Chapter Nineteen

Will he do it? Can a man with an ego like his, with such extreme narcissism, do something that will end his life?

She didn’t know. And for the moment, perhaps, she wouldn’t need to.

Because someone else was suddenly there.

“Wow! You really want to be blown up, all that genius of yours reduced to atoms floating around in the great nothing?”

They were all startled by the sound of another voice, but inwardly, Carly smiled with relief.

Luke had been there, following, watching, awaiting his cue.

But it was still true that Harry Green held a remote that could ignite an explosion that would decimate the entire house, the tunnels and the landscape around them.

But Luke seemed unconcerned. He had his gun out, trained on Harry Green as he casually came up from behind, almost nonchalant as he joined their group.

Three against three, with what should have been a clear advantage for them—they were the ones with the gun trained on the others.

But then again...

“I will be blown sky-high, but so will you and your precious little...whatever she is!” he snapped, looking at Carly.

She looked over at Luke. “Not really little!” she protested.

“No, fair-sized!” Luke agreed.

“What is the matter with you people?” Harry Green demanded. “You’re about to die.”

“Except I don’t believe you want to die,” Luke said casually. “I mean, seriously, come on—think about it. You are H. H. Holmes incarnate. There would be absolutely no sense in blowing yourself up. You stop that, we arrest you, we arrest your friends here, there’s a trial, you receive life sentences. But! What would Holmes have done with a life sentence? He’d have found a way to escape—and a way to pick up again where he’d left off. Of course, you’d have to leave these two rotting in jail because they’re just not as clever as you are—”

“No!” Jim Allen screamed in protest. “No! No, no, no, no, no! I was the one who found this place, still equipped with tunnels from centuries ago. I used my inheritance to buy this place, to be the incredibly genial innkeeper—I am more Holmes than he is!”

“How dare you?” Harry Green countered. “The website is mine. The concept is mine. You were nothing but a builder until I taught you the way.”

“And you were both worthless. I did all the work,” Terry cried.

“You are both nothing but pathetic lackeys in his mind,” Carly told her, realizing what game Luke was playing, turning them against one another.

And still, Harry Green held the remote.

But she continued, thinking Luke must have a solid plan to get the remote from Green.

“Especially you, Terry. A woman? Oh, come on. You must realize you are less than a third-rate assistant in Harry’s mind.”

“Do something,” Terry ordered her husband. “You bastard!” she said to Green. “Guess what? I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be part of your ridiculous—”

“Oh, Terry, Terry, Terry,” Green said, and he turned to stare at Carly. “You should have seen her in action. She loved watching her husband with a woman, and then moving in to do a little slicing on her own. She is far better at torture and murder than any man I’ve come across.”

That isn’t really a surprise, Carly thought.

She felt a presence behind her.

Kenneth.

“It’s all right, lass. Luke is in control.”

She wasn’t sure how Luke had come up from behind them, except...

Who knew exactly how these tunnels and vaults cut through the ancient mound?

“What fool ever said the female was the weaker of the sexes?” Luke said casually. “But who did exactly what doesn’t really matter. Here we are! And it looks as if you’re the man in control, Mr. Harry Green—or whoever you really are. H. H. Holmes reincarnated? No. He wouldn’t have made so many mistakes—”

“Oh, yes, he did,” Green muttered. “He made a deal with a fellow prisoner when he was being held on a lesser charge and then he didn’t follow through and the idiot was furious and gave witness against him and that’s... I didn’t make any stupid deals. I just joined with stupid people!”

“How dare you!” Jim Allen raged again. He suddenly made as if he would lunge at Green in spite of his injured, bleeding hand. Carly couldn’t let that happen. She easily tripped the man and he went down, screaming in fury.

That brought Terry Allen to a frenzy; she sounded like a snarling bobcat as she turned to jump on Carly in return.

And in that melee, Luke fired.

A single shot.

Harry Green screamed in agony. He had not received a mortal wound, but rather, his hand—that holding the control—appeared to have exploded in a burst of blood and tissue.

The remote went flying.

Luke caught it as Carly felled Terry Allen with a counterweight blow.

“We’ve got to get the hell out of here!” Luke said. “That’s only one of the controls. He planted others—the Allen couple were not supposed to survive this, either.”

“I have one!” Daniel Murray announced. “But it seems they were set to trigger in certain areas if anything happened to the others.” He stood over the Allens, who remained on the floor. They both looked like rabid dogs, all but foaming at the mouth.

“By the way, he apparently meant to get out without either of you—you would have gone up with the house and be blamed and found guilty of every crime committed here,” Daniel told the couple.

“Let’s go!” Luke urged. “Carly—”

She stooped to try her best to gently pick up the poor woman they’d found on the torture table. She had not awakened; maybe it was best.

