were cold, skin goose-pimpled. Unless the conditions changed significantly, there was no possibility that the painting was housed in the damp tunnels.
Her hard hat clanked against an elbow of pipe that jutted into the space. The farther they pressed into the chilled darkness, the more on edge she became. “How much farther?” she asked.
Lock stopped. “This is what I wanted you to see.” He pointed a gnarled finger ahead and eased back so Victor and Brooke could move closer.
Brooke found herself staring through an old rusted metal grate. She pressed a hand to the iron mesh. Beyond was a ruinous pile of twisted pipes and jagged blocks of concrete. It was completely impassable. The floor was obscured under several inches of murky water.
“Take a look at the padlock,” the dean said.
Victor fingered the heavy rusted piece. “Hasn’t been opened for a long time.”
“Since five years ago when the tunnel collapsed. Wouldn’t be any point in going in there anyway.”
Brooke suppressed a groan. She’d been so sure that the tunnels held the answers. Proof that the Tarkenton was real, that her father had found a treasure that would obliterate his rocky past and provide a secure future for her brother. In her mind it was a tunnel of light, of hope.
Ahead she saw only ruin.
Victor put a hand on hers, fingers warm against her cold skin. “We should go now.”
She nodded, unable to trust her voice.
Dean Lock squeezed past her. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Ramsey. It really would be incredible to think there was a buried treasure here, but as you can see it’s just not possible.”
The pity in his tone was worse than the disappointment stabbing through her. “Thank you anyway,” she forced herself to say. Chilled and numb with discouragement, she followed him on the way out.
Victor fell in behind her. “I’m…sorry,” he said.
Sorry that her father wouldn’t get a second chance? Or sorry that Victor had lost the chance to prove her father was a criminal like he’d always suspected? She did not want to find comfort in his large palm pressed to her back, but nonetheless she did. Must be the impenetrable darkness that made her feel so weak.
She willed her legs to move faster, to get out of that dank place so she could think, but she had no time to do so.
There was an audible snap.
Without warning the lights went out.
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