A Treasure to Die For Read online

  “Of course. The Hot Springs P.D. and Park Rangers are helping. They’re combing the area around here for a couple of miles as well as watching for her at your hotel, and the K-9 tracking unit will arrive soon. I’d strongly suggest you go to the hotel now. We’ll report to you when we have her in custody. I know you’ll call us if we miss her and she returns to the room and that you would hold her there.”

  Henry’s face burned with sudden heat. In custody? Hold her if she comes back to the room? Did he think Henry cared more for law enforcement than he did for Carrie’s welfare? Did he dare think...?

  He controlled the urge to spit angry words at Bell and kept his head lowered to conceal the expression on his face.

  After a silence, Henry said, “All right then, I’ll go back to the hotel. Be sure and call me if anything happens...ah, when you find her. I am strongly concerned about her welfare.”

  Agent Bell didn’t answer. He had already turned back toward the hole in the floor and was telling the men to come up.

  As far as he’s concerned, thought Henry, I am of no consequence right now. But, he reminded himself, these men are just doing their jobs.

  As Henry rose to his feet, Agent Brooks, standing above Bell’s back, gave Henry a thumbs-up and winked at him.

  Henry had the unsettling feeling that Brooks could read his mind. He also felt sure that, even if Brooks guessed what he planned, the man wasn’t going to say anything about it to anyone else yet, including Agent Bell.

  He climbed the stairs to the Fordyce lobby and, as he crossed the porch, noticed the chairs were all empty. Probably everyone has gone to dinner, Henry thought. He stuck his hand in his pocket, feeling for the flashlight Carrie had insisted he bring with him this afternoon.

  Gone!

  Then he remembered. He’d used it in the basement of the Fordyce after Carrie found Rusty Hobbs. He’d probably dropped it there, but Agent Bell and the others sure wouldn’t let him back in the basement to look for it now. Besides, he didn’t want them to know he had any interest in a flashlight.

  So, once more, Henry headed across the street toward the Central Avenue shops.

  The feeling of urgency that drove him also dictated his purchase of the first flashlight he found, even though it was bright purple and had a picture of Winnie the Pooh on one side. Never mind, it made light. He paid for it, a set of extra batteries, and, sack in hand, headed toward the Downtowner.

  Instead of walking to the lobby, however, he turned off into an alley near the hotel. He had no idea where police officers were, and, at least in the hotel lobby, they’d be in plain clothes anyway. He doubted that the FBI had reported he was on his way back to the hotel or had given out his description, at least not yet, but still he had no intention of risking a return to the room.

  When he was behind the hotel, he inspected the fence around the overflow parking lot. He’d climbed more than one fence in his life, and it was obvious several people had already climbed this one. Broken-out places offered foot-holds, and the potentially sharp wires across the top were bent down in several places. He just hoped no one was out on a hotel balcony right now.

  There were no alarmed shouts as he climbed or after he had dropped inside. Looking around, he saw no one at all, let alone anyone who might be guarding the area or searching for Carrie. Probably they assumed she would have no interest in locked cars. They certainly knew she wasn’t carrying a purse with car keys inside.

  When he reached his car, Henry looked around again before unlocking the door to slide in. Even in the fading daylight there was a possibility he might be seen and recognized when he went past the unloading area at the side of the hotel, but he had to chance it. He was counting on the fact that no one, with the possible exception of Agent Brooks, suspected what he planned, and they would therefore have no interest in his car. Ducking his head as low as he dared, he headed toward Central Avenue. He didn’t look around as he passed the glass wall of the hotel lobby.

  After he was well beyond Bathhouse Row, Henry wondered where to go next and watched for signs that might give a clue to where he was. Finally he saw a sign announcing a city information center; turning left, he pulled into the parking lot. Now, if only the place was still open and there were no law enforcement watchers around. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, so he got out of the car and joined a group of tourists going through the open door of the building. The tourists stopped to look over offerings in a post card rack, so the attendant was available, and in just a couple of minutes Henry was back out with a clearly marked map of the area. He started the car and headed for Transportation Plaza.

