Wicked Business (19 page)

We took Route 91 from 89, got off at the exit for Norwich,
Vermont
, crossed the Connecticut River, and rolled into Hanover. The first impression is that this is a movie set for a small Ivy League, New England college town. Autumn was in the air and leaves were dropping from trees. Students were everywhere in hooded sweatshirts, jeans, and trail shoes. Everyone looked healthy, and you could imagine them eating sprouted wheat bread and drinking lots of stale beer out of plastic party cups.

The college was to the left, with domes and spires and classroom buildings that date back as far as the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Main Street, with shops and pubs, shot off to the right. It was lined with redbrick buildings, benches and trees, and parking meters.

The Hanover Inn occupied the corner of Main and East Wheelock. It’s a big, blocky, redbrick structure with rocking chairs on its wide porch. And opposite the Inn is the Dartmouth Green.

We were on East Wheelock Street, and there were dorms to the left and right of me. I was thinking this was incredibly appealing, and maybe I would want to live here someday. Open a bakery of my own and make healthy treats and
homemade granola for the college faculty. And then I saw
the Sphinx
, and I had second thoughts about Hanover.

The building was a temple, a tomb, a forbidding gray stone bunker. It could have been a bomb shelter. It was nicely proportioned but cold and unwelcoming. And it looked forgotten, sitting forlorn in a scraggly copse of undernourished trees, perched on hardscrabble grass without a single azalea bush to soften its appearance. A hundred years ago, it had no doubt been the pride of a secret society when secret societies flourished. But that time had come and gone, and the Sphinx now looked like a beautifully designed but lone monument in an unattended boneyard.

Diesel found parking a block away, and we walked back to take a closer look. No sign of Wulf or Hatchet. No sign of Deirdre Early. No sign that anyone ever used the building. The heavy wood door looked completely unused. Diesel ran his hand over it and wasn’t able to find a lock he could open. There was no give when he pushed against it.

We circled the building and found a simple, unassuming door on the east side. It had a five-button security lock that had been pretty well bashed in and what appeared to be the tip of a sword wedged between door and jamb.

“Looks like Hatchet’s been here,” Diesel said.

“Can you open it?”

He put his hand to it. “It’s jammed.”

We circled the building several times but couldn’t find a way to get in. I had the scrap of paper with the hieroglyphics
and scrambled letters on it. We compared the hieroglyphics on my paper to the markings on the tomb’s cornerstone and they were exactly the same.

“Do you get any vibes when you touch the building?” Diesel asked me.

I put my hand to the stone. “Nope. Nothing.”

I heard sirens and I turned to see a police car race down Wheelock, moving toward Main Street. It was followed by a fire truck and another police car. We left the Sphinx and went to the sidewalk. It was impossible to see exactly what was going on, but smoke billowed into the sky from somewhere on campus.

Diesel and I walked toward the smoke and saw that it was coming from a building on the far side of the Green. We crossed
the Green
and joined the crowd of students watching the building burn.

I was standing next to a guy with a two-day beard and hair that was in worse shape than Diesel’s.

“What building is this?” I asked him. “How did the fire start?”

“This is Parkhurst,” he said. “It’s an admin building. The Office of Student Life is in here. Don’t know how the fire started.”

An older woman who looked like she might work in the building leaned toward us. “I was told some crazy woman came in demanding a list of Sphinx members. And when she didn’t get it, she torched the office and ran away.”

“The gang’s all here,” Diesel said to me.

“Now what?” I asked him.

“Lunch,” Diesel said. “I’m starving.”

We crossed Wheelock, bypassed The Hanover Inn, thinking it looked too classy for us, and settled on Lou’s. My rule of thumb is always go with the diner that has a pastry counter right up front. Especially if the pastries are homemade and look like the ones in Lou’s case.

There was counter seating and booth seating and we were able to take our pick, since everyone else in town was gawking at the fire. I ordered a burger, and Diesel ordered something called The Big Green, which it turned out meant they emptied the kitchen onto as many plates as it took and tried to cram them onto the small booth table. It was the equivalent of ordering half a cow at Fat Bubba’s Steak House. Eggs, pancakes with real maple syrup, bacon, hash browns, sausage, English muffin, and whatever else was buried under the eggs and potatoes.

