CHAPTER NINETEEN

Spirit cave had smelled old and musty, the way a cave would smell if it were a horror movie and the girls really taken by ghosts. In contrast, the mine smelled mostly like dust. In a macabre way, that made it an even more accurate representation of death. Death didn't leave behind ghosts and ghouls. It left a vacuum in which things lay unused and abandoned until they were covered in enough dust and dirt to waste away, leaving behind only the fossilized impression of what they once were.

All around, Faith saw those fossils. The entrance tunnel led into a wide cavern where rusted and twisted stretches of rail bore splintered and equally rusted carts. Some of the carts were still full of copper ore. All around, Faith could see tools and piles of wire. In another cavern, they found a pile of hard hats. The hat atop the pile had the name Frank scrawled on it in permanent marker.

Faith shivered, even though the mine was no colder than the air outside. Michael squeezed her shoulder briefly, and when Faith turned to him, she found his face as pale as hers.

"I can cross cave-diving off of my bucket list now," she told him, mostly just to hear a sound other than the ever-present moaning. Her voice reverberated throughout the tunnel, and she lowered it when she spoke again, "How far do you think we've gone?"

"Not two thousand yards," Michael said, lifting the length of fishing line.

No sooner had he said that than the end of the line slipped through his fingers. Faith made it two more yards before her own line ran out, the end frayed from whatever had sawed through it.

Faith lifted her flashlight and took stock of their surroundings. They were in another cavern, this one rougher than the others. Rusted lantern hooks on the walls told her this was still part of the mine, but evidently a less used location. The walls of the earlier tunnels and caverns were sanded relatively smooth, but here, the walls were still rough-grained. Behind them was the tunnel that led to the surface. In front of them were two tunnels, one continuing straight down and the other veering off to the left.

"Okay," Faith said, "here's where we—"

"No," Michael interrupted. "No more splitting up. We pick one tunnel."

"We don't have time to argue about this," Faith said, "those girls could be anywhere. We need to maximize our chances of finding them."

"Faith, I'm not leaving you," he said. "I've done that too many times. Not again."

His eyes registered fear but also guilt. Faith softened her voice and said, "I forgive you for earlier. With West. You haven't had much of a reason to trust me for a while. I understand why you didn't answer. It's not your fault I didn't wait. But I can't wait now. We can't wait. And I'll be fine. I'll take Turk, and you can take your excellent shooting skills and tough macho man strength."

She smiled at her joke, but Michael didn't return it. "This isn't a good idea," he said.

"Doesn't matter," she replied. "It's the only option available to us."

"I don't know that I agree with that," he said.

There was a lot less force in his protest this time, however. She smiled softly and said, "Yes, you do. Go on, Michael. I'll be okay."

He hesitated a moment longer, and on impulse, Faith pulled him into an embrace. She squeezed him tightly, and when he wrapped her just as tightly into his own arms, she felt her spirits lift. For a moment, it didn't matter that she was hunting a crazed serial killer underground or that she was hunting an even more crazed and dangerous killer aboveground. She wasn't alone anymore, and that was what mattered.

Turk barked, and Faith smiled down at him. She never really was alone, was she?

Except when West took Turk from you , a voice in her head reminded her.

The joy she felt for a moment vanished. She separated from Michael and said, "We'll sync our phones to share our locations."

"How's that going to help us underground?"

"They use ultrasonic frequencies to stay in contact," she said, pressing the required settings first on her phone, then Michael's.

"That still won't even be remotely accurate underground with hundreds of yards of bedrock in between us."

"It's all we have," she said, handing his phone back. "Good luck."

He took the phone and sighed. "You're crazy, you know that?"

Faith smiled. "Yep. Crazy as a fox."

"You keep telling yourself that," he said with a grin of his own. He hugged her once more, then disappeared, taking the tunnel to the left.

Faith took a deep breath and looked down at Turk. "You ready to catch another bad guy, boy?"

Turk barked firmly. Thus encouraged, Faith started down the tunnel directly ahead of her.

