My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(98)

“You’re f*cking delusional. You murdered her.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No. I loved her. They murdered her—Calloway and your father, with all their lying. They didn’t leave me a choice. With the dam going online, they forced me to do it. I didn’t want to do it, but big-shot Calloway wouldn’t let it go.”





[page]CHAPTER 63





Sarah lifted her head when she heard the squeak of the gate echo down the mine. He’d come back sooner than she’d expected. Usually the light died completely before he returned, but the bulb was still emitting a dull-yellow glow.

She hurried to finish what she was doing, picking up bits of the concrete and sweeping the dust into the hole she’d made. The light from the single bulb continued to grow weaker and she could not see well enough to be certain she’d found each piece, but she also didn’t have time to keep looking. She put the stake in the hole and refilled it with dirt, tamping it flat.

The door in the wall pushed open as she shifted the carpet back in place, moved to sit with her back to the wall, and picked up the paperback he’d brought for her. Edmund House stepped in, set a plastic bag on a folding table, and cranked the generator handle. The filament brightened, making her squint.

House turned. He seemed to take longer than usual to consider her. His eyes shifted to the piece of carpet on the ground, and in the light she could see that she had not replaced it squarely in the same location it had been.

“What have you been doing?” he asked.

She shrugged and held up a paperback. “What can I do? I’ve read every book twice. Kind of spoils the story when you already know the ending anyway.”

“You complaining?”

“No, just saying, you know. Maybe it would be nice to get a couple new ones.”

By her calculations, it had been seven weeks since he’d brought her here. It was difficult to keep track of the days without any windows, but she used him as her clock. She put a scratch in the wall each time he came back, which she figured to be a new day. He’d taken her on Saturday, August 21. If she’d calculated correctly, it was now Monday, October 11.

A month into her captivity, she’d found a metal spike partially buried at the base of a vertical beam. She figured they used it to put in the tracks for the mining carts to haul the silver out of the mine. Ten inches long, it had a flat end that must have been used to hammer it into the ground. She’d been using it to chip at the concrete around the metal plate he’d bolted to the wall. The plate’s bolts had some play in them that allowed her to dig behind the plate so he wouldn’t notice. If she could loosen the plate enough, she might be able to yank it free of the wall.

“Did you get the supplies?” she asked.

He shook his head. He looked distracted, sad. Like a little boy.

“Why not?”

He leaned against the table, the muscles in his arms prominent. “Chief Calloway came back again.”

She felt the flicker of hope but tamped it down. “What did that * want this time?”

“He says he has a witness.”

“Really?”

“That’s what he says. He says he has a witness who will say he saw you and me on the county road together. I don’t remember anyone. Do you?”

She shook her head. “Not that I remember.”

He pushed away from the table, approaching, his voice becoming angry. “He’s lying. I know he’s lying, but he says he has one and that his testimony is going to be enough to get a search warrant. What do you think he’s going to find?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. You said you were careful.”

He reached out and touched the side of her face with his fingertips. She fought the impulse to flinch and pull away. It only made him angry. “You know what I think?”

She shook her head.

“I think I’m being set up.” He dropped his hand and walked away. “If they made up the witness, they’ll likely make up some evidence to try me. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“It means this could be the last time we see each other.”

She felt a wave of anxiety. “They won’t catch you. You’re too smart. You outsmarted them.”

“Not if they cheat.” He sighed and shook his head. “I told Calloway he could go f*ck himself. I told him that I’d already raped and killed you and buried you in the mountains.”

“Why would you tell him that?”

“Fuck him,” he said, now pacing, voice rising. “He can’t prove it, so let him live with that on his conscience the rest of his life. I told him I’d never tell him where I buried your body.” He started laughing. “You want to know the best part?”

“What?” she said, feeling more and more anxious.

“He wasn’t recording the conversation. It was just the two of us. He has no proof that I said anything.”

“We could leave,” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “We could go someplace together, disappear.”

“Yeah, I thought of that,” he said. He pulled clothes from the plastic bag. She recognized her shirt and jeans. She thought he’d burned them.

“I washed them for you,” he said.