Page 67 of Stolen Time
Footsteps crunched away from the truck and then disappeared. I poked my head above the truck’s bed and saw it had been parked in an isolated spot with a partially boarded-up mine shaft a few yards away. Seth was nowhere in sight, which meant he must have already gone inside.
Something about the place felt strangely familiar, with the hillside looming above and the rocky, neglected road that dead-ended only a few yards away, and then it struck me.
This was the mine shaft where Bellamy had teased me about going inside…the one where I’d somehow slipped back in time, even if I still didn’t entirely know how such a thing could have happened.
What was Seth doing in there? Had he returned to the shaft to see if there was some piece of evidence he’d missed, something I’d left behind that might corroborate my story about tripping and falling into 1926?
Something about that theory didn’t feel right, but I honestly couldn’t think of any other reason to come back here. The place was desolate and clearly unused, a dead end that hadn’t panned out.
He still hadn’t appeared, which meant it was time for me to go in search of him. While I didn’t much like the idea of walking back inside that mine shaft, I had to admit that I couldn’t think of a more private place to hold a conversation.
And since I’d already resolved to tell him everything, I might as well get my ass in gear.
I scooched my way out of the truck bed and did my best to smooth my skirt, although, as I’d feared, the dress was rumpled and dirty, and definitely not crisp and pretty like it had been when I first put it on this morning. The cloche hat I wore felt tight on my head, so I took it off and tossed it in the bed of the truck, then pushed a few loose strands of hair off my face.
For some reason, I just felt more like me when I was bare-headed. And I needed to be the most “me” I possibly could when I made my confession to Seth.
An uneasy sensation stirred in my stomach as I approached the opening in the hillside. From here, I could tell that one of the boards seemed to have been attached in such a way that it was easy to be set aside as needed, just as it had been now. Everything appeared utterly dark inside, although logic told me he must be using a lantern or something to guide his way, and I just couldn’t see it from where I stood.
I really didn’t want to go in there.
Don’t be stupid,I scolded myself.Seth went in, so it’s perfectly safe.
Maybe. However, I couldn’t quite ignore the fact that it was inside this mine shaft that I’d slipped through time.
What if I slipped again before I had a chance to explain myself to Seth?
No, that was a ridiculous idea. It was my so-called talent that had hurled me back to 1926, not the mine itself. The location had nothing to do with it.
I gritted my teeth, told myself not to be a pansy, and walked inside. The beams holding up the walls and the ceiling were fresh, raw pine, not the age-weathered wood I’d seen when I went inside the shaft on a hot summer evening that seemed as if it was from a different lifetime, but otherwise, the place looked much the same.
Well, except the lantern that had been set on the gravel-strewn ground a few feet away — and Seth himself, who had just emerged from a little alcove sheltered by boulders toward the back of the shaft, heavy glass jugs full of amber liquid dangling from either hand.
“Deborah?” he said, his shocked voice echoing off the rock walls. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I found out you hadn’t told me the truth when you said you were doing inventory last night,” I replied calmly. “And that got me thinking that I might not be the only person keeping secrets around here. So, tonight I decided to find out what you were really up to.”
He shook his head. “It’s not safe for you to be here.”
“Why?” I asked, then nodded toward the jugs he held. “Are those what I think they are?”
Seth looked down at the bottles of moonshine, almost as if he’d forgotten he was holding them. “Yes. And we can talk about that later. Right now, you just need to get back down to Ruth and Timothy’s house.”
“I don’t even know how to get there from here,” I said, which was only partly true. Sure, I’d been crouched in the bed of the truck the whole time and therefore hadn’t seen exactly where he was going, but I’d driven up here with Bellamy, so at least I had a rough idea.
That didn’t mean I wanted to hike all the way back into town, even though I’d had brains enough to put on my sensible shoes for this little spying expedition.
His mouth flattened, and I could tell he was less than thrilled with me. What had seemed like a brilliant idea back at the house now seemed not quite so brilliant.
Then again, how was I supposed to know Seth McAllister was a bootlegger?
“I don’t have time to take you back into Jerome,” he said. “I have to get this stuff to Prescott before nine, or there’ll be hell to pay.”
That I could imagine. While I hadn’t done an in-depth study of bootleggers and their various activities, I had to believe they weren’t the most forgiving people in the world.
“I can wait here until you get back,” I said. “Or I can just ride along.”
If possible, his expression grew even more pained. “There’s no room,” he replied. “I have to carry this stuff in the cab so it can’t be seen by anyone I drive past, and I’m not about to leave you in the bed of the truck, not with night falling. It’ll be way too cold for you in that dress.”