Bed of Bones (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Five) (14 page)

“I know, but I got tired of sitting there.”

“Where are you?”

“Well…umm…”

“Shelby, I don’t have time for this right now. Tell me where you are or you can find your own way back to the house.”

I didn’t mean it, but under the watchful eye of Carlo, I didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m at the police station.”

“You’re where?” I asked.

“I got busted tryin’ to get a ride into town.”

“By who?”

“I dunno. Some old guy. I called him Officer Grandpa. He didn’t like it. Now I’m here.”

She yawned as if it was nothing.

“You expect me to believe he hauled you in just for hitching?” I asked.

“I kind of had my skirt pulled up at the time. Not a lot, just a little bit, I swear. You couldn’t see my panties or nothin’. The cop gave me some lecture about what could happen to me, and I mouthed off. Then he shoved me into the back seat of his car and cuffed me. He cuffed me, Sloane. Can you believe it?”

There was one thing I did believe—I wasn’t cut out to raise a teenager.

“Does the officer who arrested you know you’re talking to me right now?” I asked.

“Doubt it. He passed me off to some other guy who says he knows you. I think he’s your friend.”

“What friend?”

“Your friend.”

“Chief Sheppard?”

I wanted to groan aloud.

“No, your other one. His badge says Cooper.”

“Coop?” I asked.

“Yeah, him.”

Double groan.

“I told him I was staying with you.”

“And?”

“He just laughed.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“He’s standin’ next to me, but, ahh, he’s still laughin’.”

“Just put him on please.”

The phone was passed off. A wheezy guffaw streamed through the air. I tolerated it for several seconds, and when he still couldn’t bring himself to talk to me after I’d said hello a handful of times, I practically broke the glass on my cell phone with my finger to end the call. I dialed Cade. Whatever insults Coop had planned for me, they could wait.

“Your kid is going to send me to an early grave,” I said. “If she was a child, I’d advise you to spank her until her ass drew blood, and I’m not even a supporter of physical what-you-call-it. Not when it’s a kid. She may, however, be the one exception.”

It sounded like he was laughing too, but he managed to get out, “What did she do now?”

“Tried to hitch a ride into town, got picked up by an officer.”

“Maybe we could convince him to hold her for a while.”

We?

“I’m kinda in the middle of something,” I said. “How long until you get here?”

“An hour at the most.”

“Call the station, let them know who you are, and tell them you’re on your way. I’ll meet up with you as soon as I can.”

Carlo shook his head, indicating his displeasure. At least he didn’t say anything.

While I’d been on the phone, Butch directed the pilot to our destination. We were almost there.

“What we’re looking for is going to be right through those trees,” Butch said.

I peered through the glass, seeing nothing but magnificent pines and miles of white.

“Don’t know what you’re expecting to find,” Butch continued. “I don’t even think we’ll be able to—”

He stopped mid-sentence.

“What is it?” I asked.

His face paled, the fleshy color turning a somber shade of ash.

I placed a hand on his shoulder, tried to look past him. “Butch?”

It was like he couldn’t hear me.

I looked out my window. I saw nothing. Carlo dashed from his seat, crossed to the other side, trying to glimpse what had caused Butch to clam up. Carlo hovered over Butch, his head pressed against the glass. “No, it can’t be. Melody.”

“Carlo—what’s going on? What do you see?”

He turned, gripping the vinyl seat to keep his balance. “Sloane, they’re dead. They’re all dead.”

CHAPTER 29

The killer may not have been able to descend the opening of the shaft given the iron-sealed door and the mountain of snow piled on top of it, but he’d still found a way to carry out the ritual with his own unique flavor. Melody Sinclair, Brynn Rowland, and Victoria Broderick had been laid on top of a section of plowed snow. It looked like it had all been done by hand, hours of work slaving away in the intense cold to make sure it was just right. Then replowing with each snowfall.

The killer had begun to form a circular pattern with the women’s frozen corpses. Feet near the center of the circle, the bodies were about two feet apart, arms crossed over chests, heads tilted upward, facing the sky. The bodies reminded me of points on a star. I imagined the killer standing in the center circle formed by the women’s feet, pivoting as he cast his eyes downward, observing them one by one.

