She wanted to resist his command, but she halted and looked over her shoulder. Her yellow helmet sailed toward her, and she grabbed it.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he said, his dark gaze steady and his square jaw clamped tight.
She turned away and tipped her baseball cap back, letting it fall to the ground, and then slammed her helmet on her head and adjusted her chinstrap.
“Hey, was Sheriff Chavez hittin’ on you?” Randy stood so close she jumped.
“Course not,” she lied, flashing him an incredulous look. “He thinks he wants to go down there with us.”
His blue eyes narrowed. “Let me know if you want him to make an air rappel.”
Relieved Randy was there to buffer her anxiety, Lani dug her elbow into his ribs. “You can’t push him over a ledge. He’s too damn big to carry back up.”
She made a quick inspection of the anchor wrapped around the tree, and then followed the line to the cave entrance, looking for abrasions and dirt—anything that might compromise the strength of the rope
she’d dangle from.
Randy dogged her steps all the way to the mouth of the cave. “It’s all good, right?”
“Perfect.” Lani picked up the coiled end of the rope and flipped on the lamp on her helmet. “Get the Stokes litter and some blankets and follow me down.” With one look at the sheriff who trailed behind them, and a nod to the crew who’d keep watch from outside the cave, Lani knelt and crawled through the opening.
Inside, she stood and flung the coil in front of her. She tugged on her gloves, and then lifted the rope and let it feed through her hand at her side as she moved forward, the gravel and sand shifting beneath her feet.
Once she stepped beyond the meager light that spilled through the opening of the cave, she paused, listening to the silence, breathing in the cool, moist air that wrapped around her like a blanket. Already, she felt the tension in her shoulders release. She stood taller, stronger—comforted by the darkness beyond her lamp. And free.
Lani knew some cavers did it for the thrill, but to her the dark, confined spaces meant comfort, peace. She lived for the moments she clung to a rope, descending into a black pit or wriggling through a narrow opening on her belly, clawing at rock and dirt to inch her way to the next dark hole.
Humid, musty air, inky darkness, spaces so tight the sound of her breathing couldn’t echo. Except for the chill, like a mother’s womb.
With no time to savor her environment, Lani kept moving until she’d reached the end of the spill of rock and gravel. Some long ago cave-in had likely closed the entrance behind her. The solid rock beneath her feet and the surrounding formations that glistened like ghostly pillars where her light touched were very different from the debris around the mouth of the cave.
The walls of the cavern to her left and right were curtained with calcified rock that rippled like drapery. Stalactites hung like icicles, and curved pedestals of rock on the cavern floor reached toward the ceiling.
She continued forward, filing her observations, already planning return trips to this underground wonderland. But for now, she had a boy to find.
The shuffle of rock behind her reminded her she wasn’t alone. Another step and she stood poised on a ledge that overlooked a deep, black abyss. Needing a stronger light, she unclipped a flashlight from the side of her pack and shined it downward. The light barely penetrated the gloom, like it was sucked into a celestial black hole.
“Matt!” she shouted, but her voice didn’t echo back. The sounds of her feet scraping rock, even of her breath, hung in the air next to her.
“Lani!” Randy called.
She turned, surprised again by how close he stood.
He dropped the Stokes on the ground. “I was shouting at you. Didn’t you hear me?” The sound of his voice was muffled as if her ears were stuffed with cotton.
She shook her head. “Sound doesn’t seem to carry in this place.”
Randy’s forehead scrunched. “Weird place. Have you heard of anything like this before?”
Lani shrugged, puzzled herself. “No. It’s like the cave is…super-insulated.”
He stepped to the edge of the drop-off. “Man, I can’t see the bottom.”
Lani’s gaze slipped beyond Randy’s shoulder to the sheriff. His swarthy skin was sickly pale. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I’m fine.” He nodded to the pit. “That’s where you’re going?”
“Looks like it.”