Page 81 of Crazy Spooky Love
Richard frowns. “I’m not happy about the idea of breaking in.”
“No,” I say slowly, because my mind is whirring through the possible options. “Me neither. Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
I grab my kit bag and lead them all through the thankfully unbolted garden gate and around the now familiar and very well-trodden path to the back of the house. I try the door in the vain hope that Donovan Scarborough might have forgotten to lock it.He didn’t. Bollocks. Okay. I stand back with my hands on my hips and survey the rear of the house. “Plan B it is then,” I say, keeping upbeat. “Cross your fingers.”
“The cellar?” Marina asks, and I nod.
“Let’s just hope the interior bolt isn’t locked,” I say. “Artie, would you come down with me, please? Marina, if you could stay up here with Richard and Jojo, we’ll go in and see if we can open the back door from the inside, he might have left the key behind.”
“No complaints from me there,” Marina says, peering down through the cellar coal hatch when we open it up. I’d been worried that someone might have re-latched it from the inside, but our luck holds. “These heels aren’t made for pretending to be Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole.”
“Are you guys sure about this?” Jojo asks, looking dubious.
“It’s fine, honestly,” I say. “Artie, would you mind going in first, it’s less of a drop for you than me.”
“Phones?” Marina says, and we both pull out our mobiles and click the flashlighton.
“Ready?” I ask Artie, hoping he can’t hear the sudden nerves in my voice.
“As I’ll ever be, tiny dancer,” he says, and I burst out laughing because it’s such a ridiculously out-of-character thing for him to say.
“Sorry.” He grins, bashful. “Been saving that one up since I nearly threw you over the gate. Wanted to make you laugh.”
I am actually crying with laughter, a welcome release of tension. “Well, you definitely managed that,” I wipe my eyes. “Now get down into that flippin’ cellar.”
Artie lowers his long legsdown the hatch, and with a determined little nod, he slithers into the cellar. I hear him land with a soft thud, and his phone illuminates the gloom enough for me to follow himin.
“If I’m not out in ten minutes, leave and get on with your lives,” I say, with an exaggerated, dramatic, damsel-in-distress sigh as I drop my kit bag down to Artie and lower myself in as far as my waist. “Just take care of Lestat for me.”
Marina looks horrified by the prospect. “Not a chance. If you’re not out in ten minutes I’m coming down there myself, shoes or no shoes.”
“Guide me down, Artie,” I say, and he sways my legs toward a crate he’s just dragged across to break my fall. I throw Marina a wink as I disappear, and then I call up “Close the hatch behind us,” covering our tracks because I’m fast learning that this business is anything but predictable.
Chapter
Twenty-three
Being in the shadowy cellar again gives me the creeps, so we waste no time in making our way across and around the assembled boxes and crates to the stone steps that lead into the main house.
“Cross your fingers, Artie,” I whisper as I place my hand on the doorknob. “Because things are going to get a whole lot more difficult if this door is locked.”
I turn the knob and push, but it doesn’t budge. “Oh no,” I murmur, going cold.
“Give it a really good shove,” a rich voice urges behind me, and I recognize it straightaway as Douglas rather than Artie. “It sticks sometimes.”
“You try, Artie?” I step aside to let him try. He wasn’t privy to Douglas’s tip, so I suggest he gives it a barge with his shoulder to see if there’s any chance.
“Okay,” he murmurs, sounding unsure, but he moves up anyway. When he turns the knob and rams his shoulder decisively into the door it flies back on its hinges and slams against the wall, sending Artie tumbling out into the hallway in a heap. When he jumps to his feet, the look of satisfaction on his face is pure gold.
“We’re in,” he laughs.
I nod, dusting cobwebs from my hair. Whispering a quick thank-you to Douglas beside me, I follow Artie into the house.
“Nice job,” I say, dropping the kit bag by the skirting as I close the door, and he gives me his “it was nothing” shrug that tells me he’s secretly wildly impressed with himself.
I try the front door, but as I’d expected it’s locked and dead-bolted. There’s no way I can open it to let the others in that way. “Let’s check if the back door key is in the lock,” I suggest.
Douglas shakes his head. “Donovan shoved it in his pocket, I saw him.”
