Chapter 51
We all turned to Marisa. The crawl through Oona’s closet must have prepared her to believe in just about anything. The idea that we might get out through the medicine cabinet rippled through the group.
“That’s what I would have named the pub,” I said. “McPhee’s House of Horrors.”
Quin was looking to me, waiting.
“It could be a way out,” I admitted.
He sent Pascal to listen at the door to the hallway, and when the all-clear was passed back through to the bathroom, Quin steadied himself with a foot against the wall and pulled at the box of the medicine cabinet. It didn’t budge.
“Your nice jacket’s going to get torn,” Shanny said. “Can I hold it for you?”
“It’ll be fine,” Quin said, and gave another yank. He reset and tried again.
It didn’t move, but somewhere behind it, there’d been a tantalizing squawk of give. We could hear dust and powdered debris falling inside the wall.
“Third time’s a charm?” Oona said.
Quin leveraged himself again and pulled. I stood back and watched as his shoulders stretched his jacket taut and his neck turned red.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Lumpy Jim said. “He’s a young guy but—”
The cabinet came out with a wrenching of metal. Quin hurtled backward into me and we crashed just west of the toilet, landing between the commode and the wall.
There was fluttering and shushing at the noise. Someone lifted the cabinet away. Others helped Quin to his feet and off me.
“Sorry,” Quin said, his face still red.
“I can’t believe you touched that floor with your skin, man,” Lourey said, lending a hand to help me up.
“Hey,” Pascal called from the door. “I clean that floor.”
We’d broken the toilet seat.
“Are you okay?” Quin said.
I dusted myself off, noticing Quin had received the worst of things. He was covered in filth, jacket torn. The white cuff of his sleeve—
“Is that blood?”
The word sent a ripple through the crowd at the door. “The mirror,” Quin said dismissively. “It’s just a scratch.”
In such close quarters to Quin, I picked up the same scent I’d caught from Alex that night in the alley. Masculine. “That doesn’t seem like a scratch.”
He looked down at me. “I’m fine, really.”
“Guys,” Rooster said.
We looked over to see that our exertions had put a hole in the wall. A square once filled by the medicine cabinet now framed a section of wall guts—plaster, strips of wooden lath. But it was shallow.
My heart sank as we all stared at it.
“What happened?” Pascal hissed from back in the next room, where he was keeping watch at the hall door. “I can’t tell.”
I got up and pushed at the plaster.
“What’s on the other side of the wall?” Quin asked.
I was trying to picture it. “The alcove? The storage locker under the stairs, probably.”
Quin reached for the towel bar mounted to the bathroom wall. He gripped the bar with both hands, and pulled.
“What are you doing? You don’t have to openly destroy— Oh.”
He used the bar to poke at the plaster in the opening. “Stand back,” he said, squaring up to it like an all-star.
“They made ’em sturdy back in the day,” Lumpy Jim warned.
But Quin was already swinging the bar at the plaster. Bits sprayed out at us and crumbled loose. He reared back, tried again. Powder in the air, rubble and dust. A chunk of the wooden lath broke free and fell. And fell.
“Wait,” I said.
I held up my hand against another swing and leaned over the sink to peer down into the opening. “It’s shallow but it’s open below.”
“What’s down there?” Quin said. “Do you have a cellar?”
“No,” I said, but then remembered the hole in the excavation next door, the straight edge of something like a table where there shouldn’t have been anything at all. “Maybe.”
“Get someone through there and get us out,” Marisa said. “You can’t break through the wall. They’ll hear you.”
“She’s right,” Quin said. “Breaking through isn’t going to work. But down—”
My gut gave a lurch. “We can’t just drop people into a hole,” I said.
Quin seemed to be making calculations. “I’d go,” he said. “But I think I should be last. In case…”
In case his friends came back?
“No offense, dude,” Lourey said, “but would you even fit through there?”
“Your, um, shoulders,” Shanny said, blushing
They were right. The dimensions of the opening were slim, plus there was no telling how far the plummet would be. Eight feet? Ten? Enough to break an ankle. Enough to crack a skull.
“How far down is it?” Suzy said.
Quin stuck the towel bar down through the opening, up to his shoulder, and swept his arm around.
“I’m not hitting anything.” He looked at me.
“Do it,” I said.
“They’ll hear,” Marisa whimpered.
The bar thudded distantly below.
“It’s not cement down there, at least,” Lumpy Jim said. “Wood floor, maybe. Or dirt. How old is the building?”
“Have you not been paying attention?” Shanny said. “Capone old.”
“Older than that,” I said.
“Is there a way out from down there?” Quin said.
“Would we be any worse off?” Marisa said. “We’re just sitting ducks here.”
“Calm down, Marisa,” I said.
“They already had me tied up for four days,” she said while Sicily held on to her. “I can’t just sit here and wait calmly for men with guns to return. Sis and I will go.”
No offense, but I’d seen her try to get through the tiny door between closets upstairs, and I didn’t like her chances. Sicily, on the other hand, had the right body type to slip between walls.
I ignored Marisa’s offer as Shanny, Suzy, and Oona turned their powers of serenity upon her, cooing and plying her with gentle touches I was pretty sure she didn’t deserve. But at least she stopped freaking out.
“Doll?” Quin said. “Is there a way out? You’re the expert.”
“I don’t know. Worst-case scenario—”
“Sure, go ahead and start with worst case,” Lourey said.
Pascal was suddenly standing at my shoulder. “I’ll go, Doll.”
I looked over to see who’d taken duty listening at the hall door. Rooster had joined Lumpy Jim on guard and sent me a thumbs-up.
I didn’t feel thumbs-up about this plan.
Pascal was a small guy, narrow shoulders—and could carry his own body weight in dirty dishes. If there was something to dangle from, he could do it.
But I was frozen in indecision. Leader of the band, but I couldn’t send anyone into the unknown. The dark unknown I was pretty sure I would never be able to drop into myself.
I looked to Quin.
“Yes, good,” Quin said. “Pascal, right? Thanks, buddy. I’ll give you a leg up.”
I didn’t know why I was yielding leadership to this guy, this guy I didn’t even completely trust. It was too late. Pascal had climbed up into the sink and was straddling the wall, one leg in darkness.
What if he got stuck down there? What if he fell? “Pascal, please be careful,” I said. “We need you. I really want that carne asada.”
He grinned shyly, then wedged into the opening, wiggling through a tight section and lowering himself down.
He held himself with both elbows, then dropped further, clutching the wooden frame with both hands, brown knuckles gone pale.
Debris rained down from the plaster, and then one hand disappeared.
As my heart rose in my throat, the other let go.
“Pascal?” I called hoarsely into the cavity. “Are you okay?”
But Pascal didn’t answer. “Maybe he’s concentrating,” Quin said.
“Pascal?” I hissed, gripping the sink’s edge.