Page 11 of Silent Past
Kelly nodded, her hands tightening around the thermal blanket. "She looked peaceful, almost. Like she was sleeping. Until we got closer and saw..." She trailed off.
"Did you see anyone else?" Finn asked. "Hear anything?"
"No," Mike said. "But those caves, they play tricks on you. Sound echoes strangely. And there are so many passages, so many places to hide."
Sheila leaned forward. "The rope being cut—when did you discover that?"
"We'd been down there only a short while," Kelly said. "When we tried to leave..." She shuddered. "Someone had to have been watching us. Waiting."
"How well do you know the cave system?" Sheila asked.
"Pretty well," Mike said. "We've been studying the old surveys, marking new formations. There are dozens of unexplored passages down there."
"Look," Kelly burst out, sitting up straighter despite her exhaustion. "I know we shouldn't have been in there. But we're professionals. We took every safety precaution, we had backup plans—"
"Except for someone cutting your rope," Finn said quietly.
Kelly's face flushed. "We couldn't have anticipated that. But we're not some amateur thrill-seekers. I have certification in advanced cave rescue, Mike's an experienced climbing instructor—"
Sheila held up a hand. "Ms. Bishop, you don't need to defend yourself. I don't care about the cave restrictions right now. There's a murdered woman down there, wrapped in ceremonial garments, arranged like some kind of ritual burial. And someone tried to make sure you'd never tell anyone about finding her. That's what matters to me."
Mike ran a hand through his dust-covered hair. "We should've reported it right away instead of trying to document everything first. Maybe if we'd—"
"Then you might both be dead," Sheila cut in. "Our killer was counting on having more time. The fact that you survived might be our best chance of catching them."
Kelly pulled the thermal blanket tighter around her shoulders. "What do you mean?"
Sheila exchanged a look with Finn before turning back to the spelunkers. "I have a proposition for you. I suspect our killer probably didn't expect the body to be found so quickly. They might still be down there, using passages we don't know about."
"You want us to help search," Kelly said. It wasn't a question.
"With a full Search and Rescue team," Sheila assured them. "No one goes anywhere alone. You'd have radio contact, armed escorts. But your knowledge of the cave system could be invaluable."
Mike straightened. "When do we start?"
"You don't have to do this," Finn added. "You've been through enough already."
Kelly's jaw set in a determined line. "Someone tried to trap us down there to die. And that woman, Dr. Mitchell—she deserves justice. We'll help."
Sheila nodded, her respect growing for these two who'd faced death and were willing to go back into the darkness. "Give the medics another hour to check you over. Then we'll gear up and head back in."
As she and Finn walked away to coordinate with Search and Rescue, he spoke quietly. "You sure about this?"
"No," she admitted. "But they're right—those caves are a maze. And right now, they're our best chance of finding wherever our killer's been hiding."
CHAPTER FOUR
"We should check her workspace," Sheila said as she pulled into the parking lot of the University of Utah's Anthropology Department. The red brick building rose before them, its windows reflecting the late morning sunlight. "Someone who took this much care staging her body might have been following her work."
Finn nodded, unbuckling his seat belt. "The traditional burial arrangement wasn't random. Either our killer studied indigenous practices..."
"Or they knew what Mitchell was studying," Sheila finished.
The anthropology building sat at the edge of campus, bordered by evergreens that rustled in the October wind. Students hurried past, wrapped in scarves and jackets, clutching coffee cups and backpacks. The normalcy of the scene felt jarring after the eerie quiet of the ice caves.
Inside, the building smelled of old books and floor polish. A directory on the wall pointed them to the third floor: "Cultural Anthropology & Indigenous Studies." The elevator hummed as it carried them up.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Finn asked.
