Terror Mansion (Decorah Security Series, Book #12): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novella (8 page)

“Slippery ahead,” he whispered as he put one hand on the wall and gripped Kate’s arm with the other.

They kept together. Still they both almost fell as they negotiated the slick patch. He looked down, noting the jagged pieces of glass on the floor.

She followed his gaze and winced.

They got through the grease and glass without getting cut, but Wyatt stopped short when he saw what was ahead.

In his dream, he’d stopped being able to see the fun house threats, and now he knew why—the view was obscured by smoke. It wasn’t like the smoke that had billowed up from the trash can outside Kate’s workshop. It was more like fog made from dry ice that you might see in a theater production. It wafted toward them, reaching out with cold, clammy fingers.

Wyatt brought his mouth to Kate’s ear again, hating that the dream had failed him. “I couldn’t see through the mist,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s in there.”

She turned her head and answered, “We had something like this at the carnival. Things came at you in the smoke. But they were mostly long inflated balloons that were scary instead of dangerous. I’m betting whatever’s in here is more dangerous.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, wondering what kind of surprise Treeman had rigged up. He’d used knives before. He could do it again—or use something more creative.

“They were never lower than knee level. If we get down on the floor and belly crawl, maybe we can get through it.”

A noise behind them made Wyatt swing around to see that a solid door had dropped down in back of them.

“I guess we have to go forward,” he said aloud, silently cursing his lack of knowledge. But he knew how hard it was to move along on your belly like a snake. Unfortunately, they were going to have to do it. He hoped it wasn’t for too long.

“Don’t raise your head,” he told Kate as he got down flat on his stomach and slid forward into the mist. Behind him, Kate followed.

Wyatt kept inching forward, keeping low to the floor. He’d gotten a few feet into the tunnel when he heard a loud report and something sailed over his head, so low that he felt his hair part. Behind him Kate screamed.

“What was that?”

“A shot. He’s got guns—not balloons. Stay down,” he called, praying that would be enough to save them.

It was hard to slither along on the cold floor, but he kept moving, half his attention on Kate. He heard a shot go over her, but not quite so low.

“Okay?” he called out, his breath frozen in his lungs until he heard her say,

“Yes.”

“Stay down,” he whispered.

If the guns were in fixed positions, they might have a chance. If Treeman could adjust the aim, it was only a matter of time before the bastard shot one of them—then the other.

Wyatt kept his face and body to the floor, scraping his cheek on the rough cement as he inched forward. He moved slowly so that Kate could keep up with him. Or was that the best way to do it?

Did they have a better chance if they put some space between them?

More shots rang out. Some were higher, but some came perilously close to his head and shoulders.

Finally he saw that he was coming to the end of the smoke. He picked up his pace, plunging into a wider space, then wormed his way around to see Kate sliding toward him. When she reached the end of the tunnel, she started to get up. He pulled her down just as a blast of shots rang out—bullets that would have killed them if they’d stood.

He eased Kate to the side of the corridor, wanting to take her in his arms but knowing that would be dangerous. All he could do was reach for her hand and squeeze hard.

“You did good,” he whispered.

“How much more of this?”

“I wish I knew.” He looked back the way they’d come. “I don’t think he could see us in there.”

He lifted his arm, waving it in the air. There were no shots but Wyatt was sure it wasn’t a good idea to stand or even sit.

Could they rest here after the ordeal? The answer came as a roaring sound from the other end of the tunnel. He looked up to see a wall of dark water racing toward them down the tunnel.

Kate gasped as she stared at it in horror, then gasped again as the force of the flood hit them.

Wyatt was pulled under, and he struggled to get his head above water as the sudden flood knocked him and Kate against one wall and then the other.

As it ebbed, it dragged them back into the smoky tunnel, where more shots rang out, the bullets whizzing too close for comfort.

As more water poured in, buffeting Wyatt and Kate, he scrabbled to keep them both from being pushed farther back. Wrapping her in a tight embrace with one arm, he kept the other hand against the wall. When his fingers hit against a projection sticking out, he grabbed it. As the water subsided, a panel swung outward, and suddenly he was staring into another narrow tunnel. Was it part of the torture chamber? Or was it an access door Treeman had put here because he knew this would be the end of the line for anyone who had taken this route through the fun house?

Making a split second decision, Wyatt darted back the way he’d come, closing the access door as he lay still in the eddying water.

“Don’t move,” he whispered to Kate.

