Hazardous Homecoming Read online

  Cooper stood up, shaking more debris from his hair. “It’s worth a try,” he said. “I’m going into that cave.”

  “Uh-uh,” Pickford said. “If anyone’s going in there it’s me. I’ll get some ropes, call in a crew, we’ll do it properly, even though I’m sure it’s a waste of time and resources.”

  “No offense, Sheriff,” Cooper said. “But another rockfall can seal off that place for good or bury any evidence too deep to recover it. I’m light and agile and I’ve already been buried once today, so I’m going to mosey on over to that cave and take a peek.”

  Pickford squared his shoulders. “And if I don’t let you?”

  “Well, I suppose you could arrest me, but I don’t see on what grounds. This is private property and I’m invited, aren’t I, Ruby?” He beamed at Ruby and she felt herself blush at his roguish grin.

  “And I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who was invited to this shindig.” Cooper’s gaze raked the group.

  An admiring smile played across Hank’s face. “Well played.”

  Pickford’s eyes flashed with venom. “You stay out of this.”

  Hank’s smile dimmed. “You can’t bully anyone here,” he said quietly.

  Pickford locked eyes on Hank and Heather stepped between them. “What’s it going to hurt, Sheriff? There are people to summon help if Cooper gets into trouble. Seems like most of the slide debris has already passed. Five minutes, and it’s done.”

  “Ten.” Cooper grimaced. “I’m not at the peak of my game.”

  “Ten,” she corrected with a smile. “What can ten minutes hurt after twenty years of wondering?”

  Cooper didn’t wait for an answer. He snaked an arm around Ruby’s shoulders and bent close. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

  She put her mouth to his ear. “Yes, but before the slide, I thought I heard a scraping noise, as if...”

  “Someone pushed those rocks down on us,” he finished. “I thought the same thing. And now here we have Hank, Heather and Pickford on the spot. Odd, huh?”

  She shivered. “Yes, odd.”

  “Stay close, and if anything looks like trouble, get out of the way. Promise?”

  “Oh, I’ll be close all right.”

  A worried look crept into his eyes. “Because you’re coming with me into that cave, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Someone has to keep you from being juiced again.”

  He sighed, the playful smile gone. “Ruby, I have a bad feeling about this.”

  In truth, she did, as well. Something about the shadowed entrance chilled her inside. “We have to know.”

  “Are you sure you want to?”

  “Like you said, Cooper, the cave may not give us the answer we want, but it might be the answer we need.”

  He cocked his head, and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You are a brave woman, Ruby.”

  She repeated the words over in her mind, wishing she could convince herself as they inched toward the dusky access to the cave.

  * * *

  Cooper felt Ruby’s hand grow cold in his. It was not the fact that the rock face above them blotted the sunlight, he knew, and he wasn’t immune himself to the uneasy feeling. The dank air wafting from the entrance made the back of his neck prickle. As they approached, one careful footstep at a time, he heard the others fall in behind them.

  His body ached, ribs feeling like they did when he’d played college football, the various scrapes and abrasions stinging with every small movement. The pain was not something he’d admit to Ruby, or anyone else. He moved ahead of her a pace as they drew closer to the entrance, which was a wide crack in the rock some three feet across. The cave was far enough away from the slide that it was still relatively clear, except for some debris that had collected at the mouth. A fringe of moss clung to the sheer periphery, trailing over the rock like a woman’s wind-tossed hair.

  Pickford was now nearly treading on Ruby’s heels, and she shot him an annoyed look. “We’ve got to go one at a time here,” she snapped. “The path is narrow.”

  “If there is anything to find, police should be first in,” Pickford said.

  Cooper didn’t bother to answer. He let go of Ruby’s hand and edged along before Pickford could push his way forward. A web of roots hung down in the gap, dead remnants of a massive tree, probably a fir, by the looks of it, that had been toppled in a rock slide or struck by lightning. The twisted coils hung in a silvered tapestry, level with Cooper’s waist. No wonder the cave had been hard for any searchers to find.

