Beneath Bone Lake

by Colleen Thompson

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Sam,” he said, hearing the anxiety in her voice. “Just wondering if you’d found out anything. Did you meet with Crystal’s friend?”

  “Yeah, and what a trip that was. But she gave me some information.” Ruby detailed the conversation, including the woman’s claims that Misty had been with Dylan Hammett, who had supposedly fallen off the wagon with a thud.

  “Paulie’s going to go ballistic.” Sam figured that he and Anna had dug deep in their own pockets to allow their son to buy Tex-Appeal Exteriors. And Paulie Hammett, for all his money, had never been the type to part with his funds lightly.

  “He already has, but if there’s any truth to Jackie’s story, I’m about to find out,” Ruby told him. “I’m in Dylan’s subdivision now.”

  “You’re going to his house? Did you call first and check if he’s home?”

  “I was afraid he’d take off if I gave him any warning,” she admitted, “especially if his wife’s around.”

  “Holly thinks he hung the moon,” Sam warned, thinking of how happy, how vivacious the bubbly brunette had been at the wedding, imagining her joy extinguished like a burning match dropped into water. “So you might try to get him off by himself, or he’ll never talk.”

  He probably wouldn’t anyway, Sam realized. People lied when they were caught relapsing into addiction. He thought about his father, breaking promise after promise. Thought of how his failures—including his physical abuse—had dimmed the light behind Sam’s mother’s eyes.

  “I’ll make Dylan understand,” said Ruby. “I’ll convince him somehow. If he’s still around, that is. If he hasn’t run off with my family.”

  “I’ll try tracking him from this end.”

  “One more thing,” Ruby added. “I had a really strange call from a personnel guy named Graham Michael Worth at DeserTek. He’s claiming they have the flash drive.”

  “What?” Sam’s brain scrambled for purchase. If DeserTek really had the flash drive, why would they risk something as drastic as kidnapping? “You’re sure this Worth’s with DeserTek?”

  “Positive, and I didn’t understand it, either. First, he threatened legal action if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, and then he offered me a fifty-thousand-dollar ‘bonus’ if I’d sign another confidentiality agreement. The way he was talking, I couldn’t figure out if he was offering my family’s safety or he didn’t have a clue about what’s really going on.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I was afraid to give away too much, so I said I’d sign anything he wanted. All I’m after is my family’s safety.”

  “This is really strange,” Sam said. “Makes me wonder who—hell, I don’t know what to think about it, either. Could it be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing?”

  “Makes sense that only a few key players would know. God knows what’ll happen when Elysse’s stepbrother finds out his own company was involved in her death. Did you know Jeremy works for DeserTek? He’s helped a few people from the area get hooked up with them.”

  “Bray?” Sam remembered that asshole from high school. Not fondly, either.

  “He’s a safety engineer now. Still kind of a jerk—loves lording it over anybody he’s helped—but he did pull some strings to get me started.”

  “That was quite the favor,” Sam said dryly.

  There was a long pause before Ruby said, “Listen, I’m almost at Dylan’s now. So let’s try to figure all this stuff out later.”

  “Call me as soon as you talk to him. And I want you to be careful. Because at this point, Dylan Hammett’s got a lot to lose.”

  “And I’ve got a lot to get back.” Ruby sounded fierce, determined. “So maybe he’s the one who’d better watch his step.”

  C HAPTER T WENTY-ONE

  Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ.

  —William Shakespeare,

  Hamlet, act II, scene ii, ln. 630

  The shadows had grown long by the time Ruby found the right street, but there was still light enough to see that Dylan’s neighborhood was new, with many of the houses still under construction. The entrance of the upscale subdivision boasted a large stone sign bathed by a fountain, which endlessly anointed the words LAKEVIEW VILLAGE ESTATES. Ruby noticed, too, that most of the old trees—including some sprawling grandfather live oaks, had been spared in the building process instead of being bulldozed as they often were at less expensive building sites.

  Either the new wife had big money, or Dylan’s contracting business was bringing in a lot more than Ruby would have guessed.

