They unsnapped their holsters.
The taller cop eased the door open, and Tessa saw Dora’s dad, Dr. Bender, standing on the front porch. “What’s going on in here?” He sounded upset. “Is it true you wouldn’t let my daughter call me?”
Tessa glanced up and saw Martha smile at her with a sly, grand-motherly smile, and she remembered seeing her on the phone a few minutes earlier.
Yeah, you go girl.
“Dora,” Dr. Bender said. “Go get your things. I’m not leaving here without you.”
I arrived at the other helicopter and found a pool of blood on the floor of the cockpit and thin streaks of it splayed across the control panels, the seats.
He cut Cliff. Cut him bad.
No sign of Cliff or the killer, but Amy Lynn’s body lay in the backseat.
She wasn’t moving, and when I felt for a pulse I realized that her neck was grotesquely swollen. With no pulse, no breathing, and a blocked airway, I couldn’t administer CPR. There wasn’t anything I could do for her-then a thick ridge gliding beneath her shirt confirmed to me what the killer had done.
I felt my teeth clench.
As a small gesture of respect, I shook the snake out of the bottom of her shirt. Kicked it out of the chopper.
I knew the killer would be ready for me, but Cliff was obviously bleeding profusely, and I wasn’t about to wait around for backup to arrive. I grabbed the chopper’s first aid kit, removed a roll of athletic tape, and jammed it into my pocket.
A trail of blood led from the helicopter to the mine. I aimed my gun at the entrance. Pulled out my flashlight.
And entered the tunnel.
110
Just inside the entrance.
Cool air.
Silence, except for the faint plink of water dripping somewhere out of sight.
I swept my light around the tunnel. Saw the rough-hewn support beams, the minerals shimmering in the walls, the narrow-gauge tracks at my feet. The place where John had left Heather Fain’s body.
For a moment I envisioned her corpse lying there, Chris Arlington’s disembodied heart resting on her chest, the ten candles surrounding her. I felt my anger grow into resolve. John’s gruesome story had started in this abandoned mine a week ago, and it was going to end here, tonight.
No sign of anyone in the tunnel.
The blood trail ended at my feet. At the far reach of my flashlight’s beam, an intersecting tunnel led to the east. I jogged to it, turned off my Maglite, and crouched low. After a breath to steady myself and my gun, I stepped around the corner, flicking on my light again. Its beam sliced through the black air.
No one.
I shut off the flashlight and peered into the darkness-first this tunnel, then the main one, but saw no other lights. Heard nothing.
Which tunnel did they take?
Maglite on once again, I inspected both branches of the mine.
Nothing in the main passageway, but at last, about five meters into the adjoining tunnel, I found more blood.
After only a few paces it disappeared.
The drops of blood were oval, and based on their size, shape, and proximity, I decided the men must have been moving quickly. The trail was still damp but easy to miss on the dark soil.
I took a moment to mark the tunnel so Cheyenne and the high angle rescue team could find it when they arrived, then I sprinted down the passageway toward the next intersection.
Dora zipped her school backpack closed. “So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Tessa said. “And hey, thanks for all your help today, you know, with the diary.”
“No problem. I hope you find your dad.”
“Me too.”
Dora swung her backpack over her shoulder and as she turned toward the door, it bumped Tessa’s jewelry box off the dresser and all her necklaces and earrings spilled across the carpet.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s all right.” Tessa leaned over to pick them up. “It’s no big deal.”
“Almost ready?” Dr. Bender called from downstairs.
“I’ll be right there!” Dora shouted. She was kneeling beside Tessa, helping her pick up the jewelry. “Seriously, I should have been more careful. Making a mess of things. Pandora, right? Makes sense.”
Tessa paused, her hand on the jewelry box. “Wait. What did you say my mom wrote? About this box?”
“She wanted to remember the day she changed her mind.”
“Right.” Tessa lifted the box, tipped everything out of it and handed it to Dora
“What are you doing?”
“I want you to have it.”
Dora’s face was full of surprise. “No, your mom gave this to you.”
“Remember the story, your story? The last thing out of the box?”
“Dora!” Dr. Bender’s voice rolled up the stairs. “Everything all right?”
“I’ll be right there!” she yelled.
“This morning Martha told me I shouldn’t punish myself for something I had no control over.”
“You mean your mom not wanting to have you.”
“Right. But you’re doing the same thing. That baby’s death wasn’t your fault. I want you to remember that. Hope. A new start. The last thing out.”
Dora finally accepted the box. “Thanks,” she said softly. “I get it.”
As they were leaving the room, Tessa saw the diary lying on the bed.
She picked it up and headed for the stairs.
Nothing.
I’d been traveling through the tunnel as quickly as I could, but after ten minutes I still hadn’t found either Colonel Freeman or the killer.
The trail of blood stopped and started intermittently but always appeared at intersections or at the top of the wooden ladders that led deeper into the mine. John was controlling Cliff’s bleeding, using the blood to guide me.
Like a lamb to the slaughter.
I would descend a ladder or series of ladders, come to another tunnel, head in the direction of the blood, then the trail would disappear until I arrived at another intersection or shaft marked with more blood, and then I would descend once again.
All one elaborate game.
But this time he wasn’t going to win.
Earlier, when I’d started wondering if Grant Sikora had told me Ari’s name and I’d learned that Ari had been seen in public with Amy Lynn, I’d started to doubt that he was John.
The real killer was too meticulous, too careful. Based on all that we knew about him, with his intellect, his aptitude, he never would have told Sikora his real name. Or for that matter, been seen publicly with Amy Lynn.
Even the idea of calling in the tip from the dispatch room was too perfect. Too tidy. It left a giant arrow pointing directly at him.
The circuitous route marked by blood led me deeper and deeper into the more primitive, less maintained sections of the mine. Here, more fissures and cracks ran through the walls. Fewer support beams braced the ceiling, and I could see evidence of more cave-ins.
But if Ari wasn’t the killer, who was?
I still didn’t know.
I descended three more ladders, all marked faintly with blood, and I was about to start down a fourth when I heard movement below me. I clicked off my light. Listened.
Nothing more.
I stared through the darkness and saw a faint hint of light coming from somewhere in the tunnel where the ladder terminated about fifteen meters below me.
Keeping my light off, I descended as quickly as I could, feeling for the rungs with my feet, my hands.
I’d made it to the tenth rung when I heard a voice, definitely a voice. I froze. Listened.
Yes, it was Cliff, that much I could tell. And though I couldn’t make out most of what he was yelling, I did hear the words “rigged” and “blow” before he was abruptly cut off.
I began to descend again, watching carefully for any movement below me.
Thoughts tumbled through my mind.
The evidence room in Chicago… the dispatch center in Denver. .. the location of the hospital’s security cameras… who could have gained access to them all?