Horrible. Unbelievable. She had discovered a hundred-and-fifty-year-old murder. Which begged the next question: Were the other ten miners killed in the same way, by humans?

She glanced at her watch: eleven minutes. She felt a sudden shiver of fear: time to get the hell out. Quickly she began packing up her stuff, preparing to exit the shed.

Suddenly she thought she heard a noise. She flicked off the LED and listened. Silence. Then she heard it again: the faintest crunching sound of snow outside the door.

Jesus, someone was coming. Paralyzed with fear, her heart pounding, she continued to listen. A definite crunch, crunch, crunch. And then — across the warehouse, in a window high up in the eaves — she saw a beam of light flash quickly across the glass. More silence. And then the muffled sound of talk and the hiss of a two-way radio.

There were people outside. With a radio.

Heights security? Cops?

She zipped up her backpack with infinite care. The coffin lid was still off. Should she slide it back on? She began to move it back into place, but it made such a loud scraping noise that she stopped. She had to get it back on, though, so in one hasty movement she shoved it back in place.

Outside she could hear more activity: crunching, whispers. There were several people outside and they were trying, not very successfully, to be quiet.

She slid the knapsack over her shoulder and moved away from the coffins. Was there an exit door in the rear? She couldn’t tell now — it was too dark — but she didn’t recall seeing one. What she needed to do was find a secure hiding place and wait this out.

Tiptoeing across the floor, she headed for the rear of the warehouse, where the giant pieces of an old ski lift had been stored — pylons, chairs, and wheels. Even as she moved across the floor she heard the door open, and she ran the last few yards. Now hushed voices could be heard in the shed. More radio noise.

Reaching the stacks of old equipment, she burrowed her way in, getting down on her hands and knees and crawling as far back as she could, twisting and turning among the giant pieces of metal.

A sudden snapping noise, and then the fluorescent tubes came popping and clinking on, bathing the warehouse in brilliant light. Corrie crawled faster, throwing herself behind a huge coil of steel cable and balling herself up, hugging her backpack to her chest, making herself as small as possible. She waited, hardly daring to breathe. Maybe they thought the padlock had been accidentally left open. Maybe they hadn’t noticed her car. Maybe they wouldn’t find her…

Footsteps crossed the cement floor. And then Corrie heard a burst of whispering. Now she could distinguish individual voices and catch snatches of phrases. With a thrill of absolute horror she heard her own name spoken — in the Texas drawl of Kermode: querulous, inciting.

She buried her head in her gloved hands, reeling from the nightmare. She could feel her heart almost bursting with anxiety and dismay. Why had she done this? Why?

She heard a voice speak, loud and clear: the harsh twang of Kermode. “Corrie Swanson?”

It echoed dreadfully in the cavernous room.

“Corrie Swanson, we know you’re in here. We know it. You’re in a world of trouble. If you come out and show yourself now, that would be the smart thing to do. If you force these policemen to have to find you, that won’t be smart. Do you understand?”

Corrie was choking with fear. More sounds: additional people were arriving. She couldn’t move.

“All right,” she heard the chief’s unhappy voice say. “You, Joe, start in the back. Fred, stay by the door. Sterling, you poke around those cats and snowmobiles.”

Still Corrie couldn’t move. The game was up. She should show herself. But some crazy, desperate hope kept her hidden.

Burying her head deeper into her gloves, like a child hiding under the covers, she waited. She heard the tap of footsteps, the scrape and clank of equipment being moved, the hiss and crackle of radios. A few minutes passed. And then, almost directly above her, she heard, loudly: “Here she is!” And then, aimed at her: “This is the police. Stand up slowly and keep your hands in sight.”

She simply could not move.

“Stand up slowly, hands in sight. Now.”

She managed to raise her head and saw a cop standing just a few feet away, service revolver drawn and pointed. Two other cops were just arriving.

Corrie rose stiffly, her hands out. The cop came over, grasped her wrist, spun her around, pulled her arms behind her, and slapped on a pair of handcuffs.

“You have the right to remain silent,” she heard him say, as if from a great distance. “Anything you say may be used against you in court…”

Corrie couldn’t believe this was happening to her.

“…You have the right to consult with an attorney, and to have that attorney present during questioning. If you are indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to you. Do you understand?”

She couldn’t speak.

“Do you understand? Please speak or nod your answer.”

Corrie managed to nod.

The cop said loudly: “I make note of the fact the prisoner has acknowledged understanding her rights.”

Holding her by the arm, the cop led her out of the stacks of equipment and into the open. She blinked in the bright light. Another cop had unzipped her backpack and was looking through it. He soon extracted the two ziplock bags containing the bones.

Chief Morris watched him, looking exceedingly unhappy. Standing beside him and surrounded by several security officers of The Heights was Mrs. Kermode, dressed in a slim, zebra-striped winter outfit trimmed in fur — with a look on her face of malice triumphant.

“Well, well,” she said, breathing steam like a dragon. “The girl studying law enforcement is actually a criminal. I had you pegged the moment I saw you. I knew you’d try something like this — and here you are, predictable as clockwork. Trespassing, vandalism, larceny, resisting arrest.” She reached out and took a ziplock bag from the cop and waved it in Corrie’s face. “And grave robbing.”

“That’s enough,” the chief said to Kermode. “Please give that evidence back to the officer and let’s go.” He took Corrie gently by the arm. “And you, young lady — I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”

Five long days later, Corrie remained locked up in the Roaring Fork County Jail. Bail had been set at fifty thousand dollars, which she didn’t have — not even the five-thousand-dollar surety — and the local bail bondsman declined to take her as a client because she was from out of state, with no assets to pledge and no relatives to vouch for her. She had been too ashamed to call her father, and anyway he sure didn’t have the money. There was no one else in her life — except Pendergast. And even if she could reach him, she’d die before she took any more money from him — especially bond money.

Nevertheless, she’d had to write him a letter. She had no idea where he was or what he was doing. She hadn’t heard from him in nearly a year. But he, or someone acting for him, had continued paying her tuition. And the day after her arrest, with the story plastered all over the front page of the Roaring Fork Times, she realized she had to write. Because if she didn’t, and he heard about her arrest from someone else, saw those headlines…She owed it to him to tell him first.

So she had written a letter to his Dakota address, care of Proctor. In it she told the whole story, unvarnished. The only thing she left out was the bail situation. Writing everything down had really impressed on her what a brainless, overconfident, and self-destructive thing she had done. She concluded by telling him his obligation to her was over and that no reply was expected or wanted. He was no longer to concern himself with her. She would take care of herself from now on. Except that someday, as soon as she was able, she would pay him back for all the tuition he had wasted sending her to John Jay.