Died in the Wool

by Melinda Mullet

  With all the grace and coordination of the three stooges, Patrick and Grant boosted me onto the roof of the building and I slid my way as quietly as possible to the edge of the nearest skylight. It was cracked open fractionally, and I was able to peer down into the space below. The intense smell of ammonia hit me as I came close to the opening. Patrick was right—it was a lab of some sort.

  No wonder Colin wasn’t pleased to hear I’d been taking photos from above. The space was dark and empty except for the workbench that ran the length of the room. Plastic bottles with tubes coming out of them were scattered along the length. I couldn’t see anyone in the left half of the room, so I crawled slowly across the roof to the second skylight. Still no sign of anyone. If Sheila had been kept there once, she wasn’t there now.

  I slipped down to the ground with Grant’s help. “Definitely a lab, but it’s just one giant open room and I couldn’t see anyone in there.” It was frustrating. I was so sure we’d find something here.

  “Could she be inside the house?” Patrick asked.

  “Anything is possible, but it would be risky. Especially if Greer’s not aware of what’s going on.”

  “She has to know what her brother’s up to in that shed,” Patrick argued.

  I shrugged. “None so blind as them that don’t want to see, as my gran would say.”

  “What about the other shed?” Grant asked, pointing in the direction of the dark blue shed.

  “That’s where Greer stores her herbs. She’s in and out of there all the time. It would be hard to hide someone, unless—” Suddenly it hit me. “You might be on to something,” I amended. “According to Greer, Colin just recently insisted that the floors in the herb shed were unsafe. He’s having them ‘redone,’ except when we were in there earlier today, there didn’t seem to be any work going on, and I noticed he was in a damn big hurry to get us both out of there.”

  “Let’s go,” Grant said grimly.

  Once again, there was a padlock on the door, but thankfully a smaller one. Grant pulled out the metal cutters he’d borrowed from Hunter and struggled to cut through the shank, and it eventually gave way. We opened the door, slipped in, and shut it again behind us. The herbs lay on the racks all around the room, filling the air with a heady smell of rosemary and lavender. Liam sneezed energetically.

  “Greer mentioned that there’s an old cellar underneath,” I said, pointing to the hatch concealed by the barrels. Grant and Patrick shifted the large wooden barrels out of the corner of the room and over to the other side. I slipped my finger under the ring set into the wood hatch. It popped up and allowed the door to be swung upward and into the room. It was a deep cellar and appreciably larger than the shed above it.

  There was no ladder but Grant swung down and dropped to the floor. His voice echoed back to us. “I see something in the back corner.” In spite of his protests, I followed him down and Patrick leaned over, looking into the hole. “I’d better stay here to help you two back out,” he whispered.

  I moved to Grant’s side, where he was turning over a figure wrapped in a blanket and lying on the floor. I saw Sheila’s eyes flicker open for a moment and then close again against the glaring light from Grant’s cellphone. She was gagged and her hands and feet were strapped together with duct tape. I found a large cut on the side of her head and, from the look of the floor, she’d lost a lot of blood.

  I gently pulled the cloth out of her mouth while Grant cut away the tape binding her arms and legs and began rubbing her frozen limbs. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. “We’ve got you, Sheila,” I said, wrapping the blanket around her again. It was damp and chilly in the cellar and there was no sign that she’d been given food or been tended to over the past four days.

  I walked back to the trapdoor and looked up at Patrick. “We’ve got her, but she’s in a bad way. Look around up there and see if you can find a board or something we might be able to strap her to and haul her out.”

  “Right.”

  I heard Patrick rummaging around upstairs, looking for something useful. “What about one of these big drying racks?”

  “That might work. Send it down.”

  I heard Patrick dislodge the rack, followed by a crashing sound as he turned and took out one of the pots on the shelf behind him. We all stood frozen for a moment but heard no sound of footsteps.

  “Sorry,” Patrick whispered as he handed the rack down to where Grant and I were waiting. “I think we’re okay.”

