NightShade Forensic FBI Files, page 42
Christina stuck her foot another length out and slowly added her weight. When she didn't fall, she let out the breath she was holding and then repeated the process. Twenty minutes later, she’d paced the entire remaining floor. She hadn’t crashed through—but she still had no idea where the trap door was. There was only one answer: Start over.
So she did.
Being up on the raised platform, she was visible from all directions. Taking a second pass would make it clear to anyone watching her that she knew what she was looking for, and the pink in her hair would make it possible for anyone looking to spot her easily. She scanned the area once more but found nothing obvious lurking in the tall grass. In fact, it seemed she was the only human soul for miles around. This time, she paced a grid.
On the third try, she found the line. She’d begun wiping her toe into the leaves and dirt as she went along, far more confident now of the structural integrity of the place. Tracing the line of ash and dirt that her toe revealed, she followed until it made a ninety-degree turn.
It had been rained on. The wind had blown leaves across. Branches had fallen and stayed, looking desolate. Christina kicked the debris out of the way, not sure if she was giving herself space to search or just feeling angry at nature for defiling what had been a warm home. As she’d suspected, the trap door was no easy find.
As her toe hit a bump, pride bloomed warm in her chest as she leaned down to push at the leaves and dirt. She had to see if she was standing on the trap door or next to it.
Slowly, she revealed the edges. And at last, she found a pull ring—a simple and old- fashioned device for something so well concealed—and dug it out of the perfectly constructed well it sat in.
Tugging hard, she stepped back as the trap door began to lift. Christina ducked her head, to see what she’d revealed, unsure what might be waiting underneath.
16
Noah had stalked slowly closer and closer to the woman who appeared to be levitating in the middle of the field. He'd recognized her instantly and pulled his phone. But his thumb only hovered over the button. After a moment of not pushing it, he made a conscious decision not to call his new SAC.
He considered mashing the button, just to prove he could do it. But she didn't see him and wasn't forcing him to do—or not do—anything. In fact, she didn't even seem to realize he was here. So he let his finger hover as he waited.
When she didn’t seem to spot him or his indecision, he crouched down and began heading her direction. He couldn’t get low enough to disappear into the grass while he moved. If he wanted to lay on his stomach and remain absolutely still, he might stay out of sight, but he needed to move closer. So all he could do was stay low and hope the blond of his hair didn't stand out too much against the gold of the wheat-like grass.
Interestingly enough, even when he was right next to her, she still didn’t seem to notice him.
He’d started his day by checking out the long, winding front drive to the big house. Westerfield had told him about the property. There were no known maps. At least, that’s what Westerfield had said. Noah thought there was something about his new SAC’s words that hinted he might be concealing something.
But he’d been told enough to understand that if he went out the back door of the big house and walked the property, he should run into other homes—or the remains of them. According to what the FBI knew, all the homes were burned-out shells or were shuttered when the family left. According to what they believed now, some of the de Gottardi/Little clan might have returned. So Noah had his eyes open for anything dangerous he might encounter.
He was still fighting to shake his memory of the evil selkie-beings and the mind-blowing craziness he’d encountered in the Caribbean. The worst of what he’d seen were water creatures, so he knew he should feel safe from them here in landlocked Arkansas—but the memory had him checking every creature and every human face for something more. Luckily, all he’d seen here were a few vultures and a handful of coyotes in the distance.
The property itself filled him with a reverent sense of awe. What this family had endured and what they were was pretty impressive. And the architecture… while unassuming, it was solidly crafted, with hand-carved pieces and the kind of detail that didn’t exist in modern works. He would have loved to have seen this place back in its better days.
As Noah got closer, he saw agent Pines seemed to have found something at her feet. He now realized that she was standing on the raised foundation of what had once been a house. Behind her, the tilted pile of brick came into view, and he recognized the remains of a chimney. It, too, must have weakened in the fire and shifted over time.
Once again, his thumb moved toward the button on his phone—and once again, he decided not to push it. Maybe he didn’t because Westerfield was the kind of man who would send one agent after another. The kind who wouldn’t tell his agents everything. Westerfield seemed like the kind of man who would operate solely on the need-to-know basis. Noah didn't like the feeling he got about the new boss.
After his encounter with Christina Pines, Noah was quite confident that he did not know all he needed to. He was growing more and more confident that his new SAC was most likely overbearing and possibly judgmental.
For a moment, he wondered if he'd even fully—legally?—agreed to this assignment. Probably he had, if only implicitly by accepting the ticket and the badge. Still, he didn't hit the button on the phone. Not yet.
When at last he was close enough, he switched the phone from his right hand to his left and flipped the strap on his holster, revealing the butt of his gun. He could only hope he was a quick enough draw if he needed to be.
Slowly, he stood up. When she still didn't seem to notice him from where she was crouched down to find something on the floor, he called out.
Christina Pines popped up lightning fast, the gun in her hand aimed directly at him. Though some of the immediate tension in her stance drained as she recognized him, she didn’t lower the weapon.
