Page 81 of Trapped with the Covert Ops Soldier

Fortunately, Virgilwas watching my house. Unfortunately, he didn’t believe me. I showed him my dynamite stash and in thanks he trapped Jack and I in the cellar under my shed, put some heavy shit over the trapdoor and left us there.”

Sheriff Johnson cringed. “Nice.”

“That’s exactly what I thought. Jack and I looked around for something to help us get out of there. There were a couple of wooden barrels down there with some seriously old mining axes and shovels. That’s when Jack realized there was a draft coming from behind the barrels.”

“A draft?”

“Yeah. Virgil returned with Smitty, put him in with me, and took Jack out. He told us he was going to do something to cover up the kidnapping.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. He wasn’t a very considerate villain; he didn’t even deliver an evil mastermind monologue.”

The sheriff’s eyebrows rose. “Heaven forbid you have to go without a speech.”

“I’m tired, okay?” she said. So tired she probably looked drunk.

“So, what about this draft?”

“Smitty moved the barrels, and we found a hole that turned out to be a man-made tunnel. We decided that going into the tunnel was better than waiting to be murdered, so in we went. There were some mining tools that had been left behind and a few oil lamps. We lit a couple and kept going. The tunnel ended up depositing us in a cave. We looked around and found an old cave-in complete with the skeletons of at least three people in it. There wasn’t anything left of them but partially mummified bodies, so they had been there a while.”

“So, there wasn’t any gold?”

“We didn’t go looking for any.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “After finding those bodies, all we wanted to do was get out.”

“When did Virgil come back?”

“While we were going back to the tunnel. He had Jack with him and was really happy about finding the cave. While he was gloating about getting into the mine.” She made air quotes around the wordsgetting into the mine. “Jack hit him over the head with a shovel.”

The sheriff choked on a swallow of coffee. “Jack said Virgil hithimwith a shovel.”

“Oh, he did. After Smitty had gone for help. I had gone to return... some things to the cave when Virgil snuck up on me.”

“Some things?” The suit asked. The first thing he’d said since he entered the room.

“We’d moved oil lamps and a couple of tools. I wanted to try and put everything back where we found it.”

“Why?” the suit asked.

That was a damn good question.

Think. If there hadn’t been gold, why would it be important to preserve the scene?

“Because no one had been down there for a hundred years. There were bodies and tools and more dynamite, and I thought all of it might be historically significant.”

“If it hadn’t caved-in, you’d have been right about that,” the sheriff said with a nod. “So, Virgil found you...?”

“He forced me to show him the old cave-in, even though there were a lot of rocks falling from the ceiling in several places.”

She paused her recitation. “The ceiling of the cave was unstable, and any sound seemed to trigger parts of it to fragment and disintegrate.”

“You’re a geologist as well, Dr. Westward?” the suit asked. His tone only held a touch of sarcasm, but she didn’t have the patience to be polite.

“No, but I understand how gravity works.” She smiled at him, showing her teeth. “Discovering the remains of several people caught in a previous cave-in did not give me warm fuzzy feelings about the cave’s structural integrity.”

Abby turned to the sheriff.This guy had to be a lawyer. Why on earth had he invited a lawyer to listen to her statement?“I was sure Virgil was going to kill me, so I pointed out some pretend gold, then ran. He chased me, but a big rock fell on him. It was raining stones by then and one of them cut up my back. Fifteen stitches. Smitty helped me out of the cave and through the tunnel. There was an explosion, and the rest you were there for.”

She fell silent and waited for more questions.

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