They had little time to marvel, however. Just then, they heard a faint but clear voice somewhere in the distance.
“Help!” the voice called. “Please, help!”
“James,” Rose and Daniel exclaimed in unison. They moved closer to the edge and saw ripples in the water in a bend just outside of their view. Daniel could see a slope down which he felt that he could climb to help James. He wondered why James had not yet climbed out on his own. When he moved around the lip of the reservoir to get a better look at the boy, however, his worst fear was realized. James had been tied with something in water that was just below his head. And, from the looks of it, there was water slowly, but steadily, trickling into the pool that was to be James’s grave if they did not act quickly enough.
Daniel reflexively reached for his cape to leave at the entrance of the tunnel they would need to follow to exit the reservoir, but he had not yet put it on before they descended into the tunnels. He cursed silently, considering for a moment removing his shirt, propriety and scandal be damned. Then, he remembered that he had one other thing.
With a deep, uncertain breath, Daniel rushed back to the tunnel entrance where, thankfully, there was an unoccupied torch sconce.
“Rose,” Daniel said, before he even realized he was about to speak. “Please, forgive me. I am so very, very sorry.” Before he could allow himself to second guess his decision, he removed his mask. He steeled himself, then turned around.
Chapter 21
Rose stumbled through the tunnels, barely aware that she only had the map, which she had requested and was currently in the Specter’s hands, to guide her.
She, like the Specter, had read the note. While she did not know just how much time they really had to find James alive, she was certain that it was not much.
In her panicked state, she felt that it was better to risk getting lost along the way and make it deeper into the tunnels and toward the rumored reservoir than to move too slowly attempting to follow the crude map exactly and lose too much time.
It felt like an age that they wandered through the tunnels, and Rose began to worry that her blind rushing was a bad idea, after all.
While they made their way through the tunnels, Rose cursed silently.
She was terrified that, once they did find James, it would be too late. She was enraged at whomever could do such a heinous thing. Even if it was a person with a grudge against her father, or the theater, or her, nothing justified dragging an innocent young, sweet boy with an ailing father into it. Her anger fueled her body, and she began to move faster throughout the tunnels.
She tried to imagine that the horrible man would be found and brought to justice, but she feared that he would, once again, elude discovery and capture. That idea made her angrier still, and she plunged forward.
As they exited the mouth of the tunnel, Rose stared in awe. In all the years that her father had owned the theater, she could have never guessed that something so vast was tunneled beneath it. She doubted that her father knew about it, either. Sure enough, as she and the Specter approached cautiously, they saw the enormous lake-turned-water-reservoir.
Her heart sank briefly when she realized that James was nowhere to be found. Just as tears began to fill her eyes, however, she and the Specter heard cries for help. The voice was weak, to be sure, but the person to whom the voice belonged was very much alive. And that voice belonged to…
“James,” she said.
At first, the pair could not see him. Rose feared that they would be forced to try to follow the sound of his voice, which, though very weak, was echoing throughout the reservoir.
But they soon spotted him, and Rose’s heart began to pound harder still. James was not just down in the bottom of the reservoir in high water. He appeared to be tied or weighted down by something, and water was steadily pouring down just behind him. If they did not reach him soon, his head would be completely submerged, and he would drown.
Rose watched, paralyzed, as the Specter jumped into action. He began surveying the reservoir and looking for a way down to help James. Rose’s heart felt as though it would pound out of her chest.
She stared at the Specter as he walked back toward the mouth of the tunnel from which they had emerged, and she wanted to ask him what he was doing. But the words died in her throat.
“Rose,” he said. “Please, forgive me. I am so very, very sorry.”
She looked at him, bewildered, as he removed his mask and draped it over a torch sconce at the entrance to the tunnel. Then, he turned around, and her heart fell into her stomach. She found herself staring directly into a pair of bottomless blue eyes.
“Daniel?” she breathed. He did not, however, answer her. He, instead, brushed past her and began his descent into the reservoir. As he made his way down, Rose tried to understand the thoughts that were now whirling around in her mind.
She had been so torn for so long between Daniel and the Specter, only to find out now that they were one and the same. Suddenly, she began to connect the dots. The Specter’s reaction when Allison mentioned Daniel’s late sister-in-law. Daniel’s compassion for the theater staff and actors.
His deep and seemingly personal investment in helping restore the theater after the chandelier crash and the fire. His relationship with her father. The reason why both Daniel and the Specter had something important to discuss to her.
Her mind raced, and she closed her eyes, feeling as though she might collapse. How could he do this to her?
He made her fall in love with two men, when only one existed. She had worried herself to death trying to choose between them, but it was always him, all along. The shock she felt gave way to anger, and she balled her hands into fists. Now, she did not even know who Daniel really was, and she knew that she would never be able to trust him again.
From below, she could hear splashing water and James’s gurgled pleas for help. Rose gave herself a mental shake, forcing herself to forget her anger and betrayal toward Daniel to the back of her mind.
Right now, what was important was rescuing James. She walked over to the edge of the reservoir to see Daniel trying to swim to James. The stream of water seemed to be creating resistance, and he was struggling to move forward in the water.
For a terrible moment, Rose worried that the current might take Daniel under, and both he and James would drown. As upset as she was, she prayed that he would safely reach James and survive the ordeal, too.
Just when she thought that the water would claim Daniel, he pushed his way around the point at which the current seemed to be fighting against him the strongest and swam toward James. Rose let out a sigh of relief, but the feeling was short lived. Rose watched as Daniel struggled with not just one rope, but three, that had James pinned in the water.
There appeared to be one tied around his wrists, one around his ankles, and one around his neck, tethering him to something below the water that she could not see. When Daniel ducked below the water, Rose began to panic.