Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell

by Vickie McKeehan

  If he were standing here, he’d no doubt argue that those differences made him a better man, improved him as a team player, someone she could count on in a fight. Lately, Josh tossed out the word “team” a lot. It could be maddening at times. After all, he was now more skilled at tracking than she was. Thanks to a keen sense of smell and the wolf blood that ran through his veins, his strength was a hundred times that of what it had been before the merge. But no matter how much his abilities had improved, Skye still hoarded a major chunk of guilt. There was no way around it. She didn’t think it was likely to go away any time soon. She’d carry that burden of guilt for years to come.

  But not today. Today she had to dig in, get a ton of things done to catch up.

  She took a moment to glance at the huge map hanging on the back wall, the best place to keep track of all child abductions that had taken place in the Pacific Northwest. Most were teenagers. Colored pushpins and photos indicated where each had been last seen. Recently she’d started including the disappearances of males and females gone missing in British Columbia. Since the area was less than a hundred miles to the north it seemed practical to cover Canada as well, or at least that little part of it.

  She stared at the snapshots tacked around the map, at the fresh faces. A reminder to her or anyone else who walked through the door what the Artemis Foundation was all about—finding those who’d vanished without a trace, who’d left behind heartbroken loved ones without a word, families that still didn’t know what had happened to their children.

  She knew some of them had invariably ended up in the human trafficking trade, shipped out like cargo, destined for other parts of the world where no one could trace their movements. She’d vowed to find them, every last one, even if it took her years to do so. In their spare time she and Josh had already spent hours going over manifests. So far, their efforts had not turned up a single missing teen.

  But that didn’t mean she’d give up. In fact, her latest project was making sure the kids and teens were all listed in every available national databases and agencies that allowed her to add them.

  She looked around the office and recognized she was stalling—nothing like coming back from a long vacation and stepping back into a mess. Cluttered with an assortment of cards and letters, she could barely see the top of the makeshift folding-table she used as her desk. The floor was littered with boxes stacked in hap-hazard fashion, no doubt wedding gifts still pouring in from well-wishers.

  As she set her bag down she realized the first order of business had to be catching up on all the messages left on the office phone. The voice bank was full. After listening to some thirty calls, most were goodwill wishes. She jotted down names and numbers on a legal pad to get back to them later.

  But one warranted another listen and an immediate response.

  Skye could tell even over the phone that Karen Houston sounded frantic and worried. Karen was the mother of Shawna Langley, a teen who’d gone missing while they’d been out of town making Shawna’s case the most recent. It seemed on the first day of school after Christmas break, the fifteen-year-old had boarded her regular bus that morning and headed for class. According to her mother, the teen never made it inside the building. Somewhere between getting off that bus and her first-period math class, Shawna Langley had disappeared.

  As Mrs. Houston explained in her message, she hadn’t discovered her daughter missing until five-thirty that evening when she’d gotten home from work. With the house empty and no sign of Shawna, she’d called all Shawna’s friends and learned they hadn’t seen their classmate at school that day. After that, Mrs. Houston had checked her answering machine. One of the messages had been from the vice principal telling her that Shawna had been marked absent from all her classes. That’s when Karen had panicked and called the police.

  Skye listened to the woman’s detailed message a couple of times, and heard the voice of a mother in agony, worrying and frantic with fear. Since the time stamp on Mrs. Houston’s message was from two days ago, that meant Shawna might still be missing.

  Before dialing the number, Skye took several deep breaths, steeled herself to cope with another missing child.

  As soon as Mrs. Houston picked up, Skye identified herself and began with an explanation of sorts. “I’m sorry for the delay in returning your call. But I’ve been out of town for two weeks and just got your message this morning.”

  “Call me, Karen, please. I remember seeing you on the news. The news anchor reported you’d gotten married. But you had to come back eventually. And when you did, I wanted Shawna to be the first one you helped.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me more about your daughter’s disappearance?”

  Karen went into the fine points and ticked off specifics while Skye continued to make notations on the legal pad.

  “The cops think she ran away. Shawna wouldn’t do that,” Karen urged.

  “That seems to be a very typical response from law enforcement.”

  “I didn’t appreciate being told that. I tried to tell them Shawna loved school, that she was a member of the honor society. She had tons of friends. She was active in numerous social events. She had cheerleading practice the afternoon she went missing. Why would she run away from all that? She had no reason to.”

  Unfortunately, Skye had heard it all too often before—popular teenage girl with a routine life vanishes without a trace.

  “Let me ask you this. Do you know if the police questioned the bus driver?”

  “Yes, they did. And I called her myself. Her name’s Lori Denny. She’s fifty-seven, a grandmother who picks up extra money by driving the bus. Lori says she watched Shawna exit the bus that morning like everyone else did.”

  “Okay, did they check video of the kids entering the school? Because most high schools these days have security cameras installed.”

  “You’re good, very thorough. I knew you would be. I like that. But the police told me they did look through surveillance tapes which covered the hallways. Look, I want to hire you to find my daughter.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Karen. I’m not for hire.”

