Fortune and Glory (Stephanie Plum #27)(2)

“I imagine you got the death-and-doom message from your nipples?”

“Don’t underestimate my nipples. I got nipple radar. When they talk, I listen.”

Lula turned and huffed back to the ladder. She climbed the ladder and stopped at the top.

“This here door’s closed,” she said.

“You followed me down. Did you close the door?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want anyone to know we were down here. I didn’t count on it being so hard to get open again.”

“Maybe there’s a latch somewhere. A button to push,” I said.

“I’m feeling all around and I don’t see no button.”

“Are you sure you can’t push the door open?”

“Would I be standing here on this freaking ladder if I could get the freaking door open?” Lula said.

I replaced Lula on the ladder and tried the door. No luck. I climbed down the ladder and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. No bars. I looked down the corridor at the dark, dirt tunnel of death and doom.

“Guess what?” I said.

“I don’t like ‘guess what.’ And I don’t like the way this place smells,” Lula said, following me to the end of the concrete.

“It smells like dirt.”

“Exactly,” Lula said. “There’s no other smells besides dirt, and that would indicate that we’re underground with no windows or anything. Like we’re in a tomb. You see what I’m saying?”

“We aren’t in a tomb. We’re in a tunnel that Lou Salgusta just used so it has to go somewhere.”

Okay, truth is, I was every bit as creeped out as Lula. I didn’t like being underground. It was claustrophobic. The air was heavy with dirt and damp, and I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t suffocating. Even worse was the thought that Lou Salgusta might be waiting at the other end. I wanted to capture him, but I wasn’t confident that I could do it under these circumstances.

I tapped my phone’s flashlight app. “Stay close behind me and don’t use your phone,” I said to Lula. “We should save your battery.”

“Do you want my gun, being that you’re first in line?”

“Sure.”

I took the gun from her not so much for self-defense as to make sure Lula didn’t panic and accidentally shoot me in the back.

We walked a short distance and the tunnel curved. The single lightbulb disappeared from view and there was only blackness in front of us and behind us.

“I can’t see what I’m walking on,” Lula said. “It feels squishy and I hear water dripping.”

Water was dripping from the top of the tunnel and the dirt underfoot was muddy. I could see men’s footprints in the mud. Salgusta, I thought. Maybe someone else. Hard to tell in the dark. The tunnel came to a T-intersection. I flashed the light in both directions and saw nothing but endless dark tunnel. I went right, following the footprints.

“There’s something dropped on my neck,” Lula said. “I can feel it crawling. It’s one of them big tarantulas. Lord help me, I got them all over me!”

I turned and flashed the light on Lula. “I don’t see anything. I think you’re just getting dripped on.”

“It was on me and then it jumped off.”

I directed the light to the ground and a small rat scurried away.

“Holy hell,” Lula said.

I bit into my lip to keep from screaming and moved forward.

“I bet there’s snakes up ahead,” Lula said. “That’s the way it is with Indiana Jones. First the tarantulas and rats and then the snakes. Where’s the end of this freaking tunnel? I want to see the light. Where the heck is the light?”

“Hang on,” I said. “I’m following footprints.”

“I think we must be coming to the end because I smell something different,” Lula said. “It doesn’t smell like just dirt anymore. It smells like kerosene or gasoline or something.”

I’d noticed the smell when we turned the corner a while back. I didn’t think it was a good sign since we were following a man whose best friend was an acetylene torch.

“What’s those red dots in front of us?” Lula asked.

I flashed the light at the dots. “Rats,” I said.

“Shoot them!”

I wasn’t going to waste bullets on rats. I was saving them for whatever more horrible, more ferocious creatures might be lurking in the dark. Alligators or a slimy mud monster or Lou Salgusta.

I saw a flicker of light far down the tunnel. Another flicker eerily illuminated a smiling face, and WHOOOSH, the face disappeared behind a curtain of fire. Flames licked at the ground in front of a monstrous fireball and raced toward us.

I turned and shoved Lula. “Run!”

We ran blind in the dark, my flashlight beam bouncing around. A swarm of rats were also running for their lives, squealing beside us. I stepped on one and kicked another out of the way. Lula was huffing and puffing in front of me.

“Run faster!” I yelled. “I’ve got a wall of fire behind me.”

We reached the intersection, made the turn, and the fire roared past us. We were bent over, catching our breath and I thought I heard footsteps, far off in one of the tunnels.

“We need to get to the trapdoor,” I said to Lula. “Get moving.”