Page 67 of The Last Straw

Wyrick was eyeing the pearl in the platinum setting when she had a vision of a man in this passage, walking away from where she was standing, with the body of a slender blonde woman, dangling lifelessly over his shoulder.

“What’s happening?” Mills asked.

“She can see who this belonged to,” Charlie said. “Just wait.”

Wyrick felt a sense of sadness. This was lingering energy from something that happened a long time ago. When she turned and handed the earring to Detective Floyd, she was crying and didn’t even know it.

“First victim. Her name was Linda. She’s not alive in the world. That’s all I know.”

Floyd stared at the earring, then at the tears on her face before bagging the earring as evidence.

Charlie stood, then pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re crying.”

Wyrick sighed, wiped her face and handed it back.

“We’re almost at the end of the passage,” Charlie said.

“It doesn’t end,” Wyrick said. “I’m still feeling that pull to fall down. Like I did in Rachel’s apartment. I think, now, that I’m feeling stairs. Hidden doors. Hidden staircases. We need to go down. Find a door, Charlie. Find a door.”

“Maybe it’s another way down into the basement,” Floyd said. “There’s one set of stairs on the main floor that leads down.”

At Wyrick’s urging, Charlie moved the last few feet to the end of the passage, and began shining his flashlight all along the crevices on the wall to their left, where all the other access doors had been found.

“No. The other side, Charlie.”

He pivoted and began shining the light and feeling for a similar trigger again, and within moments found it. The door swung inward onto a landing, and then a set of stairs going down into darkness.

“Is there a tunnel?” Wyrick asked.

“I can’t tell,” Charlie said. “There’s no light. I’m going down. Don’t come off the landing until I say so,” he said.

Wyrick was clutching the scarf with both hands now. The urgency of getting down there was almost sickening.

“Hurry, Charlie. Find a light.”

He saw the way she was holding the scarf, and remembered all the other times when she’d keyed in on someone’s location like this, and didn’t hesitate.

He aimed his flashlight down the steps and started down into the dark. But before he was halfway down, lights came on, revealing yet another secret to Detter House.

“It’s a tunnel,” he said and stopped and turned. “Safe to proceed.”

Wyrick reeled on the first step down. Charlie was already running up to catch her when Mills caught her from behind.

“Are you feeling sick?” Charlie asked.

She shook her head. “No, no, but I do have that same feeling I had in Rachel’s apartment, like I have to brace myself to keep from falling forward.”

“You already knew the steps were here,” Charlie said. “You just had to find them. So...here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get on the step behind me, hang on to my shoulders and we’re going down together.”

And so they did, until they were all on the ground floor and staring down a long tunnel.

All of a sudden Wyrick pushed past Charlie and started walking, her stride long and hurried.

He didn’t bother to question why.

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