by Rebecca York
Clenching his jaw so his teeth wouldn’t chatter, he moved under the edge of the warehouse and searched and pulled at things woven into the shoreline vegetation. Frustration ate at him as he struck out again.
One minute…
And then he spotted something big and shiny near the edge of the warehouse, close to where the road above ended. He raced to the spot.
Zero minutes.
Simon surfaced and gasped, tried to shake off the chill now affecting his efficiency. Tempering his breath, he took a deep one and dived. He got a gloved hand on the object that was long and heavy, but the cattails seemed to have grown around it, clutching it. He started ripping at the vegetation, but before he could free the object he had to come up for more air.
Down he went a second time and nearly managed to pull the object free.
A third dive and he succeeded, taking possession of a metal object shaped like a long cup.
Surfacing with no air to spare, Simon took a moment and simply breathed. Tendrils of fog snaked along the water and up over the shoreline. The outside air had changed, hitting him in gusts. About to climb out onto shore, he stopped when he heard a vehicle moving toward him. Grasping the trophy to his chest, he threw himself back into the cattails close to the warehouse and listened, ready to sink below water level if necessary.
The vehicle crept closer and Simon’s pulse thundered, the extra adrenaline warming him. Had Heller and Zanko returned to renew their search for the trophy? Or had someone else come out here to look for it?
Simon waited chin-deep in the water for what felt like forever, but was actually only a few minutes. The vehicle never stopped, merely circled and moved away. Simon moved, too, so he could get a look at the vehicle that turned out to be a Jenkins Cove patrol car. Apparently, the local cops were still on the job, after all.
Heaving a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been discovered, Simon lifted the trophy to see exactly what the hell he’d found. Inscribed on the base of the cup was the name of the race—UK Challenge Cup—and the name of the winner.
Clifford Drake.
***
“What are you doing here?” Lexie asked when her mother walked into the ballroom with Katie in tow.
“Nice to see you, too, sweetheart.”
Lexie hugged her mother, who was several inches shorter with a soft, round body. Her glasses were pushed up into her dark hair threaded with gray, and she wore a smear of flour on one cheek.
“It is nice to see you. Just a surprise.” One Lexie didn’t appreciate at this moment, considering the circumstances. Besides, she was just about to call Simon again. He hadn’t picked up the last two times she’d tried to get him and she was worried. She hugged her daughter and reminded herself that at least Katie’s bodyguard had their back. “Hey, kiddo, how’s the cookie-making?”
“This morning, Nana showed me how to make six kinds of cookies from one dough recipe.”
“Well, good. I expect you’ll keep us well-stocked with goodies from now on.” She looked back to her mother. “So what’s going on?”
“We decided to take a break from baking. Katie wanted to stop at home so she could get her iPod and some fresh clothes. And then she insisted that we come here so she could get a sneak peak at what you’ve done with the place. I was curious myself. You’ve outdone yourself, Lexie. It never looked this good when Jonathan was alive and your dad and I did the decorating.”
Lexie gave her mother another hug. “You exaggerate, but thanks.”
“This looks really rad, Mom.” Katie twirled and dipped in the center of the ballroom as if she were dancing with an invisible partner. “Next year you’ve got to hire me to help.”
Lexie started. “You’re asking me for a job?” Her daughter was growing up way too fast. “Aren’t you a little young to be worrying about working?”
“I will be a teenager by then,” Katie reminded her, her snub nose in the air. “Teenagers have needs that allowances just don’t cover.”
“Okay,” Lexie said, holding herself back from laughing, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She spent the next ten minutes showing her mother and daughter every public room so they could see everything. She even had one of the lighting guys turn on the snow effect.
But all the while she had to hold her anxiety in check. What was Simon up to? Had he gotten into the warehouse?
When Mom and Katie left with hugs and kisses all around, Lexie pulled out her cell and tried again.
No answer.
A chill settled in her middle and she was suddenly afraid that Simon had gotten more than he’d bargained for.
What in the world was going on?
***
Though Simon didn’t know the significance of the trophy being in the water, he was certain it was what Heller had sent Zanko down to find. Thinking it wouldn’t do to mess with any prints on the metal, just in case they would prove to be significant, he kept the diving gloves on until he got back into the warehouse and shoved the trophy into a ditty bag that had been left with the diving gear.
Then he stripped, dried himself off as best he could, and dressed in his blissfully warm clothes. Even so, he was cold to the core and trying not to shake inside. A jog back to the truck should warm him.
Not wanting anyone to figure out what he’d been up to, he put everything back the way he’d found it. Hopefully, the damp undergarments he left folded on the table wouldn’t give him away.
Then, after making sure he was still alone, Simon left the warehouse, resetting the door lock, after which he made for the tree line, ditty bag in hand.
What the hell should he do with the trophy until they figured out what part it had played in things? he wondered. Too risky to leave it in the back of his truck or to store it in Lexie’s house. Better if he hid it someplace in the open. Someplace where no one would think to look. Like somewhere in the swamp.
Thinking he’d find a good spot in the area where he’d parked, he started for his truck.
