“You can’t rely on those stupid crystals to protect you,” he said.
“I know I can do this,” I told him. “If it becomes too much and the crystals aren’t working, I’ll come back to the truck.”
He stared at me for a long time. We seemed to have a silent battle. You’re not going, his face read. Try and stop me, my eyes conveyed. I could see he was warring with the decision to keep me safe in the truck or allow me to test out the crystals.
In the end, I won. I meekly climbed out of the truck. I wanted him to feel as though it was his decision to allow me to participate in the search of these mines. I felt like I could give him this little concession after what I’d done this morning.
Before closing the truck door, I reached back into my purse and took one of the cloth-covered shards from the bag. Putting it into my left jacket pocket, I followed Cavanaugh up the trail. I pulled back the cloth to expose the tip of the shard and then placed my finger on it inside my jacket pocket.
When we reached the split in the trail, we headed up to the first mine we checked yesterday. So far so good, I told myself, as we reached the mine’s clearing. The crystal prevented the sound of angry bees that I’d heard yesterday from getting into my head. Cavanaugh watched me for any signs of trouble. It was a little unnerving to have his attention so focused on me, even more so now after I’d seen him naked. I thought back to when we first met; he’d offered to take his clothes off for me, to put us on equal footing after he saw me in the shower. I tried to think about this morning’s vision as being just that, putting us on equal footing. Somehow, though, I didn’t think that Cavanaugh would view it that way. Something told me that he would be mad if he found out.
He stood at the beginning of the next trail, the one that knocked me on my ass yesterday. I pulled the shard in my left pocket out, removing it completely from the velvet cloth before putting it back into my pocket. Cavanaugh looked at me without saying a word. I knew what he was thinking, though. He was thinking that he would have to carry me back down the mountain. I wondered if he hoped the crystals wouldn’t work, so that Johnson would take me off the case. I didn’t feel that he was tired of spending time with me or anything like that; on the contrary, I felt he believed this case was too dangerous for me to participate in. But no matter how much the thought of him caring about me like that made me feel, I couldn’t stop or give up. I couldn’t disappoint Johnson like that.
I passed him at the head of the trail, and he stepped back to let me lead the way. I think he wanted to be behind me in case I went down again. It was awkward to navigate the rough path with one hand in my pocket, but the crystal was keeping the effects of the iron and silver at bay, so I kept plodding along. We passed the point where I had collapsed.
“How you doing?” Cavanaugh asked me.
Remarkably, I was still doing well. No sounds in my head at all.
“I’m okay,” I told him.
Further up the trail, I stumbled over a rock that jutted onto the path. I almost lost my footing and fell, but I quickly put both hands out to maintain my balance. I shouldn’t have done that. The moment I stopped touching the shard, my head filled with screaming, broiling pain. I cried out and stumbled again, shoving my hand into my pocket to touch the shard. As soon as my fingers made contact, the sounds and pain stopped. Cavanaugh caught up to me and grabbed my arm.
“Are you all right?” he said with a look of concern.
I brushed his arm off and turned to start walking again. I didn’t want him to see my face. I had sweat on my hairline and upper lip from the pain. I also knew my face was pale.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “I didn’t see that rock on the path.”
I didn’t want to take any more chances that I might lose touch with the shard, so I drew it out of my pocket and held it in my hand as we walked. When we arrived at the clearing to the second mine’s entrance, I was out of breath. That last little bit of the path took us almost straight up the side of the mountain. Cavanaugh, the rat, didn’t even seem to have broken a sweat, which ticked me off because he was carrying the backpack’s extra weight. The entrance to the mine was large. The boards covering its mouth were splintered and hanging down on one side. Cavanaugh looked at the ground for signs of recent human activity. Finding none, he proceeded into the mine. This time I was close at his heels.
“What are you doing?” he said when he stopped and I ran into the back of him, revealing my presence.
“I want to come with you,” I said.
