Renee Simons Special Edition (44 page)

She leaned against the rock wall until the spasm passed. Taking a deep breath, she slid along the wall, inching slowly into the waiting darkness, moving her feet cautiously in case the solid ground fell from beneath her. To her relief, the terra firma remained firm.

Once on the other side, she felt the space widen around her and turned on the light. "Holy…." she whispered, nearly speechless at the awesome sight of a chamber as brilliant as any presided over by the Sun King.

She remembered reading about a cavern that had been almost pure silver. The Bridal Chamber, it had been called, had yielded over two million dollars’ worth of silver so pure it hadn’t needed processing. The chunks of metal had been shipped just as they’d been dug out of the walls. Could this place have been a similar find?

Señor Miner had exposed every inch of quartz to create walls that glistened like frosted glass. The quartz itself had been excavated to reveal enormous medallions of silver and gold which had been polished until they shown like mirrors. Reflected on their surfaces, huge oval plaques of the same metals on the opposite wall had been liberated from their stony base to be carved and embossed with the profiles of elaborately coiffed ladies and enormous urns filled with flowers and leaves spilling over their sides. From the neck of each lady hung a pendant of turquoise. The urns had been decorated with faceted stones of such brilliant colors she refused to name them or even contemplate their value. Her artist's eye reveled in the wealth of detail that had been employed to illustrate the curls falling over each lady's delicately curved brow and cascading to her shoulder. Her trembling fingers could almost feel the care and love that had created each leaf and petal. Brushing away the cobwebs and dust, they traced the craftsmanship that had gone into embossing the golden frames circling each work of art.

"You, my friend were either a genius or a madman." She turned slowly to take in the full effect of the gallery. "Or maybe a little of each."

The left-most cameo bore the name Doña Alita, the one on the right, Doña Leonor and the portrait in the middle, Doña Constanza. Although the other two ladies had been depicted in profile, the fair lady Constanza viewed her world from a three-quarters full pose.

That alone would have told Callie the woman was special even if she hadn't been able to translate the legend,
Mi Corazón,
which formed a frame for the upper part of the portrait. Who the others were would probably remain a mystery. I hope this isn't a gallery of all his past loves, she thought. That wouldn't say much for his faithfulness quotient.

"Well," she said with a sigh. "If I can't get out, at least my bones will rest in pleasant surroundings." She groaned. "Let's cut out all that defeatist sh — tuff,
Cal
, and see what's up ahead."

She pulled out the camera and took several photos. Who knew if they could be printed, but like so much else she’d done, if, when, she found her way out, the attempt to document what she’d seen might come in handy. At the very least, the photos would prove she hadn’t dreamt the place.

Another passageway, easier to negotiate this time, led to a small, somber chamber devoid of any decoration. The only objects in the area looked suspiciously like two large, stone sarcophagi. When she saw the ornamental covers, one depicting a woman, the other a man, she knew, or thought she knew, the purpose for the underground complex — a tribute to a man's love for a woman, a love transcending all manner of material wealth and splendor, leading to their final resting place.

She sighed. Would she ever know such devotion? Or be capable of giving it to another? A quick vision of Luc’s face flashed before her, quickening her pulse, and she wondered what kind of message her subconscious was sending. He’d made very clear to her he was far from ready for a relationship of any kind, much less one of lifelong commitment. She’d never been one to chase after impossible goals and a future with Luc qualified as nearly impossible as anything she’d run into lately. She saluted his receding image and looked down at the marble coffins.

"Hope these two lived a long and happy life before ending up here." She traced the hard cold lines of the woman's long robe and clasped the upturned point of one slipper with a sigh. "Hope I do, too."

After taking a photo, she whispered a farewell to the eternal lovers and resumed her search for an exit.

The ground sloped upward and the passage narrowed to accommodate no more than a single person. She willed herself to climb slowly and to stay calm despite the claustrophobic feel the place had taken on. The sense of foreboding that had followed her down the tunnel now leaped out in front of her and slammed into her as she found herself facing a tumbled pile of rocks that halted her progress and sealed the tunnel from further exploration.

"Not again," she muttered, forcing a patience she didn't feel. After all, she'd found her way this far. It couldn't have been for nothing. Or to end up as a bag of rotting bones. She shivered, then shrugged off her own gloomy thoughts once again. "Morbidity is not an option," she said, "not mental or physical."

She climbed to the top of the rock pile, took hold of a smallish rock wedged against the ceiling and tried to pry it loose. The motion needed two hands, but her left arm was now nearly immobilized with pain and she failed to make any progress. Shaking from her exertions, she moved to another spot and tried the maneuver again with no success. Time and the laws of physics working against her made this exit non-negotiable.

"Now what, Señor Miner? Surely, you’ve left me another way out."

She refused to give in to the desperation that hovered at the edge of her thoughts. Instead, she returned to the burial chamber. Just then, her flashlight flickered a warning.

"Don't fail me now, dear friend. I need you to find my way out or I'll end up like the miner and his lady."

She slid to the ground and propped herself against the side of Constanza's coffin. To conserve the battery she pressed the switch, sending the chamber into darkness. Well, she thought, that's all right. I know there's nothing in here to hurt me.

She didn't need light to eat or to consider what to do next, and drinking could wait for a while. Maybe this was a good time to rest, letting the black, heavy silence enfold her while she renewed her energies. The pain from her arm, sometimes sharp and jarring, sometimes a dull, grinding ache, made lying down impossible, so she closed her eyes where she sat and gave in to her fatigue.

From the dark that descended upon her, Luc strolled toward her with his sexy, loose-hipped walk. His smile flashed in the sunlight and his outstretched hand beckoned. She lifted her arm and reached out until their fingertips touched.

