In Too Deep (38 page)

Not exactly satisfying, Michael thought as the man dropped to the carpet. But expedient.

Michael stood on the rocks and stared down at the water in the cove. He'd run the length of the beach as if death were on his ass. Knowing what he would find, and yet hoping—

High tide was in. The small crescent of beach was completely covered. Given another hour or so, and judging by the watermark on the cliff face, the ocean was going to rise another three feet—by which time the slitted entrance into the lower cave would be under water. And possibly blocked by falling debris from above.

He trained his eye slowly upward. The mouth of the upper cave was completely blocked. It would take a cleanup crew a month and a week to clear the rubble. He wasn't a demolition expert for nothing.

He'd done his job well. Too well.

Michael quartered off the cliff face, looking for a way in from the top. There wasn't one.

Right now, Tally was inside, in the dark, terrified out of her mind, probably singing at the top of her lungs.

There was only one way to save her: and that was for him to get in that swirling water.

He'd have to go in. He'd have to go under.

His mouth went dry, and sweat chilled his sun-warmed skin. His heart pounded so hard, he thought he'd pass out. He blinked back the black snow filling his vision.

It'd taken him a fucking
year
to have the guts to get in up to his waist. A year. One stinking, cowardly inch at a time. His ears rang with the force of his blood pounding through his veins.

Michael looked up at the blue sky. A sky the same brilliant color as Tally's eyes.
Ah, Jesus
, he thought, stunned by the lightbulb moment.
I love her, and my life will be shit if she's not in it with me
.

Hugo… help me, man, I've gotta save my girl
. "No guts, no glory—right, Bud? Hoo-yah!"

He jumped.

The icy water closed over his head and it felt as though his heart stopped.

Michael saw Hugo's face as the props sucked him in
—
the water churned as the propellers picked up speed in slow-mo. White. Then frothy red. Hugoooo
—

No!
Tally
.

Michael shook his head to clear the vision, his heart thudding in his ears as he broke the surface. He bit down on the fear—no time, no time, no time—and started swimming in strong strokes toward the opening. Two feet remained at the top. Twenty-four inches which were less than a handspan at their widest point.

The current pushed and pulled him, and he braced his feet on the rock. He filled his lungs. Emptied them, and filled them again. Then dived beneath the water and pulled himself along the canyon of the walls with both hands. Fallen rocks had piled at the base of the opening in an untidy heap. There was no getting to Tally without moving them. And moving
them fast
.

He spent precious minutes rolling the obstructions aside, shooting to the surface for air, and diving back down again.

All the while a metronome ticked in his head.

Tally. Tally. Tally.

Finally, he'd cleared enough of the debris to allow his body to pass to the inside of the cave. He surfaced once more, dragged in a lungful of air, then dived and immediately started pulling himself between the narrow walls of the fissure, scraping his hands on the jagged surface as he kicked his feet. It was a tight, claustry fit.

The moment he cleared the entrance, he broke the surface of the water and dragged in lungfuls of air, then started swimming toward the back of the cave. The ceiling, now only three feet above his head, seemed to press down on him. His chest was tight, his throat ached. But he was in the water and functioning, by God.

The air was charcoal gray, not quite pitch-black, but close enough, thick and stuffy, and damp with spray. Water slapped loudly against the walls, sucking and pulling as the tide rose.

Michael strained to hear Tally.

Silence.

No. No! NOOOOOOOO!

Chapter Twenty-one

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^
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With water lapping at her toes, Tally finally freed herself from the ropes. Heart in her throat, she groped her way up the spiral stone stairs. "Sun… shine on my shoulders maakes me haaapy—"

The monster of her childhood lurked in the surrounding watery darkness, ready to pounce the moment her self-discipline faltered. "Sunshine on the water looks sooo lovely—"
Ha! Not
!

Her eyes had adjusted a little to the dark; it wasn't quite as impenetrable as she'd first thought. And the higher she climbed, the lighter it became. She took the stairs two at a time, her hands braced on the damp walls as she ran.

