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

Okay… Take it… Wait! What are you doing? Wait! I took all the explosives with me…”

Grimsson’s voice dripped with contempt. “Turns out you didn’t,” he said. “Like I said, I hear pretty well, you traitorous son of a bitch!”

Lola button-hooked into the mine entrance, her back pressed tight against the wall.

Beyond the wooden frame supporting the arched alcove, the floor fell away into a huge cavern. Less than a dozen feet inside the portal, Harold Grimsson was on his knees, leaning over the edge, bone rattle in one hand, a black plastic box in the other.

“US Marshals!” Lola barked. “Do not move.”

Grimsson remained on his knees, but half turned. His thick beard pushed to one side as he peered over his shoulder. Eyes ablaze, surrounded by dark rock and black pit, he looked like the Devil himself peeking down on Hell. Lola could not remember ever seeing anyone looking quite so much like the embodiment of evil.

“Marshals?” Grimsson said.

“Police, asshole!” Van Dyke said. “Stand up slowly.”

Grimsson gave a slow nod, eyes closed. Groaning, he got to his feet.

Dollarhyde’s whimpering voice came from the darkness. “Police? I’m down here. He was going to kill me. I’ll tell you everything. The US attorney, the Fawsey kid, all of it. Just get me off this rope.”

Grimsson turned to stare over the edge again, focusing the intensity of his wrath on the man dangling a few feet below.

“You worthless—”

Dollarhyde gasped. “You’re going to kill me!”

“You and Childers had the same in mind for me!”

“That’s enough!” Lola said. She nodded at Van Dyke, who gave the orders.

“Walk backward toward my voice, hands above your head.”

“Shoot him!” Dollarhyde screamed. “He’s got explosives!”

Grimsson peered over the edge again and began to rail on Dollarhyde, ambivalent about the two guns pointed at him.

He shook the rattle at Dollarhyde, working himself into a frothy rage.

“You were never loyal to me! Always in it for yourself.” Rattle in one hand, Grimsson pounded his fist on rock wall as he screamed. “I oughta cut your traitorous head off!”

“SHOOOOOT HIM!” Dollarhyde yelled. “Shoot him or we’re all dead!”

Lola recognized the electronic controller, like a television remote, in Grimsson’s fist – the same fist that he was now bashing into the rock wall in a screaming fit, oblivious to the fact that his thumb hovered a hair away from the button.

Grimsson’s rage had reached a full lather. He drew back to pound the wall again.

Lola yelled for Van Dyke to move at the same instant she hooked around the rock the way they’d come in. Both women dove downward, away from the concussive rumble. Rock and fire shot from the portal like a cannon blast directly over their heads. A second blast followed on the heels of the first, knocked Lola off her feet, and sent her tumbling down the mountain.

Chapter 55

“Hurry,” Maycomb said, “before I lose my nerve!”

Cutter turned his head, struggling to bring her into focus with his semi-good eye. “I’m going to need some help,” he said.

She answered by grabbing the front of his pants, above his belt buckle, and pulling him closer.

The action was jarring in its intimacy. He pulled away instinctively, but she held fast.

“Trust me,” she said. And tucked a flat stone under his belt. “Easier this way.”

Above them, Ephraim Dollarhyde begged for his life.

Maycomb led Cutter to the edge of the pool.

Dollarhyde loosed a tattered scream.

“Time to go!” Maycomb flicked on the headlamp in her baggie and dove headfirst into the water. A bewildered Donita followed. Cutter took a deep breath and dove in behind them.

They swam hard, pulling downward, reaching the turn into the drift thirty feet down just ahead of the shockwave that propelled them forward like an unseen hand. Cutter rolled off the rocks, tumbling, trying to keep Maycomb’s light in view through the blur. She bounced off the bottom, stunned by the force. He grabbed her hand, pulling her up. She in turn grabbed Donita, guiding her. With no need to conserve energy for a possible return trip, they swam quickly, breaking the surface together, back in the mine tunnel, a minute and seventeen seconds from the time they started.

The force of the shockwave had sent a geyser of water out of the shaft and knocked the wooden ladder sideways. Cutter straightened it and then stayed in the water, pushing Donita Willets while Maycomb helped her out of the flooded shaft. Spent, oxygen starved, and chilled to the bone, his teeth were chattering badly. He wondered if he’d have enough energy to haul himself up the wooden rungs.

He remembered the rock behind his belt buckle.

“Nice touch,” he said, letting it fall before starting his climb.

Maycomb got another light from her pack, illuminating the tunnel, turning the water a cool aquamarine. She held her hand toward Cutter. “I was right behind you, watched you struggle with floating to the top. I didn’t want to waste time looking for rocks while I held my breath, so I came back up and grabbed one here to help me be less… floaty.”

The water had washed some of the debris from Cutter’s eyes, but his vision was still clouded.

“Thank you,” he said. “Guess you overcame your fear.”

Maycomb scoffed. “The hell I did,” she said, hollow, like she might cry. The aftereffects of stress caved in around her as surely as the mine. “I’m still scared shitless of tight places. I’m just more scared of staying in them all by myself.”

Soaking wet, she folded her arms tight across her chest. “We made it out of there before Grimsson blew it, but we’re right back where we started. Nothing’s changed.”

Donita spoke next, softly, still getting her bearings.

“You saved my life,” she said. “That’s changed. Gunalchéesh.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Maycomb said. “We’re still stuck.”

“But the explosions,” Donita said. “Surely someone heard them.”

“Maybe,” Maycomb said. “As far as we know, everybody will think we all died in that cave-in.”

“You’re probably right,” Cutter said.

“I am?” Maycomb said, crestfallen. “I thought we talked about this telling the hard truth thing.”

“I’m not saying