Mimosa Grove (21 page)

DeLane’s culpability had been by blood alone, and he had been willing to take the blame for his son’s treason until his wife had slapped him square in the face and told him that it was high time their son took the blame for the messes he continued to make. Listening to her recount all the times that they’d paid off injured parties for their son’s misdeeds had made Clausing thankful he’d never taken the time to become a parent.

He left without any answers as to where Trigger DeLane was, but certain that the son had just ruined his father’s career, then he amended the thought. DeLane had ruined his own career by pandering to a weak and spoiled son. It was a shame, but truth often hurt.

He drove away, leaving the authorities in charge of gathering evidence to reopen the case. McNamara might be dead, but Gerald Dupont DeLane, nicknamed Trigger for the quick temper he’d had as a child, was about to get a lifelong wish fulfilled in a way he’d never imagined. He’d wanted to be famous, not infamous—but as he would learn, beggars can’t be choosers. Before this mess was cleaned up, the name DeLane would be on everyone’s lips. Now Clausing needed to call a woman about an apology and hope it wasn’t too late to help her find her father, after all.

He called his office.

“Elaine, do we still have a number to reach Laurel Scanlon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Give it to me,” he said, then jotted down the number as she read it off. “Okay, thanks. I’m on my way back to the office. Have Gabe Clancy meet me there. I think we’ve got a kidnapping on our hands, and I want the best agent the FBI has to offer.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else?”

He sighed. “Have you ever eaten crow?”

“Sir?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Just delaying the inevitable.”

He hung up, started the car so that the air-conditioning would be running, then made the call.

Supper had been a quiet affair. Justin had coaxed Laurel to eat, succeeding only because he’d reminded her how hard Marie had worked all day to fix the meal. And strangely enough, it had tasted good. Laurel thought that maybe it had something to do with the company at the table. Marie had slipped into the role of caretaker for Laurel as easily as she’d done it all those years for her grandmother, and Justin was more than the man who warmed her bed. He loved her. She knew, because she felt it in his touch, even heard it in his voice. And because of them, she took an odd sort of comfort from knowing that, if they couldn’t find her father, she was not going to be alone in the world.

Justin and Laurel were clearing the table while Marie made coffee to go with dessert when, once again, the telephone rang.

The trio froze, a study in solemn patience, waiting to see who was brave enough to face what could only be bad news.

Justin was the first to move, but it was Laurel who stayed him with a touch of her hand.

“I’ll get it,” she said. “You help Marie.”

“Honey, let me—”

“I’ve let you do enough already,” she said. “I’ve got to face my own troubles. You’re here. It’s enough.”

He relented but kept a wary eye on her as she moved toward the phone.

It was on the third ring when Laurel picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

Robert regained consciousness in darkness—or at least he thought he’d come to. There was always the possibility that he had died and gone to hell, but there was enough pain in trying to think and breathe at the same time to make him think he was still among the living. He tried to move, but when he did, pain shot through his head so fast that lights went off behind his eyelids. He groaned, and the sound had an odd sort of echo. He tried to roll over but found himself wedged up against what felt like a concrete wall. So he rolled the other way and took solace in the movement, small though it might be.

Slowly, slowly, he felt his head, groaning again when he felt the knot in his hair. His fingers came away wet and sticky, and when he held them to his nose, he smelled the coppery scent of fresh blood.

He tried to think what the hell had happened and remembered talking to Laurel, hearing her frantic warning not to get in the car and ignoring it as nothing than more psychic garbage until she’d said McNamara’s name. Until he’d heard her shouting that the man who’d picked him up was connected to McNamara. He remembered looking out the windshield and locking gazes with DeLane, seeing the panic come over the man’s face and knowing she was right, and that he’d left it too late to get away.