She lay on her side, one fist under her cheek to keep her nose above the water. When Wyatt heard footsteps, he did the same, lying with his breath shallow and his eyes slitted. He was thinking that if Treeman was coming in here, he would have turned off the automatic firing system. At least Wyatt prayed that was true.

A pair of legs clad in gray slacks stepped into the watery passageway.

Wyatt waited—waited—his heart thudding as he strove for the right moment.

Treeman approached, coming to a stop close to Wyatt, a pistol in his hand.

Wyatt whipped out a foot, catching the killer in the legs.

Treeman screamed. He must have had his finger inside the trigger guard of the weapon, because he fired off several shots while he wavered on his feet in the slippery corridor.

As the man went down, Kate sprang up, landing on his back and pummeling him as she pushed him into the water. Between them, they wrestled him onto his stomach.

Wyatt shoved the killer’s face below the surface, holding his head while Kate straddled his body, clamping his arms at his sides with her knees. When he thrashed, she rose up, then came down hard, knocking the wind out of him.

He tried to roll to his side, but between the two of them, they kept him pinned in his own watery trap. The struggle seemed to last for an eternity, but finally the man who had tried to kill them went still. Kate breathed out a sigh of relief, but Wyatt warned her,

“He could be playing possum. Stay where you are.”

Just then a crashing noise made his heart leap into his throat. Was the fun house serving up one last threat? He tensed, ready for trouble. Instead, a familiar voice rang out,

“Wyatt? Kate? Are you there?”

He recognized Ben Walker and knew that someone at Decorah had deciphered the notes he’d left in the workshop.

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

“Basically. But I don’t know how to tell you where we are—except somewhere in this damn maze.”

“Where’s Treeman?”

“Here. He figured we were dead. Or he was going to finish us off. We turned the tables on him.”

“Keep talking. I’ll find you.”

“Watch out. Don’t go into the fun house tunnels. They’re full of traps that could kill you.”

“I’m in what looks like an access corridor.”

“Stay in it,” Wyatt said.

Long moments passed. Cautiously Wyatt let go of Treeman, ready to grab him again if he came back from the dead like a monster in a horror movie, but the killer stayed where he was—unmoving.

A flashlight beam cut through the darkness of the tunnel to his left.

“We’re about twenty feet further on,” Wyatt called out. “Through the access door.”

He scooted toward the light. Kate followed, and they pushed into the second tunnel.

The beam played over them.

“You look like drowned otters. Are you okay?” Ben asked.

“Yes.”

“Wyatt’s cut,” Kate corrected.

“It’s not bad. Kate, this is Ben Walker, one of the other Decorah agents. Ben, this is Kate Kingston.”

They both murmured a greeting.

“I guess you read my notes?” Wyatt said.

“Teddy duplicated your name-reversal research. I would have gotten here faster if you’d told him what you found out about Treeman’s location.”

“I was planning to. The bastard gassed us in Kate’s workshop before I could send a message.” Wyatt pushed himself up and reached for Kate’s hand.

When she was on her feet, he pulled her close, holding her for a moment.

“I want to get out of here,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” He turned to Ben, “You know where to find the closest exit?”

“Uh huh.”

They hurried down the narrow corridor, around a corner, and into a media room set up with an array of video cameras that showed various locations in the building. One view was of the cell where they’d woken up. Another showed the barrel that turned under your feet. And taped to the wall were screen shots showing Kate and Wyatt scrambling through the traps in several locations.

“Nice,” Wyatt muttered as he took them in.

“For his photo album?” Kate muttered.

“Yeah, but I was right about the gun tunnel. He couldn’t see us through the smoke.”

“Thank God,” Kate whispered. “Or he might have known we’d survived.”

They stepped outside, and Wyatt blinked in the sunlight.

“We must have been out for a while,” Kate said. “It was getting dark when he gassed us.”

Wyatt stroked his hand up and down her arm, feeling her shiver in the nippy wind.

“Let’s get in the car,” he said, looking around and spotting a Decorah SUV.

Wyatt and Kate climbed into the backseat. From the front seat, Ben cranked up the heat, then took a first aid kit out of the glove compartment. The knife wound had started bleeding again, and he handed the kit to Kate so she could clean and bandage the wound.

“Probably you should have some antibiotics,” she said. “That water could have been dirty.”

“Uh huh” he agreed.

“I suppose we can’t just walk away from this,” Kate said with a sigh as she disinfected the cut.

