Page 31 of Hidden Falls

As they split up and moved along the perimeter of the wall, checking every possible enclosed space, Marcella spoke. “I once had a kidnapping case where we thought a victim had been hidden. We cleared a whole building and went in with a team, searched everywhere but couldn’t find the kid. The suspect we had in custody walked. A week later, the body of the victim was found by smell, hidden under the floorboards.”

“Horrible,” Jenkins said.

“That case changed me.” Even now, the awful memory of Marcella’s team’s failure to rescue the kidnap victim sent a coil of queasy guilt to tighten her belly.

“Yikes. I totally get it,” Jenkins said. He frowned at some marks on the floor, then opened the closed doors of a metal cabinet to check inside.

Marcella saw nothing in the container but closed boxes. Out of curiosity, she opened one. “It’s empty.”

“Help me move this thing,” Jenkins said. They shoved the cabinet a few feet from the wall. “Aha. Looks like there’s a stash here.”

Marcella’s heart rate jacked as she spied a metal trapdoor in the cement floor. “Something we’re not supposed to find right here.”

The trapdoor leading down into the concrete was sealed with a simple padlock thrust through a hasp. Jenkins hollered for one of the officers to bring the bolt cutters.

Marcella’s heart pounded with excitement and fear—would Malia be down inside that underground space, scared or injured?

In minutes the lock was off. Jenkins opened the hatch, letting the metal cover land on the concrete floor with a boom.

“Malia?” Marcella called. “Malia, are you there?”

No answer.

Nothing but darkness, and a metal ladder leading down. A draft of cool, mildewy-smelling air wafted over them.

Jenkins turned on his flashlight and shone it down the ladder. “I don’t see her.”

Marcella aimed her beam into the depths too; there was nothing to see but stacks of boxes filling the small, square room.

“Wonder what’s in the boxes, though.” Jenkins put his small, high intensity flashlight in his mouth, turned, and backed his way down the ladder.

Marcella made eye contact with the uniformed officer. “Keep a close eye out for us, will you?”

“No worries,” the man said, his arms crossed on his chest. Brown eyes revealed by the sunglasses pushed up on his head were caring and watchful. “Got you both covered.”

Marcella nodded, drew a deep breath, and followed Jenkins down the ladder.

The metal rungs were rusty and rough against her hands; the whole thing wobbled with each step. She gritted her teeth and moved purposefully downward, trying to get the tricky descent over with as fast as possible.

The air in the basement stronghold was cold and smelled nasty. Seepage had made cracks in the crude cement walls; clearly this room was an afterthought. It had probably been dug by hand and then the cement applied with a trowel, with little to reinforce the pressure of damp dirt behind its walls. Wooden pallets had been placed on the floor and the boxes were stacked on them; water had come in several times at different points to leave patterns on the walls.

“Good place to keep a prisoner,” Marcella said. “She might not be here now, but she could have been.”

Jenkins shined his light around the barren space. “There’s no sign.” He advanced to the closest box. “But there’s something in these boxes Paulson wants kept secret. Let’s see what it is.”

He took a picture of the top box with his phone. “Look at this. Sealed with tape and initialed.”

“Huh.”

Jenkins broke the seal and ripped the tape off, then pulled open the flaps of the box. He sucked in a breath. “Well, hello, Ben Franklin.”

Marcella peeked into the container; neatly wrapped bundles of hundreds filled it to the brim. “Ah. The age-old problem of what to do with too much drug money.”

“Everything okay down there?” one of the uniforms called down.

Marcella put a hand on Jenkins’s arm and shook her head; she held a finger to her lips. “I’ve seen bad things happen over a lot less money than this,” she hissed.

Jenkins frowned but turned to call up through the opening. “Fine. No evidence the girl was here. We’re on our way back up.”

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