From This Moment (39 page)

The cave was completely flooded. It hurt her palms to cling to the rough crevice above the ledge, and as the water rose higher, the tug of the waves was harder to resist. The water was so high she could smell it—salty, dank, and horrible—but when she tried to scoot higher on the ledge her head bumped against the ceiling of the cave. There probably wasn’t more than an hour left before the tide would be too high to keep her head above water.

Would it be better to wander outside the cave and let them shoot her? It would be a quick death and easier than drowning. And if her body had bullet holes, there would be no question that it was a murder.

Salty water rushed against her chest, the spray hitting her face and going up her nose. She sputtered, trying to clear her nose without loosening her death-grip on the crevice that kept her anchored on this narrow ledge.

She didn’t want to die. This was going to destroy her parents. Her parents deserved to have grandchildren they could spoil and open presents with on Christmas mornings. She wanted to watch her father take her children out into the meadow and teach them how tadpoles developed or why the sky was blue. She had really looked forward to that someday. They didn’t deserve to lose both their daughters.

She had to stop thinking this way. Getting weepy wasn’t going to help, and she really didn’t want to knowingly walk before a firing squad.

The cave dimmed as the tide obscured the opening, making the light at the back of the cave more noticeable. She didn’t know what it was, but it might be her only chance out of here, and there wasn’t much time to think about it. Scooting off the ledge, she waded through shoulder-high water toward the weird source of light coming from low in the cave.

She explored with the toe of her boot and found an opening. A tunnel? A karst? She struggled to remember the research she’d done for the series on subterranean caves she’d illustrated years ago. Most of them had been carved out by water. This could be one of them. It might be the only explanation for the light. And the tunnel couldn’t be that long or the light wouldn’t be able to penetrate.

What did it matter? She wished she had learned how to swim, but she hadn’t, and there was nothing she could do about that now.

Another wave hit her in the face. This wasn’t going to get any better. She either had to stay here and drown, or go out and face the firing squad.

Or she could force herself to sink down into the water and find out what was causing that strange source of light. If it was a tunnel and there was daylight on the other side . . .

She closed her eyes for a quick prayer.

Dear Jesus, I need help. I’ve been a lousy Christian up until now, and I’m sorry for that.
Another wave slapped her in the face, and she sputtered again
. I’m doing this for my parents as much as me, so if you can lend a hand . . .

And if it didn’t work out, she prayed her parents would live through this, that they would make it despite the death of another daughter. Karl and Eloise Westergaard were a love story for the ages, and Stella had to believe they could weather another storm. She would be rooting for them from the other side.

But she wasn’t dead yet, and her parents hadn’t raised sissies. She was going to do this.

She took a deep breath and dove under the water.

It was freezing! Cold water penetrated her hair and scalp. She couldn’t see, but she thrashed toward the tunnel opening, struggling to get low enough in the water, arms flailing madly. Pain scraped across her knuckles as she found the underside of the tunnel and pulled herself lower. She tried to force herself into the tunnel, but it was impossible to get that low. Pain exploded as she banged her head against the top of the tunnel. Her breath expelled, and she sucked in water.

She had to get out. Panic ruled as she thrashed back out of the tunnel, jagged rocks ripping at her palms and arms. The instant she was free of the tunnel, she braced her feet and shot back to the surface, sobbing as she flailed her way back to the ledge. She sucked in air and didn’t have the strength to haul herself back up onto the ledge.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” she sobbed. “Oh Mama, I’m so sorry.”

It turned out she was a coward, after all.

If she could live her life again, she would do things differently. She would be a better Christian every single day, not just on the occasional Sunday. She wouldn’t have waited so long to get married and have children. She would have done so many things differently . . .

No. No, she wasn’t going to spend her last moments on earth counting her regrets, for all in all, she’d had a good life. No, scratch that . . . she’d had a
fantastic
life. She’d been blessed with the best parents imaginable, and she’d gotten to pursue a career most people could only dream about. Just remembering it all made her start to laugh through chattering teeth. No one could say that Stella West didn’t wring out the best each day had to offer, and she had loved every moment of it.

Thank you, God! Things didn’t end so well . . . but I had a wonderful life. It was the best. Thank you, thank you . . .

She should have been thankful for it every day, not just here at the end.

A trickle of blood slipped down from her scalp, and her hands were scraped and bloody, but her panting began to ease. The air flowed in and out of her lungs at a normal rate as her panic subsided.

It was that air in her lungs that had been the problem, preventing her from sinking low enough to get through the tunnel. She had taken a huge breath of air just before attempting to swim the tunnel, and that had been a mistake.

A hint of a smile came back. She wasn’t ready to give up. She had enough strength for a second run at that tunnel, and she would be smarter this time. It seemed illogical and frightening, but this time she would go under with empty lungs.

Please
, she whispered in the fading light. She closed her eyes, summoning up the image of her parents, then blew out all her air and dove under. Sinking was easier this time. And she kept her eyes open, ignoring the painful sting as she headed straight for that blur of light ahead, grabbing the side of the tunnel wall to pull herself forward, then forward again.

