Third Grave Dead Ahead (32 page)

Rocks and debris hung in midair, almost glistening in the dark cavern. I reached out, ran my hands through a stream of dirt, sifted it through my fingers.

I could have run under the cascade of earth and debris and made it through unscathed. I could have run for help. Instead, I risked a glance around. Cookie was frozen midstumble, a massive boulder hovering over her head, inching toward her body, a body that would break like a matchstick house under its weight. She would be crushed.

I sprinted through the thick air, dived, and threw all my weight onto her, tackling her to the ground as time slingshot back with a roaring vengeance. I managed to push her out from under the largest of the rocks as the explosion burst around us, but I didn’t quite clear the boulder as it plummeted to earth, skimming the back of my head, its crushing weight scraping along my spine. A fire erupted down my back, and I clamped my jaw shut in preparation for the onslaught of pain as I covered Cookie’s head with my arms. The rumbling continued for a few seconds more, then silence. Just as quickly as it had started, it stopped. As fine streams of dirt dwindled and the dust settled around us, Cookie let rip the most bloodcurdling shriek I’d ever heard. It reverberated against my bones and, surely, against the unstable ceiling.

“Really?” I said, my voice barely audible as I tried to crawl off her. “You’re going to scream now?”

She stopped and looked around warily, blinking dirt from her eyes.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, spitting gunk from my mouth in a series of sputters.

“No, no. Oh, my god, are you?”

I stopped to think about it. “I don’t think so. Not bad.” My back was on fire, but I could move. Always a good sign. “You might not want to scream again. You know, with us being in an unstable cave and all.”

“Sorry.”

Then I remembered Teresa and scrambled over the new-fallen debris and back up the incline. I could still feel her. “Teresa, are you okay?” When I received no answer, I turned to Cookie. “I need you to get a flashlight, some water, and a blanket from Misery, if you can.”

“Absolutely,” she said, slowly rising to her feet.

“Are you sure nothing’s hurt?”

“No, I just…” She looked at me a long time. “You saved my life.”

“No, I didn’t. Swear.” Now was not the time.

“I’ve never seen it.”

“Your life flashing before your eyes? Was it a bit disappointing? Because when that happens to me—”

“No, you. The way you moved. Your dad was talking about it, but … I’ve just never seen it.”

She was all dazed and confused. “You need to lay off the sauce, hon. Flashlight?”

“Right. Flashlight, got it.”

She stumbled toward me, and I tried really hard not to giggle. Well, not very hard. I pointed in the opposite direction. She opened her phone and followed the tracks out, walking past a departed miner. My breath caught as I gazed at him. He first watched Cookie walk past, then looked back at me. The lamp on his helmet kept his face dark, but my best educated guess put his death in or around the 1930s.

He tipped his hat toward me as I stared at him. I’d never seen a departed miner before. Minor, yes. Miner, no. His ragged clothes were covered in dirt. Considering the area, they’d probably been mining for copper, or possibly even silver.

He walked toward me, stopped at my feet, and tried to look past me, to see what I was looking at. The departed were a curious lot.

“My name is Charley,” I said to him. He looked back at me, and since he was closer, I could just make out his face. He seemed to be in his late thirties, but mining was a hard life, so it was hard to tell for certain. He had crow’s-feet around his eyes the dirt didn’t quite make it into.

“Hardy.” The hard line of his mouth thinned. “She’s been in there awhile,” he said, his voice strong. He gestured beyond the barricade with a tilt of his head.

I nodded. “She’s been missing for several days. Do you know if she’s hurt? I’m sure she’s dehydrated.”

“I’ll check.” He walked through the mound of dirt I lay on and clearly had every intention of walking straight through me, but was brought up short.

The departed could walk through me when they crossed to the other side. Otherwise, I was solid flesh and bone, even to them. His knee bumped against my rib cage, and he glanced at me in surprise.

“Sorry,” I said, “you’ll have to go around.”

He studied me a long moment, then asked, “What are you?”

“I’m a grim reaper–type thing. But in a good way.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am.” He tipped his hat again and went around. In a matter of seconds, he drifted back through with his report. “Looks like she has a broken leg. She tried to splint it, but it looks bad.”

