“I will call Officer Bucket anonymously from this phone and tell them to go to Emma’s house. But you need to do something equally as important before you do anything else. If I could do it, Carrie, I would. But I am obviously out of commission for a while.”

  “What is it?”

  “Do you know how to get into the tunnels?”

  “Of course. Other than tarot cards, spelunking Prosperity’s Prohibition tunnels is something for which I am impeccably trained.”

  “You need to get into the museum. Right now. And you need to steal the accounting books. And you need to bring them to me. With my phone.”

  “Your phone isn’t charged,” I said, stupidly, like that’s what matters.

  “Listen,” he said, calmly. “Grab my charger before you head down into the tunnels. It’s in my office.”

  “I should mention now that your house has been totally ransacked,” I said, once again surprising myself with my inability to stay focused.

  “Oh boy,” he said. “That’s bad, but it’s not surprising given everything else that’s happening. Not to worry. No one got hurt with that, so we’ll deal with that later. The most important thing is that you get those books and come here.”

  “They still enter everything by hand? It’s not on a computer?”

  “You’ll see. Get them and bring them straight to the hospital. Don’t let anyone see you.”

  “Flynt’s already seen me a few times today,” I said. “You know, telling me what I should do.”

  “Don’t let him catch you doing this,” he said.

  “But what if—”

  “Carrie, stop. Listen. My neck is broken because Flynt Burns pushed me down the stairs.”

  §

  “How am I supposed to learn all of this?” I had asked, dropping my head to the table. We’d been studying all afternoon. It was past my snack time, and the cards were blurry. “There are seventy-eight cards and infinite combinations. It’s impossible.”

  “First off, let’s get you something to nosh on.”

  Aunt Inez disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a plate with fresh basil, sliced beefsteak tomatoes from her garden, bread she baked that morning and her homemade buffalo mozzarella—and a plum for Waggery.

  “Eat,” she said. “And we’ll talk about cues on the cards you can use to keep a reading going when you may not remember exactly what they mean.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, through a mouthful of food.

  “As you know, each card has a picture that should, over time, signal you to remember what it means. Like flash cards. But when you’re stuck, you can interpret a meaning from the colors.”

  “I can?”

  “Many of the cards have yellow skies,” she said. “Why? Is it an artistic choice? No. Yellow in tarot represents our higher consciousness. When you see yellow, mention to your client that something is trying to get their attention on a spiritual level. Now what other color is the sky in tarot?”

  “Blue,” I said, knowing that this was low-hanging fruit.

  “True blue,” she said, “is an expression of our subconscious. Do you know what that is?”

  “It’s the thoughts underneath your thoughts that you don’t know you’re thinking, but that make you think certain things at a certain time whether you want to or not.”

  Aunt Inez looked at me with a furrowed brow. “I’ll allow that,” she said, after some consideration. “Blue on a card represents an outcome driven by forces that they may not even be aware of.”

  “A warning?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. “More like something underneath the surface that you may not know about. Blue is typically found in cards with a more ‘positive’ spin, although there is no good or bad in tarot.”

  “Right,” I said, licking my fingers. “This was delish.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, with a nod of her head. “What other colors are there?”

  “There’s gray,” I said. “A lot of the cards have gray skies.”

  “And what do you think of when you think of gray?”

  “Gloomy,” I said.

  “Excellent,” she said. “Cards like the Three of Swords have a gray background and that one is a darker card. And the Hanged Man, which means indecision.”

  She showed me the image of a heart run through by three swords and the one of a man in page’s costume dangling by his foot from a cross. “But here’s the Eight of Pentacles, which has a man working at his bench and the gray is pretty neutral—you can assign almost any mood to it.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “What about this one?” I held up the Emperor card. It had an orange sky.

  “What a detailed eye you have,” she said. “That card is the only one with an orange sky.”

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “It’s volatility. Random chance. Power. Fire.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, tracing my finger along the shading on the card.

  “It is,” she said. “But it’s unpredictable.”

  “I’ll watch out for that,” I said, getting up to take my plate to the kitchen.

  But the years went by, and I didn’t.

  I didn’t watch out for that at all.

  §

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It was getting dark out, and I was on a mission. I’d been bouncing all over town for two days trying to get to the bottom of a mystery so unfathomable that the best I could do to solve it was to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  The gas lamps of Hoggarty Heaven flickered in a lighthearted, festive welcome, no doubt designed to make party guests feel the enchantment of the place. Grist’s door was still off its hinges, but there was police tape that read, Police Line Do Not Cross. I ignored it, of course, getting more and more accustomed to breaking the rules as the hours ticked by. What would they do? Arrest me? Fine. That seemed inevitable at this point. I would welcome the chance to unburden my conscience.

  The place looked pretty much as it had before from what I could tell in the twilight and with the lights out. I’d luckily remembered to snag a flashlight before I left the house, causing a little flap with Waggery. He knew I used it to find him when he flew off on our night walks, so I think he was confused. Why would I need it if he was right there? I didn’t want to let him out, but he screamed when I tried to leave, so I decided to risk setting him free again. I hoped I didn’t come to regret it, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  And I couldn’t remember feeling more desperate.

