Come Back to Me by Jody Hedlund

~ 7 ~

“THECATHEDRALCONSTABLE won’t be able to stall our stalker for very long.” Harrison glanced over his shoulder toward the entrance. With the permanent ramp at the north door, the crypt was handicap accessible—a positive facet of their investigation of Our Lady under the cathedral.

The negative was that their stalker might suspect they were looking for something in the crypt and try to interfere—or steal whatever information they found. If they found something, and Marian fervently prayed they would.

They’d been followed almost from the moment they’d pulled out of Chesterfield Park. It only confirmed that Dad had truly been on to something important, perhaps even world-changing.

“We need to hurry.” She strode the rest of the way down the ramp around Harrison and an older couple ambling slowly along. Drake followed closely after her, his steps echoing ominously.

Even though column F wasn’t labeled as such, she’d studied the crypt diagram and had nearly memorized the floor plan on the ride over. She headed directly to it and found the carving of the man with the tongue sticking out just the way it had been drawn on the page from Archaeologia Cantiana.

With brightly lit candelabra lamps hanging from the arched ceiling throughout, she had no trouble seeing the details of the carving. She rose onto her toes and ran a hand across the sculpture. Rough edges mingled with stone that had been worn over the centuries.

Think, Marian. Think, she silently chided herself. Why the man with the tongue? Tongues help with talking, chewing, swallowing, and tasting.

Maybe the clue had to do with the eyes. She poked the raised circles, ran her fingers across the eyebrows, down the beard, over the curled hair. Her mind raced with medical facts about each one. But nothing gave her any hints about why Dad had singled out this column with this particular architectural capital.

She glanced at the ramp that led back to the entrance. Their stalker would be in the crypt any second. She had to figure out the answer now.

Why had Dad left the information about the crypt? Why the cathedral? Because it was one of the few landmarks in Canterbury that had managed to exist from the past to the present? When so many other medieval structures had been destroyed by man, fire, or rot, this cathedral, this crypt, these columns, this capital had stood the test of time to endure.

“Maybe he’s sending a message.” If he wanted to communicate from the past to the present, he’d leave a note in a place that existed in both eras. If no one had discovered and removed his message over the centuries, it would be hundreds of years old, perhaps disintegrated with age, depending upon what material he used. Nevertheless, she needed to locate it. Quickly.

Communication. Mouth.

She skimmed the sculpture’s mouth and tongue, then prodded and poked at it. It wiggled, but only slightly. There had to be a secret hiding place somewhere, even if only a tiny one to fit a slip of parchment. She pulled harder, and it moved again, but not fast enough.

“Drake,” she hissed over her shoulder. “Help me move the carving.”

Harrison’s butler cast a frown toward the crypt entrance before reaching up and taking hold of the tongue. He wrestled with the carving for several moments before the stone groaned and the whole head began to slide forward like a drawer away from the pillar until it came off altogether, revealing a space about three inches wide by two inches high—bigger than she’d anticipated.

A tiny thrill whispered through her. How had her dad known this hiding place existed? For a second, she allowed herself to admire his exceptional intelligence in a way she hadn’t in a long time. But at a commotion in the entrance hall, she reached up and tugged loose the objects inside—two ampullae and an old watch.

The cathedral security man wouldn’t be able to detain their stalker for long—though Harrison had slipped him cash to try.

“Quick put the head back.” Even before the words left her mouth, Drake was already fitting the sculpture into its original place.

Heart hammering, she stuffed the findings into her purse and hurried away from column F toward Harrison, who was peering into St. Gabriel’s Chapel and studying the bright fresco painted on the walls.

She barely reached him when a man stalked down the ramp. His gaze shot around until it landed upon Harrison and her.

In several long strides, Drake crossed to her and put a hand on her elbow in a protective gesture while at the same time sending a warning look toward the newcomer.

“Did you get the clue?” Harrison powered his chair toward the next exhibit.

“Yes.” As much as she wanted to peek into her purse and examine the articles, she resisted the urge.

“Good on you.”

