The Great Jackalope Stampede (44 page)

Mac grunted and elbowed her kneecap.

“You got a smart mouth, girl.”

“I can’t help it,” Claire said. “It came with my brain.”

“Great. Then you can take the two of them and climb down that ladder and bring up what you two nincompoops dropped.”

Claire looked down into the dark hole and gulped. “Down that ladder in there?”

“Do you see any other ladders around here?”

“I’ll climb down,” Mac offered. “I’m the one who dropped the rope.”

“That’s very Prince Charming of you, but that ladder won’t hold your weight. She goes or she gets shot.”

Claire hesitated.

“How about I go back out to my truck and get my climbing gear.” Mac said. “Then I can rappel down.”

The woman laughed. “I don’t think so. That ladder will hold her, trust me. I’ve been down it.”

When Claire still didn’t move, the gun raised, pointing at her head. “What’s the hold up?”

“I’m trying to decide if I’d rather be shot.”

Mac reached down and grabbed the top of the ladder, trying to wiggle it. It creaked a little, but held steady. “Get on the ladder, Claire.”

“Can I take my flashlight?” she asked the woman.

“Of course. How else are you going to see to swim down and fish the stuff out of the water?”

“Wait a second.” Claire crossed her arms. “You didn’t mention the swimming part before.”

“Claire.” Mac squeezed her calf. “Get in the hole, sweetheart.”

That was easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one about to climb down into a pitch black throat in the earth with freezing cold water waiting in the bottom.

“You’ll be fine,” he added.

She disagreed. The last time she had tried to climb out of a shaft on a rusted ladder, it had given way and dumped her back into the water. Now she was supposed to climb down however far and splash around in the dark water at the bottom. She had seen way too many horror movies about creepy things in the bottom of wells to handle this with grace and dignity.

“I’d like to hear what’s behind door number three,” Claire said to the gun.

“There is no third door.”

“Things always come in threes. It’s the Rule of Three, even for doors.”

“No, they don’t. There are only two showcases on The Price is Right. Not three.”

“Yeah, but there are always three contestants on Jeopardy and The Wheel of Fortune.”

“Fine! Behind door number three is your boyfriend here with a bullet in his head. Now which door are you going to choose?”

“Damn it, Claire.” Mac’s voice was tight with tension.

She yanked off her hard hat and threw it onto the floor. “This is bullshit!” She stuffed her flashlight in the back of her pants, glaring at the gun-toting bitch. “Next time, pick a better hiding spot when you stow your contraband.”

“Just get your ass down in that hole.” The gun pointed toward the hole.

Claire grabbed onto Mac’s shoulder and swung her leg over the edge of the shaft. He clamped onto her hips, holding her steady as she tested her weight on the top rung of the ladder. It creaked, but held, feeling fairly sturdy under her tennis shoe.

“Here goes nothing,” she said and put both shoes on the ladder, her head level with Mac’s.

“You can do this, Slugger.” His gaze bore into hers. “Get on down there and hold on tight.”

She took two steps down, wondering why he was so can-do all of a sudden. Then she realized what he was doing—getting her out of the way.

“No.” She frowned up at him. “Mac, don’t—”

He leaned down and cupped her cheeks, kissing her silent.

“That’s enough kissy face,” the voice said. “Get your hiney moving.”

Mac let her go, dropping a final kiss on her forehead. “You heard her, Claire. Go.”

“I don’t like this,” she told him.

“You made your choice,” the woman said, thinking Claire was talking to her. “The sooner you get down there, the sooner you and your boyfriend will be on your merry way.”

Claire didn’t believe her. Her multiple experiences of being on the barrel end of a gun had taught her otherwise. However, she did trust Mac, and with trembling knees she followed his bidding and stepped down into the darkness.

Inside the throat of the shaft, things sounded muffled. Below her, water dripped slow and steady, like a leaky faucet. Claire’s heart pounded in her ears, lobbying its complaints about the dire situation she had gotten into yet again. She tried to slow it down, sucking in deep breaths of musty, earth-scented air into her lungs.

