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In spite of the caskets and the body bags she wasn’t picking up the heavy energy of on-site violence, pain, and fear. The remains of the dead had been stored there, but the deaths had occurred somewhere else.
She pushed some flickering visions aside and was able to make out a flight of concrete steps. They led up from the floor of the crypt and ended at a wooden door.
Given her luck today, there was a high probability that the door atthe top was locked, but what if it wasn’t? Maybe the kidnappers assumed the drug would keep her unconscious. Or maybe the door was locked on the other side but not on this side.
Buoyed by that faint spark of hope, she concentrated on the steps and made her way toward them with painstaking care. Separating the visions from the reality of the paranormal-lit crypt took considerable effort.
When she reached the bottom of the concrete stairs, her pulse was pounding. There was no handrail. She stopped, appalled by the thought of trying to climb all the way up to the door while in her other vision without the security of a handrail. If she fell she could easily break some bones. Her neck, for instance.
She put one foot on the bottom step, took a breath, and moved her other foot to the next level. A wave of panic brought on another surge of disorienting visions. She had to worry about trip hazards even when she wasn’t trapped in a crypt and fighting drug-induced hallucinations. This was a nightmare.
She retreated back down to the floor and tried to come up with a strategy. There was a door at the top of the steps. She had to find a way to open it.
When she had her senses under some semblance of control, she went down on her hands and knees and experimented with edging her way up the steps in crablike movements.
The technique worked, but it took forever to make it to the top of the steps. When she finally arrived at her destination she was trembling. She took a moment to catch her breath and then rose on her knees and tried the doorknob. Unlocked.
She could not believe her good luck. She twisted the knob and pushed it open. The door moved a scant couple of inches before encountering a solid barrier.
Should have known I wouldn’t be able to just walk out of this place.
The frustration was crushing. It was also infuriating. She wanted to scream her rage to the universe, but she had to do something else first. She had to crawl down the terrifying concrete steps. The process proved just as unnerving as climbing up them.
When she reached the floor she almost collapsed in relief, but that was a luxury she could not afford. It didn’t take any psychic talent to know that the kidnappers did not intend for her to walk out of the crypt alive.
Ambrose would be looking for her. Sooner or later he would find her because he was Ambrose and because they were partners. It was her job to keep herself alive until help arrived.
She staggered upright and forced herself to focus on the next objective. She needed a weapon, any object that might give her an edge. She started to explore the eerie shadows of the crypt. There were no guns, knives, or palm-sized chunks of rock lying conveniently nearby, but there was something else. A body.
“Theo,” she whispered.
He wasn’t in a bag. He was alive.
She crouched beside him. He was unconscious but she could not find any visible wounds. The kidnappers had probably drugged him, too. She wondered if she owed him an apology and then reminded herself that it was not her fault he had landed in the middle of her investigation.
“I told you to leave town,” she said.
But it wasn’t that simple, she thought. The fact was, Theo would not be lying unconscious on the cold concrete floor of a crypt if it wasn’t for her. Okay, his professional ambition was certainly a contributing factor, but still.
Deciding she would worry about the ethics of the situation later,assuming they both survived, she went back to searching the crypt. There were no handy blunt objects on the floor. With a groan, she made herself cross the space to the ranks of stacked caskets. Maybe she would find something useful among the jumble of rotting wood, tattered fabric, and bones.
She took a deep breath before she walked into the maze of coffins stacked higher than she was tall. She had no issues with the energy in the space. The dearly departed had, indeed, departed. But it felt wrong to prowl through the clutter of human remains and the boxes that had been used to store them. The patients of the Carnelian Psychiatric Hospital for the Insane had been disrespected enough in life.
“I’m sorry,” she said. But she knew even as she said the words that she was speaking to herself, not the dead.
She discovered the chest of woodworking tools when she turned a corner at the end of a pile of caskets. The lid of the chest opened on squeaking hinges. Inside was an array of hammers, saws, chisels, and pliers—the tools needed to build the caskets. All were coated with rust, and the wooden handles were cracked and splintered, but a vintage tool made of heavy steel and stout wood was a formidable object and, therefore, a potential weapon.
She picked up a hammer and quickly realized it was far too heavy to wield effectively. She was not Thor. She put it back into the chest and experimented with some pliers. She was reaching for a large chisel when she heard the muffled groan of heavy hinges. The sound reminded her of a garage door opening. It came from the top of the concrete steps. She grabbed the chisel and went very still behind a stack of caskets.
Footsteps echoed on the concrete steps. From where she was hiding she could not see anyone, but a narrow slant of murky daylight angled into the crypt. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to illuminatethe cavernous space, but it relieved some of the oppressive darkness. She heard a couple of snicks. Two flashlight beams appeared.
“Hurry,” Hugh Guthrie said. “We need to clean up this fucking mess and get out of here.”
“There’s no reason to panic.” Margaret Moore was tense, impatient, angry, and maybe something else. She sounded as if she was unnerved. “The situation is under control.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Ambrose closed thelast drawer of Fenner’s desk and straightened to take one more look around the office. Whoever had searched the place before he had arrived—presumably the killer—had done a thorough, professional job. If there had been anything that might have pointed to the identity of the anonymous donor or the person overseeing the Carnelian Sleep Institute project, it had been removed.
