She smiled. Definitely not as smart as her.
She parked her truck in the far corner of the Walmart parking lot where the light couldn’t reach and grabbed a cart from the cart corral. Inside, the bright light seared her eyes. She ducked her head, letting her hair fall across her face. Walmart had security cameras, although anyone with computer skills like hers could figure out how to break into a system and corrupt the video.
Under the glare of lights, she went on the hunt. The store had plenty of storage chests and boxes, but nothing large enough to fit an entire body and light enough that she could put it in play by herself. A sweet surge of satisfaction swelled in her chest. Grace had dozens, no hundreds, of people on her side, and she, all by her lonesome, was winning.
At last she stopped in front of a plastic tote and pushed her glasses to the bridge of her nose. About three feet by two feet. Not large enough for a jogger running along the beach or a girl walking to her late-night volunteer shift at the hospital. And certainly not big enough for the third pawn, the overweight waitress from the oyster bar who walked home alone every night after her shift ended at eleven.
Think. Think.
Simple. If The Game had changed, she needed to change pawns.
She squinted at the tote. A smaller person could fit inside, not stretched out but curled into a ball, but not too tight of a ball. The small person inside would have to be able to move around, find the phone, and dial Grace’s number. That was part of The Game. She studied the lid, the snap-on kind that fit tightly. No air flow. Not good. The small person would be out of The Game in just a few minutes. Not fair. Not fair at all. Grace needed a fighting chance or it wouldn’t be any fun for anyone.
She put the plastic tote in her shopping cart, making a note to punch a few holes in the top so air could reach the small person.
* * *
Hatch slipped his gun into the holster at his back and walked up the steps of Grace’s back porch. Instead of going inside, he settled his elbows on the rickety railing and stared out at the black. Like the young women buried in those wooden coffins, he and the others trying to crack this case were in the dark. The splintered wood dug into his elbows.
But his team was at his back. Jon was in the middle of the hunt. Hayden, a world-renowned criminal profiler, was walking in a killer’s shoes and getting into the twisted place that was this unsub’s head, and Berkley was giving the killer a face. He smiled. And maybe he’d call Evie, the SCIU’s bombs and weapons specialist. His fiery little teammate had a way of lighting things up. Grace had called the group he worked with his family. He’d always called them his team. They were the men and women he’d fight for and put his life on the line for. Wasn’t that what one did for family? Wasn’t that what he was doing for Alex? For Grace?
His head lolled forward and hung between his forearms. The steamy swamp was clouding his brain again, blurring and tumbling his truths. The first time here the fog had been so thick he couldn’t see anything beyond Grace.
A wedge of light cut across the porch, and Grace’s bare feet padded across the rough boards. She joined him at the railing but said nothing.
He aimed his interlaced hands at the pitch black night. “No bogeymen.”
More silence. She was probably thinking again. About Janis’s fight for her life, about the killer’s next move, about old bones. Grace didn’t know how to unwind and shut down, something that usually came as natural as breathing to him. He sucked in a long breath of warm, soupy night air clogging his throat.
Grace raised an arm, her fingertips sliding down his back, the touch so light it may have been more about him wanting her touch than her actual touch. Shifting so she stood behind him, she ran her other hand down his back. He pulled in a breath, the air sliding through his lungs now lighter and sweeter and cooler. Her fingers brushed along his waist and slipped under his shirt, skin settling on skin.
Every muscle in his torso tightened, trapping the sweet breath in his lungs. And still her fingers traveled, gliding along his ribs, across his chest. His lower body stirred. She pressed against his back, her thighs and midsection molding to his. This time his lower body quaked, sending a tremor to his brain.
He settled his hands over hers. “Whoa there, Princess.” He spun so they were shadowy face to shadowy face. “What’s this all about?”
Grace’s tongue darted over her lips, more nervous than naughty. “Bacon.”
He blinked. “Bacon?”
