by Vella Munn
Kim never saw the sun. One moment there was the silence that had found its way into her veins. The next, her world began to rumble and shake. Dirt exploded into dust; she drew the dust into her lungs. Kim screamed and spun away.
The roar overhead drowned out her scream.
Mark tensed. Had the phone rung? Had his secretary come into the room? He heard nothing except the faint sound of a typewriter in the next room and the smooth hum of air conditioning.
“Peggy?” Mark asked over the intercom. “Did you page me?”
“No, I didn’t. It’s quiet this morning. Maybe you’re not used to it.”
Mark tried to go back to work, but his mind wasn’t on it. A moment later he was calling the museum and, despite his agreement with Charles, trying to leave a message to have Kim call him.
“Ms. Revis hasn’t come in yet, Mr. Stockton,” he was informed. “But I believe she said she was going to do some work here today. I’m sure she’ll show up any minute.”
Once again Mark signaled his secretary. When was his next meeting? he wanted to know. When he was told, he asked Peggy to reschedule it. He would be in Camp Oro.
“Insane, insane, insane,” Mark repeated constantly during the fifteen minutes it took to drive to Camp Oro. He would find Kim already at the museum and have to stammer through a ridiculous sounding explanation about a feeling that had no basis in fact. He would have to tell her why he’d come to see her in the middle of the day when he’d just told her it wasn’t safe for them to be seen together.
Kim’s car wasn’t parked in front of the museum. Mark didn’t bother going in. He headed toward Rich Gulch Street. It was there that he found the car—and a gravel truck dumping its load a few yards beyond the cave-in.
Mark vaulted out of his Blazer.
“What are you doing?” he yelled over the sound of hydraulic machinery. “How’d you get here?”
The driver shrugged twice before Mark managed to make himself understood. Not to worry, he was informed. There was no need to go around the long way after all. It was a tight squeeze, but the truck had made it around the hole with no trouble. He might have knocked a few pieces of asphalt loose, but they’d have had to be removed anyway.
“Why the hell didn’t you go around?” Mark didn’t care whether this man thought him crazy or not. “Didn’t you see the barriers?”
“That’s what the lady tried to tell me, but I’ve got my orders. I called. I was told it was all right.”
Mark didn’t care who had given the insane orders. He knew who the lady was.
Mark ran all the way to Margaret’s house praying he’d find Kim there, but the locked door told him otherwise. Less than a minute later, Mark had dropped into the hole and was staring in sick horror at a mound of freshly disturbed dirt where the tunnel opening had been.
“Kim! Kim!”
No answer. Surely she hadn’t gone back into the tunnel. She’d promised not to. Hadn’t she?
Maybe she hadn’t.
Mark was already clawing at the dirt and yelling at the truck driver to get the city work crew over here. His heart beat a terrified tattoo. The man with the logical mind and immaculate suit who’d been sitting behind his desk a few minutes before no longer existed.
If Kim was beyond the dirt—or under it—
“Mark! What the hell are you doing?”
It was Charles, and close behind him, the members of the work crew. “Don’t ask,” Mark gasped. “Dig!”
Mark paused long enough to shove his hands into a pair of work gloves and grab a shovel. The claylike dirt came away in large clumps to be thrown behind the diggers. Between gasps and grunts, Mark spelled out his worst fears. There was no time to ask what Kim might be doing down there.
There was only time to dig for the woman he loved.
A foot. He’d found a foot.
Mark turned stricken eyes toward Charles. “Don’t think,” Charles warned him. “Let’s get her the hell out of here.”
It took another couple of minutes before they were able to clear all the dirt off Kim’s legs. At least—thank God—the debris hadn’t completely covered her. Dust had settled over her hair and face, but Mark kept himself sane by believing she’d been able to breathe.
If she was breathing.
