Page 57 of When the Silence Breaks

Ryder moved toward the rotting shelves on the opposite side where the old, canned food and ceramic dishes were stacked. He pulled out a dusty book—The Forager’s Almanac—which stirred up a dust plume in the narrow beam of his flashlight.

“My great-grandfather built this place before the war, so my grandfather came here as a kid too. Over the decades, repairshave been made and probably a few nooks and crannies were added in the process.”

“Maybe try behind the shelf,” she said. “As in ... move it.”

He quirked a brow. She was right. He leaned against the shelf and gently shoved. Brittle wood splintered, and he backed off. The shelf would crumble if he pushed any harder. He shouldn’t care, but his grandfather had built it.

He wiped the grime from his forehead. Sarah folded her arms and stared at the warped walls as if she could force them to give up their secrets.

And maybe it was working because he said, “Gramps stopped coming here after my grandmother died. He said it was cursed ground.” He hated this memory, honestly. Nausea moved through his gut in waves. “My dad thought Gramps was losing his mind.”

“Maybe ... maybe itiscursed. Maybe something’s inside that...”

She didn’t finish. But he was tracking with her. Had his grandmother gotten sick because his grandfather had deposited some heinous bioweapon here? No. That couldn’t be it. His grandfather would have succumbed as well if it was as horrendous as the recording made it sound.

Sarah moved away from the wall and searched near the woodstove. Or had she moved to get away from him? Whatever the reason, he couldn’t get her words out of his head.

“Maybe itiscursed.”

Twenty-Three

“You’ll findthe restof itinside thewreckage—or what’s leftof it.”Her grandfather’s voice from the recording stayed in her thoughts and mind and wouldn’t let go.

Honestly, it didn’tsoundlike him—she’d never heard him sound so terrified, so broken—but it was him, no doubt there. When had he even made that recording? And why hadn’t her brother left the recording in the safety-deposit box with everything else instead of letting Tessa find it and hear what was on it? It didn’t matter now.

Standing at the woodstove, she rubbed her arms and looked around. Was something actually hidden here? Or were they searching for a hidden compartment that didn’t exist? The whole thing creeped her out—this cabin included. Sure, it held good memories for Ryder—she suspected plenty of bad ones too. All of which added to the eerie feeling that a dangerous force was closing in around them.

A bioweapon. On the plane. Buried on the mountain. What were she and Ryder even doing here? Sarah didn’t have time for doubting her choices. She shook off the sense of foreboding. She’d set out on this mission without once considering the darkest possibilities. Oh, she’d imagined danger, sure. Butnot this. Not biological weapons. Maybe she should have considered that in this very state where a top-secret site had been established during World WarII—Hanford was located along the Columbia River. The government produced plutonium for those first atomic bombs. Hanford had been surrounded by rumors of classified research and, unfortunately, radioactive waste, and the public was never meant to know about the experiments conducted so close to home. So, sure, she should have thought darker. She could have connected the dots. Sheshouldhave. But she hadn’t. Maybe because the truth was too heavy to carry. She could unpack her reasons for avoiding the darker side of mankind later.

Right now, she needed to findsomething. What, she wasn’t sure.

Ryder had given up on that shelf—for now, at least—and chosen to search the opposite end of the cabin. Was he lost in the same kind of murky thoughts too? Nausea rippled through her insides at the thought of a bioweapon. Not created by the Nazis but by the US government.

Malcolm had warned her. Tried to stop her. Had he known what was on the mountain? The whole of it? If he had, then he could have tried harder. The sooner they got out of this cabin, the better. The sooner she got off this mountain and back to family, the better. Crouching near the woodstove, she brushed a loose board along the floor. The board was blackened but hadn’t burned. Probably nothing.

Still. “Ryder? Could this be something?”

“What is it?” Focused on looking under the old sofa, he made no move to join her.

“It’s a blackened plank in the floor. I know that sounds like nothing, but it could ... you know ...markthe spot.”

He stood, a troubled, contemplative look on his face. Thenhe made his way to her, the floor creaking with his rushed steps. He pressed his boot against the plank in question. Then crouched. Ryder tugged a pocketknife out and slid it into the slot between the boards, prying it loose. He lifted the plank and then put it aside.

Pulse ramping up, Sarah shined her flashlight into the hollow in the floor. “It’s a box.” About the size of a lunch box. “Looks like Army-issue,” he said.

“It’s all dented.” Like it might have survived a plane crash. That was conjecture. It could be dented for a lot of reasons.

He reached inside, his hand hovering over the box, then hesitated before finally lifting it out. “I recognize this box.”

Was that good? Bad? “So ... it’s nothing? Why hide it in the floor?”

“Gramps used to keep bullets in one like it, so maybe it’s not thesameone.”

“And if it is, let’s hope instead of bullets, we find answers.”

Slowly. Carefully. Ryder lifted the lid. It squeaked open. Sarah held her breath while she focused the intense beam of her light onto the contents inside. Fear could get the best of her.

A paper scroll. Items wrapped in cloth.