Read Deadly Little Lies Online
Authors: Jeanne Adams
Deadly Little Lies (17 page)
“You got that right.” Together they left the plane, checked the hangar and all the remaining vehicles. Nothing seemed out of place. The extra weapons were in their usual hiding places. Niko selected several, plus ammunition, and made sure that both he and Sam had reloads and grenades. If there were something wrong at the site, they needed to go in blazing.
Or slip away to fight another day.
“Let's go,” he said, having checked the Jeep one last time from ignition wires to undercarriage. “We're behind. We need to get halfway there before dark. We'll make camp and come in at sunrise. If something's wrong, better to see it from a distance and in daylight.”
“Right,” Sam agreed as he cranked the car and wheeled out of the hangar, fast and efficient from start to finish. A man of few words, that was the last he spoke until they reached the halfway point.
That was fine with Niko. He had too much to think about and no answers to ease his mind.
Chapter 10
It was midday and the buzz of flies and worse added an annoying accompaniment to their labors. They'd already snapped at one another twice or three times. The growing heat and the omnipresent smell of death wore on the nerves like nothing Carrie had ever experienced.
She ran a ragged, scraped finger over yet another cloud whorl in the stone, feeling despair creeping into her heart.
“Shit!” Dav cursed in English, then let fly with a string of curses in Greek, Italian and what sounded like French. She spun around, to see him shaking his hand, then pressing on his fingers.
“Dav?”
“Set my fingers in a gap in the stone, then moved wrong and caught them there.”
“Ouch,” she empathized, then jumped as a raucous screech sounded above them. The body shifted violently and the machine gun swung wildly on its strap, spinning around as buzzards or vultures came to rest on the dead man.
“Oh, my God,” Dav said, his voice echoing the revulsion she felt. Turning back to the wall, she continued to run her fingers along the carving. She had to focus. She had to find the key so she could get away from the wet tearing sounds, the squabbling squawks and shrieks as more birds came to rest above them.
“Keep looking, Dav,” she said sharply, knowing that she was going to go mad, or throw up or something if they didn't get a break soon. She bent down to peer into a deep crevice of a whorl and saw something. “Dav, do you have my all-purpose tool?”
“Yes,” he said, but she didn't look at him or at anything but the deep hole in front of her. She couldn't bear it. She wanted to throw her hands over her ears and howl. It was awful.
Instead, she held out her hand. Dav set the tool in it and went back to his side of where they thought the door might be. She opened the longest blade and used it to probe down in the curl of the stone design. She pressed inward, and wiggled the blade. Why was there a hole here, in this design, in this place?
There was the faintest movement. The barest shift in the stone. She'd felt it in her hand, hadn't she?
There! A quiver of movement. Faint and nearly imperceptible.
Had she imagined it? She stuck the blade farther in, pressed harder.
“Carrie?” Dav's breathless use of her name made her look his way. He'd stepped back from the wall. In front of him was the faintest lip of stone, the minutest shift making a vertical line on the wall.
“Dav!” she squealed, “it worked!”
“Whatever you did, keep doing it,” he said, striding to her side.
“I put the blade in here, and pushed,” she explained, doing it again. Another whisper of sound and movement and the pivot of the door became more obvious. Instead of a typical hinge, it was shifting in the middle, like an upright paddle, spinning on a central pin.
“What if I push here?” he asked, pointing at the back edge of the shifting panel. “Do you think that would work?”
“Can't hurt. Let's do it at the same time,” she said, excited enough to grin at him. “Oh, my God, I never thought this could work. It still might not, butâ” She stopped, not sure what to say.
“But it might,” he said, returning the grin. His white teeth made a startling counterpoint to his warm skin tone and dark, beard-roughened face. “I would love to not be here when my unlamented brother comes to check on us.”
Her heart clenched. “You think he's coming?”
“Oh, yes. He was planning to comeâthey indicated as much when they put us down here. They were waiting for him.”
“Then who killed them?” she asked, totally puzzled.
