Robin Perini - The Cradle Conspiracy

Alone. Mostly.

Trouble followed him. Literally.

Trouble was the name he’d given the foolish dog he’d rescued, who’d warily taken up residence about ten feet from Daniel’s side. He glanced at the mixed breed—some odd combination of Newfoundland and Irish setter that made him look like Chewbacca. Dog must be dying in this heat with all that fur.

Daniel knelt down and slid the duffel from his shoulder. He tugged a metal bowl from one pocket and set it on the ground. He didn’t dwell on why he’d taken to carrying it with him; he just filled the dish half full from his canteen. He rose and stared at the water, then the dog. “What are you waiting for?”

Trouble tilted his head and sat on his haunches, his expression all but saying, Move back, stupid. You know how this works.

Daniel sighed and retreated. “Fine. But one of these days, you’re going to have to come closer than ten feet.”

As soon as Daniel reached the required distance, the mutt bounded to the water, burying his face in the cool liquid.

Daniel had found the fuzz face lying on the side of the road with his leg and hip scraped up after losing a one-sided battle with a car. Since Trouble wouldn’t let Daniel touch him, Daniel had been forced to rig a makeshift travois and drag the miserable canine five miles to a vet’s office. The doc tranquilized the dog and patched up his injuries, but the moment the vet had given him the opportunity, Trouble had hightailed it out the front door and down a back alley.

A couple miles later, the animal had taken up residence parallel to Daniel, walking along the highway, never again getting close enough for even a scratch behind the ears. They’d passed a road sign, listing Trouble, Texas, three hundred miles away, and the dog instantly had a name.

That was a couple of weeks ago. The dog limped less now, Daniel a bit more.

Yesterday they’d made it to the small Texas town bearing the dog’s name. Daniel had stood in the cramped, dark foyer of a B and B, testing his body’s reaction to it, but knew he still couldn’t sleep inside. Nothing to do but move on.

The waitress at the diner had told him there was nothing but lost dreams for miles around. She hadn’t been lying. The beat-up sign he now leaned against—Cottonwood Creek Copper Mine—could’ve come from the 1950s.

He really had traveled west of hell to end up a few miles east of nowhere.

Trouble finished his water, nosed the empty bowl toward Daniel, then moved away.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we, boy?” Daniel said softly. “Too damaged to do anyone any good.”

As Daniel repacked the dish, the dog’s ears perked up, and he growled low in his throat.

“What’s the matter with you?” Daniel turned to see what had upset Trouble and noticed a black vulture circling nearby. “Relax. It’s probably eyeing the carcass of a cow that wandered away from the herd.”

The dog’s hackles rose as he focused his attention on a hill jutting up from the desert. Without a backward glance, Trouble bolted toward the mound. And that vulture.

What the hell? The dog hadn’t left Daniel’s sight since they’d become traveling companions. “Trouble!” The hairs on the back of Daniel’s neck rose, and a warning chill ran through him. He started after the dog that had disappeared from view.

Within a minute the mutt bounded toward Daniel, skidding to a halt a few feet away. Trouble barked urgently several times, ran back a short distance, then turned and barked again.

“What’s going on, boy? Show me.”

Trouble whined and yipped, then ran. Daniel, his gait uneven, took off after the dog.

The vulture still circled but lower now.

He followed Trouble over the small rise, past a dead rabbit, then came to an abrupt halt.

Trouble circled in front of the dilapidated opening to an old mine, the mouth leading into the dark interior of the mountain. When he saw Daniel, the dog barked again and raced into the tunnel.

A mine shaft. Complete with a condemned sign and evidence of a partial cave-in. Rock walls, claustrophobic darkness. He couldn’t go in there. Daniel sucked in a panicked breath, trying to quell his racing heart and the terror that bubbled up from his gut.

The dog didn’t come out of the mine.

While Daniel watched, more loose stones fell from the mine’s ceiling. “Trouble!”

The dog appeared several feet inside the opening and barked furiously.

Perspiration slid down Daniel’s temple. He couldn’t do it. Not now. Not ever. The dog growled, racing back and forth, entreating Daniel to follow.

Bracing himself, Daniel stepped barely into the opening, kicking something metal that clanged off the rocks, like the slamming of iron prison bars. A medieval dungeon. Memories assaulted him. The darkness echoing with screams. No, he was in a mine shaft. Still, he heard the footsteps of his captor. The crack of the bastard’s whip.

Daniel fell to his knees, fighting to stay present, to escape the horrific memories, until Trouble dropped something in front of Daniel and bit his sleeve. Daniel broke free, panting, and his hand landed on a woman’s shoe. Daniel’s gut clenched. High heels weren’t exactly appropriate for trudging around the Texas desert.

Hell. Was there a woman in here?

Trouble grabbed his shirt again and tugged hard. Daniel snagged a small but powerful flashlight clipped to his belt and shone the beam into the tunnel. The crumbling shaft veered left, debris and broken supports everywhere. Trouble bolted ahead and waited at the bend.

Grasping at his primary PTSD tool, Daniel focused on the grounding techniques he’d learned in therapy and forced himself forward into the shadows. An all-too-familiar panic squeezed his lungs. The walls pressed in until the cave morphed into a stone cell.

Pain level, eight.

Fighting to stay in the present, Daniel clutched the flashlight in a white-knuckled grip. He stared at the illuminated circle, narrowing his gaze. Sounds still reverberated. Trouble’s barks morphed into sadistic laughter. The dirt seemed to hold the scent of torture and blood.

He fought against every survival instinct that raged within, that urged him to run. Struggling for control, Daniel moved forward. He wasn’t in Bellevaux, he was in Texas. Broken, but free.

“Anyone here?” he shouted.

His words echoed in the darkness, but only silence answered him.

A sprinkling of dirt fell on his head, and the timbers creaked. He froze. The flashlight’s beam hit a large heap of rocks, filling half the tunnel.

“Trouble?” Where the hell had the dog gone?

Suddenly he heard an odd moan coming from around the tunnel bend. Was that Trouble...or a human?

“Hello? Is someone there?”

Trouble barked, then reappeared to tug on Daniel’s pant leg, frantic now.

Daniel followed the dog into the blackness, concentrating on the small beam of light that helped him keep the nightmares at bay.

The dog rounded the debris and led Daniel to a six-foot-long pile of rocks and dirt, hidden behind the mound from a cave-in. The dog scrabbled among the rocks, desperately trying to dig through them.

Daniel knelt down just as several stones fell away, revealing a bloodstained patch of multicolored carpet and silvery-gray tape.

Duct tape.

Another high-heeled shoe lay a few feet from the mound, and a quiet wail sounded again from beneath the rocks.

Trouble whined and pawed at the carpet.

A steely calm came over Daniel, not complete, but closer than he’d felt in almost a year. Someone was alive and needed him.

His damn freak-out would have to wait until later. He needed to keep it together now.

After propping the flashlight so he could see, he shoved several rocks to the side. The smell of blood hit him, nearly slamming him into a flashback, but he fought for control.