Adam sat on a stone in the middle of a clearing, soaking up the last rays of the sun. He’d warmed enough to roll up his sleeves a couple of hours ago, and his undershirt was sticky—though not drenched—with sweat. The surrounding woods were dim and cool as dusk approached, and soon the chill would reach him as well. But the moment of comfortable repose felt so good, he didn’t want it to end.
He’d spent much of the afternoon in a surprisingly restful nap, then managed another half bowl of soup and crackers and ventured outside to work on Iris’s garden. When his uncle was still alive, Adam’s grandparents had cultivated row upon row of corn, potatoes, tomatoes, multiple varieties of beans, turnips, beets, a cabbage patch, and on and on. They’d also kept livestock—hogs and chickens, a few head of cattle for meat and milking, and the occasional sheep. Come fall, the kitchen was alive—and blisteringly hot—with the sounds and smells of canning. The men butchered then as well, and an assembly line of women packed the meat to be frozen.
Adam knew this from the stories Iris told, years later when it was just the two of them on the property. Even then, they’d kept a small kitchen garden with a few favorites, including Adam’s crookneck squash. In recent years, however, the garden fence had fallen into disrepair and Iris hadn’t bothered putting anything out (without a barrier, the deer made short work of anything but tomatoes). Fixing the fence became Adam’s project after he got out of the hospital, something tangible he could focus on when it wasn’t freezing outside. He’d overdone it today, digging out rotten fence posts and dragging them into a pile, but it felt good to get something done, to have aches and pains of exertion rather than inexplicable injuries. He watched a pair of cardinals, perched on a remaining fence post, as they watched him in turn. He wondered if Iris fed the birds in winter, if perhaps they had some sort of race memory and were waiting for that day to come.
Most of Adam’s thoughts that afternoon hadn’t been devoted to nostalgia or philosophy. He’d woken from his nap, feeling almost refreshed, except for the picture in his mind of a little boy in a Batman costume. The picture hadn’t arisen in his mind; it was planted there during his interrogation this morning by people who knew what he did not. Adam couldn’t actually see the boy, only what had been described to him. And that wasn’t enough. He needed to speak with Harlan.
Adam had kept these thoughts to himself. He felt certain Harlan could help him help the boy, but he was just as certain this would drive another wedge between Harlan and Iris. Rather than daydreaming of batter-dipped, fried squash and sweet iced tea, Adam had pondered how to ensure that whatever happened was all on him. None of the blame could fall to Harlan. He and Iris had a chance to be happy together for whatever remained of their lives, and Adam didn’t want to jeopardize that. But he couldn’t ignore the child.
Adam sighed and rose, stretching his hands over his head with a satisfied moan. He was brushing the dirt from the seat of his pants when he heard two things at once: a vehicle’s tires—as if it had missed its turn and slammed its brakes to go back—and Iris screaming his name.
He jumped a fallen bit of fencing and ran toward the house, ignoring the familiar tug in his side.
“Adam!” Iris screamed again.
“I’m coming!” He met her just below the front porch. “Are you—”
“Inside!” Iris demanded, and turned on her heel back into the house.
By the time he made it through the front door, Iris was halfway up the stairs. He ran after her, and she met him at the top with the duffel bag they’d packed together a few hours ago. “You have to go,” Iris said. “Now!”
Passing him the bag, she raced to the kitchen and grabbed a paper sack from the counter. The heavy duffel tugged at Adam’s ribs, and he shifted the strap to the other shoulder. Iris unbalanced him yanking the bag toward her, unzipping it, and shoving the paper sack inside.
“Iris, what’s going on?”
“JJ just called,” she said. “They’re coming to arrest you.”
“Arrest me?” Adam heard a vehicle heading up the driveway, presumably the same one he’d heard turning around earlier. “This is crazy, Iris. I can’t run. Maybe they’ll take me in and question me again, but eventually they’ll have to admit I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Iris shook her head and forced him toward the hallway, as the vehicle’s engine cut off. “By then it might be too late.”
“Iris, you’re overreacting—”
“No, I’m not,” she insisted, still shoving him away from the front door. “I should’ve told you about Virgil, but I wanted you to rest, and I never had a chance. You’ll have to take the bolthole.”
She placed her hand against a section of wainscoting beneath the stairs, and somehow suddenly there was an opening in the wall.
Adam was so shocked, he didn’t protest as she pushed him inside. Finally, her words caught up with him. “What about Virgil? What happened when you saw him?”
Iris held her breath, clearly not wanting to answer, but knowing Adam wouldn’t leave if she didn’t. “He said you were behind kidnapping Rachel, and that you’d do it again. And now another child is missing.”