He knew that Trigger DeLane had been in D.C. looking for Laurel. And when he himself left for Louisiana, Trigger must have followed, using him to get to her. Robert groaned. If Laurel fell into their hands, then he was screwed. He would make a deal with the devil himself to keep his daughter safe, and McNamara knew it. He tried to sit up, but the world started to spin. He needed to get out, to warn Laurel that her life was in danger, but he was too hurt to move. He fell back onto the floor, trying to think, but the pain was too great, and he felt himself going under.

Time passed. He didn’t know how long he’d been there, but when he came to again, it was still dark and he still hurt. Only something was different. It took him a few moments to figure out what it was, and when he did, his heartbeat skipped, then picked up a new rhythm. The air felt different—as if it had a bad taste. He was running out of oxygen.

A film of sweat broke out on his skin as he rolled over on his belly and began to crawl, hoping he could find a way out of whatever hellhole DeLane had put him in.

Within moments, he’d crawled into a wall. He felt one of his shoes fall off, but he didn’t stop. Determined not to quit, he moved to his right and continued to crawl, using his hands and elbows for leverage as he tried to pull himself up to his knees. But as soon as his belly left the floor, he passed out.

Dirt was in his mouth when he came to again. Remembering what had happened the last time he’d tried to get up, he settled for the belly crawl on the off chance that if it happened again, he wouldn’t have far to fall. He kept thinking about Laurel. McNamara had warned him, but Robert had been so determined to play out the hand his own way that he’d put Laurel in harm’s way.

As he was cursing himself, he came up against another wall. Frowning, he realized that this was the second wall he’d come to within a very short distance. Using his fingers as eyes, he felt along the floor, found where the wall and floor met, then followed it further. Again he hit a corner and again he continued to crawl. But when his hand landed on what was obviously his shoe, he rocked backward, staggered by the knowledge that in this very short space of time, he’d made a complete circle.

Now he knew there was nothing around the perimeter of his prison, but he wondered what lay between the walls. Uncertain what he might find but afraid not to try, he backed himself into a corner, took a moment to orient himself to move what felt like forward, then started to crawl.

Within seconds, he’d come to an obstacle. Like the walls, it was concrete, but with some sort of decorations. He traced the base of it with his fingertips, felt different shapes in relief, but couldn’t tell what they were. By the time he’d crawled around the entire base, his breathing was labored and the pain in his head was once more hammering against his scalp. Fearing that he would pass out again, he stopped, lowered his head and waited for the feeling to pass.

When it did, he reached up. Almost immediately, his fingers landed on what felt like cool metal. He gripped it fiercely, using it as leverage to pull himself upright.

Immediately the world started to spin, and he leaned forward, bracing himself against the object to which the metal was fastened. He stood like that for several minutes until his head began to clear and he could steady himself, taking great care to temper the length of his breaths.

He began to run his hands around and over the object against which he’d been leaning. Time passed; then, as he was tracing the shape for what seemed like the hundredth time, it dawned on him what this was.

It was a casket.

He was leaning on a casket.

Knowing that, and knowing he was most likely still in Louisiana, where they did not bury their dead below ground, he deduced that he had to be in a crypt.

He took a frightened step backward, as if being locked in with the dead could somehow hasten his own demise. It took a few moments for his heart to stop pounding and his hands to quit shaking.

Now he knew why the air was running out. Crypts were built to be airtight. The dead certainly didn’t need to breathe. He moved once again toward the walls, ignoring the dizziness in his brain and trying frantically to find the door. There had to be a door. There was always a door. DeLane put him in here. He could get out the same way. All he had to do was find it.

But the seal was tight, and even after he’d found what felt like hinges, there was no handle inside. Frantic, he cursed the men who would design a building, no matter what the intended use, and not leave an exit. It took him a few minutes of anger and grief to realize that in a crypt, there was also no one inside who needed to get out.

At that point his legs gave way and he slid to the floor with a thump. His head rocked back against the wall, reopening the wound and rendering him unconscious once more.

From time to time afterward, he came to just long enough to feel like he was slowly being strangled. The last time he woke up, he began taking off his jacket, then his shirt, in a crazy effort to relieve his body of any and all weight, hoping that it would extend his life for one second more.

