She hurried through the doorway, checking out the door as she passed. It seemed to her that the latch and the hinges should have been far rustier. When the hell had the door been put in?
It must have been during the Civil War, when the house had been part of the Underground Railroad. She wasn’t in a subway tunnel. This passage might lead to an old one, but…
She shoved at the door, closing it as best she could. Then she lifted her light. There was only one way to go.
She started walking, and then she froze.
“Leslie? Are you down here? What the hell is going on? The house was pitch dark and the door was open.”
It was Brad, and he sounded truly baffled. But if Brad was in the basement behind her, where the hell were Nikki and Adam?
She kept silent. Then she heard the door opening and started running along the tunnel, quickly turning out the light. She heard the creaking of the door as Brad opened it.
“Leslie, it’s me. Brad.” He sounded indignant. “Dammit, Leslie, you’ve got me scared to death. Where the hell are you?”
She went still, barely daring to breathe. But she had to move, so she inched forward in the darkness, feeling her way along the wall. It was tile here, she thought. Then more brick followed concrete, before it turned to tile again.
“Leslie, it’s dark in here!” Brad called.
She heard a cry in the dark, followed by a thud, like something heavy falling.
Brad?
Then nothing.
She hurried along, silent, desperate. Someone was behind her. She was sure of it. And something told her that it was no longer Brad.
Tile…concrete…damp and slick beneath her hand.
Then…wood?
There was noise coming from the shaft ahead, but Joe couldn’t tell what the hell it was. He drew his gun, holding his lantern high.
It seemed close…yet simultaneously far away.
Swearing, he paused to pull out the map again.
There was a tunnel that ran parallel to the one he was in. Apparently, it had never been part of the subway. There was a notation on it. Old passageway, unusable, storage.
Storage. That meant there had to be access to it somewhere. He strained to see the tunnel ahead. Was that something in the wall, about fifty feet ahead? He hurried forward to check it out.
There were bolts; she could feel them. A door! All too aware that someone was coming up behind her and with no idea how much distance there was between them, she felt for the bolts and began to work at them. She had no choice.
There was a snick as the first bolt gave. She moved faster, heedless of the noise she was making. Without meaning to, she began to scream. “Help!”
The sound came back to her as an echo as she slid the last bolt back and the door gave. Suddenly there was light. She blinked furiously against the abrupt brightness of it. She was in a room, a room that smelled of death. There was a cot in it, and a table by the cot that held a few bottles of water.
There was something piled on the far side of the room.
And there was a woman. She was dark-haired and blue-eyed, thin to the point of emaciation. Her ankles were chained together, but she was on her feet, pale and sickly but ready to do battle. Genevieve O’Brien.
“Get in! I can’t believe you’ve found me, but he’s right behind you.”
Leslie turned. She screamed. He was almost on them.
“Get in!” Genevieve implored.
Leslie hurried into the room and quickly shut the door behind her. Both women laid their full weight against the door as someone pounded against it from the other side. Genevieve looked at her. “Who are you? How did you get here? Now he’ll kill us both.”
“But you’re alive,” Leslie gasped, fighting to hold the door. How long could they manage it? Who knew she was here? Adam and Nikki.
If they were still alive.
“Who is he?” Leslie demanded. “Who?”
Even as she asked, their enemy hit the door with staggering force and sent them flying backward.
And she knew.
Joe found the door. He thundered his weight against it time after time, trying to break through the rust of decades. Finally it gave.
He was in another tunnel. At one end, he could see a gaping doorway. Hastings House. If he had his bearings right, that was Hastings House. The crypt. And he had been right. There was a false wall, and it was open now.
He heard groaning and hurried forward, his light high. There was a body on the floor. He knelt down beside it and heard another groan.
Brad.
The man blinked. “What the hell…? Why did you hit me like that? I swear, when I got to the house it was dark and the door was wide open. I started looking for someone…I went down to the basement and…Look, I wouldn’t hurt Leslie, I swear!”
“Where the hell is she?”
“How should I know? You hit me.”
“I didn’t hit you.”
It was then that he heard a bloodcurdling scream.
Robert Adair came in, a sad look on his face. “Leslie, I knew you were trouble.”