Endangered (9781101559017)

by Beason, Pamela

  A few drops spattered through the natural skylight to the chamber floor. Damn the weather forecast! It wasn’t supposed to rain until tonight or tomorrow. She grabbed his sleeve. “Let’s move along, Perez. We’ve got three more chambers to go.”

  He had to hunch to clear a bulge of rock over their heads. No threatening figures lurked in the shadows. She didn’t encourage him to look for subtle clues. Time could be critical.

  Splashing through water and clinging to the walls, they climbed over a DANGER! NO TRESPASSING! sign on sawhorse barriers and shuffled down a water-smoothed incline into the next chamber. Lightning flashed above, illuminating a large pile of tumbled rocks below a natural skylight.

  “Wreck Room. Careful,” Sam warned. “This is the one I told you about earlier. The ceiling’s unstable here.”

  “Obviously.” He played his flashlight beam over the island of rubble. The rain fell harder now, splashing against the large chunks of limestone. Flecks of mica glinted in the circle of light.

  “It’s been off limits for years now. Every time there’s a little quake or a lot of rain, more of the overhang falls in. But it looks like we can still get through. Stay off to the side.” Bats squeaked and swallows chirped high overhead. Sam wished she were wearing her rock helmet, as much to deflect guano as for protection from cascading rocks.

  Perez moved his beam onto the chamber floor. In just the short time they had been here, the water had deepened and spread into a larger stream.

  “Wait!” She grabbed his hand. “The rocks—I think I saw something.”

  Placing her hand over his, she directed the flashlight beam to the pile of debris in the center of the chamber. Rain-slickened rocks, spotted with emerald moss and rust-colored lichen, surrounded by swirling water. Lightning flashed, stabbing her pupils.

  She took her hand away from his. “Never mind. It was probably just the lightning.” The bright light slowly faded from her sight like the flash from a camera bulb.

  “No,” he said grimly. He held the beam steady. “There.”

  Wedged in between chunks of dark rock, a tiny white hand gleamed in the light. Stubby fingers curled skyward as if trying to catch the drops of rain that fell from above.

  22

  “OH God.” A sudden rush of blood in Sam’s head drowned out all other sounds. She stared in horror at the motionless fingers extending from beneath the rocks. Her heartbeat moved into her throat. Her chest hurt as though she’d been struck. Breathe. She inhaled painfully. Get a grip on yourself, Summer.

  “There’s no time to call your Crime Scene team.” Her voice sounded surprisingly normal.

  Perez moved the light to the water lapping at the sides of the rubble pile. Fat drops of rain splashed into the stream, a steady pattern of radiating circles overlaying the undulating ripples of the creek. “How high will the water get?”

  She could barely hear the words through the roar in her ears. Her fingers trembled against her lips. She lowered her hand. Breathe. Focus on the surroundings, not on the body. The water was rising. How high, how fast? The curled fingers looked to be about a foot above the stream. Two patches of bright yellow lichen, like the eyes of some nocturnal creature, lurked at the edge of the water. “If it keeps raining like this, the creek will fill this chamber two to three feet deep.”

  “Then let’s hope that the rain keeps up.” His brown eyes were placid.

  What the hell was he talking about?

  “Otherwise, what I’m about to do could get me canned,” he explained, wading across to the rock pile. “I forgot my camera. Let me see yours.”

  Moving as if in a slow-motion dream, she twisted her pack around to one shoulder, fished out the digital camera. Her pulse was slowing now, leaving her shaking. The constriction had receded from her throat. She waded across the chamber to join Perez. The water reached up to her calves; its coldness seeped through her pants legs and snaked into her hiking boots. Good. She needed that sharp cold right now. Rain drizzled from her eyebrows onto her lashes. She took up a position beside Perez and handed him the camera.

