River Sanchez's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

River stepped into the room. Martin turned in the chair and did not stand. He raised both hands to shoulder height and kept them there. Soleia moved to the corkboard and touched the edge of Cedar's photo. River pointed at the monitors. Three feeds ran at once. A gas pump. A gravel lot. A stretch of low brush he had never seen. He asked Martin where the feeds came from and Martin said the cameras belong to the motel. Martin talked fast. He said one of the motel cameras had picked up a stray signal months ago. A student on the bus had been filming with a handheld. The two devices synced by accident and Martin had kept the recording. He said he watched what happened on the bus. He said the kids dropped the camera in the desert before they were taken. He would not say by what. He tapped a key and a still frame filled the center monitor. River leaned in. The frame showed a wide pond ringed by rock. Water poured from a heavy pipe into the pool. Palms leaned over the far edge. He had lived in this county eleven years and had never seen the place. Something stood at the waterline in the frame, tall and wrong, but Martin swiped past it before River could fix the shape. Martin started to explain the pipe. He stopped. Tires ground the gravel above them. Doors slammed. Boots hit the shed floor. A voice River knew called down through the hatch. Chief Suocipsus was on the ladder, and she was not alone. Martin stood. He pulled a panel loose from the back wall and waved them through. A round pipe opened behind it, wide enough to crawl into, tilted down. He told River to go. He said he would hold the room. River went in headfirst with Soleia behind him. The metal was slick with runoff. The tilt steepened and they slid. They slid a long time. The pipe hummed around them. River braced his boots against the walls and could not slow down. Light grew ahead. The pipe opened and dumped them into daylight and water. River came up coughing in a shallow pool. Soleia surfaced next to him, spitting grit. He knew the shape of the rocks before he had cleared his eyes. The pond from the monitor. The pipe above them still poured. Soleia climbed out first. She stopped at the far lip of the pool and did not speak. River pulled himself up beside her. On a flat stone at the edge of the water sat a pair of red and black sneakers, laces still tied, set neat and side by side. Cedar's shoes. No mud. No blood. Placed. River picked one up. It was dry. Whoever set them there had done it after the pipe stopped running last, and had known someone would come out this way.