  “Then I’ll make a donation to the Artemis Foundation. I want to do something.”

  “A donation to the Foundation is fine. How about this? I’ll follow up, make some calls to law enforcement myself and see what turns up. I won’t give up.”

  Karen sighed. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  After assuring Karen she’d do everything she could, Skye ended the call on a depressing note. Would children ever be safe to walk down their own streets, live their lives without fear of being snatched? It was a sobering thought.

  With that, she booted up her laptop. For thirty minutes she perused through the over one-hundred-and-eighty emails sitting in her inbox. Getting rid of the obvious spam first, she opened each one in methodical fashion, reading, and then replying to those requiring a response.

  Suddenly the smell of caffeine drifting from another office on the same floor got to her. She remembered she needed coffee. She pushed to her feet, went into the little kitchenette to start a pot of strong java. As it brewed she attacked the mound of cards and letters stacked on her desk. The pile was so high she couldn’t see around the twelve-inch mountain of paper.

  After sorting through and opening the obvious cards from supporters, strangers really, who’d read about their nuptials in the newspaper and taken the time to write, she spent another hour reading through the stack of mail. She set the cards aside in their own batch so she could write each one a personal note later.

  By the time she poured her third cup of coffee, she decided to tackle opening the boxes. Skye couldn’t believe people would actually take the time to shop for wedding gifts—especially during the holiday season—for a couple they’d only seen on the news. But while she and Josh had bathed themselves in sun tan oil and sunshine, it seemed the packages from strangers kept coming.

  Her father, Travis Nakota, had dropped by every other d
ay to deal with the deliveries, the ones dropped off by FedEx or UPS or the mailman, or to collect what managed to slide through the slot, only to heap all of them underneath the metal table.

  By one o’clock that afternoon, she’d opened up a dozen cartons containing stuff like a shiny new toaster, crocheted doilies—the lacy things made by a little old lady in Aberdeen who wanted to give them something homemade—along with a varied collection of recipe books. Somehow it had gotten out that Skye Cree liked to cook. Because of that, the citizens of Seattle had taken it upon themselves to make sure their heroine had the means to prepare the best dishes—whether it was linguine or coq au vin or good ol’ Southern-fried chicken—they’d sent her a wide-range of cookbooks. She browsed through page after page wondering if she could find something unique to fix tonight, their first full night back home.

  The next parcel that caught her eye was a long, brown rectangular cardboard box. Its size alone caught her attention—a good eighteen inches wide and two feet long, it had a depth of at least ten inches—which made it the largest gift by far from all the rest. As soon as she picked it up, she heard Kiya’s warning yip and growl. It was about the same time she realized whatever was inside rattled, as if something had broken into bits and pieces. Whatever delicate item was inside had cracked, she decided. Whatever it was had obviously met a bad fate. But she didn’t understand why that would send Kiya into howling-mode.

  She sighed a little at the notion that someone’s generosity had ended in a bad way with a careless shipper. Despite images of delivery drivers slamming packages against doors and tossing them on concrete, she held the box up to give it another shake. The contents definitely clattered around inside. Skye decided she’d have to send them a thank-you anyway. But when she looked for a return address in the upper left-hand corner she noticed it had been left blank. She turned the box on its end to check the bottom side. But there was no shipper info at all.

  She picked up the scissors she’d been using to breach the other cartons and slid the sharp edge across the tape. Throwing back the cardboard panels, she pried the lids back to reach inside. Instead of the pretty, delicate, tissue paper she’d found in the other gifts, her eyes landed on old newsprint. The sender had used it to buffer whatever rested within. Unlike all the other presents she’d opened so far, this one held an odor so strong it made her want to gag. Kiya’s yowling got louder. Because of that, she almost missed the date on the yellowish copy of the Seattle Times. 1992.

  As she peeled back the sheets of paper, a funny feeling hit her. That feeling began to climb up her backbone all the way to her neck. By the time she’d unwrapped the layers of newsprint, the core of it began to sink in.

  From the center of the box a skull stared back at her, the shape and form unmistakable. It lay nestled among an assortment of bones, a femur, a tibia, and what looked like a patella, or kneecap. The leg bones were complete but there was no foot.

  Underneath them all was a typewritten note.

  Skye looked around for anything she could use to pick up the paper. Knowing the police would want to know if she’d handled anything inside the box, her eyes landed on one of the already-opened wedding gifts, a set of kitchen gadgets that included a pair of metal tongs.

  With unsteady hands, she used the tongs to grab for the note to angle it out of the box. In spite of how careful she was though, the back of her hand brushed up against some of the bones. The contact caused her to shiver. That’s why it took three tries before she was able to lift out the message without tearing the paper. Carefully she placed it onto the newly-cleared surface of the desk so she could read the words.

