I scan the area, but we’re alone.
She sits under the eaves on a crate. “My brother went to work at a mine two months ago. He didn’t want a job here. He said he wanted to do it the old way.”
A common story because while they got paid next to nothing, a find would earn them a big payout. Assuming the boss was honest. “When was the last time you heard from him?”
“Before he left.”
I grit my teeth. I don’t care about her brother. I want to find Reed and Ashley. “Did you talk to the police?”
“No, what were they going to do? He wanted to work there.”
“How does this relate to our missing geologist?” I want Ashley found. She’s smart, but she’s not a fighter. The next time she leaves the main site, she’s taking two of us.
“He should have come home on his days off.”
“I’m sorry about your brother.” I am, but if he turned down a stable, well-paid job here for something riskier, then that’s his problem.
“He said the mine is run by a foreigner.”
I turn to face her. “Why does that matter?”
“Because foreigners set up like this. He didn’t. And no one wants to talk about what’s going on.”
I’m listening now but I don’t want to push too hard. Reed is the guy everyone talks to even if they can’t understand half of what he says. He knows how to make people smile and laugh. It’s when he stops smiling people need to worry. Priest might be the boss, but Reed is the annoying glue that binds us.
“And what is going on?”
“Disappearances. And no one is allowed to go through the waste.”
That seems to be the unspoken rule. The waste rock can be picked through by those who are hoping to find something everyone else has thrown away.
This intel isn’t facts or a witness, only a hunch. A break in tradition and a missing brother. But it was all I had after hours of talking, or at least asking questions. “Do you know where this mine is?”
She nods. “I can show you on a map.”
CHAPTER13
Ashley
The dirt floorin the building has rivulets running through it. There is a leak in the corner of the roof, and I don’t know if anyone is going to come and collect the buckets like they did last night. A part of me desperately wants to sleep. But if I fall asleep, then I may not wake until dawn.
At Reed’s request I redressed, pulling on my damp underwear, pants, socks and boots. He’s on the ground peering through a gap he found in the wall and made worse with a nail he pulled out of the wall.
“There’s no one out there.”
Everyone with any sense has taken shelter, but we’re going to be running out into it.
“So how do we get out?”
He gets up. Hands free having broken the cable ties. I’d watched him do it in a single move, but it had taken me four goes. I’d cut my wrists on the plastic in the process, but at least I was free.
With a nail in hand, he walks up to the door. One option had been if someone comes for the buckets to tackle them and take their weapon. That seemed too dangerous to me.
It becomes clear that while I’d been at the mine, Reed had spent his time checking every inch of the building, searching for useful items and a way out.
He doesn’t pick the lock. Instead, he does something to the hinges.
He’s fashioned my overshirt into clothing for himself, so he’s not running around naked. It seems as if he is planning on coming with me, but if he has to stop and fight, he will.
