A/N: I told you I wouldn't leave you hanging for long! Thank you to all my readers, and especially my reviewers: anette95, SnowPrincess88, Really Cinderella, Nan35272738383, supernaturalsam, guests 1, 2, and 3, Caranath, and BM originally.

Amontillado was the variety of sherry I was looking for, taken, of course, from Edgar Allen Poe's delightfully creepy short story "The Cask of Amontillado." Congratulations to SnowPrincess88, supernaturalsam, guests 1 and 2, and Caranath for guessing correctly! I'm glad to see I have so many fellow American lit aficionados among my readers... This chapter is for you guys.

The first thing Nancy was conscious of was an ache in her neck. She was lying flat on a cold floor, her head bent up to rest against the wall. The next thing she realized was that her hands were tied behind her back, pinned to the floor under her body. She tried to open her eyes and found that they were already open. She was lying in pitch blackness.

Suddenly she remembered what had happened. The cellar, the bricks, Branson... It only took the warm, unmoving form pressed against her side to push her over the threshold of her silent terror. "Mmmph!" Her scream came out as a moan—her mouth was taped shut. She took in a shuddering gasp of air through her nose, hot tears of panic already welling in her eyes.

"Nan, hey, I'm here." Frank's voice came out of the darkness to her left, and her veins flooded with relief. The body was Frank, and he was alive, and they could get out of this. "You're awake, thank god." He sounded just as thankful as she felt.

Of course he did, Nancy realized. It didn't take a genius to figure out where they were or what had happened. And while she'd been unconscious she'd missed the worst part: helplessly watching the Bransons close the hole in the wall brick by brick, entombing them alive. And having to watch while she lay crumpled against him, not even knowing whether she was all right, must have been absolute torture.

"I can't quite get these ropes untied." Frank grunted, clearly straining against his bonds. "Are you okay?"

The question was ludicrous in light of the situation, but Nancy kept herself together. "Mm-hmm." she said, trying to convey an affirmative with just her voice.

"Your tape." Frank said. "I just got mine off. Hang on, maybe we can get yours off too." He squirmed around a little, trying to move so that he was level with her. "I still can't see a thing." he murmured. "Can you?"

"Mm-mh." Nancy muttered. Negative. She could feel Frank's breath on her temple, and she could sense him, but she couldn't see him. His nose brushed against her cheek, and she was suddenly very aware of how loudly and quickly her heart was pounding. Was it adrenaline? Fear? Something else?

"Hang on." Frank whispered again. "I think I can... uh, I'm going to try to... um..."

"Mm-hmm." Nancy said again, giving him permission. She could feel her cheeks heating up, and she wondered if Frank could feel it too. It was completely ridiculous to be so hyperconscious of his proximity to her. They were most likely going to die here; talk about an inopportune moment to be spellbound by Frank Hardy!

Still, she couldn't help her sharp little intake of breath when she felt his mouth nuzzling her jawbone, his bottom teeth lightly grazing her cheek in order to catch the edge of the tape. He did, clamping it between his teeth and pulling his head back, peeling the tape away from her skin inch by agonizing inch until it was finally gone. "Frank..." she murmured, her voice hoarse.

A moment later, his lips were back on hers, and this time there was no tape between them. The kiss was hot, probing, filled with quiet desperation. When they pulled apart they were both panting heavily. "What are we doing?" Nancy asked breathlessly.

Frank huffed a laugh, resting his forehead against hers. "I'm so glad you're okay." he confessed.

"You too." Nancy was reveling in his closeness, because she knew that once she began to focus on their situation, she would have a hard time staying calm.

"We've got to get out of here. I know." He sounded slightly guilty, as though he'd just been reprimanded for not focusing on the business at hand. He dropped another quick kiss on her lips, and she tilted her head up to catch it. "I know."

Nancy nodded. Her feelings for Frank were a can of worms she almost never allowed herself to open, but businesslike... Businesslike she could do. "Okay. If we can turn around, back to back, I might be able to untie you." They wriggled around until they could reach each others' knots, and Nancy winced at the pins-and-needles sensation as the blood began to flow back into her fingers. Flexing them experimentally, she found that she was able to grasp Frank's rope. "How long was I out?"

"Forever." Frank said. "At least that's what it felt like. Must have been thirty, thirty five minutes, at least. It's hard to tell."

"So all the cement will have hardened." Nancy said quietly.

Frank stayed quiet for a long minute. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so." More silence as Nancy continued to work on his knots. "I'm pretty sure the wall's not airtight. I don't think we'll suffocate."

