Page 102 of Deadly Target (Rocky Mountain Courage 2)

FORTY-THREE

Mom’s words echoed in Erin’s mind and ricocheted through her heart.

Erin didn’t want to disappear.

What about her friends and family? Well, they didn’t have family—and now Erin understood why—but she couldn’t accept that leaving behind her friends, and yes, leaving Nathan all over again, was the answer. Now in the face of such a violent departure, she was dangerously close to becoming a missing person. And eventually a cold case.

While Erin had gotten completely lost in her thoughts, Mom had climbed up a short ladder.

She stared down at her. “Snap out of it. We have to move.”

Her mother shifted into a militant person right before her eyes. She was strong and had her act together. Erin struggled to reconcile this new mother with the woman who recently had tried to commit suicide. All of this she considered as she followed Mom into yet another tunnel—an old, out-of-use water or steam shaft.

Erin took in the dank passageway. It resembled what Delmar had dug for their escape, except it was much wider. “I can’t believe you persuaded Delmar to do all this work—years’ worth of work—for you. It seems so far-fetched.”

“It got us out of the house. That was the point.”

Wait ... “This is why you didn’t want to move to Seattle with me, isn’t it?”

“It took a while to plan and then to dig the tunnel. As for persuading Delmar, I paid him a significant portion of my savings and retirement. I paid him to keep quiet, and now I hold over him the fact that he dug an illegal tunnel, if needed. He’s become a dear friend.” Mom shrugged. “But I guess I learned something from growing up in an organized crime family—like father, like daughter. I covered all the bases.”

Erin couldn’t stop shaking her head in disbelief.

I’m walking in a tunnel to escape the mob. My mother is the daughter of an imprisoned mob boss.

“There wasn’t an easier escape plan than digging an underground passage?”

An incredulous huff escaped her mother. “Once they find you, there’s no escaping the house. So a tunnel it is.”

“But wouldn’t those after you know that too? Think of that?”

“Sure, but they don’t know where it ends up. They will have trouble breaking through that door, or at least it will deter them.” Mom paused next to a small pack. She leaned over and pulled out a device.

A detonator?

“And now I’m going to blow up the tunnel.”

“Wait!”

But Mom pressed the button.

Who are you, and what have you done with my mother?

Erin held her breath, expecting to hear or feel the explosion. She felt a shudder and heard the collapse, but only because she had been intently listening. “I barely heard anything.”

“It was small. Just enough to bring down some dirt and rock. Block their way. Now we have to get moving so we can connect with the train tunnel.”

The scale of her mother’s escape operation was hard for Erin to grasp. “You have truly been planning this for years.”

“I’ve been hoping I wouldn’t be forced to use it. It has been a couple of years since Delmar completed the tunnel, and I had almost put the need for an escape out of my mind. Until recently.”

“Why do you say recently? What happened to remind you about your past and the possible need to disappear again? Was it because Nathan’s father called you? Is that what set you off?” To try to commit suicide? Except that attempt didn’t match the efforts and preparation of her escape plan.

Erin sloshed through a few puddles, peering at the walls again. Rainwater or groundwater leaking into the tunnel?

“What? No. Why would a phone call from him set me off? Your podcast reminded me that we might never truly escape.”

My podcast.Erin sagged under the weight. Had her podcast truly been the catalyst for the killing? Or had it been Newt? He’d started his investigation long before Erin had published “Deadly Rabbit Trails.” Still, it could be, as Detective Munson had mentioned, that her podcast had caught the ears of the wrong person.

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