  The Hammetts’ handsome brick one-story house, with its two-car garage, was situated atop one of Preston County’s highest points. Dylan and his bride had chosen well, orienting the back of their home to overlook a broad and sparkling arm of the vast lake several hundred feet below. Better yet, the view behind the house was almost pristine, thanks to the wooded state preserve lands on the opposite shore.

  But Ruby knew if she had a pair of field glasses she’d be able to pick out the side-by-side lots where Sam’s house kept watch over the ruins of her own. In a fast boat, a person—say, a cheating husband—could reach those ruins from the subdivision’s boat docks in less than twenty minutes, though it would take more than twice that long for a car to make the trip.

  She wondered if Dylan had a boat, then decided she’d be hard-pressed to find a man who’d grown up on this lake who didn’t own one. Especially a man who’d been brought up doing every job there was at Hammett’s, including boat maintenance and guiding.

  Looking at the house, with its well-tended lawn and blooming spring flowers in the beds, made Ruby doubt the story of its owner’s relapse. Addicts didn’t rake or pull weeds; they didn’t mow or edge lawns. But as she walked toward the front door, she noticed subtler signs of neglect. Yellowed newspapers in their wrappers bordered the white driveway. Every shade was drawn, with the dried husks of dead flies lying on the sills behind them, and the delicate filaments of spiderwebs strung across the doorway.

  Did that mean something was amiss, something that could not be cleaned or covered up by a yard service? Or were the newlyweds just more fascinated by each other than housecleaning?

  Sex definitely ranked way ahead of housework in Ruby’s book. Not that she’d had any of the former since Aaron—she hadn’t even dated, not once, since he…

  A flush singed her cheeks at the realization that, for the first time ever, it was not her husband she pictured when she thought of making love. It was Sam McCoy, who was risking his freedom in an attempt to help her family; Sam, who cared whether she slept or ate and whose kiss had lit a long-untended fuse at the least likely time imaginable. Though his kiss had alighted on her as gently as a dragonfly, she felt the trembling of its wings still: diaphanous, unceasing, and warming her in spots left far too long untended.

  “McCoys steal—everybody knows that.” Elysse’s voice whispered through her memory like a breeze stirring the tips of the tall grasses that grew near the lake’s edge. “Expect anything different, and you’ve got nobody but yourself to blame.”

  Fresh grief sucked the air from Ruby’s lungs, hazed her vision with unshed tears. Pushing it aside, she forced herself to ring the bell.

  When neither Dylan nor his wife came to the door, Ruby wondered if it was possible the two had left for a vacation. Or maybe both of them were working late.

  Sighing, Ruby pulled her phone from her purse and called Hammett’s, where she asked for Paulie.

  “Do you have Dylan’s work number?” she asked as soon as he came on the line.

  “He’s not home yet?” Paulie asked her.

  “No one’s answering. He hasn’t said anything to you about going away, has he?”

  “No, but to tell you the truth, I haven’t seen him the last couple weeks. He’s been busy, we’ve been busy—doesn’t mean the boy’s in trouble,” Paulie hastened to assure her. “Doesn’t mean a damned thing,
except he and Holly prefer a little privacy.”

  Ruby was in no mood for Hammett’s bluster. “I’m not saying it means anything, but how about that number? Or do I have to call directory assistance?”

  “No need to snap at me. I’ll give you his cell phone. That’s what he uses for his business.”

  He rattled off the number, which Ruby scribbled on the back of her hand with a pen.

  “And don’t jump all over his ass when you call him,” Paulie warned. “I don’t give a cockeyed damn what that sleaze Jackie told you. My boy’s got nothing to do with your sister and Zoe going missing. Not a thing. You hear that?”

  “Sure thing, Paulie,” Ruby told him. Hell, as loudly as he was shouting, half of Dogwood probably heard him. “And speaking of Jackie, is she okay?”

  “They took her to the hospital, but she’ll be in the county jail before long. Take more than a sliced thigh to kill that one.” Hammett sounded almost disappointed.

