“As you say, it could be hidden here. Okay, I’m on it in the bar. I will move all the bottles, look under the ice and the plumbing fixtures. Then I’ll start on silverware, plates...you name it. Nothing unturned, I promise,” Griffin assured her.
“Thank you, sir, thank you,” Vickie told him.
She felt that the ghost of Poe should arrive now, while they were there.
She paused for a moment, and then she moved on into the shop. Poe’s picture seemed to be just about everywhere.
Yes, the man definitely should make one of his ghostly appearances!
While she was in the gift shop, she found herself standing in front of a basket of the little ravens like the one that had been clutched in Franklin Verne’s cold, dead hand.
Vickie picked up one of the little birds, hoping it would give her a sense of something, or someone.
It did not.
She set the bird back down and looked at the rows and rows of modern compilations of Edgar Allan Poe’s work.
His voice had been so unique.
She was getting nowhere, and so she forced herself to forget about the ravens and the stories and she went methodically through the checkout counter, the storage bins, the boxes in the storage room and every drawer and nook and cranny she could find.
There was nothing to be found in the gift shop.
She walked out, wondering just where Griffin had gotten.
Then she knew; she could hear him going through all the cabinets and cooking carts, drawers and probably even the refrigerators and ovens in the kitchen.
The basement seemed to beckon to her.
She headed down the stairs.
There was the desk—and the chair where Franklin Verne had died.
And there were the rows and rows and rows of wine.
Determined, Vickie started with the desk. Every drawer, under, beneath.
Nothing.
She looked at the rows of wine and started going down them, one by one. It was something like traveling through a maze, but the construction of the wine holders allowed for numerous little nooks and crannies here and there where one just might stow a computer.
She kept going.
She realized that all she could hear down there was her own breath.
The light—in the midst of the many rows—did not seem to penetrate well and she wished for a flashlight. But it was fine—she could certainly see well enough to find a computer.
She’d nearly come to the end and was feeling tired and aggravated when she saw something that just might be what she was seeking.
Against the silver edging on the last rack, she saw something else silver that seemed to blend right in, but was just that little bit different.
She reached for it.
And it was just then that the lights went out, and the room was plunged into darkness.
Vickie could hear breathing.
Breathing that was not her own.
She held dead still for a minute. She listened carefully, goose bumps breaking out on her skin.
Someone was there; someone was there with her. She wondered if they, too, had come for the computer.
She reached into the rack as silently as she could, trying to pull the computer from the edge of the rack. It wasn’t a big computer; the screen was probably about fifteen inches. It wasn’t heavy; it was an MacBook Air, she thought.
The breathing was coming closer.
And she could hear footsteps. So quiet. Someone knew that she was there; someone was coming after her, moving in the darkness, step by step.
She didn’t know how someone could have gotten down to her—not with Griffin there. The place had been locked up tight until they had arrived that day.
They had been alone...
But someone had come in by way of the delivery door on the night that Franklin Verne and Brent Whaley had been killed.
Someone had lured them both here. Big men, led to their deaths. That someone knew the restaurant, knew the entrance where there was no camera...
If they hadn’t been lurking in the restaurant, hidden somewhere when they had arrived, this someone had snuck in through the delivery entrance, just as before, slipping around the false wall.
That was it—the false wall.
They had come in by the back. Maybe they had seen Griffin and Vickie arrive!
Sound was deceptive in the basement. She could hear the eerie breathing, though her pursuer was trying hard to be silent.
Could he or she hear her as well? Each breath that she took?
She wasn’t armed. She could do one of two things: stay silent, try to creep away, try to ascertain where the person was and go the other way...
Or she could scream. Scream as loudly as possible, and hope that the sound could be heard up the stairs, and wherever Griffin might be...
She finished sliding the computer off the rack and held it close to her chest. Then she began to back up, just inching away, thinking that she should head toward the stairs that would lead to the restaurant.
Lead up to the light, to Griffin...
To help.
Suddenly, the breathing seemed to have changed. Softer... She was hearing something that was so close, barely there.
And much nearer.
Almost upon her.
15
The only reason that Griffin noted the light changing down in the basement was that by pure happenstance he walked by the ground floor door to the stairway down. It hadn’t been open before; that meant Vickie had opened it and gone down.
She wouldn’t have descended into pitch darkness.
And that meant...
He tried not to give in to fear. But logically it meant that someone had turned the lights off.
Vickie hadn’t cried out for him; he couldn’t hear her at all. She was hiding in the darkness that had been meant to trap her.
Griffin made his way down the stairs, tension ruling his every movement and his every breath. He walked carefully.
Listening.
Yes, Vickie was down there, and she hadn’t screamed or come running up the stairs—or straight into the arms of whoever else had made his or her way into the basement.
