Hiding in the Shadows (19 page)

And it wasn’t just the sound. Panic was crawling around in her head; the sense of being smothered, of not having enough room, not nearly enough room, paralyzed her. The musty smell of damp earth was so strong she kept her breathing shallow, trying desperately not to inhale that moldy dampness, and she had the eerie certainty that if she looked down at herself she’d find her clothing wet, her skin dripping.

I am wide awake. So why does this feel like a nightmare?

Gradually, so gradually that at first Faith hardly noticed, darkness closed around her. She could see nothing. Feel nothing except the sense of heaviness all around her, of walls too close to bear. She was trapped, helpless. The awful smell grew stronger, so much so that she had the urge to cough to get it out of her throat. And now there was a new sound added to the rushing water. A clicking. No—a clinking. Metal on metal? Not rhythmic but erratic, weak, uncertain …

If I can just get this loose … if I can get my hands free before they come back … Oh, damn, why won’t my fingers work? It’s so dark. I hate the dark. I hate this place. Why did they have to put me here? There’s no room, no air to breathe. Too close, the walls are too close, the ceiling … I’ve got to get out of here before I … before they … Why is this so hard? Why can’t I—

“Faith?”

Why can’t I move? If there was just a little light. Just a little more room to move. If I only had more time. If only it didn’t hurt so much—

“Faith!”

She came back to herself with a jarring abruptness. Light flooded her vision, and the sudden cessation of the sounds of rushing water made the quiet of the stopped car seem almost deafening. And the familiar voice that had been in her head, its vibrant personality still incredibly strong despite distance and despair and suffering, was gone as though it had never been there.

“Faith, for God’s sake—”

She blinked at Kane, realizing that he was holding her shoulders and was shaking her. Her arm ached dully beneath his grip, but it was nothing compared to the agony that had been in her mind.

“I’m all right,” she murmured.

His fingers tightened painfully, then released her. “You want to tell me what in hell happened? One minute we were talking, and the next you were so far away I couldn’t reach you.”

Faith realized that he had stopped the car, that they were in an underground parking garage.

“I … I’m not quite sure what happened,” she said.

“Tell me what you are sure of.”

She was still too dazed to attempt any prevarication, so she told him. “I … It was Dinah. Her voice in my head. She was trying to get loose, to escape.”

Kane reached out again, this time putting a hand over both of hers where they twisted together in her lap. “Where is she, Faith?”

“I don’t know. It’s dark and damp and smells musty, like dirt—and all I could hear was the sound of rushing water.”

“Water?”

“Yes. Like a waterfall, or water coming out of a pipe at high pressure. Just water. Just water and darkness and that awful smell …”

“Right here is where we ran into the problem.” Max Sanders, owner of the Mayfair Construction Company, jabbed a stubby finger at the blueprints spread out on Kane’s drafting table. “Without some kind of
correction, and fast, this wall’s coming down, Kane. There are already cracks in the foundation.”

Kane frowned. “Let’s see the materials list again.”

“Jed swears it’s a design flaw rather than construction or materials.”

“He would.” The foreman always did.

“Not that I agree with him.” Sanders produced the materials list. “But I’ve looked the stuff over, and it’s just what you insisted on, the best quality and well above code.”

“So why is the foundation cracking?” Kane mused.

“Exactly. I honestly don’t believe the crew fucked up, Kane.” Sanders darted a quick, apologetic glance at Faith.

Kane could have told him that she wasn’t listening and so wouldn’t be offended by the language. She was sitting on the sofa on the far side of the room with a magazine open on her lap, but as far as he could see she hadn’t turned a page in more than twenty minutes. She had retreated into herself not long after they had arrived.

He didn’t blame her. What she had experienced had upset him, and he’d gotten it second-hand. Or third-hand.

Was it Dinah? Was she trapped somewhere, badly hurt and trying desperately to reach out?

But where?
Where?
So goddamned maddening to know she was out there somewhere and still, after all these weeks, have no clue where to look for her.…

“So if it isn’t materials or workmanship,” Sanders said, “then what? I’m not questioning your design, Kane, but maybe there’s something neither of us
could have foreseen. A fault in the ground, maybe, or something underneath the foundation that’s causing uneven support.”

