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Cooper shook his head. "No, but..." He glanced around the empty library annex and lowered his voice. "Yesterday morning, I noticed her laptop had been moved. Just slightly, like someone had tried to access it. I thought I was being paranoid, but..."
"What does that have to do with you running?" Sheila asked.
"I felt guilty about not reporting with her laptop, like you might think I was somehow involved—but I was really just trying to protect her work. She made me promise not to tell anyone about her work until she gave permission. She said some of these stories... they weren't meant for everyone to hear. That knowledge can be dangerous in the wrong hands."
Cooper looked down at his hands. "The thing is... Dr. Mitchell wasn't just recording these stories. She was connecting them. Finding patterns."
"What kind of patterns?" Sheila asked.
"She started noticing similarities between different tribes' oral histories. Specifically about sacred caves." He pulled a notebook from his backpack, flipping it open. "She'd mapped out dozens of sites based on these stories. Places where ceremonies were performed, where important items were stored. But there was one story that kept coming up, across different tribes."
Finn leaned forward. "What story?"
"About a particular cave system. One that was considered both sacred and dangerous. A place where..." He checked his notes. "Where 'the old ones sleep beneath the ice.'"
Sheila felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. "The ice caves."
Cooper nodded. "Dr. Mitchell believed she'd found it. But she said she needed to verify something first before she took her findings to the tribal council." He closed the notebook. "That was the last time I saw her."
"The work she was doing," Sheila began. "We need to see it."
Cooper hesitated.
"She's dead, James," Sheila said gently. "Don't you think she'd want us to find out what happened to her?"
Finally, he swallowed hard and nodded. "She kept her research notes in a cloud account. I have access to it—I could show you."
Sheila glanced at Finn, who gave a slight nod. "We'd appreciate that."
As Cooper pulled up the files on his laptop, Sheila's mind was racing. Mitchell had found something in those caves, something worth killing for. But was she killed to keep that discovery secret? Or had someone used her own research against her, turning her into one more story in the caves' dark history?
"Here," Cooper said, turning the laptop toward them. "These are her most recent notes."
Cooper scrolled through pages of field notes, transcribed interviews, and location data.
"Wait," Sheila said, pointing to a date entry from last week. "Go back to that."
The entry was brief: Confirmed location matches Elder Joseph's description. Rock formation exactly as documented in 1922 survey. Evidence of recent activity—need to consult with Council before proceeding.
"Recent activity?" Finn asked. "In a sealed cave system?"
Cooper pushed his glasses up nervously. "Dr. Mitchell was worried about what she called 'unauthorized entries' into various sacred sites. People going into restricted areas, moving things around. She was concerned that artifacts were being stolen."
Sheila leaned back, considering. A murdered anthropologist, and a killer who knew enough about indigenous traditions to stage an elaborate ceremonial burial.
"Mr. Cooper," she said, "we're going to need copies of everything you can share with us. And I mean everything—emails, research notes, her calendar. Anything that might tell us where she went in those last few days."
As Cooper began copying files, Finn moved closer to Sheila. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked quietly.
Sheila nodded. "Mitchell found something in those caves. Something worth killing for."
"And someone who knew her research well enough to use it against her."
"The question is," Sheila said, watching Cooper work, "was she killed because of what she discovered? Or because of what she refused to share?"
CHAPTER FIVE
"I want every inch of those caves mapped," Sheila said, studying the grid pattern Marcus Weber had drawn over the cave system blueprint. "No blind spots, no assumptions. Treat it like a crime scene sweep."