Endangered (A Sam Westin Mystery Book 1)

by Pamela Beason

  She took two steps down into the crevice, the rope sliding through the descender with a whir. Perez didn’t move. His fingers were clenched around the rope. She grabbed her rope, stopped. “You’re not going anywhere until you release that death grip, FBI. The rope doesn’t move, you don’t move.”

  “Just resting.” He relaxed his fingers. The rope whirred, dropping him about a foot. Panic shot across his face. He grabbed the rope again and came to an abrupt stop.

  “You’ll get it. Just keep going. The friction will control your speed.”

  Perez passed her with several long strides.

  “And the friction also . . .”

  He jerked his hand up with a yelp.

  “I was about to say that the friction heats up the metal, so don’t touch it.”

  “No kidding.”

  She kept her own voice low. “Instead of just walking down the wall, you can also push off—gently—and release the rope at the same time. Then swing back in.” She demonstrated, gliding past him like a spider sliding down its thread of silk. Her wounded thigh sent a jolt of fire through her body as her boots slapped against the rock.

  “Try it. Easy now, no he-man stuff, or you’ll bounce off the walls.”

  She pushed off, let a section of rope pull through, then swung back into the rock face about ten feet below her previous position, wincing a little as she hit. Perez followed suit, ended up slightly above her.

  “Good. Keep your feet straight out in front.”

  He peered down between his braced legs. “How far is the drop?”

  “It’s about a hundred and sixty feet right here.”

  “Great. Far enough to become a paraplegic.”

  “Quadriplegic is probably more likely. Or just plain dead.” Unfortunately, she said the last word too loudly, and it echoed in the confined space. Dead . . . dead . . . dead.

  Perez held a finger to his lips. “Someone might be down there,” he whispered. Then he made his hand into the shape of a gun.

  * * * * *

  Just after reporting for work, Rafael Castillo finally called the Utah DMV to check up on Orrin R. Wilson. He’d been awake half the night thinking about the guy. Was Wilson really slimy, or had this whole Zack Fischer thing made him crazy? God knows he’d hardly slept in the last few days.

  “No problem, Ranger,” the clerk said, back on the phone after only a couple of minutes. “Here it is—Orrin R. Wilson, Rock Creek, no outstanding tickets. There’s no jacket whatsoever. Amazing. How many people reach the age of seventy-nine without even a speeding ticket?”

  “Seventy-nine?” The Wilson he knew was in his early fifties at the latest. Who was this slimeball using Orrin Wilson’s name? The slimeball that had his smarmy hands all over his kids last night?

  “Give me his address,” he ordered.

  The newly laminated license! He was an idiot! He didn’t deserve to be a law enforcement officer. It wasn’t a replacement license; it was a fake, a newly laminated composite of information and photo. Little comfort to know that Taylor had fallen for it, too. He kept his foot on the accelerator all the way to Rock Creek.

  Now, through the screen door, the elderly Ruth Wilson blinked in confusion. She was still in her bathrobe, her white hair in disarray, reminding Rafael that it was only eight thirty on a Saturday morning.

  “Orrin’s in the nursing home, right where he’s been since Memorial Day,” she told him. “He’s not dead, is he?” Tears filled her pale eyes.

  After he calmed the woman down, he asked her about Russ Wilson.

  “Russ?” Her dried-apple countenance puckered even more. Then a look of understanding dropped into place as if the proverbial lightbulb had come on. “Oh, you must mean Wally.”

  “Wally?”

  “My son, Wally. He’s not here right now, though. He’s borrowing our camper for a few days; his old Buick’s in the shop.” Her thin fingers clutched at her worn nylon robe. “I don’t know why he keeps telling everyone to call him Russ, and I certainly don’t know why he’d be using my last name now. I gave him a perfectly good name—Wallace. Wallace Russell.”

  “The child molester?” Rafael yelped. He’d been keeping an eye out for Wallace’s Buick for days, ever since his name had come up in the FBI check.

  Ruth double-checked the lock on the screen door between them. “I don’t know why people have to say nasty things like that about Wally,” she said with a sniff. “Why, he’s got himself a lady friend and everything now.”