Kane forced his attention back to the job, as difficult as that was. He went over the materials list carefully, then studied the blueprints again. “Until last night, we hadn’t had any heavy rain in weeks. The geological survey said we’re building on a solid clay base, with no gas pockets or ground water to undermine the foundation.”

“We had to dig deeper than planned for the foundation,” Sanders reminded him.

“True.” Kane opened a file and looked over the report from the geologist. “But the ground should have been checked out far below that level. I still don’t see …”

“What?” Sanders demanded quickly when Kane obviously did see something in the report that bothered him. “Have you found something?”

Kane looked at him blankly for an instant, then shook off the abstraction and said, “According to this, there should be no problems directly beneath the building. But there are also reports of springs and artesian wells in the general area, and both have caused problems in other buildings.”

“But if the ground under ours is okay, would it be affected?”

“No, I took the water into account early on in designing the building.” Kane shook his head. “Let me work on the problem, Max. I’d rather find the cause than just design a quick-fix patch to shore up that wall.”

Sanders nodded but was clearly unhappy. “It’s
your design. But my crew can’t do squat until we get this taken care of, and I can’t afford to have them sitting around scratching their balls for days. If it looks like this is going to take a while, I’ll have to put them to work on another job, Kane.”

“I’ll let you know something by tomorrow, Max. Don’t worry. I’m no more eager than you are to delay work on the building.”

“I hear that.”

Kane saw Sanders to the door, and when it had closed behind him, Faith said quietly, “Springs and artesian wells. That’s what caught your attention, isn’t it?”

So she had been listening after all.

He sat down on a chair near the sofa. “According to what you’ve … sensed, Dinah could be held underground. Maybe in a basement or cellar. If the sounds of water you’re hearing are coming from a natural source, it could be a spring or well.”

“I guess.” Faith rubbed her temple absently. “But it was … so loud. Water under tremendous pressure. If it was natural, I don’t see how anything could have been built near it, not without having the structure undermined.” She blinked, then said softly, “It couldn’t be that, could it? She couldn’t be there, in your building?”

“I don’t see how,” Kane said. “The building site has been crawling with people for months, and the foundation is only now being closed in. The structure has been wide open, no hiding places anywhere.”

“What about nearby?”

“Are there other buildings nearby? Of course.
Other office buildings, a hotel, a medical clinic, God knows what else.”

“And even if we knew for a fact she was in that area, in one of those buildings, how could we possibly guess which one when we still don’t know what this is all about? Why can’t I
remember?”

Kane started to reach out, then stopped himself. He was becoming more and more aware of this urge to touch her, to be close to her. Almost as if …

No. It wasn’t that. Dinah was the one he wanted.

“You can’t force it,” he said finally. “And whether you remember or not, sooner or later we’ll find out the truth.”

She looked at him. “Will we? I can’t help wondering how much you’ll hate me if we find out that I am responsible for Dinah disappearing, for getting us both involved in something dangerous.”

Kane wanted to say he wouldn’t hate her at all, but he wasn’t sure it was true. He wasn’t sure he didn’t hate her a little bit even now, for tying his emotions into knots. For wrecking his certainties.

The silence had dragged on just one moment too long when the office door opened and Sydney Wilkes strolled in.

“I’m sorry, Kane—Sharon didn’t tell me you had a visitor. Hello, Faith.”

This time, the silence was filled with a different kind of tension. Kane looked from Faith’s expression of surprise to his sister’s dawning confusion, and wondered if his own face was such a study in bewilderment.

“Syd, you know Faith?”

“Of course I know her.” Sydney frowned as she
looked at Faith. “I had to deal very closely with the Office of Building Inspections and Zoning on that Andrews project, and Faith was the person I worked with. But I guess I’m not so memorable.”

Quickly, Faith said, “I was in a car accident a couple of months ago and lost my memory—of practically everything, including the people I knew.”

