Waking the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

the right of the opening. Then when you’re about two hundred feet away start making your way over.”
    Cait forged ahead. Minutes later, a hundred feet in the air, she was ready to admit that Sharper and Andrews had been right. Oh, it was hardly an effort worthy of hard-core climbing enthusiasts. But it was more of a workout than the rock-climbing wall at the gym she frequented. She found herself glad she had as much experience as she did in the wilderness.
    She was even happier to see no snakes on the way up.
    The sun was warm after the relative coolness of the forest, and the pack made for an extra layer of insulation. She was sweating before she was half way. If not for Sharper’s infrequent commands behind her, it would feel like woman against nature. An exhilarating, isolating process.
    She began moving toward the left to the cave opening, and the way got a bit trickier. One toehold gave beneath her foot, and her fingers scrabbled, gripping fiercely while her feet swung for a moment, unsupported. In the next moment she found another jutting rock to push off from and regained her stability. And continued climbing despite the fanged hollowness in her stomach.
    “You want me to follow you in.”
    Sharper’s words were more statement than question as she hauled herself up on the narrow ledge before the yawning darkness of the cave. Cait reached up to flip on the light of her hard hat. She took a moment to slip out of her pack and withdraw a flashlight before shrugging it back into place. “Be easier,” she called over her shoulder belatedly. “Just make sure I don’t miss the turn off.”
    With that she plunged inside. Although she started off crawling she quickly had to drop to her stomach as the ceiling of the cave pinched in. Cait wasn’t claustrophobic, but there was nothing as absolute, as impenetrable as the darkness in a cave. The slight sunlight from the opening behind her was lost once she rounded the first bend. And she was fervently glad for both lights she had. The one on her hard hat offered glimpses of where the ceiling dipped and curved. The flashlight in her hand shone on the surface she was currently flattened against. Lit up fingers of rock jutting out from the side that could catch and snag at her clothing or pack. Spotlighted the spiders and cave crickets skittering along on the walls beside her.
    It felt more like a tunnel than a cave, but there was plenty of room for her to move as long as she remained on her belly. She had a feeling Sharper wasn’t faring as well. An occasional muttered curse drifted forward to her ears. The width of his shoulders would make this a tight fit. She could see why he’d shed his pack at the entrance.
    The stone beneath her, to the sides of her were cool but dry. Not smooth by any means, but not so ragged that she’d have to worry about bruises and lacerations when she finished. But she was still thankful when, twenty or so feet inside, she saw the yawning opening to her right.
    “Is this the branch to the chamber up ahead?”
    Her voice rang in the cave rather than echoed. As did Sharper’s answer.
    “To your right. You’ll be able to crouch the rest of the way to the opening. For Godsakes, don’t fall in when you reach it.”
    Cait made the jog and rose to her haunches thankfully when the branch of the cave widened significantly. It was about three feet across now, and four and a half feet high. Even with the lights she carried, she moved carefully, unsure where the drop off would occur. And imagined, as she made her way in the near darkness, the offender following this same path.
    He’d have carried the bag on his back for the climb, maybe rigged in a harness of some type. But once in the tunnel he would have had to drag it, she thought, as she crept forward. There was no other way a normal-sized male would fit hauling a bag that big.
    Although she couldn’t discount the possibility that the perp was a female.
    The beam of her flashlight caught the