  We carried the rack over to Sheila and slid her gingerly onto the frame. “Now we need something to strap her on with so she won’t slip as we lift her out.” I began to look around the dark corners of the cellar. There were numerous boxes labeled SODIUM HYDROXIDE and a white plastic bin filled with packets of over-the-counter allergy tablets, all the accoutrements of a meth lab, but no rope.

  “There’s some twine here,” Patrick said, leaning down the opening and handing it to Grant.

  Suddenly, Liam began to growl and Patrick realized too late that he was in no position to defend himself. The swift kick Colin gave him as he came through the door sent Patrick headfirst down the hole. He landed with a sickening crash on the stone floor. Liam began barking and snapping at Colin’s legs. He lashed out and caught Liam with a foot, sending him down the hole as well, where he landed on top of the motionless Patrick. Grant rushed to the hole and I rushed to Patrick and Liam, but it was too late. I looked up and saw Colin slam the trapdoor, dragging something heavy across on top of it. We were trapped.

  Chapter 20

  I tried to rouse Patrick but knew better than to move him. I was terrified of what might be damaged. Liam was standing on his feet shakily, trying to lick Patrick’s outstretched hand. Grant yanked some metal shelving from the far side of the room over to the space beneath the trapdoor. He scrambled up and pushed as hard as he could against the wooden door, but it didn’t budge. Whatever Colin had slid on top of it was doing its job.

  Grant gave up and started circling our dank prison with his cellphone held above his head. “No signal,” he growled.

  “Okay,” I said, struggling to sound calmer than I felt. “I left Michaelson a message about the lab before we left. The police are bound to send someone over to check it out. We just have to wait till we hear voices, then scream like hell.”

  “What if Colin returns to finish us off before the police get here?”

  I was touched that Grant wasn’t mincing words, but I wished he hadn’t articulated the truth out loud. It was better somehow as a dark thought lurking at the edge of my mind. Now I had to face the truth. Colin was making and selling drugs. He wasn’t going to tolerate witnesses and we were stuck here waiting for his endgame to play out. Grant had returned to Sheila’s side and gingerly examined her head. “She needs medical attention,” he said. “We have to get her out of here as quickly as possible.”

  Patrick still hadn’t stirred. His pulse was there, but he was out cold and Liam was whining. I couldn’t tell if it was simply that he, too, sensed the danger of our current predicament or whether he was in significant pain. I sat on the icy floor next to Patrick and threw my jacket over him to try to keep him warm. Grant pulled off his own coat and draped it round my shoulders. It seemed ungracious at this stage to point out that my shaking was fear more than cold.

  “It could be daylight before the police come to check on the lab,” he said.

  “At least dawn, I would think. What are the odds that Hunter would think to call the police if we don’t return?”

  “If he waits up for us, but if he went back to his own house to sleep, it could be tomorrow before he notices.”

  “Brenna,” I said with a slight smile. “Brenna will know you’re missing and she’ll make a big stink about it, thank God.”

  Grant made a soft, snorting noise and produced the slightest of smiles. “First time I’ll be glad she’s m
onitoring my every move.” He sat down on a wooden crate next to Sheila and continued to gently rub her arms and legs, trying to warm her up. “Let’s hope she hasn’t finally given up on me. Be just my luck.”

  Liam lay down next to Patrick, his head down and his brown eyes looking pitiful. I moved to sit on the ground next to Grant, dousing the light from my phone and relying on his for now, hoping to conserve some battery life. “Here we go again,” I said finally. “I’ve landed you in the shite one more time.”

  “My life would be very dull without you,” Grant replied.

  “You have your fiancée.” I could’ve kicked myself as soon as the words crossed my lips. Why did I say these things? Why now? It was that reporter’s knee-jerk reaction to poke and probe even when we shouldn’t.

  “Brenna and I aren’t getting married,” Grant said quietly.

  “Did I misunderstand?”

