"Yeah," Dalton says. "From a special tailor who does only custom work and has this guy's address on file."
"You read too many mysteries," I say. "That never actually happens."
"Which is my point, Butler."
"I know. I'm just poking you, seeing as how you can't reach in here to poke me back."
He grumbles, but it's lighter as he relaxes.
"Whether this fabric can lead to a killer or not, I need to get it. Just give me..." I wriggle and stretch. Still about six inches short.
"It's not going anywhere," Dalton says. "We'll bring something back to fish it out."
"If I can just crawl down--"
"No."
"It's a crevice, not a hole. I can't fall through. I'll just shimmy--"
"No."
"Casey?" Anders says. "Just reach for it, okay? We don't know how deep that drop goes. If you can't get it, we'll come back."
He's right. It's just that I see a potential clue, and I already screwed up, leaving some behind when we took Nicole, and now they're gone, and I really need this one. Except I don't. It's not going to be a shirt with a name helpfully ironed in the collar. Hell, it could be a shirt covered in hairs, and that still wouldn't help. We don't have a crime lab here.
I take a deep breath and wriggle down another couple of inches and stretch as far as my fingers will reach. They brush the fabric. I just need another inch. I wriggle ... and I slip. I hit a smooth section of rock, and my hip slides, and then I'm unwedged and falling. I hear Dalton's "Casey!" and Anders's curse, and I'm plunging headfirst down the crevice, body scraping the sides, arms and legs wildly trying to get a purchase, but the crevice has widened, and I'm not wedging in again. I'm falling, past that white cloth, past--
"Hands down!" Anders shouts. "Get your hands down!"
Battering the sides, I'm dropping slowly enough that I have time to get one hand over my head, the other rising to block my fall and keep my head from smacking rock.
My hands strike something. My elbows fold on impact, and my head rams into whatever my hands hit.
"Casey!" Dalton's voice booms from above.
I call back, "I'm okay." I think I'm okay. Not actually sure. I just know that I've stopped falling, and there's something below that's cushioned my landing. My helmet is pushed over my eyes, the lamp broken. Pain throbs through the arm that touched down first. Broken wrist? Damn it, no.
And, really, if that's the extent of the damage, I'm lucky, so stop whining.
True, but ... shit. I'm wedged in a crevice, head down, no idea how far I've fallen and I can't--
I wriggle. Okay, maybe I can move.
"Casey!" Dalton's panicking now. He must not have heard my reply. Rock rains down on my legs. Damn it, did he squeeze into that first crevice? Of course he did. I exhale a sigh and then shout, as loud as I can.
"I'm fine, Eric. I'm at the bottom. Just hold on."
Wriggle, wriggle. Okay, there's some room here. Pull my one arm this way. There, it's through, and I find a grip on that side. My other arm is still against whatever cushioned my fall, and when I move it, I'm touching fabric with rocks beneath. Nicole's clothing. What she was wearing when she disappeared. That makes more sense than her captor randomly dropping his own shirt into this hard-to-reach hole. He stuffed her clothing down here to hide evidence.
Except ... wait. Didn't he dress a corpse in her clothes?
Doesn't matter. Right now, the bigger concern is the guy freaking out at the top of the crevice, calling, "Can you get turned around? Can you move?"
I need to. If I don't, he's liable to try squeezing all the way down, and the only thing worse than being wedged in this crevice would be having Dalton even more wedged in above me, like a cork in a bottle.
"I can move," I call. "Just give me a second. I'm taking it slow."
"Okay, okay." The words come in a rush, as if he's reassuring himself more than me. Which is fine. Right now, he needs it more. He keeps talking, telling me Anders has gone back to get the rope from Nicole's hole, and fuck, why didn't he think to bring rope, and didn't he tell me not to go down this crevice? Didn't he order me not to go farther?
"Well, if you'd let me turn around and climb down feetfirst, I wouldn't be headfirst, would I?"
He goes silent. Then he mumbles what may be an apology, but I won't hold him to it.
I have my arm down now. Butt wriggling, wriggling. Wait, is that a concavity in the rock? Why, yes, it is. Twist, twist, twist. There. My ass is in the depression, which gives me more room. If I grab this jutting piece and then that one ... Shit, that hurt. Rocks are not soft. Or smooth. I don't even want to know how many scratches and bruises I'll have after this.
