First Degree Murder

by Christy Barritt

  Her department was finally coming together, and Cassidy didn’t care what anyone said—she was honored to be their leader and hoped she wouldn’t let them down.

  Cassidy’s curiosity grew as she stepped farther into the dense foliage. The light around her dimmed as tree branches formed a canopy of skeletal arms overhead. The deeper down the path she walked, the more the vegetation squeezed tighter. It brushed her legs and swept down lower and lower until Cassidy had to duck to avoid the leaves and vines.

  As she ducked under another branch, her phone buzzed. She pulled it from her pocket and glanced at the screen. What now? Island life was supposed to be simple and full of slow mornings . . . mornings that started with two cups of coffee.

  She’d been wrong. Things on Lantern Beach were never simple.

  Cassidy read the text there, and the blood drained from her face.

  I know who you are.

  She blinked, unconvinced she was correctly understanding the meaning of the words. Her gaze traveled to a picture that loaded beneath the message.

  It was an image of Cassidy. Only, it was the old Cassidy. The one who was a brunette. Who went by the name Cady Matthews. Who’d lived in Seattle. The detective who’d infiltrated a dangerous gang.

  Cady Matthews was supposed to be dead.

  But someone knew she wasn’t.

  Cassidy’s heart thumped in her ears at the realization.

  She glanced at the number. The area code was local.

  Her heart thumped even harder. The noise drowned everything else until her pulse was all she could hear. Pounding. Pounding.

  As she took another step, her gaze skittered around her. Was the person who’d sent this message watching her now?

  The forest and all its mysterious shadows stared back at her, taunting her.

  “Everything okay?” Leggott asked, peering at her phone.

  Quickly, Cassidy turned off the screen and shoved the device back in her pocket. No one else could know about her real identity. Only Ty and their friend Mac knew the truth—and sometimes Cassidy wondered if they were two too many people. Anyone who knew her real identity was in danger.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine.” But Cassidy’s thoughts still raced. How had someone gotten her number? How had they discovered she was here?

  “So, anyway, you know we had that high tide here a few days ago, right?” Leggott’s voice pulled her from the deep pit her questions tried to bury her in.

  Cassidy stepped over some tree roots that snaked and knotted across the sandy ground. She needed to focus right now on whatever Leggott had called her here for. She’d have time to think about that text later.

  She swallowed the fear that swelled in her gut and made sure her voice was steady as she said, “Yes, I remember the tide.”

  A particularly strong weather front had come in from the east, bringing rain with it, as well as pushing the water levels higher than usual. The roads had flooded, and the water had caused some minor damage to several houses near the shore.

  “The storm created quite a bit of erosion,” Leggott continued before taking a puff of his inhaler. The fluctuating weather here on the island had made his asthma go crazy lately. He’d even called in sick one day.

  As a twig snapped in the distance, everything went eerily quiet around them.

  Cassidy paused and glanced around.

  Nothing but trees surrounded by hollows of tidal water stared back.

  Something out here felt alive, though. More than alive. Something out here seemed to watch them.

  It was probably nothing, Cassidy told herself. Maybe a fox or a deer. But she would remain on guard.

  Especially after that text.

  Dread continued to build up in Cassidy’s chest as they walked down the path. Finally, they cleared the woods, and a sandy shoreline greeted them, along with a steady wind that cut across the island, dropping the temperature probably about ten degrees.

  Cassidy pulled her coat closer, nodded at Wayne Waters, who stood near the edge of the path, and then turned back toward Leggott. “So . . .”

  He pointed toward the woods several yards from the path they’d taken here. “Have a look.”

  Cassidy tromped across the sand and paused at the edge of the trees. She sucked in a breath at what she saw there.

  It was . . . a skull.

  Her gaze traveled the surrounding area. A ribcage and other bones poked from the nearby sand and underbrush.

  It was a skeleton.

  A human skeleton.

  Unmistakably.

  At one time, the bones had probably been buried here under a couple feet of earth. But the storm must have pulled the sand away, revealing this sad, shallow grave.

  “There’s more.” Leggott’s voice sounded grim.

  Cassidy turned toward him, uncertain if she’d heard correctly. “More?”

  He nodded beyond the first skeleton. Cassidy followed his gaze and saw another skull a few feet away.

  “How many?” Cassidy’s throat tightened as the question left her lips.

  Leggott frowned. “I counted three.”

  Cassidy closed her eyes. They had a mass grave on their hands . . . and these bones didn’t appear to be from settlers or Native Americans from decades past. No, these bones looked fresh.

  She hated to do it, but Cassidy knew this was bigger than her small department could handle. She was going to have to call in backup . . . again.

  Chapter Three

  Ty Chambers gripped the pull-up bar he’d mounted to the underside of his house and felt his muscles burn as he lifted his body from the ground. Though the day was chilly, sweat rippled across his skin with each rep.

  He would have preferred a morning jog on the beach with his wife to burn off some stress. But Cassidy had been called away to do her duty as police chief here on Lantern Beach.

