Page 19 of So Insane

Turk walked to the entrance of the cave, then gingerly stepped inside, going no further than the light shone. He sniffed around, looking for clues, and Faith marveled at his bravery.

That thought occurred an instant before a noise, exactly like a moan, emerged from the cave. Turk yelped and rushed to Faith’s side. Faith’s skin crawled, and she barely suppressed a flinch.

Jones chuckled and said, "Yeah, we call this the Spirit entrance. Kind of arbitrary since you can hear these noises from any entrance. The wind blows through the tunnels, and when it comes out, it makes this kind of low moan as you heard. Of course, the locals all choose to believe that it's haunted.”

“Haunted? By what?”

“We can talk about superstition later,” Kinzel interrupted. “We have a case to focus on right now.”

“Superstition is often rooted in fact,” Faith countered, “and I’d like a chance to determine if these suspicions might lead us to the facts of the case.”

Kinzel glowered but fell silent.

“Haunted by ghosts,” Jones said, “Miners, spelunkers, hikers, disobedient children, you name it. This is basically the town legend. At some point, everyone who dies ends up here for the express purpose of exhaling every time a newcomer shows up. I guess when you’re dead, you’ll take whatever humor you can get.”

“When was the last disappearance attributed to the ghosts?” Faith asked.

“No idea. Like I said, it's become the catch-all bad guy for the town. No one knows for sure what’s real and what isn’t.”

“Hmm,” Faith said. “Can we go inside?”

Jones looked toward the horizon. The sun was a sliver, just barely peeking over the edge. As they watched, that sliver disappeared. “Not a good idea,” he said. “We can be out here first thing in the morning with some uniforms to start a thorough search, but even with flashlights, I wouldn’t want to be in those caverns after dark. It’s too easy to lose track of where you are.”

Faith looked into the darkening entrance and wondered what Tyler’s and Clara’s last thoughts might have been as they realized that their lives were coming to an end. They were less than five miles from their homes, but they might as well have been on another planet.

“Got anything, Turk?” she asked.

Turk snorted and dipped his head, a sign of frustration and a clear answer to Faith’s question. She sighed and said, “All right. Let’s head back down.”

On the way down, she thought again of their victims, lost in that underground maze. She wondered if their cries joined those of the other ghosts now.

They returned to the police station, and Kinzel led them to the conference room. A map of Granger and the surrounding territory was spread out on the table.

“We have teams staking out the roads here, here, and here.” Kinzel placed pins on the map near the 95 and state highways 13 and 14. “Granger PD is focusing on the backroads and forest trails.”

“Is anyone watching the cave system?” Faith asked.

“Not at the moment,” Kinzel replied. “We’ll be investigating during daylight hours.”

“We’ll stake out Spirit Cave,” Faith said. “If Tooley really is kidnapping people for ransom, then the caves seem the most likely place to do it.”

“I can’t see him doing that successfully,” Jones replied. “He’s not a local. He wouldn’t know the first thing about this cave system. He would get lost in there.”

“Frankly, he probably is,” Faith said, “and when we start looking through the cave system in earnest tomorrow, we might find him then. But for tonight, I want eyes on the entrance in case we catch him, or anyone else, entering or exiting.”

“You’re not going to find anything in the dark,” Jones insisted.

“Turk’s nose works in low light too,” Faith assured him.

“We’ve had dogs all over the mountains since before you arrived,” Kinzel countered. “They didn’t find anything.”

“They’re not Turk,” Faith replied simply.

Kinzel’s lips thinned. “Is Turk some special breed of German Shepherd with an unusually powerful nose?”

“Are you some special breed of asshole with an unusually snarky tongue?” Michael fired back.

Faith lifted a hand for calm and said, “Marshal, you asked for our help in this case. We’re offering it to you. I suggest you accept it. We all lose in a pissing contest.”

---