Wriggle, twist, wriggle, twist.
"Are you turning around?" Dalton calls.
"Trying," I grunt.
"If you're going to hurt yourself, stop. We can figure this out."
"I'm--" I bite back a hiss of pain as my arm scrapes a sharp spot. "Got it. There's a depression that's just enough for ... Yes! Almost--" I bite my lip as a muscle pulls.
"Don't hurt yourself. We'll--"
"Got it. Oh, yeah, I've totally got this. Just..." A grunt and a heave and twist and--"My feet are down. My head is up. I am properly perpendicular."
"Good. Don't try climbing. The rope's coming."
When I look up, I can see Dalton's light and part of his head. He is indeed inside the first crevice and now peering down the drop. Or I presume that's what he's doing. All I can see is the top of his head.
"Hey," I say. "I see you."
"Yeah." A grunt echoes down the crevice as he does some wriggling of his own, until I can make out his eyes. I realize the light coming down is from a penlight, not a headlamp.
"Where's your helmet?" I say.
"Didn't fit in."
"If mine did, yours would have." I sigh. "You didn't cut open your arm again, did you? The last time you came barreling after me, I had to stitch you up."
"I'm fine."
"Tell me that fine means there's no blood."
He doesn't answer. I sigh. "Damn it, Eric. You should have learned."
He still doesn't answer, which means he's not going to learn this particular lesson. If I'm in trouble, he's right behind me. The last time, I'd been exploring a narrow chute with Petra when we'd discovered an arm. She'd screamed--that unknown trauma from her past triggered.
I'm about to joke that at least there aren't any body parts down here. Then I remember who that arm had belonged to--Abbygail--and I stop myself.
"No body parts down there?" he says, and I smile and shake my head.
"Not this time," I say. "Just clothing." Which reminds me that I'm standing on it, and really should be checking that out, not chatting with Dalton. I guess that fall panicked me more than I'm letting on. I'm trembling even now with the relief of having gotten upright.
I look down. It is indeed clothing. A pair of jeans and a shirt. That's all I can make out; Dalton's penlight beam really isn't doing the job. I reach up and smack my headlamp. It flickers on and then off again. Another smack. Nothing. Dalton's stretching his arm down, saying, "You want my light? I'll toss..."
He trails off. I'm peering up at him. He says, "Casey?"
"Yep. Still in the hole." I wave. "See me?"
"Okay. Just keep looking up at..." He trails off again and says, "Fuck."
"Let me guess. Will can't get the rope?"
"No." He inhales. "I'm going to drop the light for you. Before I do, you need to listen to me."
"That's what I'm doing."
"Look at me until I'm done, okay?"
"Uh..."
"There's clothing at your feet."
"I know--"
"Just listen. That clothing doesn't belong to Nicole's captor."
I'm about to ask how he can tell. Then I figure it out. He's still talking, and when I move, he says, "Keep looking up at me until--"
I look down, following the beam of his penlight to see a skull grinning
back at me.
TWENTY-FIVE
I'm standing on a body.
I don't panic. That could be because I've seen too many corpses in my life. But the real reason? I decide it's not real. I've hit my head on the way down, the blow penetrating the helmet, and I'm not actually conscious right now. I dreamed of getting upright and chatting to Dalton and joking about not finding body parts, and then looking down and seeing an entire corpse under my feet. It's my brain trying to be amusing and failing miserably.
That's what makes sense. The possibility I'm actually awake, in another cave finding another dead body? Not happening.
So I'm just going to sit and wait to regain consciousness. Plunk my ass down on ...
A body. I'm standing on a body, a long-dead corpse stuffed into the hole, that "skull" not actually bone but desiccated flesh with hair still clinging to it. Long dark hair. There are earrings in the leathery flaps that would be ears. Small diamond studs.
A lover bought me diamond studs once. The first guy I dated after my attack. No, not dated. Slept with. Because even three years after the beating and Blaine, all I could manage was succumbing to the physical drive to take a lover. He'd bought me diamond studs for Christmas, and I'd ended it then. Left those studs on the bedside table and slipped out in the night, never to return.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Shock. I'm in shock. Or asleep. I prefer asleep.