  He bent to crawl under the roots, a hollow snap echoing from under his foot. He peered down. Bone. Something shot out of the mass of roots. Cooper jerked back into Ruby. Heather screamed as the thing careened by them.

  “Saw-whet owl,” Ruby panted after a moment. “Nocturnal. We woke him up.”

  Heather laughed. “He woke me up, too.”

  Ruby pointed up in a tree where the little bird with the oversize head had come to rest, glaring at them with yellow eyes. “They don’t like visitors, and they’re excellent hunters.”

  “That explains the bones.” Cooper pointed to the remnants of a rodent skull. Ducking low and ignoring the protest from his ribs, Cooper managed to creep under the roots and squeeze inside.

  Cold stone walls chilled his shoulders. The sunlight penetrated only the first foot or so of the cave, leaving the rest in blackness. He took his phone out of his pocket and activated the flashlight app. At least that still worked, regardless of the thick walls and the fact that it had nearly been crushed by a rock slide not an hour ago. Tiny flecks of crystals danced and sparked in the light. Lessons from a long-ago geology lecture kicked in as he noted the walls were basalt, which explained why the cave was still there. Pure sandstone would have worn away over time. Stripes of fawn-colored stone twined together with darker pockets. He wished he could see it in the daylight. The colors were probably incredible.

  The floor of the cave was covered with rocks of all sizes, some worn smooth and others jagged. He hoped they would not disturb any other wildlife. He felt Ruby’s hand on the small of his back.

  “Any chance we’re going to upset a bunch of bats?” he whispered.

  “It’s possible, but an owl isn’t usually going to roost in the flight path of a bat colony.”

  “Good. I’ve been in a bat exodus before and it’s not pretty. There was plenty of noise and not all of it from the bats.” The cave was oblong in shape, no more than ten feet deep and six feet high. He could not stand straight without the risk of smashing his head on the rocks above. Pickford managed to cram into the space in spite of his bigger frame, waving a small flashlight around.

  “Looks like part of the ceiling came down a while back.” He played the light over the rock surfaces. “Not much here but a mess.”

  Cooper felt the twin pangs of relief and disappointment. “Like I said, it was just a whim. I’ll sleep better knowing we checked it out.”

  Ruby sighed, a small sound oddly amplified by the cave. “A whim,” she repeated. “Maybe finding the locket will amount to nothing. More unanswered questions.”

  Pickford raised his hand as if to pat her on the shoulder but lowered it again without touching her. “It can make you crazy if you let it, honey,” he said, softly. “Happens way too often in my line of work. More questions than answers.”

  Heather and Hank squirmed inside behind them.

  Pickford huffed. “I told you two to stay out.”

  “You aren’t my boss, Sheriff Pickford.” Heather smiled at him. “And I don’t have to do what you say in this case.”

  Pickford’s chin went up. “Self-serving. So like your father.”

  Hank stepped nearer. “Let’s not go there, Sheriff. Not now.”

  “Why not? Been waiting to have a conversation s
ince you started sniffing around town, but you haven’t been at the diner when I’ve come to call.”

  Hank smiled. “I guess you’ve visited at the wrong times.” He paused. “It’s been nice catching up with Molly, though.”

  Heather grabbed her father’s arm. “Dad.”

  Pickford might possibly have taken a swing at Hank with his fisted hand if Ruby hadn’t cried out at that moment.

  They all stopped and stared at her.

  Cooper crunched across the floor. “What? What is it?”

  Her hands were pressed to her mouth, so he followed her gaze to the floor. His heart sank as he saw the white gleam shining in the rubble, the perfect, graceful shard of a human skull.

  NINE

  Horror swirled up through Ruby’s stomach, engulfing her mind and heart in a numb cloud. She heard Pickford ordering them all from the cave, saw Cooper’s shoulders droop as he followed Heather and Hank outside. Heather protested, but Pickford stood firm.

