I was shuffled out of the cave and barely had time to deal with another dead-body encounter.
Stan and his men backed the huge roadheader out of the enclosed space to give everyone more room. Stan ran and grabbed his own sledgehammer and joined the workers. Concrete dust was soon billowing out of the large storage cave. I was concerned for the men, of course, since it was getting hard to breathe, but I knew Derek wouldn’t stop until he could step right into that inner room. I would’ve grabbed a pickax and gone to work on the wall myself, but I was certain I would just be in the way. As soon as the air cleared, though, I was going to jump in and find out who that dead person was. I had other questions, too. Where had all those beautiful treasures come from? And at what price?
One of Stan’s men jogged over with a handful of cheap filter masks.
“Will those help?” Robin asked.
“It’ll keep some of the larger particles from getting into their lungs,” he said.
Larger particles? So the smaller ones would get through? That was not a good answer. Robin and I exchanged worried looks as the man ran into the cave to hand out the masks.
Less than two minutes later, Derek and Austin stumbled out, covered in dust. Jackson, Stan, Dad, and one other man followed a few seconds later.
I rushed over to Derek, who was ripping the mask away from his mouth. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said, slapping the dust off his shirt. “But Stan was starting to wheeze, so I thought we’d better take a break. We’ll wait for the dust to settle before we go back in.”
“Okay. I don’t want anyone to get sick from breathing that stuff.”
“Nor do I,” he muttered as he bent over to shake more dust out of his hair. “I think we’ll be all right.”
I scuffled back a few feet to avoid being enveloped in the powdery cloud he’d just created. I was getting worried. Hadn’t people died from breathing the dust inside old caves? Didn’t I remember hearing something about archaeologists breathing the dust of mummies’ tombs? Didn’t they carry strange viruses?
I guess my mind was going a little wacky while I waited for the okay to go back inside. After another half hour, I was ready to scream. I’d always thought I was a patient person, but apparently I was wrong because I was beyond anxious to get in there and figure out who had died in the cave. Everyone else was standing around, chitchatting and hacking up particles and brushing off more dust. Didn’t anyone else feel the same urge I felt? Where did all that furniture come from? The silver, the art, the books. The body. Didn’t anyone want answers?
“I’m going in,” I declared, and began to walk toward the cave.
“Hold on,” Derek said, grabbing my hand.
“Why?” I demanded, prepared to battle against Derek’s innate urge to protect and defend.
He grinned. “Because I’m going with you.”
“Okay.” I calmed down a smidgen. “Good. We’ve waited long enough. We need to check out that cave and call the police.”
“In that order,” he murmured, clearly resolved to survey the scene of the crime before raising the alarm. He picked up the flashlight and joined me.
Much of the dust had settled, but we stirred more up with every step we took. I coughed as some of it got into my throat, and I wondered how Derek and Dad and the others had withstood it for the thirty minutes they’d been in here breathing that stuff.
When we got to the back wall, I could see how much work the men had done earlier. The opening into the hidden room was bigger now, almost the size of a small doorway, about three feet wide by five feet high. Eighteen inches still remained along the bottom of the wall, which meant we had to step carefully over the small barrier.
“Good job,” I said, beaming at Derek.
“The men were on a mission.”
I smiled at his words. He made it sound like he was leading his troops off to war. I ducked my head and stepped over the stone lip. Once on the other side, I was able to stand without crouching. I had expected the enclosure to feel damp or stuffy, but the air was clean and I detected a mild floral scent. It was also slightly larger than I’d thought, maybe fifteen feet long by twelve feet across, the size of a typical bedroom.
Derek joined me inside the small enclosure, flipped on Stan’s flashlight, and pointed the beam toward the floor.
That was when I saw the body again.
Although he was facedown, he was obviously a man, and he was pressed up against the wall as though he’d sought out a secure resting place. I figured that was why we hadn’t seen him at first. We had been diverted by all of the treasures surrounding him.
He wore an old-fashioned brown suit and had short, dark hair. On the ground near his right arm was a well-worn brown leather suitcase.