He stared at me for a moment, his mouth a grim line. Finally he turned back and continued on. The entrance of the mine was large enough to let the sunlight illuminate the first fifteen feet into the cavern. As we walked farther on, it became gray and then black. Cavanaugh turned on the flashlight he had taken from the pack and shined it down the tunnel. It was eerie. The dark seemed to consume everything around it. The flashlight’s beam only lit the area directly in front of us. The air smelled stale, and I could hear the sound of water dripping in the distance. The tunnel branched off in two directions. Cavanaugh took the left branch, and we continued.
When we had traveled some distance down this tunnel, rocks and debris littered the ground. Farther on, more rocks lay on the tunnel’s dirt floor, making it hard to walk without tripping over one of them. We finally arrived at the source of all the debris. A wall of rock and timber sealed the tunnel, preventing us from going further. Cavanaugh let out a sigh of disgust. The mine was so dark that we were practically right up to the blockage before we realized it was there. I could tell that he was frustrated that we’d had to walk all this way just to find our path blocked. We turned around and made our way back to the main tunnel. Taking the right branch, we walked along in silence. I kept a firm grip on the shard, knowing that if I let go at any time, my head would explode. Well, maybe not explode, but I was sure it would feel that way. Even though the crystal kept the sound of angry bees and the searing pain from affecting me, I was starting to feel that slight hum as we moved down the tunnel.
It seemed as though we walked forever. The tunnel floor started to slope down and the air became much cooler. I was hearing a funny noise, like a high-pitched squeak, and I couldn’t place where it was coming from. The good thing was that I knew it wasn’t coming from inside my head. The noise had me peering around in the darkness, but of course, I couldn’t see a thing. I was just about to ask Cavanaugh what he thought the noise was when he stopped without warning. I slammed into his back, and he reached around to steady me, turning so that the light shined on the tunnel wall, lighting us both up. He grabbed my hand and put the flashlight into it.
“Hold this a minute,” he told me.
He pulled the backpack off his shoulder and set it on the ground at his feet.
“Shine the light here,” he said.
He opened the pack and pulled out a bottle of water. Twisting off the cap, he took a deep drink and then handed it to me.
“Is this all we have?” I asked, tucking the flashlight under my arm. I took the bottle and brought it to my lips.
“No there’s more in there.” He indicated the pack.
When I heard this, I tipped the bottle back and finished off the water. I handed the now-empty bottle back to him and watched as he stuffed it in the pack. Zipping it up, he slid it back onto his shoulder. I heard the high-pitched squeak again.
“What is that…” I started to say, shining the light on the walls and then the ceiling.
“Don’t…” he whispered fiercely.
“Oh crap, bats!” I yelled as the light shined on hundreds of furry bodies squirming around the ceiling on top of each other. I guess it was the combination of the bright light and my yell that caused the little rats with wings to take flight.
They launched themselves from the ceiling right at us. First, a small cluster dropped, and then layer after layer until every furry, squeaking body was in the air, heading right at us. I screamed and flailed my arms and hands, trying to swat at the bats th
at were flying at me and colliding with my body. Cavanaugh grabbed me and pushed me down into a crouch against the wall, covering me with his larger frame. The squeaking and flapping wings drowned out every other sound. I could still feel the bats smacking into us. I whimpered and burrowed myself closer into Cavanaugh’s arms.
It seemed like it took forever for the exodus of vermin to leave the tunnel. Cavanaugh lifted his head and eased away from me. He didn’t get very far because I had a death grip on his T-shirt. Instead of trying to pry me loose, he pulled me up with him. He shined the flashlight around us, checking to make sure the way was clear, while I just stood there, shivering in his arms. He turned me, tucked me under his shoulder, and briskly walked me back to the main tunnel. He tried several times to get me to let go of his T-shirt; he got my left hand free, but only because I was still holding the shard. I didn’t know how I managed to maintain my grip on the crystal throughout this whole ordeal. He gave up fighting with my right hand as he hurried me down the tunnel.
