Buried

by Ellison Cooper

  Wind and rain whipped against the truck and Sayer alternated between whispering comfort to the girl in her arms and turning to watch Max in the back, hunched next to the half-dead woman. His lips moved and she suspected that she and Max were both whispering the same words. “Hang on. You’re safe now. We’ve got you. Don’t give up.”

  The forty-minute drive felt like it took forty hours, but they finally pulled up to the University Hospital. Two teams swarmed out of the emergency room door, one pulling the woman from the back and the other sweeping the girl from Sayer’s arms.

  After the doctors told them it would be a long while before either patient would be allowed visitors, Sayer, Max, and Piper made their way back to the ranger station, slightly dazed.

  VENT, THE PIT

  Hannah managed to pull herself around the turn in the vent but then stopped. Tears blurred her vision and she couldn’t get her arms up far enough to wipe them away. She turned her head and rested against the cold metal, tears creating a warm pool against her cheek.

  For the first time, it occurred to her that she might die here in the vent. Somehow that thought felt comforting. If she were dead, he wouldn’t need Sam to motivate her. And she wouldn’t have to endure this any longer. It would be over.

  A buzzing hum filled her with a sense of peace and she closed her eyes, thinking that maybe she could just drift off to sleep and never wake up. She must have drifted out of consciousness, because she suddenly jolted awake, banging her head on the metal. The echoing sound sent a new wave of adrenaline to her limbs.

  Hannah wiggled her body to see if it was even still there. Her muscles burned with bands of fire along her back and shoulders, but they still moved when she told them to.

  “Sam.” She purposefully whispered her daughter’s name, forcing herself to picture the smiling girl. Hannah slid her arms forward. They shook wildly at the effort, but she let out a husky grunt and pushed herself forward until her elbow clanged against the vent. Slowly, painfully, she inched forward.

  In the faint light, she could just make out an opening off to the side, halfway down the vent. If she could just reach the opening, maybe she could still save her daughter.

  Crying from the pain in her muscles, Hannah pushed herself to the opening. She slid her arms up one more time and let out a harsh cry as she shoved as hard as she could.

  Her eyes cleared the turn and she could see the end of the tunnel. A roaring sound became as loud as an oncoming train. Cool mist settled on her face. She almost cried with relief that nothing covered the end of the vent.

  Hannah scooted forward just enough to get her head to the opening.

  Her fingers curled over the edge. She pushed one last time and fell, arms flailing, to the ground.

  A shudder of adrenaline convulsed her entire body. Pure terror had drained Hannah to the point of exhaustion beyond anything she could’ve imagined. Even swallowing felt like too much. Her broken finger thudded like it was being hit with a hammer over and over again.

  “He’s going after my daughter,” she said out loud. Just saying those words kicked off a new wave of shudders along her body, but it also motivated her to keep moving.

  The vent dropped her into a small, natural cavern. Light filtered in from a narrow doorway leading off to her left. A river ran along the back wall of the cavern. Hannah knew there were underground rivers in the area, but she’d never actually seen one. The river carved a sharp line in the rock of the cave floor and she hobbled over to the edge, muscles protesting with every movement. Hannah struggled with the surreal scene, standing on the banks of a swift river in a cavern underground.

  She turned a slow circle and stopped at the sight of a stone table jutting from the rock wall. It was covered with a thick red velvet cloth, and her first thought was to wrap it around her shivering shoulders. But as she neared the table, she realized that there was a skeleton laid out on top of the cloth. The bones looked charred. A jagged hole collapsed the side of the skull.

  Carved around the edges of the table were two words in a foreign-looking alphabet.

  Hannah backed away, unwilling to touch the human remains.

  A narrow doorway opened next to the table and she headed into the tunnel beyond it, which then split to the left and right.

  To the left, a faded orange sign read WARNING: MINE! OPEN SHAFTS. DEAD END. DO NOT ENTER! Beyond that the tunnel led into pure darkness.

