Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  She couldn’t afford to go into shock, so she wouldn’t.

  But she remembered how he’d shielded her head with his arms. Her body with his body.

  “Stupid, macho bastard.” She swallowed a sob, grabbed a bottle of water and ran back.

  He was sitting where she’d left him, the phone in his hand as he stared at the trailer.

  “Did you call?”

  “Yeah.” He said nothing more as she dumped water on the gash.

  “You’re going to need stitches,” she said briskly. “But we’ll get a field dressing on this. You’ve got some burns, but they look first-degree. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “No.” He’d told her to go in the trailer, he remembered. He’d told her to go inside while he investigated the light in the woods.

  “You didn’t listen to me. So damn irritating.”

  “What?” Concerned, she wound the bandage and studied his eyes for signs of shock. “Are you cold? Jake, are you cold?”

  “I’m not cold. Maybe a little shocky. You didn’t go in the trailer like I told you to. If you had—”

  “I didn’t.” She fought back a shudder. She could hear sirens now. “But you’re going to the hospital like I’m telling you to.” She tied off the bandage, sat back on her heels. “I didn’t even think of the propane tanks on the trailer. Good thing you did.”

  “Yeah.” He put his good arm around her, and they helped each other to their feet. “Looks like it’s our lucky night.” He let out a huge sigh. “Digger’s going to be pissed.”

  He wouldn’t go in the ambulance, wouldn’t go anywhere until he knew the damage and how much could be salvaged. Any records and specimens that had been stored in the trailer until they could be transported were gone. Callie’s laptop was a mangled mass of plastic and fried chips.

  The computer left in the trailer for team use was toast. Hours of painstaking work destroyed in a heartbeat.

  Debris was scattered over acres of field, over the carefully plotted areas. He saw a charred piece of aluminum speared into a spoil mound like a lance.

  Firefighters, cops, emergency workers trampled over the site. It would take days, perhaps weeks to repair the damage, to calculate the loss. To start again.

  He stood beside Callie listening to her relate, as he had already done, the events that led up to the explosion.

  “Whoever was in the woods was a diversion.” The anger was beginning to sharpen her voice now, replacing the shaky shock. “He drew us away so someone else could fire the trailer.”

  Hewitt studied the smoldering heap, measured the distance to the woods. “But you didn’t see anybody?”

  “No, we didn’t see anybody. We were a hundred feet away, in the trees. We’d just started back when we heard the first explosion.”

  “The propane tanks.”

  “The first one. It sounded like a damn cannon, and then the hero here tackled me. Then the second one blew.”

  “You didn’t see or hear a vehicle?”

  “I heard my ears ringing,” she snapped. “Somebody blew that first tank, and it wasn’t some Neolithic ghost with a grudge.”

  “I’m not arguing that point, Dr. Dunbrook. Somebody blew up that trailer, and they had to get here, get away from here. Most likely they did that in a vehicle.”

  She let out a breath. “You’re right. Sorry. No, I didn’t hear anything after the explosion. Earlier, I heard cars go by, now and then, or caught the sound of one in the distance. But whoever was in the woods was heading back toward the road. Probably had his ride parked close by.”

  “I’m thinking so,” Hewitt agreed. “I don’t believe in curses, Dr. Dunbrook, but I believe in trouble. And that you’ve got.”

  “It’s connected, to everything I told you about Carlyle, the Cullens. It’s just a way to scare me off this site, away from Woodsboro, away from the answers.”

  His gaze stayed calm on her face. It was still smeared with soot and smoke. “Could be,” was all he said.

  “Sheriff.” One of the deputies trotted up. “You better come see this.”

  They followed Hewitt toward the pond, to the section where Callie had worked for more than eight hours that day. The remains she’d excavated were coated with soot and dirt now, but intact.

  Lying with them in the ruler-straight square was a department-store mannequin dressed in olive drab chinos and shirt. The blond hair of the wig was stuffed messily under a cloth hat.

  Around its neck hung a hand-lettered sign that read R.I.P.

  Callie balled her hands into fists at her sides. “Those are my clothes. That’s my goddamn hat. The son of a bitch has been in the house. The son of a bitch has been through my things.”

  Twenty-four

  It wouldn’t have been difficult to get into the house, Jake thought, yet again. He’d been through and around the house with the police the night before. And he’d been through and around it twice himself since dawn.

  There were four doors, and any one of them could have been left unlocked inadvertently. There were twenty-eight windows, including those in his office, any one of which could have provided access.

