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He could tell from the added murmurs of voices above that the paramedics must be on scene. He stood listening as the voices began fading. That meant they were taking B.J. to the ambulance.
He hoped Cameron had called their mom and thought to call Wiley because he was already in town, then gave up worrying about details. Eventually everyone would know, and it would all work out.
They had succeeded in what they came here to do, but Aaron felt sick to his stomach. He just kept thinking,What a waste. What a waste.
He wanted Dani. He needed to touch her. To feel her skin beneath his fingertips. To feel her breath upon his face. Have her laughter echoing in his heart. To remember life, and not this death.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at the little bones again. But it didn’t matter. The image of her last hours and final resting place would be forever etched in his heart.
Then a shout came from above.
“Hey, Aaron! Harness coming down!” Cameron shouted.
Aaron stepped back as they lowered it, then grabbed it and buckled himself in. He looked around to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind, then picked up his flashlight and the first aid kit.
“Pull me up!”
So they did.
The closer to the light he went, the more he regretted leaving her alone. And as soon as they pulled him up onto solid ground, he handed over the first aid kit and as he began unbuckling himself out of the harness. As he did, he saw his brother’s blood all over his hands and his clothes, and shuddered.
“Did they get B.J. out okay?” he asked.
“Yes, some of the men helped the EMTs carry him out. Was the gold down there, too?” Cameron asked.
Aaron stared off into the woods. “The box is there. But there’s no gold. It’s full of Confederate money. Rotting, crumbling, worthless paper. Meg was murdered for that. Charlie nearly died for that. I’m kinda sick to my stomach.”
There was an audible gasp from the men around him, and then they went quiet.
Aaron wiped his hands on his jeans, but the blood had dried, and then he looked back at the hole they’d just pulled him out of.
“We need to cover up the opening and tent it to protect it from the elements until your forensic pathologistgets here.” Then his voice began to quaver as he struggled not to weep. “Don’t let them take away her bones with some bullshit story about needing to study them. All they need is a tooth or a tiny piece of bone to get her DNA, and there’s a mountain full of us with that same DNA to back up who she is, along with entries in the journal. They can keep her in the morgue in Bowling Green until they’re satisfied she belongs to us. We have to make sure she never gets lost again.”
“I can make that promise,” Cameron said. “If I have to, I’ll sic Rusty on the powers that be.”
Aaron nodded, but he still couldn’t look at them without losing it.
The men had all seen B.J.’s emotional state after they pulled him up—tears rolling down his face and mute to what he’d seen, and now Aaron had come out of that hole the same way.
Cameron wanted to console him, but he didn’t know how or what had triggered it.
“What happened down there? What did you see?” he asked.
A muscle jerked near Aaron’s eye as he pulled out his phone and began sending all the photos he’d taken to Cameron’s phone.
Cameron heard the dings as his phone signaled incoming messages. “What are you sending?” he asked.
“Pictures of what’s down below. The old cellar became her crypt. I’d say she died praying. I’m gonna head on back to the truck,” and then quietly walked away.
Chapter 20
B.J. was in ER, stripped down to how he’d come into this world, suffering the indignities of having three different nurses cleaning away the grime and blood before they took him to surgery, but he was at the point of not giving a shit what they saw if someone would just take away the pain.
The doctor had taken one look at the state of B.J’s injuries and decided on the spot that it would be less painful for the boy if they put him to sleep before they began to remove the debris and repair the damage.
Finally, the nurses finished, and as they were covering him with a sheet, Shirley walked in with Sean and Wiley behind her.
B.J. saw the look on her face and sighed. He’d scared her. Hell, he’d scared himself. And he was on the verge of his own set of tears.
