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"Yes, but an entry froht have been sealed off That doesn’t mean there aren’tto find one? And if it’s all blocked off, how’s a killer using it?"

"The killer, obviously, knohere it is," Malachi said "And, somehow or other, he’s opened it"

Abby turned around in the little space Behind the Wulf and Whistle was a wooden portico and a gate that sectioned off an area She realized that here the tavern kept their garbage

"Hey!" she said

She went to the gate and opened it She saw a bin there and threw it open Inside it was another bin that could be ree

"Malachi!" she called

He hurried over to her "They’d never need to move this," she said "They obviously always lift out the inner bin when they have to empty it Steve must have soe pickup"

Malachi walked around behind the giant bin Planked grating supported the bin and stretched about two feet behind it He bent down and raised the wooden planks

"There’s a hole," he said "A big black hole Shall we?"

12

The hole went straight down At so as part of a sewage syste with the yellow fever outbreak used it, and for the Underground Railroad any route was better than no route It was good to think that there’d been those willing to risk everything to help others, just as it was chilling to think about the fear escaping slaves must have felt when they slipped into the tunnels He could i that they’d reach a ship, and that the ship would take the stopped and searched

The tunnel sht about death and disease and human misery as he crawled down the treacherous earth ladder that led to the floor below Hitting the ground, he dug in his pocket for his flashlight, then shone the light over the length of the tunnel Like the others, this one appeared to head straight for the river

"Careful," he told Abby "The grips are old and weak" He set his flashlight on the ground and reached up to help her make her way down

"Plus wet and nasty," Abby oes"

"Should we have called it in?" Abby asked

"No The killer could well have seen all the coht be a I don’t want hiht try to ht herself and she waved it before theht fall over the earth walls

As they an to narrow Halfway down, they came across a break in one of the walls

The fork and the ian in their darkness They looked at each other in the eerie glow of the flashlights "No splitting up," Malachi said

"I wasn’t about to suggest it Good agents trust in their partners and their backup"

"Then I say we go right"

Abby considered where she was for a ure out where we are--where we’d be if ere on street level We’d be heading back to the Dragonslayer"

"Yes," he said

"Let’s go"

The tunnel was narrow; in places, dirt was falling in They walked for what Abby estimated was at least a block