In some part of her battered mind, she knew that it was only a dream but she didn’t care. She gave in to the memory and felt again his hands on her heated flesh, his lips on hers, the weight of him stretched along the length of her body. Once again, her heart pounded as her body responded with its own liquid fire to the throbbing pressure of his arousal. Her breasts tightened as she fell asleep with the memory of his lips on hers and the feel of his warm skin beneath her hands. And she resented whatever it was that woke her finally and sent him back into the shadows.

She didn't know what it was — not a sound or a wayward breeze, surely — but once her eyes were open, she realized a new element had entered the chamber. A faint glow now relieved the darkness that had filled the place when she fell asleep.

She checked the flashlight. “It’s not coming from here.”

She looked around the chamber for the source and found it in a corner opposite her. A shimmering column of light descended from the roof, scattering rays that warmed the darkness before collecting in a puddle on the ground. Feeling like an Israelite encountering the pillar of fire in the desert, she approached with caution and no small amount of trepidation. Closer inspection revealed nothing supernatural or threatening, just a small, long-abandoned fire pit. The light came from the ceiling directly above, pouring through a hole she thought might have been used to vent the smoke that had blackened the adjacent walls and nearly obliterated several pictographs.

She took a photo of the sarcophagi and the drawings and ran her hand over the jagged stone. Someone had cut footholds into the rock, creating a crude ladder by which to scale the wall. The light shining through the smoke hole gave her hope that she would be near the surface if she could make the climb. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she slipped the backpack over both shoulders to equalize its weight. She kept her good arm free, once again using the strap on the left side as a sling. Hauling herself up to the first foothold proved difficult, but she managed after several tries that left her drenched in sweat and wracked with nausea. She clung to the wall until the wicked pounding of her heart subsided and her stomach stopped its annoying flip-flops. Moving crabwise on shaking legs that threatened to give way at any moment, she hitched her way from one handhold to another until she’d made it to the top of the wall and the source of the light.

Tossing her backpack through the opening eased the last part of the climb. She shinnied her way up and over the rim of the smoke hole and lay in an exhausted heap on the floor of a brightly lit chamber.

The sudden change from so long in near darkness inflicted something close to pain. She shielded her eyes with her arm, shutting them for a few seconds, then opening and closing them several times, until she’d built up enough tolerance to examine her new surroundings.

Almost afraid to believe freedom waited only a few feet away, she crawled to what she realized was the opening she’d been praying to find. With her heart pounding even more furiously and still on her knees, she cautiously moved outside. When she found herself on a ledge some thirty feet wide, she stood and walked to the edge. Below her lay a small lake, its still waters mirroring the sky and a semi-circle of ancient cliff dwellings.

Relief washed over her as the sun’s light and heat dispelled the terror that had dogged her while she’d been underground. Wherever she’d been and however long she’d been there, she was out in the world again. She swiped at unbidden tears and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. Time to find a way back home, she thought. Past time. She found a crude path to the top of the cliff. She appeared to be standing at the highest point in the area, but no matter where she turned, she saw nothing even remotely familiar.

“I’ll have to get to the other side of this ridge, if that’s possible on foot.”

By the time she’d negotiated a series of switchbacks that took her to the foot of the ridge and the highway she hadn’t been able to see earlier, the sun had nearly disappeared below the horizon. She thought that what had seemed to be a range of hills actually formed the back side of the caldera sheltering Blue Sky. That realization helped get her past the fatigue, the pain and the low-banked fear of running into whoever had first put her in jeopardy.

Chapter Ten

When Callie failed to show, Luc decided that reading the Mayfield diaries might suggest where she’d gone. Examining them now fell under the heading of "searching for clues".

The book he removed from the bottom of the box contained the most recent entries. A good place to start. By the time he'd worked his way back to the first entries Lucinda had written as a young girl he knew she'd sent her granddaughter to Blue Sky to be a thorn in the
Moreno
family’s side.

Did Callie know how she'd been manipulated? If she did, she'd earned good marks for her acting ability. If not, she was in for a major disappointment.

Three days after his brief conversation with Charlie Gunn, Luc set aside his doubts about Callie when he found her battered and barely coherent, cowering on the side of the road nearly ten miles north of town.

With a finger beneath her chin he raised her face. “What happened?”

She struggled for words, her confusion plain, even in the darkness. With gentle hands, he drew her to her feet and put an arm around her. “What are you doing here?”

She remained silent.

“Let’s get you into the pickup,
querida
.” he said, keeping his voice soft. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to his truck. Inside, he examined her face in the dim glow of the ceiling light. ”You look like you’ve been in a wreck. Can you tell me what happened?”

He settled himself behind the wheel, accidentally jostling her left arm. She groaned. “My arm — I hurt it when I fell — I think.”

“Did you crash your bike?”

“No.” She leaned her head against the seat back and closed her eyes. “I can’t … take me home.”

“We’re closer to my parents’ place. I’ll take you there.”

She opened one eye and looked at him. “Isn’t this Route 5?”

“Yes, but you’re a good ten miles away from Blue Sky.”

She groaned again.

“More pain?”

She sighed. “...turned around … wrong direction.”

Disorientation could be a sign of a concussion, or worse. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”

“Can’t remember.” She closed her eyes again. “I need food and to … sleep. I'm so tired.”

Luc rested the back of his hand against her cheek. She turned into his touch and murmured something he couldn’t decipher, but her lips grazed his skin, leaving a trail of warmth that took the edge off the loneliness he’d felt since they’d parted and the mistrust he'd battled. He’d missed her despite reading in the diaries that Lucinda had sent her granddaughter like a guided missile aimed at his family to be a goad and a reminder that his father had betrayed Lucy’s trust more than a half century before.