Mark tried to catch that blessed sound, but his own ragged breaths pounded through him, making him almost deaf. His hand rested on her throat in an agony of waiting. Then—
“She’s alive, Mark,” Charles whispered. “I’m getting a pulse. Someone make sure the ambulance is on its way.”
Mark waited beside Kim with his hands on her throat and chest, breathing with her, until a stretcher was lowered into the tunnel and he had to make way for the ambulance attendants. He was vaguely aware of hands helping him to the surface and a ring of spectators, but nothing mattered except the dirt-caked figure lying too still on the stretcher.
He didn’t ask permission. Before anyone could say anything, Mark climbed into the ambulance behind Kim. He nodded when Charles told him he’d be following in Mark’s vehicle.
“Is she going to be all right?” he asked the two men leaning over her.
“Hard to tell. Her pulse is strong and her breathing’s okay. You say her legs got the worst of it?”
“I think so.”
Mark couldn’t bring himself to speak again until they were in the emergency room and a nurse had cut away Kim’s clothing. He was grateful when someone cleaned her face. With a doctor and, two nurses looking on, Mark bent over and kissed her. “Can you hear me?” he whispered. The words tore at his throat. “Oh, Kim. Do you have any idea how precious you are to me?”
Was she trying to open her eyes? Mark couldn’t be sure Still, that didn’t stop him. “Hang in there, sweetheart. Please.”
Yes. This time he was sure he saw a movement. For the first time since he’d guessed what had happened to her Mark was able to think rationally. What his heart told him was that there was only one thing that needed to be said. “I love you, Kim. Remember that, I love you.”
Someone came in with an X-ray machine and Mark was relegated to the waiting room where he found a tense police chief waiting for him. “I talked to the fool who drove that truck around the cave-in,” Charles told him. “You aren’t going to believe where that man got the go-ahead to use Rich Gulch Street. Or maybe you are.”
“Tell me.”
“Someone at the museum. That damn driver’s too upset to remember the name. Either that or he has orders not to say anything.”
“Charles, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sense or not, it’s the truth. According to the driver, they were told the museum was going to pick up the tab for the driveway. Apparently Kim questioned what he was doing. After that, the man called the museum and got confirmation. In fact—if that driver is to be believed—whoever placed the order was adamant that Rich Gulch Street be used.”
Mark was a breath away from smashing his fist through the nearest window. If it weren’t for the haggard-looking young woman with the two preschoolers sitting across from them, he would have filled the room with words no three-year-old should hear.
“I wasn’t going to tell you,” Charles explained with his big hand over Mark’s fist. “I knew this would be your reaction. Believe me, we’re going to find out what the hell this all about.”
“You better believe it.”
“And you’re not going to go off half cocked.”
“She was almost killed, Charles.”
“I was down there. Remember. First, we find out how she is. Then we act.”
Mark couldn’t be content with Charles’s slow pace. He talked to the reception desk where he called Margaret Revis to let her know where her granddaughter was. If he’d been thinking calmly, he wouldn’t have given his client that kind of news over the phone, but there was nothing calm about Mark today.
“I can’t come after you, Margaret,” he said with none of the warmth he usually had for his client and frien
d. “You’ll have to find a way here. No. I haven’t talked to the doctor. Yeah.” The word came out hard-edged. “I have a damn good idea why she was down there. Margaret, she’s trying to put the pieces together. And I don’t blame her.”
He’d just gotten off the phone when one of the nurses attending to Kim touched him on the shoulder. “I thought you should know. She’s started to come around.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“We don’t know everything yet, but she’s responsive. That says a lot.”
Mark sagged against a wall. He didn’t care who saw his naked relief. A moment later he didn’t care who might feel his anger.
Mark stalked back into the waiting room. “We’re getting to the bottom of this. Today,” he told the police chief. Charles was on his feet. “We will,” he said, his tone matching Mark’s. “Believe me, we will.”
“Someone’s got a lot of answering to do. And that someone is going to have to confront me.”