All of this indicated what he'd suspected—that she hadn't spotted him until now. He held up the phone as though she might see the screen from the distance. She likely couldn’t read it, but maybe she could see that he hadn’t yet called her in.
“Why didn’t you tell Westerfield you found me?” she demanded, still clutching her gun. At least she let the barrel drop a little toward his feet. Noah didn’t move.
He truly couldn't answer that question. There were so many reasons why he should and so many others why he shouldn't. The pros and cons had been weighted so closely, it had been hard to tell. In the end, the pros were just a little in her favor.
He still might push the button. His thumb was ready. So he only shrugged as she finally holstered the gun and walked easily to the edge of the foundation. She stood to her full height, towering over him by a good several feet, though when they’d met face to face, she’d clearly been shorter than him. She looked for a moment as though she was making her own decisions, and he waited her out.
“I found the trap door,” she said almost too casually. “You have two options. You can call agent Westerfield, tell him I’m here, and then do your best to bring me in and shut me down. Or you can help me figure out what’s going on at this compound.”
17
Christina hung by her fingertips from the edge of the trap door. Her feet dangled into the dark, but she trusted it. Well, she trusted the dark below her. The weathered and damaged floorboards she clung to, not so much.
At least, if the flooring gave way, she would only drop a few feet to the packed dirt floor below. The rope was still tied around her waist, only this time, Noah Kimball grasped the other end rather than the porch rail. She might have trusted the railing more on that one.
Their alliance was a bit uneasy, and she was quite confident that he had to know she still didn’t fully trust him. But he let the rope out a few feet and said, “Ready when you are.”
Letting go, she quickly hit the floor, not prepared for a ground she couldn’t see. Sharp pain radiated up from her ankles, even though the drop hadn’t been that far.
Damn, she thought, definitely getting older. But out loud she called up, “All good down here. You're next.”
With each move she made, Christina considered how Noah Kimball could screw her over. Right now, all he had to do was cut the rope and leave her here, which was exactly why she hadn't told him everything.
“Coming down,” his voice carried into the dark. She stood in the empty space with the only light coming from the open trap door above her. She had to wonder if anyone was watching from the corners.
A point in Noah’s favor had been that he'd left her with the rope.
Her erstwhile partner swung down, feet-first and not tied to anything. Stepping to the side, she watched as his form blocked out most of the light as he descended through the square above her.
With a softer thunk than she had made, he landed beside her.
“Okay,” he said, immediately pulling out his flashlight. “Now what?”
She put her hand over his, motioning silently for him not to turn the light on. Not yet.
They stood and waited. Christina listened hard. Noah mostly stared at Christina, seeming to wonder what the hell she wanted.
In the end, she admitted, “I don't hear anything.”
She began to untie the rope.
“I thought you wanted to be attached?” She could hear the frown in his voice. “There’s plenty of rope. You can move around.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand, as though she could roam her way around the entire downstairs of the house.
She ignored him and sniffed at the air. Her sense of smell was not as good as Donovan’s, but decent for a human. The space smelled of dirt. Not just any dirt, but a specific scent that hit her with a sense memory of the trap door opening in the main house and wolves pouring out of the underground and into the fight.
She shook the image away and tried to focus on what she could glean now. There was no hint of dust or disuse, but the smell was full of moisture with a hint of loam.
Still, the house had more than conveyed a feeling of abandonment that matched its looks. Down here? She didn’t know, but it didn’t seem quite as … desolate.
Following Noah’s sarcastic sweeping hand, she put her light on. Slowly, she flicked it toward all four corners, knowing what she was looking for. When nothing pricked at her ears, she was willing to move forward.
She hadn’t told Noah quite what they were in for and she wasn’t sure she would.
“Here we go.” She dragged the words out in time with her light catching on one of the corners and watched as Noah’s eyes widened.
The family could have put the tunnels dead center to the four walls, and though it would have made spatial sense, they hadn’t done that. Instead, they’d attached them at the corners, as if they'd known to hide the entry points in the shadows. The locations meant that a person like Noah, even standing in the middle of this room, wouldn't see the tunnel until someone shined a light directly on it.
“Holy shit…” There was a pause as he took it in. “Do you know where it goes?”
“No.” She decided she was going to have to spill some of the beans. “However, given the orientation of this house, we should be facing back toward the big house right now. That tunnel aims east, not quite the right direction at first glance, but I'm going to guess it'll ultimately connect back.”
If it was possible, Noah’s eyes grew even wider. “That’s more than a mile away.”
Now it was Christina's turn to be surprised. She thought that Noah's shock was due to seeing the tunnels in person. She’d known they were here, but that hadn’t been enough to prepare her for the sight of them. They were the marvels of construction she’d anticipated, carved out of earth and rock, with only the occasional wooden support. They never gave her the feeling that she was in danger from a collapse or faulty mechanics.
