Deep-Fried Homicide (The Laurel Falls Mysteries Book 1) (22 page)

“Then we turn around and go home, duh!” It wasn’t going over well. She could tell. “Please?”

“No. I’m done with this. We haven’t found a shred of evidence all day long and if we keep at it, we’ll just get ourselves dead.”

“Please, Rick? I won’t ask you for another thing for the rest of the night. Or tomorrow.”

“No,” he said sharply. But he hadn’t moved the truck an inch.

Rachel leaned in and put her head on his shoulder, batted her eyes even though he couldn’t see them. Her voice was all soft and sing-song and her fingers walked down the length of his thigh. “I’ll do that thing you like.”

Silence. She felt the muscles tense up all down his shoulder as he gritted his teeth. Then the car turned.

“Yay!” she said, sitting up and clapping her fingers together.

Rick navigated the bumpy road and the rock-strewn old field at the farm, keeping one eye out for other vehicles, people, anything that might spell danger for them. The only sound he could hear when the truck stopped was the chirping of crickets. He sat for a moment, his heart screaming at him that it was dangerous to get out of the truck. And then he opened the door.

“I think you should let me look. And you stay here.”

“Not a chance.” She jerked the door handle and leaped out, shutting it quietly, just in case.

“Rachel, I really am worried. My hackles are up and my gut is churning. Something’s going to happen. I can feel it deep down.”

He always had that feeling whenever he was about to do something risky. And he was always right. But somehow, someway, it always worked out in the end.

“I’ll come with you, just in case. It’s always the person left behind in the car that dies. You know that.”

Rick heaved a resigned sigh and walked around the truck. Rachel thought he was going to take her hand, but then he leaned in the truck window and opened the glove compartment. He took out the gun, which he shoved into his waistband, and then grabbed the flashlight. Finally, he took her hand and squeezed it a little bit.

“I’m mad as hell with you right now, but you stay close. No matter how upset I am, I don’t want to lose you. So, don’t get out of earshot, you hear me?”

“I hear you.” She squeezed his hand back and smiled.

The photos she had taken of the map were on her phone and she turned it on, brought up the pictures. Rick leaned in to take a quick look, sighting the distance between the road and where he thought the intake might be.

“It should be off in that direction, right there. Maybe…a thousand feet or so.”

“Okay,” Rachel responded, eager to follow his lead.

“But watch yourself. It’s an old fallow field. There might be gopher holes and whatnot around here and I don’t want to have to carry you back to the truck.”

She sneered playfully at him and quickened her pace. “Yes, Master.”

For that, he pinched her butt, eliciting a soft but sharp yowl from her.

They walked through the field, side by side, Rick playing his flashlight back and forth across the ground in front of them. There should be a pipe sticking up out of the ground at least a little bit. It shouldn’t be hard to spot. But the field had been left to its own devices for far too long. Weeds had grown rampant; trees had sprouted where none had been. They scared a family of rabbits away from their hole along the way; heard a snake slither away from their path.

“Let me see that picture again.” Rick leaned in as she offered the phone, his eyes squinting at the screen. “We should be just about there. See? There’s the barn and it looks like the barn is almost at a perfect ninety-degree angle between the pipe and the road.”

Rachel did see. But she did not see the pipe. “So, this is where it should be. But it’s not. So, we just spiral outward?”

“You’ve been paying attention.” He smiled at her. “You go one way and I’ll go the other. That way, we can overlap and double the chances of finding it.”

Rachel nodded and began her slow spiral away from the center point. She used her cell phone as a flashlight. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than relying on the failing light. Twice, Rachel thought she had found the Holy Grail but in each case it turned out that the pipe was really an old piece of rotting farm equipment which someone had cast aside.

When finally she reached the edge of the woods, she turned toward Rick and stood with her hands on her hips, staring dejectedly across the field. “Find anything?”

“No. You?”

“Nothing.” She thought for a minute. The trees at the edge of the forest – in fact, most of the trees as far back as she could see – were quite small. “Hey, you know what?”

“What?”

“I bet this forest wasn’t even here when they put that pipe in. Maybe the trees have grown up around it.”

