you were down here waiting for the bombs to fall, not knowing what was happening on the surface, wouldn’t you want a second escape route in case the first one got blocked?”
“Good point,” she said.
He closed the cavern door, walked to the first elongated box and wiped off a layer of grime with one gloved hand.
“More bullet-resistant glass,” he said. “They used these boxes to store the curiosities.”
Isabella went to stand beside him. The glass box was empty.
“Looks about the right size for the Queen,” she said. She glanced down the row of stands and cases. “There’s no box on one of the stands. I’ll bet that was the one that held the clock. The killer said that when he found the device in the tunnel beneath the Zander house basement, it was in a glass box.”
They went to the third case in the row. Fallon wiped off more grime.
Isabella saw a wood-and-bronze clockwork dragon with eerie glass eyes. She moved to the next box. It contained an ornate miniature carriage and two small wooden horses. The glass windows of the vehicle glinted darkly. The third case held a toy-sized merry-go-round decorated with small mythical beasts. The last box held a Victorian-era camera.
“If we assume that the Queen was in the empty case and that the clock was stolen together with its glass box, all of the curiosities that were originally stored here are accounted for,” Fallon said.
“You sound relieved.”
“Trust me, I am,” Fallon said.
“But who comes down here on a regular basis to keep the Queen in working order?”
“Someone who can handle the psi in this place and who also feels a duty to protect the artifacts.”
“Walker,” she said softly. “But that means he knows about the second entrance. Why didn’t he mention it?”
“Walker operates in his own universe and employs his own kind of logic,” Fallon said. “It’s our fault. We didn’t ask the right question.”
“I think that, in his mind, he has turned over the responsibility of protecting the inventions to J&J. He probably assumes that you know everything he knows.”
“Yes.”
Isabella looked at the skeleton. “What do we do with the body?”
“Nothing until we get the inventions out of here. Gordon Lasher has been here for twenty-two years. He can wait a while longer.”
14
They emerged from the shelter a short time later, closing the hatch to cut off the disturbing psi wind. Isabella fondled the dogs while Fallon told Henry and Vera what they had found and explained his plans to bring in an Arcane team to remove the remaining curiosities.
Henry squinted at Walker. “Let me get this straight. Vera and I have been guarding the front door of that shelter for twenty-two years while you’ve been coming and going through the back door?”
Walker was bewildered by the question. “Have to k-keep the Queen working. Takes oil.”
“Why didn’t you tell us there was another entrance to the shelter?” Vera asked calmly.
Walker looked confused. “No one knew about it.”
“Except you and Rachel and the Asshole,” Henry said, disgusted.
“J-just me, now,” Walker said earnestly. “Gordon Lasher is dead. Rachel never came back. I kept the secret.”
Henry grimaced. “Wonder how many other people discovered the second entrance during the past twenty-two years.”
“I don’t think that anyone else knows it exists,” Fallon said. “As far as we could tell, all of the devices are accounted for. Walker’s footprints are the only new ones down there.”
Walker rocked. “No one knows about the tunnel d-door. Except me. And Rachel. But Rachel never came back.”
“Where does the door lead?” Isabella asked gently.
Walker concentrated. “Comes out in the h-hot springs cave.”
“Which is out at the Point,” Vera said. “Well, that explains it. The only people who know about the springs are those of us who live in the Cove.”
“I’ve been inside the hot springs cavern a few times,” Fallon said. “There’s a vast network of tunnels leading off of it that have never been explored. Obviously one of them leads to the shelter.”
“Walker, Lasher and Rachel saw the second door when they went down into the shelter,” Isabella said. “But how did they find the entrance from the hot springs cavern? They would have had to map that maze of tunnels. It would have taken weeks, at the very least. But from the looks of things, Lasher was back inside the shelter shortly after he left town with Rachel.”
“Rachel,” Walker said suddenly. “Rachel f-found the tunnel that leads to the shelter. She showed it to Lasher.”
Fallon looked at Isabella. “Sounds like Rachel Stewart had some