AFTER ANOTHER INTERSECTION with three tunnels and two turns, Michael thought it was safe enough for them to rest. They made a jog to the left that kept them hidden and switched off the torches.
Hearing the men slog past their hiding spot was unnerving, but when one of them shone a torch into the tunnel, Michael held the revolver in his hand and swallowed hard. He was certain he was going to have to shoot someone.
Then the man pulled back and rejoined his mates without ever seeing their quarry. Within a few minutes, their footsteps retreated.
Molly clicked on her torch and aimed the beam at the ceiling so the light reflected back down and lit up the small area they’d claimed as their hiding spot. She looked tired.
Michael reached into the rucksack and brought out the energy bars. “Can you eat?”
“I’m starving.” Molly reached for one.
Lydia didn’t say anything.
Taking another bar, Molly proffered it to the young woman. “You need to eat.”
“I can’t. I’ll just throw it up.”
“Maybe it’ll calm you down. At the very least, the sugar will give you some extra energy over the next hour or so. Try it.”
Without enthusiasm, Lydia did as she was told. She unwrapped the bar and started to throw the wrapper to the ground.
Michael held out a hand. “Here. Let me have that. If we leave a trail behind, Draghici’s men will find it.” When Lydia passed the wrapper over to him, he shoved it into his pants pocket.
Both women ate, then drank sparingly from the water bottles. Michael searched the tunnel ahead of them and noticed a small incline. That made him hopeful because it meant they were getting close to the surface again. That had to be good.
He returned to the women. “Ready?”
“Yes.” Molly tucked the water bottles into the rucksack.
Michael slung the bag into position and took up the lead. Senses alert, he heard only the sound of his beating heart and their shoes scuffing across the stone. Then he noticed something else. “Do you smell that?”
“What?”
“Grass, if I’m not mistaken.”
Molly sniffed the air, then nodded. “It is grass.”
“Means we’re almost there!” Increasing his stride, Michael pushed forward. He probed the dark ceiling with the torch. If he wanted, he could reach up and touch it with his fingers. And the incline grew steadily steeper.
MINUTES LATER, ALMOST giving up hope, Molly spotted something in the ceiling illuminated by Michael’s light. He kept going, but she searched for the spot with her beam. At last, she found the opening.
It was only a few inches across, nothing like the cave mouth they’d been hoping for. But the sweet scent of grass was stronger. “Michael.”
He turned, and soft light was diffused over his handsome features. “What?”
“There’s a hole.” Molly shone her light so he could see it.
“Missed that. You’re brilliant.” Michael joined her and peered up. Then he shone his flashlight around the cave, searching for something.
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t understand what that hole’s doing there.”
“Fresh air? To let out coal gas?”
“Can you tell how deep it is?”
“No.”
After a brief search, Michael found a small collection of rocks with rotted twine bound around them. He grinned like a loon, but Molly didn’t understand why.
“What have you got?”
He pocketed the stones. “In a minute.” He switched his light off and put it away. “Let me give you a boost and see what you can discover here.” He knelt, closed his arms around her thighs and slowly lifted her. “Watch your head, love.”
Gingerly, Molly reached up for the ceiling of the tunnel and eased herself against the ragged stone. She shone the light.
“What can you see?”
“It’s a hole. About six inches in diameter.”
“Natural or cut?”
Molly studied the sides of the opening. “It’s too uniform to be natural.”
“So someone cut a hole there.”
“Yes, but as I said before, that could be to prevent a coal-gas buildup.”
Michael grinned at her. “Could be for something else, too.”
“What?”
“How far do you think we’ve come?”
“From the prison cell?”
“Yes.”
Molly had no idea. It seemed they’d been walking for hours. “A couple of miles, maybe.”
“Make that five miles, but three of them have been more or less straight south. I’m thinking we shouldn’t be far from Blackpool now.”
Lydia stared at him. “How do you know that?”
Molly smiled, knowing her husband. “Because Michael is a habitual counter. Although he won’t readily admit it, he has a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He’s been counting steps since we escaped.”
“As well as taking away those where we doubled back on ourselves.” Michael waggled his torch over the ceiling. “That hole, I believe, confirms our proximity to town.”
“How?”
“Charles Crowe needed to go into Blackpool to check on safe sailing conditions for his slave ships. He’d find out if anyone was watching, or if British patrols or rivals were in town. Of course, he wouldn’t want to sail all the way back to the slave pens, because that would take too much time.”
Glancing up at the hole, Molly understood the mystery of the knotted stones. “Crowe needed a way to signal his men.”
“Couldn’t his men have simply entered the tunnels under the town buildings?” Lydia looked at Michael.
Michael smiled. “There was a lot of business going on through those tunnels back then, Miss Crowe. Your ancestor wasn’t the only man looking to make a dishonest living or avoid paying taxes. Maybe Charles Crowe kept himself separate from the slave crew in Blackpool.” He played his light over the hole. “So he used this.”
“Surely he didn’t just yell orders down through the hole?” Lydia asked.