  A raindrop fell from the tip of her nose as she bent over the little body. Bile rose into her throat at the sight as well as the stench; she swallowed hard. A huge chunk of sandstone obscured the toddler’s chest and neck; Sam estimated the rock weighed over a hundred pounds. A smaller piece pinioned the lower torso and most of the left leg. The child’s head looked like one of those marble nymphs’ that adorned fountains in formal gardens, except for the deep indentation in his forehead where it rested against another rock. Golden hair, flattened by the falling rain, lay in com-malike curls against a gray-pink scalp. The smooth roundness of the still, white cheeks contrasted with the jagged edges of the surrounding stones.

  The flash went off. Standing ankle deep in the water, Perez took several shots of the body from various positions. Then he climbed out of the rising tide onto the rubble. He shrugged off his daypack and set it down a yard away from the body.

  “Now we know what happened to Zachary Fischer,” he said.

  This hadn’t been the ending she’d expected. She’d dreamed of photographing the scene as a warm, breathing toddler was placed in Jenny Fischer’s arms. The gleaming eyes, the smile of gratitude. She remembered the feel of Zack’s tiny damp hand in her own. Yes, her heart definitely hurt. You’ll find him, won’t you? You know what my baby looks like, Jenny had pleaded.

  He’ll be fine. That’s what she’d told Zack’s mother.

  Perez studied the body, then focused on the gaping hole above and pressed the shutter button. “It looks like he was crushed by falling rock.”

  “Poor baby,” Sam moaned.

  “He might have been dead before the ceiling gave way.”

  A flash of lightning lit up the chamber. Sam grabbed for Perez’s sleeve. “Oh dear God, look at his eyes.”

  He peered at the dark jelly that filled the sockets. “His eyes are filled with blood. Probably from the impact.”

  “He’s so . . . colorless.” A white marble child.

  Perez placed his fingers on a rock next to the child’s head and bent to examine the cold little face. “He’s been dead for a while now. Gravity pulls the blood to the lowest points, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know.” She took a gulp of the chilly air, poisoned by a faint aftertaste of rotting flesh. “I’m a wildlife biologist.”

  That’s all she’d ever wanted to be. She wanted trees and birds and cougars and deer. Not this. “You may be used to looking at bodies, but I’m not. This is the first time I’ve seen anyone who’s been dead for days.”

  He handed her the camera, then straddled the corpse and curled his fingers around the largest rock that rested on the toddler. With a guttural growl, he straightened his arms and heaved off the largest rock, tossing it away from the rock pile into the stream.

  Ker-plunk. Just like tossing rocks off the old bridge close to her grandmother’s house. A universe removed from this horrible place and time. She forced herself to look again at the body, at the mess of broken flesh and smashed bone that the sandstone had hidden. The shorts and shirt the child wore were mashed into his flesh. Gagging, she turned away, focused her eyes on the water swirling around them.

  Perez explained, “It doesn’t smell too bad because it’s so cool in here.”

  “Please,” she said. Please stop. This is a person. Was a person, she corrected herself. The skull they’d found on the plateau had been more like an archaeological study. But cold flesh and battered limbs . . .

  How was she going to live with this for the rest of her life? Zack, I’m so sorry. I should have taken your hand and not let go until I put your fingers into your mommy’s. Zack, Jenny, somebody, anybody—forgive me.

  Grunting, Perez lifted the second rock, flung it away. Water splashed over her from the impact. She leaned forward, searching for the yellow lichen patches that had marked the waterline. They had disappeared.

  She turned toward Perez, keeping her gaze from the wh
ite marble flesh. Rain dripped down her neck, trickled down her spine.

  “We’ve got to go,” she urged. “This water is rising fast. We can wade it here in the Wreck Room, but down below—”

  “Give me your pack.”

  She shrugged it off. He opened it and started tossing everything from her knapsack into his daypack: radio, keys, wallet, and cell phone tumbled in with a clatter. “Hey!” she yelped, clutching the digital camera to her chest.

  “Your pack’s bigger than mine.”

  “So?”

  He spied one of the folded garbage bags she carried, grabbed it from the top of the heap. “We’ve got to take him with us. Otherwise the body may never be found.” He spread the garbage bag on the rocks. “Hold this open.”