"So, what? We die of thirst?" Nancy said, not much comforted.

"We're not going to die." Frank said. "Hey, Joe's still out there. Branson said he wasn't going to kill him. He'll find us."

"How will he know where to look?"

"The same way we did."

Nancy felt the last knot loosen, and then Frank turned around, flexing his own fingers before he went to work on her ropes. She scooted forward to give him more room to work and bumped into the newly-laid brick wall. Resting her head against the cool brick, she felt another intense wave of relief that Frank was here. If she'd woken up in here alone, as the unfortunate victims in the adjoining cells must have, she would have been out of her mind with fear. Together, they could make it out of this, somehow.

And if they couldn't... well, spending her last few hours with Frank wasn't the worst way to die.

The thought made her heart twist, and panic began to overtake her again. All at once, it hit her that she might never see her father again, might never see Hannah, Bess, George, Joe... Ned...

Her ropes fell away and she brought her hands in front of her, rubbing her sore wrists. The next thing she did was sit up and push against the wall with all her strength. She drove her fingers into the cracks between the bricks, looking for any mortar that hadn't dried, but none of it budged. The cement was already rock-hard. Frustrated, she pounded against the bricks with her fists, ignoring the sting of the scratches she was inflicting on her hands.

"Hey." It wasn't until she felt Frank's hands cup her face that she realized that her breathing had become labored, and she was shaking. "Calm down, it's alright..."

"Alright? How can you say that?" She was trying to stay calm, but her voice came out sounding watery.

"Come on, we've gotten out of worse situations than this." A tear dripped down her face and Frank brushed it away with his thumb.

Nancy took a deep breath. "Name one." she challenged.

He didn't respond.

"Frank?"

"I'm thinking."

Nancy's lips twitched upward despite herself. Always calm and always logical, that was Frank. "I wish I could see you." she said softly.

Frank let go of her face and she heard rustling in the darkness. There was a hissing sound. Suddenly their prison became faintly visible as he held up a lit match. Wordlessly, their eyes met. The serious expression on his handsome face told her that, for all his optimistic reassurances, the gravity of the situation was not at all lost on him.

They began to survey their surroundings. They had both gotten to their knees and were facing each other, in a rectangular room the size of a small closet, brick walls on all four sides. To her—admittedly untrained—eye, the bricks were laid evenly and uniformly, without any obvious weak points.

Frank lowered the match slowly, and she realized that it had burned down nearly enough to singe his fingers. He carefully laid it on the bare cement floor, letting it burn all the way to the end. The flickering light grew dimmer and dimmer. She hadn't realized how comforting the light was until it was almost gone. She kept her eyes on Frank's face until the match was nothing but a glowing ember, which finally cooled into total darkness once more.

Without a word, they moved together, wrapping their arms around each other in a tight embrace. "How many more matches do you have?" she said into the side of his neck.

"Not many." he answered quietly.

They shifted so they were sitting more comfortably against the wall, still holding each other. Silence stretched out between them.

The darkness and the silence made tracking the passage of time difficult, and Nancy didn't know how long it had been since they'd lit the match. Had it been forty minutes? Two hours? "Frank..." she said finally, "In case we don't get out of here-"

"Nan, don't." Frank cut her off. His arm was still around her shoulders, and he gave them a gentle squeeze. "It's too soon for goodbyes."

"I'd rather say it too early than too late." Nancy murmured. "I'm so sorry I got you and Joe involved in this. I had no idea what Gary and Marlene were, and I let myself get blindsided. It's my case, this is my fault."

"Your case?" Frank repeated. "I thought this was our case." Before she could answer, he continued, "When you called me, I jumped at the chance to come up here, believe me. I wouldn't have been anywhere else. I love working with you, Nancy." he paused, and his voice took on a determined tone. "I love being with you. And when we get out of here, I want you to promise me something."

"What's that?" she asked weakly.

"That we'll talk about this. About us." He leaned his forehead against hers. "No more brushing off our feelings, pretending nothing's happening here. No more excuses."

"Frank..." Even if she had thought they were going to get out of here, the prospect of having this conversation with him was daunting. For so long, they had put barriers between themselves, barriers that only came down when death seemed to be imminent.

"Nan?" he whispered back.

Just hearing him say her name like that sent that familiar rush of warmth coursing through her, and here, now, she had no incentive to fight it. "Promise." she said softly. "When we get out of here, we'll talk."

