrow passageway. At the bottom, he inched around and finally stood upright. He put a finger to his lips to indicate that she should keep quiet and shuffled past her to take the lead through the tunnel.
Several yards in, Hannah put a hand on his shoulder blade. He stopped and turned to hold up a hand, listening for any indication of being followed. Only complete and chilling silence filled the space around them. He nodded to her that it was okay to talk. Perhaps a little conversation would de-creepify the tunnel a bit.
“Ho
w did you know about this tunnel?”
“I took a chance that the rumors were true. Good thing they were, huh?”
“I never heard any rumors about a secret underground tunnel.” She edged forward, glancing around at the walls and ceiling, clearly uncertain as to the safety of their location.
“We had different history teachers. This courthouse dates back over one hundred and fifty years, clear back to the Civil War. Mr. Goode loved to talk about a supposed tunnel that was used to hide and transport passengers on the Underground Railroad. One end was at the courthouse, but no one knew where the other end came out.” He placed a hand on her upper back to push her along gently. “The thought was that a couple of the men who worked on the construction of the building in the 1850s were involved with the Railroad, so they dug the tunnel to help runaway slaves avoid recapture.”
“That’s pretty cool, then, that this tunnel is here for such noble purposes.”
“Well, there was also a rumor that a judge in the 1970s used it to hide his criminal activities. I never heard exactly what.”
“Oh.”
“But we’ve redeemed it. We’re using it again for running away from the bad guys.”
She glanced back and he forced a smile for her. But a muscle twitched in his temple that he prayed she couldn’t see in the semidarkness. They seemed safe now, and he was grateful the rumors had proven accurate. But he had told the truth, that no one seemed to know where the tunnel ended. What if it had been sealed up years ago and they had to go back the way they came? He had been plotting off the top of his head back in the closet. He had no Plan B. This wasn’t Hogan’s Alley back in Quantico, the mock town the academy used for training, and these thugs weren’t actors hired for a training exercise. This was real life. These were real criminals. He better keep his head in the game.
He scrubbed his hand over his stubbled chin, then reached for the cell flashlight from Hannah and stepped around her to take the lead. A wave of relief washed over her face as she stepped behind him.
“This tunnel can’t go too far, probably just across the street.”
They approached a curve, and as Derek rounded the bend, a cobweb engulfed him and wrapped itself around him. It stuck to his arms and neck, and he clawed at it to free himself from the clingy, sticky tendrils. He grimaced, glad he wasn’t facing Hannah. As slithery as it felt against his skin, better him than her.
After a long straightaway and dodging a few more cobwebs, the light shone on what seemed to be the end of the tunnel. A wall of rough-hewn boards rose up in front of them. Derek handed the light back to Hannah, dug his fingers in around the end of one at shoulder height and pulled. It wiggled, and with a little more effort, came loose, bringing clods of dirt down with it.
A brick wall stood behind it.
Sniffling sounded behind him, the light wobbling on the bricks. He turned to find Hannah’s shoulders shaking as she struggled to hold back tears. “What are we going to do?” Her voice was hoarse with emotion.
As much as he wanted to gather her in his embrace, stroke her hair and comfort her, that wouldn’t get them out of the tunnel. “We keep going.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently, whispering a prayer for a good outcome.
There had to be a way through that brick wall. He turned back and grabbed another board. It came loose and revealed more brick, but this time he spied what looked like a handhold in between bricks. He pulled again, and with another board loose, another handhold was exposed.
“I think I see something. Shine the light over here.” He gestured toward the top handhold. The light followed his hand, and he leaned in for a closer look, his heart pounding loudly in the quiet of the tunnel. “See? If I can get enough fingers in here—” he fit his fingers into the open space “—and then pull, I think it might come loose.” He carefully yanked on a piece of brick.
He didn’t want everything to come loose at once since he didn’t know what was behind the brick. But with a gentle pull, not one brick but a sheet of brick inched out of the space.
Behind him, Hannah sighed. “This is good, right?”
He pulled again, and a large section eased out into his hand, revealing a dark, empty space behind it. “Almost anything would be better than the tunnel.” He reached for the light. “Let’s find out.”
The light swept through the hole. They had come to what looked to be a cellar, with brick walls and metal shelving units filled with boxes and supplies. “I think this will work, but the opening isn’t big enough to fit through yet.”
