Mary jumped. “Someone’s upstairs. Do you think Jasmine made it home in this weather?”
Nick handed her the bag while he closed the lid to the trunk. “Want me to check it out?”
Mary shook her head. The lighter sound of a woman’s heels clicked toward the door to the kitchen. The door that led to the basement. “No, we need to hide. She’s headed this way.”
Nick bent to lift the trunk.
Mary’s hand on his arm stopped him. “No time. We have to hurry.”
Nick shoved the trunk against the shelf and used a discarded rag to brush at the dust on the trunk and floor in a weak attempt to hide their hand- and footprints.
Mary grabbed his hand. “No time, come on.”
“Where to?”
“Back to my cubby.” With nothing but Nick’s flashlight beam to guide her, Mary raced across the basement, trying not to make too much noise. She leaped over tools and dodged boxes making it to her cubby just as the kitchen door opened, lighting the dark stairs.
Nick bumped into her and flicked his flashlight off.
Mary fumbled in her pocket for her own penlight, but it wasn’t there. Then she remembered she’d left it on the lid of the trunk. It must have fallen in when they closed it in a hurry. She hadn’t turned it off.
Before the footsteps finished descending the steps, Mary pulled on the corner of the framed George Washington and ducked back inside the cubby, dragging Nick with her.
As soon as Nick made it through, she closed the door, hoping they hadn’t been seen or heard.
Mary reached over her head and pulled the string next to the lightbulb, plunging them into darkness. Scooting around Nick’s hulking frame, she pressed her ear to the door. “I can’t hear anything,” she whispered.
“Good. Maybe she didn’t see us.”
“We need to get out of here, just in case she goes over to the shop and sees that the security alarm has been disabled.” Mary left the tiny door and felt her way in the dark back toward the tunnel entrance. “Two break-ins in as many days will freak her out and have the police crawling all over the place.” Thank goodness they’d been wearing gloves. No fingerprints to trace back to them.
“Hold on just a minute.” Nick captured Mary’s hand. “I want to know what she’s looking for in the basement.”
“You want what?” Mary bit into her lower lip, her heart racing beneath her ribs. “We need to leave now.”
Nick gently squeezed her hand. “What reason could she have to come down to the basement right after getting back from Fairbanks? And in the dead of the night?”
“How do I know? I never have understood my stepmother.” Nor had she really tried. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that her father could love someone other than her mother. Selfish, she knew, but she couldn’t change the way she felt. “The only thing I know for certain is that she never wanted me in the house from the get-go.”
Nick dropped her hand and squatted onto his haunches. Pushing against the spring-loaded cubby door, he poked his head out.
Mary leaned over his shoulder and looked out as well.
Jasmine Claus had reached the bottom of the stairs, her hand holding a cell phone to her ear as she spoke in another language.
“Sounds Slavic,” Nick said.
“You speak Slavic?” Mary stared at the man inches from her. She knew nothing about him.
“A little Croatian. Not enough to converse.”
Jasmine ended the call, reached out and tripped the light switch, illuminating the interior of the basement.
Mary automatically backed into the cubby, the fear of discovery tingling down her spine. Though why she should be afraid of Jasmine, she didn’t know. She knew, deep down, she didn’t want to like the woman, mostly because she’d come between Mary and her father.
Jasmine, wearing heeled boots and a long red sweater dress, picked her way through the boxes and storage tubs just as Mary and Nick had a few minutes before.
Mary held her breath, hoping the woman didn’t see any footprints or traces of their earlier foray through the basement. And she hoped she wouldn’t find the?—
