Stiles glanced at him, and the deputy saw a gleam in his eyes. “Wait a minute,” the soldier whispered, ushering Bean back through the crawlspace. He used both of their flashlights to illuminate the small chamber. The table and ropes had been moved there recently, but the rest of the debris present was older, much older, and gave the room a sense of identity. There was a smaller table, playroom size, with equally small chairs, all standing in a puddle of water and half-rotted. In the corner, a wooden box with an engraved lid was in much the same condition. There were rocking horses by the wall, two of them, each sitting crookedly on softening blades. Their wooden faces had grown whiskery with mildew. “Toys?” Stiles wondered aloud. “In a cave?”

Charlie accepted it all with a shrug. “Haven’t you ever built a fort, Stiles? A clubhouse, someplace to hide out and play?” He looked around. “This would’ve made a really good one. If it didn’t leak so much.”

Stiles nodded. “Maybe it didn’t, years back. This is connected to Danner’s basement, remember?” He was standing by a rocky shelf in the wall, cluttered with odds and ends, the cast-offs of childhood. The shelf was dry and some of the things had escaped the ravages of mildew, like the wooden box perched there. Its exterior, like the horses, had grown green and fuzzy, but the interior still held little wooden cowboys and their horses, remarkably well preserved. The troop of cavalry soldiers, complete with bugler, were hand-carved and painted, and left with an endearing lack of detail. There were two of each soldier. He put them back and rummaged through the other things on the shelf, the two harmonicas, the slingshots, the toy six-shooters. Two of each. Two of everything. Even the books. Their time-worn covers were all curled and yellow, all but indistinguishable from one another. He could barely identify titles like Treasure Island and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the usual adventures of youth, although most children don’t enjoy first editions. Beneath them he found two copies of a school primer in somewhat better condition—at least it didn’t crumble in his hands. He flipped open the parchment-like cover of one. In bold, young letters, the name Sebastian Danner was hand-printed. “We were right. This was Danner’s playground.”

He picked up the other, opened the cover. On the inside, in a slightly less legible scrawl, was Nathan Danner.

Bean caught the change in his expression. “What? What is it?”

Stiles grinned wryly, satisfied that the pieces were finally falling into place. The walled-up prison, partially disinterred. The old man Del saw in the woods. Two of every toy. “Maybe there is someone we can ask about the tunnels,” he said, opening up the toy-soldier case. He held out two identical officers. “Don’t you get it? Twins.”

18

Chapter Eighteen