Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff (16 page)

In the next second, a crack of light appeared as someone opened the front door, located on the side of the house facing away from the wind. A hooded figure stepped onto the porch, and Bee and I ducked behind the trunk as the person looked out to their left, then turned to the right toward the tree where we were hiding.

After a second the person stepped down off the porch and started around the house. I was pretty sure it was Possum, and I tried to think whether there might be some way to capture him, maybe bonk him over the head. If we could do it, it would leave only one man inside with the prisoners. But that one man was Lenny, and he had a gun. He could kill Daddy or Grandma Em, and he might just do it if he were angry or scared enough or if he thought it was his only way of getting out of this.

I gave up the idea completely when I saw a second dark shape beside Possum. It was Leaper. A thousand butterflies started kicking around in my stomach, but then I noticed something that made me feel a little bit better. Leaper was on a leash. Possum was dragging him, but Leaper had his rear end all hunched like he was scared to death and only wanted to get back inside. Also I knew we were downwind, and there was no way Leaper was going to smell us in this gale.

I nudged Bee, and we crept out from around the tree, back into the teeth of the wind, moving to a spot farther from the house. The temperature was still dropping, and we shivered hard as we squinted through the sheets of rain and watched the man and Leaper make their way slowly down the lawn toward the dock. They were looking for us.

I remembered that we had brought the kayak back onto the dock and lashed it in place. I didn't know if Possum had been down on the dock earlier and if he might notice the extra kayak. If he did, he would know for sure that Bee and I hadn't drowned. The knowledge would be a huge relief for Daddy and Grandma Em, but it would make the rescue much harder.

Possum came to a stop and stared down at the river. Everything was indistinct through the rain, but I could see the seething mass of water, and I could tell it had already risen over the boardwalk that led out to the dock. I wanted to cheer, because there was no way Possum was going to risk going all the way out to where the kayaks were tied.

Sure enough, a few seconds later he turned and started back toward the house. Judging by the way he moved and the way Leaper pulled at his leash, neither of them wanted any part of being out there.

“Should we try it now?” I asked Bee.

“With Leaper?” She nodded. “Go for it.”

I reached inside the day pack and pulled out the two balls of ground beef. Figuring Possum and Leaper would pass within about twenty yards of the live oak where Bee and I were hiding, I lobbed one of the balls to a place where I hoped Leaper would be able to smell it.

I saw the ball splash in the standing water on the lawn, and my heart sank. What if it was so far underwater or the wind was blowing so hard that Leaper couldn't catch the scent? What if the dog wanted to get back in the house too badly to care about food? I couldn't afford to worry about any of that. I threw the second ball, and it landed almost on top of the first.

Possum got closer. The rain was falling so fast that it looked like a solid wall. Possum had his head down, his shoulders hunched forward, as if he was trying to force his way through a waterfall.

Leaper's head was down, too, his stub of a tail jammed as far between his legs as he could manage. He wasn't sniffing anything, just trying to pull his master back to the house. But when he neared the meatball, he paused, then gave a mighty jerk against the leash, causing Possum to stagger sideways a step or two. Leaper sniffed for a half second, then scarfed down the meatballs in two gulps.

Possum snarled a curse and jerked the leash, but he was too late. A second later they were past us, heading into the house, but I was smiling. I was pretty sure Leaper would be snoring hard in about fifteen minutes. I relaxed just a little, but my teeth were chattering so fast I could barely talk. Bee looked as miserable as I felt.

“Ready?” I asked.

She nodded, her arms held tight across her chest as she fought for warmth. We stepped out from around the tree, back into the full force of the gale. The wind blasted us as it came screaming off the river, making me cold all the way to my bones. The only good thing was that there were fewer trees between the house and the river, so there was less flying junk in the air.

We headed to the side of the house where the padlocked cellar door led to the basement, with the old coal-chute door beside it. I got down on my knees and pulled the hatch up. The opening seemed much narrower than I remembered, and it led to a tunnel of pure blackness. I realized it had probably been two years since I last tried to get into the house this way, and I had been a lot smaller. I turned to look at Bee, who was staring at the small opening with a look of horror.

“We have to go in there?” she said. Her teeth chattered as bad as mine, but I suspected it was due to a combination of both cold
and
fear.

I nodded. “I'll go first.”

Even as I said it, I prayed I wouldn't get stuck halfway down. I took off the day pack and handed it to Bee and shoved my flashlight deep in my pocket, where it wouldn't bang on anything and make noise. Then I wiggled headfirst into the tiny, dark opening.