“Really? How terrible for you.” Sydney came to sit on the other end of the sofa, her face filled now with compassion. “That must be the loneliest feeling in the world.”

Before Faith could respond, Kane said, “What did you mean when you said you guessed
you
weren’t so memorable, Syd?”

She laughed. “Injured vanity, I suppose.”

He shook his head. “No, the way you said it implied that Faith was unusually memorable to you. Why?”

Sydney looked uncomfortable. “You’re reading too much into the comment, Kane.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Kane—”

“Sydney, part of Faith’s lost memory might tell us who grabbed Dinah and why. So if you know anything …”

His sister looked at Faith, puzzled once again. “I wasn’t aware you and Dinah knew each other.”

“We were friends,” Faith said.

“I see.” Sydney shook her head. “Well, I don’t, but that hardly matters. Kane, there’s nothing I know about Faith that could possibly help you find Dinah. We knew each other on the most superficial, businesslike level, nothing more.”

“But she made an impression on you. Why?”

Sydney let out an impatient breath. “If you must know, it was because she somehow misplaced the paperwork of two inspectors on that project, and we had to wait while the inspections were rescheduled. Set us back two weeks.”

“I’m sorry,” Faith said.

Sydney smiled at her. “Well, I was upset at the time, but you did everything you could to get the second round of inspections done quickly, even worked overtime, so I forgave you. Paperwork does get misplaced, after all, especially in an office whose sole purpose seems to be to generate paper.”

Kane wasn’t entirely satisfied with Sydney’s explanation, but he let it go. Because he couldn’t see how the situation could have had anything to do with Dinah’s disappearance, not when it happened last spring.

Sydney said to him, “I gather there’s been nothing new on Dinah?”

“No, nothing helpful.”

“I’m sorry, Kane. I wish there was something I could do.”

Lightly, he said, “You’re holding the company together, and that’s more than enough.”

“I couldn’t solve Max Sanders’s problem,” she said with a grimace. “I mean, it looked like a structural failure to me, but I’m no engineer. I had no idea where to look for a cause or a solution.”

“I’ll deal with Max, Syd. You just keep the other projects on track and the other clients happy, and MacGregor and Payne will be fine.”

“I’ll do my best. In fact, I have a meeting in ten
minutes to go over plans with a couple of residential clients, so I’d better get back downstairs to my office. I just wanted to see you while you were here and find out if there was any news.”

Kane felt a stab of guilt. “I know I haven’t been very accessible lately, Syd. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She smiled a little sadly. “No one else can truly understand how you feel, but at least I have some idea. You’ve put your thoughts and energies where they needed to go, just as you have to keep doing until you find Dinah. Don’t apologize for that. And don’t worry about me.”

“Thanks, Syd.”

“Don’t mention it. And call me right away if—if anything changes, all right?”

“Of course.”

Sydney got to her feet. “Faith, I … wish you luck. I hope you get your memory back.”

“Thanks.”

When they were alone again, Kane said restlessly, “As far as I can see, there’s nothing wrong with the design from an engineering standpoint, so the fault has to be either materials or construction. I’ll have to go out there.”

“I’d like to come along,” Faith said. “Didn’t you tell me that Dinah had visited the site the day before she vanished?”

“Yeah, she showed up out there looking for me, and Max gave her a quick tour. The police checked out the area, but as far as they could tell she didn’t go back there the day she disappeared.”

“And they talked to Max?”

“Of course.” Kane frowned. “Why?”

Slowly, Faith said, “Probably nothing, but the only thing I can think of that both Dinah and I had some kind of connection to other than the shelter was construction. I worked at a construction company in Seattle, then came here and eventually got a job at the Office of Building Inspections and Zoning. Dinah’s engaged to an engineer and architect whose company is involved in a very large project for the city, a building site she toured the day before she disappeared. I’m in what looks like a manufactured accident, she vanishes—and now your project is in trouble.” She paused. “I can just hear Bishop say there’s no such thing as a string of coincidences that long.”

Thinking about that, Kane said, “The building was started shortly before your accident, so it fits loosely within the time frame. But how many other buildings were started in the same period?”