“Gotcha!”
It was the man’s voice. His grip was firm on her leg, and he began to pull her back toward him. Lindsey reached out and grabbed the edge of the freezer, stopping him. With her other leg bent, he wasn’t able to grab it, so she began to kick out, making sure he didn’t catch her.
She felt a thunk under her heel, and the man cursed. She struck out again and again. Still, his grip on her ankle was strong, and he was pulling her out of the narrow space. Lindsey felt her fingers slipping off the corner of the freezer. Terror motivated her to keep kicking. She struck out three more times, and the third one rang true with a crunch of bone. She was pretty sure she had smashed his hand.
“Uff!” a grunt sounded.
Her ankle was released, and now she burrowed into the narrow space, hoping like hell there was no way he could follow her. The sound of muttering and cursing filled the air behind her, but Lindsey was wriggling forward too fast to listen.
A faint light began to form up ahead, and she realized she was nearing an opening. She moved faster. The sound of items being shoved aside told her that the man was too big to fit into the tight squeeze and he had to move the piles of junk to get to her. She knew she only had seconds to get out before he doubled back and caught her at the exit.
Her breath was ragged, and tears blurred her vision. She wrenched her shoulder, trying to get around an old sewing machine. Lindsey could feel a sob burn in her throat. She choked it down, pushing herself to reach the light before the man caught her again.
The tunnel widened, and she launched herself up to her knees. She crawled under a desk and found herself at an opening into a wider path. She peeked out, looking both ways trying to figure out which direction would get her back to the front of the house, where she hoped to find Sully. She crawled forward, stood and turned to the right. She took three steps when she was grabbed from behind.
A strong arm looped around her middle and picked her up off of her feet. Thinking it was her pursuer, Lindsey kicked and thrashed with all of the adrenaline coursing through her body like rocket fuel.
“Whoa! Lindsey, stop, it’s me.” She recognized Sully’s voice and whipped her head around to confirm that it was him. It was. She stopped fighting. Relief hit her hard, and she sagged against him.
“He’s right behind me,” she said.
“Excellent!” he said. He looked as if he was spoiling for a fight.
The sound of something scraping and a grunt came from the opening Lindsey had just squeezed through. Sully dropped his arm from around her middle and crouched in front of the opening. He looked like he was going to dive in, but Lindsey grabbed his arm and held him back.
“You can’t fit,” she said. “I was barely able to get out. He is probably trapped in there and will have to work his way back.”
Sully glanced around them and then grabbed a huge framed mirror. He dragged it in front of the small hole and then braced a table between it and the piles of garbage behind it, making it impossible to be moved.
“Now he’ll have no choice but to go back,” he said. “Show me the entrance.”
Lindsey glanced around the path they stood in. She had no idea where she was or how she’d gotten here. She was completely turned around by her time in the tunnel.
“I have to get back to the stairs,” she said.
“This way.” Sully grabbed her hand and led her to the left.
He didn’t pick his way through the paths, so Lindsey figured he’d already been this way and knew it was clear of traps.
They wound their way through two rooms packed with boxes and bags and broken furniture. Lindsey couldn’t be happier to put some distance between her and the man who had been chasing her.
“Did you recognize him?” Sully asked as they made their way around the corner and back to the front room.
“No, I only saw him for a second while I was running away, but I’m sure I’ve never seen him before.”
They stopped in front of the stairs. Lindsey glanced at the steps and remembered being terrified and jumping off the steps at a run.
“This way,” she said.
She followed the path she had taken with Sully right behind her. They stopped at the stack of picture frames, and she pointed to the hole.
“My leg got stuck, so I climbed in there,” she said. “I didn’t realize it, but it forms a sort of tunnel.”
“Intentional?” Sully asked.
Lindsey nodded. “I think it was built deliberately to give access to the far corners of the stuff.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sully said. He hunched low and studied the opening. “No traps?”
“I was moving too fast to stop and check,” Lindsey said. “The path forks. I don’t know where the other one leads.”
“So, he may not come out this way,” Sully said. He began to climb into the tunnel, and Lindsey felt her breath catch.
“Sully, don’t go,” she said. She grabbed the back of his jacket, holding him in place.
He glanced around at her. His blue eyes were kind when he said, “Don’t worry. I’m just going in to listen and see if I can figure out if he’s headed this way. I’ll return right away.”
Lindsey let his jacket slide out of her fingers. It took all of her faith in his ability to handle himself not to grab hold and forcibly yank him out. The thought of anything bad happening to Sully wrecked her. She just didn’t think she could bear it.
He disappeared from sight, and Lindsey began to pace in a tight little circle. Listening did not take that long, and when he was gone for more than a few minutes, she knelt down and began to climb in after him.
She had just cleared the picture frames when she bumped into Sully’s back. His lack of surprise let her know he had probably either heard her or expected her.
In the faint light, she saw him put his finger to his lips. She nodded. They sat together in the silence. Lindsey felt as if her nerves had been scraped raw. She could hear the rush of blood in her ears, and she really had to pee.
Then they heard it. A muted click that sounded like a door closing, coming from the opposite direction that Lindsey had taken earlier. The intruder was getting away.