Managing to be almost perfectly symmetrical, the tunnels still fit relatively well into the natural underground landscape. Occasionally, the passages would curve around big boulders here and there, but mostly they kept the perfect shape. Now she realized Noah’s surprise was because he’d had no clue about the tunnels at all. “Westerfield didn't tell you?”
For the barest hint of a second, Noah’s eyes narrowed. She didn't need to hear the words to understand that not only had Westerfield not explained the tunnel system, but that Noah was irritated about the omission.
Good, she thought. It changed the way she was thinking. She certainly hadn't told Noah everything, and she wasn't going to. All she had to do was tell him more than Westerfield did to gain his trust. For a moment, she relaxed. But then she remembered his thumb could hit that phone button at any point and call Westerfield. The existence of the call would be enough to let their boss know that Noah had found her.
If Noah was physically close to her, and if he was fast enough, he could actually have her handcuffed in a matter of seconds. Since he seemed immune to seeing the walls set on fire, or believing the world turned to water beneath his feet, it was unlikely she could get him to uncuff her and set her free.
If he was as smart as he seemed to be, he would do the standard maneuver of twisting her wrists and pulling her hands back to back, making it impossible for her to get to her handcuff key.
Shit. She aimed the flashlight into the tunnel as she slowly slipped her hand into her front pocket and felt for the tiny, flat universal key.
“You go first,” Noah said.
Double shit. That made it harder to do this without his noticing.
Flashing him a smile, she stuffed the key into her back pocket, taking a bet that he would cuff her hands behind her, rather than in front.
Then she headed into the pitch-black tunnel with only her light and an agent that she didn’t quite trust.
18
The walk was long, fascinating, and slightly terrifying to Noah.
The two of them kept a slow pace, even though Christina seemed to know where she was going and the tunnels were more than tall enough for an upright man.
He wondered why the ceilings hadn't been built lower, for wolves.
At first, the two of them had moved slowly, taking cautious steps. Though Christina seemed only to be paying attention to the space up ahead, Noah was as concerned about the ground at his feet. What was he stepping on? Snakes? Mud? Traps? It fed into all his worst fears.
With all the fracking in this portion of the United States, the area had been having more frequent earthquakes. What if one hit while the two of them were down here ? Even a small tremor could bring the walls down.
What if someone came in from either end of the tunnel and trapped them? He reminded himself that he didn't recall seeing anyone on the property. That helped, as did the fact that he’d made Christina go first. Occasionally, he touched the walls to check for stability.
They were maybe about three city blocks in, when he realized he’d already answered one of his own questions. “There are no cracks in the walls.”
“No,” Christina replied, almost as though it was her own point of pride.
“Are there no earthquakes here?”
“They get plenty,” she said again, with the same note in her voice.
“Then either these are so well engineered that the earthquakes don't affect them or else they patch them regularly.” He caught himself before he said the second part. “Which would mean they're still here and still patching them.”
“It's the first.” Her answer was as confident as the steps she took. Her flashlight only created a ball of white light directly in front of them, just far enough to see that the tunnel kept going. It was certainly not bright enough to show them the end.
They went a little farther before either of them spoke again. And, as per what was the new usual, it was him starting the conversation. He asked what he’d been thinking earlier. “Why aren't the tunnels lower? Wolves could walk through that easily… much smaller space, less engineering…”
Christina's stopped now and turned around to look at him. Her eyebrows pulled together. “Westerfield didn't tell you?”
This was the second time she’d said it, and Noah felt his irritation rise. It was bad enough that his new SAC hadn't told him, but worse that she kept pointing it out. “No, I guess not. What else do I need to know?”
He knew his irritation was sharp—too sharp—and that it probably shouldn't be aimed at her. In fact, he’d put his phone in his pocket and stopped hovering his finger over the button quite some time ago.
“They aren’t all wolves,” she told him.
Noah felt his brain start to churn. It was an effort to focus as she continued.
“They have non-wolves living here. Well, their specific … mutation isn’t … it’s genetically passed?” She ended with a question in her tone.
Would that produce this many wolves? This big a family? … the ones he’d seen in the Caribbean? “A mutation?”
“Maybe just recessive inheritance.” As she spoke, he could see her dial back, her expression saying No, that doesn't seem right. “Maybe dominant. Because more of them have it than not. Apologies, my partner Dana was the biologist. I'm not quite sure how to explain it.”
Noah didn’t miss the verb tense she used for her partner. “She’s not your partner anymore?”
“She died.” Christina offered the statement with the rough terminology. She could have used the more peaceful term “passed.” And her choice made Noah certain that the passing had not been pleasant. He waited.
“She was murdered during a case.”
Good God. He hadn’t dealt with that before and hoped he never did. He offered the best he had. “I'm sorry.”
“Thank you. I've been solo ever since.”
He nodded along. He’d thought he understood where she was coming from, but he hadn’t. This chase of Dr. Murray Marks was some kind of vendetta for her. The pieces weren’t hard to put together. SAC Westerfield wanted Marks in custody. So why wouldn’t he just let Pines bring the man in?
