When you’re underground, the only way to know if it’s day or night is to check your watch. And I imagine if you were underground long enough even your watch wouldn’t keep you from being disoriented. It was close to midnight when I fell asleep. I was on the floor, using my tote bag as a pillow. I awoke at five, drifted back into a restless sleep, and woke up again at seven.
Glo was up and pacing, Josh was playing solitaire, and Carl was sprawled on top of a poker table sound asleep.
“Where’s Clara?” I asked Glo.
“In the tunnels. She said she needed exercise. Personally I think it’s a creepy place to go for a walk.”
“Not for Clara. She played in these tunnels when she was a kid. And she’s probably freaked out that the bakery is closed. The bakery is never closed.”
Clara returned at seven-thirty, and moments later we heard someone walking overhead. We snapped the light off and froze. No one spoke. I looked at my cellphone. No bars. If it was Diesel upstairs, looking for the entrance to the speakeasy, he couldn’t reach me. I tiptoed to the stairs and crept up to the door. A text message flashed on from Diesel. Can’t find entrance.
I texted back broom closet. A moment later I heard the broom closet door open and mops and a bucket getting kicked around. I opened the secret door at the back of the closet, and Diesel handed me a cardboard box with four coffees from Starbucks.
“Morning,” Diesel said. “You look like you got run over by a truck.”
“I slept on the floor last night.”
“There are these things in the house called beds,” Diesel said.
“We were afraid Rutherford and his men would return. They kidnapped Gramps, tried to kill Josh, and burned down the Pirate Museum.”
“I go away for a couple hours and the world falls apart,” Diesel said.
Carl woke up at Diesel’s voice. He stretched, scratched his ass, and ambled off to the rest room. Everyone else took a coffee.
“Did you have trouble finding the coin?” I asked Diesel.
“No. It was in Devereaux’s pocket. I helicoptered to the island, but the pilot decided it was too dangerous to land at the top of the bowl, so he set me down by the tiki hut. I hiked to the bowl, found the tunnel entrance, and rappelled down the shaft. The ropes were still there from Rutherford’s excursion. I found the coin and heard a chopper in the distance. Obviously its pilot had more guts than mine because it landed on the rim and dropped a bunch of Ammon’s zombies into the bowl. I didn’t feel like taking on the zombie army, so I hid in an alcove and waited for them to leave.”
“They went back for the coin,” I said.
“The coin and the rest of the treasure,” Diesel said. “They packed it all out. Took them hours. They were like worker ants. They even took Devereaux. Maybe they thought he hid the coin on him…or in him. They took their ropes, too, so I had to use the stairs. They weren’t bad going up, but I’m glad I didn’t have to use them going down.”
“We need to get Gramps,” Clara said. “He needs his blood pressure medicine.”
“Do you have any idea where they’re holding him?” Diesel asked.
“No,” I said. “They sent me a photo but there’s nothing recognizable in it.”
I showed Diesel the photo of Gramps waving. There were no background objects. Just a white wall and two faceless thugs.
“I have a list of all properties owned by Ammon Enterprises,” Diesel said. “There are four in Salem, seven in Boston, one in southern New Hampshire, and Ammon’s personal house in Marblehead. I got the list because I thought Ammon would be at least temporarily storing the treasure in one of his buildings, and the stone might be with it.”
Clara put a bag of muffins on the bar, and we all took one.
“The best candidate for treasure storage is Ammon’s property on Green Street,” Diesel said. “He owns a four-story office building that used to be a bank, complete with a vault. The building is currently empty, slated for renovation.”
“I know where that is,” Clara said. “One of the tunnels runs under it, and then the tunnel continues on to the harbor. It meets up with another tunnel that goes to the lighthouse.”
“How long would it take us to get from here to the bank building using the tunnel system?” Diesel asked Clara.
“Maybe forty-five minutes. The tunnels don’t go in a straight line.”
Diesel pulled a map of Salem out of his backpack. “I’ve marked Ammon’s properties in orange,” he said to Clara. “Are any of these other addresses accessible by tunnel?”