  He wanted Carrie found as quickly as possible, but he still hoped it hadn’t occurred to anyone, except maybe Brooks, that Carrie could be in the creek.

  Interesting. Agent Brooks seemed willing to respect him as a fellow law-enforcement professional, retired or not, and also to honor his special interest in this case. Had something happened in Brooks’ own law-enforcement career that was coloring his judgment? Henry knew Brooks would have had the right, even the duty, to question him about his plans in front of Bell, especially if he’d guessed what Henry was about to do.

  It was a good thing he hadn’t asked those questions. Henry would have had to answer them with lies. But both intuition and logic—or something of that sort—told him Bogardus shoved Carrie through the trap door, and then she’d probably made her way out of the mud pit and into Hot Springs Creek, seeing it as her only avenue of escape. She wouldn’t even know Bogardus was dead. She’d gotten away from the trap door and from what she would see as a continuing threat from Everett Bogardus. That was logical.

  Henry had also realized, after some thought, that Carrie Culpeper McCrite would not have stabbed Everett Bogardus and run away. Oh, it was possible that, to save her own life, she had stabbed the man, not intending to kill him. But she wouldn’t have run away, she’d have run for help.

  He tried to picture the scene, the struggle with Bogardus as he pushed her toward the opening, Carrie and her purse going over the edge, dropping into the deep mud below. That fit the circumstances as Henry figured them.

  But how could a fatally wounded man shut that heavy iron trap door? In his quick look around the room before Bell removed him, Henry had seen no blood anywhere but on and under the body, no bloody hand prints on the trap door. Did that mean someone else had been there after Carrie and shut the door?

  Maybe Carrie could answer that question when he found her. Maybe she could answer a lot of his questions.

  Chapter XIII

  Carrie

  She’d made it this far, and now she was trapped.

  Carrie’s shoulders slumped. She bowed her head, shut off the flashlight, shut her eyes. Maybe she should just lie down in the water and go to sleep.

  “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe...”

  Psalms? Yes, it was the long one, the 119th, verse 117. She remembered because of the high numbers. “I shall be safe.”

  Well, get busy proving it, girl.

  Carrie opened her eyes, switched the flashlight back on, looked around again. Now she paid full attention to a sewer pipe that had been running along the side wall of the tunnel for some time. It looked about fifteen inches across, and if she could climb up and crawl along the top, it would get her past the hot water pool. The gush of water coming into the creek splashed on the pipe too, but it was only a little splash. If she crawled fast and could endure a few moments of the heated water, she’d make it.

  The pipe was above her. She stood as tall as she could and reached up...no, not quite. She stretched, jumped, and her arms went around the pipe, holding tight while her toes dangled in the water.

  Now what? Remembering long-ago days on monkey bars she tried swinging her feet up and, after several tries, got one leg over the pipe. She lifted the other leg, wrapped it around too, and hung there, wondering how to climb to the top. The pipe’s surface was slippery; she couldn’t move up and didn’t have the strength to scoot along ha
nging from the bottom.

  If only Henry were here, he could give her a boost.

  But “if only” got you nowhere. So, it was Carry on, Carrie, just as it had been for as long as she could remember. Still, if Henry came... Ah, well, he wasn’t here, couldn’t be.

  She unwrapped her legs from the pipe, hung for a moment, then splashed down and sat in the creek again. The water felt warm and comfortable here above the torrent, and she was getting very used to being fish-wet.

  Since she’d met Henry, there had been fewer of those Carry on, Carrie experiences. She’d gotten into trouble a few times in the line of their detective work, but when he was beside her, even the bad things seemed less severe and nightmare memories vanished quickly.

  Wasn’t that good? It seemed good, felt good. He was so dependable, like a great rock in a weary land.

