”Her signal’s fading.“

”They walked away from the purse. They’re making out.“

I crouch and lean close to the receiver. There’s a background of static now. There was none before. The voices come in and out, like someone talking on a cell phone at the edge of a tower’s coverage.

”Give me your radio, Don.“

”You sure?“

”Right now!“

He hands me his walkie-talkie. I press the transmit key and say, ”Blue, repeat, blue. Blue, repeat, blue. Acknowledge!“

Two clicks come back to me.

Relief courses through me with the power of Cyrus’s heroin.

”Kelly’s going in,“ I say. ”Thank God.“

”We were crazy to send her in there,“ Logan says. ”The Three Stooges after all.“

When the explosion comes, I’m not sure whether it blasted out of the receiver or down through the trees.

Logan gapes at me, his eyes wide. ”What the fuck was that?“

”Shotgun?“

He shakes his head. ”Sounded like a grenade to me.“

My skin goes cold. Kelly wasn’t carrying any grenades.

Logan drops flat on the ground and puts his ear to the receiver. ”Nothing.“

”Booby trap?“ I suggest.

Logan gets up and draws his gun from his holster. ”I’m going up there.“

I want to go, too, but there’s no way I could keep up with him. ”Should I call 911 and ask for backup?“

”I’ll do that. You wait for the units and show ’em where to go.“

I nod, but Logan is already charging up the hill, his gun in one hand and a police radio in the other. As I stare after him, one thing hits me with absolute certainty. By the time backup units arrive here, whatever is happening up there will be over. More than anything, I want to call Kelly on the radio, but he specifically told me not to. If I can help him, he’ll call me. Unless he’s dead.

There’s only one contribution I can make to this effort.

Thought.

I start walking toward Ardenwood. The mansion is seventy yards away, half concealed by massive oaks and magnolias. It looks like a great ship moored in a sea of trees.

Where is Marko taking Mia? Outside? If he took her outside, the signal strength would still be strong. And if he went outside, Kelly would already have nailed him. He didn’t go outside. So, where did he go? Did he throw Mia’s purse into a cabinet? Down a hole, maybe? If he did, the signal would simply have dropped out, not faded gradually. Could Ardenwood have a basement? Most antebellum mansions don’t, other than half-sunken ”milk rooms“ used to keep dairy products cool. Those were small rooms, not true basements…

I’m forty yards from Ardenwood now, and nothing ahead has changed. It’s as though Kelly and Logan walked up this hill and sank into the earth.

My radio crackles to life.

”I found the girl,“ Logan says, his voice choked with emotion. ”She’s down. She’s been hit in the neck. It’s shrapnel or shotgun pellets.“

I can hardly speak. ”Is it Mia?“

”I can’t tell. She’s covered with blood. I need a light…goddamn it.“

”Is she alive, Don?“

”She’s breathing. I don’t think she can talk. God, this was so stupid.“

”Have you seen Kelly?“

”Nothing. I’ve got backup coming, though. Ambulance, too.“

I walk faster-my legs won’t stand a run. My heart is pounding like a kettledrum, and my jaw is clenched tight enough to break my teeth.”Don’t be Mia,“ I pray hoarsely. ”Please, God, don’t let it be her.“ I push my legs faster, trying to reach the house, but I can’t keep my balance. I crash onto the ground, then pick myself up, so winded I can hardly stand.

”It’s not her,“ crackles Logan’s voice. ”It’s the other girl. She’s bleeding out, Penn. What do I do?“

”It’s not Mia?“

”No. This girl has a fucking ring in her nose. Mia must still be out there.“

Relief rushes through me. ”Where are the wounds?“

”Neck, mostly.“

”Direct pressure, Don. Keep that blood inside her.“

I get slowly to my feet and look up at the house. They’re not in there, says a voice in my head. They’re gone.

”Have you heard any motors, Don?“

”No.“

Then it hits me: It’s not a basement. It’s a tunnel!

I turn to my left and walk away from the house, down the hill toward the low ground on the north side of Ardenwood. As the Civil War began to turn against the Confederacy, many plantation owners realized that the Northern armies would eventually sweep southward over their lands. Some planters had only days to prepare, but others-especially those farthest south-had months and even years. A tunnel could be used to store valuables, and then in the last extremity as a means of escape from marauding soldiers or even neighbors, a real danger to the many Natchez planters who sympathized with the Yankee cause. I’ve never toured Ardenwood, but I know as surely as I know my name that it has an escape tunnel.

Marko Bakic knows it, too.

Moving downhill is a lot easier than moving up. In less than a minute, I’m moving into the kudzu that lines the bayou on the north side of Ardenwood. The smell of organic decay blends with the reek of dead fish and fetid mud. It’s a familiar odor. The whole of Natchez is threaded with bayous and creeks, and I came to know them well as a boy. The planter who owned Ardenwood would have known them, too-this bayou, anyway. And when he decided to build his escape tunnel, in which direction would he have told his slaves to dig?

North.

Dig in any other direction, and they’d not only have had to dig horizontally, but vertically again to come up out of the earth-unless they dug dozens of yards farther than necessary. No slave owner would waste labor like that, especially during wartime. He’d have ordered his ”darkies“ to dig the shortest route to safety, and that was north. Thirty yards of tunnel would have carried the diggers to the bayou where I’m standing now.

Two feet of black water simmers between the banks, with tangled tree roots reaching like fingers down into it, and long beards of moss hanging from the limbs above. The kudzu is too thick to move quietly along either bank. And walking through kudzu is the best way to get bitten by a copperhead-especially at night. Pushing through the vines that choke the bank, I step down into the water, then begin walking slowly toward the back of the mansion.

The closer I get to Ardenwood, the higher the banks rise around me. If I’m right about the tunnel, it’s possible that Marko and Mia already came out of it, but all I can do is follow my instinct. I try not to splash as I slide my feet along the muddy bottom. With every step I take, unseen creatures scuttle among the roots on the banks, and shining whips uncurl in the water and glide away. Water moccasins. Snakes have always terrified me, but Mia is facing a lot worse than that. Tensing my exhausted leg muscles against the bite of fangs, I push steadily forward.

Ardenwood towers above me now, more like part of the landscape than any man-made thing. If there’s a tunnel leading out of that ruined shell, I should be getting close to its mouth. I stop in the water and listen with the focus of desperation.

Mosquitoes buzz…

Wet leaves rustle…

A turtle splashes-

”If you make a sound, I’ll kill you.“

Unspeakable fear paralyzes me where I stand.

”Did you hear me, bitch?“

”I heard you.“

At the sound of Mia’s small voice, hope flares within me.

”Move your ass, then!“

A splash sounds behind me, much bigger than that made by the turtle. If I move now, Marko will know I’m here. I hear another splash, and then the sound of a siren floats through the trees.

”Fuck!“curses Marko. ”You lying whore!“

”Run,“ Mia urges him. ”You can get away. I’ll just slow you down.“

”If I leave you here, I leave you dead.“

”Marko, please-“

”Shut up!“

The siren’s getting louder fast.