Hidden Motive (12 page)

“I don't think so, except maybe Craig.”

Murph raised his flashlight to illuminate the numbers on the dial. “We have the number eleven and your birthdate. Let me see the note again.”

She pulled it out of her pocket once more and spread it in the light. “Try turning it clockwise to eleven.” She held the paper out for him. “See the word
forgive?
That could mean forward. Then turn it back, counterclockwise to two, because he uses the word
back.
Then clockwise to one, counter to five.”

“Got it.”

“Did it click?”

“No.” He tried again, adding her birth year. “Nothing.”

There was a squeak of floorboards on the attic stairs. “Sable? You up here?” Audry called. “It's Jerri and me. Think we could look for more clothes? Jerri needs—”

“I need fat lady clothes.” Jerri chuckled.

Murph shoved the clothing back into place while Sable stuffed the note into her pocket. So much for further sleuthing tonight. She was disappointed, yet at the same time vastly relieved.

Fiction. It was all fiction. Maybe Grandpa isn't guilty, after all.

Soon it would be time for bed, and first thing in the morning they'd be searching the cave for more clues.

S
able scrambled over a ledge of limestone and straightened inside the cave. She aimed her light along the passage, and to the mouth of the rocky pit that she and her brothers had always been warned to avoid. It was the most dangerous place in the whole cavern system.

She stepped forward so the others could come through, and as she waited, she reacquainted herself with the dark cavern. It was a homecoming. She had many good memories here, when she and Peter and Randy—and many times Craig and his sister, Candace—had explored and shared the wonders of this special playground.

Bryce joined her in the dripping silence. Murph and Craig followed, walking single file into the deep, hovering darkness.

Murph played the beam of his flashlight over every inch of the cave. The light played on a cluster of quartz crystals, then moved back to the pit.

When the group climbed down to the next cavern, Bryce stopped and gazed in awe at a room of rust-colored formations. “This is great.” He reached out to touch a tall column, glistening with moisture. “Oops.” He jerked his hand back. “I almost forgot. I learned in science class that you aren't supposed to disturb a living cave. Even our walking here changes its growing patterns just a little.” He gestured around, at the multitude of stalactites and rising stalagmites colored by iron deposits.

“You're right about a cave being a living environment,” Sable told him. “This is a world all its own. It even breathes with the rise and fall of the barometer; that's why the air is so fresh, instead of musty as you might expect.” She stepped over to a cranny where a whirlpool once flowed. “This is where my brother, Peter, tried to skin-dive and nearly drowned.”

Craig laughed. “I remember that. He almost drowned me when I tried to get him out.”

“Serves you right,” Sable said. “You helped him and Randy play tricks on me all the time. Remember when Randy dressed up in that sheet like a ghost, and jumped out in front of me down at the end of the soda straw passage?”

“I remember he dropped his flashlight and broke it.”

“What happened then?” Bryce asked.

Sable grinned at Craig. “I turned off my flashlight and found my way home in the dark.”

“And just left him down here,” Craig said. “He got lost, and Sable got into big trouble, especially when she told her Grandpa she wasn't sorry.”

“The boys had been picking on me all summer,” Sable said.

Craig laughed. “You were spoiled, admit it.”

“Grandpa appreciated my honesty.”

“The rest of us would've had our hides tanned. When you complained about the way we picked on you, he gave you lessons in street fighting.”

“I never misused that knowledge,” Sable said.

Murph turned to her with a grin. “Oh, really?”

Sable smiled back. “That's right, I only use it when pestered, provoked or detained in a dangerous situation.”

“Happens to you a lot, huh?” Craig said.

Sable and Murph shared a quick look of understanding.

“Something good came of that incident,” Sable told Bryce. “The search for my brother led to the discovery of another passage. Grandpa was ecstatic. He was always interested in finding new passages and intriguing formations.”
And sinkholes. And…silver?

