Though she still didn't know where she was going, Heather felt a little better.
He'll show me, she decided. He'll show me where to go, just like he always did.
CHAPTER 16
Staring at the faint gleam of light far down the tunnel he'd discovered at the top of the shaft, Jeff felt a surge of hope that it would quickly guide them to the surface. Though his instincts urged him to run toward the light, to escape from the palpable blackness around him, he forced himself to wait until Jagger, too, had climbed the rusty rungs and emerged from the shaft like some subterranean creature creeping from its burrow. As Jagger hauled himself out of the shaft, Jeff started toward the light, his pulse racing. But when the two of them reached the source of the light, Jeff's hope was dashed: it wasn't coming from above, but from below.
Standing on opposite sides of the shaft, they gazed into its depths. Perhaps thirty feet down they could see the floor of another tunnel, and it was from there that the light emanated, seeping up the shaft-a beacon of hope as false as that of the signal lights pirates once placed on Caribbean beaches at night to draw ships onto the reefs. They peered down at the light for a long time, saying nothing.
Even had there been a ladder, neither of them would willingly have descended it. Finally, Jagger broke the silence: "We can't get out just by standing here."
Nodding, Jeff shined his light into the darkness that lay in both directions.
There was nothing, no hint as to what might lie beyond the blackness, nor how long it might be before they found another light. Out of this uncertainty, they remained close to the light source, like moths hypnotized by a lightbulb, until Jagger spun around and lunged into the darkness with a growl that fell just short of being a howl of anguish. "We gotta get out of here. Now!"
Jeff, now more terrified of being alone than of the dark, stumbled after him. They moved as quickly as they could, still using only one of the flashlights, until they came to an intersection with another tunnel, this one filled with what looked to Jeff like electrical cables. Jagger had stopped abruptly. "Which way?" he asked.
In every direction there was nothing more than the terrible blackness. Jeff turned to his right. Jagger, not questioning his decision, followed him as blindly as he'd followed Jagger a little while ago.
The tunnel seemed to be narrowing, and though Jeff told himself it had to be an illusion, he was starting to feel the terrible claustrophobia that had gripped him in the shaft.
The tunnel itself seemed to be crushing him, and he felt a scream rising in his throat. But just as his howl was about to erupt, Jagger's enormous hand closed on his shoulder, and the solid grip somehow eased the sharp talons of panic that had been sinking deep into his mind.
"Somethin‘ up ahead," Jagger whispered in his ear, his lips so close that Jeff could feel the other man's breath.
"Where?" Jeff asked, matching Jagger's barely audible tone.
Jagger's hand went over his mouth. "Sshhh…" he cautioned, clicking off his flashlight and plunging them into blackness. The pounding of Jeff's heart sounded like drums in his own ears, then Jagger whispered again. "Can't you hear it?"
Jeff willed his heartbeat to slow, and very dimly it came to him.
A whimpering sound, like an injured dog might make.
Jagger edged around Jeff. "Let me go first," he whispered.
They advanced carefully, Jagger flicking the light on just long enough to be certain he wasn't about to stumble into an unseen shaft.
The whimpering grew louder.
They came to yet another intersection, and now the whimpering was clear.
Not a dog.
A human.
It was coming from the left, and Jagger turned the light back on and played its beam into the darkness.
The whimpering fell silent.
At first there seemed to be nothing there but a pile of rubbish, a heap of filthy rags. Then the light glinted off a pair of eyes and an anguished moan came from the mound of rags.
Jagger inched forward with Jeff right behind him until they were standing over the rags. Jagger kicked one of them aside with the toe of his shoe.
A man's face, twisted into a mask of pure terror, peered up at them, his clawlike hands scratching at the floor of the tunnel as if he were trying to burrow into the cold concrete itself. As Jagger crouched down beside him, he cowered against the wall, clutching a ragged blanket to his belly. "Get away," he whispered. "Get away before they find you, too!"
"Who?" Jeff asked, crouching down and peering into the man's face. Though he'd thought at first that the man was much older, now he saw that he couldn't be more than twenty-two or twenty-three. His hair was tangled and matted, and his face was smeared with dirt and grease. "Before who can find us?"
The man's eyes rolled first one way and then the other, and for a moment Jeff thought he hadn't heard him. But then the man's jaw began working, and a dribble of blood ran down his chin. "Hunters," he whispered. "I thought I was safe. I thought I…" His voice trailed off and he lay against the wall, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath. Then, his words cracking like shards of glass, he said, "Can't get away. They said it was a game… said I could win. All I had to do was… was…"
He fell silent again, and Jeff heard something else. Another voice, softly echoing off the walls of the tunnel.
"Here-look at this. He went this way."
The man's eyes widened as he, too, heard the voice, and once again he seemed to want to speak. His body went rigid and a strangled gurgle came from his lips. Then, abruptly, he relaxed. His hands, still clutching at the rags, fell away from his belly.
The blood oozing from the hole in the man's stomach glistened crimson in the beam of the flashlight.
As the sound of voices grew closer, Jeff and Jagger plunged back into the darkness.
It was the kind of evening that was perfect for walking. The icy chill of winter had given way to spring, and there was a faint scent of new flowers drifting from the park. It was the kind of evening, in fact, that had often enticed Jeff and Heather out for one of their hours-long rambles, Jeff soaking up the architecture while Heather regaled him with stories of what it was like growing up as a poor little rich girl in the heart of Manhattan. Perhaps it was the perfect weather that kept Heather walking that evening.
Or perhaps it was the fact that there wasn't any place she wanted to be.
Certainly, she did not want to be anywhere near her father!
Pain-pain and anger-boiled up inside her as she remembered what he'd said after he gave her the news that Jeff had died. He'd put his arms around her and spoken words that, even in her anger, she assumed he must have thought were comforting: "I know you're upset, sweetheart, but you'll get over it. There will be other men, and in the long run I think you'll come to understand that this has saved you from a lot of grief."
And tonight he'd asked her to go to Le Cirque! Had he really thought she'd be able to sit in a restaurant where she not only knew most of the customers, but would have to put up with them acting as if nothing were wrong? After all, most of the people she'd grown up with had made it perfectly clear what they thought of Jeff Converse. "He'll never really understand you, darling," Jessica van Rensellier had told her a couple of years ago. "Fine for a summer romance, of course, but he's just not someone you could get serious about, is he? I mean, isn't his father one of those men who take care of our houses?"