Ink and Bone(58)

*

“See, I told you I wouldn’t embarrass you,” she said in the car.

“You did okay, actually,” Jones said. He cast her a grudging look. “But I’m used to working alone.”

He turned the ignition, and the car hummed to life, cool air breathing out of the vents, causing Finley to sit stiff with cold until it gradually warmed. She told him about the squeak-clink, about the rose-breasted grosbeak, about the boy with the train.

He kept his hands at ten and two on the wheel, his eyes on the road ahead, a muscle working in his jaw.

“So what does that mean?” he asked. “Who did you see in the woods?”

“I don’t know,” she said. The faces were fuzzy and indistinct, like on television when identities were being protected. She tried to explain it to him, but she could tell it wasn’t making a lot of sense.

“And ‘Little Bird,’ ” she told him. “That was the phrase I heard in my head when I found the rose-breasted grosbeak online.”

“Eliza’s nickname,” he said. “So that’s who you saw?”

“I’m just not sure.”

They drove, the road winding, rising, and falling, the trees thick and silent around them. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, she thought. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost. Miles to go.

“I went to see Agatha,” she said. “She says that I need to follow my instincts.”

“Agatha?”

“Agatha Cross? My grandmother’s mentor?”

He flashed her a strange look, which she didn’t understand. She guessed if he was still skeptical about Eloise, then someone like Agatha must seem like a circus freak to him. She waited for him to make some kind of crack.

“And what are your instincts telling you?” he asked instead.

“That you’re wrong about the way they went,” she said. “That they went north, deeper into the woods. That there was no vehicle.”

“The area was thoroughly searched,” he said, shaking his head stubbornly. “I was there myself. If they were on foot like you say, they couldn’t have gotten far enough to hide by the time search teams descended.”

“Unless they hid somewhere.”

Someplace dark and quiet, she thought. Deep beneath the ground, a hole, tunnel. Finley could see it, her consciousness wobbling. The girl could hear the sound of the people searching, yelling, moving clumsily through the trees. The dogs were barking, and voices calling. And she couldn’t yell, could barely breathe with his weight atop her, hand clamped over her mouth.

Help me. Help me. I’m here. The words pulsed through Finley, she found herself taking a labored breath as if there were a weight on top of her, too.

She expected Jones to argue that there was no place for them to hide, but she turned to him, he had the energy of consideration. He rubbed at his forehead as if an unwelcome thought had occurred.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I’m thinking about the mines,” he said.

North of The Hollows proper, up in the woods the land was laced throughout with abandoned iron mine tunnels. They were largely undocumented, few maps existing, but an acknowledged hazard locally. Every summer, some kid fell through the ground or got lost after having snuck in one of the openings. There had been several fatalities over the years, broken limbs, frantic days of searching. Many of the openings were marked, and vulnerable areas, where the infrastructures beneath the ground were giving way, were cordoned off when discovered. There were rumors among the local kids about people living down there. And a couple of years back, a fugitive had successfully hidden there for weeks.

“Where’s the nearest opening to the trail?” asked Finley. She buried her frozen fingers deep under her thighs. This was it. Winter was coming. She was going to be too cold for months. A darkness crept into her spirit.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But if there was a mine opening up there, I bet it was searched. It’s no secret. People have hid out down there before.”

“Let’s go there now,” she said, leaning forward. She had her phone out, was Googling “iron mines in The Hollows New York.” There were several news stories about injured and missing kids, the hazards of abandoned mines around the tristate area, historic tours, how they were a spelunker’s (dangerous, deadly) paradise.

He held up a palm.

“If we head up to the mines, we need a team and the right equipment. We need to let someone know where we’re going. Let me talk to Chuck Ferrigno first, and we’ll go from there. Maybe he can spare someone. There’s no point in going off half-cocked. You just make a mess of things.”

She’d heard this advice before, many times. It’s what grown-ups always said, not that she wasn’t a grown-up. But Jones Cooper was way more of a grown-up than Finley could hope to be. She exhaled sharply with frustration.

“But what if there’s something there? Something that was missed.”

“Then it will be there in the morning when we come with enough people and the right equipment.”

“What if it’s too late then?” she asked. A niggling urgency pushed her forward in her seat.

“This is a cold case, kid,” he said.

“Meaning what? That it doesn’t matter? That there’s no ticking clock? What if there is, though? Merri Gleason said that she felt Abbey’s life force, that time was running out.”