She wished she had that map—and that she'd paid more attention to the new markings on it. Unfortunately, it might now be leading someone else to a new discovery. If he or she knew what to look for.

But how could that be? Only she and Murph were aware of the contents of her watch case.

The group entered the next cavern, where the limestone ceiling had buckled, revealing a gaping blackness above it.

“A breakdown cavern,” Bryce said. “Cool.”

Sable stepped over a boulder and passed a raised ledge where she and her brothers had often hidden from one another.

The passage split, and a dry streambed angled downhill from the familiar limestone path.

Craig stopped, shining his light along the descending rocky bed into the darkness beneath a low ledge. “Hey, this looks like a new passage.” His baritone voice quickened with excitement. He turned to Sable. “Why don't you let me check it out. May not go anywhere, and if it doesn't I'll catch up with the rest of you.”

“You'd miss a trip to the crystal cavern just to crawl on your stomach over a bunch of rocks?” she teased.

“Radical idea, I know.” He grinned at her.

Craig and her brothers had always competed with her, and with each other, trying to be the first to explore a new passage, or to scale a challenging wall.

“It could dead-end ten feet down,” she said. “If it goes anywhere, maybe you can show us later.”

“Let me go with you, Craig,” Bryce said with youthful exuberance. “Please?”

“If we're late for lunch,” Sable said, “Audry will—”

“I'm just going to check it out, Sable,” Craig said. “I'll catch up with the rest of you.”

“And me. I'm going with Craig,” Bryce said.

“You may have to do a lot of crawling and scooting on the ground,” Sable warned Bryce. “You could get filthy.”

“I'll wash these clothes myself when I get back to the house, okay?” Bryce pleaded.

“Sounds fine with me,” Craig said. “We can let Sable and Murph go on ahead, then we'll catch up when we can. If it gets too late—let's say, after eleven—we'll head back toward the house. Sable, what time do you have?” He gestured to the pocket watch that hung around her neck.

“This doesn't keep time. Murph, what—”

“What do you mean it doesn't keep time? That thing's always kept good time.” Craig raised his flashlight to peer at the antique.

“Take my word for it, Craig,” she said drily.

He shrugged. “Anyway, I'm going to check out this passage.”

She noticed Murph peering back the way they had come, the beam of his light poking into the shadows.

Craig followed Murph's gaze. “Are you worried we've gotten lost?”

Murph inspected three more dark corners, then shrugged. “No, I thought I heard something. I'm just a little edgy.” He glanced at Sable. “Simmons got up when I did this morning. I haven't seen him since.”

“He was in the family room earlier,” Bryce said. “He and I played a game of checkers.”

“Was he still there when we came down here?”

“Nope, he left when I went to put my shoes on.”

“I'm heading down,” Craig called over his shoulder as he dropped to his knees and crawled beneath the rocky ledge.

Bryce followed him.

Sable watched them disappear into the narrow tunnel, listening to Bryce's eager questions and Craig's good-natured replies. Like a couple of kids. Craig was a grown man who could take care of himself. He would extend that care to Bryce.

“So tell me where we're going,” Murph said.

She aimed the beam of her light down the passage to their right. “This path wanders back for about a half mile before it reaches the white room and the crystal cavern.”

“The place Audry mentioned to Bryce.”

“Right.”

“And you're wondering why,” Murph guessed.

“You bet I am.” As Sable led the way, Murph took slow, thoughtful steps, studying every shadow with deep concentration.

After about fifteen minutes of walking at a turtlelike pace, Sable glared at Murph over her shoulder. “Murph, are you sure you want to go on? You don't seem—”

“Come here and look at this.” He aimed his light on the clay trail. “Footprints.”

“You heard us talk about all the times we came down here.”

“But look where they lead.” He followed them with the light around a rust-colored column and back out to the trail. “I know this sounds strange, but I think they're fresh.”

“How can you tell?”

Murph inhaled. “Take a whiff. Smell anything that doesn't belong in a cave?”

Sable sniffed the air, watching Murph quizzically.

