by Delores Fossen, Rachel Lee, Carol Ericson, Tyler Anne Snell, Rita Herron
She let go of it, then moved forward with Steve, checking every possible nook, even the decrepit horse stalls. Easy to imagine what this place had once looked like. Filled with horses and hay and other feed. People coming and going. The scent of horses, strangely enough, seemed to linger even after many years.
The loft was still covered with some loose hay. A fire hazard, she thought, but no signs of recent disturbance. Not up here anyway. Then back down and a sweep of the front of the barn. Several times she looked upward because she didn’t trust the roof. It sagged too much.
Then her foot snagged on something. A loose board? But when she looked down she saw an old cut.
“Steve? Come take a look at this.”
He hurried over, squatting down to peer at the place she indicated with the wide beam of her light.
“That’s curious.” He straightened and looked around. “My kingdom for some kind of broom.”
But Candy was already using her foot to sweep hay and other detritus from the area. The dust in the barn was getting thick. Thick and flammable. She didn’t stop and Steve joined her.
Then, with a sweep of his foot, he revealed a large iron ring. He looked at Candy.
“A trapdoor,” she said.
Steve stared down again. “It sure looks like one.”
He pulled it open, up and back. If they’d expected to find storage, they discovered it empty except for gray boards lining parts of it. Both shined their lights into a dark hole that appeared ten feet deep. The only thing inside it was a handmade ladder, the wood old.
“Weird,” Candy said.
“No, look.” Excitement crept into Steve’s voice. He pointed his light again. “There’s a tunnel.”
* * *
FIVE MINUTES LATER, Steve climbed down into the hole over Candy’s strong objections.
“It could collapse on you! Who knows how old this is? Can you trust those ancient boards?”
His expression said he would not be deterred. “You’re here to call for help if anything happens. But Candy, this could explain so much. This could be where the voice is coming from.”
“I’ll allow that, but how do you know someone isn’t waiting down there? You could get into all kinds of trouble.”
“It’s possible, but not likely. If it’ll make you feel any better, we’ll sit here listening. If we don’t hear anything, I’m going in.”
That didn’t make her feel one whit better, but she knew when she was running into a brick wall. She gave up arguing. Maybe the boards were strong enough to hold it.
Eventually, Steve refused to wait any longer. “My GPS says the tunnel heads toward the house.”
Candy stiffened. God in heaven. Had he found the problem? But then, who might it be? She forced herself to calm down. There was no indication this tunnel ran all the way to the house. Why would it?
Besides, those boards looked too old to have been added recently. Way too old. Maybe there’d been some mining in the past? There were certainly enough old tunnels up on Thunder Mountain to the west.
And now she knew why Steve wore a watch. She hadn’t paid it much mind, thinking it was one of those fitness things. Apparently it did more than count his footsteps. GPS. Maybe a compass. Always prepared.
By the beam of her flashlight, and his, she watched him disappear into the dark opening. After a bit, his flashlight diminished, illuminating little from her point of view.
If he went too far, she doubted she’d be able to get him help in time if that tunnel collapsed. Damn, she should never have let him go in alone. Ten or fifteen feet apart might have made one or the other of them much safer, more likely to be able to crawl out for help.
Or not. They might both be sealed in a tomb of tumbling earth and rocks.
Then Steve’s head popped out of the tunnel. “There are some fresh boards in here, and something walled off at the end of the tunnel.”
“I’m coming in.”
“Seems safe enough.” He didn’t try to dissuade her, which was good. Hanging around as the protected woman didn’t suit her at all.
Moving carefully, she climbed down the old boards, feeling them give a little, but not enough to worry her. These timbers were thick, not simple two-by-fours.
Mining timbers, she thought. An old mine. What good could it be now?
In places she had to crawl, scuffing her knees some despite her jeans. Curiosity drove her forward, following Steve, carrying her own flashlight.
It got dark in a tunnel. Way dark. She was grateful for the beams that stretched a lighted path in front of her.
Steve called out quietly. “There seems to be a wall ahead.”
Ten minutes later, they reached the wall he was talking about. She scanned it as he said, “Those are fresh timbers.”
She agreed. Water had only just started to darken them.
“Who would...?” She didn’t bother to finish the question. Pointless.
Then memory climbed up her throat. “I crawled through tunnels like this in Afghanistan.”
His head swiveled to look at her. “You need to get out?”
“No. I made it before, I can do it now. I just wish I had a grenade.”
That drew a hollow laugh from him. “I hear you.”
Maybe he did. Or her rifle, not that it would make crawling through here any easier. Nah, a grenade.
Unexpectedly, the idea amused her. Some habits died hard, she guessed.
They sat staring at the wall before them.
“It’s new,” he repeated. “And if my measurements are correct, this may reach under Vivian’s bedroom.”
She caught her breath. “We’ve got to get past this. See what’s going on.”
“Start looking. I’m not too keen on just randomly removing these timbers. If someone is using it, there has to be a way inside.”
