He agreed with this plan. It wasn’t the fastest or most comfortable way to move, and was especially hard on the palms and knees, but it seemed the safest.

Before long, we realized that the space we were in was long and relatively narrow, and its walls as well as its floor seemed to be made of concrete. The utter darkness made it hard to be sure of much, though. We decided to stay along one of the walls, thinking we’d eventually come to some kind of opening or stairway. I took the position along the wall, since Max seemed to be having difficulty keeping his balance.

We came to a turning and moved to our right.

A glimmer of light came from some distant source, and we could hear the sea. The dampness increased, but the air was fresher. I felt wisps of my hair brushing against my face with a breeze. I could hear sounds of surf and wind.

This cheered me immeasurably. It also relieved some of the disorientation I had been feeling in the pitch darkness of before. And where light could get in, maybe we could get out.

It suddenly occurred to me where we were. “The bootlegger’s tunnel.”

“What?”

I told him what O’Connor had told me about the passageways.

“Then this leads to the house or the beach, right?” he asked.

“My guess is, we’re nearer the beach right now. Let’s try to stand.”

We traded places so that he could lean his right hand against the wall. We took careful, shuffling steps forward. Eventually, I felt a change in the surface under my shoes. We were still walking on concrete, but there was something gritty on it-sand. The air continued to grow cooler and fresher.

We reached the end of the passageway. The light turned out to be moonlight, coming in through chinks in an opening sealed with a thick, iron-plated double-door. On our side, a wide iron bar secured with heavy padlocks held the doors shut. The other side of the doors seemed to be covered with a thick lacing of bougainvillea vines. The wind caused the bougainvillea’s sharp, needle-like thorns to scrape against the metal doors as if it wanted to come in out of the weather. We tried dislodging the bar, to no avail. We pushed against each of the doors. They didn’t budge. We called out again, but I could tell that no one was nearby.

Max sat down, leaning his back against one of the walls.

“Let me rest a little,” he said. “Then I’ll try to think of something.”

I felt around the hinges, which were on our side of the doors, but they seemed rusted in place. Next I looked at the bottom edge.

To my delight, the concrete floor came to an end five inches or so before it met the doors. I began to claw at the sand with my hands.

“What are you doing?” Max asked, coming closer to see. “We can’t fit between the doors and the concrete.”

“No, but I think I could get an arm out, and maybe wave something to attract attention. Plus, it might give us more light and air.”

“Or a better chance to be heard,” he said. “Let me help.”

He lasted five minutes before he passed out cold again.

48

F ORTY MINUTES AFTER THEY HAD DISCOVERED THE ROOM WITH THE bloodstains, Lefebvre and the rest of the LPPD were making every effort to find Max and Irene. O’Connor tried-and failed-to comfort himself with that thought.

The “be on the lookout” order for what Lefebvre had since admitted to him was Eric Yeager’s black BMW had been expanded to all local jurisdictions-an all-points bulletin saying that Eric and Ian Yeager were wanted for questioning in connection with an assault and kidnapping.

The crime lab team was at work on the shoe print, bloodstains, latent prints, and other forms of evidence from the scene.

Matt Arden was on his way, with another detective, to talk to Mitch Yeager. When O’Connor asked Lefebvre if Arden would have the balls to pressure Yeager, Lefebvre laughed. “Matt? He’s wanted to have a go at Yeager for a long time now.”

“Why?”

“You think you’re the only one who believes Mr. Yeager isn’t as respectable as he’d like everyone to believe? Besides, Eric and Ian have been thumbing their noses at the department for years. Skating just so close, just managing to keep clear of an arrest.”

“Paid-off witnesses and the like. No need to tell me.”

“You can trust Matt. He’s good at interrogation, you know.”

“I hear you’re better.”

“I learned from him, that’s all.” One of the uniformed officers came up to him just then and said that Haycroft from the lab wanted to show them something in the basement. “Do you know Paul Haycroft?” Lefebvre asked O’Connor. “He does excellent work with blood spatter patterns.”

Haycroft theorized that one of the victims had received a blow from behind in the room upstairs and had fallen forward and injured his face. “A guess based on the cast-off blood on the walls and on the ceiling by the door, and from some of the staining on the floor. At least one of your attackers will have flecks of the victim’s blood on his clothing. I’ll want to study it more carefully, but I can’t immediately see signs of more than one person being attacked in that way.”

“Probably Max,” O’Connor said. “He was here before Irene arrived.”

“Yes,” Haycroft said. “It’s possible she found him after he was injured and used the jacket to stop the bleeding-the pattern of staining on the jacket indicates it was bunched up and held to a wound. The stains are on the outside, not on the lining. If she was wearing it and had been, say, stabbed or shot, the wound would bleed from the lining to the outside. And the staining is not consistent with, say, a wound to the head bleeding down onto the collar and back.”

Seeing O’Connor’s relief, he added, “I’ll know more when we do more tests, but Ms. Kelly’s father told us that her blood type is A, and all we have found so far is type O. According to Lillian Linworth, that’s Mr. Ducane’s blood type. The bleeding had nearly stopped by the time the victim was carried down the hallway and stairs. But what I want to show you, Detective, are small spots on the stairs leading to the basement.”

In the basement, the spots of blood ended at the bottom of the stairs. O’Connor began to explore, looking carefully at the walls, which were covered with cheap paneling.

“What are you looking for?” Lefebvre asked.

“This is the bootlegger’s house, remember? Somewhere along here, we might find an entrance to a passageway.”

“Why would it be hidden? I thought the locals claimed to have legitimate uses for those tunnels to the sea.”

“Most of the owners sealed them off years ago-in the early 1960s, a gang of thieves figured out that the passageways allowed easy access to and from some of the wealthiest households in Las Piernas. That and the possibility of homeless people camping in them put an end to most of the tunnels.”

“But if the entrance was used this evening, we should see signs of it, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. Or maybe they took the time to seal it up again.”

Together they knocked on the walls, listening for some sign of a hollow space behind them.

A uniformed officer came down the basement stairs and drew Lefebvre aside. Lefebvre spoke briefly with him, then the officer hurried back upstairs.

“What was that all about?” O’Connor asked.

“They’ve taken the Yeager brothers into custody.”

“Have they said anything about Max and Irene?”

“So far, no. They were apprehended at LAX. They’re being brought back here, with their car. Let’s keep looking.”

They looked beyond the finished area of the basement. O’Connor searched through the storage room, but the walls in it and the laundry room were unfinished. Lefebvre had just followed O’Connor to the laundry room- which held an old washer and dryer, a large water heater cabinet, and a fold- down ironing board-when something occurred to him.