Rock Bottom (Imogene Museum Mystery #1) Read online

  Tuppence shuffled forward, nose to ground. She disappeared around a rocky outcropping. Then she sneezed and I followed.

  Tumbled rocks blocked a narrow chasm — probably the remnants of an old rock slide. The exposed fronts of the lava shelves were vertically striated into eerie columns created as the lava had cooled. This chasm looked as though a crack had formed between columns, or maybe it had been there all along — maybe something deep in the shelf had created a wedge the lava flowed around. I’m no geologist, but that’s my best guess. The next shelf up formed a ceiling of sorts, back in behind loose rocks. Tuppence was on top of the rock pile, waiting for me.

  “You want to go back there?”

  Wag wag.

  “That’s up, not down.”

  Wag wag. Shnuffle.

  “Your score card is pathetic lately. Rodents, bullfrogs, one cat and a KFC bucket.”

  Snort. Tuppence descended the rock pile on the other side, tail in the air.

  “Gonna leave me behind, huh?” I muttered. My throat hurt.

  Tuppence made it look easy, but I weigh twice as much and am half as nimble. I shoved the flashlight in my back pocket and felt my way forward on the pile. I shifted on chunks, seeking footing while grabbing for something sturdier ahead. A rock the size of a softball caromed off my thigh before nicking my opposite calf as it fell.

  “Uhghh.”

  Then whatever I was hanging on to with my left hand let go and I slid, scraping a raw streak into my palm and forearm. I lay panting at the bottom, grateful for the codeine’s residual pain-killing effects.

  Tuppence whined from the other side.

  “I’m coming,” I said, but I still laid there for a few minutes, waiting for my sight to return to single vision. A nap would be nice.

  No. No, no, no. No nap. Besides, the flashlight lump under my right hip was not comfy.

  I rolled over and crawled toward the wall. Maybe the side of the rock pile would be easier. My hands pressed against the basalt columns, finding grips in their crevassed surface. I inched sideways, like a crab, leaning on the wall for support when the rocks shifted underneath. Baby steps in the dark.

  Shrubbery scratched my face. Hardy bushes clinging to the cliff’s side. I grasped a branch, tugged, found it firmly rooted and pulled myself up, hand over hand. The shrub saved me from a cracked skull when my body slid away on the other side of the sudden crest in the pile.

  My shoulders felt as though they were being pulled out of their sockets. It’s awfully hard to breathe when you’re hanging from a branch, when your esophagus is jammed into your lungs even though you’re stretched to twice your normal length. It just doesn’t work, so I let go. I have a little extra backside, so the fact that some of it came off in the slide won’t be a long-term problem. It hurt like crazy, though, regardless of codeine.

  Tuppence whined and licked my chin. Then she head-butted my side.

  “Yep. Alright.” I felt around to my back pocket and pulled out the flashlight. It clicked on instantly. Thank you, Maglite.

  Tuppence wheeled and headed into the chasm. I looked back at the rock pile for a second, but we’d come too far to give up now. With my right hand against the basalt wall and my left holding the flashlight, I followed.

  Rocky debris littered the path, forcing me to examine every step. The uneven ground separated between narrow fissures. I tried not to step on the cracks. A plunking staccato sound — water dripped into puddles which then leaked into ragged cracks.

  Water — fresh water — was leaking through the lava layers. I remembered the threes. Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. The running rainwater was an excellent sign and spurred me on.

  But it was rough going, my breathing raspy and fingertips raw from feeling forward along the rock wall. Even Tuppence stumbled, emitting soft grunts. I wondered if they made headlamps for dogs.

  Tuppence sneezed, and the noise echoed at odd angles toward us and away. But that could have been my ears. They were still plugged and returning my own dampened heartbeat.

  What was that?

  Tuppence cocked her head too, lifting her long, floppy ears as much as she could. We both froze, not breathing.

  Gone. It was gone.

  The chasm narrowed unevenly to a slit. The ground dropped away too. We were going down again. Tuppence barged into the opening, then stopped, her back end blocking the bottom half.

  “What’s in there, Tupp?”

