Blood Brothers (9 page)

Through her turmoil of emotions, Lucy suddenly realized that one thought was trying to break through.

It would be so easy, she knew. Just the punch of a few buttons, and then Jared and all his mysterious secrets would be out of her life forever.

Lucy gazed down at Jared. From his peaceful expression she could tell that the drugs and brandy were already working. He looked younger somehow. Innocent. And suddenly, helplessly vulnerable.

“Damnit.”

She couldn't betray him.

Not just because she'd given her word. Or because of the torments he'd suffered. Not even because of all the time and lies and worry she'd invested in him, or the veiled threats he'd made, or the way his body felt, warm and protective beside her . . .

“My choice,” Lucy whispered, though she knew Jared couldn't hear her. “For Byron's sake.”

Lucy was still determined to find a way out of the cellar.

Jared would be sleeping for quite a while; he'd be safe here and undisturbed. She'd have time to go home and clean up and try to form some kind of plan. There'd been no time today for thinking ahead. She felt amazingly lucky that she'd made it through each bizarre moment and survived.

Her whole body ached with exhaustion. She was stiff and sore from dragging Jared through the cemetery, and lugging boxes and backpacks, and falling on the stairs. There was still a faint throb in her hand. She was cold, and she was hungry. And she dreaded facing Irene when she got back to the house.

Sighing heavily, Lucy bent to pick up the lantern.

And that's when she noticed the footprints.

It didn't sink in all at once, those muddled marks upon the floor. Outlines of large shoes, and impressions of large paws, overlapping and smearing together in the dust. The prints stopped at the edge of the bed, on the side where she'd been sleeping—then seemed to reverse and trail off again in the same direction from which they'd come.

From a wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves.

And a camouflaged door.

Lucy straightened slowly, chills racing up her spine.

And once more remembered the nightmare that had woken her.

Lucy kept staring at the footprints.

She tried to tell herself that she and Jared had made them, as they'd moved about the cellar. She tried to tell herself she was just imagining shoe soles and animal feet etched there in the dust, just like people could interpret cloud formations in a million different ways. After all, if something really
had
been in here, how could she not have heard? No person or animal could have been
that
quiet.

Going more cautiously now, she followed the tracks all the way back to the row of shelves. She held the lantern close to the locked door, then lowered it toward the concrete.

She was right.

The footprints had definitely started here.

They went in both directions and vanished beneath the door.

She reached out for the doorknob. She pressed her ear against the door and listened.

And something listened back.

With a sudden, horrible certainty, Lucy
felt
it—a presence poised there on the other side of that door, something
listening
just like
she
was listening.

In one instant she stumbled back; in the next, she twisted the knob and pushed with all her strength, stifling a scream as the door burst open.

The threshold was empty.

There were no footprints on the other side.

Only a long, narrow passageway with a low ceiling and walls of crumbling brick, and what looked like a staircase rising from the shadows at the opposite end. The floor was hard-packed earth, and the dust of many years blanketed its smooth, unbroken surface.

Nothing.

Lucy shut her eyes and sagged against the wall.

And yet
someone
had opened this door.

And someone had walked to the bed in the corner.

And as she and Jared slept in each other's arms . . .
someone
had watched.

She had to see where the passageway would take her.

Leaving the lantern behind, Lucy armed herself with the backpack and extra flashlight and followed the dingy corridor to its end. She had a feeling this was only one small part of the cellar, and the last thing she wanted to do was lose her way. She convinced herself there was no one watching from the closed doors and heavily banked shadows on either side—that the faint whispering was only wind seeping through cracks in the foundation. When she finally reached the staircase, she was so shaky with relief, she could barely make it up the steps.

The door at the top was unlocked. As Lucy inched it open, she found herself at the back of a closet, surrounded by spiderwebs, mouse droppings, and dead roaches. She felt too grateful to be disgusted. Holding the flashlight toward the floor, she tiptoed out onto a narrow landing, then paused to listen. The building was dark and silent; Mrs. Dempsey had obviously finished her work. Lucy had no trouble sneaking through a series of rooms and hallways until she finally came to a threshold and saw the church altar a short distance beyond.

The church altar, with Matt right beside it.

Snapping off the flashlight, Lucy drew back against the wall. Thank God she'd kept the beam angled downward; she didn't think he'd seen it. But had he heard her? She counted off seconds while she waited, but he obviously wasn't coming to investigate. Her stomach tightened as she tried to think.

Surely Matt couldn't have been in the cellar just now. Sneaking and spying and listening at doors. He would have said something, he would have offered to help. And he certainly wouldn't have had a dog with him.

She chanced another look through the doorway. Candles burned on the altar, casting bizarre shapes along the walls and vaulted ceiling. Matt's face was lowered, angled slightly to the right. He seemed to be studying a small object in his hands, though Lucy couldn't tell what it was. After a while he placed it on the altar and, with detached slowness, began to unfasten his priest's collar. Then he wadded up the collar, tossed it onto the altar, and turned around.

Lucy ducked back behind the corner. She could hear his footsteps moving quickly, echoing through the emptiness of the church.

He was walking straight toward her.

Still as a statue, she held her breath and hid among the shadows of the hall. Matt was so close now, she could have touched him.