She knotted her fingers in the bottom of his shirt. “Bacon, Theodore. I am bacon. You are bacon.” With each line, she drew him closer. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. “You do like bacon, don’t you?”
“It’s…uh…nice. I’m partial to hickory smoked. With grits. And eggs. Over easy.” Easy. Yeah, it would be so damned easy to pull Grace into his arms. He jammed his hands in his pockets because letting them slip across Grace’s skin would take them to a place neither one of them needed to go.
Grace’s lips curved in a soft smile. She rose on her toes, her breath fanning his neck, his jaw. Her hands, her mouth, her words, everything about Grace was so soft and easy. The fog. Must be the fog. A gauzy steam blurred everything but the woman before him. Too close. She was way too close.
He unclenched his hands and settled them on her arms. “I’m not sure what this is all about, but last time we talked about this, about us, forever wasn’t on the table, at least not for me, and that’s still the case.”
“I know.” Her sweet breath danced across his skin.
“Dammit.” He pushed her away, out of arm’s reach. He needed space between them. An ocean would be nice. “Then why are you doing this?”
She closed the space between them in half a heartbeat but didn’t touch him. “Because old dogs die and newborn babies never get a chance to live.” Her lips trembled. “And because someday soon you’ll sail off into the sunset.” She lifted her hands in surrender. “And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, any of it. So until then, Hatch, I’m going to make the most of every moment I have with you, and according to Allegheny Blue’s vet, that means having an extra slice or two of bacon.”
Hatch breathed in her soft, summery scent and her words. No demands. No promises. “Just here? Just now?” His heart threatened to leap out of his chest and close the distance between them.
“Here. Now. The future doesn’t exist.”
The groan ripped over his lips as he pulled her to his chest and pressed his lips against hers.
Sweet. So sweet. Like summer peaches and honeyed iced tea. His tongue dug deeper. And warm and soft. A sun-soaked sail. Baked silky sand. His hands slid down her back and around the curve of her butt.
“Uh, Hatch.” Her hands slipped between them.
He pulled her closer. “Here and now.” He pressed the words against her lips.
She flattened her hands on his chest and pushed. “Not here.” She yanked her mouth from his. “I can’t do this in front of him.”
Hatch fumbled for his bearings, for words. “Him?”
She pointed to her right foot, where Allegheny Blue had rested his head.
Hatch grabbed her hand and pulled her into the shack, Blue plodding behind them. “You stay here,” he told the dog, “and there’s an entire pig in your future.”
Blue yawned and settled onto the rag rug in the middle of the kitchen.
Grace laughed. “Look who’s talking to the dog now.”
With her hand in his, he nudged her down the narrow hall to the bedroom. Grace moved like an angel sent to earth. Graceful arms. Heavenly face. And legs that went on for eternity.
Once in the bedroom he clicked shut the door and slipped his hands over her hips and down her thighs. “You know I still dream about you.” He trailed his fingers up her belly and through the valley of her breasts. “About this spot here.”
One by one he unbuttoned the silk-covered buttons of her blouse, his lips following the trail blazed by his fingers. And Grace, being Grace, didn’t back away from
the fire. She dug her fingers into his hair and drew him closer.
“I dream about you standing before me wearing moonlight and pearls.” Her shirt floated to the ground followed by her slacks, the whoosh of air fanning the heat firing through his body.
Ten years’ worth of want and need tugged at him, but he forced himself to step back. In the moonlight streaming through the window, her skin was smooth and pearly white but far from cold. “I dream about sliding my hands through your hair, feeling your breath against my skin.”
She reached for him, her fingers tracing his lips. A tremor rocked her hand and his lips. No fear. Not tonight. Anticipation rippled because they knew what lay ahead.
He dipped his head into the curve of her neck and trailed kisses along the smooth, delicious column. “And those legs, Grace, I dream about those legs wrapped around my waist.”
“Hatch?” She pulled back until he looked up at her.
“Yes, Grace?”