  I aimed the flashlight over the dog’s head. More rock — a dark void.

  “Come on, let me through.” I pulled on Tuppence’s tail, and she backed out.

  I squeezed into the channel, keeping my flashlight hand ahead. I stepped on something that cracked under my weight. Glass and plastic shards reflected in the flashlight beam. With my foot, I scooted the pieces behind me, slid out of the channel and knelt to examine them. Tuppence stuck her nose in, too, and wagged her whole body.

  Grey lenses and cobalt blue frames. Sunglasses. The ones Greg wore had blue frames.

  Last summer when we’d gone out to check the lighting for the museum’s sign at the park entrance, Greg switched to prescription sunglasses. He’d told me he knew about wiring, but we couldn’t find the fuse box, and I wasn’t about to let him fiddle with the connections while they were live. He’d shoved the sunglasses up on his head while peering under the sign. I realized he must be nearsighted.

  Yeah, the sunglasses were his, or just like his. It would have been easy for the sunglasses to fall off his head or out of a loose pocket while he was shimmying through. He was skinny, but those long limbs would have had to be folded awkwardly.

  Tuppence snorted.

  “You were right,” I said. “He’s close.”

  Close. My heart jumped into overdrive. Could he hear us? Time to holler.

  I crawled over to the opening and pressed in as far as my shoulders allowed.

  “Greg!”

  Echoes.

  “Greg!”

  Was that a moan? The same sound as before, soft and distant. Could be anything.

  There was one way to find out. If Greg could get in there, so could I.

  The last time I’d had a choice, I’d chickened out and a dead man had been pulled from the water. I was going in.

  But I was going to call the cavalry first. I backed out of the cavern, picking out spots where I’d stepped before. Suddenly there was a ticking clock in my head. Now that I knew Greg was in the cavern, I had to reach him, and fast. Maybe just knowing help was on the way would give him the strength to hang on.

  I called Sheriff Marge. No answer. Unusual, but not unheard of. I left a message and, on second thought, set my phone on a boulder at the base of the rock pile. It wouldn’t get a signal in the cave and maybe it had one of those GPS tracker things. I didn’t know for sure. Still the phone would do more good out here than inside. I ducked back into the cavern and scrabbled to the narrow chasm.

  The opening was widest at the bottom. But not wide enough for my shoulders to pass through. If I laid on my side, I could wriggle past.

  “You stay here,” I told Tuppence.

  The loose stones were sharp, like shards chipped off the walls. They cut into my skin as my jacket rode up. I squirmed, propelling my body through the opening. A sideways inchworm maneuver.

  I sat on my haunches in the second room of the cave and tried to catch my breath.

  Tuppence whined through the crevice.

  “No, you stay.”

  The words caught in my throat, and I coughed until my eyes watered. The codeine had definitely worn off.

  I panned the flashlight around the small chamber. Cracks as wide as my hand crisscrossed the floor. Rapid water drops spattered into an unseen puddle. I touched the glistening wall. Water ran in rivulets down the basalt. Fresh water. Puddles. Still the best news I’d had in a week.

  “Greg!” I yelled.

  Only my own voice came back, bouncing off the hard surfaces.


  Then a shuffle, or a grunt — and it wasn’t Tuppence.

  But the dog whined in reply.

  “You stay,” I reminded the hound.

  The largest crack in the floor extended up the wall on the far side of the chamber. I straddled the fissure and crawled toward the opening. I shined the flashlight between its jagged edges. A wide-eyed owl stared back.

  I screeched. The owl didn’t blink.

  It took a few seconds to realize it was the most gorgeous petroglyph I’d ever seen. Perfect, clean design. At least two feet tall. White lines chipped with precision into dark gray basalt. I had to get through the crack.

  CHAPTER 19

  I wondered what Greg had thought when he saw the owl. Spectacular. Amazing. And worth every scrape and bruise. He must have been so excited. On the scent of a great discovery, his eyelids and toes tingling with anticipation — because that’s how I felt. No wonder he pressed on.