  “Now, it is a possible crime scene, and you’ll do what I tell you or I’ll arrest you right here.” He took out his phone and, finding a signal, called for help.

  Hank stood next to his daughter, a hand on her shoulder, a look of shock on his face.

  Heather shook her head. “I can’t believe after all these years, Alice has finally been found.”

  After all these years, Ruby’s mind echoed.

  “We don’t know that for sure.” Cooper stood close, peering into Ruby’s face. “Are you okay?”

  Okay? She felt in that moment she would never be okay again. Alice, little Alice, once a living breathing child, was now a brittle skeleton discarded on an unforgiving floor of stones. It could just as easily have been herself lying there. He pulled her to him, pressing her shivering body close to his. She could not feel it or anything else.

  “Try to tell me what you’re thinking,” he murmured into her ear. “Can you? Put words to the feelings?”

  His voice seemed to come from someplace far away. She forced her mouth into motion. “I’m thinking about Josephine and Lester. All the time searching and wondering. How will they feel knowing she was here the whole time not three miles away? That they might have been so close to saving her but instead she...” Dizziness overtook her and he eased her down onto a rock, kneeling before her, stroking her shoulders. “I hope she didn’t suffer.”

  “She’s not suffering now. Hang on to that.” His eyes were tender, filled with the same sorrow as she imagined her own were. He wiped tears from her face that she hadn’t known were falling. “We don’t know anything yet, for sure. Let’s try to take it one step at a time.”

  “Oh, Alice.” She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, Hank and Heather had drawn close. Hank sat nearby, face strained, elbows propped on his knees as Heather typed notes into her phone.

  Cooper glared at Heather. “Please say you’re not writing this up.”

  “Notes, is all. Not an article. Not yet.”

  “Yet? If this is Alice, a family’s life is ruined.”

  Heather eyed him steadily. “It was ruined twenty years ago, Cooper. This is just the last chapter. The Walkers deserve to know. And so does your family. So does Peter.”

  “We shouldn’t be here.” Hank rubbed a hand over his face. He had been handsome once, Ruby knew, but now weariness sagged his features and his eyes were dull and hopeless. “Makes things harder for Pickford.”

  “He doesn’t like you, does he?” Cooper sat next to Ruby, arm tightly around her. “What’s his beef?”

  Heather snorted. “Thinks he owns the town. He’s a bully at heart.”

  “He believes he had good reasons for hating me,” Hank said.

  Ruby frowned. “What reasons?”

  Hank raised an eyebrow. “You really don’t know?”

  Ruby’s mind simply would not cooperate. She shook her head. “My father said there was bad blood between you, but he never told me why.”

  Hank laughed softly. “Not surprised that you’d be in the dark. Perry is happy to wallow in the mud to accomplish his ends, but he would never track any home in case it might soil his own family.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Heather looked up from her phone. “Your father ruined mine, didn’t you know that? They really do keep you in the dark.”

  Hank held up his hand. “It’s not the time to go into it.”

  “What better time?” Heather said.

  “Heather...” Hank warned.

  She waved him off. “Perry Hudson proved, or thinks he did, that my father was a thief.”

  Ruby was about to answer when Pickford emerged. “Team’s on its way up. You four are staying here until we get individual statements.”

  What followed was a grueling hour. They were escorted along the trail back to a spot near the lake where they answered questions and waited to be taken back to the sheriff’s office for yet more questions. She told them every detail again and again, including her suspicion that the rock slide had not been a natural occurrence. The officer she spoke to did not comment, but she could read the doubt on his face easily enough.

  A medic checked Cooper over and found no serious injuries to speak of. She was given a musty-smelling blanket to wrap around her, to ward off shock, she knew. It didn’t even come close. Facts kept whizzing through her mind in a blur. Alice. The cave. Heather’s accusation against her father. And strangest of all, the accidental rock slide that may not have been an accident.

  Was it possible that someone wanted Cooper and Ruby to die on that windswept slope? The thoughts jounced and banged through her mind as she and Cooper, with their law enforcement escorts, were loaded into a sheriff’s car and driven back to Ruby’s house.