She slowed her steps to accommodate him, even though everything within her wanted to flee out of the crypt to the waiting Bentley, especially as the stalker began to wind toward them through the columns. Surely he wouldn’t confront them with so many people around. Likely he was just keeping tabs and waiting for them to reveal something important.

The man didn’t appear familiar. In a black leather jacket and dark jeans, he was shorter and stockier than the person who’d attacked her outside the bank. Were both working for Lionel Inc.? Or were multiple companies trying to get their hands on Dad’s information?

“Act like a tourist so he doesn’t suspect you’ve found something already,” Harrison whispered with a forced smile. “Take some snaps with your mobile.”

She feigned interest in the Jesus Chapel at the eastern part of the crypt and began taking pictures like other visitors of the vaulted ceiling with its intricate decorations.

As Harrison stopped to examine artifacts, she responded with what she hoped was the appropriate enthusiasm. But with every step she took—even with Drake by her side—she could sense the stalker behind them, watching their every move.

With the man following them, would she have to forgo seeing the Miracle Windows up above in Trinity Chapel at the very front of the cathedral? The exquisitely beautiful stained glass had been created in the late twelfth century and told stories of people who’d been healed by drinking the holy water at Canterbury Cathedral.

She’d once believed people in the Middle Ages had contrived such tales to entertain themselves. Like the one about Adam the Forester, who’d been shot in the neck by a poacher trying to steal a deer from the king’s forest. The first scene in the stained glass depicted Adam with the arrow sticking out of his neck. In the next scene, Adam was lying in bed drinking holy water containing Becket’s blood. In the concluding roundel, Adam stood healed, giving his thanks at Becket’s tomb.

Now after everything she’d learned from her dad’s research, she was anxious to see the stained glass windows again—windows that immortalized the healing quality of the holy water. Did they testify to the power of the ultimate cure more than anyone truly understood?

They worked their way around the crypt only to find that the stalker had positioned himself near the ramp, blocking their exit. Did he suspect she had items in her purse and intend to grab it again?

“How are we going to get out of here?” she whispered.

“Bojing is pulling up.” Harrison and Drake exchanged a look filled with a gravity that sent a chill through Marian. “Get on to the nave and exit through the door in the southwest transept.”

They were standing in front of the stairway that led up to the main floor of the cathedral. “I’m not leaving you down here by yourself.”

“Once you head up, I’m quite certain the unwelcome riffraff will abandon his post. And I’ll be out in a jiffy.”

Because the stalker would be pursuing her. She tried not to shudder at the thought.

“Marian love, promise you’ll go directly out?”

She cut him off with a curt nod. “I’ll do it, so long as you promise you’ll get out safely.”

“I’ll manage fine.” Harrison squeezed her hand. “Now go.”

She didn’t waste any more time with platitudes or assessing the plan. The fact was, her dad was risking his life for this venture, and now she needed to do her part.

Swallowing her trepidation, she lunged up the steps, taking them two at a time with Drake’s footsteps clamping behind her. When she reached the top, she didn’t pause but dodged sightseers, darted past tour guides, and dashed across the nave toward the outer door, the exit sign guiding her.

A shout echoed through the lofty openness of the cathedral. She glanced behind Drake to see the stalker in the black leather jacket along with another man. They’d spotted her and Drake and were starting after them.

Even though the grandeur and majesty of the ancient church always astounded her, she couldn’t stop to take it in. Her heart thudded a warning that she had to keep going, that her dad’s research was at stake.

The sharp popping of gunfire echoed in the air. Why were her stalkers shooting? To intimidate her into stopping? Clearly they didn’t want her to leave without the chance to confront her.

Her body tensed. Any second she might feel the stinging bite of a bullet entering her back. But she ducked her head and kept running. Her footsteps slapped hard against the tile. Her breathing grew more ragged.

An ancient-looking door loomed ahead. She was almost there.

More shots rang out.

She cringed and hunkered lower. With a final burst of energy, she threw open the door. Late-day sunlight blinded her for only a second before she caught sight of the Bentley waiting at the curb, the door open, Bojing sitting in the front seat, hands already tightly gripping the wheel.

