The Darkly Stewart Mysteries: The Woman Who Tasted Death Page 9

  “Got it. Tone down the condescension.”

  “Okay, folks,” Carter called for everyone’s attention. “Welcome to the first day of filming. Everyone looks the part.”

  Carter looked out over the distant ridge of hills beyond the Moon River, and the group followed his sight.

  “We are on the other side of the hills that separate this valley from the valley of Wolf Woods. The river snakes its way around the base of this hill, through some class two rapids, and then down into town.”

  Darkly could make out the beginning of the white water only, as the ridge they were on climbed farther and obscured their view into the next valley.

  “We’ll film you arriving in the jeep later, but today, I want to capture three friends hiking in the woods, discovering the beauty of their surroundings, and drinking from the river. Be creative. Do what comes naturally. Just have fun with it!”

  Christopher coughed conspicuously, interrupting Carter’s flow.

  “Oh, yes, and Christopher’s character is watching you the whole time.”

  “Plotting,” Christopher chimed in.

  “That’s right, plotting and planning. But, the three of you are not aware of this. You haven’t spotted him yet. You don’t suspect anything, you’re completely relaxed. We don’t see Chris. The camera is him. His POV. Chris is here on his own accord to get a feel for his character.”

  “Did someone say method?” Christopher chuckled at his own simple wit.

  “Alright. So, Peter and Shane, you two are making your way down the hill towards the river. Serena is holding back a little, taking in the majesty of her surroundings. When you get to the river, remove your packs and take a drink. The water’s pure, don’t worry. I had some myself.”

  Darkly stopped counting after the tenth time the actors climbed back up the hill. Every angle was covered while hiking down to the river. She wondered if they were bringing in a helicopter for an aerial view after lunch.

  Once lunch did come, Darkly was bursting. She couldn’t hold her small bladder for a journey back to the circus, so she speedily slipped away saying she would find her own way back to base camp. Darkly had seen a rock enclosure down alongside the river that would provide the perfect amount of privacy.

  She ran uncomfortably along the riverbank until reaching the group of rocks that jutted out into the bend in the river. It was at this bend that the water picked up speed, careening into a rock face, and then abruptly changing direction.

  Darkly climbed up onto a boulder deposited some time during the last ice age and looked down onto a whirlpool of swirling white foam. A piece of driftwood was caught in a boomerang effect, threatening to beach itself like the other river debris that littered the pebbles at the edge of the water, before being sucked back into the vortex.

  Darkly peered down the side of the boulder she hadn’t climbed. The giant rock masked a hole in the hillside that was boarded up with plywood. Darkly slid onto her stomach and groaned. This was getting painful. Her toes found indentations in the rock face, and she climbed back down to earth, jumping the last couple feet.

  She couldn’t wait any longer. She fumbled with her buttons and stepped out of her jeans. She leaned against the rock and watched the water by her side rush by on its way into town.

  To her right, she could see that the plywood covering the hole in the hillside was rotting away from the constant spray of the rapids. Gaping holes could easily allow a person to crawl inside. A tin sign hung off one of the wooden planks by a rusty nail. It proclaimed the word “DANGER” in flaking red paint.

  Darkly finished her business and fastened the belt around her waist once again. Rather than climb back up the boulder to the ridge, she decided she would take a longer, but gentler route that took her along the bend in the river. After this section, she could hike back up the hill through a meadow of wild flowers below the circus of film trailers.

  But what was this hole? Darkly had heard about the gold rush out West. Was this an actual mine from the 19th Century? No doubt Carter would think it an excellent place for the friends to hide from Christopher’s serial killer character. She decided she’d poke her head inside and see if there was actually any room for a camera. It looked pretty dark from here. By now, it was probably a jumble of caved in timbers and dirt.

  Darkly rummaged around inside Gus’s camera case. The Boy Scout came prepared. She pulled out a flashlight.

  The boards were soft from years of exposure to the elements, and Darkly had no problem making one of the holes even bigger by breaking pieces off and throwing them into the water to be eaten by the whirlpool.

