Free Cold Case Affair by Loreth Anne White Page B

suddenly seemed so far. Her hand touched her belly.
    Maybe she shouldn’t have come out here alone, but she honestly didn’t know who she could turn to right now, apart from Jett. And that definitely wasn’t going to happen.
    Making sure her cell phone was easily accessible in her pocket, Muirinn pushed open the old door. It released an inhuman groan of protest, rusted metal grinding against the hinge.
    Her heart hammered.
    It was stifling inside, rank. She shivered again. Her gaze skimmed around the interior, settling on the heavy-looking grate covering the man-way as the last words in Gus’s notes sifted into Muirinn’s mind.
    Did bomber use Sodwana shaft to access D-shaft where bomb was planted? Did accomplice stand guard at headframe?
    Was that why he dragged the grate back and climbed down into that black hole?
    Maybe he’d wanted to see if it was actually possible to access the bomb site underground from this shaft, and how long it might take.
    No, that was pure insanity.
    Her grandfather might have been eccentric, but he would never have gone down that shaft alone, not at his age, not with his heart condition. Not without telling anyone where he was going.
    She propped her rifle against the wall, bent down to tug the grate off the man-way. It was heavy iron, virtually immovable. She tried to imagine Gus doing this. Sweat prickled over her body as she hefted it a few inches, then a few more, metal grating across metal until she managed to pull the grate right off. Her hands burned, smelled of rust. She’d never have gotten this off if it hadn’t been removed and replaced recently.
    Dank air from deep in the bowels of the earth reached up, cold, crawling right into her. Peering cautiously down into the black abyss, Muirinn was suddenly 100 percent convinced that Gus wouldn’t have taken hold of the decaying old ladder rungs and climbed into that black maw alone.
    But as she bent down to replace the cover, a powerful crack resounded through the quiet hills, and a slug slammed intometal just near her shoulder. A cloud of birds scattered from a clump of alders.
    It took a nanosecond for Muirinn to grasp what had just happened.
    Gunshot!
    She crouched down, mind racing. Must be a hunter. And I just happen to be in the line of fire, she thought, peeking up carefully through the slatted boards just as another explosive sound boomed through the valley. A slug hammered into the opposite wall, splitting a support beam into shrapnel. A piece stabbed into her shoulder.
    Muirinn gasped, clamping her hand over the wound. Blood started to well between her fingers, dribbling down her arm. The report echoed down through the valley, fading into the distant stillness.
    She could hardly breathe.
    That was no simple rifle. That was the distinctive explosive sound of a point three-effing-oh-three, with enough firepower to fell a moose at full charge!
    Almost immediately, another shot walloped through the wall. She dived to her knees, slamming down onto her side into the dirt. Her phone clattered out of her pocket and skittered across the floor.
    Grouse fluttered outside.
    Someone was shooting at this shack!
    She lay dead still, heart jackhammering, skin drenched with sweat. And blood.
    Then came another report—this one clunking off the ironwork outside.
    Her stomach started to cramp. My baby . Oh, Lord, she shouldn’t have come here alone. Muirinn inched along the dirt on her side, reaching for her rifle. Gripping it in her hands,she wriggled over to a second window that had been boarded over. She edged up, inserted the barrel of her .22 through a large crack. She scanned the mountainside with her scopes, trying to locate the shooter.
    She caught a movement in the brush, a slight glint of sunlight against metal. Someone was hiding in the bush, dressed in camo gear and hunting cap, aiming at the shed.
    With shaking hands she snugged her cheek against the stock, aimed to the right of the sniper and slowly squeezed off a