But he’d underestimated the force of his blows, and accidentally killed her.
The crime had occurred right here.
Clay believed that the offender panicked – killing her was not in his plan – and then sought to conceal the evidence of his misdoing. Not thinking entirely clearly, he left that sneaker above ground instead of tossing it into the grave. Then he dropped the rock, which probably wouldn’t hold any fingerprints but may have managed to snag an epithelial, right next to the gravesite.
He’d have to wait for the autopsy to be able to say for sure, but he’d bet money the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
The body had reached a point of decomp, aided by the rich, loamy soil beneath the pines, that made it impossible to reach a definitive hypothesis simply by doing a visual. But there were no other obvious injuries, such as a gunshot wound, that would suggest his theory was off base.
Intuition caused the little hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. This kind of rage could be attributed to a number of things, of course. One of them being ‘roid rage.
Like, he suspected, the man who’d killed the girl in Kim’s snuff film.
And possibly the same man who’d taken Casey.
Clay sighed as he looked over the remains of the young girl in the shallow grave. She was approximately early teens, light brown hair pulled into a matted ponytail. Eye color was difficult to tell – they’d turned milky due to decomposition. She’d been thin, possibly malnourished.
Her clothes looked to have been poor quality, stained and worn before they’d been covered with dirt. There was a small knapsack in the grave alongside her, and after the crime scene techs had photographed everything in situ, Clay used a gloved hand to examine the contents of the pink bag.
A tube of bubble-mint flavored toothpaste. A yellow Tweety-bird toothbrush. Some hair bands, a brush with rhinestones around the handle, a pair of white cotton underwear, three dollars, and a box of condoms.
A box of condoms.
Clay pushed his all too human reaction aside, continuing his search on autopilot. If he let emotion come into play, he’d never be able to do his job.
Even in the shelter of the trees, the afternoon sun was unbearably hot. The air was thicker here, the timber a natural windbreak. And death hung over this patch of earth like a sickly pall.
A cloud of insects droned in a low buzz, drawn from their lassitude by the smell of rotting flesh. They hovered impatiently and Clay swatted at them with his hand. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck, adding to the unmistakable aroma of violent death.
He himself was somewhat inured to the stench, as were the coroner and most of the crime scene techs. But he couldn’t help but notice that one or two of the deputies on the scene looked a little green. Bentonville – in fact the whole county – was a relatively safe jurisdiction. Murdered, rotting corpses probably didn’t turn up all that often.
He did a quick visual to see how Deputy Loverboy was holding up, and noticed him over by the road, talking to Tate.
Tate had insisted on coming along, rather than hanging back at the station or being dropped off at home, in case the body was Casey. Clay knew if that had indeed been the case, she would have wanted to also go to see Casey’s mother, to offer what comfort she could. She was just that kind of person.
Guilt was going to rip her to shreds if they found Casey like this victim. Whether she should or not, Tate would wonder if she’d missed the opportunity to stop the man before he’d taken the girl from the carnival.
If she’d paid a little bit closer attention, would she have seen him lead her away?
If she’d been a little bit more observant, would Casey be safe in her mother’s arms?
She didn’t have the benefit of professional dispassion, of having been inundated with so much violence and pain and misery that she could let those questions roll off her shoulders. She’d be miserable as she tried to figure out what to do with her misplaced guilt.
Hell. Like he was one to talk.
He’d been miserable ever since that asshole in Topeka had fired his gun.
He needed… something to take the place of that emotion that was even now eating a hole in his gut.
He looked toward the road again, wiping the sweat from his brow as he straightened from the knapsack. The emotion that was sweeping through him currently was probably just as detrimental to his well-being as that misplaced guilt.
Deputy Harding had his hand on Tate’s arm, and she was nodding, looking relieved. He was no doubt talking to her about the fact that the body wasn’t Casey’s. The physical description was all wrong, not to mention the fact that this girl had been buried in the woods for a good bit longer than a day. Tate had been waiting, very patiently, for the past hour. Hoping that it wasn’t Casey. Fearing that it was.
Clay could tell from the way she was standing – shoulders slumped, arms limp – that she was now feeling the punch of released tension. The body language equivalent of Thank God. She was taking this entire thing very much to heart.
Deputy Harding moved his hand to her shoulder, then rubbed a comforting circle on her back.
The green-eyed monster reared its ugly head as Clay removed his gloves with a practiced snap. He was just about to move in that direction when he heard his name.
“Agent Copeland?”
Clay turned at the sound of the coroner’s voice, looking toward where the older man was crouched as he examined the body. His bald head was covered with a fine sheen of sweat, giving it the appearance of a well-polished cue ball. He pushed his glasses up his nose, motioning abstractly to Clay.
“There’s something I’d like you to see.”
Right.
Clay carefully picked his way back toward the gravesite, and with one last glance toward the roadside, refocused his attention on doing his job.
CASEY Rodriguez stirred, trying to stretch her aching muscles. Her left arm seemed to float completely independent of her body, like a slab of flesh someone had stuck to her shoulder and forgotten to attach to her nerves. But as she shifted, pain lanced like a knife.
