17. What The Ground Holds #2
“No, and we’re not doing one. This could be a major crime scene. We establish what’s there without destroying what a forensic team will eventually need.”
“Assuming Perry doesn’t interfere,” Jax says.
“That’s why everything gets duplicated.” Shane looks at Angus. “I want discreet security cameras around the perimeter. Every approach, vehicle track, anything that warns us someone’s been near the site.”
Angus nods. “Easy enough.”
“If Perry or Lockhart sends anyone in after us, I want them recorded before they get close enough to touch anything.”
Shane closes the case.
“If something has to be moved to protect it, we document it first. Otherwise, it stays where it is.”
“And the photographs?” I ask.
“Copied off-site as we go. Victor gets one set. Felicity gets another.”
Steve nods. “Perry can take every phone in Manitoba and it won’t help him.”
“Exactly.”
Shane looks down at the photograph of the bone.
“We’re not going out there to prove how many people are buried on that land today.”
The room goes quiet.
“We’re going out there to preserve enough evidence that nobody gets to pretend there aren’t any.”
Abandoned Lockhart Mine, Northern Manitoba. 1530 hours.
Shane stops us before we reach the adit.
“From here, nobody touches anything unless I say so.”
He opens his notebook and starts the scene log. Date. Time. Coordinates. Everyone present.
Steve, Jan, Angus, Jax, Honor, Shane and Kai.
He glances at Maskwa.
Kai raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“He found it.”
“Maskwa.”
Shane writes his name down.
Then we move.
Kai keeps Maskwa on a lead as the dog takes us straight back to the rise beside the collapsed adit.
Shane photographs the approach before Kai points out the patch of snow Maskwa disturbed earlier.
“Bone was there?”
“Right there.”
Shane marks the location and records the coordinates.
“We look. We photograph. We don’t dig.”
Once we start searching, the ground changes.
What seemed like natural rises and hollows earlier looks different now that we know what’s beneath one of them.
Kai points out another depression. Then another.
I crouch where wind has stripped snow from a section of frozen earth.
Something pale protrudes through it.
“Shane.”
He photographs it before I move closer.
I study only what’s exposed.
“Human. Part of a long bone.”
“Can you identify which one?”
“Not without disturbing it.”
“Then we leave it.”
Another marker goes down.
We find two more exposed fragments within twenty minutes, far enough apart that even Shane stops treating this as a single burial.
He lifts his phone and records the observation.
“Multiple suspected graves. That’s all we establish today.”
Maskwa pulls suddenly against the lead.
Kai turns with him. “What is it, boy?”
The dog moves toward the collapsed mine workings, then veers along the rise into the trees.
We follow. Rotting timbers break through the snow ahead.
Maskwa stops.
So does Shane.
“Everybody stay there.”
A dark opening cuts through the white.
An old vertical shaft.
Shane approaches carefully and crouches well back from the edge, using the camera zoom rather than leaning over it.
His expression changes.
“Janice.”
I follow his footprints when he waves me forward.
“Don’t go any closer.”
I look down at the image on his phone.
Timber. Rock. Snow collected on ledges below.
Then I see the skull. Farther down, more bone. Fabric still wrapped around part of a skeleton.
Another shape beneath it. My stomach turns.
“Human,” I say.
“More than one?”
I make myself look again.
“At least three from what I can see. Maybe more.”
Kai takes a step forward. Shane blocks him.
“No.”
Kai’s eyes stay on the opening. “My sister disappeared five years ago.”
“I know.”
“I need to see.”
“And if you disturb something that eventually identifies élodie?”
That stops him.
Shane holds his gaze. “You’re former RCMP. You know what happens if we compromise this scene.” His voice softens. “I’ll let you see every photo I take. Safest way for now, okay?”
Kai steps back.
“Yeah.”
Honor moves closer and rests her hand on his arm. Maskwa presses against his leg.
Shane photographs and videos the shaft from several positions.
The remains below look different from the fragments around the older burial areas. More complete. Clothing still present.
