Waking the Dead Read Online Free PDF

suggesting you put the remains in the cave.” Yet.
    “Yeah? Well then you’re one up on Sheriff Andrews. She grilled me about it for so long I think she was outfitting me for prison blues.”
    “Once I age the bones we’ll have a better idea of how long they were down there.” She didn’t bother telling him that part of her job would be by far the most difficult. “Who knows? If you’ve been absent from the area for a number of years, my findings may clear you.”
    “ You’ll be aging the skeletons.” He regarded her skepti cally. “In between scaling Castle Rock, leaping buildings with a single bound . . .”
    Her smile faded. “My qualifications aren’t your concern, Sharper. But if I were you, I’d be hoping I discovered something to suggest you couldn’t possibly be involved instead of intentionally pissing me off.”
    The tension in his expression eased. The flint in his eye didn’t. “It’s not intentional, it’s natural. And I could care less what you do, as long as it doesn’t suck up my time.” He turned then and began walking again.
    “I understand you’re being compensated for your time.”
    “I prefer to choose my own clients.”
    And somehow Andrews had forced his hand with this duty. Cait could imagine the scene that had elicited his reluctant help. She just didn’t much give a damn one way or another. So she finished the hike in silence, ignoring, as much as possible, the broad-shouldered man in front of her. And when her muscles began to burn from the workout, it suited her to blame that on Sharper, too.

    A couple hours later she was leaning against the huge pile of rock outcroppings at the base of Castle Rock, scanning the face of it through her binoculars. “Which one is it?”
    She lowered the glasses to note the direction Sharper pointed, raised them again to follow the direction with her gaze. Difficult to see from down here whether the indentation in the rocks actually led anywhere. A person would have to be a determined climber, with an avid curiosity to scramble up and check out each shadowy opening in the cliff.
    Most would lead nowhere, of course. She knew that from experience, too. She did her share of climbing in the Blue Ridge Mountains, although she wasn’t a huge fan of caves. Some would plunge inside the cliff only a few feet before hitting rock again. The one documented in the police report was an exception rather than the rule.
    “Any sign of animal life inside?”
    Sharper shrugged as he lifted a water bottle to his lips and guzzled. Lowering it, he said, “No snakes or bats that I saw. Plenty of spiders, but didn’t see any poisonous ones. Doesn’t mean they aren’t there, though.”
    Cait dropped the binoculars and reached for her own water bottle. She drank, still eyeing the face of the stone wall, plotting her approach. “I’ll go in first. I want to take the branch to the chamber, and from the description in the report there’s not room in there for both of us at the same time.”
    “Your party.”
    Because that was true enough she made no comment. She took a few moments to finish drinking, and then found a private place nearby to relieve herself. When she returned Sharper was exactly where she’d left him, and there was no surprise in that either. He’d exchanged his shirt for a long-sleeve one and had replaced his ball cap with a collapsible hard hat. She reached into her bag and withdrew a similar one, the kind recommended for spelunkers with a battery-operated light on the front. She’d rammed her head on stones jutting down from the roofs of caves often enough to not need a reminder to use one. The binoculars went into the pack. She didn’t need them swinging and hitting the rocks as she climbed, or worse, catching on something and strangling her.
    Then she packed her bag up and shrugged into it again. Without a word, she strode toward the face of Castle Rock. She heard Sharper’s voice behind her.
    “Best way up is to start over here to