  She shone the flashlight inside and was surprised to see empty space ahead. There was no overturned mine cart buried under a mountain of immovable rock. Darkly waved the beam of light to either side of the interior. She found walls and a ceiling sculpted into the hill. This was an intact tunnel.

  She pointed the flashlight directly ahead. The tunnel must go on for some distance, as the light didn’t touch a back wall. Then she saw it: a glint in the wall. Actually, it was a sparkle. Several of them. Sparkles. More than several. There were stars in the walls of the tunnel. They couldn’t be diamonds, surely. It wouldn’t have been abandoned and boarded up if the hill was full of diamonds. Darkly had to know what that sparkle was.

  Her father always told her she was the most curious creature he had ever known. “Curiosity killed the cat, so better you have the nose of a dog.” But, Darkly could never abide a mystery.

  So, she crawled on all fours into an abandoned shaft that was designated dangerous and which could collapse on her head at any second and bury her forever, entombed in the remote wilderness.

  She found the tunnel was high enough that she could fully stand up on the other side of the wooden barrier. She reached up with her hand and felt the rough ceiling of the tunnel about six inches above her head. It was stone that showered particles of dust and dirt onto her face when she rubbed it. Darkly coughed and shook her hair clean.

  She shone the flashlight on the ground ahead. She couldn’t make out any obstructions. She slid her feet along the dirt floor until she felt certain it was perfectly solid and that she wasn’t going to fall through to a lower level that descended all the way to Hell for all she knew.

  Darkly approached one of the walls and walked forward. Her hand kept contact with the surface, and her flashlight focused on the reflection of starlight ahead.

  Darkly’s hand was now feeling only air, and she turned her beam of light down another tunnel that branched off the entrance chamber. A light, cool breeze tickled her cheek. The stars shone brighter just a few paces ahead. The tunnel widened out into the semblance of a room. Darkly felt her calf muscles tighten as the gradient became steep. She was walking downhill, deeper underground.

  Darkly brushed her light across the face of the surrounding rock, and the walls erupted in color. Veins of purple and blue coated the surface. Darkly reached out and ran her fingers over the jagged edges of a quarry of quartz crystal. It extended into a dome over her head. She had the sensation of being in a planetarium or inside a massive version of the geode her high school science teacher had kept on his desk.

  “Holy Mother of God.”

  Darkly was not easily impressed. She stepped forward, following the veins farther underground and went crashing to her knees. She hadn’t noticed the small ledge as the ground gave way twelve inches beneath her into a lower level of the room. Darkly braced her fall with the flashlight, and her only source of light, aside from the faint shards of sunlight extending from the entrance, was extinguished.

  Gus did not question why Darkly did not join him for lunch. They were on an investigation after all. She could take care of herself. Although it would be appropriate procedure to let him know of her whereabouts, it was not mandatory. She was the senior officer. Besides, his assistance was required again by one of the actors. Havin
g seen him in action with Serena, Shane had asked Gus to his trailer to assist him with what he described as a wardrobe malfunction. Great. He was a decorated Mountie turned set bitch. Wasn’t this Marvin’s job?

  Darkly was startled, but uninjured. She still had the flashlight in her hand. She slapped it and shook it. Nothing. The bulb must have broken.

  “Don’t panic, Darkly. Even a baby could crawl back outside.”

  Then, Darkly remembered Victoria’s lighter. Well, technically it was the lighter that Victoria stole off Christopher. She felt the outline of the small butane lighter through her back pocket. She pulled it out with her fingertips, held it close to her face and lit it. She looked down at her elbows. They were a little bruised, but no blood.

  Darkly waved the flame in front of the ledge. It was really just a small step. She turned her attention to the stone floor. A few inches from her feet, smiling back at her, was a human skull. Darkly gasped and leapt back, slamming her back into the step and letting go of the top of the lighter which extinguished the flame.

  “Christ!”