More recent.
Someone didn’t bury these women. Maybe the ground was frozen too hard. Maybe digging became inconvenient.
Either possibility makes me sick.
“No one goes down,” Shane says. “Recovery needs a proper forensic team.”
Steve stares toward the opening. “How recent?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Neither can I,” I say. “But more recent than some of what we’ve seen in the ground.”
Five years could be down there. Kai knows it too.
Nobody says élodie’s name again.
Shane records the shaft dimensions and coordinates while Angus and Jax begin marking the wider perimeter.
Every photograph is duplicated as we work. Victor gets one set. Felicity gets another. The originals remain untouched.
I look across the uneven ground and toward the shaft.
We came back expecting to confirm a grave.
Instead, we’ve found evidence of multiple burials and a shaft containing more women who were simply thrown away.
We don’t know how many are here.
We don’t even know their names.
Yet.
Abandoned Lockhart Mine, Northern Manitoba. 1645 hours.
Shane and I make one final circuit of the marked area before we leave.
He records each location while I identify only what can be confirmed without moving anything.
A partial long bone exposed by wind.
Fragments visible through frozen soil.
The middle phalanx Maskwa found earlier.
The shaft.
Everything gets a number, coordinates and photographs from more than one angle.
No guesses. No names. No digging.
Shane lifts his phone and dictates another entry while I stand beside the latest marker.
“Visible human skeletal material. Location recorded. No recovery attempted.”
I look across the uneven snow.
Maya’s words keep coming back to me.
Women moved between sites. Remote buildings. Locked doors.
Men who treated access to women as another privilege of working for Lockhart.
Some women disappeared afterward.
Now we’re standing beside an abandoned Lockhart mine with human remains surfacing through the snow.
Maya survived whatever they did to her. Others clearly didn’t.
Her testimony doesn’t tell us who ended up here, but it gives us a living account of the system that moved women between remote sites and made them disappear.
Shane lowers his phone.
“You okay?”
“No.”
He gives me a small nod. “Understandable.”
Steve approaches with his satellite phone in one hand.
“Victor has the full upload. Felicity confirmed her copy too.”
Shane looks at him. “Originals?”
“Still on the devices.”
“Keep them that way.”
Angus comes through the trees behind him. “Cameras are nearly done.”
Jax’s voice follows over the comms.
“Last one’s live now.”
Shane looks toward the approaches we used earlier. “Coverage?”
“Road, adit approach, forestry spur and the ridge,” Angus says. “Anyone comes near this place, we’ll know.”
“Excellent.”
If Perry or Lockhart sends someone here after we leave, they won’t be able to reach the site unseen.
Kai stands farther back with Honor and Maskwa. He hasn’t looked toward the shaft again.
I don’t blame him. Five years is recent enough to make every visible bone a possibility he doesn’t want to consider. Honor keeps one hand on his arm.
I’m grateful she’s here.
Shane joins me beside the marked perimeter.
“We’ve established enough.”
I look at him. “Enough for what?”
“To prove this needs a full forensic recovery.”
My gaze moves toward the shaft.
“And if there are dozens down there?”
“Then a proper team recovers dozens.”
“Hundreds?”
His expression changes slightly.
“We don’t put a number on anything until someone qualified can establish one.”
He’s right. I hate that he’s right.
I look across the marked ground toward the shaft. What if this is only one site of many?
I shudder and push the thought away.
Until now, we’ve had names, records, payments and testimony.
This is different.
Human remains lie beneath Lockhart land.
We’re coming back with forensic specialists, DNA teams and recovery equipment. Whatever it takes to identify every woman here and return her to the people who never stopped wondering where she went.
Shane checks his final recording.
“Field log closed at sixteen forty-eight.”
Angus confirms the cameras are transmitting.
Steve confirms the evidence has reached two separate locations.
Kai calls Maskwa back to his side.
Then we leave the remains exactly where we found them, except now the site, every visible fragment and every coordinate exists in more than one record.