Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(91)

Grant turned and gasped. It was true that the entry to the mound had been dug out, but it was blocked maybe six or eight feet in! Could Kate be trapped? He knew how desperately she’d wanted to see inside, yet he couldn’t believe she’d do this. How could Kate or Carson have located Ned? He’d believed Kate when she’d said she was done with Carson, yet...

No, he believed her. He loved her.

He ran for the shovel and attacked the soil blocking the entry. Through the thickening gloom, Brad appeared. “I called Jace. He’ll be here as soon as he locks up Keith.”

“Call the volunteer fire department. We can use these lights. I think Kate’s trapped inside, maybe with Cantrell!”

“Okay. Okay! I’ll be right back to help you dig.”

His head and heart pounding, Grant hacked at the huge plug of dirt—and then he hit a barrier of broken log beams.

*

Until the noise and shuddering of the mound stopped, Kate kept curled up with her hands over her head. She’d been certain her skull—like the two bodies here, like Paul’s—was going to be smashed. But the low-built bench with the corpses above her had protected her from the worst. She was sure Carson had been crushed. She called out his name but there was no response.

She had a pocket of sooty air to breathe but for how long? She edged blindly into the pitch-black space. Where was that ax head? If she could find it, she could dig with it, but she felt nothing like that nearby. She reached up onto the bench to see if she could find another sharp mica weapon or instrument. Her hand snagged only bones. She pulled back. Her own gasping for air echoed strangely as if the corpses above her were breathing.

Although she could see nothing, she had to find a tool to dig her way out. As she crawled carefully through the darkness, waving one hand ahead of her, her thoughts cleared. She had so much to live for. She loved Grant and prayed he’d want her. And she had to forgive her father, to tell him so. She’d get to know her little half brothers, spend more time with Tess and Char, get married and have babies of her own. Her career was important, but here—trapped within the burial mound—the most important goal was life. She had to get out.

However hopeless she felt, she started digging with her hands. She breathed in stale air laden with dust. Grant’s family motto of Let the dead stay dead haunted her. She wanted to breathe fresh air again, see the sunlight. She wanted to hold Grant. But she swallowed a scream when she heard another rumble and more dust and dirt settled itself just ahead of her.

*

Grant and Brad dug like madmen before nine volunteer firefighters rushed in with picks and shovels.

“I think some beams inside must have collapsed. We think two people are trapped,” Grant told them. In the cooling evening breeze, he realized there were tears running down his face. As darkness descended, they brought in more klieg lights. The area around the mound turned bright as day.

He’d recognized all of the guys but one. Out of breath—praying that Kate had air—he stood back with Brad and watched them work.

The fire chief, Mike Thomas, who also owned the pharmacy uptown, came to talk to him. “You’ve been bleeding bad, Grant. Want me to clean that up or call the squad? Looks like you need stitches.”

“We need the squad to help Kate when we get her out. What about maybe going in from on top of the mound?”

“I sent a man up to look. He saw a depression there, but no hole, so we might only cause more cave-ins with weight up there. It all depends on where the victims are trapped.”

Where the victims are trapped. The words echoed through Grant’s stunned mind. He tried to tell himself the fact they were in an ancient tomb didn’t mean they were dead. Kate had to be alive. It would be too much if she died where she’d most wanted to discover things. They’d only begun to know each other. He couldn’t bear it if she was buried with her Adena.

*

Kate continued to dig with her hands in the area where she thought Keith’s brother had opened the narrow passageway. For so long she’d wanted in, not out of here. Her arms were weak, her back ached—her regrets hurt the most. The stale air was dwindling, because she was breathing hard, too hard. Hard work, she’d never been afraid of that, helping Mom when Dad left, studying long hours, working jobs to put herself through college for what her scholarship and grants didn’t cover...reaching for goals. It was hard to breathe...exhausted...light-headed and faint...

But then someone was digging beside her. “Carson?” she muttered and slumped against the dirt wall. But no voice, no other sounds but her own rasping breath and someone else digging.

Someone was lifting her, laying her out on the wooden bench with the corpses. She was floating in air, surrounded by mica-covered faces and something bright in her eyes and over her face...like a mask...a Beastmaster mask...

Strange voices, not Grant...not Carson...not the one who helped her dig...

“Okay, got her. She was partway to us. Slide her out.”

“She breathing?”

“Oxygen mask in position on her face. Turn it on. Now!”

“Kate! Kate, it’s Grant. Take a deep breath. Breathe, sweetheart.”

“Grant, was she crushed?”

“Not this woman. No way!” Grant said, but his voice caught and he sucked in a sob.

She opened her eyes and tried to blink away the dirt and soot. She was not on that bench with the Adena. Living, moving men had her on a kind of gurney. The lights were so bright they hurt her eyes. Was it the next day? How long had she been inside? She looked around, dazed, confused, seeing face after face of Cold Creek men who had somehow dug her out—and hadn’t someone gotten in to help her dig? She kept sucking in big breaths of sweet air.