  Great rock. That was from the Bible too, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember where she’d read it—not that it mattered now. She’d look it up and tell him about it when they got back home to Blackberry Hollow. When...

  She sat there for several minutes, thinking about Henry. It seemed a good time to let her thoughts about him fly free. Certainly no one was going to interrupt.

  Was she a weaker person because Henry had stood beside her through some bad experiences? Not really—no, she wasn’t, and her almost instant awareness of that surprised her. In fact, things were quite the opposite. She felt stronger.

  How confusing. A year ago she would have said she mustn’t ever get too close to anyone, especially a man, if she wanted to remain independent. She needed to be strong on her own in order to survive. Somehow things seemed different now. Why? Because of Henry?

  Her mind searched back over the year since she’d met him, seeing for the first time that he’d come to treat her as a dependable friend and ally. He made her feel like his strong partner, standing with him just as he stood with her. They worked together very well, and he didn’t make a big deal of that. It just...was. She hadn’t thought about the nature of their partnership until now. He simply accepted her strength, accepted it, not as a goal, but as a present reality.

  He’d once told her, “People need people sometimes.”

  She’d argued with him about that, saying independence and strength were qualities women had to prove constantly and prove on their own if they were going to get along in the world.

  But maybe, if she wanted to be able to help other people—and she did want it; that was one reason detective work suited her—then she needed to be more open to accepting help herself.

  It could be that having Henry as her friend and partner made her stronger, not weaker, though at the moment she couldn’t for the life of her settle on exactly how that worked.

  Henry, her great rock.

  “Henry King, I love you.”

  She’d said it aloud. What made those words pop out of her mouth?

  Love...

  She sighed. Not now. Better get on with the job, girl. Get out of here and find Henry.

  Would she tell him her thoughts? No, she couldn’t, he wouldn’t understand. Besides, her feelings might have come because of the stress of this situation, or maybe they were only imagination. Hopeful imagining? She couldn’t answer that.

  Back to the business of the moment. She ran the flashlight beam along the sewer pipe. A few feet behind her there were support brackets around the pipe, and the wall was rough in spots, offering places where her feet might grab hold. Maybe if she could hang onto a bracket? She stretched up again, touched a bracket and pulled away. She needed gloves to protect her hands from its sharp metal edges.

  Then she thought of something. Well, why not?

  Carrie pushed her arms out of her soggy shirt, unfastened her bra and took it off, wringing water out of the soft cup linings. Then she pulled the shirt back on, nested the bra cups in her palm and reached again, grabbing hold of the bracket. Bracing each foot against the wall in turn, holding tight and pulling her weight up with her padded hand, she inched higher until, at last, she was sitting on the pipe, her legs straddling it on either side.

  Yes!

  After returning the torn bra to its normal usage, ineffective though that might be now, she got on her hands and knees and, holding the flashlight in her teeth, began to crawl, steeling herself against the sting of the hot water when it began to splash on her face and neck. As the water hit, her head jerked reflexively, but she kept her mouth clamped on the flashlight and forced herself to go forward.

  Only a little farther...keep moving...keep moving forward, Carrie...and she was on the other side of the steaming torrent.

  Her light showed that the water in the creek still looked deep, the bottom was invisible, so she stayed on the pipe and continued to crawl.

  The tunnel was darker now; there was less daylight coming through the grates, though headlight beams occasionally flashed as she passed under one. Must be suppertime. She was hungry, hungry enough to eat almost anything. Well, not roaches, though goodness knew there were plenty of those here.

  She almost laughed, knowing she’d make it, she would, she would, even if she had to eat roaches. She could do it on her own!

  She crawled along the pipe for what seemed like dozens of blocks as the creek swirled below her, filling the bottom of the tunnel. She had passed several spouting drain pipes, and they undoubtedly added to the depth of the water, though none of the water sprays were as hot or large as the first one. Was the water over her head? She was afraid to test it.

  Then she came to the end of her sewer pipe highway. It angled off and disappeared through a hole in the wall of the tunnel.