  21

  Bands of pastel-colored rock rippled down like flowing curtains. They were gliding through millions of years. They’d already passed through the yellow schist that marked the period when prehistoric man first emerged, were fast approaching the lavender rock at the bottom, the color of the earth when the first mammals wandered this area.

  The rhythm of rappelling and the colors and shapes of the rock always soothed Sam. In her current state of fatigue, the sounds and motions were almost hypnotic. It might be possible to forget about Zack, about Fred Fischer and Buck Ferguson, Coyote Charlie and Kent and the cougars and SWF and Adam and the whole sordid business. Except that now Perez’s warning about someone waiting below with a gun had her itching all over, eager to reach solid ground where she could run instead of being an easy target dangling overhead.

  A muffled thump from the bottom of the crevice told her that Perez had not landed well. He rolled to his hands and knees, the seat of his pants covered with damp sand. She pushed off hard and released her rope, landed on both feet on the packed sand floor and was immediately sorry as a stab of pain flashed up from her wounded thigh.

  “Nine-point-five,” Perez said. “You’d have to do it without the rope to get a perfect ten.”

  Perfect ten, echoed the walls.

  “What happened to being quiet?”

  He held out his hands. “Nobody here but us.”

  They stood in a large antechamber, approximately seventy feet long by thirty feet wide. At the bottom of the crevice, the undulating striped walls of the slot canyon met a floor of damp, fine sand. Sunlight streamed in from above in a narrow shaft, highlighting diamonds of water vapor. At one end of the crevice, Curtain Creek shimmered down the wall, a delicate bridal veil. The cascade became a shining ribbon across the floor and then disappeared into the darkness at the far end of the chamber.

  “So this is the Curtain,” he said. “It looks almost organic. Like we slid down the throat of a gigantic beast and now we’re seeing it from the inside.”

  Holding her fingers well away from the hot aluminum, she unclipped her descender from the D ring on her harness. “Most climbers only know this chamber: it’s called the Cascade Room. Outward Bound climbs right back up.”

  He looked skyward. “Good God. How?”

  “Ascenders.” She pulled one that was already threaded with a loop of rope from her pack. “They clamp onto the rope. You put your weight in one, slide the other up the rope, then move to it and slide the other one up.”

  “Sounds like work.”

  “It is. I brought them just in case. But it looks like we don’t need them.”

  They stripped off their climbing harnesses and attached them and the ascenders to the dangling ropes. She made a mental note to tell park HQ that they’d left the park service climbing gear out. HQ would be annoyed, but she could blame it on the FBI.

  Perez explored the chamber, examining the rippled walls and the sandy floor. “There are hundreds of different footprints in here. If there was any clue about Zack or Barbara Jean, we’d never notice.”

  “Maybe we’ll have better luck below.” She tucked an errant strand of hair into her braid. “From here on, it’s strictly a rock scramble, with a few tight squeezes and wet crossings.”

  “Squeezes? Wet crossings?”

  “The Curtain feels like a cavern because of its size, but it’s really a slot canyon like ZigZag. The creek slithered down through a crack eons ago, carved out five chambers that descend through the rock l
ayers. Get out your flashlight.” She led the way to the far end of the chamber.

  Barely visible in dim light, Curtain Creek spilled noisily down over a moss-covered rockfall into a smaller chamber some twenty feet below.

  “Watch your step,” she said in a low voice. “The algae’s slippery.”

  They scrambled down the pile, clutching at rocks to steady themselves as they maneuvered over the uneven footing. At the bottom, Sam studied the chamber anxiously for a moment to be sure they were alone, then limped onto the wet sand and looked back. Perez’s hair and eyebrows were frosted with mist, making him look as if he’d suddenly turned gray.

  He stepped down beside her. Only the light from a narrow crack above illuminated the small room; the sun was a spotlight reflected in the glistening water. Two stout pillars of rock held up layers of stone overhead. Generations of swallows had glued mud nests onto the pillars, making the rock formations look as if they had sprouted warts. Several of the elegant long-tailed birds swooped and twittered overhead.