The light intensified as the darkness overhead lifted. She rose, sputtering and pushing the hair from her eyes, trying to get her bearings in this new, strange cavern. It was flooded with light and air. It was like a tunnel going straight up. Was she in an old fishing hole? Or a sinkhole? It was hard to tell, but directly above her was a channel of volcanic rock, and at the top of it she could see a smattering of late-afternoon clouds in a blue sky.

She dragged herself to the edge of the water. There was enough of a slope that she could at least get out of the water. Her muscles trembled as she crawled out. She was sopping wet,
freezing, and trembling from thirst and exhaustion, but she had made it.

The opening was at least twenty feet up. She would never be able to crawl out of this cavern, but it would keep her safe until dawn.

The patch of blue sky overhead was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen, and she couldn’t stop laughing. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she sensed warmth and love in the patch of sunlight streaming down. There was a radiance here, brilliant and blinding in its intensity. It felt like warmth and compassion and forgiveness.

Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and leaked into her hair. The awesome power in the sunlight above was deeper and more intense than the human mind could grasp. It had been strong enough to power her journey through the tunnel to get here.

She was thirsty, her hands were scraped and bleeding, and her head throbbed, but she felt God’s love surrounding her. Even in this most desperate of hours, she was not alone. She might die tomorrow morning, but she had six hours until the next low tide. Six hours was a blessing, and she’d savor every moment of it. What was six hours or six years or six decades in the grand scheme of things? God had saved her, and every second from this moment forward was a gift for which she was infinitely grateful.

Laughter bubbled up once again. She was alive to fight another day, and it was a gift she intended to seize.

20

B
y the time Romulus and Michael reached the railway station, the last train heading north had already departed, and another would not leave until tomorrow morning. A long carriage ride through the night had been their only option to get to Boulder Point.

As attorney general, Michael was able to pull some strings to smooth their path. Before leaving the station, he’d wired the police in Boulder Point to be on the lookout for Ernest Palmer, described as a short, stocky man with thick glasses who was probably traveling with a young woman. The woman was to be warned and taken into safe custody.

Romulus could only imagine Stella’s reaction to being detained, but it was better than heading off into the wilderness with a criminal like Ernest Palmer.

The rented hack was poorly sprung and the padding on the benches had been matted down long ago, but Romulus welcomed the jarring ride. Anything to get his mind off Stella. All he could do was pray the telegram reached the police department in time to waylay Ernest Palmer. If it didn’t, or if Stella
was not with Ernest when Romulus finally arrived in Boulder Point . . . well, it didn’t bear thinking of. Maybe someday he would look back on this miserable evening and laugh about the needless panic that had sent him hurtling off into the darkness, but for now, he was sick with anxiety. He’d never been the sort to suffer from ulcerative complaints, but it seemed his stomach was awash with acid. He couldn’t sit still, couldn’t focus. The combination of guilt and fear was a powerful motivator, keeping him awake through the long night.

They arrived in Boulder Point just as the sun was rising. The wheels of the carriage hadn’t even come to a complete stop when Romulus unlatched the door and sprang to the ground, Michael not far behind. They raced into the police station, a modest building at the end of the town’s main street. If Ernest or Stella had been detained last night, someone here would know about it.

Unlike the bustling police stations in Boston, here the front room looked more like a doctor’s office, with a grouping of empty chairs, a service counter, and a bleary-eyed night attendant still on duty.

“The wire didn’t arrive until late last evening,” the young sergeant said. “The captain sent a pair of officers to the train depot, but we think it was too late. A man matching your description was loitering around the depot most of the afternoon. A young lady arrived in the early evening. The clerk thinks they left together.”

Romulus felt as though he’d been punched in the gut. They were too late.

It was a difficult night. After the rush of exhilaration from surviving the underwater journey to get here, Stella stared up
at the blue patch of sky until it darkened into gray, then black, then speckled with tiny stars.

She was freezing and thirsty. The canteen was long gone, and the darkness was unnerving. All she could hear was the slap of waves, oddly comforting in that it reminded her she was still alive. A few times, she slipped into a hazy kind of sleep, but the lapping of the waves caused her to jerk awake every few minutes.

There was no getting out of this tunnel, and that meant that tomorrow at low tide she was going to have to slip beneath the water and make that journey through the underwater tunnel again. She ought to be terrified at the prospect, but she was too exhausted to worry anymore. And sometime in the middle of the night, it rained. She opened her mouth, frustrated by the meager drops of fresh water that had landed on her tongue, but she’d take what blessings came her way.

Low tide came at sunrise. The fumbling swim through the tunnel wasn’t nearly so difficult to accomplish the second time, and she emerged in the awful cave she had come to despise. Were Ernest and his minions still about? Or had they assumed the tide had done its work and headed back to Boston?

There was only a few feet of water in the cave, and she cautiously approached the opening, clinging tightly to the wet, grainy wall. Holding her breath, she peeked outside the cave opening and scanned the old fish cannery. The men and dinghy were gone.

Her relief was so great she went dizzy.

“Thank you, Lord,” she murmured. “Thank you, thank you.” She would thank him every day for the rest of her life. She leaned against the cave wall long enough for the trembling to subside, then headed outside in search of civilization.