The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(58)

Slater moved to stand behind her. He added the beam of his flashlight to hers.

“If there are bodies, there’s no rush to find them,” he said. “This is the most significant discovery the Foundation has ever made. We need to get a team in here to secure the artifacts and any data that was left behind.”

“Good luck with that.”

He glanced at her and saw that her eyes were narrowed and her jaw was rigid.

“You think the good citizens of Fogg Lake will have a problem with the idea of the Foundation sending a team to this site?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Look on the bright side. It will give Uncle Victor a chance to sharpen his people skills.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We’ll let him figure it out later. Right now we have to secure this place.”

“And find Olivia. Time is running out for her, Slater.”

“Now that we know why they grabbed her, we’ve got what we need to set a trap.”

Catalina turned to look at him. “How do we do that?”

“We go back to the beginning of this thing and figure out who in Fogg Lake helped Morrissey’s killer get in and out of town unseen.”

“What makes you think the person is still in town?”

“I don’t know if he or she is still around but I am sure that the individual was here fifteen years ago. This is a small community. It won’t be hard to narrow down the list of suspects, and then we can start eliminating them.”

“You said earlier that the accomplice might be someone who knew the area but wasn’t living here at the time,” Catalina reminded him.

“That’s still a possibility, but after seeing this place I think it’s far more likely that the accomplice was a resident when Morrissey and the killer arrived. What’s more, I think that individual was still around the next morning when you and Olivia came out of the caves.”

“Why?”

“From an operational point of view, there was a lot of planning involved by someone who was intimately familiar with the area around Fogg Lake. That person had to meet Morrissey and the killer somewhere on the old highway and guide them to the cavern. That individual also had to secure a boat and return it without anyone knowing it had gone missing. The accomplice was still in town the next morning and in a position to learn that you and Olivia had survived but that everyone thought you had hallucinated the murder. That person also may have cleaned up the crime scene, just to make sure there was no evidence left behind.”

“I agree that the accomplice was well acquainted with the terrain and the dangers in this area. I just don’t understand why you’re so sure that the accomplice was someone who was living in town when the murder went down.”

“I told you, I can’t be absolutely positive,” Slater said. “I’m going with what feels like a probable scenario. But there is one more piece of evidence I can offer.”

“What is that?”

“You said that when the search party showed up, you and Olivia told everyone about the murder. You also described the ruins of the generator chamber.”

“The Devil’s Ballroom.” Catalina watched him closely. “Right.”

“You said you stopped talking about it because people told you it was just a hallucination. But at first you must have provided a lot of details.”

“So?”

“As you keep pointing out, it’s been fifteen years since you witnessed Morrissey’s murder. Now, after all this time, someone has come looking for you and Olivia. I think something happened recently that made the accomplice realize you and your friend didn’t hallucinate the Devil’s Ballroom. I think that person has figured out that you and Olivia LeClair actually did find a critical part of the Fogg Lake lab.”

Catalina took a breath. “You believe that only someone who was in town immediately after Olivia and I got out of the caves would have heard our detailed description.”

“Yes. You said the two of you stopped talking about what you had seen when your parents and the other adults in the community told you it was all a vivid hallucination.”

“Olivia and I were all about passing for normal in those days—about showing that we had control. But that doesn’t mean that someone who heard us describe the chamber at the time didn’t tell someone else later, someone who recognized the description when they came across some evidence fifteen years later.”

“That’s a stretch,” Slater said. “Not an impossibility, but a stretch. The logical assumption is that the accomplice was here the morning you and Olivia got out of the caves. Whoever it was heard every detail and remembered it.”

She nodded. “Where do we go with that information?”

“Nowhere,” Slater said. “We stay in Fogg Lake.”

Catalina eyed him with grim determination. “How are we going to find Olivia if we hide out here?”

“Think about it, Catalina. If the kidnappers expect Olivia to lead them to the Devil’s Ballroom, they will have to bring her here. Best guess? They’ve got her stashed somewhere nearby in the caves.”

Catalina stared at him, stunned. “The cave system has never been mapped. They could hide a hundred captives indefinitely in these tunnels.”

“Not if they want to find the Devil’s Ballroom. Sooner or later the kidnappers will have to make their move.”