He was proud of her; she was going to make such a good agent. She was smart, savvy, cool under fire...
And in danger now!
Step by step, around the rows of wine, Griffin moved so, so tenderly, reaching out, trying to ascertain his exact position with each movement, and not rattle the racks or wine bottles in any way.
Breathing...
Yes, he could hear breathing.
The harder he listened, the better he could hear it. He was closer to Vickie because he had entered from the restaurant above. Vickie had been going shelf by shelf, working from the front to the back. Her pursuer had come in by way of the delivery entrance and the false wall.
Breathing...
It seemed to grow louder and louder. Just as the heartbeats had grown louder and louder once when he had listened.
But this person wasn’t dead.
They were far more dangerous.
They were living.
He paused; Vickie was there, right in front of him.
He knew that he had reached her by the subtle, faint, familiar scent of her. She was just ahead of him.
But someone else was still down in the darkness of the cellar with them.
And so he reached out, quickly drawing Vickie into his arms, a hand over her mouth—and he prayed that she would recognize him as readily as he had known her.
There was just one fleeting instant when she stiffened, and then she nodded. She knew it was him.
Now they were the ones in control. Vickie hadn’t carelessly given herself aw
ay, running blind. And Griffin was armed; he was armed at all times.
He held still again. He was aware of her heartbeat and of his own.
And aware, still, that someone else, believing they had the advantage, was still slipping around, trying to find Vickie. Trying to...
He didn’t know.
And he didn’t think about it.
He concentrated on every little tick of sound. In the cellar, in the darkness, the least thing seemed to ricochet loudly. There was a scurrying; an insect, perhaps. Or a rat. Not the person who had brought about the darkness. That was a different movement.
He pressed Vickie gently behind him, and then turned, using the pressure of his hand to indicate that she needed to go back around the row the other way and get up the stairs.
She understood; she knew what he was doing. He felt her leave him, felt her first movement. And so he breathed deeply, very deeply, and shuffled his feet.
Just barely.
Just enough to keep the killer moving toward him, and allow Vickie the time to get up the stairs.
He moved forward, just an inch. He listened again. The person was moving again, coming through the wine bottles.
Vickie was past him; she was nearly to the stairs, he was certain.
And the killer had not heard her; just him.
He stayed still. And it was excruciating, waiting, each second an eon.
The breathing grew louder and louder.
And, yes, he could hear another heartbeat.
The killer was in front of him. In a swift movement, Griffin drew his gun, aiming directly where he knew the person would appear.
And then it happened. Vickie had reached the top.
The lights didn’t come on in a flood, in a brilliant flash of light.
But they did illuminate clearly against the depth of the darkness.
The killer stared straight at Griffin.
And screamed.
* * *
The closest police were immediately dispatched and Vickie was quickly put through to Carl Morris. She explained where they were and her position and what was going on.
Naturally, she heard the scream of shock that emitted from down the steps, now cast in a weird glow that was a misty yellow-beige color.
It sure as hell hadn’t been Griffin who had screamed. The sound had been high-pitched and startled, that of someone not expecting a man with a gun to be standing before them.
Vickie was still on the phone with Morris and quickly explained, “The lights were thrown out while I was down in the cellar. I heard someone. Someone apparently looking for something—just as I was looking for a place hidden in plain sight where the killer might have stashed Franklin Verne’s laptop,” she said. “Griffin is down there. He’s with them now... I think it’s a woman!”
Morris assured her that he’d be right with them.
She realized then that she actually had the computer. She had found it; she had not dropped it. She hadn’t had a heart attack when Griffin had reached out for her—or a panic attack or any kind of an attack. She hadn’t thrown it straight into the air.
It was in her arms.
She now could hear Griffin’s voice, sharp, demanding.
He was the one in charge. It was safe to go down. But as she started down the stairs, she felt someone next to her.
She turned. Poe’s ghost was with her. He was looking at her with his large, soulful eyes, and it was almost as if she could feel something living and real as he held her elbow gently.
“You have it? That’s it? That’s Verne’s computer?”
“I believe,” she said.
“It’s in there. The why. I know that it’s in there.”
Vickie nodded and said quietly, “If there is an answer in here, I will find it. I’ll figure it out. And I’ll search for Reynolds, too, I promise.”
He nodded, and then he seemed to fade away, and Vickie hurried down the steps.
She stopped as Griffin was coming up. He was leading Lacey Shaw out of the wine cellar.
“You don’t understand,” Lacey was grumbling. “I have every right to be here.”
“Sneaking around in the basement?” Griffin asked her.
“I wasn’t sneaking around!” she protested.