  The fact that the police had found no signs of forced entry meant nothing. Someone had been inside, selected Callie’s clothes.

  Someone had left them a very clear message.

  She’d been on the verge of quitting. Studying the house, he stuck his hands in his pockets, rocked gently on his heels. He’d pushed her back from it. He was sure she’d have stepped back herself. He knew her too well to believe otherwise. But it didn’t negate his part in the decision.

  He had no doubt that whoever had blown up the tanks would have done so even if Callie had been in the trailer. In fact, whoever had done it might be a little disappointed she hadn’t been.

  Carlyle was dead. The Simpsons? He considered them. Both were fit, fit enough, he imagined, for one of them to have taken a quick sprint through the woods while the other dumped the effigy in the trench, then set a small charge on the tank.

  How long had he and Callie been in the woods? Four minutes? Five? Plenty of time.

  But his gut told him Barb and Hank were as far away from Callie and Woodsboro as they could manage.

  They’d known just when to run, he remembered. And he had a feeling he knew how.

  He walked toward the driveway as Doug pulled up.

  “Where is she?” Doug demanded.

  “Asleep. She finally went out about an hour ago. Appreciate you getting here so fast.”

  “She’s not hurt?”

  “No. Couple of bruises from when she hit the dirt, that’s all.”

  After one long breath, Doug looked at Jake’s bandaged arm. “How bad’s that?”

  “Some shrapnel grazed me. They sewed me up. Worst of the damage is to the site. We’re waiting for them to clear us to start cleaning it up. But we lost everything that was in the trailer, and anything Callie had on her laptop that wasn’t already backed up here. Then there was what they left for us.”

  He told Doug about the effigy of Callie, left in the ancient grave.

  “Can you get her away from here?”

  “Oh yeah, absolutely. If I sedate her, then chain her in a room somewhere. Got any manacles I can borrow?”

  “Mine are in the shop for repair.”

  “Ain’t that always the way?”

  They stood in silence for a moment. “She’s dug in here now,” Jake said at length. “And I manned one of the shovels. She won’t budge until she finds what she’s after. If you’re still going to Boston, you’re going to want to watch your back.”

  “I’m going. But when I’m gone, I’m not here to look out for my family, or for Lana and Ty. I can ask my father and my grandfather to move in with my mother for a few days. It’ll be weird, but they’ll do it. But Lana’s alone out there.”

  “How would she feel about a houseguest? Digger could bunk there.”

  “Digger?”

  A smile, tight and humorless, spread. �
�Yeah, I know, he looks like a twelve-year-old girl could whip his ass. Don’t let that fool you. I’ve known him fifteen years. If I needed somebody to look out for my family, that’s who I’d ask. Your main problem will be your lady might fall in love with him. I don’t know why, but a lot of them do.”

  “That’s reassuring. It has to still be going on, doesn’t it?” Doug looked away from the house. “That’s what none of us have said so far. But if someone’s desperate enough to kill, it has to, somehow, still be going on. If we don’t find the answers, it’s never going to stop.”

  “I keep thinking we’ve missed something. Some detail. So we go back and sieve the spoil.”

  “While you do that, I’ll go down another level in Boston.” He opened the car door again. “Tell Callie . . . tell my sister,” he corrected, “I’ll find something.”

  She was still sleeping when he went up to her bedroom. Curled up tight on top of the sleeping bag, a travel pillow jammed under her head.

  She looked too pale to suit him, and she’d started to drop weight.

  He was going to take her away from there, he decided. Anywhere for a day or so, the first chance they had. They’d hole up somewhere and do nothing but eat, sleep and make love until she was steady again.

  And when she was steady again, they were going to have a life together. Not just fireworks, but a life.

  In lieu of a blanket, he draped a towel over her. Giving in to his own exhaustion, Jake lay down beside her, drew her back against him. Then he dropped off the edge of fatigue into sleep.

  He woke on a blast of pain when he rolled over on his bad arm. Cursing, hissing his breath between his teeth, he tried to shift into comfort. And saw Callie was gone.

  Panic was an instant ice ball that formed in his belly. Pain forgotten, he sprang up and bolted from the room. The silence of the house added another tier to the panic and had him shouting her name before he was halfway down the stairs.

  When she rushed out of his office, he didn’t know whether to laugh at the annoyance on her face or fall to his knees and kiss her feet.

  “What are you yelling about?”

  “Where the hell were you? Where the hell is everybody?”