Diesel shoveled it all in and got a maple-glazed cruller on the way out.

“Impressive,” I said to him.

“The food?”

“That, too.”

We walked back to the Sphinx and stared at it.

“I’ve got nothing,” I said to Diesel.

“It bothers me that Hatchet and Fire Woman are here, and we’re not seeing them.”

“Are we talking about Deirdre Early or Anarchy?”

“I’m counting on them being the same person.”

“Works for me. We haven’t seen Wulf, either.”

“I’m sure he’s here, somewhere. He’s probably napping in his Batmobile, waiting for the moon to come out.”

“You don’t like him.”

“There was a time when I admired and envied him. His skills came earlier than mine. But we made different life choices, and it’s placed us in an adversarial position.”

There were some guys and dogs playing with Frisbees on the lawn of a neighboring fraternity.

“Is that Alpha Delta?” I asked Diesel.

“Yeah. It’s the fraternity that inspired
Animal House
.”

“It’s also mentioned in a lot of references as having a secret tunnel to the Sphinx.”

Diesel looked at the Sphinx, and he looked at the frat house. He shrugged and set out across the grass. “We’ve run down every other ridiculous idea, and some of them got us to this point. We might as well run down
this
ridiculous idea, too.”

“No stone unturned,” I said, jogging to keep up with him.

He went straight to the front door and walked in, with me trailing behind. Two guys turned to look at us.

“Is Scott here?” Diesel asked.

“Yeah, somewhere.”

“I’ll find him,” Diesel said. “Thanks.” And he walked toward the back of the house and down a staircase.

“How do you know where to go?” I asked Diesel.

“They’re all the same,” Diesel said. “There’s always a guy named Scott, and there’s always a downstairs party room. And if there’s a tunnel, it’s not going to originate on the second floor.”

The downstairs party room was deserted at this time of the day. The light was dim and the room smelled like beer and salami. It had a bar at one end. Some leather couches. Photographs, banners, plaques, and paddles hung on the walls.

I opened a door to a utility closet and found a trapdoor in the floor. “Trapdoor,” I said to Diesel.

Diesel poked his head in and looked down at the door. “Shows promise.”

There were flashlights on a shelf in the utility closet. We each took one, closed the door to the closet, eased ourselves through the trapdoor, and descended into the cramped, dark sub-cellar. Copper water pipes and electrical cables snaked overhead, the floor was dirt, and a metal box sat in a far corner.
Danger—High Voltage
was written on the box, but the box didn’t look like it connected to anything. Diesel pushed the box aside and uncovered a wooden hatch. He opened the hatch and flashed some light into it. There was a ladder going down about ten feet to another dirt floor.

I wasn’t feeling wonderful about where I was at present, and I
really
didn’t want to go down to another level.

“How about if I go back to the closet and stand guard,” I said to Diesel. “And you can push on.”

“Not necessary,” Diesel said. “No one knows we’re down here.”

“Did I ever mention my slight claustrophobia?”

“Yes. Did I ever mention my
face your fears
philosophy?” Diesel slipped into the opening and dropped out of sight. “There’s more headroom here,” he called up. “And it looks safe.”

I’d broken into a sweat, and my brain was screaming,
Air! Get me fresh air!
I turned toward the stairs that would take me back to the closet, Diesel’s hand wrapped around my ankle, and next thing, I was halfway down the ladder. His hands were at my waist, and I was the rest of the way down.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “You’re with me. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”

“I don’t want you to get too offended by this, but that’s not doing it for me. I’m having a panic attack. I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating. It’s too much dirt. There’s dirt everywhere.”

He pulled me flat against him, and he kissed me. His lips were soft, and his tongue touched mine, and I felt heat move through me. His arms wrapped around me, pressing me into him, the kiss deepened, and when he broke from the kiss, I wasn’t thinking about being buried alive under
the Alpha Delta house anymore. I was thinking I wanted more kisses. A lot more. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if he put his hand on my breast. I wouldn’t even mind if he slipped his hand inside my …

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“What?”

“Do you still feel panicky?”

“You kissed me because I was having a panic attack?”

“Yeah. Did it work?”

