“What you don’t know is that my father came here the night Thomas disappeared.”
Anna became very still.
“Why?”
“Caleb had found cracks opening in old ground above the abandoned mine.”
Noah pointed beyond the cabin.
“He believed runoff from heavy rain was entering the tunnels.”
“He wanted Thomas to help him inspect it.”
“Why secretly?”
“Because they had no business being here.”
“It was abandoned property.”
“They were two stubborn men who thought years underground made them experts at every hole in Kentucky.”
Noah looked ashamed even though the mistake had not been his.
“They came after dark.”
“A section collapsed.”
Anna’s fingers tightened around the brass tag.
“My father died here.”
Noah looked at her.
“Eventually.”
The word seemed to stop the air.
“What does that mean?”
Noah did not answer immediately.
Colter watched the man’s face and saw something he recognized.
Not fear of being caught.
Fear of finally being believed.
Noah rubbed both hands together.
“My father told everyone Thomas never made it home from Black Ridge because Thomas asked him to.”
Anna stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“Why would my father ask someone to lie about where he died?”
“He didn’t.”
Noah’s voice trembled.
“Because when he asked my father to keep quiet, he wasn’t dying.”
A deputy stopped writing in his notebook.
Tess looked sharply at Noah.
Anna seemed to forget her injured ankle.
“What are you saying?”
“The first collapse trapped them for almost two days.”
Noah pointed toward a line of hills visible through the trees.
“They found an old ventilation shaft barely wide enough to crawl through.”
“Thomas pushed my father through first.”
Anna whispered, “And my father?”
“He came through afterward.”
Alive.
The word was not spoken, but everyone heard it.
Anna’s face changed with every breath.
Confusion.
Hope.
Anger.
Disbelief.
Then something almost childlike.
“My father survived?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
Noah looked at Lily, then back at Anna.
“Long enough to leave these woods.”