“Oh-oh-oh.” She tried to jerk the limb back toward her side.
But her arm was attached, attached to something solid. Something that bit into her skin, rubbing it raw.
Turning her head on an achy wince, Casey blinked the arm into focus. A metal bracelet clamped her wrist, big and ugly and tight. A chain dangled from one end…
A handcuff. She was handcuffed.
To an old iron bed.
Rising up, muscles screaming, head pounding, Casey scrambled away as best she could. The bed was lumpy, the springs broken down, and her feet slipped on sheets gone clammy. The air in the room sat dense and heavy, the stink of her own sweat was like something spoiled. Dim light crept sulkily through the slats of yellowed blinds, serving only to illuminate the room’s faded neglect.
So hot, she thought, looking around. Where the heck was she?
The clank of metal on metal had her eyes going wide, tears stinging as she looked back at the handcuffs. Panic didn’t allow her to feel the pain of rent flesh when she yanked as hard as she could.
Gotta get away, she thought, desperately. Gotta get out.
But the blood seeping down her arm stopped her. It welled, then rolled, dripping off her elbow to stain the ratty white sheets.
Frightened, confused, Casey wiped at the blood which stung the burns on her forearm. The burns she’d gotten when grease had splattered from the frying funnel cakes.
The funnel cakes.
There’d been a man at her mother’s trailer. Smiling at her even when her mother leaned over, offered up a serving of cleavage. Smiling at her as she walked by to throw away her sister’s trash.
Smiling at her next to the Ferris wheel…
It was the last thing she could remember.
“Oh, God,” Casey whispered, trembling.
Everything her mother told her had come true. She’d flirted with that man, sh
amefully encouraging him, even though he was old enough to be her dad. It had to be him who had her. Who’d chained her to the bed.
Was he going to kill her? Or merely… do things?
Tears mingling with sweat, Casey wiped her face, considering which fate was worse. To be kept alive as some sicko’s toy, or maybe just shot through the head.
No. Please. She really didn’t want to die. But at the thought of what that man could do if he kept her alive, she began to cry in earnest. And with sobs racking her slender body, didn’t hear the heavy footsteps on the stairs.
When the door opened, fear turned her insides liquid.
“Oh good,” the man said, acres of pale skin gleaming ghost-like in the dimness. “I was thinking it must be about time for you to wake up.”
THE sun hovered just over the horizon by the time Clay drove his Four-Runner over the bridge, the pinks and oranges of impending sunset the final strokes on the day’s canvas.
A day, he mused, that had turned singularly ugly.
He’d tried, several times, to talk Tate into allowing one of the deputies to see her home, but the damn fool woman had insisted on waiting for him. He saw the strain of that etched in the line between her eyes, but her determination hadn’t faltered. Ridiculous as it was, he got the impression she was worried about him.
Like he’d never seen a teenage corpse.
And that concern, combined with the stench of senseless death and his own reservations about just what, exactly, he was doing, served to provide a fairly uncomfortable silence on the ride home.
He could tell Tate wanted to talk. But not about her feelings regarding what happened. Uh-uh. Oh no.
She wanted to talk about him. She’d been looking at him funny ever since he’d told her about Topeka.
Which one of them, exactly, held the degree in this relationship?
Relationship.
There was that freaking word again.
Somehow this entire thing had gone way off track.
When had he gone from pursuing this woman with the single-minded but reasonable goal of mutual pleasure, to worrying about her being offended if he didn’t open up and spill his guts? He’d told her about what happened, game over, enough said. Being with Tate was supposed to be a no-strings-attached vacation from reality, and he damn well didn’t need to be bringing along a luggage cart full of baggage.
And why the hell was she looking at him like that, all sweet and quietly supportive, when what she should have been doing was high-tailing it the other way?
He was no good for her; she deserved so much better. Better than a man who could maybe schedule a few days for her a couple of times a year.
She’d been right. There was no way they could do this. He’d end up hurting her, and Max, and … hell, probably himself in the long run. He should make the break now, while it could still be clean and painless, and leave someone like Deputy Harding free to fill the vacancy he left behind.
Tate needed a good man, one who’d be there to hold her at night, and though Harding was a cop – not the easiest career for a relationship – he at least had the benefit of being local.
Shit.
Who the hell was he kidding? He’d sooner cut off his own hands than push her toward Josh Harding. And wasn’t that just ridiculous? The desire to rip out the throat of any male who even sneezed in her direction?
Clay tried not to glance toward Tate as they drove past the old market, stopping to allow a group of tourists clutching sweetgrass baskets to shuffle across the street. “What’s so funny?” she asked when he laughed.
“Life,” he answered, knee-jerk. “I figure it’s better to laugh than to cry.”
It was the completely wrong thing to say. “I didn’t mean –” he tried to backpedal, but she was already speaking over him.
“I’ve noticed that,” she said. “You use humor as an anesthetic.”
“Yes, well why do you think they call the stuff the dentist gives you laughing gas?”
He pulled into the parking lot behind the B&B, and left the engine idling.