  Fortunately, Grist’s charger was plugged into the wall behind his desk. It would be better time management to plug the phone in here and have it charge while I was in the tunnels and grab it when I was done. I wanted to bring it to him fully charged in the hospital so he could answer the multitude of concerned texts and voice mails that were no doubt coming in from friends. And Lillian.

  There were several entrances to the tunnels in Prosperity, but the one I was using was in Grist’s drawing room. Growing up, this wasn’t the entrance Hank and I preferred.

  The one we liked best was situated behind the main manor house underneath a tangle of ivy that looked like nothing more interesting than a hiding place for rats. But if you could find the loop of rope that had somehow survived decades of weather and neglect, and you pulled up on it, you’d find a trapdoor that led to a stone staircase.

  “No shoddy wooden stairs for the Hoggarty family,” Hank used to say. “When my grandfather did something, he set it in stone.”

  I thought I’d remind him of that sentiment next time he got mad about the weakly written contract that resulted in Grist living in “his” carriage house.

  There were some items strewn atop the rug that I needed to get under, so I moved them out of the way. I pulled the corner back to reveal the trapdoor in the floor. I wiggled my finger under the notch and gave a lift—well-oiled hinges made it easy for even the daintiest lady to use, you know, in case of a Prohibition-related emergency.

  I was glad I’d worn sneakers today, rather than my usual Mary Janes. I took the stone stairs carefully—it had been a while since I had navigated a narrow descent into a pitch-black tunnel, and I wanted to be sure I didn’t tank my mission with a twisted ankle or some other careless injury. Plus, I didn’t have health insurance. One more un-payable debt would mean I’d have to sell the house.

  I kept moving.

  Despite the stress of this covert mission, I noticed a little spring in my step. I’d missed making mischief. I took in the dusty, musty scent, tinged with the pleasant decaying fruit smell that came from years and years of wine transport, storage, and spillage. It was the fragrance of my childhood, a childhood that had been filled with imaginative play, doting guardians, and a close friendship with someone with whom I thought I would be forever friends.

  I didn’t know how all of this was going to turn out. Anything could happen, and I wasn’t sure that any of this would be good for me, or anyone else in Prosperity.

  I trembled in the chill. Or was it the anxiety? I wasn’t sure.

  The flashlight was surprisingly effective at slicing through the blackness. I moved too cautiously through the tunnel, too slowly for the urgency of what I was tasked with doing. But this meant had the chance to notice that there were areas underneath Grist’s house that appeared to have been dug out, damaged, or demolished. The foundational joists were exposed. In some parts, entire sections of the concrete underpinning that secured the house from falling into the tunnel had been removed, and the flooring appeared to sag. It didn’t look safe.

  I needed to warn Grist about this. Even with an uninjured neck, he could step on a weak spot in the floor and fall all the way through. My shoulders tightened at the thought, especially when I remembered how Stormy and I were stomping through there the day before.

  Through cobwebs, puffs of dust that came from nowhere and unsure footing, I soldiered on. I still had several hundred yards to navigate, and even though it was impossible to get lost on this route, time was running out. I didn’t understand exactly why I was doing this, but I trusted Grist. I knew that this mission might provide the final piece that completes the puzzle I had been struggling to solve.

  The path forked in three prongs, and I took the left one toward the Wine Museum. The one to the right would have taken me to High on the Hoggarty and the one in the center would have delivered me straight to the Visitors Center.

  The deeper I went, the more it became clear this tunnel expedition wasn’t a silly game with Hank.

  I was in these tunnels because people were dying, and I needed to find out why. I would never forget how Emma looked in her bed, her eyes cold and lifeless, her aristocratic features obscured by a cheap plastic bag. Her elegant life was snuffed out by a cheap piece of trash.

  Step after step, my brain told me everything was fine, but my body betrayed me.

  Sweaty palms.

  Heaviness in my chest.

  Flutters in my stomach.

  Who did I think I was?

  I had no business doing any of this.

  My flashlight blinked. The batteries were dying. The tunnels would flash into view and disappear, like a strobe light.

  I put my hand on the wall. The cool rocks would have to be my guide—and my only guide—if my flashlight failed.

  And then it did.

  I groaned, and the sound collapsed. Nothing reverberated down here. There were no echoes.

  I stood paralyzed in my spot. My feet refused to move.

  I held my hand up in front of my face. Nothing but dark, black void.

  But unlike the games Hank and I played in these hidden tunnels so many years ago, I couldn’t quit when it stopped being fun.

  “Your phone, dummy,” I said to myself. I laughed, relieved. I fired up the phone and pointed it down the left tunnel.

  “Technology saves the day.”

  My cheap phone didn’t have the range of the flashlight, but it offered me enough visibility to shake me out of my paralysis.

  “Pull it together, Dettwiler. This is the beginning.”

  I looked at the phone and realized I only had ten percent battery.