Sully motioned for Lindsey to back out of their hidey-hole. She stood just outside the pile of frames, and Sully climbed out after her. He stood and glanced around. “Where is Kirkland?”
“I haven’t seen him since you two went your separate ways,” she said.
“Speaking of which, weren’t you supposed to stay by the door?”
“Yes, but I was worried that the stranger would disappear upstairs, so I moved to block the stairs.” She looked at Sully. “But he came down the stairs behind me.”
“So, either he’s not alone or there are more secret paths that give access to other floors.”
“If there was someone else here, I would think that they would have come to help him when he discovered me. No, there has to be another way upstairs in addition to the main staircase,” Lindsey said. “They had house staff. There must be a servants’ staircase.”
“Kitchen,” Sully said. “Back stairs are usually tucked in a back corner of the kitchen or pantry.”
Sully turned and led the way to the kitchen. It was just as cluttered as it had been when Lindsey had first come in here, but this time there was no body parked in a wheelchair at the kitchen table. She couldn’t help but stare at the empty space and the dark brown stain on the floor beneath it.
She felt a shudder start at the base of her spine and shimmy up her back to the nape of her neck. Had it only been a few days since they’d discovered Peter Rosen? It seemed ages ago.
Sully picked his way carefully across the room. The counters were sagging under the weight of dishes and glasses, pots and pans, most of which had a thick coating of dust on them.
How the brothers had lived in such squalor and not gotten dysentery or meningitis, Lindsey couldn’t imagine. By rights their house should have been condemned, and if they weren’t living on an islan
d all by themselves, it probably would have been. Of course, if they had lived in town, Peter might not have been murdered either. There would have been many more watchful eyes to keep them safe.
Sully reached the far corner of the kitchen and studied the wall. Copper cooking molds hung on the wall in every shape imaginable from fancy round curlicues to one shaped like a turtle and another like a lion. These items also had a coating of grime on them, and the copper had developed a neglected patina.
Sully moved past the display to a built-in hutch. It was crammed with odds and ends, cookbooks and other vintage cooking tools such as a meat grinder and several percolators and no less than four toasters.
“Here,” Sully said. He began to examine the hutch, and Lindsey frowned.
“Here what?” she asked.
“This is a secret door,” he said.
“How can you tell?”
“There’s nothing piled in front of it like the rest of the wall,” he said. “Also, the floor in front of it has the wear of a door being open and shut.”
Lindsey glanced at the ground. Sure enough, the arch of a door opening and closing was visible on the old wood floor.
“Very clever,” she said.
“If only I could figure out how it opens,” he said.
He knelt low and ran his fingers around the edges and then did the same with the top. He stood back and shook his head. He then inspected each item on the shelves, as if one of them might hide the door knob.
Lindsey stepped back as far as the stacks of stuff on the floor would allow. She took the hutch in as a whole, looking for some sign of wear or use. It was then that she saw it.
She stepped up to the right side of the hutch and put her hand on a small oval copper mold with a fat pear embossed in the center. She put her hands where the copper gleamed the brightest and tried to move the mold. It twisted to the right with a click, and the hutch swung inward into the wall.
“Well, look at that,” Sully said. He grinned at her. “Nice work. How did you figure it out?”
“I read a lot of mysteries,” Lindsey said. “And the pear is the only copper mold that isn’t covered in grime and still shines a bit, so I figured it had to be touched pretty frequently, and given that it’s right next to the hutch . . .”
“It had to be the lever to the secret door,” Sully concluded. “Nicely done.”
He peered into the dark space the hutch had opened into with Lindsey glancing in over his shoulder. A narrow staircase was visible, and she looked to see if there were curtains of cobwebs hanging down from the ceiling. There were not, and she tried to take comfort in that, at least.
“Why don’t you wait—” he began, but Lindsey shook her head.
“No,” she said.
He sighed as if he’d known she was going to shake him off all along.
“Stay close,” he said. “Don’t touch anything. We have no idea if this area is rigged or not.”
The open door gave them just enough light to find the handrail above the stairs. Sully switched on a small penlight that he had on his key chain and used it to examine each stair tread before they stepped on it.
The going was slow, and Lindsey found herself listening for any sounds coming from above. They had no idea where the door at the top of the steps would open up to or who might be waiting for them on the other end. She wondered where the man who had been pursuing her had gone, and she fretted about where Kirkland was and if he was okay. Impatience snapped inside of her, and she longed to dash up the stairs, even though she knew it would be a reckless and stupid thing to do. She glanced at the shadows illuminated in Sully’s penlight. They were only halfway up the stairs. She wondered if it was possible to die of curiosity.
A soft swoosh sounded behind her, and Lindsey turned just in time to see the hutch shut behind them. The sound of the latch clicking shut sounded inordinately loud in the silence, muffled only by the gasp that slipped past Lindsey’s lips. They were locked in.
“Sully.” Lindsey said his name more for reassurance than for anything else.
“Right here,” he said. “I don’t suppose that was you.”
“No,” she said. Her voice sounded faint, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “No.”
