Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
Morgan stood still just inside the entrance to the cave.
She was standing on a narrow ledge. The torch light had illuminated it, thankfully, because if she’d walked a couple of steps further, it dropped sharply by a couple of feet onto the cave floor, and she’d have hurt herself.
Luckily, she hadn’t been reckless and gone striding inside without making sure there was something to stand on as she’d dragged her foot through the opening.
She shone the torch around. The cave was partially filled with rocks.
Though there were little pockets of openings further back, it didn’t look as if anyone had been inside of here recently.
There was graffiti on one wall, which made her question who went to all this bother to spray paint their name on a cave wall nobody would ever see.
‘Scarlett, Janey, it’s the police,’ she shouted, and her voice echoed around from every direction.
Morgan stood still, listening for a reply, but none came.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not.
She’d hoped they were in here but knew by how hard it had been to climb through the gap that they couldn’t be.
Not unless there was another entrance that led to it further along.
Her shoulders sagged and she felt totally deflated.
She shone her torch around on the floor one last time.
The light picked up on something glinting near to one of the dark, open spaces.
Looking for the safest way down, she began to climb. She had to jump the last bit and landed on the floor with such a thud it sent shockwaves through her ankle that she’d badly sprained last year. She gritted her teeth and shook it until the pain eased off, cursing under her breath.
The floor was dry, and her boots crunched on the loose stones underfoot.
She kept her beam of light on the thing that had caught her eye and bent down to take a look.
It was a silver charm bracelet and way out of place in here.
She took out her phone and photographed it, then tugged a pair of gloves out of her pocket and felt around for an evidence bag.
She didn’t have one, but she did have one last spare glove.
She opened it and then picked the bracelet up, dropping it inside.
That would have to do. It was better than nothing; she couldn’t leave it here.
Though she was unsure if either Janey or Scarlett had been wearing one at the time of their disappearance, it didn’t matter.
She would find out. Knotting the glove, she pushed it deep into her pocket and straightened up.
‘Janey, Scarlett, are you in there?’ She shouted into the blackness, but the only noise she heard was the echo of her own voice.
‘Morgan.’ Ernie’s voice faintly called to her, and she realised he must be trying to come in.
‘I’m coming, it’s okay,’ she yelled back, feeling bad that she’d taken longer than he’d probably anticipated and was likely starting to panic.
She made her way back to the entrance, climbing up the ledge and squeezed her way through to get to the outside. It was so bright out here in the glare of the winter sun she had to squeeze her eyes shut and shield them with her hand.
‘Thank God you’re okay, I was starting to panic. You were in there ages.’
‘I was?’
He nodded, and she realised that what had seemed like a couple of minutes to her had most likely felt like an hour to him. ‘Sorry, I had to double check.’
‘No, I’m just glad you’re okay. Find anything?’
She looked at the entrance and realised that for her to have heard Ernie’s voice he must have had to squeeze his way through, but he’d got himself out of there pretty fast for a guy with a bad back. She shook her head. ‘No, I was just double checking.’
‘That’s a shame.’
She nodded. ‘Thanks for showing me though, I really appreciate it. We better get back; Ben will be beside himself wondering what’s taking so long.’
She didn’t tell Ernie that nobody knew she was here, alone. Had he lied to her about his back, or had he pushed through that awkward, narrow entrance because he thought that she might need his help? Either way it unsettled her a little bit and she began to climb back up to get to the top.
‘Do you need a hand, Ernie? Can you manage okay?’
‘No, I’m good. Thanks.’
Going up was a lot easier than going down and she reached the top much faster, Turning around expecting to see him still near to the bottom, he was directly behind her.
She still had an uneasy feeling that maybe he had lied to her about having a bad back, but why would he do that?
Unless he was afraid to go into the cave?
She didn’t know what was going on with him, but she did know that when she got to the safety of her car she was going to do a little digging around into his background. She owed it to her aunt Ettie to make sure she was safe with the man she was obviously falling for.