  Her father was loading dead branches into a trailer when he saw the vehicle approach. His mouth went slack, his body rigid. She hastened from the car, anxious to rid him of the fear that she saw played out on his posture.

  Wrapped tight in his hug, she whispered, “It’s okay. We’re okay. They found her.” She could manage nothing else as the tears choked her throat and poured down her face. Her father spoke to the police for a moment and led Ruby inside. When she was sitting on the worn sofa that had always been more suited for a San Francisco Victorian than an Oregon cabin, her father pressed a mug of hot tea into her hand. Ruby didn’t like tea, but she knew it made her father feel better to tend to her in this way, so she sipped dutifully. Cooper seemed to relish his mug of Earl Grey.

  “Foolish, you know.” Perry looked at both of them as he spoke. “You could have been killed, hiking up there alone. Isn’t that what your brother always says?”

  Mick spoke from the doorway where he’d been listening. “That’s word-for-word what I say.” He shot a look at Cooper. “It was your idea? You talked her into it?”

  Cooper raised an eyebrow. “In case you haven’t noticed, your sister has a mind of her own.”

  Mick allowed a rueful smile. “Yeah. I noticed.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. “Talked to a cop as he was leaving. They found Alice’s body?”

  Ruby swallowed hard. “It looks that way.”

  Mick sighed. “Now they can solve it. Finally.”

  The room lapsed into silence, and Ruby became aware that Mick and Cooper were staring at each other.

  Cooper put down his mug. “Gonna say it, Mick?”

  Mick stood, fingers tucked in the waistband of his jeans. “Glad it’s going to be over. Josephine deserves justice.”

  “Yes. Peter does, too.”

  “Well,” Mick said softly. “I guess we’re about to see how that all works out.”

  “I guess we are.” Cooper’s eyes grew so cold that Ruby could not stand it. She looked away wondering if their grisly discovery in the cave would bring long-awaited p
eace, or more destruction.

  * * *

  Cooper fought against the rage that coursed through him, unexpected and strong. Every time he thought he’d won over the anger, it came through potent as ever. He’d prayed about it every night of his life and there was still no permanent relief. He took in the family in the kitchen, allied, thick as a family could be.

  Remember, Cooper. They will be thrilled to see Peter demolished. He shot a look at Ruby who stared at her shoes. Even her? Would she delight in the annihilation of his brother if it meant saving her own family? The thought burned for some reason. But Peter was innocent. Innocent.

  “There will be physical evidence in that cave,” Mick said. “There has to be. Enough to convict.”

  “Or exonerate,” Cooper added.

  “Look, Cooper. I know you want your brother to be in the clear. I get that. But I’m a former parole officer, and I’m naturally a suspicious guy and Peter never could produce anyone to give him an alibi. All these years and nobody could prove he wasn’t the guy Ruby saw in the woods.”

  “Even if Peter was there, right there, just before Alice was taken, it doesn’t make him guilty. As a former parole officer, you must have read people wrong sometimes, didn’t you?”

  The arrow hit its mark. Knowing he should feel ashamed of throwing Mick’s past failure back at him didn’t stop him from doing just that. Mick flinched, and Cooper turned to Perry. “We’ve run into two people today who aren’t your biggest fans.”

  Perry sat stiff backed, hands on his knees. “Oh?”

  “Stumbled upon an argument between Molly and Sheriff Pickford on the main road. Gonna tell us why Pickford hates you?”

  “Does he have to?” Mick fired off. “It’s not your business.”

  “Ah. A Hudson family secret?”

  Perry’s lips tightened ever so slightly. “No. No secret. If you want to know, I’ll tell you. Sheriff Pickford has trouble with the ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ philosophy. Twenty years ago, I was hired by Jeff Ringer, the owner of Spruce Lodge, to find out who was skimming from the restaurant profits. I did some routine work, photographing and such. I was able to prove it was Hank.”