“Faster!” Drake’s voice called out behind her, and she found herself being swept along with his hunched frame shielding her. When they reached the car, he none-too-gently threw her inside before lunging in and slamming the door behind him.

Bojing stomped on the gas, and the tires pealed as he raced away. Several bullets pinged against the car. One hit the back window, cracking the glass and leaving a shattered web.

Drake yanked her down and covered her body with his.

The car careened back and forth at top speed, and Marian struggled to hang on to the seat and not slide onto the floor. A few moments later, when the Bentley steadied, Drake cautiously lifted himself and peered out the back window. She raised her head and began to sit up, but he pushed her back down. “Stay low.”

Something dripped onto the seat by her face. At first, against the black leather, she couldn’t tell what it was. But then she rose to her elbows and examined Drake, taking in the bright crimson darkening his coat sleeve. “You’ve been shot.”

He watched out the back window, his face a mask of determination. “Just a surface wound, miss. Nothin’ to be fretting about.”

The bullet could have killed Drake. Or her. At the thought, her blood turned to ice, and her breath froze in her chest. Suddenly, she wished she wasn’t in Canterbury and was instead home in Connecticut, safe in her lab, doing her work in isolation and oblivion.

What had she gotten herself into?

She tried to gasp in a breath. But the car jerked again. “Hold tight!” Bojing shouted in a clipped Asian accent. “We’ve got company!” Beneath her, she could feel the car accelerating, swaying back and forth as Bojing took one turn after another at death-defying speeds. As with when he’d helped her escape the thief outside the bank, she didn’t know how he could see out the front windshield, much less maneuver the car so swiftly. But he seemed to know what he was doing. Or at least she prayed he did.

She finally peeked up to find that they were flying down a country road. “Aren’t we planning to get Harrison?”

Neither Drake nor Bojing answered.

Dread pooled in her stomach. “Please tell me another driver picked him up at the crypt. Or that he’s catching a cab.”

Drake stared straight ahead, his face pale and taut. Bojing shook his head.

She leaned back, fighting a wave of panic. “Did something happen to him?”

Bojing glanced at his side mirror. “I had to circle around for a few minutes to get them off my tail. By the time I made it back to the north entrance, I didn’t see him there. Only his wheelchair.”

“Oh no! Do you think they kidnapped him?”

“Looks like it.”

She drew in a sharp breath, her lungs suddenly tight with the need to weep.

The gates of Chesterfield Park loomed ahead. They were already open, and the instant Bojing crossed through them, they began to swing shut.

As they closed with a resounding clang, she had the desperate urge to turn around. How could she hide inside when Harrison was in danger?

She raked her gaze from Bojing to Drake and back as the car halted in front of the manor entrance. “You need to go back and look for him.”

Drake opened the door, winced, then stepped out and began to round the car.

“We can’t leave him at the mercy of those people,” she said loudly enough for both men to hear.

Her door jerked open, and Drake reached for her.

“We have to do something.” She held herself back. “We can’t just let them take Harrison.” But what could they do except call the police and report the incident? Hopefully, the cathedral constable had already done so.

“Miss.” Drake’s tone was gentle. “Lord Burlington made us promise we’d bring you here straightaway. Those were his wishes.”

She swallowed her rebuttal at the image of Harrison powering up the crypt ramp, knowing full well he’d put himself at the mercy of dangerous thugs. She sagged against the seat. Oh, Harrison. What have you done?

This time as Drake made an effort to help her out of the car, she didn’t resist. She went with him numbly, mutely, and trembling with each step.

“Not to worry, miss.” Drake paused inside the front entry room. “They might bully the lord up a bit. But they wouldn’t dare hurt him in a bad way, eh. Not Lord Burlington.”

She managed a slight nod before stumbling forward. Although Drake meant his words as reassurance, they only stirred her fear.

One thing was certain. She could no longer doubt her dad or his theories. And she was sorry she ever had.