Indelible by Laurie Buchanan (classic children's novels .TXT) 📗

like it’s going to burst. I’ll be damned before I take care of something that personal in front of him. The heavy knot in her stomach is dread.

“They say anticipation makes pleasure more intense,” Jason says to Emma. “I saw you watching me.”

Looking toward the mouth of the cave, Emma ignores his comment. “It’ll be dark soon.”

Darkness is safer. I’m at home in the dark, Jason thinks. “What’s the matter, are you afraid of the dark?”

“No,” she answers, her voice steady.

“You should be. All of my disposals happen at night.”

She can’t help herself. “Disposals?”

Leaning forward, he looks into her eyes. “My kills. The ones I’ve done with my knife. It takes a great deal of stealth and intelligence to accomplish what I have,” he continues, pride lacing his voice.

Heart pounding, mind racing, Emma knows she needs to buy time. Keep him talking.

“What have you accomplished?” she asks.

“Sliding his back down the rock wall he seats himself on the ground, wincing as he makes himself comfortable. “Let’s see now, there was Rose, Yolanda, Tegan, Mai, Teresa, Linh, Amala, Silvia, Veronica, and Devi.”

He pauses for a moment. “There was also Sybil, but she doesn’t count. She was my mother. She never counted.”

Watching him inhale deeply from the mouth of the empty bottle, Emma is filled with a mixture of horror, anger, and fear.

He leans toward her a little further. “That’s ten, in case you weren’t counting. You’re number eleven.”

Cynthia says, “Dark. Dank. Foul. Slippery.” She feels imminent danger in each word.

The pen in Fran’s white-knuckled grip captures each word.

“Emma is above ground, yet under. She’s alive. I hear a word, but it’s so faint I can hardly understand it. I think it’s burnt.” Cynthia listens harder than ever to the universe. “Jagged edges.”

Minutes pass, but nothing more comes. When Cynthia opens her eyes, she hears a collective exhale. “Did you get everything?”

“Yes,” Fran says, setting the tablet on the table so everyone can see it.

“I think you just described a cave,” Niall says.

“I agree,” Libby and Mick say in unison.

“Where do you keep the brochures for our guests?” Niall asks Libby. “Isn’t there one with locations for spelunking?”

“You’re right,” Libby says, “I’ll get it.”

“What’s spelunking?” Fran asks.

“It’s the sport of exploring caves and caverns,” Mick interjects. “Several years ago, Sam and I did it with one of our buddies.”

Libby returns and hands the brochure to Mick.

Opening it, he reads out loud. “Ape Cave at Mount St. Helens. Blanchard Hill Bat Caves and Oyster Dome in Bellingham, WA. Big Four Ice Caves in Snohomish, WA. Gardner Cave at Crawford State Park. And Paradise Ice Caves at Mount Rainier’s Paradise Glacier.”

“It has to be Blanchard Hill Bat Caves,” Niall says. “It’s the closest.”

Turning to Cynthia, Mick says, “You saw Jason Hughes fall over the cliff in the storm. It’s hard to imagine anyone surviving that fall, but the divers didn’t find a body. And we know that Emma wouldn’t have left willingly without at least saying goodbye.”

Studying the words Fran wrote on the tablet, Niall picks up Mick’s line of deductive reasoning. “All of the words from the impressions Cynthia received have a common theme—caves—except for one, the word burnt.”

“Berndt!” Mick and Libby shout at the same time, eyes wide with excitement.

“It’s not burnt, like burnt toast,” Mick explains. “It’s b-e-r-n-d-t.” He spells it out. “Like Andrew Berndt, the signature in the journal, and he’s dead. Jason Hughes has to be his fraternal twin.”

Toni’s morning has been chewed up with paperwork and warrants. Frustration crawls over her, its needle-like claws digging under her skin. She stands next to Joe’s desk as he makes a phone call. She can only hear his side of the conversation.

“Hello, Niall. It’s Joe Bingham at the station. Cynthia Winters was right. The name badges pinned to each towel belong to housekeeping staff at hotels strewn all across the country, and each one of them is dead. She said what?” he barks into the receiver. “I think you’re right, it’s gotta be. Wait a sec. Let me grab a pen.”

Toni watches him scribble five lines.

Ape Cave—Mount St. Helens

Blanchard Hill Bat Caves and Oyster Dome—south of Bellingham

Big Four Ice Caves—Snohomish

Gardner Cave—Crawford State Park

Paradise Ice Caves—Mount Rainier, Paradise Glacier

“What’s going on?” Toni mouths, pointing to the list.

Shaking his head, Joe continues, “We’re on our way. Be there in fifteen,” and hangs up the phone. Turning to Toni, he says, “Bianco, grab a jacket and your tactical bag, I’ll fill you in on the way.”

Cynthia looks at Mick in the chair next to hers. “Okay,” she nods. “I’ll tell you everything that happened on the bluff, even if it seems inconsequential.”

As she closes her eyes, Cynthia pictures the violent scene. “First he told me he’d been watching me. Then he said, ‘You know about me, don’t you?’ I told him that because he hadn’t let me look at his palm, I didn’t know anything about him. I asked, ‘What is it you think I know about you?’ and he said, ‘You’re the psychic, you tell me.’ I repeated that I didn’t know anything about him. That’s when he said, ‘Don’t toy with me,’ and smashed a bottle of wine against a boulder.”

Cynthia continues. “Holding the neck of the broken bottle with the jagged edges facing me, Jason backed me toward the cliff’s edge. When I asked him why he wanted to hurt me, he said, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, I want to kill you. But it’s got to look like an accident. Anything, a gust of wind, could cause you to keel over the edge and plunge to your death.’ That’s when Hemingway arrived.”

Niall ladles the soup that he made. They eat and listen as Cynthia paints a vivid word picture of what happened on the bluff.

“Jason said he thought I was a sorceress. I played on his fears and told him that I’d beckoned him out there intentionally. I could see he was scared. That’s when he cut me. Hemingway