She arrived at the top slightly breathless to find herself in a considerably larger "room" than the water-filled cave below. Two things made it preferable: It was slightly lighter. And it was dry.

Tally glanced around. So
this
was what all the fuss had been about. Wooden crates on top of crates on top of more crates. By the stenciled markings on the containers, it was clear what was inside. Enough munitions to make the IRA look like a Boy Scout troop.

She cocked her head. Under the swish of sloshing water was a faint noise—more a feeling than a sound. Her imagination, because she knew there was a clock counting down the minutes in here
somewhere
?

She zipped down the center aisle between the boxes, heading for the pinpricks of light indicating the way out. She imagined the water creeping up the stairs trying to find her. She wasn't hanging around. The rubble at the far end of the cavern shouted freedom, and by God she was getting out of here.

Come hell or high water.

Directly ahead, Tally saw the source of the earlier crashing and bashing. The entrance to the cave had been effectively sealed by the explosion. Stray shafts of sunlight speared through the rocks and boulders. The rocks and boulders that blocked her way out.

And somewhere in this lava rock warehouse was Michael's bomb, ticking away.

"Oh, I
don't
think so." Tally slid between the rest of the towering crates until she reached the debris blocking the mouth of the cave. She sized up the situation as she got closer. Beyond this barrier lay the ocean. It was high tide. She was probably about twenty or so feet above the water-filled cove. Feasibly, if she could clear a big enough space, she could wiggle through, jump down into the water, and not break her neck.

Or… she could stay right where she was, kiss her butt good-bye, and pray.

Easiest decision of her life.

Tally started grabbing rocks as fast as her body could move. Grab. Toss. Grab.
Wrestle
. Toss. Drenched with sea-water and sweat, she got a good grip on another huge chunk of broken cliff. At the rate she was going, she'd have this pile cleared by her 102nd birthday.

If her situation hadn't been so dire, she'd bewail her ruined manicure. She started to laugh a little hysterically. God, this was bizarre. Here she was—she hefted a smaller rock and tossed it behind her—battered, beaten up, bruised, bleeding, and in imminent danger of dying, and she noticed she'd broken a couple of nails and her polish was chipped. "You've lost it, Tallulah."

She put her hands around a head-size boulder, one of the smaller loose chunks, and put her back into it. "Ninety-nine boulders and rocks on the wall, ninety-nine boulders and rocks. You take one down, pass it around—"

"Jesus, woman. You're hell on a man's ego, you know that?"

Tally stopped singing in mid-note and turned as Michael came into view at the other end of the corridor of boxes.

Their eyes met, and they stood drinking in the sight of each other. His wet hair was slicked back off his face, and his jeans, dark and heavy with water, clung to his strongly muscled legs. Tally had never been so happy to see anyone in her life.

They looked like twins, their faces bearing black-and-blue badges of honor.

Tally's heart almost burst with love for him. Michael had come for her. He'd risked everything to come for her. He'd faced his fears, fought her father, risked life and limb, and shown up just in the nick of time.

Rescuing herself was ingrained, but, damn, it was a relief to see his battered face. They'd both survived. So far.

She tossed the rock she held into the pile behind her and grinned. "You're late, Double Oh."

"But not
too
." Michael did a visual scan of her from top to toe and back again. That look wound around her body and heart like a warm caress.

"Forget trying to clear that mess. It'll take too long." He held out his hand. "Come back this way." Through the maze of boxes and back to the top of the stairs.

"Tell me you're going to turn off your bomb to give us more time."

"No way to turn it off. Move it, time's a wasting."

"How much time?" Tally wended her way between the boxes. Fast. The ticking in her head seemed much louder.

He hesitated. "Fourteen minutes."

Tally sped up, the imaginary ticking sounding like Big Ben. "How are we going to get out?"

"Swim."

Tally hesitated. "Right." The water downstairs was well over her head. She was a fairly strong swimmer, under normal circumstances, which these weren't. But a diver, she wasn't. She met his eye as she got closer.

