Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 53450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
When Sammi was out of sight, another light came on. Thank God.
“Let’s go,” her friend encouraged.
Juniper took a deep breath and lowered herself onto the ladder behind Sammi. Her father would be furious if he found out about this. It probably wasn’t safe.
“Few people know this is even here,” Sammi told her as she dropped to the floor. “That’s what makes it so fun. These tunnels are all over the place under the resort. I bet they’re like a hundred years old.”
“Where do they lead?” Juniper asked.
“Off the property. They must have been built so the original owners could escape if they ever needed to.”
“Escape what?” Juniper asked.
Sammi shrugged. “How should I know? It was a long time ago.”
“Are there mice or bugs down here?” Juniper asked.
“Maybe. I haven’t seen any. Are you scared?” she taunted.
“No, of course not.” Juniper rubbed her arms.
“Follow me.”
Juniper rushed along behind her friend, who occasionally stopped to flip another light switch. Raw bulbs hung from the ceiling every few yards. They were dusty, but luckily, they worked. She couldn’t imagine how old the tunnels were, but someone had added electricity at some point. The wires were tacked to the ceiling.
They walked for some distance before Sammi came to a sudden stop.
Juniper ran into the back of her.
Sammi twisted her head around and held a finger to her lips. “Shh.” When she turned back to face forward, she craned her ear.
Had she heard something? Juniper’s heart raced as she, too, listened.
There. Voices. She couldn’t make them out, but there were definitely men somewhere, having a heated discussion.
Sammi inched forward.
“Sammi,” Juniper hissed. This was a really bad idea. They might get caught.
Sammi kept going, slowly making her way farther down the tunnel.
Juniper followed her, scared out of her mind as the voices got louder and louder. She was in a near panic when Sammi stopped, tipped her head back, and looked at the ceiling. “Look,” she whispered.
Juniper leaned back, too. She noticed another ladder like the one they’d come down in the dark corner. There was another hatch at the top of it. The voices were coming from above.
Relieved, Juniper let her shoulders lower. No one had found them. It was just that they were directly beneath another entrance to the tunnel. Whoever was above probably had no idea they were standing on or near a secret passage.
“Is that your dad?” Sammi asked softly.
Juniper listened again. It was. Both girls looked at each other when they realized the man Juniper’s father was speaking to was Sammi’s father, Vincent Markham.
“My wife doesn’t like them. They give her a bad vibe.”
“They give her a bad vibe?” Juniper’s father chuckled. “Then let’s start meeting in one of the rooms under the resort.”
“Not a bad idea.”
Juniper shrugged toward her friend as they took off to explore another section of the tunnels.
Magnus shook his Little girl, trying to wake her up. He didn’t want to scare her, but she was having a very disturbing dream that was making her restless and jerky.
“Juni… Little girl… Wake up, Juni.”
Finally, she opened her eyes and gasped. She sat up so fast it surprised him.
He sat up next to her and pulled her into his arms. She was trembling badly and whimpering even now that she was awake. “You had a bad dream, Little girl.” He rubbed her back.
She sat rigidly as if she wasn’t fully awake yet or maybe didn’t know where she was.
“Juni, it’s me. Daddy. You’re okay. It was just a dream.”
Suddenly, she jerked her gaze to his, far more lucid than he’d thought. “I know where the money is.”
Chapter Eleven
Magnus paced the bedroom, rubbing his forehead. He needed to think.
Juniper had just told him about the secret passages under this resort she’d explored as a child. He was still processing everything and wondering if it was even possible.
How could there be tunnels underneath Danger Bluff that no one knew about? Kingsley hadn’t mentioned anything like that. They certainly weren’t on any of the blueprints or schematics. Not even the old ones he and his teammates had scoured over dozens of times.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her. She’d obviously spent countless hours playing in the tunnels. Enough time that she assured him she could still make her way off this property without issue from any of a number of rooms on the first floor.
Besides the library, she’d told him of a passage in the laundry room, the back of the kitchen, behind one of the stairwells, and the janitor’s closet.
The story was unbelievable and fascinating.
“I can show you where they all are,” she told him, rising onto her knees on the bed. “When you saw me in the library this morning, I wasn’t really reminiscing about the dollhouse. I was checking to see if the lever was still on the windowsill. It’s painted over, but I think it will still work.”