Chapter 22

Aiden followed Tracker into the dense bush, shoving aside branches and clambering over gnarled roots and downed trees. Candace was so close behind that when he slowed to thrust a branch out of the way, she stumbled into him. Not that he minded. Not. At. All. The brush of her soft womanly curves against his back felt good. Damn good.

Tracker’s barking grew more frantic.

Aiden frowned. What the hell was Tracker’s problem? Had he spotted a bear? His heartbeat kicked up a notch, and he patted the revolver strapped to the holster under his light jacket. Bear spray was all well and good, but there was nothing like a bullet to the heart to stop a charging beast.

He wiped sweat from his brow and hurried his steps to keep up with the excited dog. Candace, no slouch in the fitness department, stuck to his heels. Damn dog. He should be tracking down clues to find the missing girl or questioning Candace like the captain had ordered him to do instead of chasing after a dog that was probably on the hunt after a squirrel. He opened his mouth to call Tracker back but stopped.

Tracker paced in tight circles, whining, his tail between his legs, his ears back. Casting an imploring look at Aiden, he darted behind a clump of wild rose bushes, disappearing into the thick vegetation.

“What’s with him?” Candace mopped her gleaming face with a tissue she’d tugged from her pocket.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him behave this way.” He wiped the sweat off his brow and peered through the shrubbery. “Tracker! Come here, boy.”

Tracker’s excited barking echoed hollowly as if he were in a large, empty room.

Aiden shoved the prickly branches aside, wincing as tiny thorns pierced his skin. Fragrant pastel-pink rose petals floated to the ground. Hidden behind the thick tangle of vegetation was an opening in the rocks.

“Is that a cave?” Candace leaned over his shoulder, her warm body brushing his.

He sucked in a breath at the contact but forced his focus on the narrow fissure. “I’m not sure, but Tracker’s in there.” The hole was recessed beneath an overhanging rock ledge and was hidden by the prickly wild rose bushes and thick tangle of green leafy plants. “Here, boy.”

The dog didn’t appear.

Aiden glanced at his watch. He didn’t have time for Tracker’s antics. “Looks like I’m going to have to go in and get him.”

“Take this.” Candace pressed a small LED flashlight into his hand.

“You weren’t kidding about being prepared, were you?” The desire to taste her lips again hit him like a blow to the solar plexus.

She grinned. “I told you I was a Girl Scout.” Her smile widened. “I also have a GPS, a whistle, and a topo map of the park stuffed in my pack.”

“You’re quite the gal.” With her flushed face, tangle of long, shining dark hair, and brilliant blue eyes, she was achingly beautiful. Every cell in his body reacted, and he gawked like a schoolboy with his first crush, unable to look away.

The splashing river, chirping birds, buzzing insects, and Tracker’s frantic barking faded into the background. Drawn by a powerful force, he leaned closer, his gaze fixed on her mouth.

Tracker’s barking am ped up and sliced through his daze. Aiden stiffened and dragged his gaze away from her moist lips. An odd mix of relief and regret washed over him. Saved by Tracker.

Man’s best friend.

Maybe.

He shot Candace what he hoped was a stern look. “Wait here.” Tightening his grip on the flashlight, he crouched, and twisting and turning, squeezed his head and shoulders through the tight opening. Razor-sharp rocks scraped his back like claws, and jagged pebbles gouged his knees and palms.

Once through, he stood and brushed dirt and rocks from his jeans. Streaks of light filtered through the matted vegetation, revealing a cavernous dark space. He switched on the flashlight and inched forward. The thin beam of light didn’t pierce the inky darkness more than a few feet, and it was impossible to determine how big the cave was.

The air was heavy with the scents of damp earth, the sour tang of decay, animal feces, and creatures long dead and rotten. He shone the beam of light overhead. The rocky ceiling, stained with streaks of rust and yellow, arched high above. A dark furry mass shifted, and high-pitched squeaks resounded as a colony of bats protested the light intrusion.

Tracker burst out of the darkness and sprang toward Aiden, knocking him back a step, licking Aiden’s face, slobbering over his shirt in his joy at seeing him.

Aiden ruffled the soft fur behind Tracker’s ears. “What the heck are you doing in here, boy?”

Tracker barked, turned toward the rear of the cave, ran a few steps, looked back at Aiden, and barked again.