  “You need a pill.” She stomped into the kitchen to dig out the pain medication. “I was in your office. My computer was fried, remember? I’m working on yours. Take the pill.”

  “I don’t want a pill.”

  “Don’t be a big, stupid baby.” She ran a glass of water. “Take the antibiotic, too, like the nice doctor told you to do when he gave you the lollipop.”

  “Somebody’s going to get a pop.” He fisted a hand, tapped it against her chin. “Where’s the team?”

  “Spread out. On-site, waiting to let us know when the cops clear it. At the college, using some of the equipment, in Baltimore at the lab. No point in everybody lazing around today just because you decide it’s nappy time.”

  “Nobody’s here but you and me?”

  “That’s right, which doesn’t mean it’s time for sexcapades either. Take your meds like a good boy.”

  “How long has everybody been gone?”

  “About an hour.”

  “Then let’s get started.” He ignored the pills she held out and headed out of the room.

  “With what?”

  “We’re going to look through their things.”

  Callie’s fingers curled around the pills. “We are not.”

  “Then I’m going to, but that’ll take twice as long.” He hefted the backpack in a corner of the living room, dumped it on the table and unzipped it.

  “We’ve got no right to do this, Jake.”

  “Nobody had a right to blow up Digger’s trailer in our faces. Let’s make sure whoever did isn’t right in our faces, too.”

  “That’s not enough to—”

  “Question.” He stopped what he was doing long enough to look at her. “Who knew we were heading to Virginia the other day?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “You and me, Lana and Doug.”

  “And everybody who was in the kitchen when we were talking about schedules. Everybody who heard you say you had some personal business in Virginia.”

  She sat down, hard. “Jesus.”

  “Busybody across the street said they were loading up about ten. We were getting up from the table right around nine. It only took a phone call, telling them you were coming and to get the hell out.”

  “Okay, okay, the timing works but . . . What the hell do you think you’re going to find?”

  “I won’t know till I look.” He started a systematic pile, setting aside notebooks, pens, pencils, a handheld video game before he looked up at Callie again. “Are you going to help, or just watch?”

  “Damn it.” She knelt down with him. “Take the pills.”

  He grumbled about it, but he swallowed them.

  Shaking her head, she picked up one of West Virginia Chuck’s notebooks, flipped through. Then she frowned, and did the same with the second.

  “These are empty. Jake, there’s nothing in them. No notes, no sketches, no nothing.” She turned them around, flipped them again. “Blank pages.”

  “Did he have any on him when he left?”

  “I don’t know. He could have.”

  No longer reluctant, she searched through the clothes, into pockets. When all the contents of the backpack were on the table, Callie got up and retrieved a notebook of her own and listed them.

  Once the items were catalogued and replaced, they started the same procedure on Frannie’s.

  They found another notebook wrapped in a T-shirt and buried in the bottom of the pack.

  “It’s a diary.” Callie sat cross-legged now and began to read. “Starts on the first day they joined the dig. Blah, blah, blah, just general excitement over the project. Huh, she thinks you’re really hot.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If things don’t work out with her and Chuck, she could really go for you.”

  She scanned words, flipped pages. “Rosie’s nice. Patient. Doesn’t worry about her trying to put the moves on Chuck. But she wasn’t so sure about Dory. Snooty and superior. Sonya’s friendly, but kind of boring.”

  She paused, scowled. “I am not scary and bossy.”

  “Yeah, you are. What else does she say about me?”

  “Jeez, she and Chuck had a quickie in Dig’s trailer when we were on lunch break. She thinks Matt’s dreamy, for an older guy, but probably gay because he never flirts with any of the women. Bob’s got a dumpy ass and sweats too much. Bill . . .”

  She had to pause, gather herself. “She thinks Bill’s smart, but too much of a geek. A lot of daily minutiae. We had Eggos for breakfast. It rained. What she found that day, if she didn’t find anything. Descriptions of sexual encounters.”

  “Maybe you should read those aloud.”

  “Observations,” she continued, ignoring him. “Annoyances—like how come she can’t talk to some of the reporters who’ve wanted interviews. Bitchiness. She’s taken a dislike to Dory because Dory talks down to her. And . . . then there’s a rundown of what happened to Bill. Nothing new. Nothing new,” she repeated and closed it.

  “It’s just a college girl’s journal. Harmless.”

  Still, she jumped when the phone rang.

  “We’re cleared,” she said to Jake when she hung up. “We need to