“Try to keep your voice down.” He felt along her body to her arms, if only to know she was unharmed. He felt cool metal in her hand, a remarkable discovery. “A gun?”
Through her rushed explanation, he heard, “Hugo” and “stole it.”
“You are unfailingly clever.” They had the upper hand with a weapon, and with him there, Arnaud would have no idea what he was walking into. I’m going to marry her, I swear it.
Arnaud called out again, closer than before. The mausoleum would be an obvious place to search, especially with their family name engraved along the top of the door. They had seconds before her uncle clambered into the unassuming space.
Ben leaned down, brushing Remi’s cheek with his lips. “Give me the gun.”
She relented and he moved her behind his body, shielding her from her uncle. Ben steadied himself and pulled back the hammer. It happened in a flash, within a breath, and the gun went off. Arnaud howled as he jerked from the impact, falling forward on the granite floor. Ben didn’t wait. He grabbed Remi’s hand and led her down the steps into the tunnel.
She winced at the bottom, collapsing from exhaustion.
“Is he dead?” She gasped.
“Don’t worry about him,” Ben said, studying her. In the lamplight, he could see the specks of mud on her skin and in her hair. “What’s wrong with your leg?”
“It’s my ankle,” she frowned. “I tripped and twisted it.”
She’d fallen somewhere in between where she’d been held and the mausoleum.
Above them, Arnaud groaned. Ben frowned and searched for the mechanism. After a moment, he found it and closed the tunnel off, lest Arnaud find the strength to pull himself down the stairs.
“Can you walk?” Ben turned his attention back to Remi.
“I fear I’ve spent myself running. It hurts terribly.” She winced as she tried to put pressure on it.
Ben stopped her with a light touch before he took a moment to tuck the gun into the waistband of his trousers. “Take this.”
He handed Remi the lamp from the table, then swept her off her feet. With her held tightly against his chest, he hastened down the tunnel, back toward the manor.
“Where are we?” Remi asked.
“Underground.”
“But how?”
“You should know,” he said. “You’re the one who found its entrance.”
She gasped. “The door in the study?”
He nodded. “You left it wide open. Thank you for that.”
“But, you were behind bars the last time I saw you. How is this possible? Am I dreaming?” she asked.
Ben stifled a laugh. “You’re not dreaming.”
“Tell me. How did you escape?”
He glanced down at her, blinded at first by the lamp, though its glow was dimming as the wick had burned down. Her eyes, the ocean still in them, raged with a storm like the one outside.
“Inspector Marceau,” Ben said. “I’ll thank him properly once we’re safe, but he let me out.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. In fact, he’s waiting for us at the end of the tunnel,” Ben said. “Without him, I never would have made it to you in time.”
“How did you know where to find me?” Remi asked.
“I didn’t,” Ben admitted. “It was a gut feeling. I followed the tunnel and it led me to you. It was a happy coincidence that it led to the mausoleum.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence. Not after everything I’ve seen tonight.” She shivered in his arms and he squeezed her tighter.
“What do you mean?”
She closed her eyes and rested her head against him. “Would you believe me if I told you that your father showed me where to go tonight? All of them, actually. Leith and Elise, too.”
“I would say,” he said, glancing down at her peaceful face, “that my sister’s ghost has haunted me long enough to believe that anything is possible.”
They were quiet the rest of the way, eased by each other’s presence. When their light came into view of the ladder he had first climbed down, Ben heard voices and feet shuffling against the hardwood.
“Monsieur! Come quick,” someone said. “There’s a light!”
Ben stopped at the base of the ladder, setting Remi down. She leaned against his side, passing the lamp to him as he held it up. Faces peered down at them, their features inscrutable.
“Here!” Ben heard someone call. “They’re down here!”
“Help them up,” someone else said.
