Chapter 5: Back Stairs

I slid the token into the lining of my right shoe and shoved the letter inside my shirt.

Jo already had the study light off.

"Cellar," she breathed. "Under the kitchen. There's a door behind the pantry."

"The terrible stairs?"

"The worst stairs in Maryland."

We went down them in the dark with our shoes in our hands.

The third step groaned anyway, and we both froze.

Above us, the front door opened.

Nobody had knocked.

Boots crossed the hallway with the slow confidence of men who owned the lease.

Jo pulled the pantry door shut behind us, and the cellar swallowed the light.

It smelled of damp stone and old apples.

I felt her hand find my sleeve and hold on.

A shelf of canned peaches pressed against my back.

Her shoulder pressed against my chest.

There was nowhere to put my hands that was not her.

Footsteps went through the kitchen over our heads.

Dust drifted down in the thin crack of light under the trapdoor.

"The study's this way," a man's voice said. It was the big driver from the parking lot.

"Check the desk," said Lyle.

A drawer scraped.

Another one.

Then a long pause.

"Third drawer's unlocked," the driver said. "And empty."

"They were here."

"Maybe the nurse took it."

"Maybe." Lyle's shoes crossed the floor and stopped right over my head. "Or maybe a very careful clerk did."

Jo's fingers dug into my arm.

I did not move.

"Did you see her car outside?" Lyle asked.

"Gray hatchback. Out front."

"Then they're in this house."

My stomach turned over.

Lyle's voice dropped, and I knew the tone.

It was the voice he used when he thought nobody important could hear it.

"Check the bedrooms. Then the basement. Gently. We need the clerk alive and talkative."

"Why alive?"

"Because Friday at noon, eight days from tonight, I deliver Lantern's architect to a buyer," Lyle said.

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