He stopped without warning.

His silhouette went rigid, except for the slow, wary turn of his head . . .

Away from her, in the opposite direction.

He listened. And waited. And finally passed her by.

She heard the sound of a door opening and closing. And then more brisk footsteps, fading at last into an eerie silence.

Lucy didn't stay to see if he'd come back.

As quietly as she could, she hurried to the main doors and slipped out into the snow.

The daylight she'd hoped to find was gone.

Dusk had already fallen, and deep drifts covered the street in front of the church.

Lucy wondered if the route to Irene's had been plowed. She hated the thought of being delayed on the roads—it was already going to take extra time just to wade around the block to the car. She didn't dare shortcut through the cemetery and run the risk of Matt seeing her.

What had Matt been doing in the old church anyway?

She couldn't help wondering what he'd been looking at so intently, why he'd seemed so upset. If she hadn't been such a coward, she could have examined the altar for herself. But she didn't have time to think about that now—there were more important things to worry about.

She felt frozen by the time she reached the car—even more frozen by the time she'd scraped all the ice off the back and side windows and windshield. A high snowbank had formed around the Corvette, and when Lucy realized she couldn't dig out, she climbed into the front seat, slammed the door, and let out a yell of frustration.

The clock on the dashboard read seven o'clock.

And the snow was still coming down.

Lucy leaned her head on the steering wheel.

She turned on the dome light in the ceiling. She pulled her purse from under the seat and found a crumpled business card in her wallet. After repeating the numbers printed there, she punched them in on her cell phone. And when the familiar voice finally answered, she breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“Dakota,” Lucy said, “I need your help.”

“Carbon monoxide,” Dakota said solemnly.

Lucy stared at her, assuming an explanation would follow.

“Don't you know better than to sit in your car with the motor running?” Dakota frowned. “You could've died of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Lucy considered this. “Actually, that would have been the bright spot in my day.”

“First, freezing. Now, carbon monoxide.”

“I'm trying to be creative.”

The two of them sat across from each other in the diner. The air was stuffy, thick with steam and old grease and cigarette smoke. After the dankness of the church cellar, Lucy breathed it in like perfume.

“I had my window cracked open,” she defended herself.

“Not wide enough.”

“Well . . . it's not exactly the best part of town to be stranded in.”

“You fall asleep with some stranger whose entrails are hanging out, and you're worried about being mugged?”

“Ssh!”

“Sorry.”

Their server arrived, setting plates of burgers and fries in front of them, sliding tall chocolate malteds across the tabletop. She slapped their bill down with an automatic smile, then walked back to a counter packed with customers.

Lucy took a bite of her extra-rare hamburger. A salad used to get her through the whole day, but lately she'd been craving more than just lettuce. In fact, she hadn't realized till now just how famished she was.

“I can't do this anymore,” she announced, out loud this time, and around a huge mouthful of burger, pickle, and onion.

“Can't do what?” Dakota raised one eyebrow. “Eat?”

“No, not eat. I mean . . .”

“I know what you mean.” Leaning forward, Dakota touched Lucy's hand. “I'm not making light of this. I'm just worried about you.”

Lucy gave a vague nod. “Irene wants to put me away.”

“Is that what she said?”

“Actually, I think she called it a ‘nice long rest.' But she was serious, I could tell.”

Dakota was philosophical. “It's a grown-up thing. My parents go through it about every three months—they threaten to lock us all up, and then they sort of forget about it.”

“Dakota, what am I going to do?”

The two girls stared at each other.

“I don't know,” Dakota said at last. “But thank you for telling me . . .”

Lucy
had
told her.

She'd waited in the car for Dakota to rescue her, and she'd argued with herself the whole time.

She'd given her word to Jared—just as she'd given her word to Katherine, just as she'd kept Byron's confidences. And maybe it
was
just coincidence that Katherine and Byron were both dead now—or maybe she really
was
bad luck—but if something happened to Dakota because of
her
, Lucy knew it would be the last straw. She'd never be able to forgive herself. She'd never be able to live with one more death on her conscience.

She'd heard the old truck wheezing around the corner, and even then she couldn't make up her mind. Dakota had brought shovels, and when the girls finally managed to excavate the Corvette, Lucy had suddenly thrown her arms around Dakota's neck.

“It's just a car,” Dakota reminded her. “Not brain surgery.”

“It's not about the car.” Lucy was trying so hard to fight back tears, but she knew Dakota could hear her crying. “I've really got to talk to you.”

“Is this the ‘later where no one can hear us' thing you were trying to tell me this morning?”

“Yes. Where's a good place?”

Dakota thought a moment. “Your aunt's house. She's not there right now.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I stopped by to see if you were okay. Come on—I'll follow you.”

Dakota was right—Irene's house was deserted. And when Lucy checked the answering machine, she heard Irene's voice announcing piles of paperwork to catch up on and very late hours at the office tonight. For once, Lucy was relieved to have the house all to herself. She fixed hot chocolate, then she and Dakota sat down at the kitchen table.

Katherine's warning still echoed in Lucy's ears. And though Lucy had kept that promise as best she could, even death seemed better now than carrying the burden alone.