He knew too much about the water diversion.
Unfortunately, he left a troublesome little witness behind.”
Gideon watched his lips.
His expression darkened.
I translated what Vane had said.
Gideon read the words.
Then he snatched the pencil and wrote:
Did you kill my father?
I showed Vane.
He laughed without amusement.
“Your father died because he refused to understand business.”
“That isn’t an answer,” I said.
“No,” Vane replied.
“It isn’t.”
He raised the pistol slightly.
“Now give me the book.”
I looked at Merrick.
His eyes were fixed on the weapon.
For the first time, I saw genuine horror in his face.
I understood that he had expected threats, intimidation, perhaps another cruel bargain.
Not murder.
I placed the ledger on the altar.
Vane stepped forward.
And Gideon moved.
He struck the lantern stand with his boot.
The lamp tipped sideways.
Its glass shattered against the stone floor.
Flame spread across the fallen canvas beside the altar.
Vane recoiled.
Gideon seized my wrist and pulled me toward the side window.
A gunshot cracked through the chapel.
Stone splintered beside us.
I screamed.
Gideon could not hear the shot.
But he felt the impact against the wall.
He shoved the window outward.
We climbed through as flames began climbing the rotten altar cloth.
Behind us, Vane shouted orders.
We ran across the snow toward the collapsed mine entrance.
Gideon pointed toward a dark opening beneath a retaining wall.
The old drainage passage.
He pulled a lantern from his pack.
We crawled inside just as another shot struck the stones overhead.
The tunnel was narrow and bitterly cold.
Water trickled along the floor.
Gideon led the way, using the map and the brass plate to identify old markings.
Behind us, voices echoed faintly through the passage.
I could hear the men pursuing us.
Gideon could not.
I tapped his shoulder twice, our newly invented signal for danger behind.
He nodded.
We continued deeper.
The tunnel widened into a chamber filled with abandoned tools.
A rusted wheel stood beside a stone channel.
A wooden ladder climbed toward a higher passage.
Gideon examined the wheel.
Then he turned his lantern toward an iron gate set into the wall.
The mechanism matched the brass plate from the chapel box.
I realized we had reached the old drainage controls.
Water pressed against the gate from somewhere beyond the stonework.
A low vibration traveled through the floor.
Gideon placed his palm against the wall.
His face changed.
He could feel something I could barely distinguish.
The pressure of moving water.
He took out the notebook.
They have already opened the upper channel.
I looked at the wheel.
“Can we close it?”
He studied the mechanism.
Maybe.
He tried turning the wheel.
It would not move.
Rust had locked it in place.
He handed me the lantern and braced both hands against the rim.
The muscles in his shoulders tightened.
The wheel shifted slightly.
Then stopped.
Footsteps sounded behind us.
I tapped Gideon’s shoulder.
Twice.
He immediately extinguished the lantern.
Darkness swallowed us.
A moment later, another light appeared at the far end of the passage.
Vane entered with one of his men.
Merrick followed.
I pressed myself behind a timber support.
Gideon crouched beside the gate.
Vane’s voice echoed through the tunnel.
“They can’t have gone far.”
The other man raised his lantern.
“There’s only one way out.”
Vane approached the wheel.
I watched him examine it.
Then he said:
“Once the water rises another foot, nobody will be able to investigate this chamber.”
Merrick spoke.
“What about Coldwater?”
Vane shrugged.
“The lower creek will flood.