"All right." he said, pulling back. "Then let's get out of here."

An involuntary laugh escaped her. "How?"

"Dunno yet." he said, and there was a smile in his voice as well. "What do we have to work with? They took our cell phones and your flashlight, but I've still got my keys and my wallet. How about you?"

Nancy frowned, digging her hands into her jean pockets. "Um... my room key, a chapstick, and some quarters." she said finally, trying to sound braver than she felt. "What now, MacGyver?"

Frank had stood, probably to examine the walls. "I wish they had left the lights on in the cellar. It's too dark to see if there are any cracks between the bricks."

"Well, the floor is solid cement." Nancy remarked, tapping it with her fingers.

"Which leaves the ceiling." Frank finished. "It's wood. Softer than cement or brick. It might be our best bet."

"It's gotta be a couple inches thick." Nancy said. "And all we have to dig with are a few keys."

"...We've got matches." Frank pointed out after a long minute. "We could burn through."

Even to Nancy, that sounded extraordinarily dangerous. "Even if we could somehow get a fire started, how would we control it? We might end up burning the place down. We could asphyxiate on the smoke. It's not like we can run if it gets out of control."

"So we die a little faster than planned. And if this miserable place burns to the ground while we're at it, all the better." Sensing her hesitance, he softly said, "What other choice do we have, Nan? Sit here and wait for rescue? That's not who we are."

He was right. Nancy took a deep breath. "We can burn the ropes." she said finally. "If we could attach the ropes to the ceiling with the duct tape and let them burn, it might catch the ceiling, or at least weaken it."

"It's a start." Frank agreed. "And chapstick is petroleum-based. If we coat the ropes with it, it might act like candle wax and make them burn longer."

Together they prepared the ropes and duct tape as best they could in the darkness, but it fell to Nancy to climb onto Frank's shoulders to apply it to the ceiling.

"Ready?" Frank asked. He was leaning against the wall to better support her weight and keep them steady.

"Yeah." Nancy said. She struck one of their few precious matches and proceeded to light the rope at both ends. "Here goes nothing." Quickly, she scrambled down from Frank's shoulders and they both pressed themselves against the far wall, hopefully out of the way of any falling ashes. As the flame burned more and more of the rope, their tiny cell got brighter and brighter, the light nearly blinding after the time they'd spent in pitch darkness. Together, they watched as the flames danced along the ropes, licking at the ceiling, but not catching it. "I think it's singeing a little..." Nancy murmured nervously. She may have underestimated how difficult it would be to catch the wooden ceiling on fire.

A burning piece of rope fell to the floor, spraying a small shower of sparks. Frank dropped to his knees to pat out a large ember that had landed on the knee of Nancy's jeans. "Did it burn you?" he asked, looking up at her with concern in his eyes.

Nancy shook her head, fingering the tiny hole it had left. "No, just my pants." Taking his hand, she raised him back up to her level. "Thanks."

"Anytime." he said quietly.

She found herself slightly mesmerized by the way the firelight flickered over his face and berated herself, once again, for thinking such thoughts at such an inexcusable time. Maybe she could blame her errant thoughts on the smoke inhalation, for the air inside their tiny room had begun to take on a smoky taste and smell.

The cell was beginning to get dark again, though, as more and more of the rope turned to ash and fell to the floor, leaving behind dark, burned lines on the ceiling. Once again, the pair watched as the flame turned to ember which cooled into darkness. After such bright light, the dark somehow seemed even darker.

"Time to see how we did." Frank remarked, boosting Nancy onto his shoulders once more.

She reached up and located the burned area with her fingers. Using the sharp edge of her room key, she scraped away as much of the weakened wood as she could. Her arms tired quickly from holding them over her head, so they took a break every few minutes to allow her to rest her arms, while Frank rested his shoulders and back. It took a number of breaks before her fingers finally encountered something of a different texture. "Um, Frank? Under the wood, there's some other kind of material, like a foam."

"Some sort of insulation." Frank guessed. "Maybe a vapor barrier. The key to storing wine is keeping the temperature and humidity steady at an acceptable level."

Nancy bit her tongue before she could ask sarcastically if it was also the key to storing dead bodies... there was really something endearing about him sharing his knowledge of wine cellar maintenance while she was perched on his shoulders trying to claw their way out of a tomb.

"It should only be an inch or two thick. Can you cut through it?"