Sixteen

T
he chute descended at a
steep angle toward what had once been a coal bin on the basement floor. The space was too tight to do anything but lie flat with my arms stretched overhead and my legs straight out behind me. I couldn't bunch up enough to crawl or squirm, so I used my fingers to pull and my toes to push as I inched downward into the blackness.

Like any house on the coast in South Carolina, the minute I stuck my head into the chute, the basement humidity hit me, filling my nose with wet, stale air that smelled like dog breath. I'm not a chicken about very many things, but breathing that heavy air and feeling almost trapped by the chute walls that seemed to squeeze in on my chest, I started to imagine spiders. Big, hairy spiders. Maybe a banana spider as big as a person's hand. Maybe a black widow or a tarantula. Or a rat.

I'm not a screamer, and I generally
hate
girls who scream every time the tiniest little thing scares them, but by the time I got halfway down the chute, I was picturing the hugest and most horrible spiders and the biggest rats. It was everything I could do not to holler.

Somehow I managed to stay quiet and continued to claw and push my way down the chute. After what seemed like about an hour, my hands suddenly found open space. I grabbed the end of the chute and pulled myself a few inches farther, until my arms came free, then my head.

From there I forced myself to slow down, because there was about a three-foot drop to the old coal bin. I needed to be careful so I didn't make much noise. I could still hear the hurricane's wind outside like the roar of a locomotive. The storm was probably making enough ruckus to cover any sound I might make, but Lenny and Possum were likely very jumpy by now, and they would come right away to investigate anything suspicious.

With my body hanging halfway out of the chute, I felt for the sides of the old bin, and when I touched the rough plywood, I pulled myself a little farther out. Years earlier, when I was still small enough to slide down the chute fast, I had put some old bedspreads in the bottom of the coal bin to cushion my fall when I came shooting out. The bedspreads were still there, all damp and gross-smelling and moldy, but I could count on them to break my fall to the ground. What I worried about was my legs, now much longer, crashing into the bin with a loud thump.

Holding the sides, I pulled myself forward until my knees came out and my legs fell down on the old bedspreads with hardly a sound. I stayed still for several seconds, listening.

Outside the house it sounded like the world was breaking apart, but inside the basement, surrounded by earth on all sides and the weight of the house above, things were remarkably still. Because of that, I could hear other things, like in one part of the house the sound of several different feet tapping the floor or scuffing, while over my head the telltale squeak of the old floorboards as somebody walked through the downstairs. The person's tread was slow and cautious, but they weren't rushing around the way they would have if they had heard me.

I let another moment go by, then put my flashlight into the chute and clicked the light on and off three times, the signal to Bee that the coast was clear. A second later the day pack came shooting down. Then Bee entered the chute, her hands and knees making dull clunks on the metal sides of the shaft.

There was an intake of breath and a curse. Bee's claustrophobia had to be giving her fits in the tight space. I stuck my head back into the chute and shined the light at her.

“Keep your arms straight out in front,” I whispered. “Take your time. Once you're close enough, I'll grab your hands and help pull you the rest of the way.”

Bee's breathing was hoarse. She had to be so frightened right at that moment. Whatever fear I had felt, Bee was feeling it ten times worse, because she absolutely
hated
tight spaces. The chute had been tight enough on me, and Bee was bigger than I was.

As I stuck my head back into the chute to try to grab her Bee was whispering something so soft that at first I couldn't understand the words. It took several seconds before I realized that she was whispering, “I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna kill her.” I knew she meant me.

It seemed like a long time before her fingers touched mine. Hers were slick with sweat, but I reached up the chute a little farther, grabbed her as well as I could, and gave a big heave. Bee came sliding toward me, and as her head emerged from the chute she took a couple of shuddering breaths.

“You have to be careful not to hit the sides of the bin,” I whispered.

“Just get me out of this thing
now
!” she hissed.

“Okay, okay. Just be quiet.” With a quick tug, I pulled her the rest of the way. As her legs fell, her heels swung and thumped into the side of the plywood bin. It wouldn't have been so bad, given the noise of the storm outside, but someone had left an empty can balanced on the edge of the bin. I hadn't noticed it before, and when Bee hit it, it clattered to the ground with a loud clang that seemed to echo off the basement walls.

I flicked off my flashlight, and we both froze, crouching in the absolute blackness inside the coal bin. The only thing that broke the silence was a sudden rustling sound, followed by a sharp pain on my right arm. Bee had just swung in the dark and hit me with her fist.

“Don't you
ever
stick me in something like that again,” she hissed.

“Be quiet!” I whispered.

I didn't have to say another word, because in the next instant an overhead light went on, momentarily blinding us, and a set of heavy footsteps thumped down the basement stairs.