“No. It needs to be on record with the cops.”

“Should we call Chief Judd?” Kate asked, naming the St. Stephens Police Chief.

“Actually, the Maryland State Police handle murder cases,” Ben told her. “And it’s best if they see you all messed up. It gets the idea of the fun house across pretty quickly.”

Wyatt glanced at Kate. “We’re in for a lot of questioning.”

“You have any problems with that?” she asked.

He dragged in a breath and let it out. “No. But I think we should leave out the psychic bullshit.”

“We both know it’s not bullshit,” she shot back. “It saved our lives in there.”

“It’s going to be easier if we come up with a reason why I showed up at your workshop in St. Stephens.”

“We can go with what Treeman assumed. I was worried about someone stalking me, and I hired Decorah,” she said.

Hearing her make the suggestion shocked him, given the way she’d reacted when he’d first tried to tell her she was in danger.

“Okay,” he answered, hearing the thickness in his own voice. He pulled out his phone and put in a call to the cops.

Hours later, after a lot of back and forth at headquarters, they were finally on the road to St. Stephens.

Wyatt took Kate to the Crow’s Nest, where they both showered, then collapsed into bed.

When they woke, she smiled at him. “It’s over,” she said, scooting closer, and he know she was thinking of some pleasant ways to celebrate. His desires were running along the same track, but there was still unfinished business they had to deal with.

“Not quite.”

Her eyes questioned him. “What?”

“Someone in the craft community really was stalking you,” he said.

“How do you know for sure?”

“Because of the first dream I had. It wasn’t clear cut. I couldn’t be sure what was happening. If it had just been Treeman, I would have seen him clearly.”

She dragged in a shuddering breath.

“It’s the same with the other person,” he added. “I don’t know who it is. But I think we can find out.”

“How?”

“Set a trap.”

As he outlined the plan he’d been thinking about, she nodded. “I hate to be so tricky. But I believe you’re right.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not going to feel like I can go on with my career until I’m really safe. The only thing that needs changing in your plan is—I should be in the workshop when we do it.”

“No!” he said at once.

“I want this settled once and for all. If they think they can hurt me, they’ll go for it.”

He knew she was right, and finally—reluctantly—he had to give in.

Still, they were both on edge as they ate some breakfast at the Crow’s Nest before returning to Kate’s workshop, where Wyatt planned what equipment he’d need. His next stop was at the local police station where he filled in Chief Judd on his scheme.

“Too tricky by half,” the chief muttered, but he agreed to go along with the program.

Wyatt and Kate had lunch at the Crab Claw, where they talked about how she was behind in her rent for the workshop and that she had to stay up late to finish a big order so that she’d have some money coming in.

The conversation ended in an argument in which Wyatt made sure everyone knew he was going back across the Bay Bridge because he was tired of Kate’s focusing on her work instead of him. And she told him she was keeping his nice comfortable room at the Crow’s Nest for the rest of the week—since it was paid for. Then he pretended to drive out of town, although he was really exchanging cars with Ben Walker so that he could complete some additional business before the evening.

He’d made very careful preparations, but as it grew dark, he gave Kate a worried look from where they sat in his darkened room at the Crow’s Nest—looking out at her workshop.

“I understand your reasoning, but this is dangerous for you,” he told her. “My scheme seemed like a good idea at the time,” Wyatt added. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“I am. And I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Kate countered.

“Yeah, we’re both all psyched up, but this might not work out the first time.”

“You didn’t see it in a dream?”

“Now you’re relying on my dreams?” he teased.

“They saved our lives at the fun house.”

“But I didn’t dream about this plan.”

“Like you said, you can always rely on tried and true detective work.”

“This is far from tried and true. Now I’m thinking it’s harebrained.”

She must have caught the worry in his voice, because she crossed the room and held out her arms. He came into them and hugged her tightly. “I want to make sure you’re safe,” he whispered.

“And this is the way to do it. For a lot of reasons.”

They held each other tightly for several minutes, swaying in the middle of the darkened room, and he almost couldn’t let her go. But finally she eased away.

“We can celebrate later,” she said with a suggestive note in her voice, which made him want to cancel the drama he’d so carefully planned.

oOo

Kate turned and headed for her workshop—alone. Or it looked like she was alone. But she knew Wyatt, who was dressed in black, was taking the long way around and would slip through the back door into her small apartment, where he would wait in the dark.