Whispers in the Dark (20 page)

Danesh edged between me and the men. Jerry had pressed back against the wall, staring like a rabbit in headlights.

Sean paced. “So what are we going to do about this?”

“Not much you can do,” Danesh said. “Tie us up and get away.”

My heart pounded in my ears. They hadn’t seen me earlier—they couldn’t have, or they would have stopped me before I ever got to the visitors center. So why were they here? I had the feeling I was missing some vital piece of information, but I couldn’t think. I felt flushed now, almost too hot, but I hugged the blanket tight, trembling.

Sean looked at Danesh, at me, at Jerry. He spoke over his shoulder to the other men. “What do you think, guys? How should we take care of them?”

The dark one gave a short laugh. The redhead said, “You’re the one who must take care of them. We just came to see that you do the job right.”

The other man muttered, “Damn right! We’re not cleaning up your mess.”

Sweat prickled my face even as I shivered. I’d been mistaken about Sean, but he couldn’t be a killer. Could he?

Sean kept pacing. I leaned over to see around Danesh. I appreciated his desire to protect me, but I needed to know what was happening. And I knew using his body as a shield would only last as long as it took a bullet to cross the room.

“This is my life, you know!” Sean said. “I have an apartment, friends, a nice, easy job that keeps people from asking too many questions. This took years to set up.” He stopped to glare at me. “I can’t just walk away from it all and start over.”

The red-haired man said, “So do what you must do. Enough of your games.”

The man held out his gun. “Prove you are man enough for this.”

Sean glared at him. He reached for the gun. I saw Danesh bend his knees as if getting ready to spring.

Jerry cried out and pushed away from the wall, an arm outstretched.

Danesh shoved Sean into the red-haired man. They stumbled against the wall, and Sean went down on one knee.

The dark-haired man was grappling with Jerry. Danesh grabbed the door and swung it so it slammed against the criminal’s back. He yelled, “Kylie, run!”

I tried to jump up but my legs tangled in the blanket. I struggled free and stumbled into the center of the room. Danesh was trying to wrestle the gun away from the red-haired man. Sean was on his feet. He turned toward me.

Someone must have bumped the light switch. The room went dark.

A gun went off. I screamed.

In the light spilling in from the front room, I saw Sean duck and glance back at the wrestling men. I willed my rubbery legs to move and raced through the door.

I banged the corner of the counter, bounced off, and careened through the front room.

Sean yelled something. I glanced back as I fumbled with the door handle. Sean was just a few steps behind me. I stumbled through the door and ran across the parking lot.

The night seemed pitch black after the lights of the visitors center. I heard a shout behind me but kept running. My breath choked on a sob. How long could Danesh and Jerry keep fighting? They might already be dead.

I had to get help. I had to hide.

I could only keep running.

My feet pounded the ground. I landed on a sharp rock and cried out in pain. I limped through the next step but kept moving. My heart hammered and my breath rasped, but instinct screamed through me:
Run, run
!

My foot slid in the mud. The socks were half hanging off my feet. I stumbled, caught myself, and ran on.

A shred of sane thought wrestled with the terror. I couldn’t keep running blindly. I held my hands out in front of myself so I wouldn’t crash into a tree, but I needed to get my bearings, figure out where I was. I needed to get away from Sean and make a plan.

But he must be right behind me! I couldn’t stop, couldn’t even risk slowing down or looking back.

Something sharp caught me across the shin. I yelped and stumbled forward as the pain burned like a hot knife.

I almost went down on my knees, but I managed to thrust a foot out in front of me.

The foot found no place to land. I pitched forward with a sickening lurch that left my stomach behind.

And then I was hurtling through the darkness, down into the canyon.

Chapter 23

I hit something, bounced, scraped, and finally landed with a thud that rattled my whole body.

I lay in the dark, blinded, my head ringing, pain washing over me in great waves. My lungs screamed for air, but it seemed like I’d forgotten how to breathe.