I grabbed Bee's arm and pulled her against the wall of the bin. Moving as quickly as I dared, I snatched the corner of one of the moldy spreads that padded the inside of the bin floor and pulled it over both of us.

The good thing about the basement was that it was broken up into several different rooms. The main ceiling light was in the first room, right at the bottom of the basement stairs. The light was bright there, but it faded to murky dimness in all the other rooms. There were other lights in each room, but the switches were tucked around corners and not very obvious to someone who didn't know where they were.

Bee and I were in a room that was to the right of the basement steps, and a long slash of bright light spilled in the door. Fortunately the rest of the room, including the coal bin, lay in deep shadow. Even so, if anyone came over to the bin and looked inside, we would be easy to spot. If they stayed a few feet away and didn't shine a flashlight directly on us, I thought we might be okay.

I moved slightly and pressed my eye to the crack in the bin's corner, where two sheets of plywood came together. There was enough of an opening for me to see out, and I held my breath and watched. My heart was thudding hard in my chest. After a few seconds I let out my breath and took a fresh one, trying not to pant. I kept squeezing Bee's arm.

I tensed as a pair of legs appeared in the bright pool of stairway light. The man, whoever he was, came about halfway down the basement steps and stopped. He was only visible up to his waist, because the ceiling cut off my view of the rest of him. But by the way he was standing, he seemed uncertain about coming any farther. It gave me a flicker of hope. Maybe he would just turn around and go back upstairs.

After a second he came down two more steps and stopped again. I could see him to midchest now. It was Possum. He held a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other, and I squeezed Bee's arm harder. He panned the flashlight beam into the corners of the room he was in, aiming the gun wherever he shined the light.

“Leaper,” he called out. “Get down here, dog.”

My heart went into my throat. What if the sleeping pills hadn't kicked in yet?

“Leaper!” Possum shouted, but the dog did not appear.

“Where's Leaper?” Possum shouted.

“Last I saw he was lying on the dining room floor,” Lenny called back, his voice faint, muffled by the wind. “See anything?”

“No,” Possum called back.

“What about outside basement stairs? You see any?” Lenny called.

Possum came the rest of the way down. He moved to his left, out of my line of sight, heading toward the laundry room. His footsteps stopped quickly. He hadn't gone all the way into the room but had stopped in the doorway and was probably shining his light around.

After a second he turned, moved across my field of view again, and opened a door. It was the old pantry room, where canned fruits and vegetables were stored and where a big chest freezer held frozen vegetables or game. Once again, from the sound of his footsteps, I knew he had stopped in the entrance.

Finally he stepped into the doorway of the room where Bee and I were hiding. Maybe ten feet to our left, the outside cellar stairs led up to a slanted metal door.

“I see some stairs,” Possum shouted. He didn't sound very happy about the discovery.

“Well, check 'em, you idiot. Make sure they're locked and they ain't been opened.”

Possum muttered a string of curses about Lenny, what he hoped Lenny would do to himself, and insults about Lenny's mother, but he did as Lenny ordered and started across the room toward the cellar steps.

His feet scuffed along the gritty basement floor, the sound getting closer and closer. I could see him now through the crack, and my heart slammed even harder. If he was curious, I knew it would be easy to walk over those few feet, shine his light into the bin, and see us.

“Blast you, Lenny,” Possum was muttering under his breath. “Why ain't
you
the one down in this crummy basement? Why ain't
you
the one pokin' 'round in this dark with the spiders and rats and whatever the heck else lives here? I'll tell you why you don't do it. Y'all're afraid. Any fool with a single bit'a sense would be.”

I lost sight of him again as he went right up to the basement doors. He rattled the metal doors hard to make sure they were locked. After that there was no sound. I still couldn't see him, but I was afraid he might start to check other places.

I let go of Bee's arm, reached beneath the bedspreads, and groped around. There had to be something I could use, but for several seconds my fingers found nothing but dust and floor dirt. Finally I touched something hard. It was small and rough—probably an old bit of coal about as big as my little fingernail—but it had enough weight.

Possum's flashlight beam suddenly swung over our way and played over our heads. I froze. He took a step in our direction, but then he pointed the flashlight back at the ground to see where he should put his feet.

I didn't hesitate. The small chunk of coal flew toward the opposite corner, and I prayed that it would hit something. A half second later there was a loud
ding
as it hit a paint can or a hot-water heater or something metal.

Possum sucked in a loud breath and whipped his flashlight beam in the direction of the sound. “What the heck?” he said to himself in a shaky voice. “It's rats. I know it's rats, and I hate rats.” With that he turned and hurried across the basement and up the steps.

A second later the overhead light clicked off, and welcome darkness fell over us once again.