His Garden of Bones (Skye Cree Book 4) (23 page)

She grinned. “You have a knack for using that deadpan delivery of yours to scare people off.”

“Good to know. It doesn’t seem to scare off Lena.”

“No, Lena’s made of sterner stuff. Besides, she’s had your number for years.”

“Is that a euphemism? What number is that?”

“Surely you aren’t that clueless. Why do you think Lena used to hang out at the diner so much, so often?”

Travis looked awestruck at that newfound bombshell. “Not because of me. The two of you connected. You worked there.”

“It certainly wasn’t all because of me. Of course it was you. Think about it. She’d lost her husband and her son. For a long time she was in a bad place and lonely. Eating so many meals at Country Kitchen didn’t send out any kind of clue for you? You never wondered why a great cook like Lena kept coming back to eat your greasy fish and chips or to order that tuna melt she always gets?”

“Why didn’t she ever say anything to me all this time?”

“Maybe she didn’t think you were interested. Look, she and Zoe will be here for the Christmas party. Wear something besides your jeans and boots that wows and dazzles.”

Adamant, Travis stated, “I’m not wearing a tie.”

“Did I say anything about wrapping anything around your neck? No. Just put on a nice shirt, a nice pair of pants and a jacket. I know you own them so dress up a little for the party. That’s all I’m saying.”

Later, everyone decided to stay the night. They camped out in different parts of the house. Lena and Zoe shared one of the bedrooms, as did Tate and Gabby. The programmers spread out in the living room freeing up the last remaining guest room for Judy. Travis bunked down in the den.

Before they all headed to their various parts of the house, Josh turned to the group and said, “Get plenty of shuteye now because we’ll be working overtime on this case until we catch this bastard. Be ready for the weekend. This guy is no doubt gearing up for an active Christmas and New Year. So plan to stop him in his tracks by all means necessary.”

“Thanks to Winston, we already know the unsub loves to use the weekends so... We need to be ready for anything and everything,” Skye reiterated.

“Could we get the cops involved this time, for maybe a stakeout around UDub?” Winston suggested. “That might help.”

“Great idea. I’ll set it up with Harry. Also, you should know I sent an email to Emmett Cannavale with a list of why he should help us on this case.”

“What about his planned vacation to the Cascades with his wife? You really think you could talk him into changing his plans?” Travis asked.

She grinned. “I already did. You forget sometimes that I’m very persuasive when I’m motivated.”

Josh draped his arm around her shoulder as they made their way upstairs. “You amaze me. Who else could convince Emmett Cannavale to come back to Seattle to give up his upscale lodge reservation to work this case this close to Christmas?”

“Hey, never underestimate dangling a unique serial killer in front of a profiler.”

“But Emmett’s agreeing to give up spending downtime with his wife in a luxury hotel with room service at his fingertips, especially this time of the year, is unusual to say the least. I mean, it’s great for us, but maybe not so much for his relationship.”

“What can I say? He’s a cop who loves the idea of going up against a sadistic killer. What cop doesn’t bite on that kind of challenge?”

“Come on, how’d you do it? What’s the catch? What did you have to promise him?”

“Not much.”

He playfully nudged a finger into her ribs to get her to come clean.

“Okay. Okay. He gets dibs on any book deal that comes along
and
he wants full access to interview him first after capture.”

“Ah, shouldn’t you run that by Harry first?”

“Already did. Harry says it’s not a problem. Now the tricky part is that Harry’s leaving the force at the end of the month so… After the first of the year, it’s not really up to him to grant that kind of exclusive access. But since we have to catch the guy first, I’ll deal with that slippery slope when it comes up. I’m willing to take my chances if we get Emmett onboard.”

“You’re sneaky.”

“I know.”

“And motivated.”

“Guilty.”

“Why don’t we explore that slippery slope another way?”

“You’re so bad. Did I mention it’s good to have you home from the hospital?”

T
he next morning, still cozied up in bed, Skye looked over at Josh who had cracked open one sleepy eye toward her. He scrubbed his hands over his face and tried to sit up. “That was one short night.”

“We went to bed late. You do realize we have a houseful of people who’ll be starving as soon as they get up.”

“I say we make them scrounge for themselves.” With that statement, he flopped over on top of her, pinning her body to the mattress. “It occurred to me that I didn’t get my official ‘welcome home’ present last night.”

Laughing, she tried to buck him off. “What is it with you and your welcome home euphemisms? What about your ribs and your head?”

“My body’s already healing, just like it did after the transformation. Don’t worry, I’ll take it nice and easy,” Josh teased.

“Okay, so what about our houseful of guests?”

“Let them get their own action. So instead of you screaming out my name in wild abandon, you’ll need to muzzle your enthusiasm,” he said, running his tongue down her neck.

“Wild abandon? Where do you get this stuff?”

He shushed her next word with little nibbles, tugging at her lips.

“Are you sure you’re up for this so soon after the hospital?”

In answer, he pressed her further into the mattress, ran her hand down his body. “What does that feel like to you?”

“It feels like you don’t give a hang about having a dozen houseguests.”

“How’d you guess? I spent three days on my back without you. I intend to enjoy you to the fullest and recapture what I missed.”

She linked her arms around his neck. “Then we’d better get busy before the entire house wakes up.”

“Now that’s what I wanted to hear.”

