Chapter 6 #3
Gail once again was left staring down at her phone, wondering if she had any way forward after all this.
There was. There had to be.
The thoughts rumbled again in her head. How the hell did she find her way back to Riley?
The pub wasn’t open for business when Riley knocked on the back door. It opened up, and there was the old man, looking at him in surprise. Riley just announced, “I’m heading back down again.” Derek looked around, but Riley added, “I don’t need anybody with me this time.”
“Well, I talked to Rory last night,” he shared. “He’s not sure he believes you about the dog …”
“That’s fine. I’m still going back down.”
“You seem to know what you’re up to,” Derek noted reluctantly.
“I do, unfortunately. Been around the block a little bit too often in this lovely world.”
“No, it’s not lovely,” he argued, his voice deep and pained. “That was Timmy’s world.”
Riley stared at Derek, as if searching to see the truth.
Derek added, “He made it through the night.”
“We’ll take it,” Riley stated immediately.
“Yes, we will.”
Derek let him inside and said, “If you’re not back in two hours—”
“Make that three,” he interjected, then disappeared into the tunnels.
Even though it was light outside, and early morning yet, no light was in the tunnels.
There was, however, a little easier lifting of the air, as if something had settled overnight.
He wasn’t sure how to explain that, but it was a palpable feeling.
As he walked forward, trying to figure out just what he was so insistent on finding, somehow putting it into words, he knew something was here, something was obvious, and yet he was struggling to find it.
He moved forward, silent yet swiftly, grateful that his leg was cooperating today, after complaining last night as he took off his prosthetic and hobbled around his room, looking for a better place to relax and to prop his leg.
His mom had called him multiple times, and, so far, he’d ignored her, asking his brother, Jeremy, to deal with it because of all the things already pressing on Riley.
He surely didn’t need Mom’s smothering on him too.
He’d sent her a text this morning saying he would stop by later today, if possible, and he hoped that would suffice, at least for the moment.
He was here for a job.
He was also here to sort out his life, and, to a certain extent, that would likely require a mother who was incredibly loving, but also incredibly overbearing and determined that he should do what was right.
Yet what was right for her or what was right for Riley?
He could easily sort that out, but Mom would not understand.
She was another who would never change, probably getting worse with age.
He moved swiftly, getting a much better lay of the land.
Even as he worked through the space, he realized that some of it was coming back to him much faster.
He smiled as he recognized a couple turns as he came upon them.
Miles of tunnels were under here. Most of what was open to the public were completely different from the miles hidden down here and boarded up.
But just because they were boarded up didn’t mean that they weren’t accessible by those who knew.
And that, of course, was the problem with this whole scenario.
Anybody who actually understood the miles of tunnels under here was totally capable of using them for whatever nefarious reasons they had in mind.
Riley had no clue who might be using them, but, over the years, he was sure many different factions were involved, between drug runners, kidnappers, murderers, and rapists.
Who knew what all went on down here? There was just no end to the potential unsavory uses of an interesting location that people could set up.
He’d meant it when he asked the guys about what they were doing down here.
He didn’t give a crap about gambling. He didn’t give a crap about anything else along that line, as long as they weren’t hurting anybody.
And, with those assurances, he had let them be, although he knew a couple of them would make sure he never gained any idea of what was really going on down here. Derek hadn’t seemed to care though.
It’s like the stuffing had gone out of him with the attack on his son, which was understandable when you realize the true cost of greed and the real cost of fighting for something that maybe you didn’t even want in the first place.
Riley kept moving through the area until he came to the one section where he thought he needed to make a turn.
He checked mentally, turned around ever-so-slightly, and saw the kid just standing there, looking at him.
He froze for a moment, nodded quietly, and asked Rory, “Were you ever going to say something?”
He shrugged. “I was just watching what you were doing.”
The fact that Rory had gotten the drop on him was more about Riley being unaware and more caught up in his surroundings.
“And besides,” Rory added, a sharpness in his tone, “the area down here is really easy to get turned around in.”
But Riley’s gaze didn’t leave the younger man’s face.
Finally Rory flushed and added, “I was just making sure that everything was okay.”