  Darkly sat there in the dark for a minute and took a deep breath before relighting the flame. She held her hand out into the black void. Next to the skull lay a pile of leg and arm bones. Beyond those, another skull and another. The floor was littered with skeletons.

  Wait a minute! Were these fake? Had Carter’s team placed these here?

  “That’s all it is,” Darkly deduced.

  This was Christopher’s serial killer lair. Oh, no. She’d destroyed the set when tearing away the boards.

  Darkly reached out and picked up the skull. The lower jaw fell off and broke in two on the ground. There we go, something else she’d have to pay for. Darkly examined the skull up close. Was it porcelain? Clay? It felt like real bone. She picked out grooves on the top of the head. They looked like knife cuts. She turned the skull upside down. The cavity was full of dirt. She shook it out and examined the upper jaw. Two of the molars were capped with crowns. This thing was real.

  Darkly dropped it and backed up, propping herself onto the ledge. She was getting the hell out of here.

  Then, Darkly heard it: a low, guttural growl. Then, she saw them. Her flame reflected off two yellow pin pricks floating in the darkness. The eyes were moving towards her.

  Darkly swung her feet up onto the ledge, as a big, shaggy, black and white dog came into view. It was holding a femur bone in its mouth, bearing its teeth at Darkly. Darkly knew better than to run. If she ran, she was meat with the potential for bone. She needed to placate the animal.

  Darkly rolled a skull towards the dog.

  “I don’t want the bones, boy. They’re all yours,” she said in her calmest, sweetest voice.

  “Milly!”

  The voice echoed through the tunnel.

  “Milly! Come on, girl!”

  The dog turned its head to the direction of the tunnel entrance, whimpered, and leapt past Darkly, racing towards the voice it clearly knew and loved.

  “Hello?!” Darkly called out.

  “Hello? Who’s there? You alright?” It was a young man’s voice.

  “Uh, I’m on the film shoot. I, uh, my flashlight broke.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right there.”

  Darkly could hear someone sliding along the dirt by the entrance, pulling wooden boards aside, then shuffling in her direction. A flashlight beam illuminated the tunnel and made its way along the floor to Darkly’s position. The light leapt up into the air, fixing on an attractive teenage boy’s face and black wavy hair that swept down over his forehead.

  “Hi. I’m Trey. Need some help?”

  Milly brushed past Trey, walked up to Darkly, and licked her face.

  “Oh, now you want to be friends,” Darkly said and grabbed hold of the dog’s silky soft ears.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Buck hammered the last of the planks over the mine’s entrance and put the warning sign back in place. Milly crouched down and shoved her nose under one of the planks and cried.

  “Trey. Get her out of here, would ya.”

  “Come on, girl. I’ll find you a bone at home.”

  Buck’s son looked over at Darkly.

  “A chicken bone.”

  He then slipped his fingers under Milly’s collar and pulled her away from the tunnel. “Go on!” He let loose of Milly, and the dog ran with abandon along the riverside, barking at and chasing the driftwood being carried downriver by the rapids. Trey ran after her.

  “Thanks again, Trey!”

  The seventeen-year-old turned and smiled at Darkly, before disappearing around the bend in the river.

  Carter, Marvin, and the cast leaned against the rocks around the mine entrance, waiting for the sheriff to give them the okay to resume filming.

  “Are you sure I couldn’t persuade you to let us use it? Just for an afternoon?”

  Carter was chomping at the bit to get into the mine. This was exactly what his movie needed. But, Buck wasn’t budging.

  “I got enough to deal with without having every chief in the region breathing down my neck. They’re sensitive about their ancient burial places.”

  “Sheriff, how ancient can the mine be? I mean, the gold rush was in the mid-1800s, wasn’t it?” Darkly asked.

  Darkly wasn’t buying the sheriff’s story.

  “One of the early settlers from the town discovered the cave and the quartz chamber. Where there’s quartz, there’s often gold,” Buck explained. “The town buried the Indian bodies they found entombed in there and proceeded to carve out more tunnels under ground. Never found much of anything. There was more gold in the river.”

