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  When they came to the end of that branch of the tunnel, Adam flattened against the wall, his arm across her upper chest as he held her pinned against the wall.

  Darci listened but heard no one and nothing. The silence was as deep as only being underground could make it. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that the little stream went to the left, around the outer wall of the open area in front of them.

  It took her a moment before she realized they were looking into the room that would someday have vending machines in it. The room would be much larger in her time, but she knew it was the same room. Someday, the tunnel they were in would be closed off, and she was sure there hadn’t been a flowing stream along the back. Perhaps the stream had dried up, so they’d closed off the passage that led up to the icehouse. It had certainly been sealed off when she and her Adam had been there.

  On the far wall were the three tunnel openings and for a moment Darci visualized Adam kneeling there and searching for footprints.

  Cautiously, Adam Drayton stepped into the room, then motioned for Darci to follow him. After the darkness of the tunnel, the room with its four lanterns hanging from the walls was almost bright.

  She had no idea where Nokes put his safe, but she knew where there were some rooms in the tunnels. She motioned for Adam to follow her, but he caught her arm and pulled her back, shaking his head no. He pointed to the three openings with a question on his face. She pointed to the one on the far right, then Adam got in front of her, his rifle at hip level and ready.

  They tiptoed along silently, but it was all Darci could do to hold back tears. She vividly remembered the first time she’d followed Adam into this tunnel and how joyous she’d been! No one on earth had been happier than she was that day. She’d sensed that, eventually, Adam would come to love her, and she’d been anxious to get started.

  Now she was in another time, with another man who looked and acted like the man she loved, and Darci had to constantly remind herself that this man wasn’t her man.

  Suddenly, Adam stopped walking and flattened himself against the wall, again pushing Darci back. Déjà vu, she thought, because, just like the first time, she heard men’s voices coming from down the tunnel.

  “Dancing?” a man said. “Are you crazy? Who’d come here to dance?”

  “Anybody that wants money,” another man said.

  “What if Nokes finds out about this?”

  “What’s he gonna do? Fire us?”

  The men laughed together and Darci could hear their feet hurrying across the dirt floor. She knew that there was a staircase at that end of the tunnel. The night the witch had taken her, Darci had walked down those stairs.

  She cried to blank that image out of her mind but couldn’t. She’d been wearing a white gown that night and she knew that she was being led to a chamber of sacrifice. Her only solace had been her hope that Adam may have escaped. She’d been concentrating so hard that she didn’t know he was chained to a wall only a few feet away.

  When it was silent again, Darci motioned to Adam that just ahead, on the left, was a cutout in the wall. It was where she and Adam had nearly been caught, where Adam had cut her hair with a dagger that turned out to be used for the sacrifices. Looking back on it, she wondered if the witch had put such a valuable knife in a place used to store cups and plates as a lure to her, to Darci, who the witch wanted so much. The mirror had told the witch that a young woman with nine moles on her hand was going to kill her. Several young women had been killed before the witch found Darci.

  Inching along, Adam soon saw the room with the iron gate. It hadn’t changed since Darci had seen it last. Inside were shelves loaded with boxes of what looked to be supplies. This time, though, there was no tantalizing dagger lying on a shelf just out of their reach.

  Darci let out a sigh. She’d been hoping that the safe would be here, in this easiest place to reach, but it wasn’t.

  She looked down the corridor and decided not to go that way. There could be a guard sitting there, a rifle across his lap. Besides, it was her guess that a man like Nokes seemed to be wouldn’t keep his safe in a place where his workmen congregated.

  She motioned for Adam to follow her, then went back the way they came, to the big room that would someday be enlarged with a Bobcat.

  “I know of two big rooms,” she whispered to Adam as he bent down to hear her. Darci wasn’t going to tell him that she’d never actually been to either of the rooms, but she’d heard her father tell of every second he and Adam and Bo had searched for Darci. He’d said that he wanted to remember and record everything so he’d had Bo draw a map to the tunnels.

  “One has an oak door,” Darci said. “At least it did in my time, so I don’t know if it’s there now or not.”

  “A carved door, with a secret way to open it?” Adam asked.

  “Yes! Is it there?”

  “Yes. Nokes told me of it. He traded a sack of gems for it, and said that if you don’t know how to open it, there’s a trap. A deathly trap.”

  “I know how to open it,” Darci said as she turned away from him so he couldn’t see her face. She knew it was three things that she had to push. Animals? Leaves? Or was it a tree trunk that she had to push? And in what order? What was it that Bo had said about opening the door? It was a rhyme, or maybe a word.

  She tried to remember back to the day when Bo had been telling her father so he could record the information. By that time the door had been destroyed, along with the tunnels, and everything that had been in them. There were some stolen first-century panels that had gone to museums. Adam said that he didn’t care if the sacrificial altar had historical significance or not. He had it blown into tiny pieces.

  “Come,” she said over her shoulder, then hurried down the smallest of the three tunnels. After several minutes, she turned right; Adam caught her shoulder, and pointed. The tunnel in front of them widened, and there was more light farther down.

  She couldn’t help smiling at him as it looked as though she’d guessed right. This seemed to be the hub of the underground operation.

  Adam moved in front of her, stepping slowly and quietly, looking about at every moment. Once they had to stop when they heard male laughter.

  “Never seen anything like it,” they heard.

  “I threw last month’s pay at her,” said another male voice.

  “So what’s that? Nokes give you more than six cents?”

  “All the fancy stones I could steal,” said the first man. Their laughter faded as the men moved away.

  Adam and Darci stayed still until it was quiet again, then Adam started moving. Minutes later, they were standing in front of a door that was carved to represent a jungle. From the look of it, she thought the door must have been made in South America.

  Looking at the door, she tried to remember all that her sister-in-law had said. What was it Bo had said that day? Eliminate. Boadicea had said in her awkward cadence, “Eliminate. E.L.M. Eye, leaf, medallion. You only have to remember that it is the most large leaf.”

  Darci blinked a couple of times, drew in her breath, then pushed the eye of a funny-looking little animal, the biggest leaf, then the medallion in the corner.

  When the door opened, Adam gave her a grin of such praise that she felt as though she could have floated into the room—if her legs hadn’t been rubbery from her fear of not getting it right the first time, that is.

  He didn’t hesitate as he pushed the door open, entered the room, then closed the well-oiled door behind them. The only things in the room were a big, carved bed, a bedside table with a wash set on it, and a safe. Did the man Nokes sleep here? Darci wondered. With his money? If he did, then they’d better get out of here soon or he’d find them there.

  Adam saw her looking at the bed and knew what she was thinking. “We should have time,” he said. “Fonty will see Jack and Lavender first. It’ll take him some time to get rid of them. He’ll be furious that his men aren’t working every minute. I’ll get this open and we’ll be out of