Crosses fashioned out of what looked like two-by-four pieces of lumber had been staked to the ground about one foot behind each of the bodies. I reached into my bag, extracted a pair of binoculars, zoomed in, focusing on the words on the grave markers. They weren’t carved or etched into the wood, they were written, with a thick marker of some kind. Melody Sinclair’s cross displayed the words LYING TONGUE. On Brynn Rowland’s: SHEDDER OF BLOOD. What blood had she shed? I angled the lenses, searching for the words behind Victoria Broderick’s body. Since I had never seen her before, I could only assume it was her. On her cross it said: FALSE WITNESS.

Carlo held out a hand. I inserted the binoculars onto his palm, keeping my hand on them at first. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” I said. “Maybe you should wait.”

“I’ll see her sooner or later, Sloane.”

He stared through the lenses, his face tight, fist balled up like he wanted to strike. I didn’t blame him. Butch’s arms were crossed in front of him, his head down, body rocking. He chanted something under his breath, trying to self-soothe.

Carlo made eye contact with the pilot. “Get us out of here. Now.”

We’d interrupted the killer’s process, stumbled upon his dump site. He was only halfway through the kill process. How would it change things once he found out the ground he considered sacred had been tainted, his precious bodies extracted from the scene?

What would he do now?

Where would he go?

The pilot whisked us away. Carlo frantically made one phone call after another—one to the chief, another to his fellow agents, informing them of our macabre discovery. Once we touched down, Butch and I would be expected at the station, briefed on what we knew, grilled just like everyone else. And the latest crime scene would be yet another one I’d be shut out from.

I glanced at Carlo. His jaw was locked, face petrified, like carved stone. Melody was dead. I wondered if he blamed me in some way for not finding her sooner. I didn’t know whether to offer him some kind of comfort or to keep my mouth shut. I imagined neither would matter. It wouldn’t give him the solace he needed. It wouldn’t bring her back.

CHAPTER 30

I sat through an uncomfortable debriefing at the station, during which Carlo admitted his relationship with Melody Sinclair to the class of investigators, agents, higher-ranking officers, and the chief who’d come up with a name for the guy they were looking for: The Sundance Killer. It lacked creativity, but caught on fast.

No longer a suspect, Carlo behaved like he had no reason to withhold his past any longer. His hiring me, in his words, was “totally justifiable and not to be questioned.” I sat beside him, hands in my lap, quiet. Not having anything to say wasn’t my usual MO, but the daggers I received from my fellow classmates pierced my soul. And I simply didn’t have the will to take them all on at once.

In the middle of what felt like an interrogation process, a kid the chief referred to as Kenny came in with information on the tracks found at the scene. He was tall, lanky, preferring eye-glasses to contact lenses. His hair was short but stuck out like he’d tossed and turned in bed the night before, not bothering to brush his tangled locks this morning. He probably didn’t have a girlfriend and didn’t assume anyone would care. And with that kind of attitude, he wouldn’t have a female companion anytime soon either.

The grin on Kenny’s face changed from a confident smile to a look of awkwardness as he approached his waiting audience. I attributed it to the multitude of stressed-out stares coming at him from every direction across the police round table.

At least they’d stopped looking at me.

“Well,” the chief flicked a couple fingers in the air, “get on with it.”

Kenny coughed and a sound erupted like the last trickle of water filtering down the drain in a bathtub. “Tire manufacturers make several different lines in their tires, all with their own tread design, each in various sizes.”

I thought I detected a bit of a speech impediment in his tone, a possible lisp he’d corrected over the years.

“Tell us something we don’t know,” Carlo added. “This isn’t our first day at Police Academy.”

Under his breath, Coop said, “Oh, I don’t know—it might be for Sloane.”

Coop refrained from further comment when Carlo began to rise. The chief leaned over, whispered something to Coop then looked at Carlo like he’d taken care of it. Carlo sat back down.