“Can you please stop talking?” Settling her fingertips on his chest, she pushed him across the room until his knees hit the bed. “I have something else in mind.”
He laughed, falling onto the bed and bringing her with him. Words turned into kisses that rained along her neck, across her breasts, and down the center of her belly. She melted into him, and he into her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
You know if you get bored during the service,” Hatch said against the side of her neck as he escorted her across the cemetery parking lot, “we can take off and get a BLT or something.”
Given his total lack of reverence, she should have swatted him away. After all, they were going to a funeral, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything but smile. She had no regrets about throwing herself at him last night with silly talk of bacon and hated having to drag herself out of his arms this morning. Ten years ago, sex with Hatch had been explosive and fiery, and at times the fire had consumed her, leaving her body spent. But last night’s lovemaking had a different fire, the steady, red-hot glow of long-banked coals. Even now, it warmed her from the inside out as she walked to Lia Grant’s final resting place.
Her silk pumps slowed.
“You don’t have to go.” Hatch squeezed her hand. “Lia’s killer is not going to be at the funeral.”
Grace knew some killers attended their victims’ funerals to celebrate their success and flaunt their power, but according to Hayden’s profile, Lia’s killer only played in the dark. “It’s not about the case,” Grace said. “It’s about the girl.” She hadn’t been there for Lia Grant in life, but she would be there for her in death.
They walked along the path to the plot where Black Jack was preparing for the funeral. Hatch stopped to talk to one of the deputies on duty. Steam hung in wisps above the cemetery, like ghosts caught between heaven and the earth, and she couldn’t help but think of another young woman. She slipped into a gazebo where she took out her phone, sat on a quiet, shady bench, and dialed the number she’d called twice this morning.
“No change in Janis’s condition,” the nurse on duty reported. “And no news yet on the new round of tests the doctor ordered.”
“And the guard is still at Janis’s door.”
“Yes, Grace.”
“And only authorized personnel and immediate family members are entering her room.”
“Yes, Grace.”
“Thanks, Brenda.” Grace was on a first-name basis with all of the nurses manning the floor where Janis Jaffee was fighting for her life. She was attending the funeral for a girl who’d called her from the grave, and the thought of attending another left her boneless. When she finally hung up, Hatch dropped an arm over her shoulders and guided her to a large awning.
Grace had attended two funerals in her life. Her mother’s had taken place on a sunny day in April the year she’d turned thirteen. She’d stood at her father’s side, holding his hand while he wept unabashedly for the love of his life. Although she’d refused to cry—she’d needed to be strong for her father—Grace had felt the sting of loss, grieving the death of her mother and the death of what she later learned was a little part of her father. Her father never remarried because in his world marriage was forever, which no doubt colored her own thoughts of marriage. Given all the ill-fated dates and lackluster relationships post-Hatch, at a subconscious level Grace must have been still holding on to the love of her own life. She brought Hatch’s hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. He squeezed her fingers.
As they neared the awning, Hatch’s hand tensed in hers. On the far side of the green Alex shouldered a stack of chairs from a cart and hauled them to the aisle, where he aligned them in a razor-straight row. Sweat circled the boy’s neck and arms, and a black line of grease marked his cheek.
“How’s he doing?” Hatch asked Black Jack, who was hauling two large urns of flowers toward the rectangular hole in the earth.
“Working hard this morning,” Black Jack said.
“He’s not complaining or giving you a hard time, is he?”
Black Jack set the urns on either side of the hole. “No.”
Alex hauled another armful of chairs from the cart, and Hatch scrubbed his index finger across his chin. “How’s his arm this morning? Is it giving him any trouble?”
“Mr. Hatcher,” Black Jack dusted the dirt from his palms, “your son is fine.”