“Damn. I’d be surprised if she doesn’t have gangrene by now.” I scanned the area for anything I might use to aid in my rather inadequate rescue attempt. His light helped, but the only thing available was dirt. And rocks. “Do you think I can make it through?” I asked him. “I need to get her out. I don’t know how long that ceiling is going to hold.”

“I think you better try, then, ma’am.” He glanced around the cave. “Maybe you could brace that beam against it?”

“I’d probably just knock more loose.”

“There is that.”

I started digging again. “How’s the other side look?”

“The ceiling is solid.” He disappeared and reappeared again. “The beams on that side are sturdy.”

Teresa was so weak. I could barely feel her now. Rocket said to hurry when he’d popped into Misery two days prior, and hurry I would. I scraped and dug until the opening was big enough for me to get through. With phone in hand, I crawled on my stomach over the jagged rocks. Dirt fell from the ceiling continuously, so my hair was pretty much a solid ball of muck.

Garrett would’ve come in handy about now. I shouldn’t have ditched him. Or tossed his phone into a pond.

As I scaled the mountain of debris, I reached down for Teresa’s hand. She moaned and tried to squeeze back.

“Hey, hon. I’ve got help coming, but we need to get you out of here if that is at all possible.”

She squinted against the light coming from the phone, but it allowed me to check her pupils. They constricted perfectly. She had the same coloring as her brother and sister, dark hair and startlingly blue eyes. She was thin and pale, but that could be the circumstances as much as heredity.

I pushed through the opening and climbed over the top of her to turn around. After sliding down the incline, Hardy appeared behind me and cast his light toward a backpack that had apparently been full of supplies, water, basic medical aids, as well as a caving helmet and spelunking gear. She’d splinted her leg with the aluminum brace from the backpack and a rope. Smart girl. Apparently, she’d been exploring when the ceiling gave.

Now I was really confused. Dr. Yost was guilty—I’d felt it—but of what? Sabotaging the mine? And if he did that, then what the heck was Teresa so guilty of?

“Have you thrown up, Teresa?”

She shook her head. “No concussion,” she said, her voice hoarse and whispery. She could barely lift her head. “Just a broken leg.”

I felt her skin. Warm, but not overly so. Hopefully, the flow of blood to her foot hadn’t been blocked and she didn’t have gangrene.

“I don’t know how much longer that ceiling is going to hold. Do you think you can make it through with my help?”

She nodded.

“I have more help on the way. We can wait.”

“No, I just couldn’t get through the opening alone. It wasn’t big enough. How did you find me? Did my husband tell you where to look?” Just the thought of being rescued seemed to be giving her strength. I could feel adrenaline coursing through her veins, raising her heartbeat.

“I heard you,” I said, lying as I combed through her backpack. “You have one more bottle of water.” I took it and climbed back up to her.

“I was saving it.”

“For a special occasion?” I asked, popping the seal on the cap. “I could shake it up and spray it all over you, if that would be more festive.”

A thin smile spread across her face as she took a sip, then handed it back to me.

“Did your husband know you were here?”

She tried to shrug but gave up. “I explore this area all the time, but I didn’t tell him I was checking out the mine again. I come here pretty often, though.”

“So, he wasn’t here with you at any time?”

She squinted her eyes, trying to figure out what I was getting at, then shook her head. “No. I left early Saturday morning, before he got up.”

Then someone had to have done something to sabotage the mine before Teresa got here or while she was deep inside. But what? Those beams hadn’t been cut. It literally looked like they’d slipped and shifted somehow.

Hardy knelt beside me, a grim expression on his face as though he knew exactly what I was trying to figure out. “She did it,” he said, shaking his head.

Startled, I furrowed my brows in a question.

He nodded. “Loosened the beams herself.” His gaze drifted about the walls. “Been working on it awhile now.”

My heart fell. “Why?” I whispered.

With a shrug, he said, “Not quite sure, ma’am. But I don’t think she was planning on being here when it gave.”

I took a deep breath and forced the questions from my mind. “Are you ready, hon?” I asked Teresa.

“I think so.”