The wind had picked up, as had the cold. Rather, cold spots. They followed him into the woods. Gusts brought with them fine sprays of snow, though he hadn’t thought it was supposed to snow until later. A shiver raced through Simon and he tried to blame it on his time in the water. But there was something different about the way this felt, as if the air pressure itself had changed. Similar to the way he’d felt the other night. He stopped and peered into the gloom between two trees where he focused on waves of energy that stretched and whirled and morphed into a figure that appeared to be human.
The ghost had returned.
“What do you want me to see this time?” Simon whispered, the cold suddenly taking him in its grip.
He felt an urgency, a force even, pushing him toward the faint apparition that seemed to be taking on substance. The kid appeared in his thin leather coat, the mop of pale hair falling into his face. His dark eyes were sorrowful, his mouth an angry slash in the too-pale face.
“What is it?”
The kid seemed agitated as he waved for Simon to follow, then whirled and pressed deeper into the woods, and Simon couldn’t have stopped himself from following the spirit if he’d wanted to. It was as if invisible strings were tugging at him, connecting him to the dead kid, making him subject to the will of someone who didn’t even exist on this plane.
Instead, he followed a swirl of mist that, to him, seemed to be full of fury.
Why? Simon wondered.
Suddenly the kid stopped, twisted around to face Simon as if trying to tell him something. Or show him something. The apparition was losing substance by the second.
Simon jogged across the short expanse, but the closer he got, the fainter the wraith became. It hovered for a moment, then seemed to dissolve into the blowing snow sweeping through the woods.
“What the hell?”
Simon stopped short. Why had the ghost appeared to him again, only to disappear before there was anything to see? Or was something there and he just had to look more closel
y?
He stepped forward, putting one foot in front of the other like a robot, unable to stop himself until he was within a yard of where the ghost had disappeared. What now? He turned, examining the trees around him as the fog mysteriously rolled back on all sides, as if framing the suspect area.
Nothing!
What the hell?
About to give up and go back to the truck, Simon felt the earth beneath his foot give a little. He looked down. The ground where he stood had been newly turned. No traces of pine needles or leaves covered it. None of the snow that limned the ground around it, delineating the small area.
Had something been buried here?
Wishing he had a shovel, Simon started pushing at some of the soft dirt with his foot. It scooped away easily. A strange feeling shot through him as he gauged the length and width of the patch of nude earth. Hesitating only a second, he put the ditty bag down, got to his knees and started scooping with his hands. Within seconds he uncovered part of what was buried there.
A man, the side of his head bashed in and bloody, stared up at him through lifeless eyes.
Simon hadn’t officially met the man, but he recognized him. Ned Perry, the land developer so desperate to get his hands on shoreline land, even one with a mass grave. The man he’d overheard trying to blackmail Brandon Drake.
His heart thundered as he inspected the wound as best he could without touching the guy. He’d seen fatal wounds like that before, rubble falling on his comrades, cracking open their heads like fragile eggs.
But this wound hadn’t been caused by rubble, but by a directed strike. He was certain of it. It looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to Perry’s head.
Or a big metal trophy…
Simon swore. Had he really been dragging around the murder weapon?
Opening the ditty bag, he stared at the cup without touching it. No blood, of course, not after being in the water. He didn’t even know if prints would hold up.
He had a body and undoubtedly the murder weapon.
What now?
Could he trust the local cops to get it right?
Figuring Perry’s death somehow had to do with the human trafficking situation, Simon first called Bray and gave him the scoop, asked him to call that state detective brother-in-law of his and get him down here fast.
“Just don’t mention my name,” Simon added before hanging up.
He wiped the ditty bag to get rid of his own fingerprints, then dumped the trophy a short distance from the body, near enough to be found, far enough away not to be obvious, then jogged to the truck. Only when he was in it and on the road away from the site and heading toward Drake House did he call the Jenkins Cove Police and ask for the chief.
“Hammer here,” came a drawl on the other end.
“I’d like to report a murder.”
“Who is this?”
“Someone who doesn’t want to get involved.” Simon wasn’t about to identify himself, not yet, not before they got more answers.
“Is this some kind of a joke?” Hammer demanded. “Who put you up to this?”
“I was taking a walk through the woods and nearly stumbled over the body. It’s near the mass grave.”
“Another one of them.” Hammer sounded bored.
“No, this one’s fresh. The victim is Ned Perry. You’d better get down here, Hammer, if you want to keep your job. The state police have already been informed, and Detective Rand McClellan is already on his way.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Why are we leaving now?” Phil asked, when Lexie insisted they stop for the day. “We still need to finish the last couple strings of outside lights.”
“The sun is already down. It’ll be dark soon,” she said by way of a plausible excuse. “They can wait until tomorrow morning. I’ve already told Marie we’re heading out.”
Lexie chose to leave it at that, not embellish. The fancier the story, the more likely it would raise suspicions.
Phil shrugged and got behind the wheel of the truck and pulled down the drive. Though she looked for Simon’s truck near the gate, Lexie didn’t see it until they were on the road and she caught a glimpse of it in the side view mirror.