“Yeah.” Candy started running her light around the edges. Good place to begin, she thought. A crumble of dirt from above her head fell and struck her on the back. Her breath nearly stopped in her throat.
But Steve had already rolled on his back, pointing his light upward. “Doesn’t seem like much to worry about. A little drying soil. The rest of the timbers look okay.”
She wondered about the person or people who had built this tunnel. A lot of work, and those timbers had to be carted in from somewhere else. A heap of determination, but she couldn’t imagine the purpose unless somebody had discovered something valuable.
Gold may have washed down from the mountains. Some still did, but not enough to make anyone rich. Silver, too, at times. She’d also seen a lot of tunnels closed off with the radiation trefoil warning. A lot of deadly things were buried deep in the earth, things never meant to be brought above ground in appreciable quantities.
Look at those tailing piles outside the old mining town on Thunder Mountain. To this day, nothing grew on them. She had to wonder what toxic heavy metals were washing down from them into the groundwater, into streams.
Frequent water checks around the town apparently said local water was safe. She wondered, sometimes, if they were accurate.
“Look at this,” she said, her gaze suddenly fixing on a narrow line, like a fine cut, finer than the one in the barn floor.
“Damn, your eyes are good.”
“Situational awareness,” she had briefly. It had never left her.
Steve tapped on it. “It’s not that thick.”
“I don’t see any hinges. Maybe it pulls out?”
He began to test around the edges. He wasn’t wearing gloves, so he could feel better. She wasn’t ready to ditch her own. It was damn cold down here. Not warmer the way most things underground were, but cold as ice. Her cheeks ached from it.
“There,” he said. “A divot, just enough to grip with fingers. You ready?”
“For what? Of course I�
��m ready. I’m here.”
Reaching out, he searched farther. “There we are. A door in this wall.”
Her heart had begun to gallop. What were they going to find in there? Nothing good, she suspected.
She reached out to help Steve as he pulled the panel free. Another dark hole greeted them. Light didn’t make it look much better.
They crawled in, Steve leading, then he cursed.
“What?”
“I think it’s a freaking bomb shelter.”
“Wow.” She crawled in beside him, scanning the area with her light. Bunks. Water containers. Shelves full of canned foods that had begun to rust. “Another era.”
“No kidding. But why an entry out in the barn?”
“Ask the builder,” she said drily.
Then everything inside her froze. “Steve? Steve, is that a coffin?”
* * *
STEVE NOW SAW IT, too. Under the bottom bunk. Made roughly of boards like the ones outside. Strangely dust free.
“It looks like one,” he agreed. “God. What did we find?”
“Ivy Bride?”
“Ghoulish,” he said flatly.
“Don’t touch it,” she said sharply. “It’s time to call for some help.”
“Like the sheriff isn’t busy enough?”
“It doesn’t matter. There are laws against disturbing human remains. You know that, Steve.”
He nodded. Of course he knew it. Besides, if there was a body in there, he didn’t want to destroy any evidence. Nor would he and Candy learn a thing even if they looked. His detective cap, however, seemed to be pinching his skull.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We should guard the entry.”
Gage arrived twenty minutes later. “You should have called us before you crawled into the tunnel,” Gage said when he joined them above ground with four deputies. “Steve, you know better than that.”
Steve frowned. “We didn’t expect to find anything like that. Dang, Gage, we were just looking for signs that someone might be under Vivian’s room making the voices she heard. If that’s all we found, we would have still called you. But this?” He shook his head. “Never would have expected it in a million years.”
* * *
BEN WITTES WATCHED from the distance, the voice in his head growing louder.
They found it. At last.
“What you talkin’ about?” Ben demanded of the spirit. “You killed her.”
No. I didn’t. I just couldn’t let go.
Now Ben was truly disturbed. What had he been used for? Why did the spirit want this? What about the angry woman?
“What about the kids killed on the mountain?” Ben demanded of the voice. “You did that.”
No.
Just that. No. Ben grabbed his head, wanting to crush it with his own hands. He was so confused. So overwhelmed. He couldn’t begin to explain it. He just wished it would stop. He didn’t want to hear these voices. He didn’t want to know these things. Why were the spirits tormenting him this way? What had he ever done?
Why had he spent so many nights at the direction of this damn voice sitting down there and talking to that coffin? Singing to it?
To make a dead man happier?
“Go away,” Ben said forcefully. “Go now.”
The voice laughed. I’m not done with you yet.
What the hell did that mean?
Forgetting that he wanted to watch the sheriff uncover all this stuff, he took off running.
Then the voice again. Find me some more kids.
No, Ben screamed in his mind. No!
He didn’t even understand what the spirit meant, but it horrified him.
Wafting up into his terrified brain came memories of waking in the morning covered with dirt. The tunnel? Or something worse?
* * *
BY FOUR THAT AFTERNOON, the sheriff’s team had pulled the coffin out of its hiding place. Techs crawled everywhere seeking evidence. The bodies on the mountain were going to have to wait awhile.