  “This is the Drawing Room. In the springtime the birds are so loud, you can’t even hear the water in here.” She gestured at the floor of flat sand and rock. “Hardly anyone comes this way,” she murmured, “So footprints might be preserved in this chamber.”

  Perez, now in the lead, inspected every inch of floor and walls with the flashlight he’d taken from his pack. At one point, the beam illuminated a rough wall drawing of two deer etched in ochre. Next to the crude animals were three handprints, two adult-sized and one tiny, with the fat palm and stubby fingers of a baby’s hand.

  “The Drawing Room—I get it,” Perez whispered. “Anasazi?”

  She shook her head. “The archaeologists say these are recent fakes.”

  The light in the chamber dimmed as if a bulb had just winked out. The narrow crack in the chamber ceiling revealed thunderheads gathering outside.

  “Oh no,” Sam groaned softly. “Looks like rain.” A rumble overhead echoed her prediction.

  “We’ll be dry enough in here.”

  “You don’t understand. When it rains, the runoff on the high mesa dumps into Curtain Creek. And remember, Curtain Creek runs through ZigZag Passage and then dumps into—”

  “Here,” he finished, his tone suddenly grim. His eyes focused on the placid stream of water trickling slowly across the chamber floor. “How long does it take the creek to rise?”

  She sucked in a nervous breath. “It depends on how hard it rains, and how long. If it really pours, it can reach flood stage in a half hour.”

  A few drops spattered through the natural skylight to the chamber floor. Damn the weather forecast! It wasn’t supposed to rain until tonight or tomorrow. She grabbed his sleeve. “Let’s move along, Perez. We’ve got three more chambers to go.”

  He had to hunch to clear a bulge of rock over their heads. No threatening figures lurked in the shadows. She didn’t encourage him to look for subtle clues. Time could be critical.

  Splashing through water and clinging to the walls, they climbed over a danger! no trespassing! sign on a rope barrier and shuffled down a water-smoothed incline into the next chamber. Lightning flashed above, illuminating a large pile of tumbled rocks below a natural skylight.

  “Wreck Room. Careful,” Sam warned. “This is the one I told you about earlier. The ceiling’s unstable here.”

  “Obviously.” He played his flashlight beam over the island of rubble. The rain fell harder now, splashing against the large chunks of limestone. Flecks of mica glinted in the circle of light.

  “It’s been off limits for years now. Every time there’s a quake or a lot of rain, more of the overhang falls in. But it looks like we can still get through. Stay off to the side.” Bats squeaked and swallows chirped high overhead. Sam wished she were wearing her rock helmet, as much to deflect guano as for protection from cascading rocks.

  Perez moved his beam onto the chamber floor. In just the short time they had been here, the water had deepened and spread into a larger stream.

  “Wait!” She grabbed his hand. “The rocks—I think I saw something.”

  Placing her hand over his, she directed the flashlight beam to the pile of debris in the center of the chamber. Rain-slickened rocks, spotted with emerald moss and rust-colored lichen, surrounded by swirling water. Lightning flashed, stabbing her pupils.

  She took her hand away from his. “Never mind. It was probably just the lightning.” The bright light slowly faded from her sight.

  “No,” he said grimly. He held the beam steady. “There.”

  Wedged in between chunks of dark rock, a tiny white hand gleamed in the light. Stubby fingers curled skyward as if trying to catch the drops of rain that fell from above.

  22

  “Oh God.” A sudden rush of blood in Sam’s head drowned out all other sounds. She stared in horror at the motionless fingers extending from beneath the rocks. Her heartbeat moved into her throat. Her chest hurt as though she’d been struck. Breathe.

  She inhaled painfully. “There’s no time to call your Crime Scene team.” Her voice sounded surprisingly normal.

  Perez moved the light to the water lapping at the sides of the rubble pile. Fat drops of rain splashed into the stream, a steady pattern of radiating circles overlaying the undulating ripples of the creek. “How high will the water get?”

  She could barely hear the words through the roar in her ears. Her fingers trembled against her lips. She lowered her hand. Breathe. Focus on the surroundings, not on the body. The water was rising. How high, how fast? The curled fingers looked to be about a foot above the stream. Two patches of bright yellow lichen, like the eyes of some nocturnal creature, lurked at the edge of the water. “If it keeps raining like this, the creek will fill this chamber two to three feet deep.”