  The crack was a foot wide, maybe. I pulled off my jacket — forgot all about the cold and that I was already shivering like a naked Eskimo. Adrenaline buzzed in my ears. Most of me is pretty squishy, so I thought I could make it. Your skeleton is actually a lot smaller than you probably think it is.

  The crack in the floor was a problem. I stretched my arm down into it but couldn’t feel the bottom. I’d have to go through sideways without anything to stand on. Since I’d need both my hands, I stuffed the flashlight in my back pocket again.

  I crooked my right arm into the owl room, feeling for the wall. The crack was like a narrow hallway entering a larger chamber. I had to angle around a ninety-degree corner but figured I could hug it.

  I swung my right leg through space and wrapped it around the corner, probing for a toe hold. There — a little cleft. I pressed my weight into it. Rock climbing lessons would have been helpful, if only I’d taken them at some point in my past, which I hadn’t.

  Free of the crack, I balanced on my toes, clinging to the wall of the petroglyph room like a bat. The cavern felt large — the way sounds bounced back to me had shifted. The echoes took longer. There had to be a ledge or something. Greg had made it through. So could I.

  But, I couldn’t go anywhere without seeing. I leaned into the wall and let go with my right hand to reach for the flashlight. That’s when the sneeze came.

  As the tingling sprang up in my nose, I lunged to resume my grip — too late.

  I somersaulted until my shoulder slammed into the cavern’s floor. The flashlight clattered after me, swinging its beam around like a spastic strobe light.

  Pain flashed through my body, and I drowned in it. I couldn’t breathe. My brain screamed when I thought about breathing. Maybe I was screaming. No, my lungs were flat. I couldn’t scream.

  CHAPTER 20

  I awoke later — hours, minutes? Groggy and bone-cold, I lay perfectly still in the darkness, taking inventory of my body parts. Swallowing tiny sips of air — focusing on the slight rise and fall of my chest and the stabbing pain each breath brought.

  My shoulder throbbed. My neck throbbed. My head throbbed. Must have knocked it on the way down. The second concussion in a week.

  My legs were twisted uncomfortably. I slowly stretched my quads and calves, wiggled my toes, bent and unbent my knees. All there. Not paralyzed.

  I was going to be stiff if I didn’t move. The flashlight lay several feet away, still on. My eyes fastened on the round dot of light it projected as I pushed up to a sitting position. Pain sliced through my right side from shoulder to hip. I clenched my teeth against a scream and wheezed in short breaths.

  My eyes rolled back.

  Focus. Focus on the light. Not a good time to pass out.

  Pressing my left palm against a wall, I pulled my legs under me, squatted, then rose, teetering, to my feet. My right hand worked, but something was terribly wrong with my shoulder.

  Grimacing — and using my left hand, I pushed my right hand into my front jeans pocket to take the weight off my shoulder.

  I stumbled toward the flashlight. A grunt escaped as I bent to pick it up.

  I leaned against the cool wall and forced shallow breaths. Sweat trickled behind my ears. If I held perfectly still, my brain seemed to have a little room for thoughts other than the pain. Any movement brought sharp stabs — breath-stealing stabs.

  I played the shaky flashlight beam around the walls.

  The owl had friends. Lizards, a sun face, big-eyed goblins, a man with hairy legs, hard-shelled beetles, a cat-headed jellyfish. They probably had much more meaning than I could ascertain, and they danced over the walls.

  “Wow.” It came out as a croak. I squinted at each new carving as it appeared in the light. The Florence Accademia Gallery, but for petroglyphs — master versions with cruder student copies near them, squiggles that looked like doodles on a notepad, practice renditions that became progressively more sophisticated. Truly a treasure trove. And protected — for how many years?

  Greg would have been ecstatic when he found this. But where was he?

  I scanned the floor. A few scattered rocks along the edges and a bat skeleton. I wrinkled my nose. From the pungent stinky-sweet smell, I guessed there was also a fresh skunk carcass nearby.

  The flashlight beam revealed a tennis shoe then a jeans-clad leg. My breath caught, and I forced shallow panting to conquer the shooting pain in my side. I clenched my teeth and directed the beam up the body — belt, blue button-down shirt — Greg lying on his back, eyes closed, head at an odd angle.

