Disclaimer: The characters you recognize as J.E. are hers. The rest belong to me. Thanks to Knitter (Sandy) for the basic idea for the story.

Spoilers: Anything from the first 18 books.

This is probably more AU than canon. Although there may be material from any of the 18 books, I have changed the reality of Stephanie and the rest of the characters from the Plum series.

I would like to thank all of you that have reviewed. I try to respond to all reviews, so for those of you that reviewed as guests or have your PM turned to off, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your reviews. Special thanks to mandyh for her help with it's and its for future reference.

Special thanks for trhodes9 for her comment in a review. It was the spark that led to this chapter. The Battle of Trenton took place in 1776 and the four listed in the chapter were indeed in the battle on the side of Britain and all four died. (Grothausen was there but not sure he was one of the 4 in charge) Info googled from Wikipedia. I put my own twist on what happened to them after the battle though. At the time of the battle Trenton was a small town with about 100 houses and two main streets, King (now Warren) Street and Queen (now Broad).

Chapter 37: A Surprise in the Basement

Stephanie's POV:

Within 30 minutes Ranger had a team of men out and they had dusted for fingerprints and gone over every inch of the house. I noticed the men worked in pairs and none of them came within 2 feet of Grandma. At first I was puzzled by this but then I stopped Manny and asked him why the wide berth for Grandma. Manny looked at me like I was delusional and replied, "Are you insane? You think any of us want to wind up naked in bed with your granny?" And then he shook his head as he walked away.

I had to smile at his reaction. So, the guys had already seen the pictures from last night. I shook my head. Poor Les. He was never going to live this down. I smiled and grabbed a box of old canning jars. I figured I would take them down to the basement and store them on one of the shelves. I flipped the switch as I went down into the basement. I found a spot on one of the shelves in the basement and set the box of canning jars on it. As I did so the wall behind the shelves moved slightly. My eyes widened and I went over to take a closer look. There was definitely air between the wall, as if a section had moved to indicate an opening. I bit my lip and debated going ahead and checking it out or going back upstairs to get a couple of the guys to help. Chances of my running into bad guys with so many Rangemen here would be low so I figured I might as well see if I could open the area a little more so I could investigate.

I managed to open the wall enough to squeeze through. I found myself in a small room with a table and 4 chairs. Everything looked as if it hadn't been disturbed for over a hundred years. There were cobwebs everywhere and I was just getting ready to head back through the opening and commandeer a couple of the guys when the wall closed and I found myself in the darkened chamber all alone. Shit! I took a deep breath and tried feeling along the wall but I found nothing. Crap! I felt around in my purse and managed to find a little flashlight that was nearly worthless, yet it gave off enough light to make me feel marginally better. Well, since I was stuck on this side I figured I might as well see what I could find.

I noticed a book on the table, so I made my way over and opened it up. My eyes widened as I read the first line. It is my opinion that the Americans intend to leave us in this prison forever. They brought the 4 of us here after the battle, all of us too injured to offer much of a defense. We were led down to this dungeon room and closed in with supplies to last a couple days. Whether they planned to come back for us or they intended us to rot in this room only they know. I know only that it has been many days and we grew weaker with each passing day. Our troops hadn't a chance against Washington on that fateful day. Only in hindsight can I admit I should have listened to my engineers. I was too full of self-importance to see how badly I had misjudged these militia men. The Battle of Trenton was my greatest mistake. I sit here the last living leader of our battalion. Knyphausen, Lossberg and Grothausen are all dead. How much longer I have I don't know. I am weak and there is no food or water. I pray someone will come soon….Rall

I shuddered as I closed the book and looked around using the tiny flashlight to try and see into the dark. Something in the corner caught my eye and I made my way over for a closer look. I ran the flashlight over the crease and got a funny feeling like I was touching a live wire. I knew there was something here, now I just had to find it. I'm not sure how long I was down there. I heard muffled voices off and on. I ran the flashlight up and down the crease checking to make sure nothing undesirable was lurking in the dark and then I raised my hand to feel along the crease. Just beyond where I could easily reach there was a button. I stretched to reach and then pressed the button. The wall shifted and I was now in the unenviable position of deciding to continue moving forward or wait for a possible rescue. I looked back to the table and thought of the 4 men that had been placed in this room. Three of them died here and I wasn't sure Rall didn't as well. I decided to forge forward and see where this little excursion led me.

