A police siren started blaring, but Nat didn't have time to look back. Traffic filled Lancaster Avenue, and she switched onto the shoulder and ran in that lane, increasing her speed to seventy miles an hour, then to eighty. Drivers turned to watch, their mouths dropping open. She kept the hammer down. The Neon blasted down the shoulder of the road. She checked the rearview. The police cruiser roared out of the mall lot.
And came straight at her.
Chapter 38
Nat had to think fast. The cop could outrun her on a straightaway. The Neon was no match for the cruiser's big engine. The siren sounded louder, the cruiser getting closer. Cars were already pulling over to make way.
She swerved onto a suburban back street and tried to keep her wits about her. She gripped the wheel and gritted her teeth, turned left, and sped to the end of the street. She turned right randomly and focused on the road. Houses, trees, and cars flew past. An old man putting out his trash shook his fist at her. A woman walking her poodle scooped him up. The police siren blared. The cruiser popped into the rearview, swung a wide turn onto the back street, and barreled ahead.
Nat's heart lodged in her throat. She turned onto the next street. A gray Mercedes was driving toward her. She drove up on the curb to go around it, then hit the road with the rubber burning. In the next second, she heard another police siren, farther away, joining the first. The cop must've called for backup.
She hit the gas. She couldn't see the cruisers but she could hear them. She saw nothing but the road. In the next second, she swerved to avoid a Taurus station wagon pulling out of a driveway, with kids in the backseat.
Dear God! She didn't want to kill anybody. She didn't want to get killed. She had to get out of this neighborhood. She took a right, skidding around an icy patch at the end of the street, then saw a sign. Route 100.
She raced down the street, followed the signs, and bombed down the road for the on-ramp. The cruiser veered around the corner, right on her tail. The straightaway gave the cops the chance to close the gap, the cruiser's grille a gleaming maw. They zoomed together onto the highway, pursuer and pursued. The second siren blared closer. Traffic cleared at the blaring of the siren, and Nat rammed down the middle lane, with the cops right behind her. It was now or never. She gritted her teeth and jammed the pedal to the metal.
The Neon speedometer climbed to ninety, ninety-five, then hovered at one hundred. Nat streaked down the shoulder, spraying ice and gravel. The steering wheel wobbled furiously in her grip. It took all her might to hold it still. Suddenly she saw a ragged shred of tire tread lying ahead on the shoulder. She barely had time to react. She heard herself shout as she turned the wheel, jerking the Neon into the left lane. The back end fishtailed but she held on tight and kept control of the car, her concentration so intense it could only have been powered by fear.
Boom! A huge crash sounded. Nat glanced in the rearview. The police car was spinning like a pinwheel, an alternating flash of black and white. The police must have hit the tire tread. No other cars were around, so she could see in a flash that the cops wouldn't collide with anyone.
She blew down the highway, switching to the shoulder so she wouldn't crash. She couldn't stay on the open road. The other cruiser would see her. They'd catch her on the straightaway. Then she figured out where to go. Someplace they'd never look for her. She saw the sign that read Brandywine Valley Museum and knew she was on the right road. She aimed for the exit, dead ahead. She could still hear the second siren getting closer. She took the exit, steered around a car waiting at a red light, and barreled forward.
HONK! Nat ignored the sound and took a right turn, then a left, getting closer. She slowed her speed and whipped around the winding route into more rural territory and drew her first breath for the first time in what seemed like ages. She took the next curve at speed, then another switchback, cruising around the country road.
On the way, her brain went into overdrive, functioning in emergency mode. She'd have to ditch the Neon. The cops knew the license plate. They'd find her as soon as they put out an APB, calling in more cars. A cop killer in a bright blue Neon wouldn't be joyriding for long. She was maybe twenty minutes away, then ten, then five. She reached the vicinity and eyed the stone barns, sheds, and outbuildings, assessing them for her purposes. She drove by a well-maintained house, then spotted a decrepit stone barn and slowed to a stop.
