Margaret pointed up the scenic road. “I’ll head up this way on foot. I’ll call you if I see anything.”
“Sounds good.” She turned to Nalchek. “It’s a lot of ground for two people to cover. I hope you were serious about getting the cavalry on board.”
“Why, Eve, don’t you trust me?” he asked mockingly.
“Sometimes.”
“Margaret has obviously been exerting her influence on you.” He pulled out his phone. “The first wave should be arriving in just a few minutes. I’ll coordinate from here.”
Eve was already sprinting down the stone stairs toward the beach.
* * *
This had to be it, Walsh thought.
He stopped in the knee-deep water and gazed up at the jagged rocks before him. The opening wasn’t visible from the road, and he wouldn’t have even guessed it was there if that bitch hadn’t told him.
Stupid woman. She should have known better than to try to outsmart him. All that running and hiding, and it had come down to facing his knife on that hillside. It had been pure pleasure to force the information from her. She was surely dead now, and soon he’d have Cara.
He sloshed through the water toward the cave.
He stopped.
There was a sound echoing in the cavern.
Whimpering. Crying.
He smiled. Of course she was crying. She was only a kid and afraid of what was coming. Not like her sister, whom he’d not been able to break until that final blow. Cara was different, probably softer, and she should be afraid. Because once he had her, he’d make her pay for those years when he’d had to hunt her—
Wait.
He listened. It didn’t sound like crying. It sounded more like …
Laughter.
And it wasn’t coming from the cavern at all. It seemed to be all around him.
He swallowed hard. A trick of the wind, he told himself. The gusts were stronger now, whistling around the rocks. That had to be what he was hearing.
The laughter stopped.
He let out the long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
Time to end this. Time to end her.
He moved into the tall cave, then stopped just inside the entrance. It was much larger than he would have imagined, with its small opening quickly expanding to a gaping yawn of a cavern perhaps forty feet high. Sharp rock formations stabbed upward and downward, like teeth in the mouth of a giant monster. As he sloshed through the shin-deep water, the noise from the outside receded, replaced by the sounds of breathing and movements bouncing off the rock walls.
He smiled as he glanced around the dark cavern. Absolutely perfect. No witnesses, no one to keep him from what needed to be done.
“Cara?” he shouted.
No answer.
“I’m here to help you. Everything is going to be all right now.”
Silence.
“Elena sent me. She wants me to take you back to her. She’s waiting for us.”
Movement above him.
He looked up. The motion had appeared to be on one of several ledges that extended to the dark upper reaches of the cave. Could she really be up there?
His eyes adjusted to the darkness. He saw there were footholds in the craggy rocks, more than large enough for a child to climb.
“Cara?”
More movement up above.
She was up there.
Walsh grabbed hold of the rocks jutting out and lifted himself up.
* * *
The spider’s nest.
Eve gazed desperately around her as she hit the beach. What in the hell had the poor woman been trying to tell them? It might have meant absolutely nothing, of course. Elena had been out of her head, practically incoherent in her last moments on Earth.
But there was something about the way she had said those words with such conviction, such purpose.
The spider’s nest.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Eve looked at the dark clouds bearing down on her. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard thunder on the West Coast. How strange …
Margaret was right. There was a big storm coming. Waves crashed violently against the shore, dragging large clumps of seaweed behind them. Eve stopped, surveying the rocks around her. If Cara was here somewhere, the child couldn’t stay for long. The tide was coming in.
“Cara!” Eve shouted. “Cara!”
It was no use. Her voice was lost in the roaring surf.
Her heart stopped. Just twenty feet ahead of her, she spotted a splash of red in the sand. Was it blood?
She ran forward. No. Not blood, she realized. Thank God.
It was a child’s crimson book bag.
Eve picked it up. It had been dropped here, probably in just the past few hours. It still looked new, unsullied by the elements.
Cara’s book bag? It was empty except for a few pens and Post-it notes, and she could only guess. Perhaps Cara had been in a hurry and hadn’t wanted the weight of the bag.
Perhaps.
Eve looked down. Whatever footprints there had been were gone, erased by the rising tide.
But she was on the right track, she knew it.
She started running again.
“Cara!”
* * *
“Thanks for the lift, guys. I appreciate it.”
Joe settled back in the rear jump seat of a San Francisco PD Bell 429 helicopter. Two police aviation officers were seated in front of him as they soared over the Bay and headed south down the coast.
The unit’s mechanic turned around to look at him. “The local police evidently wanted you pretty bad down there. But I gotta tell you, the way you climbed in here, I’m not sure you should be going anywhere.”
Joe grimaced. The mechanic was right. His wound hurt like hell. He glanced around. “Where’s your tool kit?”
“That bronze handle next to you. What do you need?”
“I can get it.” Joe pulled up on the handle and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for: a roll of silver duct tape. He slid out of his jacket and pulled the tape taut over his T-shirt. He wrapped it tight around his torso, pulling the roll around and around, creating a makeshift cast.
He turned in his seat, first to the right, then to the left. Better. Still not great, but definitely better.
He looked ahead. “How much farther?”
The pilot answered, “Just a few minutes, Detective Quinn. You should probably buckle up. It looks like we have some rough weather ahead.”
* * *
Margaret ran along the Scenic Drive, her gaze searching the beach fifty feet below her.
She shook her head. She’d always been known as being optimistic. But not right now. Now she was afraid there was little hope for that little girl.
She looked out at the rolling ocean. The animals’ desertion had unsettled her; it was almost as if someone had taken away her senses. Birds were especially sensitive to changing atmospheric conditions. She had long ago learned to follow their lead where the weather was concerned.
The sky had been growing darker by the minute, but the clouds above her parted momentarily, revealing a patch of blue sky and brilliant sunlight. Margaret turned toward the beach.
The sunlight speared past over half a dozen rock formations and cast long shadows on the shoreline below.
She gasped. She halted, transfixed.
The spider’s nest.
The formations’ shadowy tentacles did indeed look like the legs of a spider, extending over the tall rock features on the beach.
The spider’s nest.
That’s where she was.
Margaret pulled her phone from her pocket and punched Eve’s number.
“I know where it is!” Margaret said when Eve immediately answered. “I’m looking at it. The spider’s nest is right in front of me.”
“Margaret, slow down. What are you saying?”
“The spider’s nest. The shadow of those rock formations is the spider. Wait, I see you on the beach. It’s just in front of you, Eve. Look at the shadows. They’re the spider. And those rocks are the nest.”
Even from over two hundred yards away, Margaret could see that she had stopped Eve in her tracks.
“Oh, my God,” Eve said. “You found it.”