  To the right, light leaked in around an arched door.

  Holding her breath, Hannah pushed the wooden door. It swung open onto the pit.

  Though her muscles quivered, her legs held firm and she managed to walk out to the middle of the massive cavern. Faint light filtered down from above.

  The ladder!

  She hurried over to the ladder and climbed, grunting at the pain, until she reached the metal gate extending horizontally out from the wall. A large padlock held it firmly in place. She would have to swing out away from the ladder and pull herself up around the edge of the gate with just her arms.

  The ground was a dizzying thirty feet below. A fall from this height could kill her. Blinking back tears, she decided she had no choice but to try. She was so close to escape.

  Hannah grasped the grate and screamed a full-throated howl as she wrapped her broken finger over the metal. She used the grate like monkey bars until she made it to the edge. Her arms shook violently, her finger stabbing agonizing daggers into her hand, but she managed to hang on. The fingers of her right hand curled over the edge and she felt something slice into her palm.

  Hannah screamed in pain and barely hung on. She swung her legs back to the ladder and yanked her body back against the wall.

  Panting, blood running warm from her palm, she hugged the metal ladder, tears dripping off her chin. She realized the entire edge of the grate must be lined with razors.

  There was no way she could climb past it.

  Without thinking, she let herself down in a barely controlled descent. Back on the rocky ground, she curled her entire body into a ball around her bleeding hand. She wanted to stay like that forever.

  “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “No!” she said more loudly. She would not curl up and die here.

  Hannah forced herself up and made a slow circuit of the room. There was no way to climb the walls. No way out. This mine was a dead end. The ladder impossible.

  “The river,” she said. She knew underground rivers often meandered to the surface and back underground. Did the river here go up to the surface?

  Hannah made her way back to the edge of the raging river. She was a strong swimmer, but she was injured. Her arms were exhausted. This seemed like madness. But what if he was kidnapping Sam right now? What if she could escape and stop him? She had to try. And if she died … well, then at least he wouldn’t need Sam anymore.

  Tears ran down her cheeks as she stood there shaking. She felt the collar at her neck, wondering if it was set to go off if she got too far away.

  She knew the longer she stood there, the more she would second-guess her decision. If this was a way out, she had to try now before he came back. Before he could get to Sam.

  “I love you, Sam,” she whispered.

  Taking a deep breath, Hannah jumped.

  SOUTHERN RANGER STATION, SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, VA

  Sayer hung up the phone and faced her team. “Jillian and Grace Watts have been positively identified. I’ve got an evidence tech from Dana’s team there processing their clothes and anything the doctors found on them.”

  She sat down, her waterlogged boots dampening her desire to pace the room. “The doctor said that Grace is going to be fine, minor exposure but otherwise the girl’s in good health. Jillian is less clear. She’s had a serious brain injury, on top of a bunch of broken ribs, so they’ve put her into a medically induced coma. They think they’ve got her stabilized, which is a minor miracle. They’ll keep us up-to-date if anything changes.”

  “Did you see Jillian’s hands?” Max asked softly. />
  Sayer nodded.

  “What?” Ezra asked.

  “She’s clearly been in bare-knuckle fights. Her hands look like raw meatballs,” Max said.

  “Supports our theory about someone forcing her to fight,” Ezra said.

  “My question is, why would the UNSUB let Jillian and her daughter go while they were still alive?” Piper asked, unable to keep the emotion from her voice.

  Sayer leaned forward against the table. “Good question. Which reminds me. Cases like this are as hard as they come, so let’s all take a moment to celebrate. We just found Jillian and Grace and there’s a chance they will both survive.” She knew the team was also worn out, drawn thin, and needed some encouragement.

  Max made a half-assed attempt to appear more cheerful, but everyone else looked solemn. None of this felt like a victory. Hannah Valdez was still missing and the UNSUB was still out there, possibly already hunting for his next victim.

