Page 80 of The Vigilante's Lover
Does that mean Aunt Bea was a Vigilante?
I don’t have time to think about this. Maybe the answer is under that hatch.
I go back around to the back side. The way it opens, it creates a little space that is easy to defend.
Interesting.
I shine the light inside. There are only a few shallow steps. I kneel as far as I can in the cramped space, my feet against the back wall of the pantry, so I can peer into the hole before actually going down.
Four metal steps lead into a small crawl space. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t go anywhere else. A few shelves are lined with black boxes.
I take a deep breath and shift around so my feet are on the stairs. I bump down, one step at a time, until I’m sitting on the bottom one.
I look up. If the hatch came down, would I be able to lift it back? Would I be trapped?
This idea terrifies me, so rather than looking around, I grab the closest box and bring it up the stairs. In two seconds, I’m out of the pantry and back at the kitchen table, my lungs sucking in and out like I’ve just come up for air.
Be brave, I scold myself. But I decide I’m not going back down there without at least a cell so I can call someone if I’m trapped. I dash to the living room for my phone.
I tuck it in my pocket and head back to the kitchen.
The box looks insidious on my table, black and out of place with thesunny yellow curtains and cheery bird wallpaper.
I approach it warily. I unlocked the hatch without anyone arriving to stop me. No alarms have gone off. Still, I’m quite sure in some silo somewhere, it’s been noted that I opened it. Though who knows? Maybe Jax disabled things when he was here. He surely didn’t want to be seen.
The box is about a foot wide and two feet long. It has normal metal latches, like a briefcase. I flip them open.
Inside I find several Band-Aid trackers like the one Jax put on my neck at the hotel. Five syringes, each marked with a different-colored band. And a few other strange objects I can’t identify, all small flesh-colored boxes, some on Velcro straps, others with adhesive backs. I pick one up. I can’t see anything from the outside.
I figure this must be a “captive” box, full of things to drug or track someone. I push it to the center of the table. Now for another one.
With the phone in my pocket, I feel more comfortable down in the hole. There are six other black boxes of varying sizes. I try to lift the biggest one, which is several feet long, but it’s too heavy. So I open it instead.
And back up immediately.
Guns. Huge black guns with triggers and strange ammunition in black cylinders. They are laid out in green foam that is carved to fit them.
I close the box with a slam. Weapons. There are weapons under my house.
Unease trickles through me. I don’t like knowing they are there.
I pick up the smallest box. Feeling creeped out by the guns, I take this one upstairs. Aunt Bea’s bright kitchen helps calm me. I need a little normal, as I realize all these things were below my feet the whole time. I’m itching to talk to a Vigilante again and find out what they know. Was my Aunt Bea really this person they called Georgiana Powers?
Maybe Klaus really was here. Maybe he really was killed here.
Maybe Aunt Bea wasn’t having strokes at all.
Maybe they killed her.
Now I can’t concentrate on the box at all. My mind is racing.
How would I find this out? How could I know?
My breath starts coming in fits and hitches. I have to calm down or I’m going to hyperventilate.
If they came for Aunt Bea, wouldn’t they come back for me? Who are these people? Why are they killing everyone?
I sink into a chair, every part of me trembling. I want Jax. I want him right now. But I don’t know how to get him.