But Daniel was at her side, smiling at her. “May I? I would never be so foolish as to doubt your abilities. I’m just bigger.”

Carly grinned, allowing him to lift the young woman.

“Up!” she ordered Jim and Terry Allen. “We’re going to try to save your lives.”

The ghost of Kenneth Menzies was at Carly’s side. “Lead them this way, lass. Lead them this way... The tunnel here breaks out at the cliff down the western road.”

“Shouldn’t we go back through the house?” she wondered aloud.

As she spoke, they heard the sound of an explosion, coming from the area beneath the ground where the elevator shaft lay.

Still screaming, Harry Green, the would-be Holmes, began to laugh, and his agony and amusement became hysteria.

“This way!” she urged, jerking Terry Allen to her feet and allowing Jim to rise on his own. “And you want to live, so move!”

Luke caught hold of Harry Green with his left hand; with his right, he kept his Glock trained carefully on the group in case one of them resisted again.

Kenneth moved ahead. The light in the tunnels was dim, the going was over rough rock. Different vaults occasionally broke off.

They heard another explosion.

Closer this time.

“Move!” Carly shouted again.

Terry started running; Jim was right behind her, crying and cradling his injured hand, and Carly kept pace.

Many of the tunnels were lined with crypt shelving; bodies lay in disintegrating shrouds, some down to nothing more than bone.

“I’d not been here,” Kenneth murmured. “But St. Ninian came in the year of our Lord 397, bringing the Christian religion, but it was some time before the old ways died out. Perhaps the early followers laid their dead here, protecting them from the vengeance of others.”

“Centuries go by,” Carly murmured softly. “At least...”

“At least these monsters did not murder all of them? They’ll never know the full truth.”

“Ah, they’ll know,” she returned. “They will face arrest. And they will tell the truth.”

I hope that’s true.

Neither the whining Jim nor his wife were giving her any heed, and if Daniel was listening, he would understand. And no one cared about speech or even sobs—they were well aware that the entire structure, the tunnels and even the ground above could blow to pieces.

They kept running. Harry Green, also emitting anguished and furious sounds, was running behind her, and behind him, Luke brought up the rear.

Then she saw that Kenneth had stopped. “There! There ahead. Up the wall.”

Up the wall?

But then she saw it—the opening that was little more than a crawl space about four feet up the wall. On the surface, the rich growth of shrubbery, leaves and branches created the disguise that there was nothing there on the hillock.

“Daniel, go—we’ll balance this woman between us, Carly will cover us and we’ll get her up. We can’t send the Allen couple first, even if Jim is bleeding all over. We’ll get them out—then Carly, Green and then me,” Luke said.

“Makes sense,” Daniel muttered, hiking himself up.

Carly kept her Glock on the group as Luke helped balance the young woman—who still clung to life with a faint pulse but never opened her eyes—out of the tunnels.

She had to wonder if there was any hope the young woman would survive in the end.

Then again, none of them might survive.

Jim Allen, cradling his bleeding hand, moved forward, pushing his wife aside. He wanted out first himself.

“No!” Terry shrieked.

But Jim Allen was halfway out despite his injury and Carly held Terry back, telling her, “Let him go. You’re next.”

She gave Terry a push and then managed to hike her own weight up. She burst through the tunnel into the dim glow of a starry night. And for a brief split second, she was just grateful for the sweet kiss of the cool night and the strange peaceful beauty of the rolling green earth.

“Green coming up!” Luke shouted, and while Daniel kept his gun trained on Jim and Terry, Carly hunkered down to grasp Green’s good wrist and help drag the man out.

He lay on the ground, panting, crying, cradling his wrist where his hand used to be. But when Luke’s head emerged, Harry Green came to life, howling in fury and twisting to shove Luke back down.

A foolish move. Luke jerked himself up, a move that sent Harry Green crashing back into the hole.

And even as he did so, they saw a spill of light coming from the hole.

“Go!” Luke roared. He paused long enough himself to sweep up the unknown young woman.

“Right! Move!” Carly commanded Jim and Terry.

They began to run. Downward along the slope. Jim tripped and went rolling down, far down, and Carly ran after him with the spirit of Kenneth Menzies at her side. Daniel continued to prod Terry Allen, keeping the sobbing woman running.

Then the explosion occurred. It rocked the earth. Carly stumbled and fell; Terry Allen did so; and Daniel went down as well, almost on top of Terry.

The night was no longer gentle and dim; the ensuing fire lit up the night.

The sound of sirens followed. Carly stared at the sky before she could rise, but she dared smile at last. Officers from Police Scotland and the National Crime Agency were scurrying over the ground, taking Jim and Terry.