  She pushed the camera into his daypack with her other gear, then knelt and held the thin sheets of plastic apart. When he reached for the corpse, she turned her face to the ceiling, watched the curtain of rain shimmering down from the skylight. A couple of small pebbles, loosened from the overhang, bounced off the rock pile a foot away. “We’ve got to get moving, Perez. The whole overhang could collapse any second.”

  The putrid odor of decay increased in intensity, and Sam tried to inhale as little as possible. Wet clothing brushed against the skin of her wrists. The cold kiss of clammy flesh. Oh, Zack. Why didn’t real life have happy endings?

  “Okay,” Perez murmured. She released her hold and backed away, then stole a look. The tips of two tiny white fingers protruded from the opening of the sack.

  Perez pulled up the plastic. The fingers slid out of sight. He tied the attached handles together, then lifted the black mass into the knapsack, pressing down a little to get it in. He stretched the top flap over and tied it down. Not much to pack away, really. Sad, sad thought.

  “I’ll carry this,” he told her.

  This, not him. She shuddered and reached for Perez’s daypack. She’d never use her knapsack again. She adjusted the straps of his pack to fit her smaller frame.

  Another pebble pinged down beside them. A shower of red dirt fell into Perez’s raven hair. “Let’s go,” he said, raking out chunks with his fingers.

  Stepping off the rock pile, she gasped at the chill. The water now swirled above her knees. The current threatened to sweep her feet out from under her. She had to focus on the present. Zack’s fate had already been decided; now she had to look out for herself and Perez. “Wade over to the right side—it’s shallower there.”

  They felt their way cautiously around the edge of the room, bracing themselves against the rock wall. As they neared the stream’s outlet to the next chamber, the water deepened. The roar ahead was ominous.

  “How many more levels?” Perez shouted.

  She turned her head toward him so he could hear. “Two. The Play Room—the next chamber—is wider, so maybe the water won’t be as deep. There’s a pretty big drop down to the last chamber. Then we have to get out onto the cliffside.” Making sure that we don’t plunge the last seventy feet over Village Falls, she added mentally. She’d warn him about that when the time came.

  The creek, now more a river, roared through the ten-foot-wide opening in the rock wall and dropped six feet into the next chamber. The swiftness of the water was frightening. She’d never been in a slot canyon during a flash flood, but she’d seen the wreckage left behind—debris that included the bloated, broken bodies of rabbits, lizards, even deer trapped by the rising water.

  Mist from the roiling stream filled the chamber beyond, creating an otherworldly atmosphere.

  “Dungeons and dragons,” Perez bellowed in her ear. “Through the porthole to the next dimension!”

  Dead children didn’t faze Perez. Threats of drowning or dying in a rockslide didn’t even slow him down. She grabbed his jacket sleeve. “This is real, Perez. We could die in here.”

  She had to make him understand. “Hold on to this wall as you step through the opening,” she shouted into his face. “There’s a ledge to the right—try to end up there.”

  He nodded. A drop of water fell from the tip of his nose into her eye. Blinking, she turned back toward the surging stream. She took a ragged breath, plunged a foot into the torrent, and ducked through the opening.

  The water was nearly waist deep at the top of the drop. The current was tremendous. It took all her strength just to keep her feet beneath her. She wedged her boot between two rocks. A mistake. As she tried to pull herself around the rock wall, she couldn’t get her foot free. Wonderful; her ankle was going to break. As momentum carried her forward, she waited for the pop of breaking bone.

  Suddenly her foot slid free. Her shins banged against underwater rocks. Pain ricocheted through her body. She nearly fell to her knees. It would be suicide to go down like that. Barely managing to stay on her feet, she groped for a rough knob of rock jutting out from the wall. A lifesaving handle.

  Panting from exertion, she was able to pull herself up onto the rock shelf that lay only a few inches under the water. Concentrating on keeping both feet on the ledge and both hands behind her on the wall, she sidestepped away from the opening and stopped to wait for Perez.

  He faced her as he stepped through, trying to hug the wall as he swung around into the chamber. The water came up only to his thighs, but he had the disadvantage of a higher center of gravity. Arms stretched out, he searched for something to grab hold of.