  After hastily thanking him for the information, she ended the call and punched in Dylan’s number before turning toward the sound of a car’s passing. As an older-model Ford Mustang with tinted windows slipped around the corner, she turned her attention back to her phone.

  Dylan’s line rang four times before going to voice mail. Unsure of whether to risk spooking him by leaving a message, Ruby hesitated. Before she made up her mind, an automated voice told her the customer’s mailbox was full.

  Frowning, Ruby wished she’d asked for Dylan’s new wife’s number. But Ruby couldn’t imagine asking a total stranger, “Is your new husband screwing my sister? Have you found crystal meth or condoms in Dylan’s sock drawer lately? Or maybe not the condoms. I’m thinking he might not’ve been using them with Misty.”

  Stupid, she was being stupid, allowing squeamishness to throw a barricade in her path. Or maybe it wasn’t that, but Ruby’s vivid recollection of a time when she had been a young bride, with complete trust in her husband. A time before financial worries and the deaths of Aaron’s parents had intruded on their bliss….Like a fool, she had assumed that time remained for them to rebuild, had never guessed more tragedy was waiting in the wings.

  With no time to finesse, Sam downloaded all the data files he could get to before someone discovered an intrusion and shut down the system. As a result, he had access to financial records not only from Misty Bailey’s and Ruby Monroe’s accounts, but from those of a number of locals who did business with Dogwood’s largest bank.

  Splitting his display screen, Sam pulled up two sets of records and carefully compared them, then flipped through several more…

  Until one pair had him swearing, his hand darting for the cell phone to call Ruby. To call Ruby and to warn her that danger could be coming from an unexpected quarter.

  Not wanting anyone to see her damp face, Ruby didn’t turn toward the sound of another vehicle on the street behind her. Instead, she waited for it to pass by before peering up and down the block.

  Since the only sign of life she spotted was a pair of squirrels, she walked the house’s perimeter. Along its side, she stopped and stood on tiptoe to look inside through tiny gaps between a shade and window casing. The rooms inside appeared dark, and not even cupping her hands around her eyes to block out the fading light helped.

  She had nearly reached the backyard when she heard a noise—a click, she thought—though she couldn’t say from which direction. Her first impulse was to freeze, heart thumping, but soon she looked around, taking in the light breeze chasing through the tree branches and carrying the sound of children’s voices, perhaps from the next street. Could the noise that had startled her have been a bat cracking a baseball? A bicycle’s tire rolling over pebbles?

  Neither possibility concerned her, so she continued moving around a bed containing white azaleas and into the backyard. There, a patio had been built behind a set of huge back windows, left uncovered so the newlyweds could take in their expensive view of the lake below the hillside.

  Though a spectacular sunset was taking shape in that direction, Ruby had no interest in looking out over the water. Instead, she hurried toward the windows—only to be stopped dead by the sight of the back door, left ajar.

  Her heart pounded a staccato warning. Was someone hiding inside, someone who had chosen to ignore the ringing doorbell? Could that same someone have been watching her progress as she walked around the house?

  But that hardly made sense, for if anyone had seen her, wouldn’t he or she have closed and locked this back door? And when Ruby looked through the large windows, she saw no lights left on inside.

  But she could make out what looked like one hell of a disaster. Despite her caution, curiosity had her edging closer, moving close enough to press her face against the glass.

  Inside, the kitchen cabinets were all open, their contents spilled out onto countertops or smashed on tile floors. Drawers had been pulled out and dumped in the family room, and someone had slashed the cushions of an expensive-looking sectional sofa and overturned some potted plants. The unexpected violence of the destruction had Ruby sucking in a sharp breath and instinctively taking a step backward, which gave her a watercolor view of the reflected sunset…

  And the murkier reflection of a large man rushing at her from behind.

  Screaming, she wheeled around to face him and ducked reflexively at the sight of something—maybe a length of two-by-four—swinging like a baseball bat toward her head. The movement saved her skull, but before she could get out of range, her attacker leapt at her, knocking Ruby off her feet.