  “Then let’s hope that the rain keeps up.”

  What the hell was he talking about?

  “Otherwise, what I’m about to do could get me canned,” he explained, wading across to the rock pile. “My phone’s almost out of juice. Let me have your camera.”

  Moving as if in a slow-motion dream, she twisted her pack around to one shoulder, fished out the camera. Her pulse was slowing now, leaving her shaking. The constriction had receded from her throat. She waded across the chamber to join Perez. The water reached up to her calves; its coldness seeped through her pants legs and snaked into her hiking boots. Rain drizzled from her eyebrows onto her lashes. She took up a position beside Perez and handed him the camera.

  A raindrop fell from the tip of her nose as she bent over the little body. Bile rose into her throat at the sight as well as the smell; she swallowed hard. A huge chunk of sandstone obscured the toddler’s chest and neck; Sam estimated the rock weighed over a hundred pounds. A smaller piece pinioned the lower torso and most of the left leg. The child’s head looked like one of those marble nymphs that adorned fountains in formal gardens, except for the deep indentation in his forehead where it rested against another rock. Golden hair, flattened by the falling rain, lay in commalike curls against a gray-pink scalp. The smooth roundness of the still, white cheeks contrasted with the jagged edges of the surrounding stones.

  The flash went off. Standing ankle deep in the water, Perez took shots of the body from various positions. Then he climbed out of the rising tide onto the rubble. He shrugged off his pack and set it down a yard away from the body. “Now we know what happened to Zachary Fischer.”

  This hadn’t been the ending she’d expected. She’d dreamed of photographing the scene as a warm, breathing toddler was placed in Jenny Fischer’s arms. The gleaming eyes, the smile of gratitude. She remembered the feel of Zack’s tiny damp hand in her own. Her heart hurt.

  You’ll find him, won’t you? You know what my baby looks like, Jenny had pleaded.

  He’ll be fine. That’s what she’d told Zack’s mother.

  Perez studied the body, then focused on the gaping hole above them and pressed the shutter button. “It looks like he was crushed by
falling rock.”

  “Poor baby,” Sam moaned. A flash of lightning lit up the chamber. Sam grabbed for Perez’s sleeve. “Oh dear God, look at his eyes.”

  He peered at the dark jelly that filled the sockets. “His eyes are filled with blood. Probably from the impact.”

  “He’s so . . . colorless.” A white marble child.

  Perez placed his fingers on a rock next to the child’s head and bent to examine the cold little face. “He’s been dead for a while now. Gravity pulls the blood to the lowest points, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know.” She took a gulp of the chilly air, poisoned by a faint aftertaste of rotting flesh. “I’m a wildlife biologist.”

  That’s all she’d ever wanted to be. She wanted trees and birds and cougars and deer. Not this. “You may be used to looking at bodies, but I’m not. This is the first time I’ve seen anyone who’s been dead for days.”

  He handed her the camera, then straddled the corpse and curled his fingers around the largest rock that rested on the toddler. With a guttural growl, he straightened his arms and heaved off the largest rock, tossing it away from the rock pile into the stream.

  Ker-plunk. Just like tossing rocks off the old bridge close to her grandmother’s house. A universe removed from this horrible place and time. She forced herself to look again at the body, at the mess of broken flesh and smashed bone that the sandstone had hidden. The shorts and shirt the child wore were mashed into his flesh. Gagging, she turned away, focused her eyes on the water swirling around them.

  Perez explained, “It doesn’t smell too bad because it’s so cool in here.”

  “Please,” she said. Please stop. This is a person. Was a person, she corrected herself. The skull they’d found on the plateau had been more like an archaeological study. But cold flesh and battered limbs . . .

  How was she going to live with this for the rest of her life? Zack, I’m so sorry. I should have taken your hand and not let go until I put your fingers into your Mommy’s. Zack, Jenny, somebody, anybody—forgive me.

  Grunting, Perez lifted the second rock, flung it away. Water splashed over her from the impact. She leaned forward, searching for the yellow lichen patches that had marked the waterline. They had disappeared.