“We’ll take this slow.” With infinite care, I wrapped one of her arms around my neck and hiked her farther up the incline. The miner did the same for me, boosting me inch by inch. After about two minutes of work, we were only about a foot farther. “Okay, not that slow.”

She laughed softly, then grabbed her side.

“Are they broken?” I asked, gesturing toward her ribs with a nod.

“No, just bruised, I think.”

With a little more effort, we were able to get her to the opening and scoot her through it. But Teresa paid a heavy price. She groaned through gritted teeth as she slid to the other side. Well, not
the
other side. Jagged rocks scraped and skinned along the way.

“Your friend’s coming back,” Hardy said.

Without hesitation, I chanced another cave-in and yelled through the opening. “Cookie, stay back!”

“What? No. What about the supplies?”

“I’ve almost got Teresa through the opening, but the ceiling is crumbling as we speak.” As I looked out, I saw the beam of a flashlight bouncing off the ground. “Cookie, what the heck?”

“Don’t
what the heck
me,” she said, her voice winded. “I didn’t walk all that way for nothing.”

She put the flashlight on the incline and reached up to help Teresa. A steady stream of dirt fell a few feet from us and she looked back at me, her eyes wide. “Hurry.”

The minute I got Teresa through, I scrambled back for the helmet, climbed over the mountain of debris with Hardy’s help, then hustled down to assist Cookie. Together we eased Teresa toward us. She clutched on to me, moaning as pain pounded through her. So much so, I was worried she would pass out.

“Help is coming,” Cookie said as I put the helmet on Teresa and wrapped my arms around her.

Teresa cringed as another wave of pain carpet-bombed her entire body. She cried out as Cookie and I started forward.

“I’m so sorry, Teresa,” I said.

She shook her head, determined to make it. Adrenaline coursed through her as she hobbled and we dragged. Another avalanche of dirt plummeted onto our heads, almost knocking the helmet off Teresa’s head. I repositioned it, and we started forward again.

Then, with a really inappropriate gasp, it hit me. “Aldrich-Mees!” I shouted.

When the ceiling started crumbling down around us, I realized how wrong of me that was.

23

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

—T-SHIRT

“You had to shout it?” Cookie asked, literally bitching all the way out of the stupid mine. “At the top of your freaking lungs?”

We were covered from head to toe in dirt and some kind of root system. “Now is not the time, Cook,” I ground out as we struggled to get Teresa from the mine.

“This is where I get off,” Hardy said. I started to protest, but he tipped his helmet and with a soft, “Ma’am,” disappeared.

Then Uncle Bob rushed in, and a wave of relief washed over me. However, the look of shock on his face proved that either he had no faith in me whatsoever and was taken aback by my success in finding Teresa Yost, or I looked worse than I thought.

Agent Carson was there, too. Though I’d never seen her before, I recognized her instantly. Her looks matched her voice perfectly. Short dark bob, solid build, intelligent eyes. She hurried forward, and together with Uncle Bob took Teresa out of our arms. Before they’d gotten two feet, Luther Dean rushed in as well, ducking at the entrance and taking over for Agent Carson.

“Luther,” Teresa said, surprised he was there.

The smile that warmed his face was simply charming. “You never call. You never write.”

A soft laugh escaped her despite everything.

Carson turned back to me, and I tried to raise my hand to shake hers, but my muscles had completely given out. Though they did twitch occasionally. An officer helped Cookie outside while Agent Carson took my arm to help me, careful not to get too close. Dust still lingered in the air from the latest cave-in.

“I can’t believe you did it,” she said, shaking her head as daylight blanketed us.

“I get that a lot.” My hair was so caked with dirt and rocks, it actually hurt. Then again, I did get pummeled by a boulder the size of Long Island.

“I left the flashlight inside,” Cookie said over her shoulder, suddenly remembering.

“Well, you’d best go back and get it. It’s not like I can get another one at pretty much any store between here and Albuquerque.”

She snorted the likelihood of that happening. I couldn’t wait to tell her about Hardy. I’d have to come back someday, get to know him better—another cave-in sounded down the shaft, sending a wave of dirt billowing out the opening—or not.