Dark Prison: A Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller

by Lori Ryan

  Eve took in the rest of the room. There was a door on the wall on the right and another one on the left. The paint was peeling and no light came from beneath the door. There was a small table near the bed the other woman lay on with a pitcher of water and a basin.

  Eve was on a pallet of blankets. To her immediate right was an armchair and a stack of books on the floor next to it. She didn’t bother looking at the titles. She needed to decide which door she was going to try to go through on her way out of this hell hole.

  She checked again on the woman on the bed and that’s when she realized, it wasn’t a woman at all. It was a girl. It was Camille Gallagher, the fourteen-year-old who had disappeared last year.

  The girl would be fifteen now. A year in this room. The thought made Eve’s blood run cold. She needed to get them out of there.

  She rolled to her knees, testing her legs. She still felt like she was recovering from an illness, but she was steady enough to try standing.

  Eve crossed to the bed and shook the girl awake.

  “Camille, wake up Camille.”

  The girl’s eyes went wide as she woke and saw Eve was up. She sat so suddenly, Eve had to shift back quickly to avoid their heads colliding.

  “I fell asleep!” Camille looked to the basin and Eve saw a cup of tea sitting next to it. “You need to drink your tea. I’m supposed to give you your tea.”

  There was panic in her voice and Eve realized it had been Camille coaxing her to drink whenever she woke.

  “Camille—”

  “My name is Virtue.” If the girl shook her head any harder, she was going to break her neck.

  Eve glanced to the doors, keeping her tone low. “I’m Captain Eve Scanlon of the Dark Falls Police Department. We’ve been looking for you Camille. Your family has been looking for you for two years. They haven’t given up.”

  She thought of the girl’s friend who’d reported her missing. “Prissie hasn’t given up. She’s still waiting for you to come home.” In reality, Eve didn’t know if Prissie had given up, but she wanted Camille to be reminded of all the ties she had outside this room.

  The girl kept shaking her head. “I’m Virtue. I need to get your tea for you.”

  She moved to stand but Eve put a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t need my tea. We need to get out of here. Do you know where the doors lead?” She avoided using the girl’s name. She needed to keep her calm and convince her to help get them out of there.

  “We can’t leave. If I behave, I can live with the rest of the church. He’ll let me out. I just have to show I’m ready.” She seemed to stumble over her words. “I’m ready for it. I’ve learned all my lessons. I follow the rules.”

  The words made Eve sick to her stomach but she put her hands on Camille’s arms.

  “We are going to leave here together. We’re going to get out of this and then you can live anywhere you want. You can go see your family again.”

  Camille’s eyes were wild with panic.

  God help them if she called for help. No, God help Eve, because she’d have to stop the girl if she tried. If she was going to save Camille, she needed to make sure the girl didn’t sabotage their escape.

  “Camille, you need to listen to me. The reverend isn’t going to take you and your child to live in the church with him. He’s going to take your child and raise it as his own. He and his wife have a lot of kids, but all those kids’ birth dates line up with the timeframes we have for missing girls, just like you.”

  Camille’s eyes went wide and a sob escaped her. “No!”

  Eve put her hands to her hair and pulled at the pins that held her once-tight bun in place. She never lacked for bobby pins. The only question was whether she could pick a lock with them. She’d done it a few times for kicks when she was in the academy but hadn’t exactly maintained it as a skillset. Contrary to popular belief, cops didn’t pick locks on a regular basis. If they had a no-knocks warrant, they entered the building with a battering ram.

  “I’m going to open one of these doors and get us out of here. Do you know where they lead?” Eve put the end of one of the bobby pins in her mouth and stripped the rubber tip from it with her teeth.

  Camille’s eyes shot to one door and then the other. “You can’t do that. They’ll punish us.” Her hands went to her stomach and she held herself as though she might be able to stop what was coming. “You can’t escape.”

  She said it like she knew. Like she’d tried and Eve wondered how long it had taken Camille to give up. To become the pliant victim she saw in front of her.

  She bent the bobby pin she’d stripped, making a small hook at one end, then took another pin and bent it to make a lever.

  “I’m going to open one of these doors, Camille. Tell me which one I should open. Where do they lead?”

  Camille’s eyes went to the doors again, first one and then the other. She looked back at Eve and pointed to one door. “That one leads to the kitchen in the reverend’s house.”

  “And the other?” Eve asked, not really liking the idea of popping in on the reverend and his wife while they ate breakfast or whatever meal it would end up being. The sense of disorientation at not knowing the day or time was overwhelming. If she let it, it could swallow her up.

  Hell if she’d let that happen.

  “To the tunnels,” Camille whispered.

  Well damn, didn’t that sound fun.

  “Where do the tunnels go?” Eve asked, moving to that door. She had to trust Camille wasn’t going to alert anyone.

  Dr. Grundholdt had told her about the tunnels under the compound but there wasn’t much information on where they led or how extensive they were.

  “I don’t know. The reverend told me he would take me to the tunnels if I was bad. That he’d taken others to the tunnels before me.”

  Oh, better and better. Eve took a breath and put the lever into the lower part of the lock and used it to push the lock to the side. She pushed the other bobby pin in above the lever and began to feel for the first seized pin in the lock.

