Secret Passage. Amanda Stevens

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СКАЧАТЬ of his laughter echoed back to her as he chased after the ball. She laughed, too, at first, enjoying the moment, but then suddenly her breath quickened in alarm.

      Something was wrong.

      The grass should have slowed the ball’s momentum, but instead it kept rolling and rolling, always just out of Adam’s reach. She heard him laugh again as he tried to chase it down.

      She must have thrown the ball harder than she meant to. That had to be it….

      “Adam! Wait! Let me get the ball. Adam!”

      Out of the corner of her eye, Camille spotted the stranger again. He’d moved into the sun, and now she could see him more clearly. As she watched, he slowly reached up and removed his dark glasses. Camille gasped. There was something odd about his eyes….

      A fist of terror closed around her heart. He meant to harm them. She knew that without a doubt. She had to get to Adam. She had to protect him….

      But the harder she tried to catch him, the farther away he seemed.

      He was almost to the street by now, still chasing the ball. Try as she might, she couldn’t reach him.

      “Adam!” She screamed his name, but a sudden gust of wind tore it away. “Adam!”

      The ball rolled into the middle of the street and stopped. Without hesitation, Adam darted after it. He was so focused on the ball that he didn’t see the blue sedan roaring down the street toward him….

      CAMILLE AWAKENED with her dead son’s name on her lips and tears drying on her face. She thought at first the pounding in her head was the echo of her own heartbeat, but then she realized someone was banging on her front door.

      Lifting her head, she squinted at the clock. Just after seven. Had she overslept?

      Her gaze darted to the window where she could see the sun slipping below the edge of a distant ridge. She sank back in relief. It was evening, not morning. She must have dozed off while listening to the news. The radio was still on, and she could hear the transmission fading in and out. She reached over and snapped off the old Motorola, but it took a moment for the static to die away.

      The pounding came again, more desperate this time, and someone shouted her name. She put a hand to her eyes, trying to wipe away the last of the sleep as she swung her legs to the floor. Running a hand through her messy hair, she got up and hurried to the front door.

      The dream was still so fresh in her head that when she glanced through the sidelight and saw the little boy standing on her front porch, her initial instinct was to throw open the door and sweep him into her arms, even though she almost immediately recognized him as one of the Clutter children from down the road. He didn’t even resemble Adam. Her son had been dark haired while Billy was a freckle-faced redhead.

      Camille drew back the door and scowled down at the child. “Billy? What’s all the commotion about? Is everything okay—”

      He grabbed her hand and tugged. “You gotta come, Miss Camille. Davy says you gotta come right now—”

      “Whoa, wait a minute. Come where?” Camille felt as if only half her pistons were firing while Billy operated at full throttle. She had a hard time keeping up.

      “You gotta come to the mine!” His voice rose in agitation. “Davy says—”

      “To the mine? You mean the old deserted coal mine up on the ridge? You boys didn’t go up there, did you? That place is dangerous—” Camille sank to her knees and gripped the boy’s shoulders. “Billy, tell me what happened. Is someone hurt?” When he nodded, her stomach lurched. “Who’s hurt? One of the twins? Donny?”

      He shook his head, gulping in air as he tried to catch his breath. “No, not Donny. Not Davy, either. It’s a man. We found him in the mine. He’s croaked and everything, and Davy says he’s a German spy probably!”

      Camille tried to keep her voice even, tried not to let her own panic show in her actions, but she saw Billy wince as her grip tightened on his arms. With an effort, she released him. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

      The boy nodded vigorously. “Yes, ma’am, he’s real dead. Davy said to come get you on account of our pop’s not home and you’d know what to do.”

      Camille wasn’t so sure about that. “Where is your father?”

      “He’s at work. He won’t be home until real late probably.”

      Daniel Clutter, a widower, was employed as an engineer at one of the city’s secret facilities, and his work kept him on the reservation for long, exhausting hours at a time. He’d recently hired a full-time housekeeper to watch the boys in his absence, but the woman had to be over sixty and was no match for a precocious seven-year-old, let alone his twelve-year-old twin brothers, who were almost always up to mischief. Davy, the self-appointed ringleader, was cunning and clever and utterly fearless. A dangerous combination, in Camille’s estimation.

      And now it appeared that he’d led his brothers inside a deserted mine. He had no idea of the danger they could have encountered. A dead German spy was the least of it.

      So what was she supposed to do? The cottage didn’t have a telephone and the road back to the mine was overgrown and impassable. She’d have to go on foot.

      “Here’s what I want you to do,” she told the still-excited child. She put a hand beneath his chin. “Listen carefully. I want you to go straight home and tell Mrs. Fowler I’ve gone up on the ridge looking for the twins. I’ll bring them home as soon as I find them. Understand?”

      The little boy swallowed. “Yes, ma’am, but Davy said I wasn’t to tell anybody but you. He said—”

      “Never mind what your brother said.” Camille lowered her voice to a stern, no-nonsense tone, the kind she’d once used to let Adam know she meant business. “You do as I tell you and maybe, just maybe, I can keep you boys out of trouble.”

      Camille turned him toward the front porch and gave him a swat on his behind. “Hurry, now. Tell Mrs. Fowler you’re both to stay put until you hear from me.”

      As the boy shot across the front porch, Camille whirled. Hurrying through the silent house, she grabbed first-aid supplies from the bathroom and stuffed them into a bag, along with a flashlight and her .45. Two minutes later, she was out the door.

      A path behind the cottage led into the woods, but the trail ended after a half mile or so and the terrain soon became rough and overgrown. Darkness was falling, too, but Camille didn’t turn on her flashlight. Batteries were hard to come by, and she’d learned to use them—and a lot of other things—sparingly. But in another few minutes, the last rays of the sunset would fade and the topography would become even more treacherous.

      At least she knew the area. Camille had made it a priority to familiarize herself with every square inch of the surrounding countryside. She’d found all the hiding places and the discreet trails across the ridge that led straight to the city. From one of those hidden vantages, she’d memorized the rotation of the guards, the weaknesses in the city’s defenses, and she knew better than anyone how easily a spy or saboteur—or even an assassin—could slip in and out undetected.

      Breathing heavily, she emerged into a clearing on the face of the ridge and immediately spotted СКАЧАТЬ