Despite his fear of water, he'd come. He'd battled his dragon to find her. She wouldn't let him—or herself—drown now, by giving in to her own fears.

Michael snagged her hand and tugged. When she was flush against him, he lifted her face with a hand scraped raw. "Trust me."

"Implicitly." That was the one damn thing she
was
sure of. Despite it all, she
did
trust him.

He brushed her mouth with his. "Let's do it."

They stopped at the waterline, which was now more than halfway down the stairs. Michael shone a mini Maglite down across the black water. Tally sucked in a sharp breath. It looked like miles to the other side. The darkness pressed in on her like a suffocating blanket, and her heart did a little flip of panic in her chest. She drew in a shaky gulp of air. "You know I'm terrified, right?"

Michael tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear, his fingers warm and steady. "You're the bravest person I know, Tally. I've never seen anyone face fear with as much courage as you have." He stroked her shoulder—a light, reassuring brush of his hand, as if he couldn't bear
not
to touch her. "You're going to be fine.
We're
going to be fine. Work with me here, honey."

She swallowed hard and forced a smile. Getting into the deep water would be harder for Michael than fearing the dark would be for her. But he was going to do it without hesitation. Could she do any less? "Right," she said briskly.

He showed her how to use the small rebreather. "You'll only need it for a few minutes to get through the fissure. Okay? Don't panic. I'll be right here with you. Breathe easy. There you go. Ready?"

No
. "As I'll ever be." Tally's hand was engulfed by his. She followed him into the water. Her skin crept at the thought of swimming across the enormous,
deep
expanse in the dark.

The water closed over her shoulders, and she treaded water. "Michael?" she said, her voice sounding as freaked out as she felt.

"Right here," he said, calmly drawing her closer to him until their legs brushed under the water. "If you can do it, sweetheart, so can I. Together. Let's go." He released her hand.

Now or never. Tally struck out. Under. Over. Under. Over. No style. No finesse. All she cared about was speed.

Kick. Kick. Over. Under.

She sensed Michael keeping pace with her.

The rock ceiling snagged her hair.
Oh. God. Oh. God
. The water was rising. They switched to breaststroke and kept going.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It took years to reach the far wall. Breathing hard, she slapped a palm against the rough rock, and let her legs drop. Quivering, out of breath, terrified, she rested her head against the cold surface. She felt the thud and pulse of her heart behind her eyeballs.

Michael came up behind her, wrapped an arm about her waist, and braced her weight in the buoyancy of the water. He pressed his large hand against her diaphragm. "Take a breath and relax. We'll be through any minute."

She inserted the breathing device in her mouth, and turned so he could check it. He gave her the thumbs-up.

"I'll be right behind you. If you have any problems, signal." He smiled, and touched her cheek. "Let's make this snappy, honey. We've got things to do, and places to go. Ready?"

She nodded.

He tugged on her hand. "Let's do it." And he pulled her deep under the water. A gentle shove on her butt, and she was maneuvering between the narrow walls of the exit.

Instinct took over. The only thought in her mind was to get the hell out of there. And still, it was the longest "minute" of Tally's life. With Michael's guiding hand on her behind, she stayed calm enough to push herself through the water. The walls were too close together to swim. The murky water lightened, and Tally pulled harder, heading toward the sun-bleached water ahead.

She popped free of the rocks, kicked toward the surface, and emerged gasping to drag in huge lungfuls of salty air. It smelled sweet. The sunlight on her face was brilliant and was so welcome, Tally almost cried with gratitude.

"Don't stop now!" Michael yelled as his head broke the surface beside her. He struck out for the rim of rocks barely visible above the waterline to their left. Swimming side by side, Tally knew he was pacing himself to her speed.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

He finally streaked ahead, and reached the outcrop before she did, so he was already climbing out of the water as she arrived. He hauled her up and out, keeping hold of her hand to help her across and down the other side of the rocks with barely a pause.

The clock in Tally's head ticked louder. Faster.