  For better or worse, she and Camille were about to brave the tunnels.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Eve looked around the room one last time and shuddered. This was the dark prison Samantha had landed in all those years ago. She hadn’t made it out but Eve was going to make sure she got Camille out of there.

  She felt naked without her weapon. There wasn’t much furniture but the table that held the pitcher of water and wash basin on it caught her eye. Eve went to the table and removed the items, working quickly but quietly. She couldn’t call attention to them in case anyone was in the room above them.

  She tilted the table and set it on its side, then examined the legs of the table. As she’d hoped, they were bolted to the bottom of the table. She tried the nut on one of the legs, but it was screwed on too tightly for her to take off with her hand.

  She glanced over at the door she’d just unlocked. Camille stood in the doorway, staring into the tunnel in front of her. Eve only hoped the girl wasn’t cranking up her fear to the point she’d freeze and not be able to go through with Eve’s plan.

  Eve tried the nut on the next leg of the table, finding it just as tight. She moved on to the next. That one gave slowly when she twisted it with her fingers. It was sluggish but it was moving bit by bit. She lost her grip on the small bit of metal more than once, but she kept at it until it began to spin more loosely on the bolt. In minutes she had the nut off and pulled the leg free of its base.

  She turned the leg, gripping the end that didn’t have the bolt in it. It was large enough for her to swing freely, but heavy enough to do some damage if she had to use it. She grabbed a belt from the robe that hung on a nail on the wall and tied one end to either end of the table leg and then slung it over her shoulder to hang on her back.

  She turned back to find Camille still frozen in place in front of the tunnel door. Eve stepped up to her and put her hand on the girl’s arm.

  “We need to go,
” she said, preparing to drag the girl if she needed to.

  Camille only nodded and stepped into the tunnel. Eve had to give the girl credit. She looked utterly terrified but she’d taken that first step. Camille had her arms wrapped around her pregnant stomach and Eve wondered if she was trying to remind herself why she was doing this.

  What she could see of the walls of the tunnel were carved through rock and Eve could only guess they’d taken years of blasting to create. She grasped Camille’s hand and they moved into the small space, moving away from the light the room they’d just left was casting. Moving into the darkness.

  Eve’s heart pounded and she prayed they weren’t heading right into someplace worse.

  They were soon engulfed in full-black darkness, the kind that told you there was no light coming through anywhere. Nothing for your eyes to adjust to. They moved steadily, methodically, one hand on the wall and one hand on each other.

  Eve tried to picture where the reverend’s home was in the compound. From what they’d learned, it was at the center of the property. Eve would guess that put it a mile or two from any edge to the property. Of course, the tunnel could lead anywhere. It probably came out in one of the other buildings.

  The hand she had on the wall to her right hit empty space and Eve tugged Camille to a stop.

  “Wait.” She stopped and felt to her right, pulling Camille with her. “There’s another tunnel here.”

  Eve froze again as a shout sounded behind them. She could hear the sound of a door being thrown wide, like it had slammed against a wall and then footsteps. Coming fast. Whoever it was knew their way in these tunnels and wasn’t moving nearly as slowly and carefully as she and Camille had.

  “There’s a tunnel off to our right, Camille. Do you know where these go to? Which direction we should go?”

  Eve reached up and felt the tunnel. It was different. It was formed of concrete, not the rock they’d been moving in so far. Maybe some of the tunnels had been natural cave formations and others were man-made.

  Camille’s breath was coming in ragged pants. “I don’t know. I don’t know where anything is. He only told me he’d take me into the tunnels. He never said where they went.”

  Eve could hear their pursuer coming up behind her. The footfalls were heavy and fast.

  She couldn’t afford to think about it any longer. She took off one of her shoes and tossed it a few feet into the tunnel on the right, then pulled Camille forward, continuing into the tunnel they’d been in. With any luck, their pursuer would have a flashlight and might spot the shoe and head that way.

  She didn’t wait to see if they followed. She just kept her thoughts focused on moving forward, one hand on the wall, one hand on Camille.

  Camille tripped, pitching forward and Eve lunged to hold her up. She caught her, but they’d both cried out when it happened. If whoever was behind them had bought the shoe ruse, they would correct their course now.

  “Keep going,” Eve whispered at Camille, putting her hand back on the wall. “We can’t go fast, but we have to go steady. We have to keep moving.”

  In her mind, she was thinking of other options. Like sending Camille on without her. Eve could wait and see if she could fight off whoever was coming. She could buy time for Camille to get away.

  Or she could give up her only weapon by laying the table leg across the narrow tunnel and hope their trailer tripped over it. It seemed a long shot, though, and she’d rather have the weapon than not if it came time to face their hunter.

  She heard Camille’s pants come fast and knew the girl would hyperventilate if she didn’t calm her down.

  She reached for a topic that would keep the girl’s mind off the fact they were running for their lives in a tunnel so black it felt like they might be swallowed alive by the ground itself.