His call had at first relieved her — she’d begun to fear the worst, that something terrible had happened to him — then had made her tense. Ned Perry dead. He’d been obnoxious, but that wasn’t enough reason for someone to want to murder him. What had he been up to?
The plan was to go back to the shop, get her SUV and then rendezvous with Simon at her place.
But as they headed for town, two local police cars and one unmarked police car, all with lights flashing, were cutting onto a gravel road that led into the woods not far from the mass gravesite.
“Hey, something’s up. Let’s see what’s going on,” Phil said, following before she could stop him.
She threw an apprehensive look over her shoulder. This wasn’t part of the plan. What would Simon do?
He kept going on the main road.
Now she was really anxious. Why in the heck had Phil done that?
Suddenly she realized that the police cars ahead had been abandoned, along with several other state vehicles and an ambulance. Uniformed and plainclothes officers were on foot, gathering around a spot a hundred yards away.
Phil pulled over. “Something big must be going on. Let’s go see.”
Again, before she could object, he acted. He flew out of the truck and jogged through the trees. What did he think he was doing? The police weren’t going to let him anywhere near the crime scene.
Lexie stayed behind and used her cell to call Simon. When he answered, she asked, “Where are you?”
“Down the road on the other side of the grave. What happened?”
“Phil took things in his own hands. Literally.”
“Get in as close as they let you, see what you can overhear. I’ll be around, but out of sight.”
Wishing they could be together, that she could feel Simon’s supportive arm around her, Lexie approached the knot of officials, but didn’t want to get too close, even if they let her. She didn’t want to see Ned Perry with his head bashed in.
Chief Hammer was consulting with the state detective, Rand McClellan, whom Lexie had seen before but not met. A crime scene investigator, a couple of EMTs, and a few reporters were on the spot, too. She figured it wouldn’t be long before a television news crew showed up.
Phil Cardon was nowhere to be found, making her wonder where he’d disappeared to, why he’d been so hell-bent on following the police cars to a crime scene, only to disappear.
Still looking for him, Lexie hung back, not wanting anyone to notice her and make a big deal about her being where she didn’t belong.
“Looks like he was murdered sometime last night,” came a deep male voice from the knot of people. “Struck with an unusually shaped object. Could be something round.”
“Start looking for anything that might be the weapon,” McClellan told the uniformed officers.
Lexie backed off, circled the investigation team and quietly wandered off in the direction Simon might be hiding. The woods were gloomy. It would soon be dark. She wished things didn’t have to be like this, that Simon could be out in the open, that she could be seen with him rather than sneaking around to find him.
A “psst” got her attention and she looked to her right.
Standing in the shelter of a tree, Simon indicated they should move farther into the woods, away from the activity. She quickly complied and they backed off another dozen yards.
“So what did you hear?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“Only that Perry was probably killed last night. The question is why.”
“Considering how I found him, I would guess it has something to do with the human trafficking operation.”
“How did you find him?”
“It was the kid again, the one I saw murdered. He led me right to the grave.”
The ghost again. Simon wa
s a rational man. Marie and Chelsea were both rational, too, and yet they’d both had experiences with the afterlife. And what about Bray? His touching the key had led them to Anna Bencek. If Simon thought he saw a ghost, Lexie believed it.
“But Ned Perry?” she murmured. “I mean if he was involved in the trafficking, he should have been well-off. He was so desperate to make money he was even willing to buy land that had been a mass grave.”
“I didn’t say he was directly involved. But he could have found out something. Maybe something about that land. What if he was blackmailing the wrong person?”
“You mean Brandon,” Lexie said, remembering the conversation between the two men that Simon had overheard. “I don’t believe that, either.”
“You don’t want to believe it. And you’re probably correct,” he conceded.
Simon told her about his morning’s activities, about Doug Heller’s connection to Hans Zanko, about finding Cliff’s racing trophy, which the men obviously had been searching for.
“Zanko tried to kill us, and he was looking for the trophy that was undoubtedly the murder weapon used on Perry. And right after I found it, the ghost led me to his body. It all has to be connected.”
“The trophy… I heard them say Ned was struck by a round object.”
“I dumped it in the area for them to find. Are you familiar with it?”
“I’ve seen it. Cliff kept it on Drake’s Passage,” she admitted, then hastily added, “which doesn’t mean Cliff did it.”
Simon nodded. “It’s looking like Heller is our man. Now we just have to prove it, get our hands on those files before he decides to destroy the evidence. His prints are probably all over them.”
“We just have to find the cabinet the key unlocks,” Lexie said. “Which means we have to get into Drake Enterprises.” Though she was reluctant to leave him, Lexie said, “I’d better get back, before Phil comes looking for me.”
Simon whipped her against him for a quick kiss that left Lexie breathless.
“I’ll be watching you,” he promised.
Reminded of the way he’d been watching her the night before, Lexie flushed as she made her way back to the crime scene. Simon was becoming more and more real to her, and she was less and less willing to give him up. What could she do to keep him? To satisfy the part of him that had changed? To keep him from carrying the justice thing too far?