He shook his head. “Who knows? This areaâCentral America or Mexicoâis rife with rival gangs and drug lords in certain parts of it. Much of it is only recently settled into democracy, or semiregular government. There's plenty of greed, graft, corruption and general lawlessness in a lot of the countries. Some are better than others. Let's hope we're in one of those.”
He braced his feet, putting his hands firmly on the shifting wall panel. “Ready?”
“Let's do it,” she agreed. “On three.” She counted it off and pressed in on the blade as he shoved at the panel.
“It moved,” he exulted. “Really moved, look.” Five inches of the wall panel had shifted outward on the outer edge and inward where Dav had pushed at it. “Let me get the flashlight.”
He skirted around the edge of the room to their belongings, taking up the flashlight. She saw him wipe it off on the edge of his coat before he came back to where she stood, studying the wall.
They moved together to the open side, and Dav turned on the Maglite flashlight, pointing its powerful beam down the dark corridor.
“Ugh.” Dav was the first to comment. The view was dusty, dark and cobwebby. At least she hoped the stringy things hanging in the space were cobwebs. Old ones. Unused ones.
“It reminds me of that movie,” she whispered. “
The Lord of the Rings,
where Frodo goes into the spider's place.”
The Lord of the Rings,
where Frodo goes into the spider's place.”
“Shelob.” Dav's voice was terse, sharp.
She looked at him, surprised. Lines of strain were carved into his forehead. She remembered his confession about the locked room, the insects and rats. His fear of the inhabited dark.
Carrie rested a gentle hand on his arm. His elegant shirt, now tattered and dirty, was wet with sweat, but the fine material was still smooth under her fingers.
“Dav.” She waited until he looked at her. “We'll do it together.”
He looked away, staring into the dark passage for a long time. Finally he nodded. “Thank God you're here.”
It was all he said before handing her the flashlight and taking up his position on the back side of the stone again, bracing his feet and shoving with all his might. The door pivoted another six inches.
“Let me brush off the floor here,” Carrie said, stuffing the flashlight in the back of her pants, like a gangster would stow a gun. Like Dav, she skirted the edge of the room to get to their belongings. She riffled through them until she found the rough sack their food had been lowered in. Hurrying back, she dropped to her knees to use the sack like a broom or dust mop, brushing at the crackling dirt, moving it from the path of the heavy stone. At least three inches of soil had come up where they'd shoved the stone around, so she used the pliers on the all-purpose tool to dig at the packed earth, jabbing it up and scraping it away.
Once he saw what she was doing, Dav retrieved her purse. “Do you have anything else in here that's strong enough to dig with? I could break one of the bottles, but I'd rather not do that yet.”
“I have no idea,” she said, squatting on her haunches. “Maybe.” Rummaging inside, she pulled out her makeup kit, then set it aside. Nothing in there would help. “Credit card?”
“That would work, but it's small. What else?”
She laid out a bottle of nail polish, her wallet, a small comb, a case that held her business cards, an empty cell phone case, and her iPod. “Wonder why they left me my tunes,” she said, baffled.
His gaze sharpened on the item. “That's weird. At least you can put the tunes on, block out the noise while we work,” he offered.
“Good idea,” she said, “but no. If you have to listen to it, I do too.” She surveyed the pile on the floor in front of her. “I may have some matches in one of the zipper pockets.”
“Really?” That seemed to excite him. “Those might be useful. Could you see?”
“Sure.”
“Meanwhile, I think I will destroy your card case,” he said with whimsical humor. “It seems to be the only metal thing here that might be large enough.”
He opened the silver case and slid her cards free, tidily tucking them in an inside pocket on her purse. She had opened the zippered part, and he neatly zipped it closed. When she looked at him, he smiled. “You never know, we may need the paper.”
Shaking her head, she laughed. “Save everything, right?”
“Right.” He was watching her intently, that smile still playing about his firm lips. She saw the change in his eyes, saw the moment he saw her again, as a woman. As Carrie. It was thrilling to see the intensity rise in his features, heat his gaze. With sudden passion, he leaned in, kissed her deeply. “Carrie,” he began, but she stopped him, pressing a dusty hand to his cheek.