It didn’t work.

And it didn’t stop the trembling that had now spread up her legs and torso to her shoulders.

She climbed down, darkness swallowing her more with each rung she counted.

Five rungs down, she could still see her hands.

Ten rungs now, her fingers were barely visible in the shadows.

Fifteen rungs down, she was going by feel alone.

She was on number twenty-one when she heard the boom of a gunshot overhead.

Her breath wheezed in her lungs. She wrapped her left arm around a ladder rung and peered up toward the lighted circle above her.

A beam of light bounced around up there, hitting the ceiling above the shaft and then disappearing.

“Mac?” she called when she found her voice. She could hear the panic edging her tone and dry-swallowed it down. Twenty rungs deep in a dark hole was not the place to lose her cool.

She tried to hear what was going on up above, but the only sound was the water dripping below her. Then even that stopped.

“Mac, what’s going on?” she called, her voice high with fear.

A bright light appeared above her like the sun, shining down, blinding her.

“Keep going,” the woman with the gun hollered down.

Claire flipped her off. “Where’s Mac?”

“Don’t go wigging out on me. He’s alive, just incapacitated at the moment. You will be, too, if you don’t get moving.”

Fuck this.

Claire pulled her flashlight from the back of her pants.
Move this, bitch!
With all of the leverage and thrust she could manage, she whipped it up the hole in an underhanded fast pitch.

The flashlight arced on its way up, ricocheting off the wall of the shaft. She heard a clinking sound, and then the bright light shining down started coming closer, getting even brighter, really fast.

Claire pulled close to the wall. She grabbed onto the ladder with both hands and tucked her head down, wishing she hadn’t thrown off her hard hat.

The light bounced off the ladder three rungs above her, glass crunching. All went dark in the shaft as it splashed below.

A hollow sounding crack rang out above. Claire looked up, but her eyes were still blinded by that damned bright light.

She heard a thump and another crack. Then a scream rang out overheard, echoing down the shaft, zinging through her like a lightning bolt.

Wincing, she hugged the ladder even tighter. Something bounced off the wall on her left, then splashed into the water below. What was that?

Then there was a thump followed by a cringe-inducing crunch. Another scream blasted her, this time right over her head.

Holy shit! Someone was falling down the hole!

She plastered herself against the ladder, waiting for the impact of a falling body.

A gut-wracking cry of pain rained down, but that was it. No body. Just silence.

“Claire?” Mac called down the hole.

A beam of light rippled over the ladder in front of her.

“I’m okay,” she yelled. “What happened?”

Something dripped onto her wrist. Something dark.

“She fell in,” Mac called down.

The drop ran down her forearm toward her elbow.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I didn’t do anything. You hit her with something.”

The flashlight!

Claire looked up and gasped at the mangled mess of a leg entangled in the ladder partway up. From what Claire could tell, the woman had gotten caught on her way down. She now hung upside down, her arms dangling over her head. Blood dripped down her forehead onto Claire’s arm again. The beam of Mac’s light flickered over some khaki colored material, and Claire suddenly placed the voice.

The rattle of the woman’s breath made Claire shudder. “She’s still alive.”

“Hold on, sweetheart and I’ll figure out a way to get you out of there.”

Something popped up above.

There was a clink and then another.

Then a screech rang out that went on way too long for comfort.

“What was that?” Claire asked, praying it was Mac doing something up top to get her out of there.

“It’s the ladder,” Mac said. “Hold on tight, Claire. I’ll try to secure it with the rope, but I think it might—”

After another echoing screech, the ladder shuddered under her hands. Claire squinted up toward the light in time to see the ladder bend and twist between her and the hanging woman as if some huge hand was wringing it out.

“Oh, fuck,” she whispered, stepping down as fast as she could go.

A loud groan rang through the shaft.