  Ty wondered what had happened on the island this time. The area just couldn’t seem to catch a break lately with one crime after another bruising the otherwise peaceful community.

  He supposed it was good for Cassidy’s job security, but he’d hoped for a small reprieve from the craziness that had filled their schedules lately.

  As he looked across his property, he spotted a familiar figure strolling across the sandy lawn toward him.

  Braden Dillinger.

  Ty’s friend was currently staying in one of the cabanas Ty had built at the back of his property, and Ty had asked to meet with him this morning. Braden was helping him with Hope House in exchange for a place to live.

  The main house had been his grandfather’s old beach cottage, a summer home Ty couldn’t get enough of as a child. The property had been left to him when his grandfather passed away, which happened to be at the same time Ty had given up his job as a Navy SEAL.

  He’d felt a new calling on his life—a call to start an organization to help those who’d been in the military but now faced major life changes and challenges, whether physical, emotional, or mental.

  Ty’s first one-week session had gone exactly as he’d planned. There’d been times of sharing, one-on-one times with a counselor, water sports, fishing, and community building.

  It had been perfect.

  But now, finances and some unexpected setbacks threatened to cancel the next session—unless Ty could think of a way to get things back on track. He didn’t have much time to figure it out. His next group was scheduled to arrive in less than two weeks.

  “Good morning!” Braden stopped a couple feet away.

  Ty lowered himself from the bar, grabbed his workout towel, and wiped his face. “Morning.”

  “I’m jealous. You’re getting in a workout already. I’ve got to step up my game.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve had some other things on your mind. Things like planning a wedding.” Ty grabbed his water bottle and took a sip. “Thanks for meeting with me. Why don’t we head upstairs?”

  Braden held up something in his hands. “Lisa insisted I bring some muffins. I think th
ey’re chocolate and zucchini, but Lisa insists they’re delicious.”

  “Well, she’s never let us down before.”

  As the two of them started up the steps, Ty turned toward his friend. “You ready for the big day?”

  Braden was marrying local sweetheart and cooking genius Lisa Garth in a few days, and the whole island buzzed with excitement over it.

  “I’m more than ready.” Braden grinned from ear to ear. “I feel like the luckiest guy in the whole world.”

  Ty grinned. “I remember the feeling. Marrying Cassidy was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

  They stepped inside the house, and Braden slammed the door behind him. As he did, something clattered across the floor—something bigger than a nail but small enough that neither Ty nor Braden immediately spotted it.

  Ty finally located the mystery object and plucked it from the floor. His gaze met Braden’s, and he frowned.

  “Someone planted a camera in the house,” he muttered, realization washing over him.

  “Why would someone do that?”

  Ty pressed his lips together. There was more than one possibility.

  And each of them left him with knots in his stomach.

  Three hours later, the wind still blew steadily as Cassidy and her team secured the area and continued to examine it for more clues as to what had happened here. Wayne Waters had been questioned, directed to remain quiet, and sent home. Her other officer, Dane Bradshaw, had also been brought in to help. All of that was until a team of investigators from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation arrived.

  In the meantime, Lantern Beach’s local medical examiner and physician, Doc Clemson, was on the scene, processing what he could.

  Everyone would be here for a while—probably well into the night, if Cassidy had to guess.

  Each of the graves had to be well documented. The soil had to be sifted through. The remnants of these human lives had to be carefully preserved and then moved for better examination and more testing.

  The land where these bodies were found was a part of a National Seashore. With the easy water access, anyone could have dumped the bodies here. The only people who would come this far through the woods and on foot was the occasional fisherman, coming when the tide was just right to cast a line.

  One thing was for sure: these bodies hadn’t gotten here by themselves. Someone had left them. The question was: had these people been murdered, or was there another reason they’d been dumped in this location?

  Whatever the intention, it was a crime to dispose of human remains in this manner. And the fact that three bodies were found together indicated that their deaths hadn’t been accidental.

  Cassidy hoped Clemson might be able to give them some more direction. This new discovery had almost—almost—taken her mind off that earlier text. Maybe the distraction would be good for her.

  She knelt beside the doctor as he leaned over one of the skeletons. His glasses were perched at the end of his chubby nose, and his thin reddish-orange hair blew with the wind, revealing bald spots beneath. In his sixties and about twenty pounds overweight, being on the ground wasn’t as easy as it had once been. Despite that, Clemson had a pad and pencil in hand, and nothing would stop him from doing his job.

  “What do you think?” Cassidy couldn’t get the image of the skull out of her mind. It hadn’t been completely clean. No, remainders of life still clung to it like a last-ditch cry for help.

  Clemson let out a grunt and stared at the skeleton in front of him. “My initial assessment? Based on the decomposition and the elements, I’d guess these bodies have been here for four or five months. At least, these two have. The third one maybe for a little less.”

  That was what Cassidy had suspected—these weren’t old bones from decades past. “Is there anything else you can tell about them?”

  “Someone with the state will be able to tell you more. But we have two women and one man here. Two of them had straight teeth—meaning, they probably had some money and means growing up.”