The streak of daylight streaming through the narrow entrance darkened, and Candace crawled into the cave. She stood and brushed dirt off the knees of her canvas hiking pants. “Wow. This cave is huge. I wonder how many people know it’s here. It’s not marked on the park map.” Her eyes shone in the dim light cast by the flashlight. “The early indigenous people who lived in this area probably used this cave as a shelter or place of worship. There could be pictographs on the walls or projectile points buried in the dirt.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, professor, but look over there.” He directed the beam of light toward a blackened ring of rocks surrounding charred chunks of wood, burned and crushed tin cans, and half-melted plastic water bottles. “We’re not the first modern people to find the cave.”

She crossed to the fire ring and picked up a stick with a charred end and stirred the gray coals. A cloud of soot and ash floated in the air. She crouched and brushed ash aside. “What’s this?” She picked up a small chunk of red plastic. “It looks like a hair clip.”

“Put that down.” Tension made his voice sharper than he intended.

Her brow furrowed. “What?”

“Please put that back where you found it.”

The lines scoring her brow deepened, but she did as he asked and set the clip in the gray ash of the firepit. She wiped her hands on her pants. “What’s wrong?”

He tugged out his cell phone from his back pocket, powered it on, and nodded his chin at the red barrette. “I’ve seen a hair clip like that before.”

She exhaled a gust of air. “Of course you have. They sell them in town at Bernadette’s Bits & Bobs. Lots of girls wear them in their hair.”

He stared at his phone screen. Come on, come on. The damn phone was taking forever. Finally, the small screen lit with a blue-white glow. No bars. He wasn’t surprised. Even if the park had cell service, the thick stone walls of the cave would block reception.

Tapping the photo icon, he waited for his bank of crime scene photos to open. He flipped through the photos until he found the picture he wanted. Amanda Jacobs’s youthful face grinned back at him. It was the photo from the missing person’s poster, the picture her parents had given to the police. He enlarged the picture. At this high resolution, the image was blurry, but clear enough. His gut tightened. Holding Amanda’s long black hair back from her face on one side was a red plastic hair clip with a raised flower design on one end.

Heart pounding, he crouched and picked up the barrette and held it in the palm of his hand. The clip was partially melted, its daisy-shaped design distorted by the heat of the fire, but there was no question—the piece of red plastic was a girl’s hair clip, the same color and design as the one in the photo. He reached into his coat pocket and slipped out a small plastic evidence bag and tilted his palm and slid the clip into the bag. Sealing the bag, he stuffed it in his shirt pocket.

“What’s going on, Aiden? Why is that barrette so important?”

“Amanda Jacobs has a similar red hair clip.” He showed her his phone screen.

Her gasp was loud in the cavernous space. “Oh my God. She was here.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “Amanda was in this cave, wasn’t she?”

His heart raced as she vocalized his thoughts. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. This hair clip could have belonged to anyone. Lots of girls use them. Like you said, you can buy them in town.” He knew that for a fact. As part of his investigation into the case, he’d noticed the red barrette in Amanda’s hair and checked the local stores. Bernadette’s Bits & Bobs sold the same barrette in a variety of colors.

“It’s hers. I know it is.” Her eyes widened. “That means those footprints I saw last fall could have been Amanda’s.” Her face paled. “But how did her barrette end up in this cave? Did—”

He held up his hand to silence her.

“What is it?” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her chest. “Is there something in here? A wild animal?”

He shook his head. “I can’t imagine any beast would still be in here with the way Tracker was barking up a storm.” Yet, his inner alarm bells were going off like a four-alarm blaze. He ran the beam of light over the cave floor. The hard-packed dirt was covered in dried leaves, twigs, and heaps of tree needles blown in by winds. It was impossible to make out tracks, certainly no human ones, but the floor was scuffed as if someone or something had moved about.

There could be any number of explanations for a girl’s hair barrette to be in this hidden cave. The fire pit contained melted plastic water bottles and metal food tins. Maybe a family out for a hike had run into a rainstorm and sought shelter in the cave. But what if Candace was right? Amanda Jacobs’s kidnapper could've used the cave to hold her. No one knew about the cave’s existence. No one would think to look for Amanda there. He swallowed, but his mouth was bone dry. But if that were the case, where was she now?