A faded sign read, Property For Sale. The barn was encircled by muddy acreage, snowy in patches. Its stones crumbled into white dust, and its green door was peeling, showing graying boards. A gravel road led from the road to the barn door, and only a busted electrical fence bounded the property. In short, it was perfect.
She jumped out of the Neon, ran to the fence, and pressed the wire down with her feet, then jumped back in the car, maneuvered it into the driveway, then drove over the fence. She jumped back out of the Neon, ran to the fence and righted it, jiggling one of the weathered posts. She hurried back to the car and drove down the old driveway, careful to stay on the gravel so her tire tracks wouldn't betray her.
She reached the barn and leaving the car in idle, got out and yanked on the rusty door handle. Finally, the door slid to the right on a rust-laden track. She wedged herself inside the door and shoved it open the rest of the way, clammy with flop sweat under her coat. She looked quickly inside the dark barn. Cobwebs draped from the rafters like her mother's swag curtains, and moldy-smelling hay sat stacked next to an array of trashcans. An old tarp partially covered a dusty workbench and a greasy old red oil tank. Against the filthy stone wall, a chain harrow slumped on a floor covered with dirt, old hay, and rocks.
Nat hurried back to the car, drove it into the barn, then cut the ignition, and climbed out of the car, stuffing the construction file inside her purse. She hustled to the door and rolled it closed behind her. It was dark inside the barn, which had only sideways slits for windows. She remembered the blue tarp on the workbench and made her way there until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She grabbed the tarp, went back to the car, and threw it over the top, managing to cover the bumpers on both sides.
Her heart lifted for the first time all day. She might have escaped both the cops and Graf. She never would've thought she had it in her. Her father would never have believed it, either, though she wasn't sure how proud he would have been. But that didn't seem to matter so much anymore, for some reason. She stepped backward to inspect her handiwork, which was when she heard the unmistakable sound of wood creaking somewhere.
And before she realized what was happening, the floor gave way beneath her feet and she was falling.
Chapter 39
Nat had no idea what happened. She sat splayed at the bottom of some sort of dark, narrow hole. She had fallen on her butt, which hurt. She looked up, shaken. The floorboards had splintered, about five feet over her head. She was ten feet underground, or more.
She scrambled to her feet, wincing in pain, and picked up a small piece of wood that had tumbled inside and landed on top of her leg. Its rough surface felt light and porous to the touch. She broke it in two with her hands; it snapped with ease. Rotten, worm-eaten, or maybe gnawed by termites. A terrifying thought struck her. Was the Neon going to fall in on her?
She flinched and covered her head reflexively, as if that would have done any good. She looked up, cringing. It was dark in the hole, and the only light came from its mouth, jagged with splintered wood, broken in the center. The Neon was parked to the right of the hole. She looked ahead and couldn't see anything. Her back was to a wall, and she turned and felt it. Cold and wet to the touch. Dirt. She pulled her hand away and smelled it. Earth. She turned back and couldn’t see anything.
She figured out the situation. Dirt and rock covered the barn floor, but the part of the floor nearer the door was made of wood.
She'd weakened the old floorboards when she drove over them, breaking them just enough so they'd give way under her weight. The Neon must have been parked on the solid dirt floor, so it wouldn
't fall in.
Great. At least I won't get hit by a car. In a hole.
Nat put a hand out and felt the wall directly across from her. It was as if a hole had been dug in the earth, tall and skinny, but big enough for a person. She visualized it as being made by an index finger poked down into topsoil, as if to plant a seed. But she had to get out. She jumped up but couldn't reach that high. When she came down, her feet slid a little, but didn't touch dirt on the other side. Why?
