MASS MURDER (63 page)

“I suppose not many people survived the mudslide,” he lamented.

“No,” Giorgio agreed
.
“Let’s keep going.”

They returned to the hallway
.
Rocky kept his flashlight focused down, throwing the light sideways every few feet to scare away the rats that scurried before the oncoming light
.

“This place gives me the creeps,” he mumbled.

The tunnel ended as quickly as it beg
a
n
.
A short thirty feet from where they’d seen the skeleton, Rocky stopped at a wall of cement cinder blocks that emerged out of the compacted dirt and extended well beyond the ancient tunnel walls on either side
.
Inserted into the middle of the sturdy wall was a heavy timbered door
.
Giorgio stopped and looked up to where the cement wall extended past the ancient adobe roofline.

“This is the bell tower,” he said breathlessly
.
“That’s how they found the tunnel – when they drilled down to lay the foundation for the bell tower.”  The excitement in his voice was unmistakable
.
“
Frances
is in the bell tower!”

Giorgio reached for the door latch but it didn’t budge
.
“Dammit!” he said, kicking the wall
.
“This is getting tiring.”

Rocky leaned forward
.
“Here, let me run the light around the edges.”

He revealed a heavy wooden frame that was bolted directly into the cinder blocks
.
The door was almost a duplicate of the main door upstairs, which meant it was at least two inches thick and couldn’t be kicked in
.
Giorgio watched the light traverse the curvature of the doorframe deciding it couldn’t be opened by some spectacular means either
.
This was just a door, a locked door, and he needed a key
.
His gaze came to rest on the dark, angular keyhole that right now felt like the key hole from
Alice
in Wonderland
.
Instinctively, he reached into his pocket for Elvira Applebaum’s key
.

“Rocky, shine the light on the keyhole.”

Giorgio inserted the long, Victorian style key into the lock and with a strong twist, the internal bolt slid back
.

“Hot damn!” Rocky cooed
.
“Where the
H
ell’d you get that?”

“We owe our thanks to a grand old lady,” Giorgio whispered with reverence.

The wrought iron hinges sang as they pushed the door open
.
Giorgio cringed, thinking Frances would hear them
,
but it couldn’t be helped
.
A dark, stone staircase wound up away from them
.

“Okay, be careful little brother,” Giorgio warned
.
“
Frances
is up there, somewhere.”

Holding his weapon close to his chest, Rocky went first, scuttling up the stairs like a crab, his back flattened against the rough stone, the faint flashlight guiding his way
.
The shaft was cold
,
and their passage raised a cloud of fine dust making Giorgio catch a sneeze
.
The staircase ended some thirty feet up at a small landing and another door
. B
ut this one was unlocked
.
Rocky threw it open, hanging back for protection
.
When there was no response, Giorgio ducked inside, breaking to the left with his weapon drawn
.
Rocky broke to the right
.
They were in a long, narrow room
.
The
ir
tiny flashlights cut through the darkness to reveal a broken, primitive
-
style bed frame at the far end, along with a stained and shabby mattress
,
and two sets of manacles driven into the wall
.
There was no exit
.
And the room was empty
.
Both brothers paused and holstered their weapons to ta
ke stock of their surroundings.

“What is this place?” Rocky asked quietly, his gaze re
sting on the tattered mattress.

“Originally, probably a safe room
.
More recently
−
I have a feeling we don’t want t
o know
.
” Giorgio
fingered
the steel manacles.

“Frances isn’t here, so if there’s another secret door, then I’d say this is beginning to feel like one of those haunted houses at the county fair.”

“The question is
−
how do we get out of this room?” 

Giorgio
scanned what little floor area his light illumined
.
Several sets of prints crossed the room ending at the middle of the far wall.

“Look here,” Giorgio pointed, following the trail
.
“The footprints stop at the wall, turn right and d
isappear.”

“Something
ha
s scraped across the floor,” Rocky said, pointing to a wide mark that began at the wall and dug through the dirt and grime back across the floor in a sweeping arc.

Giorgio turned back to the wall and placed his hands on the bricks just above where the footprints stopped, as if feeling the wall’s pulse
.

“He must have triggered the secret door here and then moved over to step through
.
Come on, help me.”

Rocky stepped forward and pressed on the bricks above Giorgio’s head
.
T
heir efforts were rewarded when Giorgio pushed a brick closest to the floor, forcing it to recede half an inch
and
releasing a section of the wall to their left
.
The entire wall popped open some three inches inwards
.
The expansive belfry lay beyond, letting in fresh air.

“Be careful,” Giorgio cautioned, reaching for his gun
.

Rocky stepped around his brother to pull open the door, his form caught in a shallow beam of moonlight
.
There was a sudden crack
,
and a bullet whizzed through the shadows catching Rocky in his thigh
.
Rocky fell to the floor with a cry, clutching his leg
.
Giorgio reached out and grabbed his collar, pulling his
brother away from the opening.

“Shit!” Rocky rocked b
ack and forth, hugging his leg.

“Hold on,” Giorgio ordered
.
Keeping his eye on the doorway
,
he stripped down, handing his t-shirt to his brother
.
“Tie this around your leg.”  He quickly slipped back into his sweater
.

Rocky took the t-shirt and did as he was told
.
The secret door stood open about three feet now, allowing the moonlight from the far window of the belfry to cut a shaft of light into the dungeon-like room
.

“Where the hell is he?” Rocky winced, squinting through the opening.

Giorgio craned his neck to see as far as he could into the belfry
.
“I can’t tell
.
We must have caught him by surprise though
.
Other
wise he could have killed you.”

“Then he’s trapped,” Rocky grunted, tightening
the tourniquet around his leg.

“Not necessarily
.
Remember, there’s
the
staircase
saw blocked off by construction tape.”  Giorgio put his jacket back on and turned to his younger brother
.
“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Rocky groaned
.
“I’ll nab him if he tries to come back this way.”

“You have your cell phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Call it in.”

Rocky pulled out his phone
.
His gun lay beside him
.

“Be careful, Joe,” he said as he began to dial.

Giorgio patted his brother’s shoulder
.
“I intend to.”

Giorgio got up as his brother dialed 911
. He
turned around to grab the old mattress, staying clear of the light spill
.
He dragged the
tattered mattress back to where Rocky was propped against the wall
.
Tucking his weapon into his belt, he hefted the mattress in front of him, stepped around his brother and dashed through the opening
.
A bullet ripped through the corner of the mattress, sending a puff of cotton batting into the air
. B
ut Giorgio continued his charge until he reached a short wall that encircled the open bell shaft
.
He threw
the mattress aside
and then
ducked down behind the wall and removed his gun
.
A second shot ricocheted off the bell filling the tower with a thundering alarm
.
The sound diminished and
Giorgio
looked
around to map his environment.

The belfry was shaped in a square with four large columns holding up the domed ceiling
.
The
iron bell hung from the center of the tower like a large spider perched in the middle of its web
.
The ropes were tied off to one side next to a hook the monks used to recover the rope
.
The secret room ran along the entire north side of the tower
.
The west wall held a single arched window, while the south side overlooking the valley held two large square-cut windows
.
Cutting off the entire east side of the belfry was a temporary construction wall made of eight-foot sheets of plywood
.
Most likely, t
he construction wall cut off a third window along the south wall and a matching arched window along the east wall
.
He could only hope the main staircase was also behind the plywood wall so
that
Frances didn’t have access to it
.