  I staggered to him, knelt and laid a hand on his chest. My hand was trembling, but there was other movement underneath — barely. His ribs settled after a faint exhale. I waited a long time for them to rise again.

  “Greg?” I whispered.

  Nothing.

  “Greg?” Louder.

  Nothing.

  I pulled his eyelids back but didn’t know what I was looking for. Didn’t they do that on TV?

  I examined the rest of his body. The denim around his left ankle was crusted with dried blood. I gingerly pulled the hem up and nearly passed out again. The leg above his ankle was fractured badly, the yellowish end of a bone sticking through scabbed-over skin.

  Greg moaned, and I whirled to look at his face.

  “Huhhnn.” I clutched at my side and screwed my eyes shut — no sudden movements.

  Greg was out, but he was still feeling at least some of the pain. That was good, right? That he could feel his leg? I carefully tucked the fabric over the break — he needed all possible protection.

  His backpack lay on the ground within arm’s reach. And several open plastic containers. I picked one up and sniffed. Sour, but with the sweet undertone of cream cheese frosting. Greg had been eating my carrot cake. Surviving on my carrot cake. I counted containers. Four — so it was all gone.

  One of my containers had a few tablespoons of water in it. He must have scooped some out of a puddle to drink. He’d kept his wits about him. Of course, he would.

  I rummaged through his pack — my books, his cracked laptop and dead cell phone. He’d pulled his pack with him through the opening above. And it had saved his life — so far.

  Should I try to wake him? But what could I do for him now? Not much. Neither one of us could climb out of here.

  “Oh, Greg. Why didn’t you tell me?” I picked up his limp hand.

  How long would we have to wait? I’d left my truck, phone, jacket and dog as bread crumbs and given general directions for Sheriff Marge. It was hard to tell in the dark exactly where we were.

  Tuppence wasn’t very good at staying — she’d wander around. Someone would spot her, eventually.

  I sat beside Greg and scooted his things into a pile to prop up the flashlight. I aimed the beam at the crack we’d come through so anyone peering through the first crevice would see it.

  My stomach rumbled. Betty’s cookie was long gone. I laid snug against Greg and flung my good arm over him, giving him what was left of my own body heat.

  My shoulder an
d side knotted in throbbing spasms. But crying required energy I didn’t have. I grabbed a fistful of Greg’s shirt and whispered, “Hold on. Just hold on.”

  CHAPTER 21

  I slept, fainted, had waking nightmares — I don’t know. My mind flashed through a bizarre jumble of memories and keen sensations. Tommy was chewing on my ribs, which were exposed and bloody. I looked at them poking up out of my chest. I moved to push him off me, but my arm wouldn’t work.

  Clyde stuck his tongue out at Tommy, and the cat scampered away. Sheriff Marge shouted at Lindsay to sneeze into a pillowcase to keep the germs away from other people. And the robber with the stolen dentures brought me a towering carrot cake on a platter, fresh from my favorite Portland bakery.

  “Nice and easy,” Ford repeated as he pounded his fist on a transport cart. I shouted at him to stop that racket, but he ignored me.

  My ex-fiancé told me to hold still while he tried to take my picture, but my long, wavy hair — the hair he preferred that took an hour and fifteen minutes to style every day — kept blowing in my face. Then the wind blew him off the cliff, and he fell into the river without a splash. He went straight to the bottom holding a yellow nylon rope.

  Tuppence growled in my ear. Her breath smelled like licorice, and she pulled on my collar, dragging me — dragging me away from Greg.

  “No!” I shouted. “No!

  But no one listened.

  George Longshoe served tea in tiny white plastic cups with tiny white plastic saucers while we huddled around a child-sized table and balanced on tippy little chairs.

  o0o

  Bright light forced its way under my eyelids. I turned my head away and moaned. A squeaky wheel revolved underneath. I was riding the squeaky wheel, and I wanted off. I felt for Greg, but my hand clanked against a cold, metal railing. I tried to sit up, and something heavy pushed me back.