She bobbed her head again, her eyes filled with terror. He wanted to yell, to claw at something, to run out into the woods right this second and start screaming bloody murder for Haddie to please, please come home. And he knew what he was feeling was nothing compared to what Scarlett was experiencing.
He’d only dialed three digits when the door swung open. They both whipped around to see Haddie, disheveled and covered in dirt, the hem of her dress mostly detached and hanging down around her dusty calves, standing in the doorway.
Scarlett let out a strangled yelp, flying to where Haddie stood and going down on her knees in front of her. For a moment, Camden watched as Scarlett ran her hands over Haddie’s face, over her head, down her shoulders and over her hips, her hands visibly shaking as she checked her child for injury.
“Mommy,” the little girl said, and her voice was surprisingly strong and clear.
“Haddie, Haddie,” Scarlett repeated over and over. She drew her into her arms, clinging to her for a moment before pulling back. “Where were you, baby? What happened? Did you get lost?”
Haddie glanced up at Camden, her gaze lingering on him for several beats, a wariness coming into her eyes before she looked back to her mother. “Bones, Mommy,” she said breathlessly. “I found bones.”
**********
The sky was smudged with shades of pink and amber, the sun a pale ring in the morning sky when Camden pushed the vegetation aside, startled to see, not the rocky side of the cliff as he expected, but instead the opening of a cave. He leaned away, looking up to where Scarlett lay at the edge, peering over to where he’d carefully lowered himself, and then slowly, painstakingly made his way down the very narrow path to the ledge below.
Haddie sat several feet safely behind her mother, having directed them through the forest and to the hidden opening where she’d seen the bones. She’d been insistent on leading them back to this spot, but Scarlett had been even more insistent that they get her cleaned up and wait until daybreak to make the long trip through the woods. “There’s an opening here,” he called up to Scarlett. “Just like she said.” How had she known? From the top, it looked just like any number of other small ledges on the basin of this deep canyon, bristly brush growing from a crack in the rock.
Scarlett nodded, her eyes wide. “Can you see them?” she called. “The bones?”
A noise distracted him and Cam turned, gazing in the opposite direction, the soft sound of what he thought was a drumbeat coming from nearby. He’d heard that sound before, remembered it from his childhood. He felt watched. His head turned in the other direction, and then slowly returned to Scarlett. “I’m going inside,” he said.
“Please be careful.”
He nodded once, and then moved the brush aside again, crawling into the cliffside cave. He saw the bones immediately, just as Haddie must have, dark red fabric, rotted and falling apart, only partially covering the skeleton. Camden swallowed, sadness welling up inside of him. It was a Lilith school uniform. She had been one of its girls.
Kandace, it had to be Kandace.
He crawled forward, kneeling next to her for a moment, bowing his head. He didn’t know what to say, though he had this sense she was listening. “Thank you,” was all he could manage. For noticing us. For caring. For trying so hard to do the right thing.
How had she died? He’d heard the staff whispering later. They’d said she escaped. Were they lying? Had her body been hidden here? Or had she somehow managed to find this opening as Haddie had? Did she crawl inside this space to hide? To die?
His gaze shifted as he looked around the cave, trying to spy the leather bag he’d taken for her, the one she was going to use to carry the files. Camden, walking on his knees, moved around her bones, giving as wide a berth as possible, cognizant that this was a crime scene, but also mindful that Kandace had given her life for the proof in that satchel, and he was not going to leave it behind if it was here. “Where did you put it?” he murmured? Or had it been taken from her?
He heard Scarlett call his name again, but crawled forward, the light growing dimmer the farther he ventured. He stopped for a moment, his eyes adjusting, Camden stopping short when he saw what lay at the far end of the cave.
Two more sets of bones. These ones far more ancient, any clothes they’d once worn, disintegrated to dust. He let out a harsh exhale. The bones appeared to belong to a man and a woman, turned toward each other, bodies close, fingers laced. They’d died in a lovers’ embrace.
It couldn’t be . . . but it had to be.
Taluta and her warrior?
The air left Camden and he turned back. He had to get out of this small space where so much death had occurred. He crawled past Kandace, pushing the brush aside, and pulling himself carefully from the cave, onto the small ledge.
“Thank God,” he heard Scarlett say from above. “You worried me.”
He walked up the path, his heart stopping each time he slid a bit, causing gravel and dirt to fall over the edge into the abyss below. He didn’t even want to think about the fact that a tiny girl like Haddie had made this climb as well. He still couldn’t fathom how or why she’d decided to look in the spot where so many bones waited to be found.
Scarlett had scooted back and Camden hoisted himself up and over the edge, pulling himself to his knees, and brushing the dust from his shirt. She moved forward, grasping him, holding on tightly, her heart beating as swiftly as his. He gripped her back and they stayed that way for a moment, clutching each other on the side of the cliff. When she pulled away, she asked softly, “It’s her, isn’t it?”
“I think so, yes.”
Scarlett’s shoulders dropped and she let out a soft moan. “My God. All this time.”
Haddie approached, looking behind Camden where he’d sworn he’d heard the soft sound of a drum. Whatever animal or peculiarity of nature made that echoing rumble hadn’t changed or gone away in the thirteen years he’d been gone. “You found them,” Haddie stated.
Scarlett turned, gathering her daughter to her. “Yes, baby, we did.” She took her face in her hands and leaned her forehead on hers. “I didn’t realize that canyon was so deep.” She shivered visibly and her voice broke as she said, “You could have been badly hurt.”
“I had to, Mommy,” Haddie whispered. “I felt them there.”
Camden frowned, wondering what the little girl meant by that, but Scarlett simply released a slow exhale, seemingly unsurprised by the comment, if not confused.
Camden walked forward, going down on one knee in front of Haddie. Scarlett glanced at him questioningly but moved aside. He smiled at the child. She looked like Scarlett, except for her coloring, and those wide, almond-shaped eyes that somehow seemed young and ancient all at once.
“Haddie, can I ask what you mean when you say you could feel them there?” He could sense Scarlett’s eyes on him, and her wariness. It comforted him. She would step in and let him know if his questions were out of line, or if he risked scaring the little girl.
Haddie glanced at her mother and then back to Camden. “Some people . . . or places feel heavy like . . .” She scrunched her nose and looked off to the sky behind him. “Like a storm is coming, only on the inside. In my bones.”