Chapter 28
chapter
twenty-eight
MILES
We’ve always had the best luck at night. Something about darkness makes the world feel older. Quieter. Less interested in performing for us. Shapes soften. Certainty slips a little. The things hiding in plain sight stop competing with noise.
As the sun sets, the red cliffs lose their sharpness, softening into charcoal shapes against a bruised sky, streaked violet and silver. Wind moves low through rabbitbrush, carrying dust and something colder rising from underground.
The kind of cold caves keep for themselves.
We move mostly in silence.
Each of us has our roles assigned, working as part of the whole.
Jax’s drone buzzes faintly overhead like a mechanical insect against the dark, ready to pick up the thermal signals.
Maya is staying near him as his spotter and running point on comms, monitoring all of the systems. We’re all wired in so we can communicate.
Behind us somewhere, the 4Runner idles along a service path, staying parallel when terrain allows while maintaining some distance.
Taylor is driving and Owen is her copilot, his red flashlight illuminating his maps.
Daisy and I are on foot so we can get into the cave system safely with each other as a spotter.
Maya’s voice crackles through my radio.
“Thermal’s still weird.” Her tone stays clinical as if nothing is amiss. Which means something definitely is.
“What kind of weird?” I hear Owen ask.
Pause. Then: “Annoying-weird.”
We hear Jax ask behind her. “Professionally or spiritually?”
“Shut up and keep flying,” Maya chides.
“Copy.” He laughs it off.
Beside me, Daisy adjusts the strap of her pack. Headlamp around her neck. Hair pulled into a messy ponytail. Dust already streaked across one cheek. Beautiful in a way that feels uniquely her. She fits here.
Her hand brushes mine as the trail narrows. It’s an accident, but I grab her hand anyway as we continue deeper into the moonlit brush. Stars begin appearing one by one overhead, violent in their clarity. No city haze. No noise. Just sky.
I used to think this feeling was excitement. The electric anticipation before we wrap a case. Before closure. But this feels heavier. Like standing outside a church you aren’t sure you should be allowed to enter.
The cave system reveals itself slowly as we approach. There are multiple openings carved by water into sandstone fifty feet above the wash, hidden beneath overhangs and brush, jagged and black against moonlit rock.
Daisy lets out a low whistle as we stand at the foot of the sandstone shelf, looking up at the cave mouths.
“Cool, right?” I whisper.
“If by cool, you mean murdery vibes, then yes. I’m into it.”
I smile despite myself. Her shoulder brushes mine again. This time it’s deliberate.
Maya crackles through the radio.
“We’re still not picking up anything on thermals or movement tracking. You ready to check the caves?”
I glance toward the nearest opening. Absolute black. The kind that swallows shape. It’s a short hike up the shelf, tucked under a crooked overhang and hidden by scrub.
A shiver runs over me. Excitement. Fear. Respect. It’s hard to separate them anymore.
“We’re ready,” I say quietly into the radio.
Taylor’s voice comes next. “Owen and I are moving to the east ridge. We’ll keep visual of the cave mouth.”
“Drone overhead,” Jax adds. “Unless cave demons eat your heat signature.”
“Comforting,” Daisy mutters.
Maya sighs through static. “Just stay on comms, guys.”
I clip the radio back and glance at Daisy.
“You ready?”
Moonlight catches the edge of her face. Determination sitting quietly beneath nerves.
“No,” she says honestly. “But yes.”
The climb up isn’t difficult exactly—just awkward. It’s more of a scramble with loose rock, narrow footing, and a sharp drop back into the wash below.
As we near the entrance, the temperature shifts. Subtle at first, then all at once cold air spills from inside, carrying the mineral smell of wet stone.
Everything out here feels old. Not centuries old, millennia old.
Daisy stops beside me. Her headlamp hangs loose around her neck.
“This feels illegal.”
“It’s public land.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
My headlamp isn’t doing much, so I switch on my flashlight for more light. The beam disappears into darkness. No immediate end, and no obvious chamber.
Behind us, wind whispers through brush.
Ahead, nothing. Just darkness and silence.
Daisy exhales slowly.
“Okay,” she pauses. “Question.”
“Mm-hmm?”
“If I die here, can you make sure to empty my nightstand drawers?”
I snort. “Why?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
My laugh echoes too loud, startling me back into silence. Laughing here feels wrong, like the cave is an ancient beast and I’m disturbing its sleep.
The echo disappears strangely fast, the cave amplifying then absorbing it.
Like the walls swallow more than echoes.
I touch the small of Daisy’s back, and she leans toward it instinctively.
“Stay close,” I say quietly.
Her eyes flick toward me. “Wasn’t planning on anything else.”
Then we step inside.