I had more room to squeeze through this time. I used the flashlight for a quick peek to make sure I wasn't heading into worse danger. What I saw looked like a passageway of some sort. I went through and although there were torches in place on the wall, I had no matches with me to light them. I rolled my eyes and after taking a deep breath I moved forward. The wall moved back into place making the pathway darken slightly. I continued moving onward and found myself going in a downward direction before coming to a flight of stairs. I made my way up the stairs. By the time I reached the top I was breathing heavy. There had to be about 300 stairs for Pete's Sake. There was a narrow passageway at the top that came to an end at what looked like a doorway. I used my little flashlight to check out the seams of the door and saw what looked to be a hollowed out area at the top.

I stretched to reach the spot but I was just shy of reaching it. I looked around to see if I could find something to stand on. I could find nothing, but closer inspection near the bottom of the doorway showed there was a place for someone to put their toe to raise them up. I gingerly put my toe in the hole and grabbed hold of the wall as best I could to help get myself up to reach the hollow area at the top. I had to reach blind because there was no chance for me to see the area before sticking my hand in there. I moved my hand around and found a latch. I tried to get it to work but was having no luck. I grabbed hold of it and lost my balance, falling away from the door. As I did so I pulled the lever I was holding and the door moved. There was light streaming through the crack. I quickly scrambled to my feet and pushed the door open enough so I could slip through. I looked around and noticed I was on a hill about a mile from where the house was located.

I headed down towards the house and as I neared I noticed Ram and Jeanne Ellen looking around with their forearms shading their eyes. As soon as Ram saw me he turned towards the house and said something and then he was making his way towards me. I knew by the way the sun was in the sky that it was late afternoon. Apparently I was downstairs longer than I had thought. Ram took hold of me and demanded, "Are you okay?"

I nodded. "I'm fine. Just decided to liven things up with a little adventure."

Next thing I knew Ranger and Tank were running out of the house towards me. Ranger wrapped me in his arms and drew me close, "Where did you go Babe?"

I snuggled into his arms and replied, "Apparently I have a secret room and a secret passage."

By this time Les, Jeanne Ellen, Grandma and Lula had all joined us. Lula heard the last little bit and said, "Get outta town, say what?"

"I set the box of canning jars on the shelf in the basement and part of the wall came open. I squeezed through and there was a room with a table and 4 chairs. There was an old book, possibly a journal with an entry in it about the Battle of Trenton from Rall. Then I found another opening that lead to a passageway heading down before I reached some stairs. There were about 300 stairs leading up and when I got to the top there was a door. I had to put my foot in a toehold on the door to reach the top to trip the lever that let me out. I ended up about a mile away on the hill over there."

Ranger kept me close to him as he said, "We'll check it out."

"Don't forget flashlights and matches. There are torches in the passageway but I had no matches."

Les teased, "Don't you want to come with us Beautiful?"

"I already did the stairs once. Twice would be tempting fate. I think I'll take a shower and relax for a while."

Ranger hugged me to him before releasing me and I headed to the third floor for a shower as the guys headed for the basement to check out the secret room and passageway. I stripped as soon as I got in the room and put my clothes in the dirty clothes hamper. I took time to shave before washing up and shampooing my hair. Once I stepped out of the shower I felt loads better. I dried off and dressed in blue jeans and a tie died t-shirt. I sat on the bed to put socks and shoes on and then worked at taming my hair. I was just putting the finishing touches of my make up on when Ranger walked into the apartment and stripped his clothes off and headed for the shower. I checked the time and realized he'd been checking out the basement room and passageway for over two hours.

I waited the 15 minutes it took Ranger to shower and dress. When he joined me once more I lifted an eyebrow and asked, "Well?"

Ranger's jaw clenched, "I'm glad you went to the left Babe. The passageway to the right led about 3 miles in the other direction. There are a lot of traps set up along the way so only someone trained to look for them would be able to avoid them, unless they knew where the traps were placed."

"Why would they need traps?"

"There's a huge room about three miles away. My guess is during the Civil War slaves were brought to that room and hidden till it was thought safe. Then they would be taken through the passageway to the other location and given papers making them a free person."

"So not only do I have a room where 4 leaders of a Britain battalion were left to die, I also have a slave room that housed runaway slaves?"

Ranger gave a miniscule nod, "Looks that way Babe."

I shook my head, "I knew the house was old, but I never suspected it was such a part of history."

"Fortunately for the house you got the jump on me. I had planned to knock the thing down."

I noticed the clock on the nightstand read 5 minutes to 6 and I groaned, "We have to get downstairs or it'll be our fault the meat is dried out."

Ranger gave me the almost smile and we headed down to the dining room. What a day this one had been and tomorrow didn't look like being any less involved. After all we would have to get set up at the park for the BBQ cook off.