Meg nodded.She set the bar back carefully and closed the lid.
Priorities.
A kid’s life came before gold.
They continued their search, working their way around the chamber’s perimeter.The space narrowed at the far end.Water trickled along the walls.
Noah’s flashlight swept methodically back and forth across the floor, the rocks, the dark openings that led to deeper passages.Then his beam paused.Stopped.
Something on the ground.
A shoe?
They hurried forward and rounded a large boulder.
And there was Alex.
He lay crumpled on the stone floor.Unconscious.His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths.
Alive.
Meg dropped to her knees beside him.Her medical bag hit the ground.Her hands moved automatically to check his pulse.
Weak but steady.Thank God.
Her training kicked in, smooth and automatic.She ran her fingers carefully over his scalp, feeling for injuries, for blood.“He’s alive.But he has a sizable bump on the back of his head.”
Maybe she’d been faking calmness all those years in the ER.But she hadn’t been faking competence.Her hands knew what to do even when her mind was screaming.
Maybe that’s all being brave really was.Doing the work even when you were terrified.
She frowned as she looked around the immediate area.“But how did he fall here?There’s nothing to trip over, no loose rocks?—”
Noah’s flashlight swept the ground around Alex’s body.
And then he went still.
“Meg.”
Something in his voice made her look up.
He was staring at the ground.
She followed his line of sight and turned her head.
And froze.
Photos.They were scattered across the stone floor like fallen leaves.Dozens of them spread in an arc.
Meg reached for the nearest one.She brought it into the beam of her headlamp.A woman’s face smiled back at her.Young.Pretty.Familiar in a way that made her stomach turn.
Her breath caught.“That’s Lydia.”
She grabbed another.Lydia in a graduation gown.And another—an aged photo of a child with the same eyes as Lydia.Had to be her at about age five.
More photos.Lydia at different ages.In different places.
Personal photos.Family photos.