“There’s only one problem, Mark. We don’t know who that someone is.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Charles, someone at that museum almost got Kim killed today. If he or she has to look at Kim, face her—I don’t see how whoever it was can keep what he’s feeling inside.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Charles nodded. “Get back on the phone, Mark. Get them all over here.”
Kim was aware that she was being asked questions. She tried to answer and tried to concentrate when she was told to move her legs, but all she really wanted to do was stay in that safe, vague place her mind had retreated to. Some small part of her was aware of pain and dirt. If she left her retreat, she would have to deal with those realities.
“Oh, Mark. I had no idea.”
What was her grandmother doing here? With a groan Kim released her grip on the soft cocoon and returned to the world. Her legs felt as if someone had been pounding on them. When she swallowed, she tasted dirt. But she was no longer in the dark tunnel.
And Mark was holding her hand.
He wasn’t alone. There was a man she took to be a doctor nearby, and a nurse beside the bed adjusting the blanket over her shoulders. She wanted to concentrate on Mark, but before she could speak, her grandmother stepped up and brushed her hair from her face. Kim saw her tears.
“I’m all right,” Kim managed. “Don’t cry.”
“I—I can’t help it. Oh, Kim. Why did you go down there?”
For a moment Kim didn’t know what her grandmother was talking about. Then she remembered, everything. “Don’t ask. It was stupid. So stupid.”
Margaret wiped at a tear. Her face was so white and that worried Kim more than her own condition did. The older woman tried to speak. Her mouth trembled and she had to try again. “If only you hadn’t…anything but that.”
Suddenly Kim was angry. Angry at herself, and at the dirt in her mouth, and the nurse fussing with her blanket, and Mark. But most of all she was angry at the dear woman who’d raised her.
“I didn’t believe I had a choice,” Kim said tightly. “You’ve been keeping something from me. Something that’s tearing you apart. Something that’s come between us.”
“You’re wrong. Oh, honey, you’re wrong.”
Kim wanted to believe. The child in her needed to believe that her grandmother was the woman she’d always known her to be. But the adult she’d become was facing a side of her grandmother she’d never seen before. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’re afraid of something. I’m a part of it. I can’t turn my back on that.”
“What—what were you looking for down there?”
“Answers.” It still hurt to talk, but Kim pressed on. “I didn’t know where else to look.” She turned toward Mark. He was still holding her hand, but he was looking at Margaret. “No one will be honest with me.”
“That isn’t—” Margaret took a shaky breath. Her face was still ashen. “Oh, honey, none of this—”
“Don’t.” It was Mark.
Kim turned from her grandmother to the man she’d fallen in love with and still loved. His eyes, hard and compassionate at the same time, were still on the older woman. “Don’t lie anymore, Margaret. For God’s sake, give it up.”
“Mark,” Margaret moaned.
“I mean it. Tell her, or it’ll never be right between the two of you. Between any of us.”
An hour later Kim had been cleaned up and was decked out in the finest of hospital gowns. She still felt as if she’d been run over by a steamroller, but with the dirt brushed out of her hair and the doctor’s word that there was nothing worse than bruises wrong with her legs, she felt much more like a human being. True, her head was pounding, but aspirin would take care of that. Mark and her grandmother had left for a while, but now they were back again. Margaret was clinging to Kim’s hand, her eyes red rimmed.
Because she couldn’t face her grandmother, Kim focused on Mark. She’d been told of Mark’s frantic attempt to free her and his insistence on riding with her in the ambulance. She wasn’t sure. She could only hope that she hadn’t imagined his words of love in the emergency room.
Mark was telling her that the loaded dump truck had been responsible for the cave-in that had trapped her. He spoke in clipped, angry sentences, but she had no idea whether he was angry with her or the truck driver. It didn’t matter.
Right now all she wanted was to watch the sunlight from the window behind him play in his hair and make a lie of his hard expression. He could be gentle. She remembered that gentleness. She couldn’t forget the words he’d said to her grandmother or Margaret’s stricken look, but she’d face all that in a few minutes, when she felt stronger.