  “I’m going to get something to eat as soon as we get through this. Ice cream and probably some waffles.” She was making her own mouth water with the attempt at distraction, but she didn’t care. “You ever been to Ms. Molly’s Mess Hall in Dark Falls? She has waffles that are so fluffy and sweet, you don’t need syrup on them. I think I’ll order those and an ice cream sundae and maybe…”

  “A milkshake,” Camille cut in and Eve could hear the utter ache of longing in the girl’s voice. She had a feeling the church hadn’t been spoiling Camille with sweet treats these past two years.

  Eve smiled into the darkness and said, “French fries,” but she was listening to the footsteps behind them.

  She heard a muttered curse. It was a man coming behind them and it was a good bet it was the reverend.

  Eve tried to estimate how long they’d been in the tunnels. She would guess ten minutes. So they might have covered half a mile, but at their pace, it could easily be less.

  “We need to move a little faster, Camille.”

  She upped their pace. The footfalls behind her told her their pursuer was coming at a much faster pace than they were going. She didn’t want Camille to fall, not with the girl being pregnant, but they had to go faster. Had to, if they wanted to make it out of there.

  But she knew it wouldn’t be enough. Whoever was behind them, they were moving too fast. They knew the tunnels. Her heart pounded in her chest as the echoes of footfalls slammed in her ears.

  She pushed Camille ahead of her. “You need to keep going, Camille. I’m going to stay here and stop him, but you need to keep moving. When you get to the end of the tunnel, look out and see where you are. If it’s clear, make a run for it.”

  Camille clung to Eve. “I can’t go without you.”

  Eve shushed her. “You have to. We don’t have a choice.”

  She didn’t need to tell the girl the reverend was almost on top of them. He’d catch them in minutes.

  She pushed Camille again. “Go. I’ll catch up to you.”

  Camille moved on and Eve turned back toward the dark tunnel. She reached to her back and pulled the table leg off her shoulder, holding one end in her hands as she crouched beside the tunnel wall and waited.

  The footfalls continued to come and a light came into view. It looked like the flashlight from a cellphone or maybe a pocket flashlight, bouncing as the person ran. Eve tried to quiet her breathing and pressed back against the wall. With any luck, the reverend or whoever it was coming after them would be focused on the tunnel ahead of him and wouldn’t spot her until it was too late.

  She tightened her hands on the table leg, readying herself for the fight that was about to come.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Kemal clenched the wheel as he drove. Despite his objections about his dad’s heart condition, he knew his dad would likely be right behind him, as soon as he could get someone to stay with Antoine.

  He didn’t have a plan for what he would do when he got there. He probably should have stopped to talk to his dad but when he’d realized no one from her department was going to be going after Eve, he’d thought of nothing but getting into the church to help her.

  What he didn’t know was whether he should go in the front door or if he should be sneaking in the back and trying to find her. From what he knew, the church had a whole compound. He had no clue where to start, but fuck if he was going to just wait for the police.

  He wished he had a gun, but since his brother was locked up, he’d been religious about not carrying a knife or gun or weapon of any kind. His parents had had The Talk with him when he was younger, the one where they tell him the consequences for a black man carrying a weapon will carry a much higher price tag than a white man. The talk where they told him how he had to handle himself if he was ever stopped by the police.

  That had been a harsh talk. His dad had told him most of the police officers who stopped him would be fine, but some were jumpy and you didn’t know what the situation would lead to. You keep your mouth shut, your hands where they could see them at all times, and you never question what they’re doing. Head down, do as you’re told.

  As a teen, Kemal hadn’t liked t
hat talk and he hadn’t always heeded the advice. He’d just been lucky to never be caught carrying a knife or stopped for Driving While Black. But after Isaac went to prison, Kemal stopped tempting fate.

  Still, this was one time he would risk that all, risk his life or his freedom, if he’d had access to a gun.

  Still, his dad must be pretty close behind him and surely he’d bring his weapon. He might be retired, but that hadn’t taken the cop out of him.

  Kemal’s phone rang and he hit answer before sticking it on speaker and tossing it on the seat next to him.

  “Yeah?” he expected it to be his dad.

  Detective Sevier’s voice came over the line. “Where are you, Kemal?”

  “Ten minutes out from the church. You got a warrant?” Not that the answer was going to change what he did.

  “We’ve got the assistant DA getting an emergency warrant from a judge. Should be any minute now. We’re headed that way so we can sit nearby and be ready to go in when we get it.”

  “Make sure you tell them all who I am. I don’t want to get shot.”

  Sevier sighed over the line. “I’ll do all I can, but you need to stand down and wait for us to do our jobs. You’re not going to help Eve if you go in there and alert the church about what’s happening. You need to sit tight, Kemal.”

  “When you say you should have it any minute, what does that mean? How long does it take to get an emergency warrant?”

  Kemal could hear the hesitation before Sevier spoke.

  “Could be ten minutes, could be an hour. The ADA has to get in with a judge.”

  Kemal didn’t answer. He punched end before dialing his dad.

  “I’m fifteen minutes behind you, son,” his dad said without preamble. “You hear back from Sevier?”

  “Just now. He said they might have a warrant as soon as ten minutes or in an hour.”

  “How far from the church are you?” his dad asked.