“Don’t go into the woods, Rach. It’s too dark.”

She turned, not specifically ignoring him, but merely meaning to have a harder look at the ground between the trees. “I won’t,” she said, taking one meager step.

Rick started off for her position. He didn’t want her out of his sight, not just because someone could show up and hurt her, but because she could hurt herself. “I’m coming your way. We’ll take a quick look, but I think we’ll have to come back in the daylight.”

“Okay,” she said absently, taking another step.

Her phone swung back and forth, providing scant little light. It was better at casting shadows than at actually illuminating anything, but she squinted hard and thought she might finally have found something.

“Hey, there’s something sticking up out of the ground back here.”

“Wait, Rachel! You wait!” Rick picked up his pace, trying to reach her before she disappeared from his sight altogether.

Two more steps. There was definitely something sticking out of the ground among the trees. Rachel adjusted her light and pushed through the underbrush. She heard Rick’s footsteps pounding the dry, weed-covered ground. She heard the crickets chirp their last.

And then Rachel fell, screaming, through a pile of weeds and leaves and straight down the rabbit hole.

Chapter 11

R
achel landed on the ground, some twelve feet down, and only by the luck of the draw did she avoid hitting her head smack on a rock. Once she had felt her footing give way, she had tried to scrabble for purchase on the earth around her, fingers clawing and reaching as she fell past it. And once that option disappeared for her, she put her hands out and tried to make sure she didn’t knock herself silly when she reached the bottom.

It had been a valiant effort, but a futile one in the end. Her feet had struck at an odd angle, failed to hold her up, then dumped her to her knees. Once her knees contacted the earth, she pitched forward, taking part of the impact on her outstretched hands and part on her head.

By the time she managed to gain a semi-seated position, she was panting and wild-eyed. Above her, the hole still gaped, though it was impossible to tell the dark of the ceiling from the dark circle of the sky. Her vision was a bit wonky besides and so she tried hard to shake off the effects of the fall and stand up.

“Rick?” she called.

A hand came out of nowhere and grabbed her, reeling her in and fastening over her mouth. She struggled, but her body still hadn’t recovered from the fall. Her right ankle throbbed a bit and, while it wasn’t broken, it wasn’t going to let her run anywhere anytime soon.

“Shut up!” said a growl in her ear and it gave her pause.

Then the other hand reached up to grab a rope which dangled from the ceiling. There was a clanging sound and the sky disappeared. Almost at the same second, lightbulbs came on in a straight line along the tunnel’s ceiling.

“I tried to warn you,” said the voice in her ear. It was distinctly male and a little familiar, though she couldn’t place it. “Don’t make a sound and I’ll try to get you out of here.”

There was the sound of feet pounding the ground and muffled voices. They came from somewhere not too far down the tunnel and they were gaining fast. Rachel’s breath came in fast gasps, her eyes wild. The sleeve which covered the man’s arm was dark, the hands pale and lightly covered in soft hairs. A younger man, she surmised. His grip on her was firm but not painful and there was a slight tremor in his arm. He was as scared as she was.

“Run straight down this tunnel. Fast as you can. You’ll come out at the beach. Go!”

He gave her a little shove and she took off running, ignoring the pain in her ankle, frantic to get out of there. She risked only one fast glance backward to see the man standing with his back to her. He wore a dark hoodie and jeans. It was Mike. Had to be.

The string of bulbs ran the length of the tunnel, she guessed. She ran fast and hard and ignored everything in the universe except the thought of reaching that beach.

But where was Rick? Had he been caught? Was he searching for her in a panic or had he already called for help?

After what seemed like days of running down that tunnel – but was really only about a minute – she finally made out the difference in darkness which marked the mouth of the tunnel and the beach beyond. She tried to run harder, faster, but her heart and lungs just wouldn’t make it happen.

Too late, she heard voices. At first, she thought they were behind her and she tried to run faster. If she could just burst out of the mouth of that cave, everything would be all right. That’s what she told herself, at least.