As the meeting continued, photos sporadically filtered in from the crime scene where investigators were racing to process as much as they could before dark. Judging by the size and shape of the tracks, the women had most likely been transported to the place of their death on a snowmobile of some kind. Whether they were still alive at the time was anyone’s guess at this point. Visible tracks led to and from the crime scene, coming to a snow-packed road. It was a road less traveled making it easy to spot tracks made by an SUV or a pick-up truck. This is where the new information came in. Kenny said three-dimensional impressions had been taken and then cast using Plaster of Paris. Given we didn’t have a suspect vehicle, I hoped we were all about to get lucky, at least matching the model of tire from the tread pattern.

“When analyzing the tracks, we found the tires were different,” Kenny said. “The one on the left didn’t have the same pattern as the one on the right. Both had a low amount of tread remaining on the tire. We ran the tracks through the TreadMate database and matched one of the two tires. I have the manufacturer as well as the model if you want to see it.” He held a sheet of paper out, glancing around the room like he wasn’t sure who he should give it to.

Carlo and the chief both held up a finger at the same time. Kenny walked over, put the paper into the chief’s hand. The chief glanced at it then passed it to Carlo.

“Give us a minute, all right?” the chief said to Kenny.

Kenny folded his arms, leaned against the wall behind him.

“I’ll need you to leave the room, Kenny,” the chief said.

Kenny’s face reddened. He bowed his head and walked out.

The chief glanced around. “We done here with this one for now?” He thumbed in my direction.

“For now,” Coop said.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” the chief scolded. He looked at a federal agent opposite him. The agent exchanged looks with Carlo and then gave a slight nod.

My immediate departure was followed by the chief’s, who offered my second lecture of the day. I prayed there wouldn’t be a third. I hadn’t told him I was working with Carlo, something he would view as inconsiderate on my part. Frankly, I was astonished he believed I was going to sit this one out.

His first mistake.

Telling me they had it handled and didn’t need my help was his second.

I’d never heeded his warnings before.

The use of the word “ass” shot out of his mouth several times and in a multitude of ways—maybe more times than I’d ever heard it used by a person in one sitting before. For the grand finale, I was given strict instructions not to leave my house without “checking in” first. All of this was said in what I liked to call his “I think I’m being really quiet” voice. Too bad he failed to notice the corn circling around the outside of his office like vultures desperate for a meaty bite.

Carlo dispersed the lurkers and walked in. The chief muttered something about getting me out of there before anything else happened. I walked out. Carlo followed. No matter where I went, I couldn’t get a moment’s peace.

“Carlo, I’m—”

He took my hand in his. His voice was solid and smooth, but his eyes mourned Melody. “Don’t, Sloane. It’s not your fault. You didn’t kill her. I’ve been at this job long enough to know what happens when you bear the weight of burdens that aren’t really your own. Besides, if it wasn’t for you, we’d still be looking.”

Such sophistication.

Such kindness.

I didn’t deserve it.

“I’m going to have someone drive you home,” he said.

“There’s no need—I’m fine.”

“You’re not, and I wasn’t asking. I’m working on getting eyes on you while we find this guy. If you leave the house, I want to know.”

Excellent. Now two people I needed to check in with. In a single day, the adult had become the child.

Slumped over a metal table in the waiting room was Ronnie, his toupee not-so-firmly back in place. He’d been kept on ice, awaiting the bad news about Brynn. Coop stood over him. Not exactly the kind of person I’d want next to me when I needed support. He placed a hand on Ronnie’s shoulder, said something to him. Ronnie wiped his watery eyes, looked up, pointed at me like he knew I was passing by at that exact moment. “Liar!”

It was one simple word, but it spewed from his mouth like the roar of a lion.

His girlfriend was gone, and he blamed me. I tried convincing myself it was only because he needed to take it out on someone, but I never let myself off so easy.

Yet another of my epic failures.

…

Carlo’s hands gripped my arms, shaking me. “Hey—can you hear me?”

Someone said something. A female. I recognized the voice. Rose. In a hushed tone, Carlo muttered something about water. This was followed by a warning to keep quiet.

“She’ll be fine,” he said. “She just needs a minute.”

I could hear the rubber on her shoes as she swished away. She was…running.