A heavy slamming that sounds faintly metallic, and it seems louder than I remember it, as if the volume has been turned up. Benton and I look around. We don’t hear or see a sign of anyone. He reaches under his suit jacket and slides out his gun, and we walk through the foyer. We stop every few steps and listen, and as we get closer to the door that leads down into the basement I hear voices. Benton opens the door, and Erin Loria sounds distressed.

Chapter 48

CHAPTER 48

THE FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE IS THAT THE LIGHT over the stairs no longer works. I have a flashlight in my shoulder bag, and I dig for it and my nine mil as I hear Erin Loria yelling somewhere below us inside the pitch-dark cellar.

“FBI! Come out now with your hands up in the air!”

I paint the light on the stairs, on the cave-like walls, and at the bottom I try more light switches but they aren’t working either. If there are other agents inside the house there is no indication of it. I feel we are alone. I feel we have made what may prove to be the worst mistake of our lives.

“FBI! Come out now with your hands up in the air!” Erin Loria’s voice is a recording, and then the sound again, the booming thud and it seems to be coming from the rear of the basement, past the bulkhead doors toward the back of the house. “FBI! Come out now with your hands up in the air!”

Carrie is mocking us with a recording of Erin Loria reciting what sounds like a line from a campy cop movie. The FBI agents aren’t down here or if they are there’s no sign of it, and I realize as I shine the light around the empty cellar that we are where we’re supposed to be. We’re here as planned but not our plan. It’s her plan.

“Stay right behind me,” Benton says under his breath.

There is no other place for me to be. I can’t run and I can’t stand still in the dark while he walks around with his gun. Then the light touches an area of stone that is out of alignment with the wall around it, and this is deliberate too. I draw Benton’s attention to what appears to be a secret opening, and we walk toward it as the thudding sounds again, a heavy slamming as we get closer. Benton pushes the wall with his foot, and it moves, and the thudding sounds again as we find ourselves staring into the dark mouth of a tunnel that is very old, possibly as old as the house.