We managed to make it back to the dimly lit tunnel exit. I let go of Cavanaugh’s shirt when I saw the light and hurried ahead of him. I stopped, leaning over with my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. Cavanaugh led the way to the boarded-up entrance, and I followed close on his heels. I still had the heebie-jeebies from those nasty, furry little bodies hitting us, and I still felt as though I had things crawling on me. I ran my right hand through my hair and down my left side. Switching the shard into my right hand, I did the same with the right side of my body. Satisfied, I put the shard back into my left hand.
I was crowded behind Cavanaugh, waiting for my turn to step into the light. I felt a little tickle on the front of my T-shirt. I had already run my hands over myself, so I looked down at my chest instead of doing it again. Sitting on my T-shirt, right between my breasts, was a small bat. He had his little feet hooked into the material of my shirt and his wings tucked into his sides as we stared at each other. His pig-like nostrils flared at me, and his pink tongue flicked out and licked his upper lip. The scream that I let loose was so high and so loud, I’m surprised it didn’t shatter the crystal in my hand.
I shoved Cavanaugh through the opening of the mine with a strength I didn’t know I had. He stumbled out and tripped over the lumber at the bottom of the entrance. I ran past him, leaping over his fallen body, beating my hand against my chest to try to dislodge the bat. I reached a patch of sunshine and tried to rip off my jacket. In my panicked and delusional brain, I thought that if I could just expose his little black-and-brown body to the sunlight, he’d disintegrate like the vampires you see in the movies. The only thing the sunlight did was make him tuck his furry face into my T-shirt and slowly crawl up to my neck. I screamed again. My jacket was stuck on my left hand because I couldn’t release the shard. I began to brush at the bat, trying to get him off me. Dancing around the clearing, I flung my left arm around, smacking Cavanaugh upside his head with my jacket. He’d gotten to his feet and was trying to help me with the bat. However, he was also laughing so hard that he could barely stand straight.
“Get it off! Get it off!” I screamed, beating at my chest.
He ducked as I swung my jacket again at him.
“Stand still, damn it,” he laughed as he tried to grab my arms.
I screamed again as the little bat continued to climb up to my neck. I did not want that thing in my hair. Cavanaugh, having no luck getting me to stand still long enough for him to remove the bat, knocked me to the ground and straddled my hips. He put his knee on my jacket so I couldn’t move my left arm and held my right wrist, while he tried to pluck the little furry bat off my chest without getting bit. And still he laughed. It was a good thing he had a hold of my free hand, because I wanted nothing more than to punch his lights out.
“Hold still, Tink,” he said.
The bat was fighting to stay attached and had all four sets of claws hooked into my shirt. I was definitely throwing out this shirt when I got home. I didn’t think you could wash out bat cooties. Cavanaugh finally managed to get the bat off me. He held the little bat up between us.
“Poor little guy,” he sympathized. “All he wanted was a soft, warm spot to hide, and look what happened.”
He tossed the little creature up into the air and it took flight back into the mine. Cavanaugh held his spot straddled over me for another minute before standing and hauling me up with him. He chuckled when he got a good look at me. My jacket was still stuck at the end of my hand. My hair was sticking up in all directions, and my T-shirt was stretched out of shape and hanging off one shoulder. I gave him a shot in the chest with my fist and glared at him for laughing at me.
“Ow!” he complained. “You’re an ornery little thing when you’re riled up, aren’t you?”
“I so hate you right now,” I seethed as I tried to pull my jacket back up my arm. He reached out to help me, but I was too mad to accept his assistance. I smacked at his hands as he held my arm and tried to work my sleeve back up. He gave up with a grin and let me do it myself.
When he determined that I had taken long enough to straighten myself out, he led us back down the trail. We checked the map and made our way back to the branch in the trail below the first mine. Cavanaugh dug out a couple bottles of water and two energy bars. We ate and finished our waters on our way to the third mine in the cluster.
It was almost six o’clock in the evening when we finally covered the rest of the mines. My legs hurt, and I was tired as I climbed back into Cavanaugh’s truck. I was now able to give my left hand a break and released the crystal, setting it into my lap. We pulled out of the park and headed back to town.
