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I giggle and jump up onto it. “Look at this. Do you think people use it to hang on to?” I grab hold of the antlers and turn back to look at Lathan, who smiles indulgently at me, when I hear a click and the antlers move. The bed shudders and slides to the side, exposing a stairway that leads under the building.
I’m speechless, but thankfully Lathan reacts quickly. He closes the bedroom door and takes out his phone.
“Mac and I found a secret passage under the house. We’re going to check it out.” He pauses as he listens to whoever he’s talking to. “We don’t have time to wait. Billy is already being too nosy. We don’t want anyone to come searching for us and not find us in here.”
He holds out a hand to help me down, and then we take the steps.
“Okay, fine, but you’ll have to catch up,” is the last thing he says before he hangs up. “Where do you think this goes?” he asks me, turning on the flashlight on his phone, which gives us a little bit of light. He also reaches behind him and pulls out a gun, offering it to me.
“Wow, I didn’t even notice that was there,” I tell him as I take it, and he grins.
“We were a little busy playing tonsil hockey.”
I playfully pout. “Yeah, and I was hoping we would at least get to third base before we were interrupted.”
He stops and yanks me toward him. “Raincheck?” he asks, looking very serious, and it’s all I can do not to melt into his arms like an idiot.
“Absolutely,” I promise before we continue on our way.
The tunnel has clearly been down here for a while. It’s well-built and well-traveled if the state of the ground has anything to say, but it’s musty and dank, and I wrinkle my nose in distaste.
“What do you think this is for?” I ask.
“I bet it has nothing to do with the ranger, that’s for sure,” Lathan replies.
I’m not sure how far we’ve gone, Lathan’s gun held out in front of me just in case, but we’ve probably been walking for fifteen minutes. Just when I think it’s most likely an old access tunnel from prohibition times or something, the tunnel opens out into a large space. It continues on the opposite side, but we stop so Lathan can aim his light around. The two of us stare at what’s in front of us.
“Nope, definitely can’t see the ranger needing cells like this, can you?” he says dryly, and I shake my head, stepping forward to get a better look. I don’t get very far before I stumble over something. I right myself as Lathan shines his light at my feet so we can see what I tripped on.
“Oh fuck,” I mutter as noises come down the tunnel we just left.
Lathan and I spin to face what’s coming, my gun held at the ready, when Ryland and Miller appear. Miller has a high-powered flashlight, and Ryland is holding his own weapon. Miller shines his light around, both of them looking as surprised as I was, before finding the same thing I tripped over.
“What the fuck, Mac?” Miller barks as the four of us stare down at the wide open, clearly lifeless eyes of Bishop.
“Hey, she didn’t do it.” Lathan jumps to my defense, as does Ryland.
“We didn’t hear a gunshot, you idiot.” He drops his own gun and looks down at his teammate with sadness. “Well, I guess that solves one problem at least.”
“Yeah, but now we have another.” I sigh, looking down the tunnel that we haven’t been down yet. “We saw no one, so who did this and why? Did he blow his cover, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