  Carrie sat on the pipe, both legs dangling over the water, and stared down. Nothing to do but jump in; there was nowhere else to go. She held the flashlight as high as she could in her raised right hand, pinched her nose with the fingers of her left hand in the classic jump-in-the-pool pose, and prepared to drop, praying that the water wasn’t over her head. She was just too tired to swim—she’d never been very good at it anyway.

  Then she took her fingers away from her nose and let her arms drop. The water swirled and swirled below, rolling in waves against the tunnel sides. Its constant motion was almost hypnotic.

  She was so tired. How deep was that water?

  She imagined Henry below her, reaching arms up to catch her, reaching...

  So tired, so very tired. If only...

  “Carry on.” She said the words like some chain-gang rhythm shout. “Carry on, carry on!” But first she was going to rest here a few more minutes.

  She thought back over the day, all the terrible events. She deserved a rest. Besides, maybe Henry would come, her great rock.

  What? What did she hear, far away? A new sound? An echo? Or did she hear unfamiliar splashes?

  She shut off the light and peered down the tunnel. Yes! Another faint light flickered far away. Henry was coming!

  No. Oh, no, it could be someone else. Maybe someone else was searching for her. Maybe Everett Bogardus...was he coming after her? No, no, please, no. Had he seen the light?

  Where in this place could she hide? Was there room for her in the sewer pipe’s exit hole?

  Chapter XIV

  Henry

  In the glow from a line of old-fashioned street lamps Henry could see the grinning face of Winnie the Pooh. He wished he felt as cheerful as the molded plastic bear on the side of his flashlight case.

  He pushed the switch and the flashlight winked on, glaring into green-tinted water rushing over rocks as big as bowling balls. Whew, he hadn’t expected a cheap flashlight to be so bright. He clicked the switch off, looked around, saw no one. If somebody noticed him climbing into the creek they would probably call the police.

  At least the water didn’t appear to be deep. Wading would be much easier than swimming upstream against the force of that current, and moving with the flow of the shallow creek coming toward this opening, as Carrie surely must be, would be even easier. It was good the cr
eek wasn’t deep. Carrie wasn’t much of a swimmer.

  Henry looked around again. The plaza remained empty, though there were several cars parked next to a building that looked like a restored train station. All the windows in the station were lighted—something must be going on there, a meeting, maybe. He hoped the people inside the building would stay put until he was out of sight.

  He turned the light back on, let it wander over the creek bank. Steep, grass-covered. He’d slide on that grass the minute he started down the slope. Henry moved the flashlight beam up the bank toward the white concrete arch at the tunnel opening. There was a metal mat lying on the ground there that looked like chain-link fencing, and he walked closer to inspect it. It appeared to be very sturdy and went all the way down the bank to the rocks along the edge of the water. Good. It was probably put there to stabilize the bank when the park was built. He’d climb down right here, even though the bank was much steeper at this point. He could hold onto the chain link mat to keep from sliding.

  Henry shut the flashlight off as shuddering doubts hit him like the shock of a highly charged stun gun. Was she really in there? On re-consideration his idea sounded unbelievably far-fetched, and he—with the possible exception of Agent Brooks—was the only one who’d thought of it at all. Why were they the only ones? Because it was a crazy idea? After all, he knew nothing about this tunnel. Maybe humans couldn’t get through it and that’s why no one else was looking for Carrie here. Maybe Willard Brooks was new to this area and didn’t know what was in the tunnel either.

  Was he about to walk into unknown danger, ruin a good pair of slacks and new leather walking shoes on some cockamamie, ridiculous, crazy, dreamed-up fool’s adventure?

  He pulled in air, puffed out his cheeks, blew the air out. No! His plan was logical. Carrie must be in this creek. Where else could she be?

  He knew she hadn’t run away from an injured or dead man; she wouldn’t do that. That meant Bogardus had shoved her through the trap door and, whether he’d been fatally injured by then or not, had slammed the door shut after her.