Page 6 of Canyon Killer
He couldn’t imagine what that would be like, surrounded by family. “I’m an only child, and my folks divorced when I was pretty little. I don’t see them much now that I’m grown.”
“Oh, I missed them all when they weren’t here, but it would be nice if they weren’t quite so involved in my life.”
“I guess I could understand that.” They detoured around a washout in the cliff face. “There was some flooding this spring and a mudslide that took out a big section of the cliff,” he said. “We’ll have to reinforce this area and put in some drainage.”
“Are those caves up there?” She pointed to a shadowed area high above them.
He stepped back and looked in the direction she indicated. “I think you’re right. The mudslide must have opened up some pockets in the cliff face.”
“It looks like there’s a ledge up there. I think we could get to them.”
Before he could say anything, she was already headed up the slope, scrambling around rocks, squeezing past trees, steadily gaining altitude.
He hurried after her. “Careful!” he called as one foot slipped, sending loose dirt rolling toward him.
“I’m fine!” she called, and kept going.
He stepped onto the ledge right behind her. The rock shelf was scarcely a foot wide, so they had to turn sideways to make their way along it. A rush of cooler air greeted them when they reached the opening to the first, largest cave.
“Wow, look at this.” She stepped under the overhang.
Ian followed, bending down to avoid hitting his head.
“I wish we’d thought to bring a flashlight,” she said.
He pulled out his phone. “We can use this.” He directed the beam from his flashlight app onto the walls of the cave, estimating the space to be about five feet tall and six feet wide, with an undetermined depth. Jagged rock around the opening showed fresh scarring, as if pieces had broken off in the mudslide.
“I wonder how far back this goes,” Bethany said and started deeper into the cave.
“The rock could be unstable,” he called, even as he followed her. She might not have been a climber, but she didn’t lack nerve—he’d give her that.
“Shine the light back here,” she said. “I want to see how far this goes.”
Ian moved in behind her and directed the light over her shoulder, onto a wall of rock. “It looks like it stops right here.” He swept the light down across the floor.
“What was that?” She put her hand on his arm. “I thought I saw something white. Swing the light back that way.”
He moved the light more slowly, back across the floor, and focused the beam on a strange tableau. It took a moment for the scene to register.
Bethany clutched him more tightly. “Is that…a skeleton?”
CHAPTER THREE
Bethany averted her gaze, then forced herself to look back. Working with search and rescue meant facing difficult things, she told herself. After the initial horror of realizing there was a human skeleton on the floor of the cave, curiosity took over, and she was able to study the scene before them more closely. “It’s not one skeleton,” she said. “It’s two.” There were definitely two skulls, side by side at one end of the tangle of bones.
“It looks like they’re…embracing?” Ian asked.
“Are we sure they’re even real bones? Maybe it’s just a prank.” She started forward, but Ian held her back.
“I don’t think they’re fake.” He pulled her farther away.
“What’s that around them?” she asked. “Rags or a blanket?”
“Maybe their clothing, rotted away.”
“Which would mean they’ve been here a long time.” That would also explain why there wasn’t more of them left and no smell of decay, just a mustiness to the air.
Ian tugged her arm again. “Let’s go back down and call the sheriff. There’s no cell reception in here.”
