Secret Passage. Amanda Stevens

what I want you to do,” she told the still-excited child. She put a hand beneath his chin. “Listen carefully. I want you to go straight home and tell Mrs. Fowler I’ve gone up on the ridge looking for the twins. I’ll bring them home as soon as I find them. Understand?”

      The little boy swallowed. “Yes, ma’am, but Davy said I wasn’t to tell anybody but you. He said—”

      “Never mind what your brother said.” Camille lowered her voice to a stern, no-nonsense tone, the kind she’d once used to let Adam know she meant business. “You do as I tell you and maybe, just maybe, I can keep you boys out of trouble.”

      Camille turned him toward the front porch and gave him a swat on his behind. “Hurry, now. Tell Mrs. Fowler you’re both to stay put until you hear from me.”

      As the boy shot across the front porch, Camille whirled. Hurrying through the silent house, she grabbed first-aid supplies from the bathroom and stuffed them into a bag, along with a flashlight and her .45. Two minutes later, she was out the door.

      A path behind the cottage led into the woods, but the trail ended after a half mile or so and the terrain soon became rough and overgrown. Darkness was falling, too, but Camille didn’t turn on her flashlight. Batteries were hard to come by, and she’d learned to use them—and a lot of other things—sparingly. But in another few minutes, the last rays of the sunset would fade and the topography would become even more treacherous.

      At least she knew the area. Camille had made it a priority to familiarize herself with every square inch of the surrounding countryside. She’d found all the hiding places and the discreet trails across the ridge that led straight to the city. From one of those hidden vantages, she’d memorized the rotation of the guards, the weaknesses in the city’s defenses, and she knew better than anyone how easily a spy or saboteur—or even an assassin—could slip in and out undetected.

      Breathing heavily, she emerged into a clearing on the face of the ridge and immediately spotted one of the twins pacing in front of the old mine shaft. The entrance had been boarded up at one time, but some of the planks had been pried loose and the rest were broken. The fresh splintering of the wood suggested that someone had come in and out of the mine recently.

      Camille hurried over to the boy, noticing in the fading light the scar above his right eyebrow which told her this was the more docile twin, Donny.

      “Where’s Davy?” she asked anxiously.

      Donny nodded toward the mine. “In there.” He reached for a lantern hooked on a peg just outside the entrance. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

      “No, I’ll go in alone,” Camille said quickly. “You wait out here.”

      “But Davy said—”

      “I don’t give a damn what Davy said.” Camille knew her voice sounded harsh, but she didn’t care. She had to somehow make the boys realize how dangerous the mine was. She had to make sure they didn’t come back here. “Do you have any idea how foolish it was for you boys to come up here? Let alone dragging poor Billy along with you? It could be one of you lying dead in there.”

      She waved a hand toward the mine entrance. “This place has been abandoned for years. The supports are all rotting. What if there’d been a cave-in? What if you’d gotten trapped inside? No one would have known where to find you. You could have been buried alive and no one would have ever known what happened to you.”

      Donny’s eyes widened as he listened to her. Good, Camille thought. Maybe she was getting through to him. Maybe if she scared him enough, he’d keep his brothers away from this place.

      “Now—” she reached inside the bag for her flashlight “—I’m going in there to find your brother and then I want you both to go straight home and never come back here again. You understand me?”

      Donny gulped and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

      “Good.” She brushed past him to the entrance, pausing just inside to flick on the flashlight and shine the beam around the room.

      The evening was hot and muggy, but inside the mine the temperature was a good ten degrees cooler. Shivering in the gloom, Camille glanced over her shoulder. Donny watched her anxiously from the entrance. When he saw her looking at him, he jumped back.

      “Which way?” she asked.

      Tentatively, he stepped back up to the entrance. “See that tunnel over there? When it forks, go right. That’s where Davy is.”

      The series of tunnels had been dug horizontally into the hillside. The passage Camille took was narrow and, except for the beam of her flashlight, pitch-black. Thankful she wasn’t claustrophobic, she followed the metal rails that had once been used to transport loads of coal from the mine. As she approached the fork, she could hear water dripping somewhere nearby and the more ominous sound of the ancient log braces creaking beneath their weight.

      “Davy?”

      “In here,” came the soft reply.

      The opening lay to her right, and, as Camille ducked through, she gasped in shock.

      The dead man lay sprawled on the dirt floor, his face and clothing covered in blood and grime. The stench of unwashed flesh permeated the air, and Camille had to press her hand to her mouth to keep from gagging.

      Davy Clutter, evidently unperturbed by either the smell or the sight of all that blood, squatted on the ground beside the corpse. He’d hung a lantern nearby, and the flickering light cast wild shadows across the walls and gave the boy a strange, demonic appearance.

      He had a stick in one hand that he’d been using to draw pictures in the dirt while he waited for Camille. When he heard her gasp, he looked up, his eyes glowing eerily in the lamplight.

      “Davy? Are you okay?”

      “Yes, ma’am.” He rose to his feet. “But he’s not. Someone killed him.”

      “How do you know?”

      “His head’s bashed in.”

      “Maybe he fell and hit his head on a rock.” Camille’s gaze slid reluctantly back to the still form on the ground. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

      Davy poked the body with his stick. When there was no response, he shrugged and glanced up. “See?”

      Camille tried not to be disturbed by the boy’s cavalier attitude. In wartime, death was no stranger to anyone, even children. Davy was obviously handling the situation the best way he knew how. He’d convinced himself that the dead man was an enemy spy and therefore, unworthy of compassion.

      Summoning her own resolve, Camille decided she’d better check for a pulse, but as she moved toward the body, an avalanche of dirt and gravel rained down in the tunnel behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, then whirled back to Davy. “We’ve got to get you out of here. This place isn’t safe—”

      A low rumble from somewhere nearby caused them both to jump. For the first time, Camille saw fear flash across the boy’s features as he moved toward her. “What’s that?”

      “I think it’s a cave-in somewhere back in the mine.” Camille’s heart started to pound as she grabbed the boy’s hand. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

      Davy glanced down at the dead man. “What about him?”

      “We’ll have to leave him for now. There’s nothing we can do for him anyway. Come on. We have to hurry!”

      Camille propelled Davy to the opening and, once he’d scurried through, she started to follow. But a movement caught her eye, and slowly she turned back to the dead man.

      His eyes were open. They hadn’t been before.

      Camille put a hand to her mouth. He was alive!

      Another shower of dirt and rocks spewed into the tunnel, and Davy tugged on her hand. “Come on!”