Lightning Game (GhostWalkers #17) -Christine Feehan Page 0,100

All of the GhostWalkers knew they needed him, and they took extra precautions with him. Rubin detested that.

Rubin was suddenly crouching beside Luther’s door, sliding it open just enough to gain entrance. Diego slithered out from under the azalea shrub, careful not to disturb the clusters of flowers. He looked with disdain at the job the soldier had made of cleaning up the ground. He’d brushed it with it fingers and strewn a few leaves over the area. It didn’t look in the least bit natural. Luther would have known immediately that someone had been snooping around.

Rubin shook his head. Get a move on, Diego. The other sentry will be here in a few minutes. We have to find Luther’s entrance to the underground system. It’s not like he has many places for us to hide in his shack.

Rubin waited for Diego to go in first, covering his brother all the way. He knew it annoyed Diego, but that was too bad. He was already upset at possibly losing Luther—at Jonquille being in the hands of the squirrel men. He wasn’t going to take chances with his brother. He was well aware Diego thought to protect him. He was damn sick of everyone thinking he needed that protection. He was the last one to need protection. It was just that no one saw into him.

Rubin hadn’t been inside Luther’s home since Lotty had passed away. When they met with the old man, he always talked to them outside, and they respected that distancing. He didn’t know what he expected from Gunthrie, but the almost obsessively neat interior was a surprise. Even a shock. The fact that Luther had burned the marriage bed and had told Rubin he slept on a mat on the floor had conjured up images in Rubin’s mind that were very far from the truth. The home remained much like it had looked when Lotty was alive. The only thing missing was the bed.

There was no mess at all. The woodstove Lotty had loved so much to cook on, even when she had a much more modern stove, looked well cared for. Everything was in its place. The blankets she’d knitted or quilted were lovingly displayed on walls or folded at the end of the mat where Luther slept. The entire interior was a shrine to Lotty.

Rubin’s chest hurt at the thought of losing the old man. “We’ve got to find his door, Diego.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re running out of time.”

The cabin was small, essentially everything in one room. They each took a side and carefully inspected the floor to see if they could find where Luther had installed a trap door. Rubin moved his mat several times, thinking it had to be there, but how would his mat be moved back in the exact spot again? There were no signs of an entrance to an underground cavern.

“We’re going to have to get out of here,” Rubin warned. “Luther, you cunning old coot. Where would you put the entrance?” It had to be in his shack. He would want to be able to disappear fast. If not his mat, what else could hide a trapdoor?

There was the woodstove. The one chair. The little modern stove and sink. His gaze went back to the sink. Like his sink in the cabin, it had been modernized long after the cabin was built. They used the dark beneath it for storage. He crouched down and examined the interior. A wooden crate holding a few potatoes sat beneath the sink. He lifted it, and as he did, he felt his fingers catch under the crate. He lifted it higher. There was definitely a manmade mechanism attached to the crate, although it looked like it belonged there.

Rubin studied it for a moment. Luther acted as if he refused to come into the modern world and everyone bought into that, but Rubin wasn’t necessarily convinced. His whiskey was too good. Too smooth. His still was always maintained and kept in working order. He managed it himself. He always had the ingredients he needed. His product was in high demand. He sold to exclusive stores. For a man not able to understand the modern world, he was living in it quite nicely. Rubin passed his hand over the small mechanism.

For a moment it seemed to flash at him. There was no way to type anything into it. If it required a password, it had to be audio. “Lotty4ever,” he murmured. Nothing