  “No, you understood exactly what Brenna wanted you to. We had discussed the issue. Brenna was ready, I was not. She tried to force my hand.”

  I leaned my head on Grant’s knee. “No one can force you to do anything you don’t want to, nor should they, but I wish you’d chosen not to come here.”

  “I’m fine with my choice and the consequences,” Grant insisted. “I have a problem with Brenna trying to make decisions for the both of us. That’s why in the long run we would never make it.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “Presuming I even have a next at this point, Brenna will be heading back to Wales soon.”

  “I’m sorry about that, too.”

  Grant nudged me. “Liar. You never really took to Brenna, even though she kept you from being the only woman in the room.”

  “Or maybe because of it,” I admitted. “I can be pretty competitive.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “And we can both be pretty stubborn.” I sat for a moment before conceding, “Me more than you. I’ve taken so many risks professionally, but I’m scared to take risks in my personal life.” Saying those words was probably the biggest risk I’d ever taken.

  “Just now when I realized that we may die in this hole in the ground,” Grant said softly, “my first thought was of you. Not Brenna. If this is the end, I’m glad I’m here with you.”

  His words struck me. My first thought had been of him, too. I realized that if I had to go, I’d want to do it with his arms around me. That was love. I leaned back against the cold stone wall and started to laugh softly. “At least I’m consistent,” I groaned. “I have the worst timing when it comes to relationships. Terrified of commitment, I have to be at death’s door before I can admit I screwed up.”

  “So you admit you made a mistake.”

  “As your time to lord that one over me seems to be limited, yes, I admit I made a huge mistake. If I’d stuck around earlier and taken a chance on you, maybe none of this would’ve happened.”

  “I don’t believe that. Things happen for a reason. In fact, we’re here in this place for a reason, and I hope it’s to help Nora’s mother.” Grant shuddered.

  “Do you want your jacket back?”

  “No, there’s just a draft over here.” Grant stood up and moved the crate, scanning the floor and the walls behind him. “There’s a ramp here that leads upward. Looks like the spot they may have used to roll the barrels of beer in and out in the old days.” Grant lay down and shone the light from his phone up into the dark hole.

  “Is it passable?”

  “There’s some kind of blockage about halfway up and it’s pretty narrow.”

  “Could Liam fit?” I asked. “I’m not sure that would help, but if we hear the police arrive we could send him up.”

  Grant squinted over at Liam where he lay, panting heavily at Patrick’s side. A sure sign of pain and stress. “I’m not sure he could make it. He’s not looking so good either.”

  “Let’s keep that for a last option,” I said. “Let me take a look.” I lay on my stomach and slid partway into the hole. At one point it had been a wood-framed tunnel. Now much of the wood had rotted away and two sides at least were nothing but dirt. There would be a significant cave-in risk. I pulled myself forward and took a better look at the blockage. It was mainly branches, leaves, and dirt. I grabbed one of the branches and started to wriggle backward down the tunnel. Grant grabbed my feet and pulled.

  I rubbed the dirt out of my hair, feeling my scalp crawl at the thought of the bugs that could be in there as well. “The blockage is pretty large, but it’s not packed tight. I think we can pull a fair amount down with this stick.”

  “Could you manage to claw your way out and go for help?”

  I wasn’t at all sure I could drag myself all the way out, and the thought of getting trapped in an underground tunnel boxed in on all sides was terrifying to me, but I couldn’t see any other alternative. “Let’s see how much we can clear out. If we’re lucky, the police will get here soon and we can go out the way we came, but in the meantime, it’ll give us some fresher air and a second option if we need it.”

  I took Grant’s jacket and covered Sheila as much as possible so she didn’t get covered in debris. Grant and I took turns dislodging leaves, rocks, and sticks and scraping them down into the cellar. It was slow going, but eventually we had a large pile in the far corner. I slipped into the tunnel once again. I could smell the air at the surface. It was cold and fresh after the dank, stale air of the cellar. I loosened a couple more sticks and then wriggled backward again with Grant’s help.