Finally I dragged in a breath. I closed my eyes and focused on breathing, waiting for the world to settle into place.

Rain misted my face, so I must be lying on my back. My head felt heavier than my feet. I shifted and realized I was lying on a slope with my head pointing down.

I tried to concentrate on those little details. I couldn’t handle anything more. Panic fluttered around me, but I refused to think about anything but the present moment. I flexed my fingers. When that worked, I moved my hands over my body, up to my face. My head throbbed, but when I felt around my skull, I didn’t find any serious damage.

I had to move. The thought battered at the back of my mind, a panicky whisper that I tried to ignore. I had to run. Hide. He was after me. I had to get away.

I clenched my teeth hard, as if I could bite back the pain and fear. Memories crowded in, like panicked ghosts wailing at the edges of my mind. Guns, strange men. Dangerous, threatening men. Danesh trying to protect me, the gun going off. My own helpless, panicked flight. Helpless. Worthless. Unable to fight, unable even to scream.

I tried to focus on this one moment, the physical sensations of my aching body as I lay on the hard, damp ground. The cold against my bare calves, the lump of rock pressing into my shoulder. That focus helped keep me grounded in the present. Never mind that this present wasn’t a place I wanted to be. I had to deal with reality. But I didn’t have to also deal with nightmares. Not now.

The little whimpers in my throat faded to short gasping breaths. I held on to this moment, this single slice of reality. Now to move forward. I didn’t have to like it, but I had to do it. One step at a time.

I tried bending my knees, and that seemed to work. So far, so good. But the cold seeped through my thin jacket and I started to shiver.

Ignore that. I needed to get my feet below my head before I could stand up. I tried to move but only twitched, my body not sure yet how to give the right signals. Finally I rolled onto my right side, bringing my knees up toward my chest. I slid a little and wound up huddled face down, my head in my hands. Nausea swamped me and I tried not to retch. My head felt far too large. I swallowed hard and breathed, breathed, breathed, until my head settled back down to size.

I just wanted to stay there, ignore the world, sleep until all the pain and fear went away. But somewhere above me, Sean was looking for me. Had he seen me fall or guessed what had happened? Did he think I was dead? I couldn’t trust that he would leave without making sure.

When I was fairly certain I wouldn’t throw up, I pushed myself slowly to my knees. The world swung around me. Bile rose in my throat. I closed my eyes and listened to the night but heard only the wind.

The world settled into place, and the nausea faded again. I had to move. Sean was out there, after me. I didn’t know what had happened to Danesh or Jerry. I needed to get help, needed to go back and help my friends, needed to do
something
. Tears joined the rain on my cheeks.

I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t do anything in this state. The panic was too close, threatening to devour me. I needed to get somewhere safe where I could think, find my balance, make plans. Be safe.

I looked around, searching for inspiration. My eyes seemed to be adjusting to the dark, so at least I could tell the difference between ground and sky. I squinted up toward the rim. I hadn’t fallen that far, fifteen or twenty feet. Maybe I could get back up. But then what?

A beam of light sliced across the black sky directly above me. I whimpered and tucked my head down, hoping the light wouldn’t pick me out. At least the jacket was dark and, by now, muddy. I lay still for seconds that felt like hours. My skin chilled and my feet went numb. I thought I heard faint scuffling sounds on the rim above, and then nothing more.

I cautiously peered up toward the canyon rim and saw nothing.

I needed to get out of there. I could move. I had to. I pushed against the ground and staggered to my feet.

Pain screamed through my left ankle and it threatened to collapse. I couldn’t hold back a cry.

I tested the ankle gingerly and discovered I could put some weight on it, but the pain brought tears to my eyes. It probably wasn’t broken, but definitely sprained. My shin throbbed, too, around a burning spot where I’d felt the flash of pain earlier, before I fell. I’d probably cut myself on something, might even be bleeding. I couldn’t do anything about the pain but ignore it.