“Shhhh. Don't say anything you'll regret, Dav.”
He shook his head, began to speak. “No,” she stopped him again, laying a dusty, gritty finger on his lips. “There's time enough to say whatever you need to say when we're out of here. Deal?”
With another quicksilver turn of emotion, he smiled again. “Deal. Remember,” he said as he turned back to his work. “I am very good at deals.”
Laughing, she unzipped the innermost pocket and hit paydirt. “Hey, I was right!” she said, pulling out not one, but two books of matches.
“So,” he said, using the unfolded card case to chip away at the cement-hard dirt. “You collect matches?”
“No, but sometimes, if I like a restaurant, I'll pick them up so I can remember the name of it, have the number.”
“Ah,” was his only comment.
She went back to poking into the dirt with her all-purpose tool. “What does that mean?” she asked, copying his inflection and tone, “ah?”
“Nothing, just a response to your explanation.”
“Uh-huh.”
They worked hard for over an hour, dripping sweat from the humidity and their exertions, to loosen the debris blocking the door. Using their hands, they scooped it aside.
“Ready to try again?” he asked, rising and holding his hand out to help her do the same.
“Yep. Let's. Then we should eat again. Are we going to try to go through this afternoon?”
For the first time in hours, Dav looked toward the grate. Carrie resolutely kept her eyes on the wall. She didn't want to see the vulture's handiwork. As it was, she saw Dav's face change, his eyes go hard and distant.
“It's getting pretty late. I think we worked past noon. I'd guess it's around two or three. Yes?”
She sighed and dug her watch out of her pocket. The strap had broken so she'd stowed it away. She knew he was dreading the tunnel or cave or whatever it was. She was too, but if there was any chance it led out, she was willing to risk it.
“It's three fifteen, California time.” She hesitated, then added, “I think we should go for it.”
“Go for it?” Dav said, trying to slow the beating of his heart, trying to face the prospect of the endlessly dark tunnel and the potential for freedom that it offered. “Yes. I believe we must.”
“Okay. I'll get our stuff.”
Dav stayed where he was, gathering his courage just as she was gathering their things. He knew it was weak, but if he was to get through this, whatever
this
was, he was going to need every ounce of energy and fortitude he could muster.
this
was, he was going to need every ounce of energy and fortitude he could muster.
“Ready?”
“No, but if we wait for that, we'll be a hundred years dead, to borrow your phrase from the other day.”
She smiled and held out a hand. He took it and stood, but didn't yet move forward. “Okay. So, you know a little about this culture. Will there be booby traps?”
“Ah,
Indiana Jones
again?”
Indiana Jones
again?”
“Well,” he said with a wry smile, “better to ask the question now.”
“I think we should watch our step; they did do shafts. They weren't necessarily traps. Some people think the shafts were ways to talk to the underworld.”
“Not the way I want to meet Hades, thanks,” he managed, feeling sweat tracking down his back.
He turned to her. “Okay, let's be as logical as I'm able to be right now.”
“I'm sorry this is so hard,” she said, sympathy in her eyes.
“The alternative is the gibbering we spoke of. So. I will take my coat and make a pack of it. You take your purse, wrap it across your body.” He studiously ignored the looming shadows of the chamber, the equally dark opening of the tunnel.
They'd miraculously found it. He wouldn't pass up the chance to get Carrie to safety. Nothing was more important, no matter how much he'd like to sit, rocking in a corner as he had when he was a boy. “We'll go slowly. Feel our way, yes?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Eh-la, good. So, I will lead. If anyone is to fall into a shaft, I will do that. Perhaps Hades will take pity on me, eh?” He knew his accent was getting more pronounced, and his fingers felt thick and clumsy as he made up the pack.
He could do this. He had to do it. Everything he was, everything he believed about himself, would be for naught if he couldn't find the courage to face that tunnel.
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