God, what a mess I’ve made of everything.
And now she knew it. Now when she would never get the chance to tell Mitch how sorry she was. Because her time had run out. All Des had left were these last precious moments in this dark cellar where she could see things so very clearly. And maybe, before death came, take care of one final piece of personal business.
Des closed her eyes and she prayed.
CHAPTER 14
“Okay, we have to be really, really quiet now,” Molly gasped in his ear as they neared the edge of the woods. “Got it?”
“Got it,” Mitch whispered, his chest rising and falling from the dash they’d made across the Nature Preserve.
“We can’t use our flashlight either-these woods are crawling with Feds. But I know the path home. Just follow me. And try to stay down, will you?”
Into the darkened woods they plunged, hunkered low like two woodchucks in sneakers. Molly a silent, sure-footed creature of the night as she led them along the invisible footpath, her damp little hand clutching his. Mitch bringing up the rear blindly and not at all nimbly. He stumbled repeatedly over fallen branches and exposed tree roots. Fell to the ground more than once. But he found Molly’s hand and kept on going, nose to the dirt.
Thunder rumbled overhead. Off in the distance there was a flicker of lightning. The all-out summer downpour that ace storm tracker Jim Cantore had promised would soon arrive in Dorset. For now the night air remained warm, drizzly and dead calm. Mitch was drenched with sweat, mosquitoes feasting on him.
Molly had won out. He’d agreed to go along with her rescue plan. Hadn’t called Yolie. Hadn’t so much as thought about it. Des needed him. That was all that mattered. It meant everything in the world according to Mitch, which was to say the world according to MGM, RKO and the brothers Warner. When a woman from out of your romantic past needed you, you answered the call. So what if she’d broken your heart? If she was in danger you showed up. You didn’t wonder if it was the right thing to do. You didn’t hesitate. Did Cagney? Did Errol Flynn? Coop? The Duke? Hell no, pilgrim. Neither did Mitch Berger. Which explained why he was now dog-trotting his way through these woods with this strange, fearless little girl, armed only with a little flashlight that he couldn’t use, a pair of wire cutters and Saul Mandelbaum’s old Baby Terrier-the pocket-sized iron pry bar that his grandfather opened crates with back when he drove a produce truck to and from the Hunt’s Point Market.
Here was how Molly had laid out her plan before they left:
“Our root cellar has four air vents, see?” she explained as she made a quick sketch on a notepad at the table. The vents resembled small windows in the farmhouse’s foundation. Mitch’s place had similar such vents. “They’re covered on the outside with quarter-inch wire mesh to keep the little critters out. Under the wire there’s this inch-thick plywood vent cover that gets screwed into place from inside the cellar. We put the covers in over the winter to keep our pipes from freezing. Once spring comes my dad takes them off or the kitchen gets all mildewy. Except he was so messed up this year he forgot. So the vent covers are still on, okay?” Molly paused to finish her glass of milk, licking her upper lip clean. Bella offered her more. She politely declined. “I bet Clay and Hector have never noticed them,” she continued. “It’s dark down there. And it’s not their house. So why would they even care, right?”
“Right,” Mitch said, standing over her with his eyes on the notepad.
“Anybody who’s standing outside can see three of the vents.” Molly ticked them off one by one with her pencil. “This one in front. And this one that faces the driveway. And this one over here by the chimney. So forget them. The troopers will spot you right away and blow the whistle.” She grinned up at him. “But thefourth one faces the barn in back. And it’s underneath the deck my dad put in when he installed those French doors. It comes out sixteen feet from the back of the house and it’s raised twenty-eight inches off of the ground. That should give you okay head clearance. And the vent is twenty-two and a quarter inches wide by fourteen and three-eighths high.”
“Um, okay, just exactly how do you know that?”
“Because I measured them for my dad when he was cutting new plywood covers. The old ones leaked. They’re not all the same size, even though they look that way from a distance.” Molly studied Mitch with a critical eye. “The old you might have had trouble squeezing through it. But now that you’re Mr. Six-Pack Abs you shouldn’t have any problem.”
“And Des has gotten so skinny you could fit four of her through there,” said Bella, parked there beside him with chubby hands on round hips.
“Molly, let me see if I’ve got this straight…” Mitch said slowly. “I hike my way there through the woods in the dark past the FBI. I elude the SWAT teams that currently have the entire house surrounded. Slither my way under the back deck to the vent. Cut the wire mesh. Pry open the vent cover…”
“Which should be a snap,” she interjected. “The frame’s way punky with dry rot. My dad was planning to replace it.”
“Then drop down into the root cellar and snatch up Des-if she’s actually down there, and if she is she’s still alive. The two of us escape the way I came in. Then the SWAT can go in and take Clay and Hector however they choose. Does that about cover it?”
Molly nodded. “Pretty much. Except for one teeny-tiny detail-I’m coming with you.”
“Not a chance. It’s one thing for me to risk my own life. I’m a grown-up. Or at least that’s what my driver’s license says. You’re just a little girl.”
“Mitch-?”
“It’s too dangerous for you. I won’t allow it. No way.”
“Mitch, will you shut up and listen? You won’t get within a hundred yards of the place without me. You’ll never even make it through those woods. Besides, it’s my father they killed and my mother they messed up. So stop being such an overprotective butthead, will you?”
“Fine,” Mitch sighed. Because she was right about the woods part. “But once we reach the barn I’m on my own. I have to insist upon that. You will stay out of harm’s way, understood?”
“Sure,” Molly agreed. “Whatever you say.”
Bella didn’t try to talk them out of it. Just kissed each of them on the cheek, handed Mitch her flashlight and said, “I’m here if you need me, tattela.”
Which made it officiaclass="underline" Bella Tillis, the pride of Brooklyn, U.S.A., widow of Morris, grandmother of eight and godmother to a million causes, was as big a fool for love as he was.
Congress. They absolutely needed her in Congress.
And now he and Molly were emerging from the deep forest darkness. Mitch could make out lights between the trees. The high beams of the state police vehicles that were parked out in the lane. The drizzle was becoming a light, steady rain. The rumble of thunder growing louder.
Molly halted there at the edge of the woods. They were down near the end of the lane-past Amber and Keith’s place, and a safe distance away from the action. Staying low, the two of them scampered across the pavement and plunged into a different sort of rough terrain. This one a thorny, brambly thicket of wild berry bushes, barberry, privet and God knew what else. There was no path to follow here. Only dense, overgrown brush that fought back hard as they inched their way through it on their hands and knees, the thorns attacking their faces and bare arms. But for Mitch there was no giving in to a few scratches. Not when Des needed him. Not when this fearless little girl wasn’t hesitating to do what needed doing. So he pressed on.
Until finally they’d circled their way around behind the barn in back of Molly’s house. It was very dark here. The barn stood between them and all of those lights out in the street. But they were close enough to the action that Mitch could hear the voices of the troopers now.