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Finn slowly dragged himself up the wall until he was standing. He peered at the ledge above them. “And then what?”
“I brace my arms on the ledge, and you climb up to my shoulders until you reach it. Then you pull yourself over and help pull me up. Once we’re both on that ledge, we do it again, until we make it to the main tunnel above it. That’s assuming you’re strong enough to make the climb, and assuming you’ll have enough strength left to help pull me up afterward.”
“Let’s do it.” Finn was already positioning himself underneath the ledge.
Liam hesitated. “You sure you can hold me?” He took a moment to study Finn closer in the dim light. Beads of perspiration clung to his forehead and around his hairline, his ashen complexion suggesting he was more qualified for a sickbed than a physical test of strength. “You’ve been starving down here for days. I could lift you up first, but I think it would be harder for you to bear my weight once I started climbing.”
“We can do this. And you’re right. It’s better you go first, then give me a boost.”
Boost.Liam squinted up at the rock ledge that looked almost too far away for them to reach. That was what the angels meant. Suddenly filled with determination, he braced himself to climb.
25
THE CAPTAIN WAS moving fast, and Cora struggled to follow in the darkness. Her phone light was too bright and would look like a beacon, so she had to slide it into her pocket and keep pace by feeling along the tunnel wall. As long as she kept her gaze pinned on his lantern up ahead, she could manage. When he disappeared around a corner, she was forced to hurry, which was dangerous on such uneven ground, but she couldn’t risk losing him.
As he took another turn, and yet another, Cora grew increasingly uneasy. She tried to commit their path to memory, but the pitch-black tunnel was disorienting, and she didn’t have time to mark her passage. She had no choice now but to follow a cold-blooded killer until he led her out of the caves. It was hard to believe the captain, a person she’d worked alongside for years, a person she’d trusted, was such a terrible criminal. And right now, he was her only link to the world above. Fear shuddered down her spine, and she picked up speed. If she lost him in the tunnels now, she could remain lost forever.
Several yards ahead, Captain Thompson came to an abrupt stop.
Cora slammed her body flat against the wall, her heart galloping like a racehorse.
He turned in a circle, eyes narrowed into slits.
Frozen, barely allowing herself to breathe, she tried not to panic. Unlike Bear, she was armed, but it was too dark to consider shooting or even alerting him to her presence. If she waited and followed him outside where there would still be ambient light, she’d have a much better chance of stopping him. Down here, with no knowledge of the tunnels, he had the advantage.
For long moments, the captain did nothing but stare into the gloom where she was hidden. Cora started to draw her gun, her heart still racing laps around her rib cage. If he decided to backtrack, she’d be trapped and have no choice but to confront him.
Muttering, he hooked the lantern to his belt, reached above his head with both arms, and began to climb.
Cora crept forward as quietly as she could, dragging her fingertips along the cave wall, using his disappearing lantern light as a point of reference. When she came to a rickety wooden ladder, she carefully gripped the rungs and began to follow. The ladder was ancient, with some rungs too rotted to bear anyone’s weight. Nimbly skipping over them, Cora continued to climb, hoping it would hold both their weights.
He was farther above her now, and she hastened to catch up. She was only about ten feet behind him when there was a screech of metal, followed by a loud clang that seemed to vibrate through her bones. She cringed, flattening against the ladder until she realized it was the sound of a round metal hatch opening on rusty hinges. Beyond the hatch, she could see a sliver of the evening sky. The roar of the waterfall nearby seemed to drown out other sounds. Captain Thompson tossed the canvas duffel through the hole, then began to climb after it.
Cora shot forward, climbing as fast as she could. It didn’t matter anymore if she made noise; this was her only chance to catch him. If he slammed the hatch and somehow locked it from the outside, she’d be trapped in the tunnels and never find her way out.
Within moments, she reached the top of the ladder, grateful that he hadn’t tried to close it during his escape. Peering cautiously over the edge, she didn’t see him anywhere, so she pulled her gun and hauled herself out. The familiar sight of the waterfall’s lookout point was just beyond the trees. There was a viewing platform with a metal railing overlooking the falls for visiting tourists, along with a small kiosk showing a map of the trails. In all the years she’d hiked to the waterfall, she’d never known there was a network of tunnels just a few yards away.
Something hard settled against the back of her skull, and she heard the chilling sound of a gun’s hammer cock. Every hair on the back of her neck and arms rose.
“Don’t move,” Captain Thompson said in a gruff voice that was so familiar Cora had the dizzying sensation of relief quickly followed by dread. He wasn’t the captain she thought he was anymore. He was a bad man who’d done terrible things to people.
“Captain,” Cora said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Needs must, McLeod.” He shoved the gun harder against her head. “Toss the gun.Now.”
She flung her gun into the trees, thinking fast about her self-defense training. She knew how to disarm an attacker, but the captain was no fool, and he was already behind her with his gun at point-blank range. She had to keep him talking and try to disarm him when he was distracted. Mouth as dry as parchment, breath scraping in and out of her throat, she asked, “Why did you kill John Brady?”
He scoffed. “A little late for interrogations, don’t you think? Now, walk.”
“He was a decent man,” she continued, wincing as he shoved her forward with the butt of the gun. “What did John Brady ever do to you?”
“He stood in my way. I never planned to kill him. Sometimes you have to roll with the punches, McLeod, and he was an unfortunate sacrifice.”
“What really happened that night?” She tried to walk as slow as she could, realizing with a jolt of alarm that he was leading her toward the lookout point. There was nothing on that viewing platform but a metal railing overlooking a two-hundred-foot drop. Even if he didn’t shoot her first, the fall to the rocks below would kill her. She had to keep him talking and look for an opening. The gun would go off, no question. Her goal now was to maneuver herself out of the path in any way she could.
“I was driving home and saw his front door wide open. Went to investigate, and I found him sobbing in front of his open safe. He might’ve been a rich man, but he sure as hell wasn’t smart. He was drunk and sloppy that night, crying to himself about some woman, instead of paying attention to his surroundings. Let’s just say, it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
“That’s it?” Cora said in disbelief. “You killed him for money?”