She peered down at her feet, but it was too dark to see anything. It creeped her out. What was down there? A horror-movie image of a snake pit slithered into her mind. She tried to edge away but there was nowhere to go. Her back was literally to the wall. She jumped again but kept slipping when she landed. The floor of the hole was uneven. She couldn't see a thing. Then she remembered something. The key ring for the Neon had tons of stuff on it, the typical keychain of a teenage girl.
She reached in her coat pocket and pulled out the keys. The keyring held a pink plush heart, a small pink Swiss army knife, and a tiny pink penlight. Nat flicked the penlight on and aimed it at her feet. No snakes, just dirt. The penlight cast a faint, almost translucent, circle of light on the dirt wall opposite her, and she gasped. The wall on the other side of the hole didn't go all the way down, as she had assumed. It stopped at about thigh height, and the bottom half appeared to lead to another underground hole.
"Hello?" she said, but there was no echo. She crouched down as much as she could in the narrow hole and aimed the light inside the other hole. The light didn't reach far enough to reveal what was down were. Images of treasure chests full of gold doubloons and skeletons chained to walls popped into her head. She sat on her butt, then stuck her feet in the hole and aimed the light down her body. She could see a dirt bottom not far under her feet.
Nat let herself slip down like a kid on a muddy sliding board and tumbled into the bigger hole. She yelped, and dirt muffled the sound. She cast the light around the new hole. It was dirt on all six sides, rich brown earth veined with burnt-orange clay. Stones stuck out from the dirt. The ceiling was tall enough to stand up in, if you were as short as Nat, and like the walls, was reinforced by old wooden boards.
Could these boards break, too? If they do, will I be buried alive? And what about oxygen? I've grown fond of oxygen.
Nat banished the negative thoughts. She was standing in a man-made room of some kind. It seemed too elaborate for a root cellar. She cast the penlight on one of the boards in the back, then noticed some carvings. She made her way over and shone the light on the boards. Carved into it were the initials c.j., and underneath, t.j. She ran her fingers over them. They had been etched by a crude knife. She cast the light elsewhere on the wooden board. There were more initials: l.m., cm. Then a date: april 28, 1860.
"My God," Nat said aloud. She couldn't believe her eyes. 1860. She knew what it had to be, because she taught it every year. She must be seeing a stop on the Underground Railroad. A series of holes, hidden trap doors, and secret hiding places for slaves escaping from Maryland and points farther south. Some of the stops were homes with hiding places, but many more were in outbuildings, to make escape easier if the slavecatchers came. Chester County was dotted with historic houses that hid runaway slaves, houses that still existed today. Nat knew the houses by heart, taking a historian's delight in the old-fashioned names: Moses and Mary Pennock's house. Eusebius and Sarah Barnard's house. Mordecai and Esther Hayes's. Isaac and Thomazine Meredith.
Nat stood, marveling. This hole must have been one that no one had found yet. One that hadn't been discovered until now, perfectly concealed for almost a hundred years. The secret hiding place for so many poor, desperate souls. Nat had taught the History of Justice, and now she was inside it. She felt tears come to her eyes and blinked them away, running her fingertips over the boards. She wondered how many of these courageous people had made it north to freedom. How many had turned back. How many have been captured, beaten, or even killed.
This was sacred ground, and so were its boards, blanketed with initials and dates, which Nat read by penlight. l.b., Aug 1859, m., 1862, lu, 1861. Some of the slaves had written their names: January grandy. hannah Clemen. Some had numbers next to their names, which Nat guessed were their ages:, jed, 19. mary, 9. Many of the initials were no longer visible, but she could feel them with her fingertips. She remembered telling Angus about the Underground Railroad that day in the Beetle, on the way to the prison. She couldn't wait to tell him about the secret hole hidden under the floor.
Nat blinked. A secret hole hidden under the floor. People used it to escape to freedom. She flashed for the umpteenth time on Saunders's last words.
Tell my wife. It's under the floor.