He passed the light back to Hannah and pulled on another section of brick. This one was stuck in more tightly, and he strained to yank it free. But a moment later, it came loose, and he fell back against the dirt wall of the tunnel. He stood and brushed himself off, then, moving aside a rolling shelving unit, he clambered through the hole and into the cellar. Turning back for Hannah, he took the cell from her and grasped her arm to steady her as she crawled through.
A flip of the light switch revealed a storage room filled with restaurant supplies like boxes of foam cups, to-go boxes and packages of paper napkins. Wooden stairs led the way up. Hannah inhaled deeply, and Derek followed. The earthy scent of the tunnel had been replaced by the stale, musty odor of cardboard and brick. But over that, there was another, more pleasing aroma.
A smile quickly arched across Hannah’s face. “Do you smell that? Coffee.”
He did smell it. The scent of brewing beans quickly overcame the other aromas. It was the scent of safety and tranquility. “I think I know where we are. We’ve crossed Main Street, and we’re in the cellar of that coffee shop and restaurant that’s on the square on the other side of the street from the courthouse.”
“The Green Bean.”
“That’s the place.” He inhaled deeply one more time, savoring the aroma and willing his pulse back to a normal rate. “Unfortunately, I think we better keep going. I don’t think those guys found the tunnel. They would have caught up with us by now. But we can’t stand still. Plus, the proprietor of The Green Bean probably wouldn’t be happy to find two strangers hiding out in his storage room.”
“Let’s get this put back, then.” Apparently invigorated by freedom and the hope of coffee, Hannah tried to lift a section of the brick to replace the wall.
“I’ll get it.” He fit the brick sections back into place and rolled the shelving unit to its original location, hiding the holds in the brick.
“It looks good. I don’t think anyone will ever notice.” Hannah straightened and brushed her hands off. “So now what? Can we get a coffee? And I think I smell pastries, too. We never had breakfast.”
“Coffee and a danish sound terrific.” Derek slapped his hands against his khakis, brushing the dirt and brick dust from his hands and his clothes. He could really use a shower about now, too, but there simply wasn’t time. Hannah was safe, yes, but those thugs were still somewhere around the square, most likely looking for them. They couldn’t live like moles, hiding underground. They needed to rise to the surface, but only with extreme caution.
He stepped closer to pick up a package of napkins that had fallen on the floor. When he rose from replacing them on the shelf, he was inches from her. A smudge of dust from the tunnel clung to her cheek, and he brushed it away with his thumb. Before he could stop himself, he slid his other arm around her waist and pulled her close.
Maybe it was the danger they had just come through, or maybe it was the probability of danger when they rose to street level. Maybe it was the hope for a future together that was working its way into his heart. But he needed to hold her close, to inhale her scent, to reassure himself that she was warm and real and right here with him. The memory of her had not left him for the past ten years. Now she was here, and he was here, and there might not come a moment like this again.
As much as he didn’t want to admit
it, he was falling in love with her all over again.
She gasped at his arm around her, her lips parting slightly in surprise. But she didn’t pull away. “Shouldn’t we go?” she whispered.
“In a minute. We’re safe for now.” He leaned in closer, his breath mingling with hers, ready to claim another kiss. It had been nearly ten years since the last one, the only kiss they had ever shared. A small part of his brain hammered at him to leave her alone, to leave that kiss in the past, where it belonged. As he hovered over her parted lips, he silenced his thoughts, lowering his head toward hers.
“Whoa, what’s going on here?” A loud voice startled him, and Hannah jumped back, out of his arms.
A kid who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old stood at the bottom of the stairs. Thick blond hair fell over his eyes, and he wore a black apron tied over his beige cargo pants and black polo. The Green Bean was embroidered at the top of the apron.
Derek stepped back and cleared his throat, straightening his shoulders and rising up to his full height, which was a few inches more than the teenager.
The teenager cowered slightly, but not enough to please Derek. “How’d you get in here? You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Relax, Sparky. I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He whisked out his badge and flipped open the cover with a flourish.
Sparky stepped back, his eyes racing to the weapon in the shoulder holster that was revealed when Derek reached for his credentials. “Whoa. FBI?” He let his gaze roam over Derek, then he glanced down at his own scrawny biceps. In a moment of silence, he stepped back toward the stairs. “Wa-want a coffee?”
Derek suppressed a grin. He held out his hand to Hannah, ushering her toward the stairs, and they followed the kid up and into a back hallway. A quick glance out the nearest window revealed only a Dumpster and a back parking lot with a single compact car in it.
Sparky led them into the restaurant and sat them at a table near the back, half behind a ficus tree. “This okay?”
Deadly Disclosure Page 12