“Cologne,” Murph said. “Simmons uses it instead of bathing. It reeks.”

“You already know Simmons was down here, you saw him here yesterday.”

“The scent wouldn't linger that long.”

“So maybe he came back down this morning,” Sable said. “Do you think someone really tried to attack him yesterday?”

“No, I think he fell into the creek and his macho pride was hurt when a woman old enough to be his grandmother had to pull him out.”

She stepped ahead of Murph. “Let's go check out the crystal cavern before Craig and Bryce catch up with us.”

“That's the place that was salted back in the forties, right?” Murph asked.

“Yes.”

“I'd like to see it.”

Sable led the way through a long, narrow passage, the powerful glow of her light illuminating more formations, alien sights to most people, but familiar to her. There was no path here, but they traveled easily, except in a few places, where the clay was wet and sticky, or where they had to climb over a pile of rocks. Occasionally, the passage split, and Sable indicated the markers she used to find her way. At one intersection she showed Murph a whirlpool dome, and at another she pointed to a unique helectite formation.

The passage widened at last, and by habit, Sable hesitated before stepping into a broad cavern with a low ceiling and walls of uninterrupted paleness. This white room had always seemed like a near-sacred place to her. The beams from their flashlights reflected from the smoothly undulating surfaces with a supernatural incandescence.

Murph whistled softly. “No wonder you love this cave.”

“This and the crystal cavern are my favorites.” She aimed her light to the left. “The crystal cavern is in there. See that ledge of rock above it? It's a natural bridge, leading from nowhere to nowhere. I used to hide there and jump down in front of my brothers to frighten them.”

Murph chuckled. “You gave as good as you got.”

“You'd better believe it.”

“You still do.”

She grinned. “You don't know the half of it.”

“I'm learning quickly.”

The white flowstone passage opened into a larger cavern angling up to the right. Murph entered the huge, domed room. Sable was about to follow when a soft sound arrested her attention—like the scuffing of a shoe on stone.

As Murph disappeared from sight, she turned and listened. Had Craig and Bryce reached a dead end, and decided to join her and Murph, after all?

She stepped along a dry streambed and around a curve in the passageway, then down a graduated shelf of water-sculpted stone. She circled another pure white column, then stopped and gazed down into the dark cavern where water had once splashed and swirled wildly.

“Just as I thought,” she said softly.

The cavern was almost dry. Stooping, she shone her light into the mysterious depths. Sphalerite and galena glittered, shattering the brilliance of Sable's light into thousands of pinpoints, illuminating the cavern with the glow of a beam through a prism.

She frowned. “Murph?”

“Yes?” he called from the white room.

“You might want to see this.”

He rounded the corner quickly, his flashlight increasing the sparkle in the pit. “Did you find something?”

“Look at the ore. There wasn't this much the last time I was down here.”

“How can you be sure? When was the last time you saw this place without water?”

“Two years ago. There wasn't this much ore.” She pointed to a chunk of galena, about a quarter-inch wide. “Would you like to estimate about how long the water's been depositing limestone over that ore?”

Murph bent down to get a better view. “I don't see any limestone over it.”

“None,” she said. “I think this is recent. Within the past year—maybe even the past few months.”

“Why would anyone salt this place?” Murph studied the ore, then turned and shone his light on the quartz crystal along the sides of the limestone bridge above them. “Any theories?”

“None.” She studied the flicker of her light against a white protrusion at the bottom of the pit. The protrusion was just to the left of a stream of opaque, mineral-rich buttermilk water. She thought of the analysis sheets, and wondered where the analyzed ore had originated.

She lay on her stomach at the edge of a limestone ledge and shone her light over the gleaming surface. “High-grade silver would be black. Do you see anything that looks like it might be tarnished silver? Maybe a fine thread of black?”

Murph knelt next to her, and together they aimed their lights over the vertical sides of the cavern walls, methodically examining every sparkle, every mark, every indentation in the limestone.