  Suddenly, he slipped, crash-landing on his hands and knees. The water rushed around his shoulders and chest. The torrent tipped him sideways. Sam’s heart thumped like a freight train. His pack, now filling with water, would surely pull him under.

  “Chase!” She stretched out a hand. At least a yard separated them. He wasn’t looking at her. The muscles corded in his neck as he strained to hang on to something underwater. His lips moved. She couldn’t hear his words above the roar of the falls. He was probably cursing. She certainly would be.

  He reached for a rock that spiked up from the water near the wall. His fingers, white at the tips, curled around the jagged stone. The water geysered up in front of his chest, splashed into his face. His hand slipped from the rock and he fell back. His head went under.

  Oh hell. She plunged one foot into the current and stretched to grab his upper arm. Her fingers didn’t quite encircle the hard bicep under the slick nylon. The water surged coldly around her crotch and buttocks. She leaned back and pulled with all her might, sat down hard against the underwater ledge. She’d have a bruise the size of Seattle on the back of her thighs. Something in her pack thun-ked against rock: she prayed it was not her phone or camera, then wondered how she could possibly be worrying about equipment at a time like this.

  Perez slid less than a foot in her direction, but it was enough. He got a firm grip on the rock spike and crawled back to his feet again. She let go of his arm and pulled herself erect on the ledge.

  Water gushed out of his backpack and streamed down the backs of his legs. He raised a hand toward her, knuckles bloody from scraping rocks.

  “Thank you, Wilderness!” he gasped.

  She heaved a sigh of relief. “Welcome to the Play Room, Starchaser. I thought you were a goner there for a moment.”

  “I’d never hear the end of it if I drowned in some backcountry canyon in Utah. The FBI gets gunned down by vicious criminals or we don’t die at all.” He squeegeed water from his hair with dripping fingers.

  She smiled weakly, the muscles in her face stiff. The cold and wet was getting to her. The temperature inside the Curtain was never more than sixty; the water was colder. Before much longer, hypothermia would claim them both. They had to keep moving; keep the blood circulating. The exit wasn’t far now.

  Her wristwatch, amazingly enough, was still working. It was nearly ninety minutes since they’d begun their descent, more than an hour since it had begun to rain. She took a deep breath, clutched at his arm again. “Look, Chase, I’ve got to tell you about the waterfall at the end. I didn’t want to scare you, but after that last stun
t—”

  “Mommmyyy!” A thin little cry floated in the mist.

  She gasped and turned her head in the direction of the sound.

  “After that last stunt?” he prompted.

  She turned back to him. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Mommmmyyyyyy.”

  “There! I just heard it again. A child calling for Mommy.”

  “I don’t hear anything but water.” He gently tipped up her chin with a cold finger and gazed into her eyes. “Neither do you, Summer. Remember, I’ve got the kid. In my pack.”

  The words hit her, a hard blow to the heart. He was right. The search was over; Zack was dead. Like the echo she’d created while rappelling into the first chamber: dead, dead, dead.

  Were auditory hallucinations a symptom of hypothermia? She couldn’t remember. Hypothermia muddled thinking, and hers was getting muddled fast. She had to focus. She’d gotten them into the Curtain; she had to get them out.

  “Summer?” He stared at the center of the chamber. “How do we get out of here?”

  The creek had completely flooded the chamber. Water lapped at the walls that rose around them in a waffled pattern up to a slash of sky at the top of the crevice. The pockmarks in the rock walls, she now realized, were erosion scars from floods like this over the centuries. The water swirled around the chamber in a sluggish spiral, a dirty whirlwind at its center.

  “Good Lord. The Slide’s underwater.”

  He waited for her explanation, a grim set to his mouth.

  “This chamber tilts downward about fifteen feet or so. The bottom is smooth; it dips abruptly toward that side.” She pointed to the far wall. “To get to the next level, you pass through a hole about four feet in diameter. Normally you can sit down in the water and glide over the smooth rock, like a water slide. Sort of an Alice in Wonderland experience, going though the rabbit hole.” She stared at the swirling gray water where the hole should have been. The corpse of a small furry animal—a rat?—was sucked into the vortex as she watched.