Page 72 of One Last Stand

His side, however, moved, just slightly.

“I can’t believe it isn’t locked.”

“It is. But the river has probably flooded over this area so many times the lock rusted through—see the hinges here?” He pointed to the red bloodying the wood. “Enough force and we can break the lock, or maybe just pull it free from the hinges.”

“Maybe we should just go down the path.”

His hand landed on her arm. “There’s a shooter down there. Somewhere. We go that way, we walk right into them. I’ll get my side open enough to wedge something inside like—oh, like a knife? That KA-BAR you carry?”

Her mouth opened. “I don’t?—”

“Please.”

Fine.“I didn’t bring it.”

He looked at her. “What kind of supersecret covert operative are you?”

“The kind that thought she was out for a nice day trip with her boyfriend!”

He smiled then, and it touched his eyes, and despite the drizzle and the darkening sky, her entire world lit up, bright and perfect.Oh boy.

“I’ll find a stick.” She rooted around one of the trees.Wait.“I found something. It looks like one of the door fasteners. Still in good shape.”

“Perfect. I’ll heave open the door, you shove that into the space, and we’ll use it like a lever.”

It worked. He pulled, she pried, and the door lock broke off with age and flooding, flicking rust into the air. He opened his side. “It’s a tunnel.”

She stepped inside, the odor of must and dankness and the cool lick of a breeze from deep inside stirring something in her gut. “It’s avery darktunnel.”

His hand curled around hers. “I got you.”

Alrighty then.

He flicked on his phone light. Shone it against the walls of the cave.

“You’re such a Boy Scout.”

“I’ve been out in the bush enough times to know that you don’t leave without a cell—or sat—phone. Let’s go.”

Maybe ten feet high at its tallest and five feet wide at its widest, the cave still bore the marks of pickaxes scraped into its sides. Shep closed the door behind them, just in case, and shone his light into the corridor. The darkness gobbled it up, but the beam shone far enough for them to walk a few feet, and a few feet more, and soon the sound of the waterfall lessened, their breaths and the scrape of footfalls the only noise.

“This is creepy,” she said.

“Imagine it without the light.”

“Thanks for that.”

He touched his hand to her shoulder, warm and solid, and there was no one she’d rather be wandering around in the dark with.

He moved ahead of her then and led the way until they came to a set of wooden stairs. They took them down, then more and down again, maybe two hundred feet, and came out to a wider area. This part of the tunnel had been smoothed out, as if used regularly, wine casks stacked on their sides on one side of the rounded room.

Another tunnel led away, and he headed toward it, taking her hand. “I think there’s a door up there.” He shone his light on a towering arched door with a smaller door built into it.

And just like that an alarm screeched, lights flickered on, and a siren moaned, echoing through the chamber.

He winced, turned, and she spotted debate in his face.

Then the door at the end burst open, and she pulled him down to his knees and hit her own as her hands went up.

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