  “All right.” Sayer slammed her hand on the table to jolt them a bit. “Let’s refocus on what we can do right now. Let’s spend some time talking about where and why, instead of who. Where is the UNSUB holding them? It’s probably not too far from the cave where he was dumping the bodies, and also probably not far from where he dumped the Wattses. Where could that be?” Sayer stood before the map Piper and Max had marked up with all the local roads.

  In the silence that followed Sayer’s question, Kyle stepped through the door. Sayer, Ezra, Max, and Dana all watched him stride over to the table, unsure of his mood. He sat down and calmly answered Sayer. “Before this was a national park, this whole region was covered with mines, ranches, and farmsteads. When the park was formed, the government kicked all those people off their land, but they left behind hundreds of old farmhouses and outbuildings, all of which could work. There’s at least a few dozen abandoned mines out there as well. Not to mention dozens of underground cave systems.”

  Kyle took a deep breath. “I heard about finding the Wattses. Sorry I stormed out of here. I needed to get my head on straight.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought. We all understand,” Sayer said.

  He nodded curtly and folded his hands on the table in front of him.

  “All right,” Sayer said, turning back to the case. “Isn’t there any way to narrow down where the UNSUB is keeping them? What about looking through records of old mines?”

  “Thing is,” Piper said, “there were tons of illegal mines in the mountains here. People would build a long tunnel in and then dig the mine shafts completely underground. So all you would see from outside would be a small tunnel entrance.”

  “Ezra?”

  “I’d already been crawling through the old paperwork on the mines but most of that isn’t digital,” Ezra said. “I’ve also got calls in to a few local spelunking organizations; they love to find and climb around in old mines. But nothing so far.”

  “Damn, okay. Let’s at least narrow down possibilities within a small radius of our two known locations. Ezra, can you make a map showing the bone cave and where the UNSUB dumped the Wattses?”

  “On it.”

  “The UNSUB?” Kyle asked. “Does that mean you’re not convinced that it’s Cricket?”

  “She clearly attacked us, but I’m not assuming anything. She’s connected to the old cases, but not necessarily the new ones. Until we know for sure, the killer is the UNSUB to me.”

  Kyle just nodded, eyes down.

  Sayer couldn’t sit still any longer and began to pace, fingers working her worry beads.

  The park ranger on watch poked her head in the conference room. “Uh, Agent Altair, there’s someone here to see you.”

  “If it’s the media, tell them I’ve got no comment.”

  “I’m pretty sure they aren’t with the media.”

  Curious, Sayer hurried to the entry hall.

  UNDERGROUND RIVER

  The raging river swallowed Hannah. She just managed to swim to the middle of the torrent before being pulled violently under as the river sluiced into a narrow opening.

  She got her feet pointed downriver and thought for a moment that she would be able to safely ride the current. If she could just hold her breath long enough, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  But then a rock protrusion slammed into her side. The impact sent her spinning into the opposite wall. Her head and shoulder hit, forcing her to let out a sharp exhale of precious breath.

  Hannah flailed her arms wildly, trying to avoid another impact.

  Tumbling, she lost all sense of direction as she ricocheted off the cave walls. Rough rock scraped away flesh as the water bounced her back and forth.

  Unable to do anything else, she curled her body into a defensive ball.

  As she was battered against the walls, her lungs began to burn. They squeezed her chest as though they were imploding.

  She clawed at her neck. Hannah knew that, at some point, her brain would become so starved of oxygen she would be forced to involuntarily inhale. The breaking point.

  Her head exploded in a starburst of agony.

  Arms and legs numb, Hannah’s entire body seized. Her muscles collapsed forward and then spasmed her limbs behind her. Back arched, Hannah felt herself inhale. Water flowed down her throat. The black void filled her lungs. Reality faded into a churning cacophony of silence.

  SOUTHERN RANGER STATION, SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, VA

  Sayer stepped into the entryway and barely had time to brace herself before the silvery dog flew at her through the air, tongue flapping to the side like a loose sail.

