Allison Brennan - If I Should Die

On the ground, several maggots flopped slowly, stymied by the cold and lack of nutrients now that they had fallen outside of the corpse. Finally, solid evidence the killer had moved the body down this tunnel after Lucy’s discovery had been made public.

Her heart raced and she scanned the area with her light. About two dozen of the translucent white insects littered the path, some of them dead, some of them having moved much farther down the tunnel.

Sean whistled under his breath. “That’s pretty damn conclusive. I can’t believe they missed this yesterday.”

“They were looking for a body,” she said. “They weren’t thinking crime scene evidence.”

“They should have been.”

Lucy hesitated-she didn’t want to tamper with evidence. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she picked up three of the maggots with tweezers, then sealed them in a small plastic jar. She wrote the day and time and where she’d found them on the label.

The simple, methodical act of evidence collection calmed her more than her admonitions that she was a professional and shouldn’t get freaked out by bugs.

She turned around and swept the room again with her flashlight, from the angle the killer would have seen. The only reason the body had been moved was because it had been discovered. The dead body could have stayed down here forever, decomposing over the summer, until all that remained was a skeleton.

“Dozens of people knew I found the body,” Lucy said.

“Thanks to the quack doctor who you let sew me up.”

“That, and the Fire and Rescue and the Sheriff’s Department and anyone they told.”

They gave the ground one last going-over, and that was when she found it. Shriveled and brown, almost lost in the dirt, was the flower that had been on the woman’s chest, right next to where the cart had been. Lucy almost picked it up, but instead took a picture.

Sean watched her. “The flower?”

“Yes.” She packed everything up. “I’ll call Weddle and lay out our theories when we get back to the lodge and suggest he send someone down here ASAP. They can learn a lot from those little maggots. They may be able to get her DNA. Until we know the identity of the victim, where, why, and how she died will remain a mystery.”

They returned to the ventilation shaft. Lucy stared at where Sean had been lying, unconscious, at the bottom of the pit. It had been a long drop-he could have broken his back. It could have turned out so much worse.

Sean watched where Lucy rested her eyes, then looked back at her. Her expression was filled with loss. He’d thought that after Lucy’s nightmare last night, then her urgent lovemaking, she’d purged the fear that had grown after his fall and the tragedy that might have been. He realized by the stricken, desolate look in her dark eyes that she was still struggling. She’d merely avoided addressing her feelings, and he’d let her. Was he so scared of losing her that he let her skate by on something so fundamental? Was he strengthening her emotional barriers because he was too afraid to see her in pain?

She’d told him about her nightmare, her fear for his life, but he realized that he’d dismissed it as leftover from the shock of seeing him after the fall. There was far more to it than that. For the first time, he didn’t know what she needed. All he could do was reassure her.

“Lucy, I’m fine.” He put his hands on her shoulders and tilted his head so she couldn’t avoid looking at him.

When she shook her head and plastered a fake smile on her face, he wondered what she was now trying to hide. The mine shaft was no place to discuss this, but Sean knew if he didn’t push her now, it would be twice as difficult to get her to talk later, when she had time to suppress her feelings.

“Let’s get out-” she began.

“Talk to me, Princess,” he interrupted.

“Not now.” Her voice wavered. She leaned up and kissed him. “Later.” But she didn’t look him in the eye.

She pushed on the extension ladder to make sure it was secure, then motioned for him to go first. He began to argue, but she said, “You can’t put all your weight on your leg, I’ll hold the ladder so it doesn’t move as much.”

“You are a bossy nurse,” he said to lighten the tension. He kissed her firmly. “I’m holding you to your promise.”

Sean climbed up the ladder. Lucy was right, his thigh was throbbing, and it helped that she kept the ladder from bouncing with his weight.

He didn’t know why he hesitated; maybe it was the repetitive training his brother had put him through, but for some reason he stopped an inch away from the top.

Slowly, he peered over the edge.

His truck was where he left it, right on the edge of the overgrown logging road about twenty yards away. Birds chirped in the trees; a light breeze rustled the leaves. The sky was blue; the air was crisp.

But something felt wrong. Electric.

Sean slipped off his backpack and tossed it over the edge, five feet away.

A rifle echoed, hitting the ground next to him, a plume of dirt jumping into the air.

Fuck .

“Sean?”

Lucy’s voice was concerned, but not panicked.

“Stay there,” he commanded. He already had his gun in hand, but a handgun against a sniper rifle was like a match against a flame-thrower.

Which direction had the shot come from?

He pictured the area surrounding the mine shaft. Trees and foliage surrounded them on three sides; the only exposed side was the logging road. On the other side of the road were more trees, but the ground sloped down.

Based on the trajectory of the exploding dirt, the sniper was higher than the ground. Up a tree?

He didn’t have binoculars on him, and the tree line was thick on the opposite side of the road, roughly a hundred yards away. A good sniper could take him down as soon as he climbed out.

He assessed his surroundings as best he could without a clear line of sight. To his left, the trees were thinner, but to the right there was a low rise. If he could get out on that side, he could use the natural rock formation and foliage to hide.

Then what?

He wasn’t going to leave Lucy here, but he needed to get to the truck. He could drive it closer to shield Lucy when she got out. But a good sniper would go for the gas tank. What he needed to do was get out, determine where the sniper was located, then provide cover for Lucy. They wouldn’t go directly to the truck; they’d head into the woods. There was no guarantee the sniper didn’t have a partner. In the pit, they were sitting ducks, but no way was he going deeper into the dangerous mine.

He pocketed his gun and took out his cell phone. He had a weak signal.

He sent Tim a message.

Sniper at the mine. We’re going to run for the highway. Need pick-up ASAP .

Ideally, he’d like to sit tight and wait for the cavalry, but he didn’t know how long that would take, or if the sniper had friends. They could come after them here and he and Lucy would be trapped in the tunnels, with no idea of where the danger spots were.

He climbed back down the ladder.

“I have a plan,” Sean said moving the ladder to the right side of the ventilation shaft. “Leave everything except your gun.”

Lucy frowned.

“Luce-” He couldn’t believe she was poised to argue with him. She was smarter than that.

Lucy shrugged off her backpack, retrieved her Glock, and then the small bag with the jar of maggots. “If that’s the killer out there, I’m not leaving the evidence here for him to destroy.” She shoved the paper bag down her shirt, which was tucked into her jeans. She zipped up her dark jacket.

“I’m going to climb out, roll into the bushes to the right, and whistle. You get up this ladder as fast as you can when you hear it, but don’t show yourself. I’m hoping he’ll shoot at me so I’ll know exactly where he is. On the second whistle, count to three and get out, as low as possible, and roll over to my position; I’ll provide cover.”