Page 11 of Girl, Unseen

‘I thought we agreed not to mention that.’

‘You’re right. Sorry,’ said Luca.

The second level opened onto another broad terrace, this one cluttered with abandoned mining equipment. A row of rusted-out dump trucks squatted against one wall. Their tires had long since rotted away, leaving them settled on their axles like beached ships.

‘Check this out.’ Luca approached one of the trucks. ‘These things must weigh thirty tons easy. And they just left them here?’

‘Probably cheaper than hauling them out.’ Ella played her light over the cab. ‘Though I bet the scrappers stripped anything worth taking years ago.’

They worked their way methodically across the terrace and checked each potential hiding spot. The temperature had dropped another few degrees, and their breath fogged in the beam of the flashlights.Something about the cold made the silence feel more absolute, broken only by their footsteps and the occasional scatter of disturbed gravel.

‘Third time's the charm?’ Luca asked when they reached the next ramp.

‘Getting tired already?’

‘No. You?’

‘No, Just wondering if Marcus really climbed all this way with his hammer and whatever else he brought,’ Ella said.

‘You know what an obsession is like, Ell. Someone like Marcus would have climbed to the moon to find what he wanted.’

Ella couldn’t deny, so she climbed up to the next layer. This level was different. Instead of equipment or loading bays, she found a maze of stone pillars – support columns left in place to prevent collapse.

‘This is more like it,’ Ella said. ‘Perfect spot for studying rock formations.’

‘Perfect spot for getting lost, too.’

They threaded their way through the pillars and checked each alcove. Their footsteps echoed strangely here, bouncing off the stone in ways that made it impossible to tell direction. More than once, Ella caught herself turning toward what she thought was Luca's voice, only to find empty air.

‘So much for a pleasant trip to New York,’ Luca said. ‘If this doesn’t work out, are we still going home tomorrow?’

‘Less talk, Hawkins. More finding.’

There was something unsettling about this place. Maybe it was the way sound played tricks on you, or how the pillars seemed to shift in your peripheral vision. Or maybe it was just the knowledge that you were standing in the middle of a man-made cave with millions of tons of rock suspended overhead.

They were halfway across the terrace when Luca stopped suddenly. ‘You smell that?’

Ella inhaled. Beneath the mineral tang of limestone and the musty scent of decay, there was something else. Something chemical. ‘Gasoline?’

‘Yeah. Fresh, too.’

They followed the scent to its source. As they rounded the last pillar, their lights fell on something that didn't belong in this graveyard of industry and abandonment – a gleaming black Mustang, its paint job still showroom-perfect despite the film of quarry dust that coated it.

‘Got you,’ Ella said.

The car sat there like a chunk of midnight given form, but something about it made Ella's neck prickle. Maybe it was how pristine it looked in this wasteland of rust and ruin. Or maybe it was the way it was parked. Perfectly parallel to the quarry wall, as if its driver had taken particular care in positioning it.

‘Check the plates.’ Ella circled toward the driver's side while Luca verified what they already knew. The car was Marcus Thornton's pride and joy, restored to better-than-new condition. Through the window she could see the immaculate leather interior, the perfectly polished dash.

‘It's his.’ Luca joined her. ‘But where's Marcus?’

Ella tried the door. Locked. She played her light across the seats, looking for any sign of struggle or violence. Nothing jumped out except the tidiness of it all.

‘Pop the trunk?’ she asked.

Luca cocked a brow. ‘Are you asking me to do it? Or asking permission?’

‘Do you know how to pop a trunk?’

---