And Luke was there, smiling grimly, reaching down for her.

“Terry, Jim—”

And as she stood, she saw Brendan Campbell was there, too.

“Amazing work, my American friends. Amazing work,” he said.

“We had Daniel,” Carly reminded him. “And without the four—” She broke off.

Without Kenneth Menzies, they seriously might not have made it. But she couldn’t say that.

She smiled. “My head is still reeling, I’m afraid. Without Daniel, we couldn’t have...”

“Blown up half a hill?” Daniel asked, joining them.

“Stopped killers who would have slaughtered many more,” Campbell finished.

“The woman! The young woman—” Carly worried.

“Already on her way to the hospital,” Campbell assured her. “Now, I am afraid that the house went up, too. We’ll have to get you some clothes. And, of course, when the dust settles, a new place to sleep for the night.” He smiled and shrugged. “Well, if there’s any night left when we’ve finished here.”

There wasn’t to be. The once-quiet hillock was still alight with the remnants of the fire and the many officers moving about, when Carly, standing by Luke’s side, saw Daniel Murray seated on a rock, looking toward a tree.

Curiously, she moved over to take a better look. The spirit of Kenneth Menzies was standing before him. He smiled when he saw Carly. “Lass, as ye saw in the tunnel, he sees me! The lad sees me, as fully as ye do yerself,” he said excitedly.

“Yes, I know he felt you before. Kenneth, you’re very special, you bring out the best of the gift in all of us. Daniel—”

“I heard him!” Daniel said. “I heard him! Oh, sir, we can’t thank you enough. We can’t—”

“Ah, laddie, nay, perhaps I perished on that long-ago day to be here now. My pleasure.”

“I can’t wait to see you again!” Daniel cried.

But Kenneth Menzies shook his head. “I’ve a feelin’, and a good one. ’Tis, I think, my time to forgive my enemies and to join me fellows. Forgive me, but ’tis time!”

He nodded to Carly and Luke, who now stood behind her. “Fine warriors ye all be! And to fight with such true and loyal brethren, ah, that be the greatest reward!”

“Kenneth, thank you, thank you,” Carly told him.

Luke echoed her words.

He lifted a hand and disappeared through the trees.

“Oh, my God,” Daniel breathed, looking at them. “I saw him. I talked to him. I... You were right, Carly. It—it developed in me late and it’s not a curse to me at all but something wonderful. Well, mostly wonderful. I mean, no one else would believe this, right?”

Luke laughed softly. “There’s always room for one more in the Blackbird unit of the Krewe of Hunters,” he told him. “Did I say that aloud? Campbell would have my head!”

“Oh, we don’t do that anymore in Scotland,” Daniel said, laughing. “But...ah, who knows? Speaking of Campbell...”

There was the inevitable paperwork. The relief of knowing that they had, indeed, saved a young woman. The knowledge that Jim Allen was also being treated, but that he and his wife would remain incarcerated while awaiting trial.

A forensic crew thought they had found enough remnants of the body of “H. H. Holmes” to verify the fact that he was indeed dead; positive ID might be a ways off, with only dental records to work with.

They believed the man’s birth name had been Richard Howard, but that would come later on down the line.

And finally...

Daylight.

And they were left at a hotel with a promise that clothing would be delivered.

Closing the door when they entered the room, Luke leaned against it and grinned.

“Good thing we don’t need clothes tonight,” he said with a shrug.

And Carly started to laugh. “Have you seen yourself?”

“Uh, I have not. Have you seen yourself?”

They were both covered in soot and dirt and grit, smudged with it from head to toe. But that didn’t matter. She stepped forward, sliding into his arms, catching his hands and drawing them up with her own to press against the door, her body flat on his as she teased him with a long, long searing kiss, a burst of adrenaline, of the simple pleasure of being alive...

And of being with someone who seemed to fulfill her, a second half to create a whole and...

“What?” he whispered against her lips. And then he teased her with, “You were thinking that I’m a great partner, strong as an ox, but noble and thoughtful and—”

“Nope. Not at all. I was thinking that you do have a passable body and that there is a certain sensual charisma about you.”

“I’ll show you passable!” he countered, sweeping her up.

She burst into laughter, ruffling his filthy hair.

“Luke! We are total messes!”

“I can be passable in a shower!” he assured her.

And so...

The hours passed...sleeping...touching...fulfilled, urgent, resting, awaking...

And then, just before night fell again, there was a knock at their door.

Carly looked at Luke, grimacing. They had never managed to put their tattered clothing back on.

But she needn’t have worried. She heard the sound of laughter—a laughter she knew.

