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I’m careful to avoid that blood smear. If I don’t find a body, I’m going to need to come back and take a sample.
A little farther, and I reach the drop-off. It’s a straight-down chute, and as I peer into it, the clock rewinds to another cave, one where a killer had stashed the bodies of women he’d been holding captive.
I need to take a moment and steel myself before I look down. When I do, I see ash-blond hair, and rage fills me. I ball my fists and resist punching the wall. Another moment to compose myself, and then I shine the flashlight down.
It’s Penny. This time, there is no mistaking her. The chute opens up after the drop-off, and at the bottom, twenty feet down, it’s wide enough for her body to lie on its side, fetal position, knees drawn in. There’s something by her hand. A darkobject that I can’t make out. There are pieces of what looks like aluminum foil nearby, catching the light.
Garbage, I realize. Someone must have used this tunnel for climbing and dumped garbage down there. Which is still odd.
Something about this isveryodd, and while my brain keeps returning to those wrappers, I push that aside and stare down at Penny’s body and—
The positioning. Her killer dropped her down that chute. She should be sprawled at the bottom, not lying so neatly in that position, as if…
As if she hadn’t been dead.
I can make out the dark object now. It’s a water canteen. Penny is lying, fetal position, at the bottom of a pit with a water canteen and what looks like protein-bar wrappers.
Empty wrappers.
Heart hammering, I lean in as far as I dare and lower the flashlight. I shine it on Penny’s face. It’s completely still. Strands of hair hang over it. Hair that isn’t moving with breath. I shine the light on her neck. No pulse that I can see. Same as her chest. She is completely still.
We’re too late.
She was alive, and now she is not, and we pissed around conducting a half-assed search for her while we rescued a guy who is probably a killer and identified a dead woman who has nothing to do with us. Penny was alive, and we didn’t find her in time, and this is my fault.
Deep down, I know that’s not true. I may have felt as if I wasn’t doing enough to find her, but weweresearching, even when common sense said that she was either dead or hiding because she was Bruno’s partner in crime.
Still, I blame myself. And still, despite seeing her lying there, unmoving, I scramble up the slanted tunnel, calling for Dalton.
I’m halfway back when the tunnel goes dark, Dalton’s form filling it as he crawls as fast as he can.
“Casey!”
“Right here,” I say, shining the light so he can see me. “I found Penny. I—I don’t think she was dead when she was dropped in there but… She’s not…”
He curses and crawls faster, motioning for me to turn around. That takes some doing, but one of my new Yukon hobbies is spelunking, with Anders as the expert and Dalton an enthusiastic amateur. I get myself turned around and head down the slope.
“It’s tight here,” I say.
“Got it.”
I reach the end. He can’t come up beside me—it’s far too narrow for that—but it doesn’t matter, because I’m not staying at the top.
“Hold,” Dalton says when I start turning around to descend. “Assess, please?”
I resist the urge to scowl. He’s right. I’m about to climb down into a pit without being completely certain I can get back out.
“I have about twenty feet of rope in my backpack,” he says. “I’ll go get it after you’re down, but I’m not leaving you in there until nightfall while I make a round trip for more.”
I turn back to the drop-off. “Fifteen-foot drop. I think I can climb down but…”
“But if it were an easy climb, she wouldn’t still be there,” he says, voicing what I just realized. He lowers his voice. “Slower, Casey. Please. I don’t want to leave you in there, and I don’t know this Lilith woman well enough to leave her with you.”
I take a deep breath and shine the light over the sides. “Yes, I’m going to need the rope. For safety. I can rappel down with that.”
“Hold on then.”
As he retreats, I curse myself for not making sure he had rope before dragging him in here. I could already be rappelling down by now.