The tunnel narrowed after about ten yards, becoming an irregular shaft of uncut bedrock. The lantern hooks were gone too. Faith consulted her map and confirmed that she had reached one of the tunnels that led from the mine to the natural cave system. She checked the map of the caves and found that this was one of the unmapped tunnels. From here on out, she was on her own.

A sound echoed through the caves, and Faith almost imagined she could hear a voice speaking. No wonder Martle had abandoned his project. Faith couldn't imagine being down here any length of time and not going insane.

After another fifty yards or so, she heard the voice again, and this time it was definitely a voice.

And it was calling a name.

"Frankie! Frankie! Are you there? Shawna! Girls, if you hear me, shout for me!"

Faith followed the sound. She reached a cavern with three different tunnels and waited until she heard the voice again, coming from the rightmost tunnel. "Frankie!"

She drew her handgun and held it under her flashlight as trained. She followed the beam and a few dozen yards into the tunnel, she came face to face with a man.

His eyes widened in shock. Faith trained her handgun on him immediately and shouted, "Hands in the air! Don't move!"

Turk growled low in his throat. The man took one look at him and bolted.

Faith swore and sprinted after him. "Stop!" she cried.

The man made it about a hundred yards deeper into the tunnel before Turk caught him. He leapt onto the stranger and pushed him to the ground. The man squealed and covered his head, shouting, "Don't hurt me!"

Faith caught up to him and put her knee in between his shoulder blades. Turk released him, and she holstered her weapon and cuffed his hands behind his back. "Your hands are cuffed," she told him, "in case you couldn't tell. So don't get stupid when I stand you up."

"Please," he said, "I'm just looking for my daughter."

Faith's eyes widened. "Your daughter?"

He nodded.

She picked him up and turned him to face her. Tears welled in his eyes, and he said, "Frankie and Shawna run a podcast where they investigate haunted places."

"Yeah, I heard that," she said, "I know why they're here. Why are you here?"

"I'm Frankie's father," he said, "I'm looking for her. Please. I just want to find my little girl."

"How long have you been down here?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, "I left Brightwater as soon as Bridget told me the girls didn't check in. I've been looking through the tunnels ever since. I found their fishing lines cut, and I just… I have to find them. They could be in danger. The police think there's a killer down here."

Faith pressed her lips together and didn't confirm or deny his suspicion. "Look, we have a professional search party looking for your daughter and her friend." That was a bit of a stretch, but it felt better than saying a few cops and two FBI agents. "I'm sorry, mister…"

"Cole. Gary Cole."

"Mr. Cole. I'm sorry, but you'll only get in the way down here. The best thing for you to do is go back up to the surface and wait with the officers there. Do you have ID on you?"

"I do."

"Okay. Good. Do you know how to get back to the surface from here?"

"Back that way," he pointed behind Faith. "Turn left at the first cavern, right at the second, then follow the fishing line."

"Good," she said. "When you get to the surface, come out with your hands raised and call out your name to the officers. Tell them you ran into me, and I sent you up there. Turk and I will find your daughter," she said, "I promise."

What she didn't promise, what she couldn't promise, was that she would find Frankie alive.

"Okay," he said. "She's a good girl. They both are."

Faith wished she could think of something to say to comfort him, but what comfort was there to a father knowing his daughter was probably dead?

She uncuffed him and made him repeat the directions to the surface, then sent him topside. She and Turk continued deeper into the tunnel.

***

Faith checked her phone from time to time as she navigated the cave system. It felt as though she had been down here for hours, so she was surprised to find that only a few minutes passed each time she checked Michael's location. They had only been underground for an hour or so.

Michael, according to the location sharing app, was two hundred yards behind Faith to her left. He was still moving, which was good in that it meant he was alive, bad because it meant he hadn't found anything yet.

Faith kept her flashlight beam pointed low as she walked, illuminating only the ground in front of her. She wasn't sure if that would do much to hide her position, considering her footfalls echoed through the cavern like cymbals, but she did it anyway.