“It’s okay—don’t open the door until you’re ready. It’s Daniel. I went to pick up the clothing that Campbell had Liz go out to get for you guys—we decided she’d be the best shopper, even for you, Luke, so, you know, whenever. But if you’ve had enough, um, sleep for a wee bit, we’ll be having dinner down in the main restaurant in about an hour and a half. There’s a surprise for you, should you make it. Oh, and by the way, I grew up in Glasgow. My home is still down there but I’m here at the hotel...until the paperwork is all tied up. That’s why I was elected to knock on your door. See ya!”

He left them both laughing. Carly slipped into a robe and secured their clothing from the hallway. Liz had not managed just to fit them well, but purchased items they might have chosen for themselves.

“She’s good,” Carly said.

“They’re all good,” Luke agreed. “Duncan, Ian, Liz and Daniel.”

“And now Daniel is happy, but...”

“You’re afraid he’ll be unhappy?” Luke asked her.

She nodded. “He... Oh, Luke, don’t you remember trying to work before the Krewe? Having help that lets you know something, but having no way to make someone who doesn’t see the dead understand?”

“The Krewe makes everything so much easier, yes,” Luke told her. “But Blackbird...we’ll work here often. Weird crimes—”

“Don’t all happen in Scotland or even Britain,” she reminded him.

“He’ll find his way. He is a great asset, wherever he may work.”

They did head down to dinner and were delighted by the “surprise.”

Jackson Crow and Angela had flown in, and even better, Della Hamilton and Mason Carter were there as well, along with Brendan Campbell and Daniel Murray.

“Does this mean that...?”

“Yes!” Della said. “While you were bringing down the head of the Society, we cut down the two-man crew who had been working in France. Finally! That seemed to take forever. But seriously, we were going from place to place, stopping things after atrocities were uncovered, but now the website is down for good and the head is off the snake.”

“I wish we could have brought him in,” Carly said.

Della took a breath. “Listen, I hate it just as much when we can’t mete out due justice—bring criminals in and let trials by juries and sentences given by judges decide on punishment. But you didn’t even kill the man—he killed himself with his own mechanism of death. Oh, and you saved a life, and that couldn’t have been easy.”

Carly nodded. “I know all that. I just hope—”

“That there aren’t still others active?”

“Exactly.”

Mason spoke up, shaking his head. “At every location, the founder of the Society made a stop—it was his way of assuring that his instructions were followed. Others were often allowed in to carry out their own fantasies about revenge, but when that was done, they were usually dispatched as well. So...Jackson ordered champagne. This is a win!”

It was a great evening. Jackson and Angela were heading back in the morning; they had just come because of the American law enforcement angle on the case. It was great seeing them, and they made finishing the paperwork Brendan Campbell needed that much easier.

And they were getting to know Daniel Murray, who was both funny and entertaining as he regaled them all with the history of Stirling that night. The castle had been extremely important in medieval history; it was central, the gateway to the Highlands. And there, William Wallace had won his all-important victory at Stirling Bridge, and later, Robert the Bruce had cemented his kingship by taking the stronghold itself and winning the day.

The evening at long last came to an end and there were goodbyes to be said. Brendan Campbell was heading down to London. Angela and Jackson were returning to the States.

“I’ll still be here for a bit,” Daniel told them. “Aren’t you thrilled!”

Carly laughed and said that yes, she was.

She and Luke spent another night teasing, taking the time to play, to be urgent, to bask in one another’s company.

To plan the vacation they had been promised.

“Campbell says he can get us a stay in any of the bed-and-breakfast castles,” Luke told her.

“No, no, no. No castles! A beach somewhere.”

“French Riviera, Spain—Italy has some beautiful beaches.”

“So hard to choose. Let’s look up some places in the morning, make a decision and head out,” Carly said.

That was the plan.

It was doomed to change.

There was a knock on their door again in the morning.

“Ah, guys, it’s Daniel. Sorry, this isn’t social. Can you be downstairs in thirty minutes?”

Carly looked at Luke, frowning.

He pulled her to him. “Okay, let’s remember. Seize every minute.”

She nodded.

And they were downstairs in exactly half an hour.

Jackson and Angela were already on their plane back to the States, but this was a strange case that didn’t relate back to the US.

“I need your help again,” Campbell told them.

“What is it?” Luke asked him.

Campbell passed a printed sheet across the table to him and Carly.

He’d given them a photograph. It was of a dead man.

Missing the middle portion of his body.

Then he passed over another.

It was of a skeleton, one that might have been found in a medical museum.

“And then,” Daniel said, “there’s the media headline.”

He passed over his phone, showing the major headline on a search engine.

“Burke and Hare—At It Again?”

Luke turned to Carly. “I guess we’re not getting to a beach.”

“No,” Campbell said grimly. “We four will be heading back to Edinburgh.”