Page 108 of The Promise
"Yeah, you and Arnold Schwarzenegger," she mumbled. He looked at her blankly, dropped a kiss on her cheek, and disappeared into the crack. She stood for a minute waiting patiently. "Michael?" No answer. The rock seemed to absorb all sound. She turned back the way they had come. It was dark. Really dark. Looking the other way, she could just make out the light from Owen's candle.
She glanced again at the fissure where Michael had disappeared, then turned her gaze up to the rocks above her. Several small stones broke free and clattered to the ground at her feet.
She turned back toward the bobbing light heading down the tunnel, her mind made up.
"Owen," she called. "Wait for me."
"So how much farther back do youthink this goes?" Cara peered into the darkness. Somehow, she'd wound up in the lead. Not exactly her first choice, but at least she wasn't alone.
"I'm honestly not sure. I never spent much time at the mine. I was more the money man. Duncan was the spelunker. Mind your head. It gets low here."
She ducked, wondering how he managed to warn her of the tunnel's obstacles when he'd just admitted he'd not spent much time here. She shrugged mentally, probably just amazing eyesight. "Do you think Michael's found anything?"
"No, there hasn't been enough time. It's an incredibly narrow passageway. It will take him a while just to get into the wider part of the drift."
Again, he seemed incredibly knowledgeable. She blew out a breath, her eyes searching for a glint of silver, even as her mind churned. She was over-reacting. She knew it. Amos Striker was dead. The worst was behind them. Still, she'd feel better when they'd found the damn stuff and were safely out of the mine.
She'd never thought of herself as a claustrophobic, but she was beginning to change her mind. She stopped, holding her candle up. "I don't think this thing is ever going to end."
"It's not much farther." His voice echoed out of the dark behind his candle.
"I thought you'd never been here." Again, she felt the niggle of concern.
"I haven't," he said quickly. "It's just that the tunnel is narrowing here."
She looked up, holding her candle high. Sure enough, the rock walls were closer together and the ceiling was morerounded. Owen stabbed his candle-holder into a soft place in the wall, the glow illuminating a circle of stone. Cara tried to follow suit with hers, but had trouble pushing it into the rock.
"Here, like this." Owen took it from her, and after examining the wall, shoved it into a muddy looking patch.
The combined light almost made the cavern bearable. She thought she could just make out the back of the tunnel. "Now what?"
Owen shrugged. "We search."
Cara took a step towards the back wall, her eyes sweeping across the shadowy ground. "I'm not sure exactly what we're looking for."
"A stack of silver bars. I imagine the crates have long since rotted away." His disembodied voice echoed across the emptiness as he stepped out of the light. "Each bar is marked with a rose."
"That's right, I'd forgotten about the rose." She bent down to reach behind a fallen rock, her blood suddenly running cold. Only Rose and Duncan and Michael had known about the imprint. It had been a last minute addition. Owen hadn't known. Duncan had never told him.
She slowly stood up, her heart pounding. "I'm not finding anything. Maybe it's not here."
"We haven't searched all the way to the end of the tunnel. Let's keep looking." He was still out of range of the light, his voice echoing sinisterly. "Cara?"
"I'm here, Owen, just not finding anything." She tried but couldn't keep the fear from her voice, the truth a blinding glimpse of the obvious. Owen Prescott wasn't a friend. He was the enemy.
Michael struggledto move forward and keep his candle alight. It was slow going, but if he remembered correctly he was almost through the hard part. Of course he had to get out again, but he'd made it this far and he figured he could make it back. And with any luck at all, there'd be a pay-off at the end of the drift.
He wasn't really a material man, but the thought of being able to provide a good life for Cara appealed to him. The silver would go a long way toward making Clune the kind of place she would be proud of. And maybe, if it was all it could be, she'd be content to stay here, in this time—with him.
He pushed thoughts of Cara away and worked to inch a few feet farther along.
"I'm afraid,my dear, we've run out of time."
Owen seemed to materialize out of nothing, his voice trailing along the edge of Cara's ear, sending shivers up her spine. She jumped back holding a hand to her chest. "Owen, you startled me." He smiled, but it failed to reach his eyes. They reminded her of marbles, beautiful but lifeless. She took a step backwards. Something was very wrong.
"I'm afraid I've made a serious blunder." He moved with a speed that amazed her, his hands closing around her throat. "I've let my secret slip, and you're entirely too clever to have missed it." She tried to struggle, but he was larger and his grip tightened, cutting off her oxygen. "I'm sorry, darling, it couldn't be avoided. She simply knows too much. Forgive me."
Cara thought at first he was talking to her. But it came with sudden clarity that he wasn't. Her vision began to darken and she could no longer draw a breath. He was crazy, her beleaguered brain pounded out.Crazy. She reached inside for strength. Thinking of Michael, she twisted against the murderous hands, the movement allowing her a tiny breath.