Dalton calls, as if from a mile away, his voice growing sharper each time he says my name.
I need to respond. Reassure him. Even if this isn't real, I must reassure him.
I look up. He's wriggled into that crevice so far I can see his whole face now, eyes anxiously fixed on me.
"It's okay," he says. "We'll get you out."
"I'm fine."
"We'll--"
"Eric? I'm a homicide detective. I'm fine. It was just a surprise. You tried to warn me. Thank you."
There's a too-calm note to my voice. Definitely shock. I reach up to rub my face briskly, and I catch the stink of the long-dead on my fingers. I fling my hands down.
Deep breaths.
Don't let him see you taking deep breaths.
"So we have another victim," I say, in that too-calm voice, and this is what's really panicking me. Not the fact I'm standing on a body, but what that body signifies. Someone who did not get out of Nicole's hole alive.
"We don't know that," Dalton says. "He could have fallen. Done the same thing you did, and if he wasn't with a partner--"
"It's a she."
"Fine. She fell. It happens, and it's a tragedy, but people disappear out here. Hikers, campers, spelunkers--"
"She's not dressed for that. She's wearing a sweater and jeans."
He makes that growling sound--I'm annoying him with my logic. This is not the time for that shit.
I try to wiggle my ass down to take a better look at the body.
"Don't--" Dalton begins.
"Homicide detective, remember. Not going to mess up my own crime scene. Except for the fact I am inadvertently standing on the body." I curse and try to shift my feet, which only makes things worse, bones crackling under my boots, the sound making me freeze as I am all too aware I'm crunching a victim, adding insult to injury.
Speaking of injury ...
Yes, let's focus on that. What did she die of?
It's impossible to even guess, given my angle and the way the body is wedged. I move as carefully as I can to one side, wincing as the corpse shifts with the movement. As it does, though, I see a hand. A brown-skinned hand still wearing a gold wristwatch.
I see that hand ... while seeing both light-skinned hands of the poor woman I'm standing on.
"Eric?" I call.
When he doesn't answer, I look up, and he's not there, and I'm thrown into my nightmare, where he's at the top of the hole and then he's gone and--
"Eric!"
"Here!" His voice booms, and he scrabbles against rock. "I'm right here. Will's back, and I'm getting the rope from him. Just hold on."
"There's another one."
Pause. "What?"
"There's another body. I'm standing on two victims."
*
We're back in Rockton. We barely made it to the edge of town before Dalton was off his horse, waving the reins at the poor resident who happened to be walking past. She takes them, looking bewildered, and Anders says, "Just lead him behind us." Dalton's making a beeline for Val's. He gets about twenty paces and stops. Wheels. Snaps, "Butler?" and resumes walking.
"That's my cue," I say as I slide from Cricket. Anders reaches for the reins. As he takes them, he whispers, "He's just freaked out."
"I know," I say, and jog to follow Dalton.
By the time I get there, Dalton is already striding into Val's living room, having not bothered to knock, telling her we brought back two bodies and get the goddamned council on the phone now.
Val's gaze shoots my way, as if begging me to tell her this is some terrible joke. But the fact that I'm standing beside Dalton answers that question.
She looks as if she's going to be sick. Physically sick. For once, she does not argue when we demand to speak to the council.
Ten minutes later, Phil is on the speaker. He tells Dalton that, yes, he realizes it's urgent, but Dalton needs to have Val call ahead and set up an appointment time.
"Yeah, fuck that," Dalton says and launches into an expletive-peppered description of what we've found. "We need a doctor," he says. "We have two goddamned bodies and no one qualified to examine them."
Phil sighs. "If we haven't found a doctor in four months, we certainly can't do it in the next--"
"There used to be a guy," Dalton says. "A former resident who stayed on call until we got someone else."
"Dr. Russell. He passed away five years ago. And before you ask, no, we do not have another former resident who was also a medical professional and willing to be on call. We've been through this. We've contacted the last two town doctors--"
"Yeah, yeah. They were assholes. I don't want them back."
