Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📕

Grimsson wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “But she was down there?”

Dollarhyde kept his eyes on the display. “Little doubt about that. Bottled water, a stove. Someone’s set up a home.”

“So we blow it!”

“We have two fixed ropes,” Dollarhyde said. “One with the ascenders topside, the other with no ascenders at all. That could suggest she’s down there, or that she came up on her own. For all we know, she’s out there now, behind some tree, just waiting to slip back to town and spill her guts to the FBI.”

“Send the drone in deeper!”

“That’s a no go, sir,” Dollarhyde said. “It just returns to where it last had line of sight. I’d guess there’s twenty to thirty percent of the stope that’s beyond our reach.”

“I never expected you to go squeamish on me,” Grimsson said.

Dollarhyde looked up slowly from the drone controller, staring daggers at the boss. “Mr. Grimsson, I will happily drop a rock on that child, or shoot her, or gut her, or, as you are so fond of saying, cut off her head with an axe. But to do that, we need to find her.”

Childers took his eyes off their back trail long enough to watch Grimsson and see how he’d handle this. As suspected, the old man waved it off. Dollarhyde always seemed to know just how far he could push. That dude was about as wily as—

“Childers!” Grimsson snapped. “Get on one of those ropes and see if she’s down there.”

Childers looked at Dollarhyde for approval.

Grimsson gave him a little nudge on the shoulder. “Don’t look at him! Get your ass down there and kill her.”

Childers considered tossing the old man over the edge, and would have if he’d nudged him again. Some shit you didn’t put up with, even from your boss.

Grimsson handed him the rope with the ascenders attached.

“I’ve got a rappelling brake in my pack,” Dollarhyde said, apparently on board with the plan.

“There’s a chance she has a gun.” Childers’s eyes narrowed, daring the other men to press him. “I’m not scared, but I’m not about to get my ass shot off.”

Dollarhyde handed Grimsson the drone controller and then stooped to dig through his pack. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Even if she does have a gun, I doubt she can shoot it.”

Childers took the rappelling brake without speaking. Grimsson hunched over the controller now, convinced he could make the drone perform better than Dollarhyde. “Find me something that says she’s still down there. Then we’ll bury her.”

And me too, Childers thought. He ignored Grimsson altogether and said, “Mr. Dollarhyde, I’d suggest you come down with me on the second rope. Two sets of eyes will be better than one.”

“You’ll be fine,” Dollarhyde said.

Grimsson flicked a hand toward the ledge, his eyes glued to the controller screen. “One of you get your ass on that rope.”

Childers leaned in close to Dollarhyde, taking advantage of the moment the old man’s attention was on the drone.

“I’m not going down there by myself.”

Before Dollarhyde could counter, Childers pulled the bone rattle half out of his jacket pocket, enough to reveal the carvings and bent sheep horn. “I got this from Schimmel,” he whispered. “According to that archeologist you dumped, this is worth at least a half million.”

Dollarhyde’s face lit up at that. “I’ll hold on to it for you.”

“Not a chance,” Childers said. “You come down there with me. That way I know I have an insurance policy. A way out. We’ll get rid of the girl and Grimsson and then sell this.”

Dollarhyde gave a contemplative nod. Which was lucky for him, since Childers had already decided to shoot him in the face if he balked at the plan.

“What are you two women nervous about?” the old man snapped.

“Childers is right, sir,” Dollarhyde said. “Two set of eyes will be better.” He gave a wry smile. “But I’ll take the explosives with me, just to keep everyone honest.”

Dollarhyde didn’t mind the dark or the height, but it made him feel weak that Childers had the advantage of experience when it came to rappelling. Still, he was a fast learner and he zipped down the rope. The headlights made them sitting ducks, which was more than enough incentive. His feet crunched against the gravel floor seconds behind the former Marine.

Dollarhyde drew his pistol the moment he unlatched his carabiner. He glanced sideways, drawing a withering squint from Childers.

“Get that outta my eyes!” the younger man hissed. “You’re killing my vision.”

Not one to apologize, Dollarhyde turned his head in a slow arc, playing the powerful light around the cathedral-like stope. He was smart enough to know that there was a hierarchy in situations like this, where title meant little to nothing. The one with the experience called the shots. Still, he pretended he was in charge of Childers – just like Grimsson did to him.

Childers aimed his headlamp at a small mountain of supplies – canned tuna salad, crackers, potato chips, and a couple of jugs of water. A couple of Pop-Tart wrappers littered the ground beside a half-burned candle on a flat stone.

“I think she’s back there,” Childers whispered. He motioned with his pistol toward a dark spot where the cavern narrowed and the ceiling dropped.

“Take a look behind those pillars,” Dollarhyde said.

Childers put a finger to his lips and then stepped to where he was cheek to cheek with Dollarhyde. “Switch off your light.”

“Off?”

Childers’s voice was menacing, viper-like. “You want to find her or not?”

Dollarhyde groaned, playing along.

There were few places darker than a mine. Certainly not caves.

Caves formed over time, a partnership with the earth. They were growing, living rock. Dollarhyde had always thought of mines as dead, the husk left over after a mountain was gutted of everything important, full of a darkness far beyond the mere absence of light.

Childers’s shoulder brushed his as soon as their lights went off. Gravel rustled as he crouched to the ground. A faint clatter said Childers had picked up a