“You want something on the reg, or for hire.”
“All I know for sure is I don’t want to work with assholes.”
He laughed. “Right there with you, babe.” He kissed her. Things were just getting interesting when muffled sounds came from beyond the door. He groaned. “Jo’s up. How long is she here for again?”
Her turn to grin. “You worried she might move in permanent?”
He rolled his eyes, but indeed it was not the least of his worries. Wy’s parents were disengaged, almost asocial, and so not much present in their daughter’s life, other than insisting that she get a college degree. So Wy had built her own family, beginning with Jo, her college roommate, and Jo’s family, including a brother of whom Liam would rather not think.
“Dibs on the shower,” Wy said. She got up and stretched while he admired the view again. “Agatha Christie said your house had to be big enough not to bump your bum on the furniture while you were cleaning. Even the bathrooms are roomy in this house.” She grinned at him over her shoulder. “The beer business must be good.”
“I think it is if you know what you’re doing.”
They presented themselves in the kitchen, cleaned and scrubbed and possibly a little too self-satisfied, because Jo rolled her eyes at first look. “Coffee’s on.” A ding. “And the monkey knuckles are ready to come out of the oven.”
“Oh, boy.” As one they rushed for the oven. The monkey knuckles, miniature tear-apart cinnamon rolls, were a rich, crusty, brown glistening with sugar and butter and smelled like heaven. “Yum.”
They sat down at the dining room table and tried not to make pigs of themselves.
“You’re not rushing down to the post.” Jo’s tone was more mild inquiry than outraged taxpayer so Liam didn’t rise.
“I’m not officially on duty until next Monday.”
“Are you going back out to take a look in that cave?”
“I thought I might.” He waited.
“I think I’ll follow you out there.”
“I thought you might.”
She flipped him off. Wy laughed.
“Jesus,” Jo said, standing next to him at the top of the cliff.
“Yeah,” Liam said, for once in complete agreement with her.
Her vehicle and Liam’s truck were squeezed in next to Erik’s old Ford. The sky was cloudy but at least it wasn’t raining yet. He hesitated, and then shrugged. He turned sideways to the slope and began side-stepping down, digging the edges of his boots into the ground. Even then he slid almost halfway there, but at least it was a more controlled slide than Monday’s. Above him, Jo inched her way, sometimes by the seat of her pants, sometimes voluntarily.
He was dusting himself off when a bird called and he looked up to see a seagull cruising by, followed a second later by two more. No ravens, though.
The tent looked the same. The tables stood on either side of the tent, the coffee table in one corner, the fold-up Styrofoam bed in another, the aged Blazo boxes converted to shelves containing the cleaned, neatly laid out tools of Erik’s profession and the carefully labeled artifacts. The Shawshank rock hammer was still there.
“Erik?” Liam said. No answer. He raised his voice. “Erik?”
Behind him he heard a scatter of sand and rock. “It’s easier going up than coming down,” he said without turning.
“Good to know,” Jo said breathlessly. “Berglund still not around?”
“Doesn’t appear so.”
“Have you checked the cave?”
“I was just about to.” He pulled the tactical flashlight from the holster on his belt and led the way through the tent into the mouth of the cave.
The darkness of the cave gulped down the light of the flash and if possible made the interior look even darker and somehow larger than he had noticed on Monday. It was colder than he remembered, he thought fifty degrees at most. It smelled off, too, more than just of decaying seaweed. A chill ran down his spine and his heart sank.
He took a step forward toward what he guessed what the back of the cave and immediately tripped over something and fell to his knees. He dropped the flash and it went out. “Damn it.” He groped for the flash, hoping it hadn’t broken against the rock, hampered by being totally disoriented, only dimly aware of Jo’s figure outlined against the light of the cave entrance. The dimensions of the cave seemed to expand exponentially in the dark.
“Liam?”
“Don’t come in. The floor is a bunch of rock.” He understood now why Erik hadn’t walked him inside it during his visit. “Just stay there until I find the flashlight.” His hand closed over it finally. He felt for the switch and pushed it.
It lit immediately, illuminating the face of Erik Berglund peering out from behind an outcropping of rock separated from the wall of the cave.
“Erik?”
But Erik’s eyes were wide and staring. His blond hair was matted with what could only be dried blood.
Behind him Liam heard Jo take a sharp, inward breath.
“Stay there, Jo.” He got to his feet and picked his way carefully to the little rock wall Erik’s body had fallen—or been placed—behind.
He put out a hand. Erik’s skin was cold and clammy to the touch.
Erik’s right arm was outstretched over his shoulder. Liam traced it with the beam of the flash and saw a phone under his lifeless hand.
He bent to pull it free and straightened to thumb it on.
It was dead.
Like Erik.
Twelve
Wednesday, September 4
“RIGOR IS STARTING TO PASS OFF,” LIAM said, “but the cave where the body was is pretty cool and I’d guess colder at night.”
Brillo grunted. “Anybody around who can take a read?”
“No.”
“You sure it wasn’t an accident?”
“I can’t tell, Brillo. I can say that his skull shifts when you touch it.”
“He couldn’t have fallen?”
“Not where the body is. I mean, yes, he could have tripped and fallen, there is plenty to fall over in the cave, but at least at first glance he looks
