Maybe she didn’t actually scream. Maybe it was just a gasp as the air was sucked out of her lungs.
She tried to move, hopeful that all the places that hurt didn’t mean she’d broken any bones. She was sore everywhere, but her limbs seemed to be working. There was dirt all over her. When she looked up, she could see nothing—no moonlight. It was as if she’d been part of a cave-in.
Perhaps she had. A grave-in, she thought, and realized her mind was running toward the hysterical.
Alarm seized her then. Rollo! If she’d fallen, he should have been barking, He should have been going crazy, leading Aidan to her. Unless he’d plunged down, too.
Dread that she fought to dispel seized her.
“Rollo, Rollo, where are you boy?” she called, creeping around in the dark pit. She stared up again—and still saw nothing except the merest glimmer of light from above, where she’d fallen through. But if Rollo was above her, he’d be barking! She eased to her knees.
“Rollo!”
She crawled through dirt and broken stones, pieces of wood—and what she feared was a pile of bones.
But she kept going.
And then she came upon the dog. He had fallen, too. “Rollo, Rollo!”
He didn’t respond. She ran her fingers over him to see if he was alive. She found his neck and tried to ascertain any damage. He was still warm.
He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead! He’s knocked out—like I was. He was too good, too loyal, too wonderful a companion to lose!
She had to find out where she was and get help for both of them. She tried shouting. Nothing, not even an echo. She didn’t know where she’d fallen and whether she’d rolled when she hit the ground.
She’d had a flashlight.
“I’m here, Rollo, I’m here,” she whispered to the dog. “I will never leave you. Except to go for help so I can get you out of here.” There were tears forming in her eyes. She had no idea how badly the dog had been hurt. She couldn’t feel any blood or obvious broken bones but he wasn’t responding to her, either.
She began running her fingers over the ground, looking for the flashlight. She nearly shrieked as something crawled over her hand.
Rat, she told herself.
She’d fallen into a vault. She was surrounded by the dead. In the dark.
She closed her eyes—although she could see nothing. She wasn’t afraid of the dead, she reminded herself.
No, but you are terrified of this kind of darkness! a voice inside her mocked.
“I could use the dead right now, Rollo. Someone I know—or don’t know!—who could help us get out of here.”
She kept groping around for the flashlight. As she did, she paused. She heard a sound—like something being dragged along the ground.
She almost cried out but stopped herself.
Jimmy and Debbie and J. J. Appleby were missing.
And the killer might have brought them here.
She crept forward, still feeling for her flashlight—and then she found it. As she clutched it, she looked behind her, blinking. She could see a faint light in the distance.
Coming from where she’d heard the dragging sound.
Her fingers tightened around her own light. She didn’t turn it on. In the darkness she inched closer to the source of the light, which was somewhat downhill.
She hit a crumbling wall of earth, but there was a fairly large ill-defined hole that let her look through.
And when she did, she caught her breath. She could see by pale light into the vault just below her and to the right. There was no altar, but there was a lowlying tomb with a large stone slab.
Beside it rested a hatchet and a knife.
And slumped over by the altar was J. J. Appleby.
They’d come to find J.J.
And she had.
*
“She’s gone. Vanished. Disappeared!” Aidan said into the phone. “She was here—and now she’s not. I’m going over every inch and I can’t find her. It’s impossible! She and Rollo. Just gone, as if the earth swallowed them up. Which means the earth did swallow them up. I need a search party here, Logan. I need everyone. We have to find her!”
“On the way,” Logan assured him. “I’ll get Van Camp and half the force up here, too.”
“Get the whole force!” Aidan knew he had to get control of himself. If he didn’t, his lack of competence, of composure, could get her killed.
He called Jane on a hunch.
“I was about to phone you. I reached one of the cooks. Tommy Jensen was there last night to open, but then she didn’t see him again. He left the bar in Abby’s hands. She’s his main bartender.”
“Yes, I know. Did Will and Sloan get him at his house?”
“No. He wasn’t there, Aidan. They’re on their way to the cemetery now. Don’t worry, we’ll find Mo.”
He wished he could believe her. As he slipped his phone back into his pocket, he noticed that he was standing on the highest point of the hill; he could see across to Tommy Jensen’s. There was a light on inside.
He called Logan. “Get everyone looking over here—right by the giant weeping angel with the folded wings. I’m trying a different route.”
“Aidan?”