Free The Minnesota Candidate by Nicholas Antinozzi Page A

contract was for two days a week,
Monday and Friday.
    “No, she wasn’t here.”
    “Did you clean up in here?”
    Tom sighed. “No, it was my ma,” he said, sitting
down on the bed. “She just wanted to show you her appreciation. I
didn’t want her in here, but once she gets cleaning she can’t stop.
I hope that’s okay.”
    Shari walked over and gave Tom a kiss. “Are you
kidding?” she asked. “That’s wonderful. Be sure to tell her much we
do appreciate her help. I knew she’d come around.”
    Tom wrapped his arms around her and Shari fell
onto the bed. Soon, the lights were out and the newlyweds were
absorbed in a passionate round of lovemaking.

    Outside the bedroom door, Doris Picacello made a
sour face and shook her head. She then tiptoed down the hall and
carefully descended the stairs. She returned to her bedroom and
slipped out of her nightgown. A minute later, Doris emerged in her
new gray sweats and a pair of Nikes. She held a flashlight and
carried an empty canvas shopping bag.
    Slowly, Doris made her way into the living room.
She walked over to the fireplace and reached down into the tiny
crevice. She grasped the lever and gave it a pull. The bookcase
began to revolve, just as she had known it would. Her day of
snooping had paid off. Waiting for Tom and Shari to go to bed had
required every last fiber of her patience. Doris could actually
taste the excitement, which she was pretty sure was adrenaline, and
she couldn’t remember the last time she had tasted anything so
delicious. She turned on her flashlight and stepped into the
passageway. Hanging near the light switch was a hand-sized steel
hoop connected to a chain. Gently, Doris gave it a pull. She turned
and watched the bookcase revolve back into place. Doris was
grinning by the time she flipped the light switch.
    The passageway had been constructed out of
fieldstone and mortar. Cobwebs hung from both sides of the low
ceiling. Doris began taking the stairs, thinking that the narrow
passageway had looked much larger from the other side of the
bookcase. Had she wished to do so, Doris could have easily touched
the damp stone on either side of her. She continued to take the
stairs and counted them as she descended. By the time she reached
the bottom, Doris had counted to thirteen.
    The passageway smelled of mildew and it was only
illuminated at the ends. She could see the stairs at the far end,
but they seemed to be a mile away. Doris began to feel
claustrophobic and she shone her flashlight down to her feet. The
floor of the passageway was brick and shallow puddles of brackish
water stood between her and the other side. This is where she began
to have second thoughts. What if she fell and broke her ankle, or
worse, her hip? Would they ever find her? And what was Shari hiding
at the other end of the tunnel? Doris had been sure that the big
house was filled with gold and silver, but what if it wasn’t?
    Still, she was a stubborn woman and fiercely
proud of it. She had come this far and she wasn’t about to allow
common sense to keep her from her goal. She began to walk,
tentatively at first, but by the time she reached the halfway
point, Doris was waddling as fast as her two feet would carry her.
Blindly, she plowed through thick walls of cobwebs, wiping them
from her face with her free hand. Her breathing became labored as
her body begged her to stop. By the time she reached the light at
the other end of the tunnel, Doris was sure she was about to have a
heart attack.
    As she stood there, panting like a rabid dog,
Doris decided that she had just had a near-death experience. She
had never been so happy to move into the light. She couldn’t wait
to tell her friends at bridge club about it.
    She rested for perhaps a minute, before she
began climbing the stairs. She quickly became dismayed, for the
stairs here did not go straight up and down, they corkscrewed up
and around a great brick pillar. Soon, she was relying solely on
the light provided by