She took off running, and from the sound of her breathing he could tell she had made it to the bottom of the shaft. He turned to check on her, and in that split second, Willoughby rose and went for Jerry like a steam engine, bowling him onto his back, closer to the shaft. His hands closed around Jerry’s throat, and his knees slammed down onto Jerry’s wrists, freeing his gun. It all happened so fast. Jerry was aware of the pressure, of the thumbs cutting into his neck, and he gasped for breath, struggling against Willoughby’s hands as spots began to appear in his vision. Then all at once the weight was gone, and Jerry gasped in air.
Wheezing, he staggered to his feet. John had drawn Willoughby deeper into the tunnel, toward the storage room, where he’d be trapped. The two big men were tussling over a gun, the meaty sound of fists on flesh traveling through the earthen walls. Jerry blinked to clear the lingering spots in his vision and found his gun, lying a few feet from where he’d fallen. He scooped it up, but before he could aim, a gunshot cracked through the air.
For a moment, neither Willoughby nor John moved. Then John looked down, an expression of disbelief on his face, and Jerry saw the bloom of blood that was opening fast on his brother’s chest.
A second later, John locked eyes with Jerry. And he smiled.
And Jerry suddenly knew exactly what his brother was going to do.
“No!” he screamed.
Willoughby spun back toward Jerry, his gun pointed directly at hischest. He wouldn’t have missed this time, but John changed all that. With a triumphant shout, he grabbed the beam that connected most of the ceiling—the one he had warned Adele never to touch—and using all his might, he hauled it down. There was a hideouscrack!like frozen river ice breaking apart. Before Willoughby could even think of pulling the trigger, the world collapsed in a roar, dousing the lights, and throwing Jerry back into the tunnels of Belgium. Except this time the earth didn’t fall on him. It thundered down in a solid wall, knocking him back under the shaft and choking him with dust, but letting him walk free.
John had made sure Jerry was clear before he’d done the unthinkable.
Darkness.
Silence, broken only by a loose rock trickling down the devastation and Jerry’s thundering pulse.
“John,” he whispered into the blackness. No one answered.
Struggling to breathe, Jerry stood and reached out both arms to brace himself between the walls, knowing the paths he and John had dug, side by side, brother by brother. He took only three steps before his boot hit a solid wall of dirt. He could go no farther. Thirty feet of earth had crushed the tunnel, the storage room, and the two men within.
“John!” he cried desperately, but there was never a chance he’d hear his brother’s voice again. “John!”
On his hands and knees, he began to dig, sobbing as he clawed through the dirt. His hands were useless against the infinite earth. A thousand shovels could not have reached John in time. But how could Jerry stop? How could he let his brother go?
The earth had finally come down. It hadn’t taken a hundred thousand boots after all. Just one brave man and a promise to keep his brother safe.
epilogueCASSIE
— Present Day —
From the corner of her eye, Cassie watched Matthew peer out the window of her car, looking intrigued but slightly uncomfortable, squeezed into her tiny Prelude. The sight made her smile.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked, not looking the least bit put off.
“It’s a surprise,” Cassie replied coyly.
“Haven’t we had enough surprises lately?” he teased, his brown eyes warm. “At least tell me that wherever we’re going there’s food.”
She nodded. “You won’t be disappointed, Mr. Flaherty.”
She’d decided to take him to the Dominion House Tavern for supper, to thank him for everything. Especially considering everything that had happened over the past few weeks. So really, to thank him and to celebrate. And as a Flaherty, she thought he’d appreciate the Irish pub, as well as the history behind it.
After discovering the skeleton buried in the sinkhole behind thebarn, Cassie had reached out to a professional team of archaeologists so they could excavate the site and confirm Cassie and Matthew’s suspicions that it could have been a tunnel or even a hidden storage room for the Bailey brothers. Mrs. Allen had been overwhelmed with excitement with everything that was happening, and Cassie had actually feared for her heart when Matthew suggested he would take time off his renovations so she could take what she wanted from the house and use it to expand on the museum’s Prohibition exhibit.
“You’ve been amazing about all this hassle,” Cassie said. “You haven’t had a day alone there since you found that skeleton. I bet you’re sorry.”
“Not at all. I told you that day you came to the house that I think history’s important to learn. Too many people thinking about the ‘now’ and not the ‘then.’ Plus it’s exciting. I never thought I’d be in the middle of an archaeological dig.”
“Well, thank you for not getting angry at me for hiding my connection to your house. I don’t know why I didn’t just say it up front.”
“You didn’t know me. I wouldn’t have expected you to tell me anything, so there’s no apology needed. Actually, it makes the house even more special, knowing that one of the owner’s descendants is literally walking in it.” His mouth twisted to the side a bit. “I should probably tell you something too, since we’re sharing family secrets. I told you that my dad and I used to work in construction. He’s the one who showed me the satisfaction that comes from rebuilding old houses. He’d love what I’m doing now. Anyway, a few months before he died, we had a fight over something stupid. I don’t even remember what it was anymore, but I reacted by leaving home without a word and heading to the oil rigs. After a while, I thought about coming back, tail tucked between my legs, but my pride got in the way.” His gaze travelled to the window. “I wasn’t there when he died. He never knew how sorry I was in the end.” He cleared his throat. “So there’s my guilty secret.”
Cassie kept her eyes straight ahead, trying to keep her expressionneutral. “I’m so sorry, Matthew.” How alone he must have felt. She knew that kind of loneliness. “I bet he knew you were sorry.”
“Maybe. My mom always said I got my stubbornness from him.”
