Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder 4)

that she’s still conscious. That she somehow survived that kind of trauma. Her kapp and the hair beneath it are blood-soaked. Her left ear is missing. She’s lost a lot of blood. But she doesn’t stop. Her hand claws at the floor, a mindless, brain-damaged action. Her nails are broken to the quick. Her legs remain unmoving, part of a broken body being dragged along behind her.
    I kneel next to her, set my hand on her shoulder. “There’s an ambulance on the way.”
    That’s when I notice the bullet hole in her back. It’s small and there’s not much bleeding. I wonder if the bullet struck her spine and that’s why her legs aren’t moving.
    “Mrs. Mast, hold still. Help will be here any moment.”
    She uses her left hand to turn onto her side. A sound squeezes between her lips as she rolls onto her back. Her eyes find mine, and I realize she’s cognizant. She knows she’s been shot. She knows I’m here.
    “Who did this to you?” I ask.
    Her eyes focus on mine. Her mouth opens and blood and saliva form a bubble between her lips. She whispers something unintelligible and then the breath rushes from her lungs. Her body jerks twice and goes slack. I hear the paramedics come through the door, but I know they’re too late.
    “She’s done,” Tomasetti says.
    I stare down at her for a moment, watching the life drain from her eyes. I remind myself that just minutes ago, she tried to kill me; I shouldn’t feel anything except gratitude that I’m alive and she’s lying there dead instead of me. But the fact of the matter is, it’s not easy to watch someone die. In this case, Irene and Perry Mast left too many questions unanswered.
    “Kate.”
    It takes me a moment to realize Tomasetti is speaking to me. I have no idea what he’s saying. I turn to him, pretending I wasn’t somewhere else.
    “The tunnel, Kate. Where is it?”
    The sheriff’s deputy stands next to him, barking something into his lapel mike, but his attention is on me.
    “Basement,” I say. “This way.”
    Then I’m striding down the hallway, vaguely aware that my legs are shaking. The basement door stands open, the wood around the lock shattered. Evidently, Perry Mast used the rifle to blast his way out. I stop at the door, look down the steps into the basement. It seems like hours since I was down there, though in reality it’s only a matter of minutes.
    I start down the steps. The temperature drops as I descend. The odor of rotting wood and wet earth close around me like a dirty, wet blanket. Gray light oozes in from a single window at ground level, but it’s not enough to cut the shadows.
    My boots are silent on the dirt floor as I cross to the hatch. Tomasetti walks beside me, shining his Maglite from side to side. I hear the deputy behind me. He’s breathing heavily, which tells me his adrenaline is flowing. The fact of the matter is, we don’t know what we’ll find down here. We don’t know if there are other people, if they’re armed, or if they mean us harm. We don’t know if the girls are alive or if Mast killed them before coming out and turning the gun on himself.
    “They ran electricity to the tunnel,” I say as I take them to the hatch.
    “So much for all those Amish rules,” Tomasetti mutters.
    “I cut the extension cord.”
    We reach the hatch. The sickle I used to lock Mast in lies on the floor, a few feet away. One of the double doors lies next to it; the other hangs at a precarious angle by a single hinge.
    “He shot off the hinges,” says Marcus stating the obvious.
    Tomasetti shines his light down the steps leading into the tunnel. “What the fuck is this?”
    Marcus trains the beam of his flashlight on the steps. “House used to be part of the Underground Railroad.”
    “No shit?” Tomasetti says.
    “Newspaper did a story a few years ago.”
    “Did you know about the tunnels?” Tomasetti asks.
    “No one mentioned tunnels.”
    “Now you know why,” I mutter.
    The deputy sweeps his beam along the brick walls of the tunnel. “Creepy as hell, if you ask me.”
    Dread scrapes a nail down my back as I stare into the darkness. My heart is a drum in my chest. The last thing I want to do is go back down there. Not because I’m afraid of some unseen threat, but because I don’t know what we’ll find. If Mast shot and killed his wife, chances are good he also killed the girls. . . .
    “We need a generator and work lights.” Tomasetti glances my way, keeping his voice light. “You want to