Something cracked and scraped.

Pebbles and stones clattered down around Claire’s head. She tucked under as best she could while clinging to a rung, bracing for a big stone or piece of the ladder to come down on her shoulders.

Everything went still around her except the dust, which filled her throat.

She coughed and looked up. Something partially blocked her view of the top. She tried to move to see around it and a flashlight shined down, the light thin and dispersed by the time it reached her.

“Claire!” Mac yelled down. “Please tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m so
not
okay.” That word was at the other end of her spectrum at the moment. “I’m scared shitless down here. But I’m not hurt.”

“The ladder gave under her weight.”

“I noticed.” She cleared the dust from her throat. “Mac?”

“What?”

“You know how you said I don’t lean on you?”

“Yeah?”

“I could use your help here.”

“Got it.”

“Make a note—this is me leaning on you.”

“I’m going to lower down a flashlight with the rope.”

“I’d rather you lower down a firefighter to carry my ass out of here.”

A beam of light bounced off the walls around her. She huffed as he lowered the light along the wall, coughing through the dust and fear clogging her throat.

The flashlight snagged on the broken piece of ladder that had tipped and gotten jammed against the opposite wall overhead. Mac wiggled the rope and threaded the light down between the rungs.

Claire held onto the ladder with her left hand and reached out to grab the flashlight as it drew closer.

“A little farther,” she yelled.

A groan above her made her freeze. A human groan.

The flashlight bounced off her fingertips.

The sound of cloth ripping filled the shaft.

Cloth ripping … ?

The woman’s body slipped from the ladder’s hold. It slammed into Claire and knocked her off the ladder.

Screaming, Claire fell down through the dark, dust-filled air.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ronnie was debating the wisdom of having brought Jessica to the Skunkmobile.

Since they’d stepped inside the door, Jessica had not stopped talking, not even while Ronnie had hidden in the bathroom for a few minutes, plugging her ears. Apparently, Jessica needed to talk things out, and talk, and talk, and talk.

“… and that was when Jacquie told Sherry to try the passion fruit lip gloss,” Jessica went on, following Ronnie into the back bedroom. “I told Sherry not to use it because it would stain her shirt. You should see her shirt, it’s really cool. It has these cute pink roses all around the …”

Ronnie tuned out again. She glanced around the bedroom, noting the unmade bed, the clothes piled everywhere, the litter of cups on the nightstand, and Claire’s tool belt tossed into the corner. What a sty! It reminded her of when they were kids and had to share a bedroom. No matter how much she tried to pick up after Claire and Katie, the room was always trashed. She sniffed, picking up the scent of fresh air, and noticed the window was open. She watched the curtain move in and out, as if the R.V. were breathing. Thank goodness it smelled better than it looked.

After five years of sterile living with Lyle, where she made sure every room in her mortgaged mansion was dust free and spotless, and perfectly perfumed, the untidy bedroom made her smile. It felt good to be home, back to her roots, even if they were messy. She scooped up a folded pile of Claire’s T-shirts and opened the tiny closet door, stacking them on the shelf over the rack.

“You know I have a boyfriend, right?” Jessica flopped onto the bed. “He works with the archaeology crew. He’s majoring in Anthropology.”

“I know about your boyfriend, Jessica.” Ronnie grabbed a basket full of clean clothes Katie had brought back from the laundry a couple of nights ago and dumped them on the bed next to Jessica. “I worry that he’s a little old for you.”

“He may be older than me, but I’m more mature. That’s what he says, anyway.”

After listening to Jessica’s extensive views on how important it was to match her lip gloss to her nail polish, Ronnie wasn’t sure that was saying much. She had a feeling Jessica’s boyfriend would say whatever it took to get Jessica to plant some of that lip gloss on his mouth. Ronnie hoped that was the only place he had in mind for lip planting, or someone might need to show him the error of his ways with a baseball bat. She preferred solid wood ones herself.