Page 40 of Wicked Obsession

If the vehicles hadn’t been disabled.

And since they’d left them parked outside in front of the garage, they no doubt had been tampered with, but he didn’t share that with Langley. Moving clothes aside, he worked his way to the closet wall. She’d played in the damn tunnels as a kid. That didn’t bode well for them being as secretas the ambassador had told him they were and that fucking damn well sucked.

The ornate gizmo he needed to press was hidden amid scores of other carvings. Every inch of the wood from knee-height to crown molding held something—a bird, a flower, a leaf—and it was repeated. Fourth row from the top, fifteenth flower in. Or was it fifth row?

Nothing.

He pressed the flower one row below as Langley came up beside him. “It’s fourth row from the bottom,” she told him softly. “The entire family needed to get out, if the need arose, and children can’t reach that high.”

She leaned past him and pressed a flower. Nothing happened for her either.

A sound reached his ears. It was barely a whisper, but his hand tightened around the pistol. They needed to hurry. He studied the wall near where Langley had pressed. There, in the row above her flower, was a lily that seemed out of alignment by a fraction. This time when he touched it, the wall slid silently open.

Grabbing Langley’s hand, Ryder pulled her into the tunnel. The control to manipulate the door was obvious on this side and he hurriedly rearranged the hangers before using it. The panel seemed to shut painfully, slowly.

The sound of the closet door opening came asthe entrance closed with a barely-audible thud. The darkness was absolute.

Langley leaned into his side as they listened to someone search the closet. He should put her away from him, but he couldn’t make himself do it. What Ryder wanted to do was wrap his arm around her, to give her whatever comfort he could, but he remained ready, his attention focused on where they’d entered. He held the pistol in his right hand and the other held hers firmly.

It didn’t take long before he heard someone say, “Clear.”

Ryder didn’t move, and his hand tightened around Langley’s when she began to stir. He didn’t know if the man was talking into a headset or if he had a partner with him, and it didn’t matter. They were waiting before they did anything that might make noise.

When he felt comfortable that the search for them really had moved on, Ryder released Langley and reached for his phone. The light from the screen seemed bright after the dark, but it wasn’t enough illumination. He turned on the flashlight and moved the light around, trying to get a better idea of the tunnels.

Cobwebs were thick between the wood of the ceiling and the dark wooden walls, particularly in the corners. He felt Langley shudder but ignored it. Spiders were the least of their worries. The floors werealso wood and about fifteen feet away there was a set of spiral stairs that he thought would take them to ground level. Everything was covered in a thick coating of dust and that was a good sign. It meant that the household staff didn’t come in here to clean.

It meant the tunnels might actually be secret.

Gesturing with the light, Ryder indicated she should take the stairs. Langley didn’t move. He repeated the motion, more insistently this time.

She turned to scowl up at him and then using her thighs to hold one of the jackets, she donned the other, a raincoat, and pulled the hood over her head. With the other jacket draped over her arm again, she moved carefully toward the stairway.

After about four steps down, she stopped.

“Why aren’t you moving?” He kept his voice quiet, but he was pretty sure Langley would pick up on the fact he was getting pissed at her.

“Because I can’t see where I’m going and the spiral of the staircase is tight. Aren’t we in enough trouble without my falling?”

Yeah. It was dark and she was out of the pool of light his phone’s flashlight was emitting. Still, he was irritated. “I’ll give you the phone so you can have the light. Be careful with it.”

“I’m going to ignore your tone,” she said.

Ryder’s jaw clenched at how painfully polite she sounded and handed her his mobile. Shethrust the leather jacket at him. Scowling, he shrugged it on, repositioned his pack and said, “Move.”

Hanging on to his phone with one hand and the bannister with the other, Langley slowly descended. Impatience made him tense, and he struggled to keep his mouth shut. The staircase was steep, the spiral was tight, and her legs were in rough shape, but damn it, he wanted to tell her to hurry the fuck up.

About six million years later, they reached the ground floor. She stayed at the foot of the stairs, and with his voice soft and carefully neutral, Ryder said, “Can you please take another step forward so I can reach the floor too?”

She did, but quickly jumped backward, slamming into his chest.

“What? What’s wrong?” He didn’t see any threat.

“Mouse,” she whispered.

“For fuck’s sake, Langley, it’s more afraid of you than you are of it.”

“It startled me. I apologize for reacting to the unanticipated motion.” She enunciated each word with perfect diction.

---