Daegan held his breath, hoping this resulted in something useful.
“Luigsech ... shoved her sword into her backpack? That can’t be right. She ... okay, I see. She has some kind of sheath inside her backpack. She pulled the sword out, thanked it for some reason, then put it back in the sheath.”
Reese blew out a lungful of air as if just tracking Luigsech’s movements tired her. “Well, hell. That’s how she opened the trapdoor from inside the cottage.”
Daegan had never possessed the measure of patience he had before this moment when he waited as Reese muttered a few more things, but no intelligent sentences.
He started to call Quinn in when his Maistir walked up, standing next to him as he studied Reese.
All at once, she shook her head and came awake or whatever happened when she had seen all she could. Her gaze touched on Quinn, but she addressed Daegan.
“Everything started moving fast so I just sat back and watched to be sure I didn’t miss anything. I found how she gets out of here.”
Daegan squatted. “What did she do?”
“I’ll show you.” Reese got up and stepped to the opposite side of the bed where it was closer to the outside wall. “Both of you move back.”
Once Daegan and Quinn were out of the way, Reese leaned over and shoved the bed before anyone could help her. She grinned when the wood floor beneath the bed moved with the frame, exposing a three-foot-square trapdoor.
Daegan came around and lifted the trapdoor. Luigsech’s scent rose from the hole. He froze, confused by how her scent had him inhaling to pull in more. She must have cleaned up. Her distinctive smell came wrapped in lilac this time.
Ruadh normally remained quiet, but alert, with no threat nearby. His dragon stirred suddenly and made a soft rumble.
What the hell was that about?
Daegan closed the lid and pushed the bed back into place, preventing Luigsech from realizing he’d found her escape point.
He straightened. “That was how she escaped so quickly last night and must have left with only her sword. From what Reese saw at the ancestral research centre, it sounds as if Luigsech returned to the cottage for her backpack with a compartment for her sword.”
“That’s not the only thing she left,” Quinn added. He lifted a mobile phone into view, turning it to show the backside covered in bright flowers.
Daegan crossed the room to where Quinn stood in the doorway. “Where did ya discover that?”
“I almost didn’t see it until I moved her sofa.”
“Ah!” Reese snapped her fingers. “That must have been what she was hunting for in the other room.”
Hope filled Daegan’s chest at the single discovery. “Tristan tells me we have people who can gain information from those phones. What about this one?”
Quinn tapped on the buttons more than once. He lifted a disappointed look to Daegan. “I'm not skilled at retrieving information from a mobile phone, but we have Beladors in Atlanta who are exceptional techies.”
Raking a wad of hair off her face, Reese said, “Here’s what else I saw just now. Your woman escaped through that tunnel and ran for a long stretch. I can’t always tell distances when I do remote viewing, but it seemed like it was not terribly far from the cottage.”
“Dammit. She’s in the wind again,” Quinn groaned.
“Not exactly,” Reese countered. “When she got out of the tunnel—”
“What did the exit point of the tunnel look like?” Daegan asked, interrupting her.
“Another trapdoor. It was that place I told you about next to a boulder. When I saw the spot this time as she emerged from the tunnel, the boulder hid her from easy view unless someone was standing really close to it in the woods. After she closed the lid, she moved weeds and grass to camouflage it really well. You could walk over that trapdoor and never see anything out of place.”
“Quite an operation.” Quinn sounded impressed.
Reese agreed, “She’s pretty slick with her escape routes. Both of them required her to walk hunched over through long tunnels. You two would have a tough time getting through quickly. This last time, she took off into the woods and eventually the ground turned downhill for a short distance to a riverbank. She stopped about fifteen feet short of the water to pull weeds and branches off of something like a jon boat.”
“What is this boat?” Daegan asked Quinn.
“They are flat-bottom boats of different sizes, but most are around eight to twelve feet long and intended for two people out fishing.”
“Right,” Reese said, moving on. “Luigsech climbed in and headed down river, paddling with the current. Again, I can tell some distances when I have a reference like how far the boat was from the water, but I don’t know how far she went downstream. She turned at one point, paddling to a bank on the opposite side where she got out and dragged the boat up an incline and then hid it in the weeds again.”
“Was someone waiting for her?” Quinn asked.
“No. She climbed the bank and took a freaking convoluted route through the woods. That’s why I sat back and just watched. She went through a cave, then she turned by two trees that had fallen in an X pattern. After that, she went underground a short distance. That woman is half mole.”
How could Daegan follow that path?
He could not risk his dragon until after dark and that would only be if he knew for sure no one was around. He asked, “Can ya be more specific on the route Luigsech took through the woods?”
Reese puffed her cheeks and blew out air, staring at the wall with a thoughtful look. “Well, it’s