Then she saw them. Three men standing at the mouth of the cave. Obviously, they had heard her before she had heard them. They were walking toward her and, though she backpedaled as quickly as she could, they were gaining on her position. She spun and ran the other direction. She had no idea why or where she might go. There was nowhere to hide in a straight tunnel with no side passages. And surely she had been anything but quiet in her dash.

“Hold it right there. You have nowhere to go.”

A bullet pinged off the tunnel wall next to her head and Rachel ceased all movement, frozen in place. She turned to face them, thrusting her arms high into the air. She was terrified now, the blood hammering in her head and throbbing in her ankle. She thought she might throw up.

“Gentlemen, we’ve got company.” A tall, burly man with about a week’s worth of beard and a month’s worth of stench reached her first.

“How the hell did she get in here?” asked the second man, the one with the gun.

She was pinned down, trapped between two groups of men, one of whom had a gun. If she could have fainted, she gladly would have done so just to relieve the stark raving terror she felt just then. All the things Rick had ever warned her about had finally come to pass in one big, steaming heap of bad.

“What are we gonna do with her?” asked the first man. He looked like he might have a few ideas, but Rachel didn’t want to entertain any of those.

“We’ll have to take her back and tie her up somewhere.” The second group had emerged from the darkness. Mike was with them, his face hard and not at all sympathetic. “We’ll tie her up until we figure out a permanent solution.”

“You three stay in the cave and make sure nobody else gets in here,” said another man. He was much shorter than the rest and appeared much more intelligent. Rachel marked him as the leader.

“Hey, she didn’t get past us.”

“I know who you are,” said the third member of the original group. “You’re that psycho what ran into me on the beach. You been snooping around here all evening.”

Suddenly, a hand had her face in its grip and was shoving her backward. Her head made contact with the tunnel wall and she winced. Then the hot breath of the hand’s owner blew into her face and the cold steel of a gun muzzle pressed her chin. “You a cop? That why you’re hanging around here?”

“Look at her, man. She ain’t no cop.” That was Mike, trying to save her, but not trying
too
hard.

“Okay, okay.” The leader put one hand on the man’s arm and pulled back. “Let’s just stay calm. We don’t want to do anything rash. Let’s just take her back and tie her up. We’ll figure the rest out later.”

Rachel was jerked from the wall and shoved forward, her feet stumbling and scuffling to catch up to her body’s momentum. She tried to calm herself but to no avail. Maybe Rick had gone for help. Maybe Mike would find a way to let her go. Or maybe none of that would happen in time and they would kill her.

They walked for an indeterminate distance, their steps echoing off the walls and ceiling of the tunnel. There was a breeze blowing somehow, somewhere, because the lightbulbs swayed gently in it.

Finally, they came to a large area. It was more open than the rest of the tunnel and the air had an odd smell. Rachel figured that must be the point where the farm intake joined the main pipe and the main pipe began its descent to the beach.

The light was much brighter there and Rachel heard the distant hum of the machinery she had heard earlier. Containers lined the walls: drums and barrels and plastic boxes. Huge vats and cookers stood in the middle, flanked by work benches covered with beakers and vials and the like. And then it hit her.

They’re not running guns down here. They’re cooking meth. And that’s why they needed the electricity and the ventilation. How could I have been so stupid?

The tunnel itself was easily eight feet in diameter, tall enough for anyone to stand up in. The floor of it was covered in silt and God knew what else, carried by waste water and run-off over the past hundred years or so. But they had cleaned that section. Four large air cleaners ran constantly and there was a fan facing each direction to pull away whatever remained of the fumes. Rachel took it all in, still in a bit of a panic, but trying to find anything that might be of use to her.

There were three people working this particular cook and they wore protective gear. Everyone else wore street clothes and one man, in blatant disregard for the temperature and humidity, wore a long leather duster. It was his
thing
, Rachel figured.

Mr. Duster placed one hand against her chest and shoved her backward, reaching his other hand around to grab a length of rope. He pulled her wrists together, crossed, and began binding them tightly, crossing the rope over and under her wrists in a crisscross fashion. Then he walked her several paces down the tunnel and shoved her to the floor. With the most evil smile Rachel had ever seen, he saluted her and walked away.