Кэти Дэйли - The Secret Of Logan Pond

“Callie! Are you okay?” Cass called out.

“I’m fine.” Luckily, I’d been able to grab onto a ledge on the wall next to me and hadn’t fallen. “We’re out of floor, however. There’s a drop-off.”

“How deep?”

I shone my flashlight down into the dark cavern. “Deep. I can’t see the bottom.” I looked around. “Wait. There’s a ladder on the far wall.”

“A ladder?”

I nodded, even though there was no way he could see me. “A steel ladder that’s bolted to the rock. I guess whoever used to work this mine put it there. How much rope do I have left?”

“About half.”

“Okay. I’m going down. If I don’t reach the bottom before I reach the end of the rope, I’ll come back up.”

“Be careful. Who knows what’s down there.”

“I’ll go slowly. One rung at a time.”

I took a deep breath and scooted around the narrow ledge behind the hole until I could access the ladder. I took a deep breath, got into position, and started down. I could feel the weakness in my left hand. It was shaking and throbbing as I climbed down the ladder. Perhaps this hadn’t been a good idea after all. “Okay,” I called up. I wasn’t even sure Cass could still hear me since I was literally down in a hole. “I’m at the end of the rope. Hang on.” I clicked my flashlight on and shone it into the darkness. The floor was about twenty feet below my current location, which was about a hundred feet down the hole, which had widened considerably as I climbed down, and on the floor was a skeleton. I was pretty sure I’d just found Austin Brady.

Chapter 14

“Does Cass think the skeleton in the mine might actually belong to Austin Brady?” Tom asked me later that evening after Cass had dropped me back at the house.

“He isn’t sure. It seems to fit the story we’ve come up with, but there was no way to tell simply by looking at the bones. After Cass dropped me off, he was planning to go back to the mine. He has a team coming to remove the bones and any evidence they find.”

“How is a whole team going to get into the shaft if you could barely squeeze through?” Gracie asked.

I shrugged. “The passage I took to the left of where I entered was a good passage. Even an adult could walk erect. It makes sense that there’s a regular mine entrance somewhere. Maybe they’ll access the tunnel that way. The opening we found wasn’t put there as an entrance. I suspect it was originally an air vent, which is why it was small, but it makes sense to take the bones out that way, so I guess they’ll make the hole larger. Either that or they’ll just send one person with climbing experience in to gather the bones and whatever else they find.”

“Did you notice anything that could help identify the body?” Tom asked. “Clothes, perhaps.”

“No. It was dark, and all I could see were bones. They’ve been down there for a long time, and I heard all sorts of scampering around when I was down in the mine. I’m sure there are scavengers of some sort. Mice. Maybe rats or even larger animals who take refuge in the mine from the weather.”

“That poor boy. What a terrible way to die.” Gracie wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

“It really is a tragedy whether the bones belong to Austin or some other child. I doubt the child survived the fall, so death would have come quickly, but if the body in the mine does belong to Austin and the story Larry told me is true, how awful that he spent his final moments in terror.”

“I’m surprised the search and rescue team didn’t think to look in the mine when the boy went missing,” Tom said.

“The entrance to the mine is on the other side of the mountain, miles and miles from where Austin disappeared. I’m sure it never occurred to them that he might have found another way in. Not only was the opening very small, but it was up on a ledge, and it was hidden behind shrubbery. If not for my idea that he might have accessed the mine to hide, there was no way I would have thought to look there.” I glanced at Alastair. “Actually, if not for Alastair and the magazine he knocked into my path, I would never have known about the mine, and without the map, I certainly would never have known the extent of the mine or the fact that shafts were running through that entire mountain.”

Gracie smiled at Alastair, who must have heard us talking about him since he jumped up onto her lap and began to purr.

Tom took a sip of his coffee. “So, I guess Cass is having the bones looked at by an expert.”

“I guess. He didn’t specify what the plan was once they retrieved them from the bottom of that pit, but I’m sure his first order of business will be to identify them. Of course, even if he can do that, I’m not sure where he goes from there. If Austin died from the fall, then I suppose Colin is liable to a point for giving him the hallucinogen, but if he won’t admit to doing that, it really is his word against Larry’s at this point.”

“Do you think any of the other boys knew what happened to Austin, assuming, of course, the bones in the mine belong to him?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I doubt it. It seems that if Austin ran off and then ended up in the bottom of that shaft, there is no way the others would know what happened.”

“You said you suspected that Austin had been there before,” Tom reminded me.

“Yes. If he did head there, my assumption is that he’d been there at least once before. Probably more than once if he was able to find his way in the dark. Plus, there’s the little ledge that someone chiseled out to provide access back out of the small opening. Someone had been there before.”

“So you’re saying that Austin found this totally cool mine, and he never told any of his friends about it?” Tom asked. “That seems very unlikely.”

Tom was right. If Austin had found the tunnel in the mountain, he would have shown it to his friends. Even if none of the adults who responded to the missing child call knew about the opening to the mine located near Logan Pond, which would have provided them with a reason to look there, the other boys must have known, assuming, of course, Austin had found the mine as I suspected, at some point before he’d died. Had the boys known Austin’s fate and lied about it?

“It does seem as if Austin would have told the others if he’d found something as cool as access to a boarded-up mine.” I looked at Tom. “You’re absolutely right. The other boys must have known about the entrance, and one of them would have eventually thought to look there. If they did look in the mine and found Austin’s body, why wouldn’t they have said anything? His poor parents must have been frantic to find him.”

“Maybe there’s more to the story,” Aunt Gracie suggested. “Something that would cause all the boys to make a pact to never tell anyone what they knew.”

I supposed that might be the case as well, but what possible reason could the boys have had to keep such a huge secret when one of their friends was missing and the entire town was looking for him?

Chapter 15

Friday

Friday mornings meant a meeting with Dex to turn in my column for the following week, as well as any other assignments I’d worked on during the week. This week, in addition to my column, I had a second article about the spaghetti dinner and raffle to benefit cancer research, a second article about the new wellness center now that I’d actually taken one of their classes, a short human interest piece about the athlete of the month from the local high school, and an announcement that the Barfield Family had kittens in need of a new home.

The article I’d planned to write had to do with my journey to find the truth, but if the skeleton in the mine did turn out to be Austin Brady’s remains, then I’d need to switch gears and lead in with the big reveal. Unfortunately, there was a lot that was still unknown, and my column normally ran on Mondays, so I planned to talk things over with Dex. I supposed if I could get confirmation on the identity of the remains, I could write the article tomorrow, and Dex could have it formatted on Sunday.