  She caught the barest glimpse of tattoos as the horizon tilted and the back of her head cracked against the window glass. She collapsed as if he’d ripped the spine out of her. And as she lay on the concrete, blinded by the starbursts of bright pain in her vision, she felt rough hands knot in her clothing, heard the harsh scrape of foul breath and the tearing of her shirt.

  When his hands fumbled at the fly of her jeans, a cry of pure rage erupted from her lungs. Adrenaline ripping through her, she clawed and kicked and rammed her stiffened fingers into one of his eyes.

  “Fucking bitch,” he bellowed, grabbing the torn neckline to shake her like a terrier dispatching vermin.

  She fought to pull her knees up and landed a mule kick to his rib cage, but her attacker backhanded her hard enough that fireworks exploded before her eyes in reds and whites and livid purples.

  The last thing Ruby sensed, before the colors faded, was a crack that exploded loud as lightning close beside her. A crack that was accompanied by a sharp, burnt-bitter stink that shouted, Bullets!

  C HAPTER T WENTY-TWO

  I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

  So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

  Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned

  With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

  —Edna St. Vincent Milay,

  from “Dirge Without Music”

  As Sam mashed down the Yukon’s gas pedal, Pacheco’s voice held court in his head, where it ripped into him in a profane pastiche of border slang and English. “You tryin’ to send me to Tahiti for my next vacation, ese? ‘Cause you’re digging yourself the deepest fucking hole I ever seen. Estúpido! Cabrón! Turn your ass around and get back to your own place.”

  “No turning back now,” he grumbled as he slung the SUV around a sharp turn, one he took so fast, he sent a spray of pebbles peppering the side of a black Mustang that slid past the range of his headlights on its way out of the subdivision.

  He had no choice but to act on what he’d learned, information that he suspected would quickly make its way back to Sheriff Wofford—whose bank accounts had swollen like a flood-stage river lately.

  But he couldn’t imagine turning his back on Ruby, a woman who had trusted him with not only her life, but those who meant the most to her. Maybe it was that very trust that had brought down his defenses. Or maybe
he’d simply decided that his isolated existence was unworthy of the cost of keeping the walls standing.

  Whatever the reason, he hadn’t hesitated for a minute when she didn’t answer her phone. Instead, he’d grabbed the laptop and the flash drive, unwilling to risk leaving either, called Java, who would most likely eat something that would kill her if she was left alone, and hopped into his Yukon. Already on the fly, he called Paulie to get Dylan’s phone number and new address.

  Because Justine Wofford’s bank accounts were not the only ones that had shown unusual activity. In the younger Hammett’s case, that activity had correlated closely with withdrawals from the accounts Misty Bailey had controlled. Over the past few weeks, various amounts, from a check for fifteen grand to a number of smaller cash deposits, had slowed Dylan Hammett’s dizzying, downward spiral, which included numerous cash withdrawals and overdraft charges from the bank in the past months.

  Undoubtedly, the stupid bastard would be less than happy when Ruby showed up in the flesh with questions. Though he’d never seemed the violent type, if Dylan felt backed into a corner, God only knew what he might do to break free. Especially if he’d killed Misty—maybe even accidentally—to keep her quiet after bleeding her dry.

  Sam slowed to check the numbers on the houses, but as he rounded a curve, he caught sight of Elysse’s white car, parked beneath a streetlamp. Gut tightening, Sam glanced toward the dark house but saw no sign of Ruby or anyone at all.

  He pulled up behind the car and parked before once more trying Ruby’s number and then Dylan’s. When both phones rolled to voice mail, Sam said, “Java, stay,” and climbed out of the Yukon.

  He didn’t get two steps before turning back to grab a flashlight. But when he opened the rear door, the young Lab saw her chance and leapt out barking. Though Sam cursed the noise, he decided not to waste time trying to corral her. For one thing, a man chasing his loose dog was far less threatening than a stranger rushing around a dark house with a flashlight.