the transfer of the reporter and his group to the station, Amanda had found herself full of nervous energy. By bringing these newcomers out here, she knew she was violating the intent of the Navy’s gag order, if not the letter. Word of the discovery on Level Four was not to be broadcast to the outside world — but that didn’t mean she couldn’t reveal it to folks already here. The sheriff, the reporter, and the others…as long as they were at the station, they were under the umbrella of the gag order, not outside it.
Still, Amanda knew she was skating on thin ice. Greg…Captain Perry…would not be pleased. He was Navy, like her father. Bending rules was not something they tolerated easily. But Amanda had to be true to her own heart. The facts had to get out. They needed an impartial party to document it all, like the reporter.
With her decision made, she was too edgy to sit for the two or so hours it would take to make the transfer. So after getting confirmation from Washburn, she had headed down to the Crawl Space to see if there was any news on Lacy Devlin.
It was lucky she had decided to check.
She had found Connor MacFerran stamping a set of ice crampons onto the bottom of his boots. They were spiked like golf shoes, meant to keep one’s footing stable on the slick surface. Clearly he had been about to head out on his own, ignoring her order to take others with him. “Everyone is busy,” he had complained, then patted his down vest. “Besides I have a walkie-talkie.”
Of course, Amanda refused to let him go alone, and since she was still wearing her thermal racing suit, she had only to don a pair of crampons herself.
Ahead of her now, Connor halted at a crisscrossing of ice tunnels. He wore a mining helmet and shone its light down the various chutes. He cupped his mouth. His chest heaved. His lips were hidden, but Amanda knew he was yelling out Lacy’s name.
Amanda waited, deaf to any response. She carried a flashlight in one hand and a coil of poly-line over one shoulder. They were in an un-mapped section of the Crawl Space. It was a maze of tunnels, cracks, and caves.
Connor touched an orange spray-painted arrow on the wall. Amanda had been told it marked the skating course Lacy followed. But Amanda didn’t need the markers to track the woman. The floor was scored with old runner marks, a cryptic script of steel across ice.
Connor continued down the marked tunnel, raising his hand to his lips, calling out. But from his steady pace, there seemed no response.
They continued for another twenty minutes, winding down and around a long looping ice chute, then back into the tangle of cracks and tunnels. Connor continued to call out and follow the orange markers.
He was so intent on listening, searching for the next marker, that he missed the scoring of ice that led off the main track and headed down a long crack.
“Connor!” Amanda called to him.
He jumped at her yell. Maybe it had been too loud.
He turned to her. “What?”
She pointed to the one set of tracks leading away. “She went this way.” She bent and rubbed the scored ice. It was hard to say how old the marks were. But it was something worth investigating. She glanced up to the geologist.
He nodded and moved into the crack.
She followed with her flashlight.
They moved down the chute, digging in their crampons to keep traction. The tunnel narrowed, but the track kept going.
Connor stopped ahead of her, glancing back — not at her, but back down the tunnel. His brow was crinkled.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I thought I heard something.” He stood and listened for another few breaths, then shrugged heavily. He turned and continued down the tunnel.
After another ten steps, the path plunged over an ice cliff.
Connor reached the edge first, bending over to shine his helmet light down. He suddenly stiffened and dropped to his knees.
Amanda squeezed up next to him. It was tight. The pit ended about fifteen feet down. The splash of red on the ice was a raw slash. One boot lay in the middle of the stain. Also a mining helmet, the lamp smashed.
Connor turned to her. “Lacy’s.”
There was no sign of a body, but the bloody track led off to the side. Out of their line of vision.
“I have to go down there,” Connor insisted. “There might be another way out that we can’t see. If Lacy tried to drag herself…”
Amanda stared at the amount of blood on the floor. It seemed hopeless, but she shrugged the coil of poly- line to the floor. “I’m lighter. You brace me, and I’ll go down and look.”
Connor looked like he was going to leap down there himself. But he only nodded.
Amanda tossed a length of rope to the bottom. Connor braced himself, seated on the ice a couple feet from the edge, legs apart, crampons dug into the walls. He passed a loop of poly-line around his back, under his armpits. He shook it, testing it.
“You ready?” she asked.
“I won’t drop a little slip of a girl like you,” he groused. “Just find Lacy.”
Amanda nodded. She pocketed her flashlight, grabbed the rope, and began to rappel down into the ice pit. She lowered herself, hand over hand, spiked feet against the wall. She quickly reached the bottom.
“Off rope!” she called up as her toes hit the floor.
The line jiggled as the large man unbraced himself and crawled over to the edge. He still wore the loop of poly-line around his chest. He stared anxiously down at her and mouthed something, but with his thick beard and the glare of his helmet lamp, she could not make out what he was saying.
Rather than admit her ignorance, she simply waved to him. She pulled out her flashlight.
As she swung her light, her nose curled. The smell was rank. It seemed to hover at the bottom of the pit like bad air in a cavern, heavy, thick, suffocating. She swallowed hard. One summer, while going to Stanford, she had worked in the kennel of an animal research facility. The stench here brought her back: blood, feces, and urine. It was a smell that she had come to equate with fear.
She followed the blood trail with her flashlight. It led past the cliff to an opening in the ice wall. It was a horizontal slot, even with the floor, similar to a street drain that led into a city’s underground sewers. It was no higher than her knee, but almost as long as the length of her body.
A
She crossed toward it and called out, “Lacy!”
Deaf, she glanced up to Connor to see if he registered any response. He still knelt up at the cliff’s edge, but he was staring back down the tunnel rather than into the pit.
Her toe hit something on the floor, drawing her gaze back down. It was Lacy’s boot. It spun from her kick. She instinctively followed it with her flashlight. It hit the wall and stopped. From this angle, her light shone down into the boot.
It wasn’t empty. Bright bone, splintered at the end, stuck out of the boot.
She screamed. But no noise came out. Or maybe it did. She had no way of telling. She scrambled backward on the ice, crampons now acting like ice skates.
She craned up to the cliff’s edge.
No one was there.
“Connor!”
She could see his light up there, deeper in the tunnel. But it jittered all around, like he was doing some Scottish jig up there. Even the rope snaking down the cliff wall whipped and flailed.
“Connor!”
Then the light stopped its dance, as if hearing her. It settled still, pointing toward the top of the tunnel. The dancing rope went slack.
Amanda backed across the ice, trying to get some distance, trying to see farther down the mouth of the tunnel. She pointed her flashlight up. Her throat constricted into a knot, and blood pounded in her useless ears. She didn’t bother calling out again.