As he tossed his jacket aside, he heard something bang against the floor. Frowning, he reached for the jacket but found only air. He rolled over on his side, extending his arms outward as he felt along the floor for the clothing that he’d tossed. Finally he found the jacket, and he ran his hands along the pockets, curious as to what he’d heard. It was then that he realized he was holding his phone.

God in heaven! Why hadn’t he thought of it before? But when his head started to hammer again, he answered his own question. Logic had been impossible through such pain.

He felt along the face of the phone, trying to picture the layout of the buttons, then made himself relax. He laid the phone down by his fingers, slowed his breathing even more, then picked it back up. Without thinking, his finger automatically hit the redial button. He listened to the numbers clicking in, praying that the battery would hold out and he could get a signal.

He caught himself struggling for breath as the phone began to ring. It rang once, then twice, and when it began the third ring, he laid his head on his arm and slowly closed his eyes.

Then he heard his daughter’s voice, and he wanted to cry. He tried to say hello—anything that would constitute an answer. He tried so hard but could manage nothing but a faint gasp. His fingers went limp. The phone was lying in his palm, and through what sounded like a tunnel, he could hear Laurel screaming his name.

He needed to tell her that he loved her, and that all these years he’d been so wrong about her mother and her, but it was going to be too late.

Laurel was still clutching the phone, listening to nothing but silence, and then what sounded like a sigh. Almost instantly, her stomach knotted.

“Daddy! Is that you?”

Justin spun and ran out of the room, heading for an extension in the library as Marie moved toward Laurel.

Laurel’s knuckles were turning white from her grip on the phone. She was pressing the receiver so hard against her ear that it was actually painful, and still she could hear nothing but the faint sounds of labored breathing.

“Daddy! Daddy! Whatever you do, don’t hang up,” she begged. “If you can’t speak, it’s okay. Just don’t hang up.”

She closed her eyes, using the tenuous connection as the only link she was likely to get.

Almost instantly, she flashed on panic, then blood. Blood running down his face and onto the front of his shirt. She saw hands pushing her father into a car. She saw the back of the car as it was driving away.

“Louisiana rental LA 4122,” she muttered.

Justin was on the other line, and the moment the words came out of her mouth, he picked up a pen and began to write down everything she said.

Trees and sky passed by in a blur of blue and green, and Laurel knew that her father was not where he’d been when he called.

“Daddy…can you hear me? Put the phone to your ear. Say something, Daddy. Anything…just keep breathing.”

Robert heard her, but the effort it took to move was almost more than he had in him. Still, unwilling to break the only connection he had left and knowing her voice would be the last thing he would hear on this earth, he wrapped his fingers around the phone and held on with what life he had in him.

Laurel swayed. Marie caught her where she stood, then dragged a kitchen chair beneath her legs and pushed. Laurel sat down with a thump. Almost instantly, she saw a cemetery and all sizes and shapes of crypts. Some concrete, even one or two that appeared to be of some sort of granite.

“Cemetery…trees…off the highway. Moving, still moving. I see an angel standing between two crypts. His arms are reaching toward me. Daddy…Daddy. Talk to me, damn it! You can’t die! Don’t you dare!”

Robert jerked. The shout pulled him up from the depths into which he’d been sinking. Before he knew it, he’d rolled over onto his side, and when he did, he felt a tiny bit of difference in the temperature on his face. It took a few moments for the reason to sink in, and when it did, he wasn’t sure that he had enough energy left to make it worth his while. He could still hear his daughter’s voice, and he followed it, using his fingers as a guide, until he realized he was touching one of the corners in the wall.

He dug into it with his fingernails, and as he did, he felt a faint stirring of heat against his skin. Heat meant air, and air meant life. He dug harder, and he felt a tiny bit of concrete crumble. He thrust his fingers into the crack. Concrete came away in small chunks. Whatever time and weather had done to the body inside his casket, it had done to the crypt as well.