“This is getting us nowhere,” he said, looking at me. “You said you’re close enough to hone in on the kids?”
“Yes, but I still don’t know if they’re in the park or if we’re just closer, distance wise.”
“We need to narrow down the search,” he told me.
I was thinking the same thing. I’d thought about nothing else as we trudged up and down that damn mountain. I knew how I could narrow the search dramatically, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to bring it up. Thank God he did. Now if he would just go along with my idea, I could contribute something other than comic relief.
“I want to find a spot in the park where I can sit and focus on the kids. I think I’m close enough to try to tackle those tunnels. I need to stick with it and go as far as I can to see if I can find the entrance. If I can get outside, I might be able to locate a landmark that will take us to the mine they’re in.”
Cavanaugh was quiet for a long time. Neither one of us said another word until we pulled up at the curb in front of my house. He stared out the windshield, his hands gripping the wheel.
“Fine,” he said, “we’ll do it your way. I’m out of answers, and I feel as though time is running out. I don’t want to continue to waste time searching these mines. I feel like we’re just blundering around. I’ll pick you up at the same time tomorrow.”
I slid out of the truck and walked up to my front door. It was a little after seven. I rushed upstairs, leaving a trail of stuff behind me: purse, jacket, shoes, and cootie bat shirt. I took a quick shower, redressed with hair and makeup, and jumped into my car. Heading over to Mike and Rita Hamstead’s new house, I called Kelli on my cell.
“What’s up?” she asked when she answered.
“I’m on my way to Uncle Mike and Aunt Rita’s. They think they have a ghost in their new house. I’m going to try what Pamela told me to do if they decide they want to get rid of it.”
“So how’s the investigation with the yummy Detective Cavanaugh going?” she asked.
“We’re not getting anywhere,” I said, frustrated. “He’s finally at his wit’s end and is going to let me do my thing tomorrow.”
“What do you mean finally?” she asked. “Why haven’t you been doing your thing?”
“I’ve tried,” I said, “but every time I zero in on the kids, he stops me before I can get
anywhere.”
“Does Johnson know he’s doing that?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “I feel kind of useless in this case, Kell. I don’t get this guy at all. Why won’t he just suck it up and use me like everyone else? I think I could have found those kids by now.”
“I’ve been watching the two of you,” she said. “The sexual attraction between you is pretty explosive. You do anything about it yet?”
“No,” I said, puffing my bangs off my forehead.
“Well, I think maybe you’re right to hold it off for now.”
“You do?” I asked, amazed.
“Yeah,” she said. “He acts like a dog protecting his favorite chew toy when he’s around you. If you sleep with him, it will be worse. I would wager that he would even go so far as to drop you from the case altogether.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I got that impression, too,” I told her. “I don’t know how Johnson will react if that happens. He’ll be mad at the both of us, but I think he’ll take it out on Cavanaugh more than he will me. I can’t lose the extra income I get working with the police, either. I couldn’t make it if I had to draw a paycheck from the shop.”
“Just watch yourself,” Kelli said. “I think that he’ll try to find any excuse to get you off the case. I see his protective streak for you causing a big problem.”
I pulled up into Uncle Mike and Aunt Rita’s long driveway and parked off into a grassy area next to their other guests’ cars.
“Look, don’t get me wrong,” Kelli said. “I don’t think his overprotectiveness is a bad thing. I like the way he watches out for you. Just don’t do anything stupid to prove you don’t need him, okay?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to do anything stupid,” I told her, “at least not without you.”
She laughed as I hung up. As I got out of my car, I thought about what she’d said. I didn’t want Cavanaugh to get into trouble because of me. If we didn’t get results within the next couple of days, Johnson was going to wonder what the hell we were doing. I made the decision right then and there to not let that happen—even if I had to go behind Cavanaugh’s back to do it. I walked up to the house, pushing the case and Cavanaugh from my mind and focusing on Uncle Mike and Aunt Rita’s house.
Lightning Strikes Page 15