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Page 307
When she didn't answer, I started poking around the house, looking in the windows, doing anything I could think of to learn something about what was going on here. I could hear the rushing and surging of water. I knew I was several hundred yards from the shore, but I was certain about what I heard. That's when I discovered this hidden inlet. There's water down there, and it's rushing in either through some underground cave or the land west of here is a natural bridge."
Jake stared down into the yawning blackness, listening to the dull constant rumble of the swirling waters. "Damn," he muttered, "all these years and I had no idea there was anything like this back here."
"Well, it's sheer speculation on my part, but I've got one of those gut feelings."
"What's your gut tellin' you this time?" Jake asked.
"I figure that inlet down there is the very reason old lady Austin was here in the first place."
Madden stared back at me blankly. My theory was a long way from empirical.
"It just stands to reason. Lucy tells me the geological profile and the topographical features of each place that these incidents have occurred were all networked with caves and subterranean caverns. I don't think it's a coincidence that this old woman

 
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