Page 97 of You'll Be Sorry

“Maybe tomorrow’ll be better. As Debs said, the bones aren’t going anyplace, not until the weather has cleared.”

Mandy just caught a motion out of the corner of her eye. Adams was already frowning at something behind her.

“Who goes there?” he demanded.

Silence, then the sound of snapping twigs as the person took another step. Mandy whirled around to discover Isla McLean emerging from behind a clump of trees. The woman appeared at her witchy best with at least three moth-eaten tartans wrapped tight around her thin shoulders while her salt-and-pepper hair frizzed out as if powered by its own electric current. Currently, the woman was staring at Adams with a nearly feral level of intensity.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Hey, I asked you first.”

Mandy raised a hand to cut off the exchange before it got them nowhere. As it was, she couldn’t stop herself from staring once more at the woman’s feet, currently clad in mismatched boots. This woman and her father. Her father and this woman. Jesus Christ, she needed more time to think, and fewer questions to answer.

“Isla McLean, meet Sam Adams, the state’s cold case investigator,” she managed now. “Adams, meet our local Witch of the Woods.”

“You’re from?” Isla gazed at Adams imperiously.

“Uh…Concord?”

“Not where. Who. Who are your people?”

Adams gazed at Mandy in bewilderment. Welcome to my world, she wanted to tell him.

“John and Linda Adams,” he managed. “Insurance brokers. Live in Nashua.”

“And before that?”

Adams bristled. “That’s rude. What gives you the right to ask such questions, or show up here, for that matter. This is a crime scene!”

“It’s a cave.” Isla started to turn away. Mandy snatched at her arm, ended up with a fistful of tartan.

“You know this cavern?” Then, as dots started to connect. “Wait a sec. Speaking of origins, doesn’t your family have a reputation for theft, smuggling, and general mischief, going back to, I don’t know, the beginning of time? I would imagine a hideaway would come in handy for such things. Meaning, yes, absolutely, you would know all about this ‘new’ discovery.”

Isla stared at her. But damned if the woman’s gaze didn’t appear less defiant, more sorrowful.

“The children found this cave,” she stated abruptly.

“The four Dixon kids?” Now Adams appeared as bewildered as Mandy.

“William brought me here himself. To their pirate’s lair. They were very proud of their discovery. They wanted to share it with someone who wouldn’t spill their secret. I was deemed acceptable.”

“But you already knew about it.”

“I did and I didn’t. The day William led me inside…” The woman shivered. “The space is wrong. The moment I entered it, I knew. Forget bootlegging. Dark, terrible things happened in that cavern. I tried telling the kids they should go, nothing good would come from such a place. But can any adult reason with a child, let alone four of them?”

Mandy glanced at Adams, whose face had gone pale again. Dear Lord, if the investigator vomited one more time…

“Who else knew of this hideout?” she asked.

“I have no idea.”

“But if your family did, handing it down generation to generation, stands to reason, other legacy families in this community would’ve done the same.”

Another shrug.

“The entrance was sealed up. Rocks, tree limbs, the works. Protecting the contents from search dogs.” Mandy didn’t need to be specific about what the contents were. “You do that?”

“The cave, what happened there…It shouldn’t have been sealed. It should’ve been blown to smithereens.”