Steve stood staring into the distance, Candy nearby as she took notes and answered questions.
Two kids. Four now. An old coffin. How could all of this be linked? Because his finely tuned senses told him none of this was coincidence. The voices had been explained, and soon he’d be able to reassure Viv.
But not before this damned coffin was gone. Not until they knew why someone had been sitting down there babysitting that thing.
No true answers until then.
Chapter Fifteen
The last thing Candy and Steve heard about that coffin was that it contained bones. Nothing but bones. Well, Steve thought, that wouldn’t reveal much but a medical examiner could find more.
With Halloween two days away, it was sad to see the streets so empty. Local radio had been advising people to take their children to the party at the high school. Posters plastered every light post and flat surface around town.
And not one person had placed a candle in a pumpkin.
The night was growing cold, clouding over with the possibility of snow or rain. An unwelcoming night.
He’d reviewed all the evidence he had from the Castelle house and couldn’t even answer their questions about what had happened in the barn. The sheriff’s presence had raised plenty of questions for them, but at least they didn’t seem to think it could be related in any way to the voices Vivian heard.
Good enough for now.
At nine that night, his cell phone rang. Candy. Her voice sounded as tight as a coiled spring.
“Steve, two more teens have gone missing. We’re starting a search on the mountain immediately.”
“How long have they been gone?”
“Since shortly after school let out.”
Still time, he thought. Still time. “I’m coming, too.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
* * *
SHE ROLLED UP in front of the motel, and he was waiting, ready. A heavier jacket this time, gloves, knit cap.
“We’ve got to find them,” she said tensely.
“Alive,” he agreed. “At least we’ve got a general idea of where to look.”
Small comfort, she thought. At least these kids hadn’t been missing for that long. The others had taken way too long to find. Maybe not this pair.
“Boy and girl?” he asked.
“Yeah. From what I’ve heard, they decided to walk home from school. Out of town. They both live on ranches, but the houses aren’t more than a couple miles from the high school.”
“I used to do things like that. It was always fun to be with my girlfriend where no one would bother us.”
Candy spoke after a minute or two. “I had a duenna.”
He turned on the seat. “Seriously?”
“My family is old-fashioned in some ways. Now that I’m older, I see it differently. Everywhere I went I had protection. My aunt seemed to love it. She visited places she might never have gone otherwise. Heck, at the arcade she got into one of the games. Sometimes I thought I wouldn’t be able to pry her away.”
“Sounds like a wonderful aunt.” Dating must have been difficult, though.
“She was. She always seemed to enjoy watching over me, as if it were a great adventure.”
“Maybe for her it was like being a teen again.”
“Maybe. I know I chafed at it.”
The road had started to climb steeply, then they saw the lights ahead. Flood lamps, flashlights moving through the trees.
Gage stood at a command center, directing the search parties. Radios crackled constantly. Two ambulances stood ready. It looked like half the county had turned out for this one. Just from where Candy stood, she reckoned there were maybe a hundred searchers moving about three feet apart. A good sweep.
She just hoped the teens hadn’t be
en tied up a long distance away.
There was no longer any doubt in anyone’s mind what they were looking for. A third case. The first two had set a precedent, but this one would confirm it beyond any doubt.
They had a serial killer.
* * *
TWO HOURS LATER, Candy and Steve heard a faint cry. She took off like a bat out of hell in that direction. Steve dashed after her. Candy’s flashlight swept back and forth as she looked out for obstacles or unexpected ravines. He followed suit.
Candy paused, calling out the names of the two students. “Mark? Mabs?”
Again a faint cry, louder this time. A crashing behind them announced that other searchers were on their way. Ten minutes later they reached the two teens, tied to trees facing each other. Cold. Drugged. Only Mabs was awake enough to cry out.
Very soon the medics arrived and survival blankets wrapped the extremely cold pair. A short time later they were carted out of the woods on stretchers.
It was nearly midnight.
On the walk back to the car, Steve said, “I need to get out to the Castelles.”
“Why? They must be sleeping by now.”
He shook his head. “Candy, someone was in that tunnel. Now six teens have been kidnapped. There’s a very strong part of me that can’t believe none of this is related. Too much weirdness.”
She had to acknowledge that he might be correct. What’s more, all the department’s activity at the tunnel had ceased when word of the kids’ disappearance had reached them. An old coffin containing bones hardly seemed like an emergency.
“I’ll go with,” she said. Because the feeling had begun to grow in her, as well. A mind that was capable of treating those teens that way was capable of harming Vivian. Urgency rode her as she drove as quickly as she dared toward the Castelles’ house.
“Thank God those kids were okay,” she remarked. As if they’d ever be okay again. Not after something like that.
Steve’s response was short. “They’re alive at least.”
Consolation, for what it was worth. “You think it could have something to do with Todd’s past?”
“I don’t know what he might have been withholding. I could hardly threaten him.”