And then they turned to Abby.
She shrugged. “I haven’t been able to reach my colleagues yet,” she told them. That was true in a way. Malachi wasn’t answering.
To escape them all, she returned to the apartment to make her next phone call. Still no answer when she tried Malachi.
So she called Jackson next. “Don’t worry. I talked to him. He’s searching the tunnel by the Wulf and Whistle again. Seems he met up with a Union soldier while walking, a man who had worked with the Underground Railroad. The tunnels go all over, according to the soldier. I’m standing at the entrance to the river as we speak, watching from this end, waiting.”
Watching and waiting. Of course. She hesitated. “Someone’s here, in the Dragonslayer? A cop in plainclothes?”
“You have the cop of all cops on the way over to spell him. David Caswell is coming. For dinner, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Abby said. “Thank you, Jackson. If you hear from Malachi—”
“I’ll get in touch right away, Abby. We keep close tabs on one another. It’s what keeps us all alive.”
“I know,” she said softly.
She left the apartment and came downstairs, to discover that David Caswell had arrived—and Bootsie and Dirk Johansen were back. The Black Swan had finished her afternoon sail.
David was by the bar, being grilled. Dirk looked as if he were in despair. He turned to Abby, his eyes filled with sorrow. “They think it’s Aldous!” he said.
“I’m so sorry, Dirk,” she murmured.
Dirk shook his head. “I know Aldous. He’s one of the best men out there. I refuse to believe the worst of him. He never had to join the military because his family was always rich. He did his stint, anyway. He could’ve sat back on his ass his whole life, but he gave money to charitable projects and worked on them, too. I won’t believe he’s a killer.”
“We would have known,” Bootsie insisted. “You’re wrong, young man,” he told David Caswell.
“I’m afraid we have physical evidence against him,” David said. “But this is America. Every man is innocent until proven guilty.” He looked at Abby and inclined his head. She thought he’d been called by Jackson Crow, therefore knew where Malachi had gone—and what she was about to do.
“Well, we’ll see.” Abby shrugged. “I guess I’ll take a stroll through and talk to a few of the guests.”
She did. Most of the diners were tourists, and they were intrigued by the case going on in Savannah.
They were relieved the police had a suspect.
She made her way into the second dining room and over to the image of Blue. He stared at her with unseeing eyes.
But he was there somewhere, she knew. Watching.
That thought made her smile.
She pretended to adjust the image of Blue and then stepped inside the little fence that surrounded the grate.
She slipped down into the tunnel without a backward glance.
Malachi came to the fork in the tunnel; he knew that one path led to the Dragonslayer and then to the river.
He hadn’t thought much about the other, because it didn’t lead to the river.
Or, he realized, it didn’t appear to lead to the river. He moved in the other direction, his light bouncing over the walls.
He came to a heap on the floor and paused, ducking down to look.
Bones.
Bones caught in fragments of cloth, with the remnants of feet in ancient boots.
This was no new murder victim. He couldn’t really tell what he was seeing, the remains had been there for so long. They’d almost returned to ashes and dust, as the saying went. But the fact that they were here was interesting; this was clearly a pathway someone had used at some time. There was little he could tell from the stained bits of fabric and crumbling bone, but he had a feeling this dead man had been here at least two hundred years. Had he been abandoned where he lay as a warning to others?
He tried to imagine the days of the Civil War lieutenant and the slaves who would have been led through the tunnels to escape. Perhaps, at that time, these bones had been left so that if the tunnel was discovered, it wouldn’t be considered an escape route, and those who tried to use it would face the law—or worse.
He straightened and kept walking.
His light revealed something else ahead of him, something white, like a woman’s gown, an elegant nightgown. He hurried toward it.
Then, a grunt of astonishment burst through his lips. He took a step—but there was no ground. He crashed down into a deep hole. His body slammed hard on the earth and rock below.
Abby slowly walked the tunnel to the river; she saw nothing. It didn’t seem anyone had been down recently. But of course they’d kept the grate locked with a new combination lock since last week. She, Malachi and Jackson Crow were the only people who knew the combination to the new lock.
But she’d learned that the tunnel from the Wulf and Whistle connected to this one. There’d been a guard on at the Wulf and Whistle, though. No one could have used these tunnels since the situation was discovered—not without being seen. And if she looked at it the way the police and Malachi and Jackson’s Krewe were looking at it, all the suspects were currently accounted for. Aldous was at the station; the others were in the Dragonslayer.
It took her a few minutes to work the catch on the false or pocket door that led from tunnel to tunnel. She wished she’d paid more attention when Malachi had opened it. But, eventually, she heard the catch give and then the pocket door gave, as well.
She moved farther, running her light carefully over the walls. First, she retraced the steps they’d taken when she came down with Malachi.
When she reached the junction, where the second tunnel branched off, she hesitated, casting her light to either side. She saw nothing. Then she heard a cry. Ragged, throaty.
“Help...help.”
The sound was weak, but it seemed to ricochet off the tunnel walls.
“Malachi?” she called.
No response.
She instantly took out her phone to call for help. Of course, there was no signal. She was so angry she nearly threw the phone against the wall but refrained, sliding it back into her pocket. “I’m here!” she shouted. “Where are you?”
Still no response. She was sure the sound hadn’t come from behind her, so she started forward, into the second tunnel, calling out, “Malachi!”
“Abby, stop!” she heard him call back, but it wasn’t with the same voice she’d heard before.
“Where are you?” she cried.
“Don’t move any farther. I’m in some floor trap in the tunnel.”
“I’ll get you out,” she said, moving carefully, step by step.
“It’s a trap in the floor. I walked right into it,” he said with disgust. “There aren’t any holds here, anywhere. Get help. Go get Jackson. I’m okay.”
His voice had become clearer, louder. She must be almost on top of him. She fell to her knees and crawled ahead, carefully covering the distance, feeling the ground as she did so. She’d just about reached him when she heard something behind her.
It wasn’t a tap, tap, tap...
It was a thump, thump, thump.
“Abby!” she heard Malachi yell.
She started to turn, started to reach for her Glock.
That was when the object slammed into her head, and only then did it register exactly what the sound