  The media says Skye Cree is the greatest hunter. They say you love to track down really bad guys. I’m a really bad guy. I’m sending you this box of bones. See if you can find out who this woman is. I don’t exactly remember her name. It’s been too long. Maybe Julie? Janie? These few bones were all I could stuff into the box. See if you can use what’s left of her to catch me because I took her life. I’ll give you a clue. I killed her with my own hands. To be honest, I’ve killed others since this one. But you probably won’t be able to find any of them because after all this time no one else seems to care. I’m not even 100% sure anyone ever looked. Let’s see if what they say is true. Let’s see how great you really are. Because somewhere out there families wait for answers that never came. Are you the one good enough to find them answers? We’ll see. Because I’ll be watching you.

  Skye’s jaw dropped open. She reread it again and then a third time before she reached for the desk phone.

  “Josh, you’d better get down here. I don’t know if this is a sick prank or if it’s real. But I’ve never seen anything like it. You have to get down here, see this box of bones for yourself.”

  Chapter Two

  It took the founder of Ander All Games ten minutes to make it downstairs from his cushy office on the twentieth floor. Mainly because once Josh left his office, after being away for two weeks, people kept coming up to him wanting to make small talk. What had the weather been like in St. Kitts? How did it feel to be a married man again? And when was he planning to tackle those latest bugs in the software updates. He didn’t mind the questions or the interest in his personal life because he liked to think the people at Ander All Games were like his extended family. Widely known for treating his employees well and paying competitive salaries, it was one reason his company maintained their edge in the marketplace. Josh liked to think he offered them more than a great benefits package and regular bonuses. For the most part, the work environment was relaxed. He believed in teamwork and always encouraged communication between departments. Employees knew they could come to him with work-related issues. Take care of nipping festering resentments in the bud before they built to grudges. That’s one reason, his door was usually open.

  He’d found a deepening friendship in his business partner, Todd Graham, as well as the rest of his team. Maybe not as much as he once had, but he still liked to think he’d formed a bond with most of them. Lately life had created new opportunities. That’s what he chose to think anyway at the turn in the road his life had taken—ever since that night he’d met a certain Native American woman with violet eyes.

  By the time Josh reached suite three hundred, his curiosity had reached new heights.

  When he opened the door, their eyes met—his gray, almost silver—hers the deepest blue. His heart practically stuttered in his chest at her narrow Native American face with its high cheekbones and the long, raven hair.

  Since meeting Skye in that dark alleyway almost a year earlier he’d felt like he’d tapped into the mother-lode. That hadn’t changed since tying the knot.

  At the sight of her, his lips curved up.

  Skye tilted her head and met a smile for a smile. For that brief moment, she stopped thinking about death and appreciated what was right in front of her. Not in a million years would she have ever believed this man would be such an integral part of her life now.

  His black hair fell gently around his shoulders. Its length didn’t detract from the man’s shrewd sense of business or his ability to dress the part of a man in charge, a man who ran a successful gaming empire. There was no doubt he’d made some bucks over the years. But Skye knew he was as down to earth as a guy could get.

  “I got here as soon as I could.”

  Skye’s face told him what he already knew. Not two hours earlier he’d left her in a perfect state after they’d made love. And now, someone had put an end to that blissful scene by sending her remains.

  He took another look around the small office knowing full well his wife wasn’t prone to exaggeration or posturing to get a reaction. He met her in front of the folding table, taking a stance beside her at the box and peered inside. His recently acquired wolf instincts kicked into overdrive. “This is no joke, Skye. Those are definitely human bones.”

  “I figured as much. That’s why I’ve already called Harry. After I calmed down a little and bothered to go t
hrough the box for a closer inspection, I determined that for myself.”

  Josh nodded and began to scan the note, then read it through a second time. “Welcome back to the ugly world we left. Looks like, our vacation is officially over and you’ve been challenged.”

  “Looks like I have. That old copy of the Seattle Times you see is dated 1992. I didn’t want to handle it too much but…it’s the classified section, help wanted ads, a few personals, a whole lot of used cars for sale. You know what it means though? We’ll have to check every missing teen or woman in the area from that general timeframe to get a bead on this guy.”

  “The newspaper might not even be a viable clue though as to the date of the bones. Simply put, it could be nothing more than a false lead.”

  “I thought of that. But that’s why we’ll have to eliminate it first. There’s no other way. If it turns out the paper is in anyway a reference to the year Julie or Janie died, it means the killer’s been at this for a very long time. There’s no other conclusion, Josh. It’s a morbid thought. The idea that this woman’s remains aren’t even complete is just…sad. Do you think he kept the rest?”

  “Oh yeah. I think he would. Don’t you?”

  “I do. It means he has a trophy room somewhere and at least a twenty-year head start.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  The voice came from the open doorway where Harry Drummond stood. The look on his face was that of a beleaguered homicide detective. A uniformed cop trailed Harry while a crime scene technician followed behind the patrolman. The tech carried a camera and a metal briefcase containing his equipment. The new triad immediately clustered around the desk and the box. It didn’t take long for the small space to feel cramped.