His gaze was on her. Relief was an emotion he had too little control over.
“I was going to spend some time at the museum,” Kim whispered. “I can’t remember. Some more information I needed…”
Mark left the windowsill he’d been sitting on. “That should be the least of your concerns. I told a few key people what happened. They should be here soon.”
“What? Mark, I don’t want to see anyone.”
“Probably not.” Mark drew out the word. “But—let me run this show, will you?”
Kim had no idea what Mark was talking about. She’d been given something to counteract shock, and although she could keep up with what was being said to her, her mind seemed to be operating in low gear. She wanted to pull her too-quiet grandmother close to her and ask Mark what the earlier exchange had been about. But that would have to wait until she was clearheaded.
Mark had again taken up his station by the windowsill and was dividing his attention between Kim and Margaret when the door opened.
“You look like something the cat dragged in,” Garner Dillon told her after a silence that went on long enough to become uncomfortable. The handsome business manager waved a single rosebud in front of Kim. “When I heard— I’m glad it turned out all right.”
“Are you?”
Kim started at Mark’s harsh question. Despite the fog surrounding her, some small voice of wisdom warned her to remain silent. She might be the one who’d been injured, but she didn’t want or need to be the center of attention.
“What are you talking about?” Garner let the rose dangle from his fingers. His voice was deep and more unsettled than Kim had ever heard it. “You make it sound as if I’m sorry Kim isn’t still down in that hole.”
“Is that what it sounds like? I have reason to doubt someone’s concern. I just need to know whose.”
Garner grunted and looked around uneasily before finding a place to sit.
“Actually,” Mark went on, “I’m surprised you’re the first one here.”
“You are? Why?”
“You were at the museum? All day?”
“Yes, all day. Look, the receptionist came running into my office saying Kim had been in an accident. Of course I dropped everything to get here. I sure as hell didn’t expect this…reception.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Spit it
out, Stockton. What are you getting at?”
“Plenty. You didn’t happen to see Anthea did you?”
“Anthea?” Garner rubbed his free hand over his thigh; his knuckles whitened. “You know how seldom that socialite blesses the museum with her presence. She’s too busy trying to make a buck.”
“She wasn’t there today?”
Again Garner rubbed his thigh. “For a while. Not long I don’t think.”
“What about the others? Rogan and William?”
“What am I, their social secretary?” Garner glanced at Kim and lowered his voice. “Our illustrious director was there when we got the news about Kim’s accident. I thought he was on his way over here.”
“And William?”
Margaret Revis supplied the answer to that. She’d been in the hall a few minutes ago when she spotted the museum guard sitting in a small waiting room. “His brother had surgery today. He’s waiting for him to come out of recovery.”
“Did he say how long he’d been there?”
“No. Mark, what is this all about?”
When Mark didn’t answer, silence settled over the room. Kim tried to concentrate on Mark, her grandmother, Garner. Even in her slowed state, she knew something was out of place. They were all waiting. But Kim had no idea what they were waiting for.
When Rogan and his wife came in, Kim could swear she smelled Charmaine Coffers’s perfume from the doorway. The elegantly dressed woman slid close and patted Kim on the forehead. “When Rogan called and told me what had happened to you—my dear, I’m shaking just thinking about it. Whatever possessed you to do something like that?”
Kim couldn’t say anything without giving away too much. She tried a shaky smile. “That’s what I’ve been asking myself. When I think of what almost happened—”
Fortunately that was all the encouragement Charmaine needed. With her husband standing as far from Kim as he could, Charmaine launched into a series of stories about her health adventures over the years. Kim was wondering if it would be impolite to ask for another aspirin when Charmaine finally wound down. “I’m just so glad it wasn’t me trapped down in that terrible place. Rogan is no good in an emergency. I’m sure he wouldn’t have known what to do.”