  “I guess charging for fifteen minutes from a dead battery doesn’t provide enough juice to your fake-ass iDroid.”

  I never enjoyed being poor, but I especially hated being poor when it affected my ability to do normal things successfully. My life was filled with annoyances like this: cheap appliances that broke down, fabrics that tore and pilled, knockoff technology that fell apart with reasonable use. People had no idea how inconvenient and expensive it was to be poor.

  But my bitterness wasn’t helping me now.

  I decided not to use the phone. The tunnel was dark, but there were no surprises down here. If I used the walls as a guide, I would get to the trapdoor that led to the basement of the museum even without light.

  “Time to be a big girl,” I whispered. And I turned off the phone.

  It was as if someone put a cloth bag over my head.

  Blind.

  Breathless.

  I put one foot in front of the other, feigning confidence.

  Faking it until I made it.

  I kept moving, grappling the wall like it was the only thing saving me from imminent death, touching the ground gingerly with one toe before taking a step, in case the earth opened up underneath.

  I could barely make out the faint, lighted outline of the trapdoor that led to the basement of the Wine Museum, though it was impossible to determine the distance. My perspective was faulty in total darkness, and I knew I hadn’t been down there long enough or moving fast enough to be within striking distance yet.

  Nevertheless, I had the confidence to take a few full steps.

  “Almost there,” I said. “Almost there.”

  I hit something soft.

  I reared back, and a lightning jolt of adrenaline shot through my limbs. I half expected to hear the squeak of a disoriented rat.

  Instead, a kick landed on my shin.

  I swung outward with the flashlight and didn’t hit anything. I took a few more swings until, thud; I hit something that, if I had to guess, was a ribcage.

  “Mmph.”

  Another kick landed below my knee. I fell to the ground, half from pain, half from sheer terror.

  “Mmph.”

  Whatever it was that took me down was human.

  And it was furious.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  What came forth from my gut was a combination scream and groan. I frightened myself with the sound of my own raw emotion.

  I was breathing heavily, inhaling dust from the floor of the tunnel.

  I coughed, trying to empty my airway. I was unsure whether it was the dust or the panic that made it hard to breathe.

  The sounds coming from this person were a combination of struggle and pain.

  “Wha—Who—”

  From what I could make out, they were grunting and writhing around. Were they injured? Were they dangerous?

  “Mmmnn.”

  “What? I can’t—Are you hurt?”

  I could hear them shuffling and kicking.

  “I can’t see you,” I cried. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  I scrambled backward, hoping that their desperation would make them unable to move or find me.

  “Mumph.”

  “Are you—are you gagged?”

  “Mmm. Mmm.”

  “Oh my god. Oh my god. Please don’t hurt me.”

  I reacted exactly like I did that time I left the backdoor open for Waggery to let himself in and a baby possum scooted into my kitchen: sheer, stultifying terror.

  I smelled sandalwood.

  “St-Stormy?”

  “MMeh.”

  “Stormy Portwood?”

  “MMEH.”

  “What the—"

  I crawled on my hands and knees toward the sound. I reached out to find two feet clad in Chucks, the laces loose, almost untied. I felt my way up the leg—it was jeans like Stormy wore. I couldn’t find her hands, and I respectfully did my best not to run my hands over her front.

  I found her neck and face—those cheekbones.

  Focus, Carrie.

  There was something over her mouth. Duct tape.

  “I’m going to pull this off. It’s going to hurt. A lot. I’m going to count to three.”

  I felt her nod her head.

  “One—Two—” I ripped off the tape in one aggressive stroke.

  “What happened to three?” Stormy screamed. “God. Ouch.” I could feel her kicking the air.

  “That was a trick Aunt Inez used on me once when I had a particularly sticky Band-Aid situation.”

  “Aunt Inez sounds like a real bitch.”

  “Watch what you say about Inez,” I said. “

  “Sorry.”

  “I did say she only got away with it once. Never quite trusted her with Band-aids after that.”

  We sat in stunned silence, trying to catch our breaths. I couldn’t see her at all. And I know she couldn’t see me.

  “I could use some water,” she said, finally, breathless. “Do you have any?”

  “I’m not on a hiking expedition,” I said. “So, no.”

  “Can you untie me?”

  “Why are you tied up in the first place? What are you doing down here?”

  “Your buddy Hank,” she said.

  “Hank?”

  “Yes. He’s handy with tape and rope. Not a great listener. Seems to care about you, though.”

  “That’s one of the most surprising things I’ve heard in a day filled with surprises,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Untie me first.” I heard her shift around.

  “I guess you’ll stay down here. I didn’t come here for you. In fact, I still plan on going to the police about you. Murderer.”

  I stood up in a way that made sure she heard me.

  “No. Wait. You win. I’ll tell you everything.”

  I sat back down, but not without reservations. I believed Stormy was responsible for the deaths of two people already. Would she also be responsible for mine? I moved as far away from her as I could, or at least I thought I did. It was impossible to track her in the dark.

 

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