A short half
hour later, Skye pushed her hair off her face and scooted out of bed. “So how do I pull off breakfast for ten exactly? Any ideas? Because I’m not sure we have enough of one food item to serve across the board let alone enough cereal or eggs to go around. We haven’t been to the market to buy a supply of groceries since this thing started.”

“Make it a free-for-all, party atmosphere. Throw together a batch of whatever we have on hand. If there’s a box of Bisquick, we make pancakes. Take what’s left of a loaf of bread and whip up French toast. Use up the rest of the Life cereal and Cheerios in the pantry. Scramble eggs. Throw bacon in a skillet. Get creative.”

“Fine. Then I’ll need all hands on deck reporting for galley duty.”

Josh tossed back the covers. “Okay, I’ll go round up Travis for another pair of hands.”

Later, while Josh broke eggs into a bowl to scramble and Travis threw strips of meat into a skillet, Skye manned a griddle bubbling with hotcakes on one end and French toast sizzling on the other.

“Imagine finding milk still in date and bread that isn’t growing mold,” Skye noted with glee.

“But we have to thank Lena for the bacon,” Travis pointed out. “She must’ve snuck that in with her pot roast last night.”

“Lena’s good at sneaking things in that way,” Zoe piped up. “We stopped at the store last night after we got off the ferry, the little food store in town, and picked up a few things so we wouldn’t starve. Any chance of getting a cup of hot chocolate?”

Skye pointed to the pantry. “You’ll find the mix in there. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Got it handled,” Travis said as he reached over, turned the burner on next to the pan he was tending.

By the time the other guests began to drift down from upstairs, the kitchen smelled like a blend of cinnamon and bacon.

Reggie sniffed the air and said, “I wish I lived here all the time, fresh island air out the back door and bacon frying in the pan. This could be home sweet home.”

“What’s on the agenda today?” Leo asked, grabbing one of the plates set out on the counter. “I mean, are we storming the walls around Lake Union, hitting the streets, what?”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Josh said filling up a platter with fluffy eggs and shoving it toward the programmer. “We knock on doors around the area where the Stockman houseboat used to be. Don’t go near the crime scene, though. Make sure you don’t interfere with the investigation in any way. When asking questions, identify yourselves as working for the Artemis Foundation.”

“We could sure use ID badges for this kind of event,” Winston proposed. “I could design one for us that we wear around the neck.”

Skye picked up on the hacker’s eagerness. “Good idea. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before now. Be sure to include the foundation’s logo on anything you design. When you come up with a draft, run it by me or Josh.” She turned from the stove to face everyone else. “The purpose of fanning out around Lake Union is to circulate the flyers Travis had printed up. It has all the info about what we think the delivery van looked like that tried to run down Josh. Ask if anyone’s seen it in the area before Sunday night. Show them pictures of Ashley and Kiki. Find out if anyone might’ve seen the guy dragging them into the houseboat.”

“But wouldn’t the police have already covered that?” Lena wanted to know, stepping around the crowd as she made her way to the coffee pot.

“Harry needs all the help he can get. Think of us as his support system. Josh already cleared this with him and I think it’s an excellent way of sweeping the neighborhood a second time. Some of the neighbors weren’t home the day the cops did the initial canvassing. If it works, we might adopt this plan moving forward into what we do and how we react after other disappearances.”

“Is this the reason you guys have been training us on how to talk to and connect with families that have been through the worst possible scenario?” Winston wanted to know.

“That’s part of it,” Josh answered. “Working at the foundation, we interact with the community in a variety of ways. One of those is the hope that when we talk to people we have the potential to get them to open up. Part of opening up is to jog their memories, get them talking about traumatic events from the past, sometimes days, sometimes years in the past. You all know Judy’s story.” Josh looked over at the woman in question and smiled. “Judy knows how difficult it is to go back in time, and relive events best forgotten. But she also knows how valuable cracking a memory is in helping solve a case. What we’re looking for around Lake Union is to locate witnesses. Today we pass around the sketch Ashley came up with, ask if anyone was in the neighborhood lately that stood out, ask about any unusual activity that attracted attention.”

Winston nodded. “Then we’ll plaster the neighborhood with everything we’ve got.”

Within hours, ten
reliable foot soldiers from the Artemis Foundation converged on the neighborhood around Lake Union. Going door to door they canvassed one houseboat after the other. When that turned up nothing, they fanned out to the expensive homes that dotted the steep hillside above the lake.

They chatted up anyone out on the docks, out washing a car, out for a jog, or anyone who looked as if they were willing to talk. But asking people to recall anything strange within the last week only resulted in the same rehash of the Sunday night explosion. And that from the ones who’d been outside. Most had been parked in front of the television watching Sunday football during the dreary afternoon and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Some hadn’t even been home because they’d been out finishing up their Christmas shopping. Whatever the reason, the results of the sweep were disappointing.

By five o’clock as darkness descended, the stalwart volunteers reluctantly gave up and headed back to their rides, wondering if their efforts had been in vain.

Winston summed it up best. “I can’t help but wonder. Is he out there somewhere watching us now, hoping to find an opportunity to strike? I’m still not over him gutting the dog.”

“We’re all bothered by the fact our killer is a butcher.” Downhearted, but still determined, Leo added, “Let’s hope we nab this son of a bitch before he finds another victim.”