"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."