I look to Anders, who says, “Eric…,” in that voice that tells Dalton he’s being unreasonable. Most times, Anders follows Dalton’s lead, the amiable older brother, willing to recognize that the younger guy is in charge. Which means that when he uses the voice, it counts, and hearing it, Dalton rolls his shoulders, glowers at both of us, and says, “Go in and reach down, but stay where I can pull you back.”
That’s not as easy as it sounds. This isn’t a tunnel—it’s a crevice, which means I squeeze through. When I try pulling my legs in after me, Dalton gives a warning growl that means I’m teetering on the edge of crossing him. But he is being unreasonable. I don’t know if it’s vestigial panic from me getting lost in the storm, but it’s making me testy. I have a job to do, and here he is my boss, not my lover.
So I squeeze through, one leg out where he can reach it. His fingers rest lightly on my ankle, confident that I’m obeying his commands. Once I’m in, I pull my legs in after me, too fast for him to grab, and he lets out a “Butler!”
“I need both my feet. You can still see me.”
He starts to say something, but at the rumble of Anders’s voice, any demands drop into unintelligible grumbles.
Now comes the tricky part—reaching down into the drop from a crouched position. I do some crazy rearranging, bracing myself between the rock walls until I’m in a weird semisuspended, half-upside-down position. Then I shine my headlamp down on that white patch.
“It looks like fabric. A shirt, maybe.”
“Yeah,” Dalton says. “From a special tailor who does only custom work and has this guy’s address on file.”
“You read too many mysteries,” I say. “That never actually happens.”
“Which is my point, Butler.”
“I know. I’m just poking you, seeing as how you can’t reach in here to poke me back.”
He grumbles, but it’s lighter as he relaxes.
“Whether this fabric can lead to a killer or not, I need to get it. Just give me…” I wriggle and stretch. Still about six inches short.
“It’s not going anywhere,” Dalton says. “We’ll bring something back to fish it out.”
“If I can just crawl down—”
“No.”
“It’s a crevice, not a hole. I can’t fall through. I’ll just shimmy—”
“No.”
“Casey?” Anders says. “Just reach for it, okay? We don’t know how deep that drop goes. If you can’t get it, we’ll come back.”
He’s right. It’s just that I see a potential clue, and I already screwed up, leaving some behind when we took Nicole, and now they’re gone, and I really need this one. Except I don’t. It’s not going to be a shirt with a name helpfully ironed in the collar. Hell, it could be a shirt covered in hairs, and that still wouldn’t help. We don’t have a crime lab here.
I take a deep breath and wriggle down another couple of inches and stretch as far as my fingers will reach. They brush the fabric. I just need another inch. I wriggle … and I slip. I hit a smooth section of rock, and my hip slides, and then I’m unwedged and falling. I hear Dalton’s “Casey!” and Anders’s curse, and I’m plunging headfirst down the crevice, body scraping the sides, arms and legs wildly trying to get a purchase, but the crevice has widened, and I’m not wedging in again. I’m falling, past that white cloth, past— “Hands down!” Anders shouts. “Get your hands down!”
Battering the sides, I’m dropping slowly enough that I have time to get one hand over my head, the other rising to block my fall and keep my head from smacking rock.
My hands strike something. My elbows fold on impact, and my head rams into whatever my hands hit.
“Casey!” Dalton’s voice booms from above.
I call back, “I’m okay.” I think I’m okay. Not actually sure. I just know that I’ve stopped falling, and there’s something below that’s cushioned my landing. My helmet is pushed over my eyes, the lamp broken. Pain throbs through the arm that touched down first. Broken wrist? Damn it, no.
And, really, if that’s the extent of the damage, I’m lucky, so stop whining.
True, but … shit. I’m wedged in a crevice, head down, no idea how far I’ve fallen and I can’t— I wriggle. Okay, maybe I can move.
“Casey!” Dalton’s panicking now. He must not have heard my reply. Rock rains down on my legs. Damn it, did he squeeze into that first crevice? Of course he did. I exhale a sigh and then shout, as loud as I can.
“I’m fine, Eric. I’m at the bottom. Just hold on.”
Wriggle, wriggle. Okay, there’s some room here. Pull my one arm this way. There, it’s through, and I find a grip on that side. My other arm is still against whatever cushioned my fall, and when I move it, I’m touching fabric with rocks beneath. Nicole’s clothing. What she was wearing when she disappeared. That makes more sense than her captor randomly dropping his own shirt into this hard-to-reach hole. He stuffed her clothing down here to hide evidence.
Except … wait. Didn’t he dress a corpse in her clothes?
Doesn’t matter. Right now, the bigger concern is the guy freaking out at the top of the crevice, calling, “Can you get turned around? Can you move?”
I need to. If I don’t, he’s liable to try squeezing all the way down, and the only thing worse than being wedged in this crevice would be having Dalton even more wedged in above me, like a cork in a bottle.