Fallen

His gaze shifted as he looked around the cave, trying to spy the leather bag he’d taken for her, the one she was going to use to carry the files. Camden, walking on his knees, moved around her bones, giving as wide a berth as possible, cognizant that this was a crime scene, but also mindful that Kandace had given her life for the proof in that satchel, and he was not going to leave it behind if it was here. “Where did you put it?” he murmured? Or had it been taken from her?

He heard Scarlett call his name again, but crawled forward, the light growing dimmer the farther he ventured. He stopped for a moment, his eyes adjusting, Camden stopping short when he saw what lay at the far end of the cave.

Two more sets of bones. These ones far more ancient, any clothes they’d once worn, disintegrated to dust. He let out a harsh exhale. The bones appeared to belong to a man and a woman, turned toward each other, bodies close, fingers laced. They’d died in a lovers’ embrace.

It couldn’t be . . . but it had to be.

Taluta and her warrior?

The air left Camden and he turned back. He had to get out of this small space where so much death had occurred. He crawled past Kandace, pushing the brush aside, and pulling himself carefully from the cave, onto the small ledge.

“Thank God,” he heard Scarlett say from above. “You worried me.”

He walked up the path, his heart stopping each time he slid a bit, causing gravel and dirt to fall over the edge into the abyss below. He didn’t even want to think about the fact that a tiny girl like Haddie had made this climb as well. He still couldn’t fathom how or why she’d decided to look in the spot where so many bones waited to be found.

Scarlett had scooted back and Camden hoisted himself up and over the edge, pulling himself to his knees, and brushing the dust from his shirt. She moved forward, grasping him, holding on tightly, her heart beating as swiftly as his. He gripped her back and they stayed that way for a moment, clutching each other on the side of the cliff. When she pulled away, she asked softly, “It’s her, isn’t it?”

“I think so, yes.”

Scarlett’s shoulders dropped and she let out a soft moan. “My God. All this time.”

Haddie approached, looking behind Camden where he’d sworn he’d heard the soft sound of a drum. Whatever animal or peculiarity of nature made that echoing rumble hadn’t changed or gone away in the thirteen years he’d been gone. “You found them,” Haddie stated.

Scarlett turned, gathering her daughter to her. “Yes, baby, we did.” She took her face in her hands and leaned her forehead on hers. “I didn’t realize that canyon was so deep.” She shivered visibly and her voice broke as she said, “You could have been badly hurt.”

“I had to, Mommy,” Haddie whispered. “I felt them there.”

Camden frowned, wondering what the little girl meant by that, but Scarlett simply released a slow exhale, seemingly unsurprised by the comment, if not confused.

Camden walked forward, going down on one knee in front of Haddie. Scarlett glanced at him questioningly but moved aside. He smiled at the child. She looked like Scarlett, except for her coloring, and those wide, almond-shaped eyes that somehow seemed young and ancient all at once.

“Haddie, can I ask what you mean when you say you could feel them there?” He could sense Scarlett’s eyes on him, and her wariness. It comforted him. She would step in and let him know if his questions were out of line, or if he risked scaring the little girl.

Haddie glanced at her mother and then back to Camden. “Some people . . . or places feel heavy like . . .” She scrunched her nose and looked off to the sky behind him. “Like a storm is coming, only on the inside. In my bones.”

He tried to understand, wanted to be the person he would have wanted if someone had questioned him when he was a child, trying to unearth things which seemed desperately inexplicable to his young mind. “Like . . . pressure?” he asked.

“Pressure?” she repeated.

“Yes, like when something heavy is pressing down on you.”

She nodded, her eyes opening wide as if with excitement. “Yes, pressure. Heavy. Achy. Some people, some places, are so heavy, I can’t move.”

Camden watched her for a moment. He didn’t know what to think of what she was saying, but he also wanted to get the information from her while she seemed inclined to give it. Perhaps it was the side of him that had worked law enforcement for several years now, or perhaps it was more that he had grown up escaping to these woods every chance he got. He’d sensed things here too, things he could never explain, things that made him feel strange. And he also wanted this little girl to trust him, Scarlett’s daughter.