I kicked him hard in the shin.

“Are you sure it’s not that time of the month?” Diesel asked.

I smacked the heel of my hand against my forehead. “Unh! Men.”

He grabbed my wrist and tugged me along a narrow tunnel. At least, I’m pretty sure it was narrow, because I had my eyes closed, but every now and then my arm brushed against the side. After what seemed like an hour but might have been minutes, Diesel stopped and I could sense the flashlight on me.

“You can open your eyes now,” he said. “We’re at the end of the tunnel. We’re going up.”

Praise the Lord.

Diesel climbed the ladder first. He shoved the overhead door open, and light flooded into the tunnel. I was so relieved, I almost burst into tears. I scrambled up the ladder after him and found myself inside what had to be the
Sphinx. I’m not sure exactly what I’d expected, but it wasn’t what I found. I’d hoped it would be like Cleopatra’s barge, but it looked more like the Alpha Delta taproom.

One of the walls contained a fresco depicting St. Peter holding the keys to heaven. Odd for an Egyptian-themed temple, and in direct contrast to the opposing wall, which featured a poster of Jane Fonda as Barbarella.

“I like this fresco,” I said to Diesel. “It doesn’t completely belong in the room, but it’s very handsome.” I ran my hand across it and felt the energy. “And it’s empowered.”

Diesel moved next to me. “Can you isolate the part that’s empowered?”

I traced the fresco with my fingertip. “It’s the key.” I looked more closely. The Lovey key was embedded into the fresco.

Diesel saw it, too. “Obviously, Wulf or Hatchet has passed through here, and the key must have attached itself on contact.”

I scanned the room. “How did they get in? You couldn’t open either door.”

“They probably came the same way we did.”

“A chubby guy in full Renaissance regalia and a man who looks like a vampire just walk into a frat house and let themselves into the dungeon under the taproom?”

“It’s a fraternity. You’d be surprised how often that happens. I know. I belonged to a fraternity.” He pressed the key
and—
whoosh
—part of the wall swung out. “Damn,” Diesel said. “Am I good, or what? This is a secret door.”

The door opened onto a narrow winding staircase positioned between the outside wall and the inside wall. I followed Diesel into the staircase, and when we were halfway down, the door closed with a click. I retraced my steps and pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t open. I couldn’t find a handle, a switch, a button. No way to open the door.

“We’re locked in,” I said to Diesel.

“That’s kind of a bummer, because there’s no way out down here, and I have no bars on my cell phone.”

I joined Diesel at the bottom of the stairs and flicked my flashlight around the room. We were in a sort of grotto. Stone walls, moldy ceiling, a dark, seemingly endless pool of water.

“How did it come to this?” I asked Diesel. “Everything was going right for me. I had a little house, a job I liked, even a cat. And then you came along, and now I’m going to die.”

“We might not die,” Diesel said.

“How so?”

Diesel had his flashlight trained to writing on the wall.
Love is a leap of faith
.

“I hate these messages,” I said. “I hate them, hate them, hate them! I don’t want to see another message for the entire rest of my life.”

There was a moment of mutual silence where I suspect we were thinking the same thing … that the rest of our lives could be ten or fifteen minutes, depending on how fast the air got used up in here.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to pitch a fit.”

“It’s okay. I’m not overjoyed to see more messages, either.” He handed me his flashlight. “Hang on to this until I get back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m taking a leap of faith.”

And he jumped into the black water and disappeared.

“No!” I yelled. “Diesel!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I had a white-knuckle grip on the flashlight, scanning the water’s surface. A minute passed. Two minutes. I was pacing the pool’s edge, looking for a sign that Diesel was moving around. A tear trickled down my cheek, and I bit my lip to keep from sobbing.

“If anyone’s listening,” I whispered, “please don’t let him drown.”

I thought I saw a ripple, and then Diesel popped his head out in an explosion of water. He swam to the side and hoisted himself out.

“There’s an underwater tunnel about ten feet down,” he said. “The tunnel itself isn’t real long. Maybe twenty feet. It opens into another grotto. And there’s a passage going out
of that grotto. I didn’t get to explore the passage. You’re going to have to leave the flashlight here. It’s not waterproof. It’ll be useless on the other side.”