“Really? So, why didn’t you come in by the front door? Why didn’t you identify yourself?” Griffin asked her while leading her into the main hall of the restaurant.
Lacey cast a baleful glance in Vickie’s direction. “I came in by the delivery door because there are so many cops around here all the time. Because they might have stopped me.”
“Why were you carrying a gun?” Griffin asked her.
Vickie stared at Griffin, startled. She hadn’t realized that the woman had been carrying a weapon; Griffin had evidently taken it from her.
“Well, I’m scared, of course!” Lacey said.
“Of what?”
“Of whoever killed Franklin and Brent—and drugged Liza and Alice and nearly killed them as well.”
“Detective Carl Morris is on his way,” Vickie said.
“You mean—you mean I’m going to be arrested for this?” Lacey demanded. “But I work here! I’m supposed to be here.”
“So you turned the lights out and snuck into the cellar through the service entrance—because you work here?” Griffin asked her.
“What?” Lacey returned, seeming genuinely perplexed by the question.
“The lights, Lacey. The main lights were off and the switch for the emergency lights had been turned to an off position as well. That should never have happened.”
Lacey looked as if she had been hit across the face. “I didn’t!” she said. “I swear, I didn’t. I didn’t have anything to do with the lights being turned on or off!”
“Lacey—” Vickie began.
“Oh, no. Oh, my God!” Lacey said.
“What?” Griffin asked her drily.
“There had to have been somebody else down there. There had to have been!”
The door banged open; Detective Morris came striding in, meeting up with the three of them right by the top of the stairs that led downward. He looked irritated.
“You’re under arrest!” he told Lacey.
“I have a right to be here!” Lacey protested.
“You have all kinds of rights, but at this moment, one of them is not to be in this restaurant when we’re still sorting through the circumstances regarding two dead men!” Morris said. “You were carrying a gun?”
“I...just had a gun because it can be a very dangerous world. What is the matter with you people?” Lacey said. “Two of my friends are dead!”
“Yes, and I believe they got that way because of a so-called friend,” Morris said. “Turn around.”
“You’re going to cuff me?” Lacey said.
“Yes. Get it straight—you are under arrest.”
“For what?”
“At this moment? Tampering with evidence in a homicide investigation. And you had a firearm. You have a permit for it?” Morris demanded.
Lacey pursed her lips. “It’s not my gun.”
“Who owns it?”
“Gary Frampton.”
“Did you steal it?” Morris demanded.
“Go downstairs again, you idiots!” Lacey insisted. “There was someone else down there. You’re up here, harassing me, and I’m just trying not to become another victim!”
Officers had come in behind Morris.
He cuffed Lacey, and turned her over to them.
“How did she get in?” Morris asked as the officers walked a still-protesting Lacey away.
“There’s one false wall down there that I’ve found, which the owner knows about. Lacey probably has keys to the
delivery door. Once you’re in, you can’t be seen behind the false wall. Most people arrive and just come from the delivery area into the main section of the cellar—you can roll liquor deliveries straight over to the desk, where, I’m assuming, they were usually logged in. If you slip around the false wall—you can’t even see that it is a false wall unless you have really glaring light—you come right into the racks of wine. There may be more strange building quirks that we haven’t discovered about the place,” Griffin said. “I’m getting the main lights back on, and I’m going to go down and tear the cellar apart.”
“All right. I am arresting Lacey. A good attorney will have her out by tomorrow morning, but at the rate things are happening...” Morris broke off, his hands in the air. “You want help here? You want officers?”
“No, but I do need to know—is Alistair Malcolm still in custody?” Griffin asked.
“Yes, he is,” Morris said.
“And what about the hospital?” Vickie asked.
“That I don’t know,” Morris told him. “You have people there, right? We don’t have officers watching over the women who went in. Our forces are spread thin at the moment.”
“Yes, we have people there. I’ll be in touch,” Griffin said.
Morris stared at Vickie.
“What is that?”
He meant the computer, she knew.
“I believe that it is Franklin Verne’s laptop,” she said.
He stared at her a long moment. “I should take that,” he said.
“The FBI is officially on the case,” Griffin reminded him.
“Yes, but...”
“I’ll be extremely careful. Carl,” Vickie said in a rush, “the FBI does have priority right now, though of course I know we’re all working together. But I think I can find something. I really believe there is a correlation between these murders and the death of Edgar Allan Poe. And if I can discover what it is, I’ll have a lead on what has happened now.”
“Poe died in 1849!” Morris said.
“Yes, I know. But years don’t make killers any less active. There’s something going on. I’m extremely good with computers. I will be very careful. I’ll get it to you by tomorrow morning, latest.”
“I am with the FBI,” Griffin said quietly.