No one mentions Beth. There's still part of me that might say, in an emergency, maybe she could return, briefly.... But after what she did to me, Dalton couldn't get her out of Rockton fast enough. And we don't even know if she's alive.
I can tell myself the council wouldn't execute her for her crimes. For the exposure threat she posed, though? That's why we're stuck with Diana, isn't it?
If I say I'm sure Beth's alive, I'm being naive. Willfully naive? I hate that, but this is how we deal with the bargain we've made. We live in our castle, and we protect those within and pretend not to see that the moat is filled with ravenous piranhas. Yes, perhaps, every now and then, someone falls in, but they swim out and wander off. Yes, that's it. Everyone who leaves is out there, alive and well.
"Perhaps I need to say this slower for you, Eric," Phil continues. "We do not have a doctor to send."
"At all?" There's a note in Dalton's voice that I know well, and I realize what he's getting at, but Phil only sighs and says, "I'm going to blame this misbehavior on stress. I understand you are concerned, Eric. I understand how difficult it must be to have Ms. Chavez return in that condition and now to find two bodies that may be connected. But extenuating circumstances aside, there is a limit to how many times--and in how many ways--I can tell you, no, we do not have a doctor up our sleeves."
"No?" Dalton says. "Not one hiding in plain sight?"
"Phil?" I say. "It's Casey."
A soft sigh, relief at the chance to deal with a rational person. "Detective, yes. Hello."
"I believe what Eric's asking is whether we have a doctor in town that he doesn't know about."
Silence. "Pardon me?"
"Eric is on the selection committee, so he knows who we have here." Or who you pretend we have here. "But perhaps there's a resident who asked you not to reveal his or her former occupation. Who was a viable candidate without that professional advantage and didn't want to practice medicine here."
<
br /> "No," Phil says, "we do not have anyone like that, Detective Butler. For medical expertise you have Mathias Atelier and Deputy Anders. That will, I'm afraid, need to be sufficient."
*
So we have one psychiatrist who has never practiced medicine. One army medic who has never practiced medicine. Plus one homicide detective who has never even trained in medicine. That is who now stands around the bodies of two dead women. They deserve so much better.
Dalton isn't with us. He told me he had "to check something." That's not squeamishness. The day I arrived in town, they'd brought in a mutilated body, and Dalton had been right in there, like it was a high school science project. Anders had been the one most affected, and at the time, I hadn't thought much of it, except that he was a deputy, probably unaccustomed to corpses. But as a war veteran, he is accustomed to corpses, and that's the problem. Show him a body in pieces, and he's back in that war, what he saw there, and everything that goes with it.
Now we're looking at these two women, and Mathias says, "The desiccation is interesting. I presume it's a dry cave?"
"That section is," I say. "But I haven't seen anything like this outside a museum."
"I have," Anders says. "Desert does the same thing, if a body's been out there long enough."
I glance over. His face is impassive, and I have no idea what's going on behind those dark eyes, but when he notices me looking, he offers a tiny smile and mouths, I'm fine.
"Abbygail's arm was like this," Anders says. "Not quite as preserved, and with more scavenger damage, but it would have ended up similar to this. So ... let's get to it." He turns to me. "As the only person with forensic experience..."
I nod and scrub in.
"Will, can you--?" I look over to see he already has a notebook and pen, ready to take dictation.
I remove the women's clothing, one piece at a time, one corpse at a time. It's not easy. Some of it has fused to their bodies.
"There's evidence of decomposition," I say. "Arrested decomposition, suggesting the killer--" I stop. "Sorry. Detective brain butting in. Just the facts, ma'am."
"These notes are for you, Casey--" Mathias speaks English for Anders's benefit. "I do not think we must stand on protocol. Including interpretations along with the observations may prove helpful. As you were saying..."
"Arrested decomposition suggests the first body was not immediately placed in that crevice, but began the process of decay in another climate, and then was moved to the crevice. The second body--" I stop. "Start again. For the purpose of these notes, the 'first' body is the one found on the bottom. That doesn't mean she was killed first, though that does seem like a reasonable early interpretation. I'm going to continue removing garments with the warning that I may damage the tissue of the first body in doing so."
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