Infinite Loop

Chapter 10 The Mystery Deepens

"Listen, I didn't mean to hurt you, but you freaked me out," he explained. "What's going on? Why are you down here?" His voice was as shaky as his hands.

Her blue eyes gave him a blank look at first until she remembered what happened.

"Don't hurt me," she stammered as she tried to sit up and slide away from him at the same time. It was an ungainly attempt that might have made him laugh any other time. But it was clear she was terrified of him.

"I'm not going to hurt you, damn it," he growled at her. "I wouldn't have hit you if you'd just shut up and listen." Warren still had an adrenaline rush going. He forced himself to take a deep breath as he backed away from her.

"Ok, I know you didn't kill the guy since you walked by me. I'm pretty sure someone else is down here in this area. That's why I came down; I heard people talking along with strange noises."

He slowly scanned the area with the light in his hand. He could see no one on the ladder closest to them.

Amber gave him a suspicious look.

"I want to get the captain," she insisted.

"I agree. That makes sense." He replied.

As he turned the beam of light on her, her expression shot venom at him when she raised her hand to shield her eyes. Warren didn't like the look.

"Hold on! Before we go anywhere, I want to know why you're down here," he growled. "Now that I think about it, you've been hanging around my cabin. I have a sneaky sensation you have been following me. In fact, I feel you might tell the captain I did this. Listen carefully, I'm not frying again."

Amber gave him a curious look at what he told her.

"No, we go to the captain," she declared and started toward the ladder.

Impatiently, he grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. He pressed his fingers hard into her arm, wanting to shake some sense into the woman.

"Listen, if I was the killer, wouldn't you be dead already? Now, think about that."

Her hostility dropped slightly.

"It would have been simple to just walk out of here, leaving two dead bodies here. But I'm not that way," Warren stated. "Now come with me."

He pulled her back over to the ladder, where he heard someone climbing earlier. Her defiant look remained, but she quit fighting his pull.

"I thought you said someone else is down here," she told him in a mocking tone, which made him grit his teeth. He trained the beam of light up and down the ladder to the hatch above.

"I'm damn sure someone was down here since I heard them running away when you came down," he insisted. "They must have escaped this way."

After several seconds of staring at the closed door above, he glanced at her. Her smirk made him replay the events in his head.

"I know I heard footsteps," he said mostly to himself, finally convincing himself whoever was waiting in the cargo hold with him was now gone.

"Pretty convenient for whoever it was," Amber said. The skepticism was evident in her voice made him angry.

"Shut it," he snapped. "It's not like you're clean here. You still haven't told me why you're down here,"

He pushed her back to the murder scene. When they got near the body, he swept the floor with the flashlight beam, immediately finding the item he stepped on earlier.

"What the hell is this?" He asked as he crouched down, picking up a piece of stone like material.

As he examined the unusual piece, he realized he held a broken finger from a good-sized statue.