The tunnel she was walking grew narrower until it was barely wide enough to pass and Faith had to shimmy sideways to continue. She nearly turned around when the tunnel opened suddenly into a cavern about ten feet wide, six across and seven high.

She heard Turk start to growl, and her hand flew to her weapon. "Who's there?" she cried. "I'm armed."

A soft voice answered, weeping. "Please help me."

Faith swung the light toward the voice. It fell on the dirty, terrified eyes of a young woman. Her clothes were tattered and covered in dust, and bruises covered her exposed skin.

But she was alive.

Faith holstered her weapon and said, "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Faith Bold. I'm an FBI agent, and I'm here to help you."

"Oh, thank God!" the girl said, weeping and throwing her arms around Faith. "Thank you!"

"What's your name?" Faith asked.

"I'm Shawna," she said. "Shawna Leavenworth. My girlfriend, Frankie, is still here somewhere. I've been trying to find her. He… he told us we had to find the way out. I don't know where he is or if he's still looking for us, but please, please help me find her."

"I will find her," Faith promised, "but you need to go back to the surface."

"No," she said, "not without Frankie."

"You'll just be in the way down here," she said. "It'll be easier for me to find Frankie if you're safe up top."

"No," Shawna protested. "I can't stop looking for her. I can't leave her like that. She wouldn't leave me."

Faith put both hands on Shawna's shoulders. "Listen, Shawna," she said gently. "I will find Frankie. But you won't be any help to me or to her down here. We need to get you back to the surface, then I will go find Frankie, do you understand?"

"No," Shawna repeated, shaking her head. "I don't know the way. He blindfolded us."

"That's okay," Faith assured her. "I'll lead you back."

"No!" Shawna cried again, "We can't waste that time! He's looking for us. If he's looking for her first, he might find her while we're wasting time trying to get me back to the surface. We need to find her!"

Faith's heart broke for her, but she had a job to do. "We'll find her," she said, her reassurance hollow in her own ears, "but if I take you with me, it will slow me down. It's better to get you upstairs, and then I don't have to slow down so you can keep up with me."

"I won't slow you down," Shawna promised. "I'm not as hurt as I look. I can keep up."

"I'm sorry," Faith replied. "The answer's no."

"What if it was your girlfriend?" Shawna challenged. "Or your boyfriend? Would you leave them behind?"

Faith thought of the note West had left with Gordon's body, the threats he'd made against David and Michael. It would be easy to use the excuse that Faith was a trained agent, but even if she wasn't, she knew the answer would be the same.

"No," she admitted. "I wouldn't."

"Then you can't ask me to leave Frankie behind," was, of course, Shawna's immediate response.

Faith sighed and shook her head. She considered her options. If she took Shawna up top, then Shawna would certainly survive, but the time wasted would mean that Faith couldn't find Frankie. However, Michael and Jones still had a chance to find her. On the other hand, if she took Shawna with her, she risked Shawna getting hurt or killed and might not even find Frankie anyway.

But then again, she might. And Frankie's chances were much better with Turk's nose helping. She supposed she could tell Turk to keep looking without her, but then she was banking on his nose being good enough to keep him from falling into a shaft with no light to warn him of dangers.

So if she went topside, Turk went topside, and Frankie's chances of survival dipped considerably. If Faith took Shawna with her, then Faith was relying on her and Turk's ability to subdue the suspect before he could harm Shawna, something that might be complicated if Shawna lost her cool and tried to fight the suspect herself.

So, did she endanger Shawna to increase Frankie's chance of survival? Well, Shawna had already indicated a willingness to make that choice, and Faith knew the feeling well enough to know Shawna meant what she said.

Faith sighed and shook her head. "You do exactly as I say without question. If we encounter the suspect, you don't fight him. At all. Not for any reason. That's my job, mine and Turk's. You stay out of harm's way, and you do exactly as I say. If you can promise me that you'll do that, then I'll take you with me."

"I promise," Shawna said, "I just can't leave here without her. It's… it's my fault that we're here."

Faith knew guilt well enough to know that nothing she said would help alleviate Shawna's. The only cure for that was finding Frankie.

"All right. Follow me."