“Kirkland would have said something,” Sully said. “Come on. If your friend from the tunnels is trying to trap us, he’s going to seal up both doors. Our only chance is to get out of the top one first.”
Sully hurried up the remaining stairs, and Lindsey followed him. He shone the small penlight all along the edges of the door, looking for a latch. There was nothing.
Frantic that their captor was almost upon them, Lindsey felt along the door where she thought a door handle would be. She found a knob protruding out of the wooden door. She turned it and pushed. Nothing happened. She turned it the other way and pulled. The door gave way, and she toppled into Sully. The smell of stale air evaporated as they stepped into an upper bedroom. A cold breeze was blowing, and Lindsey realized it was the same room where she and Sully had fought the fire when Chief Plewicki had inadvertently tripped one of the brothers’ booby traps.
“Thank goodness.” Lindsey sucked in a lungful of the cold air. “I was getting just the teensiest bit claustrophobic.”
Sully did the same. The room was as cluttered as the rest of the house, but the windows let in plenty of outside light, making it easy for them to navigate through the boxes and bags and piles of clutter.
Sully quietly closed the door behind them. Like in the kitchen, this secret door was built into the wall and disguised as a bookcase. The only clue that it was a door was the fact that there was no clutter blocking it and the traffic pattern that matted the carpet in front of it.
“If we hide, we might be able to convince him that we’re still stuck in there,” Sully whispered. He took Lindsey’s hand and led her across the room.
There was a large wardrobe along one wall, and Sully pushed Lindsey into its shadows while he went and tucked himself in behind the bedroom door. When the killer came into the room, she had no doubt that Sully planned to jump him.
She remembered the feel of the man’s hand on her ankle. He had been strong, and although he hadn’t used one down in the tunnel, he could very well be armed with a knife or a gun. She didn’t like this plan, not at all. She glanced around her looking for any sort of weapon. When Sully jumped him, she could take the opportunity to bash the man on the head, assuming she could find something heavy enough to wield. A quick scan of what was in reach told her that her options were limited to a pile of musty old feather pillows or a broken accordion. Not encouraging.
She listened for the sound of footsteps, the creak of a door or the sound of something being shifted out of the way. There was nothing. It was as if the entire house had gone absolutely still and was holding its breath with Lindsey as she waited.
A cold blast of air blew directly on her from the broken window. She burrowed into her coat and shoved her hands into her pockets for warmth. The end of her nose felt cold, as did the tips of her ears. It was miserable waiting to see what would happen, but she was also relieved that no one had shown up. She began to think the bad guy had gotten scared and bolted from the island.
As the minutes ticked by, she became more hopeful. She was about to lean out from her spot beside the wardrobe and ask Sully if it was time to call it when she heard the distinctive sound of a footfall coming from the wooden floor of the hallway just outside the bedroom. Lindsey felt her hope do a free fall in her chest as dread shoved it aside. She closed her eyes, trying to center herself before . . . BAM!
There was a crash, a grunt and the sound of a body hitting the floor.
“Ow! What the—hey, it’s me!”
“Oh, sorry.”
Lindsey recognized Kirkland’s voice and jumped around the wardrobe just in time to see Sully helping him to his feet. He had clearly taken Kirkland out at the knees in a tackle that had caused the other man to crash into an old sewing machine stand t
hat was buried in bolts of fabric.
“Are you all right?” Sully asked. He looked Kirkland over for injuries, but Kirkland waved him off.
“I’m fine. You just surprised me. Hey, whoa!” Kirkland cried out as Sully did a slow fall forward into his arms. Kirkland staggered under his dead weight and slowly lowered him to the ground.
“Sully!” Lindsey cried.
She raced forward to kneel beside him. A nasty knot was forming on the back of his head. She glanced up at the door to see the man in the dark puffy coat who had chased her, standing there holding a statuette of some sort in his hand.
“Nobody move,” the man ordered. “Or I’ll clobber you, too.”
Without hesitation, Officer Kirkland snatched his gun out of his holster.
“Drop it!” he ordered. “Do it now!”
“A gun?” the man asked, dropping the statue, which made a loud thunk onto the box beside him. Clearly, it was a weighted piece and would do damage to the thickest skull. “You brought a gun to loot a house? What sort of town is this?”
“Loot it?” Officer Kirkland asked. He looked deeply offended and pulled aside his coat and showed the badge on his chest. “I’m a police officer.”
“Oh.” The man’s eyes went wide. “Oh! Arrest them! They’re trying to rob the place.”
“What?” Lindsey cried. She was cradling Sully’s head in her lap, otherwise she would have gotten up and given the man a piece of her mind. As it was, she snapped at him from her kneeled position on the floor, “I’m not a thief. I’m a librarian.”
The man clapped a hand to his forehead with one hand and pointed to Sully with the other. “What’s he then, a fireman?”
“Boat captain, actually,” Kirkland answered.
“What are you doing in my family’s house?”
Lindsey and Kirkland exchanged a look. She shook her head at him to indicate that she had no idea what the man was talking about. There were only two Rosens, Peter and Stewart.
Kirkland nodded and waved his gun at the man. “Put your hands on your head and keep them where I can see them.”
A Likely Story Page 18