Hatch took in a long, deep breath, as if trying to take in the caretaker’s words. Grace knew he desperately wanted to believe Alex was fine, he’d learned his lesson, and would never make another bad choice. But when it came to his son, Hatch had some kind of mental roadblock, most likely constructed by his own father. Despite his bridge-building skills, Hatch hadn’t figured out a way to get through to his son. Nor did he realize he had serious feelings about the boy, feelings even Black Jack could see. She took Hatch’s hand, gave it a squeeze, and led him to a pair of chairs in the back row.
A sweaty Alex finished setting up the final row of chairs and disappeared with the cart just as mourners trickled in. With the boy out of sight, Hatch slipped his arm along the back of her chair and casually looked about. She caught him nodding at Lieutenant Lang, who stood near the fountain, and at a pair of fidgeting men who looked like they’d be more at home in cop uniforms than their ill-fitting suits. Hatch said they didn’t expect the killer to show, but no one was taking chances.
The crowd swelled, and the service began. Six suited men carried a casket of shiny cherry wood with brass handles up the aisle, so different from the uneven sheets of stained plywood that had housed Lia’s lifeless body last week. Behind the casket came a middle-aged couple with red-rimmed eyes. The woman clutched a worn stuffed cat to her chest, her gaze never leaving the casket, while the man acknowledged the sea of mourners with a somber resolve. When he spotted Grace, the steely strength that held him faltered. For a flash of a moment, his stoic face crumbled. He knew who she was and what she’d done, or rather hadn’t done.
Why, Grace, why didn’t you answer your phone?
She dug her nails into her skirt. I’m sorry I didn’t do more. I’m sorry I didn’t act faster. I’m sorry I failed to save your daughter’s life.
Hatch’s hand covered hers.
After worship songs and the eulogy, Hatch slid back his jacket and slipped out his phone. It was on silent, but she could see the light flashing. He scrolled through a text, and the arm over her shoulder grew rock hard.
“What?” Grace whispered.
“It’s Berkley,” he said against her neck. “The sketch of the woman posing as Ronnie Alderman is ready.” He tucked his phone in his pocket. “I need to slip out a few minutes early. Do you want to come?”
“No, I need to see this through.” Because she didn’t do anything halfway—not growing up, not in her work, and not with her relationships. If you do something, Gracie, give it your all or don’t do it at all.
Hatch slipped his lips along her ear. “Wait for me. I’ll be right back.”
* * *
The soft voice surprised Grace, as did the young man standing before her. Alex had slicked back his hair, tucked in his shirt, and donned a tie.
“Tough day,” she said. “Actually, it’s been a tough week.” Lia’s funeral had wrapped up two hours ago, and the last of the girl’s family and friends were long gone. Only Alex, a pair of sheriff’s deputies, and Black Jack remained. She stood, knowing Alex needed to pack up the chairs, but he waved her back into her seat.
“I hear you on that tough week stuff.” The boy sat next to her, his sneaker tracing a line in the crushed oyster shell path. “You, uh, want to talk about it? This counselor my Granny’s making me see says it’s supposed to help, you know, talking about stuff.”
She pointed at the hole in the ground that now held Lia Grant. “A girl with a big heart and a bright future died because I didn’t get to her soon enough.” Her hand plopped into her lap. “Another girl who reached out to me is in the hospital, and on top of that, my dog’s sick.”
“You’re right. That’s a bad week.”
“Yeah.”
Alex scraped the oyster shells into a pile. “Last week I saw a grave of an entire family who died the same week from swamp fever in the 1800s. A mom, dad, and six kids.”
“That’s a bad week,” she said.
“And I saw another headstone of a man who died when he fell in a pit of water moccasins.”
“Seriously?”
“Nah.” Alex looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I made up the last one so you’d stop thinking about all that other stuff.”
A tiny laugh trembled and fell over her lips. Hatch might think the kid was bound for trouble because Hatch had been full of trouble as a teen and he had no faith in his own parenting skills, but the young man had displayed a number of redeeming qualities, including this sweet, charming side. “How’s the arm?” Grace asked.
The Buried (The Apostles) Page 20