Chapter 1 - Play Dead
My daughter saved us by pretending I was already dead.
I was lying on cold dirt inside an abandoned Colorado mine when I tried to push myself upright.
Pain shot through my left ankle and side.
Before I could make a sound, eight-year-old Sophie grabbed both my shoulders and forced me flat.
“Mom—play dead.”
Then she pressed one finger to her lips.
I trusted the fear in her face.
My eyes closed.
Seconds later, my brother Daniel appeared at the shaft opening above us.
“Melissa?”
A rescue rope dropped toward me.
Beside him stood our father, Richard.
Dad leaned forward.
“I’m going down.”
For one second, relief almost made me move.
Then Daniel yanked the rope back.
It whipped across the dirt beyond my hand.
“Leave them.”
Silence.
Dad said:
“Daniel—”
“They’re not moving.”
My stomach turned cold.
Sophie’s tiny fingers closed around mine.
I heard Daniel grab Dad’s coat.
Their footsteps moved away.
I opened my eyes.
Sophie was crying silently.
“Sweetheart—”
A flashlight beam suddenly swept across the shaft.
I dropped flat again.
Daniel’s silhouette appeared at the opening.
He stood there.
Watching.
Checking.
Then disappeared.
We waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
Finally I sat up and pulled Sophie against me.
“How did you know?”
She looked toward the opening.
Then reached into her jacket.
A small brass key dropped into my palm.
Old.
Heavy.
Stamped with the faded outline of a mountain.
“Where did you get this?”
“Daniel dropped it by the truck.”
She swallowed.
“He told Grandpa nobody could find it.”
I stared at the key.
Pike Ridge Mining.
I had seen keys like it when I was a child.
Then I looked deeper into the tunnel.
Thirty yards away, half hidden behind timber supports, stood an old steel maintenance gate.
A brass lock hung from it.
“Sophie.”
“What?”
“Did Daniel see you take this?”
She shook her head.
“What else did you hear?”
Her voice became smaller.
“He said after you signed, they could close this place forever.”
My ankle throbbed.
Above us, my brother and father had just walked away believing I was helpless underground with an eight-year-old child.
And somehow the thing Daniel was most afraid of losing was not us.
It was a key.
I pushed myself upright against the wall.
“Can you walk?”
Sophie nodded.
“Stay next to me.”
“What if Daniel comes back?”
I looked toward the opening.
“He already did.”
Then toward the locked gate.
“So we’re not going that way.”
May you like
I placed the brass key into the lock.
It turned.
