Page 79 of Cruel Riches

I swallowed and shook my head.

“Not many people do. I’ve mentioned it to my friends before, and they’ve never heard of it either.”

“How do you know about it, then?”

Nate shoved my left shoulder, making me stumble on the stony path. “I overheard my parents talking about the bootlegger tunnel legends when I was a kid. Looked it up a few years later and figured out how to get into this particular part. Right now, we’re under one of the med school buildings at Blackthorne, not far from the teaching hospital.”

Suddenly I could picture hundreds of feet above my head, belonging to students briskly walking between classes, labs, and practical exams. I stopped in my tracks and started screaming at the top of my lungs. “Help! Help me!”

Nate shoved me again, sending me to the ground. I winced as pain seared my kneecaps and hands. “Don’t fucking bother. I told you, no one will ever hear you. We’re too far underground.”

“Someone will find this place,” I said as I climbed to my feet. “Just like you did.”

“The entrance is a trapdoor hidden under a giant patch of ivy outside the building, so I seriously doubt that,” Nate said. “Even if they do find it, they won’t make it very far. I padlocked it shut.”

“They could break the lock.”

“If they do that, they still won’t get anywhere near you.”

“Why not?”

“I’m trying to show you right now,” he replied, pushing my shoulder again. “Hurry the fuck up, and you’ll find out.”

Still seething, I traipsed along the dark passage, shivering every time I felt a cobweb brush over my bare skin. We passed my cell—oh, god, I was already calling it mine—and headed farther down the tunnel until we reached a wrought iron gate.

Nate shook it to show that it wouldn’t open. “No padlock necessary here,” he said, pointing to the lock. He pulled another key out of his pocket and dangled it in my face. “The smugglers added in these gates as an extra precaution back in the day. They’re all over the place in this part of the tunnels.”

“And you just happen to have a key for all of them, huh?”

“Yes. Once I found this place, I figured out where the old keys were kept—Blackthorne’s history department.”

I scoffed. “So they just gave them to you?”

“Not exactly. I asked to borrow them for a project, and they said yes. Things come to you pretty easily when your ancestors built half the fucking college.”

“Of course they do,” I muttered.

“I had copies of the keys made and returned the originals, so as far as the Blackthorne administration is concerned, no one could possibly be down here right now. Not even me.” Nate grabbed me and shoved me up against the stone wall, making me cry out. “So get this through your fucking head. No one knows you’re here. No one can hear you scream. No one can find you.”

I blinked rapidly as chills shot through me. He was right. No one was coming to save me. All I could do was save myself.

“Can we please talk about this?” I asked in the calmest tone I could muster, staring directly into Nate’s eyes. “If you just tell me why you think I killed Claire and Nessa, maybe I can understand and explain myself.”

“I had a feeling you’d say something like that.” Nate started pulling me toward my cell again. “If you insist, I can tell you everything. But like I said, I didn’t bring you here for no reason.”

He dragged me back into the cell and shoved me down. I winced as I landed on my right elbow at a bad angle.

“So why did you do it?” I asked in a broken whisper as I rubbed my sore arm. “You’ve been stalking me for months, so you must’ve decided I was guilty a long time before anything even happened. Am I right?”

He smirked as he locked the barred cell door behind me. “Yes. Do you want to know how I recognized you in the first place?”

I frowned, racking my brains for a recent memory. “You told me that night in the gazebo. You said you were at my father’s arraignment.”

“That’s right. But I didn’t tell you the whole story.” He knelt by the bars to get closer to me. “I don’t know why my dad took me to the arraignment. All I remember is him telling me that I needed to see what happened to people who went against us. I can’t exactly ask him, either, because he died three days later.” He stopped and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Anyway, what I do remember from that day is you. You were just a kid like me. Scared and confused. You kept crying and saying your dad was innocent. Then it was like a switch flipped.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I barely remembered that day. Too traumatic.

“You started screaming. Someone had to drag you out of the courtroom. You kept saying your dad was innocent, and that you hated everyone on the island. Then you said, and I quote: ‘My daddy would never do that to anyone! But I will! When I’m a grownup, I’m going to come back here and do it to all of you; everything you’re saying he did. Then you’ll finally feel bad about your lies. But I won’t care, and I won’t ever feel bad, because you’ll all deserve it!’” Nate cocked his head. “Do you remember that?”

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