"Already done." Nancy said. The key had sliced through the foam insulation like a hot knife through butter. Unfortunately, above that was the floorboards of the first level. She scraped her key over the bottom of the floorboards, but even without seeing it she could tell that it wasn't making much of a scratch. She widened the hole she'd made in the insulation, trying to find the edge of the floorboard. "This last layer's going to be—oh my god, Frank. I can see light." She barely believed it, but it was true. Light was coming through a crack between two of the boards. "It must be morning." She used her palm to push up on the end of one of the boards, but couldn't get the leverage to move it. Beneath her, Frank grunted in pain. "Sorry!" she apologized. "Let's take a break." He grasped her hands and helped her down, and they both slid to the floor.

"What now?" he asked. "Do we burn through again?"

"We have no more duct tape." Nancy pointed out tiredly. "Or chapstick. Or rope."

"Shh!" Frank shushed her suddenly. "Did you hear that?"

She had, but she'd thought she was hearing things. "The doorbell?" she whispered. "Who do you think it is?"

"They're not going to let anyone in." Frank said with dull certainty. "We've only been in here a few hours, they have to know we're not dead yet. Why would they risk inviting in someone who could hear us scream?"

"They probably think we're still tied up and gagged." Nancy pointed out, still whispering. "I mean, they get off on walling people up alive... maybe they'd get a kick out of having a tea party or something upstairs, knowing we're down here listening." A grotesque thought occurred to her and she gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Maybe they'll give a tour of the wine cellar... that's what they did when we came." It hardly mattered now, but she hoped that the girl—the one she had discovered in the neighboring cell—had already been dead when they arrived at Rogues' Haven. She was instantly sickened by the idea that that poor girl had been lying there listening, too weak for her desperate scratchings to be heard, while she and the Hardys had joked and chatted with the Bransons just on the other side of the wall...

Frank took her hand, and it seemed like he was about to say something to comfort her, but they were shocked into stillness when they heard footsteps creaking just above them. Then, the sound of the front door opening. "Someone answered it." he whispered, stunned. There was some indistinguishable speech from multiple voices.

"Should we yell?" she whispered back. On one hand, they didn't know whether the visitor was friend or foe. It could be a friend of Gary and Marlene's who was just as sick as them, which would just draw the Bransons' attention to the fact that they weren't dead yet. Or worse, their screaming could tip off an innocent person to their situation, forcing the Bransons to make him or her their newest victim just to cover it up.

On the other hand, this might be their only chance to escape.

They both held completely still, listening, as more footsteps passed over their heads. "Sounds like more than one person." Frank murmured. "There's safety in numbers, the Bransons wouldn't be able to kill them all, would they?"

Nancy dragged him to his feet. "Lift me up again. I might be able to hear what they're saying." She climbed onto Frank's shoulders, straining to push her eye against the thin slit between the boards. "There's a couple guys up there." she whispered. "I can't see who they are."

One of the men started talking, loudly. Frank started. "That's Joe!"

His sudden movement had caused Nancy to wobble, first banging her head on the wooden ceiling and then her open palm in an attempt to stop herself from falling. The noise above them quieted. Nancy pressed a hand to her smarting head. "I think they heard us."

"Joe!" Frank yelled. "The Bransons are the killers! We're trapped in the cellar!"

Taking that as her cue, Nancy began beating on the floorboards with her fists. "Joe!"

Above them, they heard the sounds of a scuffle: yelling, footsteps, scuffing shoes, something breaking, something falling. A gunshot.

Fear gripped Nancy's heart at the sound.

"Joe!" Frank howled again. "Joe!"

Nancy pounded even more frantically. Then she screamed in earnest as she peered up through the crack once more, only to see a big blue eye looking back at her.

"Nancy!" Joe yelped, jumping back a little. "Is Frank in there with you?"

"Yes!" Nancy cried. "Gary and Marlene tied us up and bricked us into the wall!"

Joe stood up straight and swore between gritted teeth before turning back to her. "Hey, the police are here. We've got Gary and Marlene. We're gonna get you out of there."

Nancy felt almost boneless with relief. Gary and Marlene were in police custody. Joe was going to get them out of here. She let herself slide off of Frank's shoulders and into his arms. It took a few minutes for Joe and the cops to clear Gary and Marlene out of the house and get the necessary tools for breaking through the floor. With a crowbar, in only took half a minute to pry up a handful of floorboards, sending sunlight flooding through the hole they had made.

"All right, you two, stand back and cover your heads." A man's voice warned from above. A minute later, a sledgehammer was punching through the insulation and wooden ceiling layers, widening the hole enough that Frank and Nancy could fit through.

