CHAPTER SEVEN
The caves felt different in darkness. Despite his years of combat training, Finn felt a flutter of unease as he checked his harness again before following Marcus Weber down the main passage, their headlamps cutting weak arcs through the blackness.
He glanced back at where Sheila stood at the entrance, coordinating with the other teams.
"You sure you don't want to come down?" he asked.
Sheila shook her head. "Someone needs to run point up here.
We've got four teams, the coroner's office calling with updates, and Martinez and her assistant to process at the station.
Better if I coordinate from above." She didn't add what they both knew—that having the sheriff trapped underground if something went wrong wouldn't help anyone.
"Stay in radio contact," she added, tapping her receiver.
Finn nodded and turned back to Marcus. The descent looked nothing like his F-35 training exercises, but that old familiar tension coiled in his gut—the good kind, the kind that had always kept him alert in the cockpit.
A voice crackled over the radio, unusually hesitant.
"Sheriff... Team Two found something. Kelly Bishop's group, in a lower chamber.
" He paused. "About two hundred feet down.
You're going to want to see this yourself.
" The way he emphasized 'this' made Finn's stomach tighten.
He'd heard that tone before—when officers found something they wished they hadn't.
"Guess I'd better check it out," Finn said.
The descent challenged him in ways his flight training never had. Ice made the ropes slick, and twice Finn had to stop to clear his headlamp of moisture. His compass necklace—the one that had saved his life in the air—swung uselessly against his chest as he navigated this underground world.
He thought of Mitchell, making this same journey days ago. Had she known what was waiting for her?
Kelly met them at the bottom of the rope line. Her face was pale in the artificial light, but her voice was steady. "It's through here. We almost missed it."
She led them through a narrow fissure that opened into a smaller chamber. The rest of her team was already there, lights positioned to illuminate what they'd found.
Signs of habitation were everywhere. A sleeping bag tucked into a natural stone alcove. The remnants of a camp stove. Empty protein bar wrappers and water bottles, neatly collected in a plastic bag.
"How long ago was someone here?" Finn asked, examining a makeshift shelf carved into the rock wall. It held basic supplies—matches, batteries, a first aid kit.
"Hard to tell in these conditions," Marcus replied. "The cold preserves everything. Could be days, could be weeks."
Kelly picked up a battery-powered lantern. "The batteries are dead. But it's a high-end model—the kind serious cavers use."
Finn studied the sleeping area. The bag was military-grade, designed for extreme conditions. A worn paperback lay nearby, its pages stiff with cold. He picked it up carefully—a text on indigenous archaeology.
"Professional," he said quietly. "Someone who knew how to survive down here. Knew what they were looking for."
The camp had been cleared systematically—no personal items left behind, nothing that could identify its occupant. Even the trash had been collected, ready to be packed out.
"They knew we'd find this," Kelly said, voicing what Finn was thinking. "They wanted us to know someone was living here."
"But not who," Finn added. "Then again, there's gotta be plenty of DNA in here.
We'll have to pack everything out, get it to the lab.
" Still, even as he thought this, he knew how long it could take to get results from a lab—weeks, sometimes longer.
It was important to do their due diligence, but he wasn't going to cross his fingers about a breakthrough.
His radio crackled. "Finn?" Sheila's voice carried a tension he recognized. "Head back up. Now. Mitchell's ex-husband just surfaced."
The climb back took longer than he wanted, each foot of rope a reminder of how deep they'd gone. When he finally emerged into weak daylight, Sheila was waiting by her vehicle, phone pressed to her ear.
"...need those records as soon as possible," she was saying. "Yes, I understand the warrant process, but— Thank you." She ended the call with barely contained frustration.
"What were you saying about the ex?" Finn asked, stripping off his climbing gear.
"Robert Watson. Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Berkeley." Sheila ran a hand through her hair. "The university confirmed he's been teaching classes there all semester. Including the day Tracy died."
"So he's not a suspect. But why are we just hearing about him now?"
"Because Tracy didn't list him as next of kin.
They divorced three years ago, and she went back to her maiden name—Mitchell.
The department head only mentioned him when I asked about her personal relationships.
" Sheila leaned against her vehicle. "But here's the interesting part—her car was found in the university parking lot, packed for her Colorado trip. "
"The University of Utah, you mean."
"Right."
Finn frowned, pondering this. "So she was planning to go."
"According to the campus security footage, she loaded her bags Tuesday morning. Then she got a call." Sheila's eyes met his. "Her phone's missing. Probably destroyed. I've got a warrant request in for her records, but..."
"That'll take time we don't have." Finn thought about the camp they'd found below. "The killer was waiting for her. Living down there, watching. But how did they know she'd find this place?"
"Maybe they led her to it." Sheila's voice was quiet. "Those emails Martinez showed you—Mitchell said she was meeting someone with 'special knowledge' of the site."
"But why here? Why the elaborate staging, the clothing?"
Sheila didn't answer immediately. The search teams were emerging from the cave now, their gear caked with ice. Kelly Bishop spoke quietly with Marcus, gesturing toward the entrance.
"The precision of the kill," Sheila said finally. "The camp setup. Whoever did this wasn't just familiar with the caves—they were trained. Professional."
"Military?" Finn suggested, thinking of his own training.
"Maybe."
"We need those phone records," Finn said. "And we need to know more about that meeting she was planning. Someone must have known where she was going."
"Martinez isn't telling us everything." Sheila watched Kelly's team pack up their gear. "And I'm betting Mitchell's ex-husband knows more than he's letting on, too."
"Berkeley's a long drive."
"Too long." She straightened. "But he might not be our best lead anyway. Mitchell was killed here, in territory she was just beginning to understand. But someone else has been here before. Someone who knows these caves well enough to live in them."
"These are all avenues of inquiry," Finn said. "But if there really was an earlier murder, then I think that's our best bet. We need to connect the murders, if we can."
Sheila nodded but said nothing.
They both looked toward the cave entrance, its dark mouth seeming to swallow the afternoon light. Somewhere in that darkness, answers waited. But for now, all they had were questions.
And the growing certainty that Tracy Mitchell's death was just the beginning.