The beam of my flashlight cuts through floating dust to highlight uneven stone, catching strange mineral veins that gleam silver for half a second before vanishing again.
Our footsteps echo oddly. Sometimes loud. Sometimes not at all.
The tunnel bends. Tightens to the point that we have to duck and take the corner one at a time. Then, on the other side, it widens into a cavernous opening.
The air smells damp in a way that feels impossible this deep into the desert.
Cold brushes against my skin.
Somewhere farther inside a small, sharp sound echoes.
Daisy freezes and my hand finds hers in the dark.
“What was that?” she whispers.
My pulse jumps.
Adrenaline sharp and immediate.
The sound comes again.
Movement. A scrape.
Then, more silence.
I angle the flashlight toward a narrow opening in the rock, bracing for a jump scare. But it’s nothing.
Static crackles softly from the radio.
“You guys stopped moving,” Maya practically whispers like she’s in here with us.
“Thought we heard something,” I radio back.
Something shifts farther inside.
Louder now.
A sudden flutter. Daisy gasps and clutches me hard enough to nearly climb inside my rib cage.
A blur erupts overhead, and wings flutter.
Bats. Very angry bats.
Daisy presses one hand flat to my chest.
“Oh my God.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. Relieved.
“You okay?”
She exhales, then laughs softly with me. “I will be—just need to catch my breath first.”
Her breathing returns to normal. She looks around again—she’s still on edge. So am I. But there’s something else too. Something oddly grounding. The absurd intimacy of standing terrified inside a cave with someone whose heartbeat you know.
We move deeper. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. A few more narrow chambers where I’m taking my backpack off to pull it through. Tracks that turn out to be erosion. Strange sounds explained by shifting rock and wind pushing through cracks.
Hope rises. Falls. Rises again. Every silent shadow feels possible until it doesn’t.
Every silence feels charged until logic catches up.
Eventually the cave opens into a final chamber no bigger than a garage.
Illuminated by our flashlights, it’s clear it’s a dead end.
No tracks. No movement. No impossible thing breathing in the dark.
Daisy exhales first, long and slow.
“Well,” I say, my voice feeling too loud in this muted space, “this sucks.”
Her eyes meet mine, and I see the sadness she’s feeling for me. “I’m sorry, Miles.”
I laugh quietly, because the disappointment isn’t as intense as I would’ve expected.
For years, moments like this hollowed me out. Made me feel foolish. Sometimes devastated. Like belief had embarrassed me again.
But tonight, I’m not embarrassed and I’m not gutted. Standing here doesn’t feel empty, and neither does life after this case. With our last avenue of exploration checked off the list, I feel freer than ever. Free to move on.
Daisy steps closer and pulls me into her, looking up at me. Cold cave air curls around us as her flashlight paints strange shapes dancing across stone.
“You okay?” she asks, running her fingers through my hair at my temple.
And somehow, I am. Mostly. Enough.
I look around once more. At darkness. At stone older than human memory. At a place I thought held answers but offered only emptiness. Then at her. Hair messy from climbing. Cheeks pink from the cold. Still holding my hand without seeming to notice.
“Yeah,” I say. And mean it.
A tiny smile pulls at her mouth.
The walk back feels quieter. Less tense. With no looming expectation, the grip of adrenaline loosens.
And finally, as we step back out into open air, moonlight spills silver across sandstone.
Daisy looks up at the stars overhead and exhales dramatically.
“Okay, wow.”
“What?”
“Being alive is incredible.”
I laugh. “You really thought cave murder was imminent.”
“I had accepted my fate. After last night with you, I was going to go willingly.”
She nudges my shoulder. Then slips her hand into mine.
We radio back to let everyone know we’re back out, but then we just stand there for a second at the mouth of the cave. Nothing magical happened and nothing impossible was revealed, but somehow I still feel fulfilled.
“You okay?” she whispers.
I look at her. At the woman who walked back into our chaos with strategy and softness and honesty. At somebody who stopped performing long enough to stay.
Something settles inside me and I nod in response to her question.
My fear—the old one—the one asking if belief made me foolish. If wanting something impossible meant something broken lived inside me.
I feel it fall away.
The desert stretches in front of us, and I’m reminded of all of the memories, old and new, I’ve made here. Somewhere beyond the ridge are the people I trust most, watching over us like guardian angels. And beside me is Daisy. Here. Mine. Real.
Her fingers squeeze mine. “What now?” she asks quietly. The question feels bigger than the cave. Bigger than tonight. Bigger than Bigfoot.
I look out toward the dark desert stretching endlessly ahead. Toward uncertainty. Toward everything I still don’t know. Then down at her.
And suddenly, the answer feels simple.
“We keep choosing each other,” I say. Her smile arrives slow.
“Good,” she says. “Because I’m kind of attached to you.”