Molly shook her head. “Those stones Michael picked up? They had bits of rotted string tied around them. Your ancestor probably tied messages around the rocks and dropped them down this hole.”
“Or maybe he simply used bits of colored cloth.” Michael shifted to a new position. “It didn’t have to be a complicated message. It just had to indicate whether or not the ship could set sail.”
Lydia peered up at the ceiling. “Then where does that hole lead?”
“Somewhere outside of Blackpool maybe. Not far. He’d want to be able to get a message quickly to whomever waited in this area. If we can find this spot later when we’re outside the tunnel, I’m willing to wager that there’s a monument of some sort to mark the location.”
Brow furrowed in thought, Lydia waited a moment, then took a breath. “Maybe a wishing well?”
“That would be perfect, but why a wishing well?”
“Because there’s one on an old road my family used to take into Blackpool. Before the new highway was laid in. I rode motorbikes along it when I was a teen. There are so many things around Crowe’s Nest that I never truly thought about it.” Lydia shook her head. “I’m afraid my family has always been filled with secrets.”
“Whether there’s a wishing well at the other end of that hole or not, we know we’re getting closer to Blackpool. How far is the well from the town?”
“No more than a half mile or so. Our holdings round Crowe’s Nest butt up against the town.”
“I didn’t think it would be far from either the town or your home. Charles Crowe would have wanted to keep an eye on everything.” Michael reached into his pocket and brought out the iPod. “Good. There’s still some battery left.”
“You’re going to listen to music?” Lydia frowned.
“Not hardly. With the popularity of the iPhone, most people forget that the iPod Touch has Wi-Fi capability.”
“I don’t understand.”
Molly did, and she leaned down and kissed Michael on the head. “If we can get a signal, we can send a message. I suppose you have someone in mind, Michael?”
He grinned. “I told Iris I was coming to get you. She’s manning the phones at home. You have Wi-Fi at Crowe’s Nest?”
“Of course. But it’s encrypted.”
“Then you’ll tell us the password. Easy peasey.”
Molly took the iPod Touch from Michael’s hand. He was all smiles. He believed in technology a lot more than she did.
Lydia seemed doubtful, too. “But we’re so far away from the house.”
“How far?”
Molly shoved the iPod as far up into the hole as she could.
“Two hundred yards,” Lydia said, “give or take.”
“Most people don’t realize how far a LAN—a local area network—will transmit. Do you have Wi-Fi throughout the manor house?”
“Of course. I can get the signal on my laptop when I’m out on the patio.”
“There you go. You can bet your routers are pushing a significantly enhanced signal. Or that there are repeaters all over the house. Or a combination of both. Wi-Fi signals have actually been picked up over a mile away, under optimum conditions. All we’re asking for is a couple hundred yards.”
After a moment, Molly pulled the iPod back down and looked at it. She smiled broadly when she saw the readout. “It’s trying to connect. It wants a password.”
Michael heaved a sigh of relief. “Brill.”
Lydia gave Molly the password, a confusing combination of letters, numbers and symbols that she felt she would never have been able to remember. After she keyed the last one in, she waited until she got the confirmation screen. “I’m in.”
“Good. Now send Iris a message. I doubt Paddington is very tech savvy.”
“Neither is Aleister.” Lydia looked unhappy.
Molly typed furiously on the small keyboard.
Iris?
For a moment, the cursor simply hung there in limbo and she started to think that the connection had failed after all. Then a message came back.
Michael?
It’s Molly.
Thank God. Are you and Michael all right?
We’re trapped in the caves beneath Blackpool. We need help.
What can I do?
Molly gazed down at Michael. “She wants to know what we’d like her to do.”
“Wake up Paddington and bring him up to speed, for starters. Now that we’re away and not directly in Draghici’s hands, we can risk that.”
Molly relayed the message.
Where should I direct him to look for you?
Molly posed the question to Michael.
After a quiet moment, Michael shook his head. “Tell her that we don’t know. It will hopefully be somewhere in Blackpool. Paddington should still just stay alert and hope to find us once we’re able to be precise about our location. And he should also notify and watch over Aleister Crowe.”
“Why worry about my brother?” Lydia looked confused.
“You don’t want Draghici and his men to target him now that you’ve made your escape.” Molly supplied the answer before Michael was able to arrive at one.
Michael smiled faintly. “A Crowe in hand, so to speak, is still worth ransoming.”
“And Aleister’s already involved,” Molly said. “I’m sure Draghici has been in touch with him about your ransom.” She typed the message up, then sent it. “Okay.”
Gently, Michael placed her back on her feet. She handed him the iPod. “Smart thinking.”
“Technology is bloody awesome, love. I’ve told you that before.”
“I know. I’ve developed a new respect for it.” Despite the shared moment of levity, overwhelming despair raged quietly in the back of Molly’s mind, ready to pounce.
“Do we still have the connection?”
Molly checked, then shook her head.
“That would be too much to hope for.”
They heard the voices in the tunnel again. Realizing that Draghici and his band had once more found them, panic burst like a bombshell inside her.
“Time to go.” Michael pointed his light at the entry ahead of them and they ran.