Body of Trust - Jeannine Colette Page 0,6
half-wall, and he shoots at someone. I say a silent prayer—or ten—until I hear a loud thump.
“Did you kill him?” I ask in horror.
“Crawl inside the bar,” he says.
“No. That’s a cube of death. We’ll be trapped.” I adamantly shake my head as my body trembles with fear, hoping for some other option than to go into the space with no way out.
“Do as I say, Amelia.” He’s stern, and his jaw is clenched as he looks toward the door to make sure no one else is coming.
With a huff, I crawl through the opening that leads behind the bar, where the two of us will surely perish like sitting ducks. I see the club phone on a shelf and grab it.
Jesse pushes it from my hand. “There’s no time.”
“I need to call the police,” I whisper-yell to him.
“The silent alarm’s already been triggered. Help will be here soon. In the meantime, we need to get you out of here.” He moves the black rug on the floor, revealing a panel with a round hook. He yanks on it and opens a door. Inside, I can see the top of a ladder that leads down an ominous, round hole in the ground. “Go down there.”
I eye the ladder for a second before descending. I have no idea where it leads, but a secret ladder that will take us away from gunfire seems like a better option than the alternative. I reach the bottom, and Jesse is on his way down after closing the panel behind him.
It’s dark down here. And cold. We’re in a storage room. There are kegs on one side with hose lines that run up the wall, and boxes of booze line the other side.
Jesse tucks his gun into his belt as he walks to a wall where a wire rack is filled with paper goods. He moves it to the side and kneels down to push against the stone a few times until a line in the grout starts to form. He kicks the wall next to the seam, punching in a square-sized hole, perfectly formed and just big enough to climb through.
“Secret door for the win,” he says and nudges for me to go through.
I shake my head, refusing to crawl through some random hole in the wall. He gives me an annoyed look filled with urgency. At the sound of heavy footsteps pounding above us, I anxiously get to my knees and crawl through. He follows me, putting the metal rack back and then the square in place, as if no one were ever there.
It’s pitch-black and eerily quiet. I can hear my own heart beating, and my breathing echoes in the silent tunnel.
I feel Jesse’s hand on my calf, and I flinch at the unexpected touch. He shifts, and then suddenly, the space is brightly lit by the flashlight of his phone. I have to hold my hand in front of my eyes to protect them from the glare. He points it up and down the tunnel.
“That way.” He nods in the direction in front of me. “We have to crawl.”
“Where the hell are we?”
“Keep moving. Question later.”
He nudges me, and I let out a grunt as I listen.
Gunfire raining down on you is scary. Being trapped in a narrow tunnel with no idea where you’re going is downright frightening.
I let out a whimper.
“You’re doing great. Just keep going and don’t stop.”
With his assurance, I crawl for what feels like the length of a football field.
“Have I ever told you that I’m afraid of small spaces?” I say.
“Nope. Never came up.”
“Well … this is me telling you that I positively hate feeling trapped. Elevators, rides where you’re strapped down, windowless rooms, airplanes—”
“The Grand Canyon.”
“What?” My tone is exasperated.
“We were talking a few weeks ago, and you asked where I’d like to travel. I ignored the question, but the answer was the Grand Canyon. If you can picture it, there’s this wide span of clay mountains. They’re red and orange with this golden hue that appears when the sun hits the tops. Over the course of the day, the sun moves over the ridges, lighting up one majestic scene after the other.”
His visual is helping me maintain my nerves.
“Do … do you hike?”
“Going down the canyon is the fun part. If you don’t like to walk, you can get a mule.”
“You, on a mule?”
“I said, you could. I can manage it on foot. Sometimes, the pathways are so shadowy, you don’t know where you’re