I shivered as cold air rushed past me. Where could I go? I didn’t dare climb back to the rim path until I was sure Sean was gone. But without getting up to the rim, I couldn’t reach the campground, my car, a phone, anything. I could hike across the canyon to the trail on the other side, but that meant two or three miles of walking before I could get back to the campground. I didn’t think I could do it. I gave a hiccoughing sob.

The clouds shifted, and moonlight spilled across the canyon. For a moment the smooth lines of a tower seemed to glow above me, like an offering.

The Castle. An eight-hundred-year-old fortress, if the archaeologists’ guesses were right. It was still a sturdy defense, with walls twenty feet high. It perched on the canyon rim with its one doorway opening into the canyon. You couldn’t reach that doorway from the rim, because the walls were built all the way to the edge. You could only reach the doorway from down in the canyon—by climbing up a “ladder” of notches in the rocks.

But this ladder had an advantage over the one I’d tried to climb down at Stronghold House. At the Castle, early archaeologists had bolted a chain into the rock to aid their access, and it still hung alongside the ladder. If I could get up the cliff and inside the Castle, no one could reach me unless they climbed up after me. And if they did that, I’d be above them, able to kick or hit while they were busy holding on.

It was a crazy idea. What good would it do to hide in the Castle?

I heard a shout and a clatter, like falling rocks. My heart jumped and I bolted.

I didn’t think about where I was going. I just ran. I headed for the Castle because it was in front of me, because I’d been thinking how safe it seemed. I wasn’t working on logic, just fear.

My ankle throbbed with each step. Prickly bushes scraped my calves. My feet slid in the mud. When I reached the base of the cliffs below the ruin, I pressed close to the wall and felt for the chain. I closed my hand around the ice-cold metal.

I looked up at the canyon rim. Sean’s flashlight bobbed along the path, the beam swinging across the trees on the rim. He was headed away, toward the campground. He hadn’t yet figured out I was down in the canyon. In a minute I could be in the Castle. I could be safe.

I pulled the wet socks tight over my feet, wiped my hands on Jerry’s jacket, and pushed the hair out of my eyes. Then I grabbed the chain and leaned back on it. I found a notch for my good foot and stepped my weight up onto it. I reached a hand higher and heaved my body up. I whimpered as I put weight on my twisted ankle and decided to use my knee instead. The knee throbbed as I pressed it into the hard rock, but a few seconds later I had my other foot back on the wall.

I could do this. I could escape.

I dragged myself up the cliff, refusing to look either up or down. I told myself that if I could reach the Castle, I would be safe. I wouldn’t think otherwise or worry about the next step. I’d be protected. Hidden. That was all that mattered now. Safe. Safe.

My hands went numb on the cold chain. I no longer noticed rain on my face, and the wind moved through the canyon with a murmur rather than a roar. I heard the river below me, gurgling and splashing as it rushed over boulders and poured down the canyon. I refused to think about the deep canyon slipping away behind me. I was almost up the cliff.

Light flashed across my arms. I gasped and twitched. One foot started to slip, but I clung to the chain with trembling arms, fighting vertigo as my body swung.

A shout echoed across the canyon. The light moved away from me, and I glanced over my shoulder. Sean was striding along the canyon rim, using the flashlight to light his path. Then the beam came back to me, pinning me to the cliff. He had seen me.

I whimpered and reached for the next hold. My hand slid over the top of the rock. I clenched the chain with frozen fingers and moved trembling limbs higher. I got an arm over the cliff and wriggled forward, finally pulling up my legs. I ignored the hard, cold rock against my skin as I crawled through the little doorway on hands and knees.

I huddled inside, shaking, hugging my knees to my chest. The small room was black except for the paler dark of the doorway and the sky above, where the roof had collapsed. I heard voices, faint whispers carried by the wind. Sean and the gunmen making plans? Someone from the campground who had wandered over and asked a question? The police at last? No, I would have heard their cars.