  “Teeth are usually a good indication of a person’s socioeconomic background,” Cassidy said.

  Clemson nodded and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. “Exactly. But the third . . . her teeth have definitely never seen braces—or maybe not even a dentist, for that matter.”

  “Interesting.”

  Clemson stood, brushing the sand from his jeans. “Also, there’s some hair left on the victims. Hair and fingernails, because they’re made of keratin, decompose much more slowly than soft tissue. That said, one of the women had long gray hair, and the other two victims did not.”

  “So you’re saying they’re probably different ages?”

  Clemson nodded. “Exactly.

  “So, two women. One man. Different ages. Different socioeconomic backgrounds.” Cassidy shook her head. “Victims usually fit a pattern.”

  “You’re correct.”

  Cassidy would speculate more later. Right now, she needed all the information she could get until the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation arrived. “What about manner of death? Any clues?”

  “We really have four options here. Accident, suicide, natural causes, or murder.” Clemson let out a long breath and frowned at the skeleton below him. “That said, I didn’t see any broken bones or skull fractures. There’s nothing to indicate there was a physical altercation that led to death.”

  “But that still doesn’t narrow it down enough for us. Whatever the means of death, the injuries could have been internal.”

  “That’s correct. We won’t know until we’re able to better examine these bones.”

  Another thought slammed into Cassidy’s mind. “I wonder if these bones are connected with the bone that Carter Denver’s dog brought home a few weeks ago.”

  The bone had been sent off for testing, but they didn’t have the results back yet. Cassidy felt certain it was human, but only a specialist could say for sure. The bone hadn’t been at the top of the state lab’s to-do list.

  “I’d say there’s a good chance,” Clemson said. “One of the victims is missing a humerus.”

  Cassidy pressed her lips together as she looked at their little cemetery, this one without a neat and tidy fence around it. No, this one was cordoned off with crime-scene tape. Instead of beautiful flower arrangements and headstones, there were ragged tree stumps and unruly weeds.

  It was a shame that death had taken away a person’s dignity.

  No, she vowed. Cassidy would find out who these people were. What had happened to them. They would get their justice.

  As the promise echoed in Cassidy’s mind, the sound of a boat drew her attention. Had one of the agencies sent their guys here via the water? How strange.

  But as she tried to get a better look at the boat, she frowned. The vessel didn’t appear to be a police boat. There were no markings to indicate that. No, it looked like a run-of-the-mill skiff.

  “Do you think the media got hold of this already?” Doc Clemson raised his hand over his eyes to block the glaring sun.

  “I can’t imagine . . .”

  Just as the words left Cassidy’s lips, a sound ripped through the air.

  Gunfire.

  Someone was shooting at them, she realized.

  Chapter Four

  Cassidy threw herself over Doc Clemson, and they hit the sand just as a bullet splintered the tree beside them.

  “Leggott! Dane!” Cassidy yelled. “Get down!”

  Her officers dove to the ground.

  When she knew they were safe, Cassidy glanced over at the water. The men aboard the skiff fired again.

  A bullet hit the ground near Cassidy, sending pellets of sand flying into her face.

  Her heart raced.

  These guys were shooting to kill.

  She drew her gun, knowing it would be difficult to get a clear shot from her vantage point.

  Just as she raised her weapon, the boat sped away, with two men wearing ball caps and sunglass
es on board.

  “Everyone okay?” Cassidy yelled.

  Everyone murmured back that they were.

  Cassidy rolled off Clemson and stood. Her heart still raced from the encounter.

  She helped Clemson to his feet then pulled out her phone and called the Coast Guard and marine police, asking them to be on the lookout for the watercraft. But Cassidy’s gut told her the officials wouldn’t find those two men. By the time they deployed their boats, the gunmen would be gone.

  The boat had been too far away to allow her to see any type of identifiable markers—anything to distinguish the men or the boat. She could only hope the men would slip up and be discovered.

  She glanced at her crew as they gathered near her and confirmed with her own eyes that no one had been injured.

  Good. That was the important thing.

  Gunmen firing on them was the last thing she’d expected at this scene.

  “While we’re here, we’re going to need to keep guard, just in case anyone attempts any other shenanigans like that,” Cassidy started. “Leggott, you take the first watch. Dane, I need you to retrieve the bullets out of the trees and sand and document them. We’ll see if they match anything we have on file.”

  “And me?” Clemson’s voice held a new tremble.

  “You just keep working for these victims,” Cassidy said. “We’ll keep a lookout around you to make sure nothing like that happens again.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Cassidy took a step away, still surveying everything around her for any signs of trouble. Those men had to be associated in some way with these remains. Somehow, they had learned that these bodies had been discovered. They’d come here trying to silence Cassidy and her team.

  But how? How had they been privy to this information?

  Nothing had been on the police scanner. No, Leggott had called Cassidy and asked her to come.

  The only people who knew about this were Cassidy, Wayne, the other law enforcement agencies she’d called in, and the mayor. Had one of them spilled the beans?