Page 10

“True enough, but there’s more. Here.”

Kate stepped up close again. He could feel her trepidation. Again, he appreciated her bravery as she gripped his forearm and eased around to peer into the darkness beyond him.

“It leads back here to a tunnel.” He shone the light into the space.

“A tunnel?” She squeaked and then coughed. “Oh no, not a tunnel under my inn.” She was shaking her head. “That sounds unsafe and dangerous. And what about critters and who knows what else?”

Rory nodded. “All that.” But he raised his eyebrow at her. “Don’t you want to know where it goes?”

“Do you?”

Rory nodded. “I only traveled it a little way, in the dark by myself, and I never told anyone. I’ve spent years wondering where it leads.”

“But why a tunnel?” she said with a wail. “We’re in the wrong part of the U.S. for it to have been part of the underground railroad.”

“True, although uncovering a tunnel used for rescuing enslaved people would have been cool. You want to come with me and see where it takes us?”

He watched her face in the dimness, so expressive. It went from horror at the thought, to fear, to distrust, to a flash of excited anticipation. She bit her lip and nodded. “I do. I really do want to know. But is it safe?”

Rory shrugged.

“Don’t you know?” Her voice rose in consternation.

It was a question he wasn’t sure how to answer. He did know, but not in any rational, scientific way. He just knew what it had once been, because he had been back in time to see it in action. But was it safe? Now, two hundred and fifty years later? Good question.

Everything in him was saying yes. Yes, it was safe. He had learned to trust his intuition, because if he’d learned anything growing up in Hazard, it was that the most hazardous part of Hazard was how the wrong kind of people treated you.

Hazard itself, well, that had never scared him. He shook his head at the realization.

“So, it’s not safe?”

“Well, I’m going to find out, unless you stop me.”

Kate pursed her lips as if weighing the pros and cons. She gave a brusque nod. “Okay, but I’m not going into that cavern in shorts and a tee. Give me a minute.”

Kate dashed back up the stairs. He could hear her steps thumping on up to the second and third floors.

He waited, fidgeting and wandering the basement.

It took a while, and he started to wonder if she had chickened out.

He was about to head up to find out, then almost laughed when she reappeared outfitted in a pair of jeans that truly turned those long legs into a work of art.

She wore a lightweight, long-sleeved shirt, and her hair was wound up in some kind of turban.

She also had on work gloves. She tossed a similar, though larger, pair at him.

“Just in case,” she said.

“Thanks.” Rory shoved them in his back pocket. Reaching out, he took her hand. He tugged, and she followed him around the wall. It was spider webby. She probably had the right idea, covering her hair, but whatever, he was ready to do this.

He scoped out the space with his flashlight and eased in, ducking. He had found this space as a teen, but he’d been shorter then. Cavernous and mysterious and dark then, now it struck him as cramped and stuffy.

Kate was plastered against his back as they inched their way inside.

She gave the occasional squeal when a cobweb brushed her face, but Rory took the brunt of it.

He slid on the gloves she’d given him to push the webs out of the way.

About five feet in, the narrow tunnel opened up into a room.

He hadn’t made it this far as a teen blundering about in the dark.

His flashlight illumined the space, revealing an antique writing desk.

Seeing the piece of furniture, Kate apparently lost her fear, because she was all over it.

Brushing decades of dust and grime off the desk, she began opening it up, sliding open drawers and running her hands over it in awe.

“This is beautiful, and in remarkably good condition for being down here. We should bring it back up with us.”

Rory gave an absentminded nod. The desk was not what interested him.

Had everything that had happened to him as a teen been in his imagination?

He closed his eyes and listened. No, the voices were still there, whispering softly in the background at the edge of his consciousness.

Did Kate sense them? He opened his eyes and studied her, still marveling over the desk.

Impatient, he asked her, “Do you hear that?”

Kate froze and listened. “I don’t know. Critters scurrying?”

Rory shook his head. Great, so it was just him.

Whispers.

Of the wind.

He shrugged. “Come on.” He motioned a come-with-me at Kate even as he sensed her reluctance to leave the desk.

He knew she would rather take it upstairs immediately, but Rory didn’t want to miss this chance to explore.

If they stopped now, there really was nothing from keeping Kate from closing up this space forever.

Maybe the possibility of more furniture would pull her along.

They moved in silence out of the room and along a slightly wider stone corridor, not speaking—Rory, because he was listening intently, and Kate, likely because she was overwhelmed that all this connected to her inn.

They traveled what must have been two hundred yards when they came upon another room, this one with stairs leading up.

“Where do those go?”

Rory thought and nodded. “I think we’re under Camellia Lane, the street behind your inn. That must go up into one of the houses.”

“Do you think the owners know?

“Possibly.” Rory gingerly walked up the stone steps and tried the door.

“Shouldn’t we knock?”

Rory glanced at Kate who was biting her lip. “You’re kidding, right? How scary would that be? Somebody knocking at your basement hide out.”

“Hey, you tried the door. How scary would it be if we just popped in?”

“Good point.” Rory nodded.

“Okay, so we should map the distance going back, and approach the owner of the house later. “If they don’t know this is here, they should.” Kate rubbed her arms in the chill air of the tunnel.

“Agreed.” They moved together as the corridor wound to the right. The further they moved through it, the cleaner the tunnel became.

“Someone maintains this.”

“Do you think they know it leads to my inn?”

Rory stopped and frowned, considering the distance they’d traveled and the camouflaged entrance to the inn’s basement.

Not to mention that the desk had been undisturbed for who knows how long.

“Not necessarily.” Suddenly, he knew where they were.

And it was too much. Because he’d been trapped for endless hours in the inn, and if he had known, he could have gotten out. He could have been home .

“What? You look angry.”

“Not at you.”

“Then?”

“At myself. I know where we are. I can sense it. It’s here.” He tugged her along and pushed on a wooden slat. On a long screech, it swung wide.

Kate peered up at him. “A wine cellar? With uh, wine, lots and lots of wine.”

“Yeah, Seymour’s wine.”

“Wait we’re under…”

“Agate Point.”

“That’s impossible, the inn’s at least three miles from the coast.”

“By roads it is. But as the bug crawls, no, it’s not far at all. Because Camellia hooks into Oceanside Drive, which meets up with Cliffside Drive. And Agate Point sits at the very end where the two streets connect.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. Granddad has a lot of explaining to do.”

Wind swirled up and around them, with a hint of sea mist to it, and it all began to make sense to Rory. What he knew to be true from the voices he’d heard. And didn’t that just make him sound crazy.

Before he could dwell on that, he spoke with certainty.

“This tunnel leads to the sea. Franklin Worthy, the original owner of your inn, was a smuggler of the first order, smuggling weapons and supplies for the rebels right under the nose of the occupying British. An American hero. Your inn was instrumental in the fight for American Independence.”

Kate met his gaze, and he felt her quick intake of breath. “So this tunnel…”

“…is the best kept secret in Hazard.”