Chapter Twenty-Four

Cleo

I gnawed another fingernail and stared at the dark restaurant across the street. Arguing with myself hadn’t done anything, but given me several mangled nails. I glanced at the clock. Seven minutes had passed. Seven minutes that seemed like seven days since Jonas had disappeared into the darkness. I’d actually started across the street, three different times, but ran back each time. Jonas had asked me to wait…he said, please. He doesn’t play fair.

I’d told his boss everything, stressing that we couldn’t call the police since they were involved. He’d assured me that he’d take care of it, but what did that mean? How? Who in the world could he contact that would have authority to actually do something about this? We were dealing with a bad cop. Who could help us in a situation like this?

I’d long since tuned out Ellie’s noise from the back seat, but a loud spitting sound caught my attention. Uh-oh. She’d somehow managed to remove the gag, and was wiggling into a sitting position. The streetlight on the other side of the road provided enough light for me to see her expression. Enough angry sparks shot from her eyes to ignite the interior of the car.

“Untie me…now!” she demanded.

I ignored her as best I could.

She changed tactics. “He’s been gone a long time, hasn’t he? I hope he’s okay.”

Now she was harder to ignore. I gnawed another fingernail.

“They must be down in the tunnel. I looked everywhere except there before showing up in that alley. I know he has meetings down there sometimes. I would’ve checked here earlier, but I’m kind of afraid. I’ve heard that tunnel is haunted, and I don’t wanna mess with any ghosts. We could go together. I know if I could just talk to Mark…make him see reason, he’d stop all this craziness before it goes any further, before something happens to Jonas. It’s gotten out of hand, and he’s not thinking clearly. He’s got plenty of money. We could get away…head to Brazil or someplace else with no extradition laws.”

I couldn’t believe she still wanted to be with that creep. “Do you hear yourself, Ellie? Think about what you’re saying, please. The man is a murderer!”

“No, he’s not! He never pulled the trigger.”

I couldn’t believe she was so gullible. She’d never seemed that way before. He had her under some kind of spell. That had to be it; otherwise she wouldn’t have swallowed all the lies…her own, included. “Listen…just because someone else did his dirty work doesn’t make him any less guilty. Besides…he did pull the trigger one of the times.”

“He did not! How can you say that?”

“Because it’s true! There was an eyewitness.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, it’s the truth. I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“Who? Who is this alleged eyewitness? Why haven’t they come forward?”

“Because Mark’s a cop and they knew it wouldn’t do any good.”

“Well, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I love him…and he loves me, too. No, don’t look at me like that. He told me! We’ll probably get married, but we have to wait until after his divorce is final. His wife is dragging her feet, throwing up all kind of roadblocks, trying to make things as difficult as possible for him.”

I shook my head sadly. Mark Spencer’s wife probably couldn’t wait for her escape, likely counting the days until she was finally free. I doubted Ellie would be taking her place either, but it would do no good to tell her that. She’d never believe me.

I eyed the clock again. Ten minutes. What was happening down there? This waiting was killing me. That’s all I’d been doing all day long! First, I had to wait for Jonas to pick me up tonight. Then I had to wait in the alley. Mmm…okay, that was different…I liked that kind of waiting. But then I had to wait in the truck stop parking, and now here I sat again! Wait, wait, wait! I was ready to do something. I couldn’t just sit here any longer.

I turned to Ellie. “You know the way down there?”

Her expression brightened. “To the tunnel? Yeah.”

“You’ll help me with Jonas if he’s in trouble?”

“Of course I will. And maybe it won’t seem so scary with two of us.”

“All right then, let’s get you untied.”

****

Ellie was right. It was scary, and we weren’t even in the tunnel yet. We’d already scaled a wrought iron gate into a tiny courtyard where the entrance to the tunnel was hidden. We now stood at the top of the steepest, most rickety wooden stairs I’d ever seen. The flashlight beam wouldn’t even reach the bottom of the darn things. I worried that they’d collapse under our combined weight, then thought about Spencer’s beefy hit men and relaxed a bit. If these stairs had managed to handle that pair of oxen, I was certain they’d hold us. Well…almost certain.

I wasn’t sure what the tunnel’s original purpose was, but besides pirates smuggling rum, I’d heard it’d been used during the Underground Railroad back in the days of slavery. Then in 1876, Savannah had another terrible yellow fever epidemic and they’d used the tunnel as storage for dead victims. According to the history books, they’d waited until after dark, then they’d loaded the corpses up on wagons and hauled them down to a marshy area for burial. The reason they did it at night, was supposedly to keep prying eyes from seeing just how many people had died. It sounded like drastic measures, but that had been their third huge outbreak in a little over fifty years and people were starting to panic. Added together, those three episodes claimed nearly 4,000 people, and droves of folks fled for their lives. I could see why the city officials had gone to such great lengths to hide the actual numbers; if everyone flew the coop, there’d be no tax base.

It was cold down here, that creepy kind of cold that sort of seeps into your bones, making you shiver from the inside out. The air venting through the chamber was damp and musty, the scent of mildew swirled with the unmistakable smell of decomposition. It was that last bit that worried me. I hoped it was just the history of the place, and not from something more recent. It was bad enough that it felt like the ghosts of every one of those fever victims were down here in the tunnel with us. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I came across a dead body.

Part of me was beginning to wish I’d listened to Jonas and stayed in the car. The sword of yellow light that had beamed so strongly from the flashlight I’d found in the glove box was looking decidedly weaker the longer we walked, but I tried not to think about it. Of course, I had a flashlight option on my phone, but I didn’t want to want to use the battery up, in case I needed to make a call. I wished now, that I hadn’t left Jonas’ phone in the car.

We’d come to a thick wooden door, with forged iron hinges and latch, standing slightly ajar. I stopped Ellie from pushing it open.

“Wait! Listen.”

I could hear a low, unintelligible murmur, then a hard slap.

Oh no! Who was on the receiving end of that?

“Tell me! Tell me who else knows!” A voice snarled, then another slap.

The few fingernails that I had left after my gnawing episode in the car, dug into my palms. I swallowed back a wave of nausea.

“That’s him!” Ellie’s whisper actually sounded buoyed with excitement. “That’s Mark! I recognize his voice!”

Before I could say anything, another voice rang out, “Why don’t you just leave her alone. She told you no one else knows! Why would she lie?”

Jonas! Oh, God! Spencer has him. What can I do? What can I do? Wait…he said she…Does that mean…?

“Common sense is like deodorant; the people who need it the most, are the ones who never use it.” The voice rang low, but clear.

I gasped. “Lily!”

Ellie whirled to face me. “That’s the name!” Her whisper was frantic. “That’s the name I heard them say! They have her! No! I’ll make Mark listen this time. No one else can get hurt!”

“Ellie, don’t…” I grabbed her arm, but she shook me off, turned, and burst through the door.

I waited in horrified silence for what would happen next. It wasn’t a long wait. I heard Ellie scream, “Mark! Please!”

An immediate clamor of exclamations exploded, but Spencer’s roar overpowered them all. “What the hell are you doing here, Elle?”

A sound of scuffling, a grunt of pain, another slap. Ellie’s scream echoed down the tunnel, but it was cut short by a loud thunk.

The silence that followed was so complete, I thought I’d suddenly gone deaf.