“Do you want to come in?” Tate offered hesitantly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Grab some dinner? Talk?”
Well, well, well. Clay cocked a brow in her direction. Just what he’d been waiting to hear all day. Because underneath all of those polite dinner and conversation noises, Tate’s body language suggested that wasn’t all she had on her mind.
And for the past several hours, he hadn’t even been trying to herd her in that direction.
After that attack of guilt at lunchtime, he’d simply been playing the whole thing straight.
And now that she was offering…
Well hell, he just couldn’t do it.
He liked this woman too much to take her to bed.
Uncharted territory, to be sure.
And now came the tricky part. Did he fudge the truth, say that he had some calls to make, that he was tired, busy, or otherwise occupied in some legitimate way?
Past experience – both on the giving and the receiving end – led him to believe that such bullshit could be smelled from a mile away. And because he liked Tate too much to sleep with her, it should follow that he liked her too much to bullshit her. Therefore, he played the honesty card, laying it face up between them.
“I want to come in,” he admitted, looking her squarely in the eye. “And while dinner sounds nice, it’s secondary to the fact that I want to be inside you. Crude, but it’s the truth. And while you’ve done the whole resistance thing very well, I’m sensing that that particular little wall might be crumbling.”
He reached over, took her hand. “I’m not going to lie to you, Tate. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than spend the next, oh, say… twelve hours making love until neither one of us can walk. But crazy as it may seem, I think you were right in what you said last night. Taking this any further is too much like skating on thin ice – chances are one or both of us would end up falling through. You…” He looked out the window, sought the right words, “deserve a lot better than what I’d be able to give you. Not in bed,” he clarified, lightening the moment with a wicked grin. “You and me together… well, let’s just say we’d set a whole new standard for copulation.”
Tate laughed, a small sound that faded quickly. “So what you’re saying is that you’re taking the high road and turning me down?”
Ignoring his penis as a navigational tool, Clay nodded, taking the high-road’s first available on-ramp. “I like you, Tate. Very much. You’re beautiful and special and good. And I don’t want to be the next blond to let you down. Yeah, I remember what you said – I’m the latest in a line. You know, you might want to consider dating brunettes.”
Tate’s smile was both wry and a little sad. “At the risk of sounding trite, and turning this into a stereotypical ‘I think we should just be friends’ speech, I’d like to say that I would like that. You know, being friends. Because you’re honestly the most amazing man I’ve ever met.”
Clay winced, but she continued.
“I mean, I’d like you to call me, if you ever need to talk. Or want to talk. Or don’t particularly feel like talking but are inclined to listen. Whatever. And whenever you’re in town you’ll always have a place to stay.”
For some reason that made him feel worse.
“Thank you,” he said, regardless. “And now, before I ruin this whole amazing man thing I have going by grabbing you and tossing you into the back seat, I think we’d better say good night.”
Tate leaned toward him, hesitating, before planting a quick kiss on his cheek. For once, Clay didn’t open her door, as that was just one step closer to following her inside. In fact, he moved his gearshift into drive and sat with his foot on the brake.
“You’ll, uh, let me know how the case is going? If they find Casey. Either way?”
“I’ll call you,” Clay promised, taking the punch to the gut as she walked away.
When had he gotten so damn… pathetic?
This entire vacation was doing a number on his head.
He started to head back to Justin’s, but as he passed Murphy’s he pulled to the curb. If he wasn’t going to spend the rest of the night with Tate, he saw no reason to spend the night sober.
HE hadn’t raped her.
Casey repeated that to herself as she lay shivering in the middle of the bed. It was probably an easy ninety degrees inside, but she couldn’t stop the chills that racked her. Turning, she pressed her chattering teeth against a pillow gone wet with tears.
But he hadn’t raped her.
It was that thought alone that kept her from throwing up.
The man – he’d said his name was William – had actually been almost… nice.
Creepily, unbearably nice.
He’d put a bandage on her wrist to keep the handcuff from doing more damage, chiding her for hurting herself. He’d brought water, some food – which now sat uneasily in her stomach – and had un-cuffed her long enough for a desperately needed bathroom visit. Taking the opportunity to study the window over the tub, Casey had noted the layers of old paint with a sinking stomach. Sealed shut, she thought, and looked out for any neighbors, anyone who could help her.
But William – God help her, he looked like a fish’s belly; he was so white – had known what she was up to. “There’s no one around to hear you, Casey.” And stood in the doorway, grinning.
Startled, Casey slipped from the bathtub ledge, where she’d been peering at an empty field.
“If you’re a good girl,” he held out one huge white hand “I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt.”
Like that was supposed to make the whole thing better?
But figuring it best not to tick him off, Casey allowed herself to be led back to the bedroom.
Where he’d cuffed her, once more, to the bed.
Then stripped off the shorts he was wearing and laid, just laid, beside her.
But he hadn’t raped her.
She reminded herself of that again.
He’d stroked her hair, touched her breasts – just once – and chatted as if they were friends. As if by smiling, simply smiling at him, she’d given the impression that’s what she wanted.
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