  “Vesper!” she cried out, shocked at how excited she was to see her silly dog.

  He collided with her chest and almost took her down. She laughed at his slobbering enthusiasm.

  Nana, Adi, and Tino stood just inside the door, smiling broadly.

  Tino held a bunch of rainbow-colored balloons.

  Nana held a cake.

  Adi a wrapped present.

  “Happy birthday!” they all shouted.

  “What?” Sayer fended off face-licks from Vesper.

  “Adi wanted to come check out UVA, so we decided to come for a visit. Plus, I was confident that you forgot that today’s your birthday.” Nana handed the cake to Piper without a word, then gave Sayer a firm hug. She assessed the entry hall. “This will do,” Nana said. She pulled a roll of streamers from her oversized purse.

  “But—” Sayer began, but Nana held up her hand.

  “I know, you’re in the middle of a case. We will be here for exactly one hour. When is the last time you ate a meal?”

  “I…” Sayer thought back to the small powdered donut she’d eaten around five A.M. She glanced at the time and was surprised to see that it was only two.

  Nana held up her hand again. “I already know the answer. You need food and you also need to take a brief moment to enjoy your life and visit with your family.” She turned to Max, Kyle, and Piper. “And you are?”

  They introduced themselves and Nana nodded approvingly. “Lovely to meet you. Max, you’re in charge of getting the food out of the car. Piper, you’re in charge of getting a table out here in the entryway where we can all sit and have lunch and cake together. Kyle, since you’re injured”—she pointed to his bandaged head—“you can decorate.”

  The team looked to Sayer, uncertain.

  She shrugged. “When my nana says to do something, it’s best to just do it.” She turned to Nana. “One hour is all we can spare, for real.”

  While Max, Kyle, and Piper hustled off to do their assigned jobs, the new arrivals all hugged Ezra.

  “Surprise.” Adi smiled sheepishly at Sayer. “Sorry I didn’t warn you that we were coming, but Nana…”

  Sayer knew well enough that no one crossed Nana, even if it was just about surprise birthday parties.

  Adi handed Sayer the small present with an envelope balanced on top.

  “I also found this.… It’s, um … I was going to surprise you and get all your old boxes
unpacked and this was between the pages of one of your textbooks.” Adi stumbled over her words. “The neuroplasticity one. It fell out and … I’m not sure who it’s from, but thought it might be from Jake? I figured it’s unopened, so … you might want it?”

  Sayer turned the envelope over and felt a jolt of recognition seeing Jake’s handwriting.

  “Oh,” was all Sayer managed to say before Tino moved in and gave her a bear hug. She gripped the present and letter as he held her by the shoulders. “Ah, cálida. You look terrible.” He gave her a gentle smile.

  Sayer tucked the letter into her pocket and swallowed the wave of emotion it triggered. That was far too much for her to process right now. Rather than dwell on that and everything else going on, she decided to just accept the loving attention of her family and friends for the moment.

  When Max came back in from the car carrying a teetering stack of food, Kona alongside him, Vesper realized for the first time that there was another dog in the room. He loped over to Kona, sniffing around the serious black dog. Kona stood stock-still, letting Vesper circle her with curiosity.

  After making a few circuits, Vesper playfully jumped around in front of Kona and gave her a play-bow, tail wagging with excitement.

  Kona looked up at Max as though to say, What am I supposed to do with this creature?

  Everyone laughed as Vesper pranced around Kona, trying to convince her to play.

  Dana emerged from the bone room just as Piper returned carrying a folding table, and they began to set out forks and plates. Adi and Kyle hung streamers. Max and Nana laid out a feast of enchiladas and fresh ceviche. Tino got everyone some crisp limeade. Sayer decided to actually start a fire in the oversized fireplace.

  Within minutes they were sitting around the table sharing a delicious meal.

  “This is wonderful,” Dana said to Nana.

  She snorted. “Dear lord, I didn’t make this. Tino’s our resident chef.”