Mrs. Ramos continued down the hall. Halfway to the end, she paused in front of a blank wall. Like the rest of the walls of this house, it was embellished with elegant carved garlands and swags and other details of the Federalist period. She pushed one of the rosettes and a flush door swung open to reveal a staircase.
“Does Dix Lunsford know about this door?” Dwight asked.
“I should think so,” she said, “but I really don’t know.
We haven’t needed to store things up there yet with so many empty rooms available down here.”
Cold dead air met them as they climbed, and soon they 28 were up in a cavernous space that appeared to be completely empty. There were no electric lights up here but their pocket flashes showed nothing of interest. Nothing to hide behind, no dormer alcoves to crouch in, only a low hip roof that almost touched their heads when they stood.
They spread out over the house then, from the basement back to the third floor and down again, opening every door into every room, closet, or cupboard.
When Lewes tried to suggest that Deborah might have left for a perfectly logical reason, Dwight cut him off in midsentence. “Without her coat? Without her phone and purse? If she’s not here, then someone took her. There’s no sign of a struggle, no—oh
“What?” said Radcliff.
“Bandit!”
“Huh?”
“Cal’s dog. Maybe he can find her.”
He hurried out to the truck and returned moments later with the little terrier trotting along in front of him.
Once inside, Dwight turned toward the office to let Bandit sniff Deborah’s coat, but the dog immediately strained for the stairs, whining with excitement. Dwight let the leash out to its full sixteen feet and ran to keep up with him, the others following.
With absolutely no hesitation, Bandit rounded the landing and headed up to the third floor. He scratched at the door of the Rose Room and Dwight felt a moment of despair. He himself had already searched this room thoroughly. Nevertheless, he opened the door before Bandit could take all the paint off the bottom, and the dog bounded through and over to the closet where he repeated his anxious scratching, the stub of his small tail wagging like a flag on the Fourth of July.
Once that door was opened, he threw himself against the far closet wall, barking and whining and looking back as if to beg Dwight to open yet another door.
With the help of Lewes’s penlight, Dwight soon found the inconspicuous latch that looked almost like just another clothes hook. When he pulled on it, a low door opened outward.
There was only darkness beyond, but Bandit charged in, yipping happily. Dwight stooped to follow.
As he flashed the light around the small room with its vivid wall paintings, he first saw Deborah sprawled on the floor almost at his feet. Beyond, a woman was huddled in the corner. Her short dark hair swirled wildly around her face as she squinted from the sudden light and tried to push the dog away.
“Bloodhounds!” she shrieked. “No! You can’t take him!”
In her arms was the limp body of his son.
C H A P T E R
31
When I came to, I could not at first remember where I was nor how I had come to be in this shadowy space full of loud male voices while a woman’s shrieks faded away in the distance.
“Don’t get up,” someone said as I attempted to push myself into a sitting position. I felt a hand on my shoulder, holding me down. “There’s an ambulance coming.”
“Dwight?”
“I’m here, shug. Lie still.”
My head hurt like hell, and when I touched it, I felt a knob the size of Grandfather Mountain. “Cal!” I said, as memory returned.
Gingerly, I turned my head and pain shot through every nerve. Dwight was sitting on the floor beside me with Cal cradled in one arm while his other hand cupped my face. Bandit was curled up between us with his head resting soulfully on Cal’s leg.
“Is he—? He’s not—?”
“He’s been drugged. We found a bottle of cough syrup. That’s what Pam took from the medicine cabinet Friday night. She must have given it to him to keep him quiet.”
“Was that her screaming?”
“Yeah. They’re taking her to the hospital. She thought we were slave-catchers.”
“Slave-catchers?”
“Yeah. Know what this room is?”
I tried to shake my head and flinched with the pain.