There was a pounding at the front door, and Adam’s legs turned to water. He tried to brace himself against the wall inside the bolthole and knocked a glass jar from a shelf. It hit the floor, shattering, and the air filled with the eye-watering odor of old canned tomatoes. Iris grabbed Adam’s shoulders to steady him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Now go. Harlan will pick you up at the spot where you kids used to cross the road. It might be a while, so keep your head down.”
“Coming!” she yelled. She grabbed his face and pulled it down so she could kiss him on the forehead. “I love you, kid. Be safe.”
“I love you, Gram,” Adam said, and watched her trembling hand cover her mouth before she pushed the door closed, plunging him into darkness.
Moments later, he heard the front door open over the sounds of Iris’s protests. Standing in the dark, her voice in the distance, Adam experienced a moment of déjà vu. He’d been in the hidden space once as a child, escorted by Iris. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling in the space carved out under the stairs, but he didn’t dare try it now. Iris had packed a flashlight in the zippered end of his duffel, and he rummaged in the dark until he pulled it free. He still didn’t turn it on, stretching out his hands, turning and slowly shuffling forward. The flashlight he carried bumped a jar in the dark, causing a resounding ting and setting the jar wobbling noisily against its neighbors. Adam held his breath.
Two sets of footsteps approached from the entryway. He heard Iris’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words. Adam jumped as something thumped next to him on the other side of the wall. Was it the cop banging, trying to get in?
“I said, I need my medicine!” The wall thumped again, and this time when Iris spoke, her voice was closer to the ground, as if she were kneeling or sitting on the floor. “It’s in the kitchen, on the counter next to the stove.”
Had she fallen? What medicine did Iris take? Had he given his grandmother a heart attack on top of everything else? Adam ran his fingers across the wall, past the shelves, searching for the edges of the door so he could get to her. He opened his mouth to call out, when Iris’s voice came through the wall clearly, almost next to his head, “Go—now!”
Thank God. Adam savored the sense of relief for a moment, touching the wall where he’d heard her voice, before switching on his flashlight and fleeing.
The old Rutledge house had served multiple generations, including some who’d made their meager fortunes distilling moonshine. Adam didn’t know if the passage had been built for that purpose, or if it predated the Rutledge booze runners and they’d simply taken advantage of what was already there. The first portion, wood-framed with a level dirt floor, stretched for about twenty feet before hitting a right angle turn, presumably at the back end of the house.
Adam pointed his flashlight directly in front of his feet, stepping carefully, hesitant to touch “walls” recognizable as nothing more than thicker darkness in his peripheral vision. The floor here was made of rough, gray concrete with a sharp, downward slope. The air was cool and damp with an odor that reminded him of sawdust. Like many houses in the area, this one was tucked into the side of the mountain, using the earth to help regulate temperature. Adam believed he was passing from beneath the house itself to the neighboring dairy, also built into the side of the hill.
Adam arrived at one last turn, this time a hard left. The passage broadened a bit, and off to one side, the tarnished coils of the old Rutledge still reflected his flashlight’s beam faintly alongside its big pot. Ahead of him was a plank wall with a wood scrap latch. He spun the simple catch and gave the wall a mighty shove—a bit too mighty. Adam flinched at—once again—the sound of breaking glass. The wall swung wide enough for him to step clear of it, pushing bits of broken glass and vegetable mush in its path.
As he’d suspected, Adam emerged into the dairy. From the dairy side, the swinging wall was disguised by shelves full of canned vegetables with rusting lids that had likely gone toxic before Adam was born. He was careful not to knock any more to the ground with his bag as he pushed the wall shut behind him, but couldn’t find a way to secure it. Perhaps the weight of the shelves kept it in place.
The dairy was a small space smelling strongly of lime, about ten feet wide by fifteen feet long, but shelves and empty, nested buckets along the walls made it feel more narrow. Dust motes swam in Adam’s flashlight beam. He grabbed the handle on the thick, exterior door and pushed it hard, but it wouldn’t budge. Throwing his full weight against it, he let out a loud, pained grunt as he struck the solid construction and his heavy duffel bag struck him. The door screamed as it came free of its thick, swollen frame.
Adam blinked against the meager sunlight still streaming through the trees. His eyes were drawn to the nearby freestanding pump house, containing the water pump and tanks for the well, but apparently no cops. Everything else was forest. Opening the door wide as he could, he shone his flashlight back into the dairy. The shelving looked like a wall rather than a door, but his boot prints were visible in the mixed vegetables on the floor.
A single siren whoop pierced the air, followed by the sound of another vehicle approaching the house. Backup, or did Iris frighten the cop into calling for an ambulance? Either way, he literally did not have time to cover his tracks. Shoving the door closed, Adam hurtled down the wooded ridge, duffel bag slamming against his hip.