She thought about it, as she had thought about it so many times before. But this time she looked at it in a different light. Saunders had said, "It's under the floor." When he'd said that, he'd been lying in the security room, the one without the videocamera. Maybe he hadn't meant that whatever "it" was was under the floor at his house. Nat had thought that only because the "tell my wife" part came first. But for a second, she set aside the "tell my wife" part. What if Saunders had meant that "it" was under the floor right where he lay—in the prison itself? And what would be under the floor at a prison?
A tunnel?
"Whoa," Nat said aloud, in the dark hole. It could be true. It wasn't crazy. Tunnels could help people escape. She was standing in one. But who would a tunnel in a prison be for? It only took a minute to come up with the answer.
Richard Williams.
Williams was the drug kingpin being held at the prison for almost a year. He'd want to escape before his trial, because with his charges, he'd go to prison for life. And he'd have the dough to get a tunnel built for him. He could have paid Graf to do it. Then Graf could have gotten his brother the contractor in on the scheme. It could easily have been disguised as part of the renovations. If Phoenix, or at least Jim Graf, had been digging at night, when his brother Joe Graf was on duty, nobody would have been the wiser. Especially if Machik were in on it, too.
Nat had an epiphany. The scam wasn't drugs. It was something far more lucrative, and far worse. It was letting a dangerous killer escape through a tunnel under the floor. How much would Williams pay to beat a federal rap? A couple million, maybe more? No wonder Machik got rid of the rugs in that security room so fast. The rugs had covered the mouth of the tunnel, and any inspection of them would have shown dirt on the underside. No wonder they had remodeled the room when Nat and Angus started asking questions. They had to keep hiding the tunnel. No wonder there had been orders for so many two-by-fours in the construction file. The two-by-fours had reinforced the length of the tunnel. It had taken them a year to dig, and they were about to put it to use—and get away with setting a ruthless murderer free.
Nat gasped as she realized the implications. Saunders was killed because he had discovered not a drug conspiracy, but an escape conspiracy. Upchurch was still the sacrificial lamb. Then Nat realized something else. If the murders of Saunders and Upchurch had been to conceal the escape, maybe the prison riot wasn't random at all-had been staged at one end of the prison as a way to distract everyone from the killings at the other end. A riot in the RHU would have been the perfect way to keep everybody occupied while Saunders and Upchurch were being murdered in the security office.
Her thoughts clicked away. It all made sense. She'd had to fight upstream to get help that morning. All the SWAT team guys and C.O.s were running the opposite direction, toward the RHU. It was only by chance that she'd been attacked, run the wrong way for help, and discovered the slaughter in the security room.
She felt astonished at the ambition of the conspiracy, then flashed on the newspaper that she'd seen today. Williams's federal trial was scheduled to start this week. She remembered that the article had said that his trial would be on Tuesday. It jibed with why Graf would be meeting with Parrat today at Houlihan's. They would have been discussing last-minute pl
ans. Williams would be moved to Philly tomorrow.
That meant that Williams would have to escape from prison tonight.
And Nat was the only one who knew.
Chapter 40
Nat stared stunned at the carved initials illuminated by the penlight, pale and thin as moonshade in the dark. She tested her theory and it sounded right. But what could she do about it? How could she tell someone? She had no cell phone, nothing. She checked her watch, the numerals glowing an eerie green, anachronistic in this historic place. It was 4:10 p.m. They'd wait until dark to let Williams escape. They'd need cover of night. She had to stop them and she didn't have much time.
First, she had to get out of the hole. She shone the penlight on the wall leading out to the first hole. The stones that had looked random before had been wedged into the wall in an ascending pattern, makeshift stepping-stones from so long ago. She marveled at the ingenuity and heart of these benighted people. She put a foot on the first stepping-stone, and it held strong and stable, then used the others to make her way slowly to the first hole, where she figured out a way to get out. She'd dig out footholes for herself on the side of the wall. She could do it, now that she saw how it was done. She even had a penknife to scoop them out. She whispered a prayerful thanks and started digging.