  “So, where did these bodies come from, Sheriff?” Carter asked.

  Carter was intrigued. How could he fit this into his story?

  “In the early twentieth century, the town made amends with the local tribes, dug up the bodies, and restored them to their rightful resting place. Those skeletons are hundreds of years old.”

  Buck slid his hammer into his tool belt and turned to go.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

  He walked up to Darkly.

  “I’m sorry you had a scare. Next time, pay attention to the sign. It was there for a reason. Miss.”

  Buck nodded at Darkly and walked past her to follow the path his son had taken back to town. Darkly found she liked being told off by Sheriff Buck. She watched him walk off and noticed Christopher slip away from the group to say something to Buck from a discreet distance.

  Buck did not look pleased to listen to anything Christopher had to say. He merely shook his head once and continued on his way.

  Carter snapped Darkly out of her trance.

  “Well, people, Darkly’s okay, and we have to respect the religious rites of the indigenous population. Let’s get back to work.”

  The cast and crew clambered over the large rocks by the riverside and began the trek back up the hill. Darkly was the last to climb up, accepting Marvin’s hand. As he pulled her up, a thought struck her. The skeletons were hundreds of years old. Why did the skull she handled have shiny, silver crowns over the teeth? What did the ancient first nation’s people know about dentistry?

  Darkly and Gus were beat by the time Marvin dropped them outside the hotel. The bumpy ride home hadn’t stopped her from dozing. Upon entering the hotel, Darkly found Lewis concentrating on an mp3 player; he turned it over and examined it end to end, adjusting the earbuds clamped to the side of his head. Darkly decided to have some fun.

  “Any messages for me?”

  Lewis looked back at the empty wooden box that represented Darkly’s room.

  “Nope.”

  “You need some help with that?”

  Lewis’s eyes brightened. “I can’t turn it on.”

  Darkly reached out her hand. Lewis pulled
the player close to his body like a child protecting his peanut butter and jelly sandwich from a bully.

  “It was a gift.”

  “If the battery’s run down, you’re going to need to plug it into a USB cord to recharge it.”

  From Lewis’s expression, Darkly might as well have been speaking in Chinese.

  “It comes with a cord that connects the player to your computer, and the computer recharges the player.”

  “But I don’t have a Com Puter.”

  “Strange gift for someone who doesn’t have a computer.” Darkly resisted the urge to imitate Lewis’s pronunciation of the word.

  Lewis removed the earbuds from his hairy ears and placed the mp3 player in a drawer under the check-in counter. He glared at Darkly. She had clearly burst his balloon.

  “As I said, there are no messages for you.”

  Lewis left Darkly standing in front of the desk and disappeared behind a door with the word “Management” etched into the wood.

  Darkly woke up to the sound of her stomach rumbling. The room was pitch black. She had only meant to take a nap, but the day had sapped her energy. She’d slept right through supper.

  Darkly lay there, listening, trying to determine if any of the movie’s cast were in their rooms. She could make out a faint sound. It was music. An organ, she thought. That was weird.

  Her stomach rumbled again. She’d better eat something or she’d be a wreck tomorrow. Darkly groped for the bedside lamp and turned it on. She picked up her useless cellphone. Well, it wasn’t completely useless when plugged in. It was her watch, alarm clock, and note taker, as well. It was just a few minutes past nine. Maybe the diner was still open? Or at least some corner shop? She’d kill for a falafel sandwich or a kebab right now, but she’d settle for a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a diet coke.

  Darkly threw on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt, and she tiptoed out into the hallway. She could hear laughing coming from the room a couple doors down. It sounded like Shane, Serena and Peter. She was pretty sure she could smell pot. Partaking would only make her more hungry and cause her to fail the next mandated drug test, so she walked right on by. Christopher had taped a headshot to his front door and a manila envelope below it for rewrites. Loud snoring drifted out from within.