“You scared of the dark?” She looked at him with a teasing smirk. “It’s good to know that even a tough guy like you has a weakness.”
It wasn’t the dark he was afraid of. No...it was the fear of the world collapsing in around him. He’d already had it happen once when his marriage ended. He wasn’t about to open himself up to such a failure again.
He glanced over at her, catching her gaze. “We all have weaknesses.”
She slipped slightly, catching herself with the help of the branch of a small pine.
He took her hand. Her sweaty fingers gripped his just long enough for her to get her feet under her, but she quickly let go to brush herself off.
“Ha!” she said, her cheeks turning a light shade of red. “I guess my weakness is walking.”
Jeremy laughed, the sound out of place in the quiet, stunted forest. For a moment he considered holding her hand the rest of the way down to the mouth of the mine, but she didn’t seem like the type who wanted help, and he couldn’t just elbow his way into her life—she wasn’t his wife. She wasn’t anything but a former crush. In truth, he didn’t know her anymore. All he really knew was that she had her daughter, her mother and a job that, when she spoke of it, made her entire body tense.
He motioned for her to take the lead, admittedly because he wanted to watch her butt but ostensibly so he could make sure she was safe as she steadily made her way down the hill. He wasn’t disappointed as he watched her. She moved with a quiet grace, smooth and steady as she carefully picked her way between the granite boulders as they headed into the maw of the earth.
Blake took out her flashlight and clicked it on. “Is this it?” she asked, motioning toward the dark, cavelike entrance.
In truth, it had been years since he’d been to the mine. The last time he’d been there the opening had been easily identifiable. Yet as she flashed her light downward, all he could make out were mounds of pegmatite-rich, reddish dirt.
“It should be here. Right here.” He frowned. Grabbing his phone, he clicked on the light and moved into the muddy hole. “There should be a way in here.” He prodded around, but the ground that filled the entrance shaft was as solid and compact as cement.
“Are you sure this is the place?” Blake asked.
“I thought so.”
There was something wrong. The dirt in the entrance was wet, but it hadn’t rained in a month. And even though the dirt that filled the shaft’s entrance was compact, the ground under their feet was loose, compressing as he shifted his weight. It had to have been freshly exposed.
He took a step forward. His toe caught on a loose rock, tripping him. He shone his light at the ground. Beneath the cobble that littered the area was a crushed lantern—the lantern Robert hung on the entrance of the mine any time he was underground.
“You don’t think—” Blake started.
Jeremy stopped her with a raise of his hand. He couldn’t stand hearing what he already knew—the mine had collapsed.
He prayed Robert wasn’t inside, but the lamp told him all he needed to know. Robert was trapped, and there was only a slight chance he could still be alive.
The insides of Jeremy’s hands where covered in blisters. Dirt caked his nails, and his knuckles were bloody where he had torn them against the earth, but the job of freeing his brother had been too big for one man.
Blake watched the firefighters milling around outside the mine, taking a break from their attempts to break through the concrete-like blockade that filled its entrance. They had been at it for hours. They’d finally gotten an excavator on-site and received the go-ahead to start a full excavation. From the look on Jeremy’s face, it had already taken too long.
Blake walked up the hill toward Robert’s house and motioned for Jeremy to follow.
Jeremy walked beside her, his movement slow and numb. She had to do something, anything to help. For the second time that day, she felt powerless in her inability to control the events that swirled around them.
“Have you asked your parents if they’ve heard anything from Robert? Maybe he’s tried to call?” As soon as the words left her lips, she knew they were in vain. Of course he couldn’t call, but she had to say something to make the agonizing look on Jeremy’s face disappear.
“There’s no cell service in the mine—I can guarantee it.” His eyes darkened, and his face tightened, the sexy lines around his eyes deepening. “Besides, there’s no use in getting them up in arms. If we call them, they’ll ask too many questions.”
He was right. There was no sense alerting his parents that something was amiss if this was some kind of wild-goose chase. She could just imagine her mother getting a similar call. In a matter of minutes, Gemma West would have been on the scene and attempting to tell the crew exactly how they should be doing their jobs. No, family could wait.
She stepped up onto the porch and pressed her face against the window in the door. Inside Robert’s one-room cabin was an open sofa bed and a wood-burning fireplace. The walls were covered in pictures of elk and bear, and a mounted trout hung over the kitchen window. A gun rack hung over the bed, and a small-caliber rifle sat nestled in its grips. It was as if the place had been intentionally stripped of all things feminine.
“Do you think it’s possible Tiffany left him?” she asked.
Jeremy shrugged, staring ahead as if he was lost deep in thought.
“Is this what the house looked like the last time you were here?”
“What do you mean?” Jeremy moved beside her and peered inside.
“I...uh... I just mean I don’t see anything of Tiffany’s. Wouldn’t you think if she was still living here you’d at least see a stray hair tie or something? It’s almost like there hasn’t been a woman here in a long time.”
“Robert and Tiffany...” Jeremy gave a tired sigh. “They have more issues than National Geographic. They’re constantly at each other’s throats. If she left, good for her. It’s the best for both of them.”
Robert’s personal life was in shambles. Could that have meant he would have wanted to end things? As a miner, he had everything he needed to cave in the mine’s entrance. Maybe it had been his way of never being found.
On the table underneath the window was a ledger. She squinted through the glass as she tried to make out the penciled notes. She read the most recent one scrawled onto the time sheets.
September 23 Time in: 06:30 Time out:
The time out sat empty, echoing all the things it could possibly mean—or the one thing she feared most.
“Was your brother having any other issues? Anything going on as far as his mental health is concerned?”
Jeremy stepped around to the bay window and peered in through the glass. “My mother said he’s been agitated
