Expired Cache - Lisa Phillips Page 0,78
or read something that informed her decision. He didn’t know how her brain worked. Perhaps the knowledge was subconscious, and she just followed her instinct.
Dean glanced back. When he looked ahead again, she’d disappeared. “Ellie.” He wanted to throw a tantrum in frustration, but he was a grown man. “Ellie!”
“In here.”
He took a few more steps and saw the side room. It opened back on itself, so the person in the tunnel couldn’t see in the room. Likewise, the person in the room couldn’t see the tunnel. A blind corner.
“What is this place?” It wasn’t a mine. That much was for sure.
“Could be an old cave. Maybe even from before the gold rush. Before the white man first walked on these mountains. I’d have to do some research into the history of this area and talk to the tribes.” She sounded sad, all of a sudden. “But that’s not what concerns me.”
The room domed up on the ceiling until he could see a tiny funnel of light at the very top. A vent hole, possibly for a fire? If the weather was bad, someone could stay here for days or weeks. Until food supplies had to be restocked.
“What is it?”
She moved her flashlight to the center. “The dirt here has been disturbed.”
“Probably a wild animal looking for buried food, or a place to sleep.” He moved toward it, aware he’d have to go back in a minute if he was going to set up that ambush. Or he’d be doing it from here. And a blind corner wasn’t ideal.
“You need to look at it, Dean.”
He frowned at the impatience in her tone. The dirt had been disturbed. He shone his flashlight in circles from the mound, trying to find what she was…
“Oh.”
Poking out of the dirt was a triangle of material, some kind of floral pattern. A sleeve. Emerging from the cuff was a hand. Gnarled. Shriveled.
“This isn’t my area of expertise.” Her words were measured, even, and way too emotionless. “But I’m thinking that hand belongs to a dead person.”
Clothing swished, along with the echoed sound of boots clomping through the dirt.
Ellie gasped. Dean wanted to tell her to be quiet, but it was too late.
Someone was in the tunnel.
Thirty
Dean pulled off his backpack, took out several thumb-width glow sticks, and started cracking them. He tossed them on the floor around the room, illuminating the area with an eerie green glow. Ellie watched as he pocketed two things, slid a third into the back of his waistband, and looked at her.
“What?” She whispered the word, not wanting anyone to know she was in here.
Dean evidently didn’t feel the same way. Apparently he was purposely trying to run into her abductor.
Ellie shivered. She could feel the tree against her back, and the closing of his fingers around her neck. The lump in her throat. The hitch of her breath. It made her want to cough, except that she would alert her whereabouts to whoever was in the tunnel.
No, she didn’t want to see him.
“Stay here.”
She had no problem with that. There was enough in here to deal with without adding her assailant to the situation.
Ellie slumped against the wall. Free of Dean’s imposing size in such a confined area. She could take a full breath—even if she was sharing her space with a dead body now. No, she had no problem with Mr. Protector taking off after him and saving her. He was determined. He was skilled.
She would do the job she had come here to do.
She let her breath out slowly, wrinkling her nose. There was no way to tell how long this person had been deceased.
Except that clearly it had been a while.
All she could see was the sleeve of a man’s shirt and a wrinkled, decomposing hand.
She shivered again. There was no avoiding this. Ellie’s encounters with the deceased extended only to books. This was a little more in her face than she’d have liked, but if her grandfather had wanted her to find this, then he obviously thought she could handle it.
With Dean’s help.
He’d disappeared into the hallway. Ellie heard nothing. She pulled her cell phone out—no signal. She walked around, holding it up, trying to find an area in this cave where there might be a glimmer of a signal to call for help.
The construction of the cave…she didn’t know how to tell if it was man made or natural. Except maybe for tool marks on the walls. She ran her fingers down the wall.