"Hey, give me your hand."

Nancy turned to Frank. "One last boost?" she requested softly. With a warm, tired smile, he cupped his hands for her to step into and lifted, propelling her up into Joe's waiting arms.

She took a deep breath of fresh air, clinging to Joe like a lifeline. "I've never been more happy to see you." she told him. "Actually, I don't think I've ever been happier to see anyone."

"My pleasure, Drew." Joe said obligingly, hugging her back. Over his shoulder, she saw a beautiful but disheveled girl hovering nearby. She was wearing nothing but a tank top and terrycloth shorts, as if she'd been abducted from her bed in the middle of the night, and Joe's jacket was draped around her shoulders. "Chrissie!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah," Joe said. "I wanted to tell you when I found her two days ago, but... someone sort of snuck up behind me and knocked me out. Then he left us both tied up in the barn—there's a trap door out there that's pretty well hidden. With Chrissie's help I managed to get untied, and then we broke out of the barn, found my cell phone and called the cops. I guessed it was Gary, but I didn't know for sure until... well, about five minutes ago, when I heard Frank shouting it under my feet."

Two policemen were helping Frank out of the hole. As soon as his feet were back on firm ground, Nancy embraced him wordlessly.

"Is there anyone else trapped down there?" One of the cops asked.

Frank didn't release his hold on Nancy. "No one still alive."

Joe looked at him, stunned. "You mean...?" he trailed off, looking sick.

Frank nodded solemnly. "It's really good to see you, Joe. Really good."

"I called Faye to let her know Chrissie was safe." Nancy said, coming through the door of the adjoining hotel rooms they'd rented at the Holiday Inn in town. Besides being an unsanctioned mausoleum, Rogues' Haven was a crime scene now, and nobody would be staying there for a long time... if ever again. "They're still not back yet?"

"Not yet." Frank said, looking up from his seat on the couch. She and Frank had told their stories to the police first, and they had been sent home to shower and rest while Joe and Chrissie (who seemed disinclined to leave Joe's side, not that anyone could blame her) gave their statements.

Of course, their statements were likely going to be icing on the cake, given that, by the time they'd gotten down to the station, Gary Branson had already spilled his guts about Nancy and Frank's attempted murder, Joe's and Chrissie's kidnappings, and the five unfortunate victims immured in the cellar walls.

Poor Chrissie had been shocked to find out that she was supposed to have been victim number six, but that with the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Winters, followed soon after by the arrival of Frank, Nancy, and Joe, the Bransons had not had the opportunity to wall her up as they'd intended. They hadn't wanted to risk moving her from the barn with so many people in the house, but when the detectives split up to investigate, Joe had discovered the hidden trap door and the girl behind it, so Gary was forced to take him too. The new plan had been to bury Joe and Chrissie in the cellar... at least, it had been until Frank and Nancy had stumbled upon the cellar's grisly secret.

Nancy had showered, but rest seemed to be beyond her, and judging from the fact that Frank was sitting in his room in the middle of the day with all of the lights on, she guessed sleep wasn't coming easily to him either.

"Faye must have been relieved to hear about Chrissie." Frank remarked as she sat down beside him. "It's always nice when you can give someone good news about the end of a case... If you can call five dead bodies instead of six 'good news'."

"I know what you mean..." Nancy mused. "But one person saved makes a big difference to them."

"I know." Frank said. "And I guess when the others are dug out and identified, at least it will give their families some closure."

"And with Gary's confession, I think the Bransons will be going away for a long time, even if Marlene keeps refusing to talk." Nancy added.

"All the loose ends tied up."

Nancy took a deep, fortifying breath and shook her head. "Not quite..."

Frank looked at her, a frown on his handsome face, which softened as he realized what she was referring to. "Now?"

She shrugged, smiling. "It's not like either of us is really going to be getting any sleep right now, not with that nightmare still fresh in our minds." she said. "And... I did promise to... to tell you how much you mean to me."

Frank found her hand and laced their fingers together, and any uncertainty she'd had about broaching this conversation flew out the window into the sunlight.

When Joe entered the suite an hour later, he couldn't decide whether he was shocked or patently unsurprised to find Nancy and his brother curled up together on the bed, fully clothed and fast asleep, with all the lights on.

A/N: I know, I know, but I never intended to write the talk. You know what they said though: all that stuff they should have said when they chickened out at the end of Last Resort.

Seriously, though, I hope you enjoyed it! Drop me a line and let me know what you thought!