The headlamp flickered and went out.
Seth’s disembodied voice said, “Great.”
I took a step in the direction I thought the iPhones were boxed up.
With my hand covered by my sweater, I reached in and grabbed a phone. It took me four tries to find one that still had some power, but I was able to at least find Seth on the floor and sit next to him using the dim light of the iPhone screen.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to touch those,” Seth said.
“I’m only using the one so we can keep checking the time and avoid losing our minds.”
I clicked the phone off and sighed.
Yet again, I had stumbled into trouble and dragged Seth along with me. If his mother had even an inkling of my guardianship track record, she’d have him home immediately. I had had plenty of time to think while we sat in this room. It seemed the more we discovered, the more complicated the mystery became. Clarissa had alienated her family and most of the staff. Several of the knitters had a grudge against her. And now we had a room full of stolen cell phones. Was that connected to Clarissa, or had we stumbled onto a whole different crime? There were too many possibilities and it seemed almost everyone we interviewed had kept something from us.
But, I knew Seth and Vi were right. I did love to solve puzzles. And my work with Neila Whittle had improved my ability to interpret the messages I received. I’d always been good at finding lost items. Maybe Vi’s idea would work. But could I work with Vi?
Seth sighed. Every sound was amplified in the close, dark space.
Seth’s breathing, my stomach, and then, as faint as possible but still audible, I heard what might have been footsteps outside the door.
I clicked the phone back on and looked at Seth. He had heard it, too. We stood up and started pounding on the door again.
We continued to pound even after the door began to swing open.
“I knew it!” said Vi.
She rushed forward to hug Seth, while Mac took me roughly into his arms as if he wasn’t sure whether he was mad or glad to see me. I held on to him tightly and felt the scratchy wool of his snowman sweater against my cheek. At that moment, nothing could have been better.
“How did you get in here?” Mac’s voice was low and gravelly against my hair.
“Did you figure out the murder?” Vi tapped me on the shoulder.
“Did we miss dinner?” Seth said.
I reluctantly pushed away from Mac and we all laughed in relief. I brushed past Mac and Vi to get out of the room and into the no-less-spooky passageway.
Mac stepped farther into the room and shone his light into the boxes of cell phones. He whistled low and long.
“Somebody’s been busy,” he said.
Mac took about twenty pictures with his phone before he would let us leave.
We all trooped in the direction of the inn. Mac wanted to be sure the tunnel connected to the hotel. We passed through the hallway that held over a century’s worth of cast-off junk. Old baby cribs and strollers sat next to chairs with broken legs and assorted sporting equipment. It seemed that the members of the Carlisle family didn’t like to throw anything away.
We finally got to the area where the staff rooms had been built. The paint was clean and new looking and there was a small room with a freezer and a large refrigerator. Next to that room, we peeked into the utility room, where the generator hummed next to the furnace.
Satisfied that the tunnel did connect all the way from the cottage to the hotel, we went back the way we had come to get to the cottage trapdoor.
When I reached the top of the ladder I was almost knocked back down into the passageway by an exuberant Baxter. Fortunately, Seth was already at the top and pulled him away from the opening. Baxter was so excited to see me that he ran rings around me while hopping up and down. Tuffy shivered in Seth’s arms.
I helped Vi climb out of the hole. Mac was the last one up and he and Seth closed the trapdoor.
Mom and Dad were waiting for us.
“We were so worried about you two,” Mom said. She rushed forward to hug Seth and me.
“That was amazing!” Vi said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I love this castle.”
“I could do with a few less secrets,” I said.
“What do you think they used that room for?” Seth asked.
“It has to be where they kept the alcohol during Prohibition,” Vi said. She slung an arm over Seth’s shoulder and they walked into the living room chatting about gangsters and bootleggers.
“I’d better go call off the outdoor search party,” Mac said. He walked to the front door, turned, and pointed at us. “No one goes anywhere.”
“He’s kind of bossy,” Vi said after he was gone.
“He was really worried, Vi,” Mom said. “You saw him. I thought he was going to tear the place apart, stone by stone.”
We had settled in the small living room of the cottage to await Mac’s return.