Page 69 of Fatal Fame
Despite her reservations, Mia found herself nodding at the logic. The systematic suppression of evidence in the Hale case suggested that normal channels couldn't be trusted. "What about if I stay up here and you go down?"
"Are you strong enough to pull me up if something goes wrong? Be logical about the physics involved."
Mia closed her eyes and groaned, recognizing the truth in his assessment. "Okay, but you better be strong and you better not let me fall."
She pulled out her phone to send a message to her grandfather, letting someone know her location in case things went wrong. But Gideon placed his hand over the device before she could type.
"I told you—no one can know about this. We don't know who to trust."
"And I'm supposed to trust you?"
"Evelyn Cross has for the past ten years. Do you think she didn't run some kind of background check before meeting me?"
The point was valid, and Mia found herself reluctantly accepting Gideon's reasoning.
"If it wasn't for lack of trust in the system, calling the cops would be the obvious choice. But this might be our only shot at preventing this case from remaining cold forever," he said.
"And you trust whoever gave you this tip?"
"People eventually speak up, Mia. It happens all the time in cold cases—deathbed confessions, spouses carrying guilt, accomplices who can't live with secrets anymore. The podcastersobviously stirred things up. I don't know who left me that tip, and most don't pan out, but this one did."
"Okay, well, down into the darkness," Mia muttered, as she accepted the climbing harness Gideon offered.
He secured the rope around her waist, checking each knot twice before tying off the safety end around a sturdy tree. The harness felt secure but did nothing to calm her racing heart as she approached the well's edge.
"Don't you dare let go," she said, testing the rope's tension.
"Have a little faith."
The descent began slowly, Gideon easing her down while she used her feet against the stone walls to control her movement. The walls were damp and roughly hewn, probably hand-carved by nineteenth century farmers who'd needed water for their livestock. As she descended, the temperature dropped noticeably, and the air grew thick with the smell of decay and stagnant moisture.
Twenty-five feet down, her feet touched solid ground. The bottom of the well was dry, filled with decades of accumulated debris—leaves, small animal bones, and objects that had fallen or been thrown down over the years. She climbed out of the harness and began examining the area with her flashlight.
"You see them?" Gideon called from above, his voice echoing strangely in the stone cylinder.
"Found them," Mia shouted back, her own voice strange in the confined space.
The remains were unmistakably human, bones still partially clothed in jeans, work boots, and a leather jacket that had protected some of the skeletal structure from complete decay. Inside the jacket pocket, she found a wallet containing a driver's license with Travis Rudd's photograph and name. More significantly, the wallet also contained proof of insurance fora dark blue Honda Civic, the same vehicle Connor Walsh had described seeing at Rebecca's house the night of the murders.
Working quickly, Mia began collecting bones into the canvas sack Gideon had provided. But remembering his earlier advice about keeping some evidence independently, she placed several smaller bones in her jacket pocket before filling the main bag.
"Okay, pull up the rope," she called.
She watched the bag ascend, disappearing into the circle of starlight that marked the well's opening. There was a pause that seemed longer than necessary.
"Gideon? Hey, Gideon?"
Silence.
Her stomach dropped as scenarios ran through her mind, Gideon fleeing and leaving her trapped, or worse, someone else arriving and eliminating the only person who knew her location.
Then the rope came down again.
"Okay, you're next," Gideon shouted.
"For a moment I thought you were going to leave me down here," she called back.
His laughter echoed down the well shaft. "I told you, you can trust me."
