Lara had been here.
She dropped back to her knees. She had to take care with every movement. She couldn’t afford to hurt herself. She began to crawl, reaching out tentatively, trying to feel for what was directly ahead of her. Finding only more earth.
Then she touched stone, and she was suddenly sure she knew exactly where she was.
The mill. The ruined mill by the stream that passed near the condemned property, which had recently been purchased by Walker’s company. And Lara was here somewhere.
She was right! She heard a soft moan, so weak it was barely audible. She had to force herself to pinpoint the sound—and to move slowly and carefully toward it. Inch by inch. There was a stone object to her left, one of the old grindstones, she thought. She hit metal next and figured it was part of the mechanism. She moved around it with painstaking care.
And then, finally, she hit flesh.
Lara.
She’d found her at last. “Lara!” she said loudly. “Lara, Lara!”
The body stirred.
And then she heard her name.
“Meg! Meg, I knew you’d find me.”
Meg let out a cry of relief and blindly slid her arms around her friend. “Yes, yes, I’m here. We’re going to be okay.”
Yes, they were going to be okay.
As soon as she figured a way out of here.
*
Lara had almost no voice left at all. When she spoke, it was in a scratchy whisper. “I don’t know where we are. I was on my way home in DC and I called you. I was afraid because of that girl who’d been killed—her throat slit—I saw a van and I started to dial emergency. But I decided I was being ridiculous. Then I saw a car, a black sedan, and I thought that Walker had sent someone to see that I got home okay. And I walked over to the car and...” She paused for a moment, and the silence frightened Meg, but then she heard her friend draw another breath to continue. “Someone had been sent, all right. I didn’t even see his face before I realized he’d come for me. I ran. I ran but he threw himself on me and then...then I was out, and I woke up here.”
“So you don’t know who it was?” Meg asked with dismay. “Or does it matter? Is Walker’s whole household involved?”
“No, no, I don’t believe so. We were in his office late that night—the five of us—fighting about the platform and I said something about how convenient it was that Congressman Hubbard was dead. Ian appeared to be shocked, then everyone was shouting that it was horrible that I could’ve said such a thing. It occurred to me that we’d all been at a picnic with him to benefit a kids’ program the day he died. Maddie was worried about her husband, reminding him about his heart condition. He patted his suit pocket and said he always had his pills with him, he’d be fine. Meg, I’d started to wonder if someone that day had gotten hold of his pills and switched them with something else.”
Lara was shaking as she spoke, her words a hoarse whisper. She was burning up with fever, Meg thought. She had to get them out of here.
Lara seemed to read her mind. “I’ve been all around this place,” she said. “Over and over again. We’re deep in the ground somewhere. There’s no way out. There’s stone in the middle and earthen walls all around. It’s impossible.”
“We’re in the mill,” Meg told her, “the ruins of the old corn mill.”
“What old corn mill?”
“It’s in Gettysburg. We’re in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And I know exactly where we are. I wasn’t very far away, searching for you today. No farther than a football field.”
“Gettysburg...” Lara said. “I was in DC and now I’m in Gettysburg... How are we going to get out? We can’t scale the walls. Trust me, I tried. At the beginning, I had a lot more strength. I tried, Meg. I screamed, I yelled, I tested the walls. They’re just dirt, so you can’t crawl up them.”
“There are two of us now, Lara. We can get to that stone in the middle and one of us can climb on the other and—”
“Oh, Meg, I have no strength left! I can barely move.”
“I’ll lift you.”
“I don’t even know if I can stand up.” She struggled to sit, grabbing Meg for support. Meg held her, and Lara groaned. “I was going to ask if you had an aspirin. You don’t even have any clothes. Neither do I. No purse, no aspirin.”
“We’re getting out of here,” Meg said desperately. She got to her feet and pulled Lara to hers. “I can be the muscle for both of us.” She swore, supporting Lara as she staggered along. “Let’s make our way to the stone. It’s a container—a big stone container for the corn to go in... If you can get to the ledge and use the stone as leverage, I can crawl up.”
“Oh, Meg, I’ll try anything, but...I’m broken here.”
“You’re not broken, Lara. You’re a fighter! You’ve fought for the underdog all your life. Well, we’re the underdogs here. Fight! We have to fight!”