Page 60 of Cold Case Murder Mystery

Brooke stayed frozen. Leon just stood there, gun pointed at her, though his arm was starting to shake. She didn’t know how to get out of this. He blocked the only exit she knew of—with a gun.

Shecouldknock him over, and he very wellcouldmiss shooting her since he was hardly holding the weapon steady. But was it worth the chance? Shot by accident was the same as on purpose when all was said and done.

But there was a slight discrepancy here. “You don’t kill your victims with a gun.” She hadn’t gone through all the remains in this cave, but aside from the ones Jen had confessed to, no remains had showed any evidence of a gunshot wound.

He raised his eyebrows then gave a nod like she was quite right. “You’ve been studying my prizes. So, how do I do it then?”

Brooke pressed her palms to the cold, wet rock behind her. She used that as a kind of centering. She was still alive. There was still hope. Just keep him talking until she got out. People knew she was in here. They were working to get her out. Not just people.Police officers. With guns of their own.

“With the age of the remains I’ve dated and studied, my guess would be starvation or terminal dehydration is your preferred method.”

Again he nodded, like a professor proud of a student for getting a difficult questionpartiallyright. “Sometimes we found them that way. An offering from the cave. And sometimes Father and I worked as a team.” He smiled fondly. “My father was a good partner. He understood the god. The offering. My daughter...” He shook his head and the smile died. “I went through a dark period when she was my partner. It’s better alone again.”

“That section over there.” Brooke pointed to the second quadrant. The one she’d just begun to study. “I haven’t gotten very far, but I’ve found more broken bones than this quadrant.”

“Mmm.” Leon studied her but didn’t offer anything else.

“So, you were more violent with those victims?” Brooke prompted.

“Stop calling them that.” His mouth turned into a scowl, his nostrils flared. Anger seeped into his expression. “Not victims. Offerings. Prizes. For me. God of the cave.” The scowl curved back up into a psychotic grin that turned her blood to ice. “Violent, maybe. But broken bones don’t kill, do they?”

“They can.”

“But did they? That’s the question.”

“I haven’t studied that portion enough to know,” she hedged. “It takes time. To study. To excavate. To discern.” She glanced at the wall behind her. She didn’t hear anything coming from the other side. Had more deputies been trapped? Hurt? Was it worse on the other side?

Brooke looked back at Leon. He pointed to her bag that still sat next to the quadrant she’d been working on. “Take your tools. Tell me.”

She didn’t want to do anything that he told her, but if she got her tools, she had a weapon. Maybe it wasn’t agun, but it was something. She moved forward, keeping a careful eye on him so she knew she was always out of reach. She did her best to keep that gun from pointing directly at her as she gathered her bag of tools. She moved over to the quadrant she’d only just begun.

There could have been a lot of reasons the bones in this sector were more broken over here. It could have meant a violent means of death or something more environmental. She wasn’t far enough in her excavation and research to know for sure.

If she dragged this out, took her time, surely someone would be able to get to her by then. No matter what things looked like on the other side of that pile of rocks, too many people knew where she was. People who would save her. The police. Zeke. Her brother. She wasn’t going to wither away here.

As long as she survived whatever Leon was up to. So she turned her attention back to the ground beneath her. She had to excavate. Slowly. Much more slowly than even she usually went. Time was her best weapon. She’d have to use it.

Brooke got to work, trying to block out Leon’s existence, or why she was doing this. Just fooling herself into thinking it was any other workday. Uncover a bone here, another bone. Carefully. She didn’t take pictures like she usually did, but Laurel had been the one with the camera and, well, anyone could forgive her for not attempting that in her current circumstances.

After a while, she became aware of his hot breath on her neck. She tried to breathe through the wave of nausea that swamped her. Tried not to let her hands shake. She didn’t remove any of the bones, just uncovered them as they were laid out. Legs to hips to rib cage to...

“What do you think?” he asked just as she uncovered the neck.

Brooke swallowed so her voice would sound calm and clear. So she didn’t shudder at the nearness of him.

“I’d need to run tests. I’d need my lab. I can’t tell just by looking.” Of course she had enough experience to make an educated guess. Broken neck.

Was that what he wanted her to say? But she forgot everything when something wet and sticky touchedherneck, like a tongue, and on a shriek, she jumped up. Halfway through the knee-jerk reaction, she chose to use it to her advantage. She flung her head back as she came up, the top of her skull crashing into his chin, his frail body stumbling backward. The gun he’d been holding landed on the ground with a dull thud.

Brooke made a dive for the gun, not allowing herself to think about anything else, but she crashed into him trying to do the same. Something he did caused one of the lights to topple over, making a popping sound as it went dark.

He cackled with delight as they both got a grip on the gun at the same time. She ripped it out of his weak grasp, but he must have known she would. Or maybe everything was just against her—because the last light toppled over.

And they were plunged into utter darkness.

Brooke didn’t panic... at first. She got to her feet, curled her hand around the weapon and adjusted it until she had it in a shooting position. She tried to feel around for the safety, but she didn’t know what kind of gun it was and couldn’t find it.

Maybe he didn’t have it on. She curled her finger around the trigger, and then tried to decide what to do.

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