“Yeah, of course you were.”
Rory glared at him angrily. “Look. I didn’t say anything to you, but that doesn’t mean that I’m here to attack you or anything,” he muttered in disgust.
“Good thing.”
“Oh, why? Because you’re some sort of big badass or something?”
“No, but somebody did attack your cousin down here, and, for all we know, it was you. I mean, after all, you know these tunnels. And you make a point of sneaking up on people without saying anything.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with Timmy,” he snapped in alarm.
“Uh-huh.” He studied Rory’s face, hearing the shock in his voice and him being freaked out at the concept of Riley telling somebody about it. “I’ll talk with your uncle a little bit when I go back up.”
Rory stared at him and then shook his head. “If you’re going to do that, why would I even let you back up?”
“Ah, so here we go,” Riley noted, with a nod. “So, it’s really more about you being in control, is it?”
“No,” he stated, panic still in his gaze. “You’re the one who just threatened to tell my uncle about me.”
“And you’re the one who just made a threat about me maybe not making it back topside. So, I think we know perfectly well where we stand right now.”
“Yeah, we do,” Rory stated. The kid backed up ever-so-slightly. “Fine. I’ll just leave you down here, and I hope you rot in this godforsaken place. You can get lost, knocked into the water. Maybe you’ll drown too.”
“Yeah, just like your cousin did?”
He glared at him and repeated, “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Right,” Riley muttered, not letting him off the hook.
He just watched his behavior, looking for weaknesses.
He seemed affronted by the suggestion, but he’d also been sneaking around down here, making sure that whatever Riley was doing was something Rory was okay with.
“Makes me wonder if you guys have something a whole lot more than just gambling going on down here,” he shared, staring at him.
“If you’re going to start those kinds of accusations, believe me that I will get my uncle to make sure you don’t come down here at all.”
“He can’t stop me, but I can sure as hell open an investigation into the pub and the tunnels. Hell, I can open an investigation into all kinds of stuff,” he shared, studying Rory, wondering what would trigger him to either attack or to jump.
“So, I hear all your threats, but I’m here to counter your threats too,” Rory stated.
Riley shrugged. “So, either piss off and run back up and tell them that you’ve pissed me off to the extent that I’ll be calling the government and the local authorities about this or you can continue to tag along, trying to hide in the darkness.”
“You didn’t know I was here.”
“I knew somebody was there, I just didn’t know it was you,” he corrected, with a smile. “I figured it was you or Gerald.”
He stared at him and shook his head. “No way. There’s no way. You didn’t know, right?”
“Of course there’s no way. And I couldn’t possibly know,” he said sarcastically. “Because of course you’re such a good hunter that you’re down here all the time without anybody knowing, right? That’s a point of pride for you, isn’t it?”
Rory stared at him. “I don’t want to make no trouble for my uncle.”
“Right.” Riley didn’t believe him. “I’m just seeing self-preservation happening here right now. I’m not seeing anything at all about your uncle.”
Rory stared at him. “You weren’t this aggressive about everything yesterday.”
“Well, yesterday I didn’t have somebody trying to follow me in the catacombs, looking like he’s up to no good,” he pointed out. “I’m not down here for you. I’m down here for the dog, and, if you’re not okay with that, it’s definitely time for you to leave. I told you to stay back there.”
“Nobody tells me what to do,” he snapped.
“Right, in that case, I’ll just tell you again. You might as well go back to your uncle’s place, and you can tell him how you failed to keep track of me. Then I’ll talk to him when I get up there.”
“Yeah, what will you say then?”
“I’ll tell him that he shouldn’t send a boy to do a man’s job.”
Rory snorted. “Right, like you expect everybody else not to jump on that.”
“I suspected,” Riley conceded, “someone would follow me and that I would find out pretty damn fast because, the minute I came down here, I knew all of you guys would be notified. The question was, Who would come down here and cause me the most trouble and why?”
Rory looked at him oddly. “You sound awfully confident.”
“Yeah, I spent a lifetime in the military doing criminal investigations,” he shared. “There’s scabs and people like you all over the place—liars, cheaters, vagabonds.”
“I’m not a vagabond,” he declared.