  “Is it clear?”

  “Pretty much. As long as the sides don’t cave in it might work.”

  Patrick made a groaning noise and we both rushed to his side. He rolled onto his back, displaying a gash on his head above his forehead. The blood had trickled down his face and he looked terrible. He tried to reach for his left arm but passed out again before he could make the connection.

  “Looks like it’s broken to me,” Grant said.

  I retrieved the string from the corner where it had rolled when Patrick tossed it down earlier. Then I broke down part of the wooden drying rack Sheila was lying on and used it to make a rough splint for Patrick’s arm. When I was finished, I covered Patrick with my jacket again and flopped down on the ground feeling exhausted. Grant sat down next to me, put an arm around my shoulder, and leaned his head on mine. I was tempted to stay right there, but instead I said aloud, “It’s nearly four a.m. Brenna should have noticed you’re gone by now. Hopefully she’s raised the alarm.”

  I crawled over to check on Sheila. She was restless and murmuring in her sleep, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I brushed the hair back from her face gently and tucked the coat closer around her and she seemed to calm.

  I stood up and considered our options once more. Sheila and Patrick needed help as quickly as possible. I was going to have to summon the courage to make the crawl.

  “What’s that?” Grant asked. “Listen.”

  “It sounds like twigs breaking. Maybe someone’s coming,” I said. We stood side by side, silent and still, listening. The crackling noise grew louder and suddenly Grant pointed to the crack around the trapdoor. A thin trickle of smoke was coming through the space and an unmistakable smell of petrol followed. Grant grabbed my arm and pushed me over to the tunnel. “The shed’s on fire,” he said through clenched teeth. “We can’t wait anymore. You have to get out and find help. It’s our only hope.”

  I knelt by the opening in the wall, fear replaced by full-on terror. I’d led everyone here and it was my responsibility to find a way to get them out. I entered the hole with my arms above my head, pulling myself along on roots and the remaining slats of wood from the original tunnel. I’d made it about three-quarters of the way when I grabbed at a board above my head and it came away in my hand. Now, not only had I lost the handhold, I had a two-foot-long piece of wood impedin
g my progress. I couldn’t throw it out of the hole above me. I’d have to try to crawl over it, though there was barely room for me in the tunnel as it was.

  I suddenly regretted every ginger scone from the Chocolate Bar and every extra slice of Louisa’s homemade bread. Admittedly, the old me was too skinny, but she’d have made a better job of this ascent. I reached for another handhold and dragged myself over the board, gritting my teeth as the protruding rocks and shards of wood slashed at the bare skin of my waist. I was close to the top. It was about two feet above my outstretched hands. I grabbed for the next handhold and pulled, but the space was narrow and getting tighter. I couldn’t move.

  I tried scrabbling with my feet to find a foothold but kept slipping.

  “You okay?” Grant’s voice echoed from below.

  I did my best to keep the panic from invading my voice. “I’m stuck. I need something to push off with my feet. I can’t get traction.

  “Hang on. Let me see what I can find.”

  I waited for what seemed like an eternity for Grant to return, forcing myself to breathe slowly and evenly.

  “I’m going to try to connect with your foot and give you a boost.”

  I felt a metal pole nudging the inside of my calf. “A little lower,” I shouted. The pole connected with the bottom of my foot and I felt a strong push. I used the leverage to move past the narrow spot, feeling my skin shred as I slid up, finally grasping the edge of the shaft with both hands. Above me I could hear the crackle of wood burning. It was now or never. I scrabbled with my feet until I could push myself up and out of the hole, my arms and legs trembling from the exertion. I could feel the blood running down my sides from the cuts on my body. I staggered to my feet. Flames were licking at the front side of the shed. I hurried around to the side. Thank God there was no sign of our arsonist, and in the distance I could hear the sound of sirens. It gave me hope, but time was running out for those in the cellar.