They turned, spying another passage beneath the stairs.
“Flashlights on,” Cam said, and they followed the short hallway back.
“Here! Here!”
Cam shone his light toward her voice, and there in the beam of his flashlight on a grungy mattress was a handcuffed Shannon Murphy. He swept over the area with his light, Nic doing the same beside him, and once they confirmed the small, confined area was clear, Cam moved closer. “FBI, we’re here to help.”
“Oh, thank God.” She started sobbing into the oversized T-shirt she wore, and Nic approached her other side slowly, taking off his rain jacket and wrapping it around her.
“We’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.”
“Somebody find the lights,” Cam shouted.
“Located,” one of the other agents called, and flicked the switch.
Shannon squinted at the sudden flood of light, burrowing into Nic’s side. Her dark hair was matted, the T-shirt dirty, and Cam didn’t want to contemplate the stains on the mattress. But for as pale as she was, Nic suddenly blanched whiter.
“What is it?” Cam asked.
“Turn around, Boston.”
He whipped around, then fell on his ass on the end of the mattress, all the wind knocked out of him.
The entire back wall was covered in pictures.
Of Erin.
Taken outside her school. On the playground. At the library. At the docks.
Hell, in front of their house.
In this room.
His stomach lurched, and if not for Nic ripping his helmet off at the last possible second, he would have doomed the tactical gear to retirement.
Instead, he managed to roll off and empty the contents of his stomach in the corner.
Nic was by his side when he uncurled, kneeling and heaving for breath. He looked over his shoulder, seeing one of the other agents carrying Shannon out. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for, Boston.”
“Contaminated the scene.”
“One tiny corner of it. And you didn’t hit any evidence.”
Evidence.
He started to look again toward the wall, but Nic grabbed his chin, forcing his gaze to him instead. “Can you stand?”
Cam nodded but kept a hand wrapped around Nic’s as he wobbled to his feet. “Don’t look,” Nic said, putting himself between Cam and the wall of pictures as they walked past.
“But it’s evidence,” Cam argued. “It might tell us where she is. We have to?—”
“You have to breathe first.”
Air, however, continued to be in short supply as they reached the main floor to a grim-looking Matt and Jamie. “There’s something you need to see,” Jamie said. “Drone picked it up out back.” He moved to his other side. “Hold on,” he said, whether to him or Nic, Cam didn’t know.
In the end, it applied equally. Cam needed them both to hold him up when they reached the door, looked out over the big open field, and counted the flags the agents were sticking in the ground. A single stone sat atop each mound of dirt that was being cleared of weeds and flagged.