Tracker barked and dashed into the back recesses of the dark cave.

High above, the bats squeaked and fluttered.

The hairs on the back of Aiden’s neck prickled. Some scent had attracted the dog to the cave, an odor that made him nervous. Tracker had never run off before, but today he’d crawled through a hidden rock fissure into a cave. He shot Candace a glance. “Wait here.”

Her pale face shone with a ghostly luminescence under the flashlight’s glow. “Are you kidding? I’m not staying here by myself.” She held up the can of bear spray. “Besides, you might need this.”

He wasn’t surprised she refused to do as he asked. She was strong-willed. She’d shown amazing fortitude in the face of adversity and survived the ordeal of her sister’s kidnapping and gone on to achieve a successful career at the college. “Okay. But stay behind me.”

Shining the thin beam of light into the stygian darkness, he clasped her hand and crept toward the sound of Tracker’s excited barking. After a few steps, the cave narrowed, and the rock walls pressed in. The floor sloped downward, and piles of broken branches, dried leaves, and old animal feces littered the uneven ground.

Tracker stopped barking, and in the ensuing silence, the steady drip of water, and the furious pounding of Aiden’s heart were deafening.

The scratch of nails on bare rock grew louder, and Tracker trotted toward them, his tail waving like a flag.

“What’s that in his mouth?” Candace’s whisper reverberated against the damp walls. “It doesn’t look like a stick.”

Aiden crouched and grasped Tracker’s collar. “Drop it, boy.”

The dog dropped the object and sat, tail swishing the dirt, panting, waiting for praise.

Aiden petted Tracker’s big velvety head. “Good boy.” But he wasn’t looking at the dog. His attention zeroed in on the long, cream-colored object lying on the dirt.

Candace inched nearer. “Is that what I think it is?”

He focused the beam of light on the bone. The long shaft was about a foot long with rounded ends. His gut twisted. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

She crouched beside him. “Can you shine the light closer?”

He angled the light, so the brightest stream spilled over the bone. “What do you think?” She was an anthropology professor, and from what little he knew of the discipline, physical anthropologists studied ancient human remains. Maybe she could tell if they were looking at a human bone or an animal one.

She picked up a twig and nudged the bone closer. “This is a tibia.”

“A tibia?”

“A shinbone. You know, the long bone that connects your knee to your ankle.”

His heart lurched. “Are you saying it’s human?”

She shrugged. “I’m not one hundred percent certain. Deer tibias are similar in size and shape to human shinbones. I’d need to do a microscopic study of the bone’s interior to be sure. Animal bones are denser than humans.”

“So, it’s a deer bone?” Some of the tightness in his chest eased. A predator had dragged its kill into the cave. That explained everything.

She sat back on her heels and met his gaze. “Maybe. But if I had to guess, I’d say the bone is human.” She wiped her cheek leaving a smudge of dirt on her pale skin. “If we had more pieces of the skeleton, I could be certain.”

He pointed into the darkness ahead. “Tracker found the bone back there.” His mind whirled with a dozen scenarios, none of them good.

Tracker was a cadaver dog, trained to search out human remains. The poor animal was still agitated.

That could only mean one thing—there were more bones. He heaved a breath and stood. “He’s already contaminated the area, but we’ll have to be careful. This cave could be a crime scene. Let’s have a look.”

They shuffled toward the rear of the cave, and he swept the beam of light over the scuffed dirt floor. His heart thumped as if he’d run a marathon, and his breath huffed in and out. He patted his gun, finding comfort in its familiar bulk, tempted to slide it free of its holster. The cave narrowed, and he crouched down and placed his hand on Candace’s arm. “Careful. Ceiling’s low here. You don’t want to bump your head.”

She nodded and sank to her knees.

A few more crawling steps, and the penlight’s beam swept over a pile of freshly disturbed dirt and a ragged hole where Tracker had dug into the soft ground. The depression was the size of the bone Tracker had found.

“Look.” Her voice was hushed as if she were afraid of disturbing the denizens of the cave. She pointed a few feet away where a cream-colored bone jutted out of the dark earth. Crawling closer, she brushed the loose dirt from the exposed bone with the back of her hand revealing a larger object. She fell back on her heels. “Oh my God!”

Moisture drained from his mouth, and the day took a serious turn for the worse. “Awww, shit.”