AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And does that small delay matter? I’m examining a dead body.
I’m still tapping anxiously when he returns. I’m already turned around and I’ve found a slight indent where my one foot can rest below. He shakes his head at that but says nothing. He gives me the rope, and I wrap it around my hand as he secures his end. Then I stuff the flashlight into my pocket and start down.
It’s a slow climb. So damned slow. The walls are smooth, with only the slightest ridges for my feet and even those aren’t enough to keep me from sliding. I really do have to rappel, boots pressed against the stone as I inch down. The short rope doesn’t help. There isn’t enough extra to wrap it around my waist or for Dalton to feel confident in his hold, and that means I can’t just zoom down.
Finally, when I’m a few feet from the bottom, I let go and drop. Dalton’s curse echoes at the top as he scrabbles to the edge and glares down at me.
“Sorry,” I call up. “I’m fine.”
“Didn’t break your damn ankle to save sixty seconds?”
“I know, I know.”
I run to drop beside Penny. I touch her cheek. It’s cool to the touch. I slump back onto my heels. I knew this. I really knew it, but I couldn’t help hoping.
“I’m sorry,” Dalton’s voice drifts down.
“I knew it.”
“Still sorry.”
I manage a wan smile his way as I turn on the flashlight and then angle the beam down to Penny. “Okay, so we’re going toneed to move her, which as you said, is a problem. It’s a two-hour hike back, and it’s already late afternoon.”
“We can do it,” he says. “I’ll try bribing our local forest witch to watch her, and we’ll hoof it back for more rope and supplies.”
“Can you go talk to Lilith?” I say. “I’ll start examining Penny. If Lilith won’t stay—and I can’t blame her—then I need to conduct a preliminary examination before we leave Penny, just in case whoever put her in the hole comes back.”
I swing the light up just in time to catch his expression. “Yes, I know that’s highly unlikely. Whoever put her down here also left food and water, which is gone. It was almost certainly Bruno. He put her in here and then his partner pushed him off the cliff, and when we rescued him, he decided not to mention Penny… even on his deathbed.”
“Is it possible to kill a dead guy?”
“I wish,” I mutter.
“Be right back.”
While I shine the light up, Dalton uses the hole to get himself turned around, and my breath catches once, when he slips, just a little. Then he’s in the tunnel. He pulls up the rope and goes.
I turn to Penny. She’s lying on her side. There’s no sign of decomposition, which tells me she hasn’t been dead long.
What if we’d been a little faster? Walked faster? Run? What if Lilith didn’t have a beer and sandwich before pulling out the glove?
No, that’s not fair. Penny has almost certainly been dead for hours. The cool cave has warded off early decomp.
I leave her lying on her side as I check her for injuries, remembering that blood. It comes from her head. There’s an ugly contusion on the back of it. That’s the only obvious sign of injury.
Hit from behind. Hard enough to knock her out. Not hardenough to kill her. Bruno can’t bring himself to finish the job, so he carries her the kilometer from Mark’s camp to here, where he must have seen the cave. Lowers her in and leaves food and water, in case she wakes up. She does, but the walls are too slick to climb, and she can only eat and drink and wait.
And wait… for help that never came.
I roll my shoulders, regaining my focus. When I see her neck, I remember the necklace. I shine the light on her throat as I look for signs of the chain cutting in, as if it had been ripped off. There’s nothing. She must have lost it earlier and—
A flutter of movement at the base of her throat.
I blink. Then I press my fingers to the side of her neck and close my eyes and concentrate and there it is: the faintest pulse.
“Eric!” I shout as I hear him in the tunnel above. “She’s alive!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
