Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell

by Vickie McKeehan

  After the machine kicked in, she stepped to the window over the sink, watched the sun peek its way over the Cascades. Skye stared out past the porch to the yard, a generous stretch of lawn that even now was brilliant green. The fragrant glacier lily growing there drew her outside. She threw on a sweater and stepped onto the back porch.

  She noticed the patch of wild lettuce had almost overtaken the chamomile. In the corner of the yard a bunny munched on pineapple weed. She decided she’d have to do something about the rabbits if she intended to plant a garden. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she wanted to live here surrounded by nature and gleaming water.

  When she felt strong arms wrap around her waist, she leaned back into Josh’s frame.

  “What are you doing out here? It’s so early. Couldn’t you sleep?”

  “Not with the excitement of being here.”

  He wasn’t buying her excuse but for now, he chose not to pursue it. Instead, he kissed the back of her neck and could feel the tension emanating off her. Determined to do something about that, he slid her top off to the side, exposing a bare shoulder. His tongue moved along silky skin so smooth it reminded him of the softest rose petals.

  He guided his hands over her breasts till he found a ripe nipple. When she began to relax, he coaxed her with deep kisses. “Come back to bed. We didn’t get a chance to christen the brand-new mattress last night.”

  “We’ll have to fix that.” Turning her body further into his, she ran her fingers under the robe he wore, pressed hard into his space. Molten pleasure spread like the sun bursting out of the clouds.

  “Oh yeah. We’ll test the newness with hot and sweaty sex.” He captured her hand, bundled her up in his arms. With the sea breeze at his back, as blue herons soared across the bay, he carried his wife into the bedroom.

  Sunlight began to glimmer through the wispy drapes as he laid her on the bed, followed her down. Stringing kisses from neck to belly, they tangled and rolled. Flames speared into rocket flares, bright as red stars. They flew up, winging their way to the crimson heat together. Mated, their bodies kept the beat through a wild pace until that rhythm brought them into a glorious freefall.

  Sated, after hours spent cocooned between the sheets, lack of food finally forced them to crawl out of their nest.

  For their first breakfast in their new home, Skye dug out the fixings for chocolate brownie waffles and blackberry sauce. She’d squirrelled away the ingredients hoping to surprise Josh. It hadn’t been easy. Lately, it was difficult to catch the man off-guard.

  “How did you put this together in twenty minutes?”

  “It’s a miracle,” she cracked. “It’s simple really. I used stuff I bought at the store.”

  “Imagine what you could do with your own restaurant. Like Travis. I wonder if it runs in the family.”

  “Hmm, I never considered where I get my knack for cooking. My mom was a whiz in the kitchen so I just assumed… I guess it’s in the genes.”

  Before putting another bite of tasty waffle in his mouth, he decided it was time to drop the bombshell he’d been keeping to himself. “I have a little surprise. I hope you like the idea. I bought that old rundown motel.”

  Her mouth fell open. “What? I fix waffles for you—that’s my surprise—and you go and buy… You mean the one we saw the night we found Shawna Langley? That old motel?”

  “The same. The first thing I get rid of is that tacky rooftop billboard.”

  “I can’t believe you’re really planning on turning that building into little apartments for the homeless.”

  “It’ll take some work but I’ll hire local, anyone who can swing a hammer I’ll consider an asset.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. Like Habitat for Humanity. They’ll let anyone volunteer no matter their skill level.” She looked at him then with a big smile. “What do you say about bringing in a new addition to the family? Let’s go check out that shelter. It’s time to get us a dog.”

  Debbie Rodriguez had worked for the Adopt-A-Best Friend Shelter for almost five years. Being a kennel keeper wasn’t a job that came with glamour or benefits. But since Debbie loved animals, dogs particularly, she got to spend her time doing what she loved. There was a lot of cleaning up poop, feeding and grooming, and taking her charges outside for a walk.

  That was her favorite time of the workday when she could get outside, rain or shine, let the dogs out of their enclosures to run and play. The four acres of donated land where the shelter sat had plenty of space for just that purpose. The dogs got to stretch their legs and run around. It’s one of the reasons Debbie stayed.

  She had her favorites. All the workers did. For the last week, she’d had her eye on one particular little female, about four months old, that had come to them as a sick stray. A jogger had found the canine at the side of the road near starvation. That had been several weeks earlier. Since then, she’d kept track of the girl’s progress.

  The on-site vet hadn’t spayed the silver-colored malamute yet because of her young age, but the doctor had brought the pup up to speed on all her shots.

  That’s why Debbie was confident the puppy was healthy enough for adoption. She couldn’t wait to see the cute little thing find a forever home. If she didn’t have three dogs already she’d snap this one up in a heartbeat.

  As Debbie put her charges through their paces outside under the threat of rain, she watched the sweet expression on the malamute. The fluffy ball of fur made her laugh. For some reason, the little pup had gone off to one corner of the lawn all by herself. There, she seemed to delight in playing with what looked like, an imaginary playmate.

  The dog pranced and jumped, put her front paw in the air as if to touch her new bestie. The only problem with all of it was that there was no other dog within ten feet of her. The pooch was literally romping in a meadow with no one else around.

  When Skye and Josh pulled into the lot they saw what looked like a private residence, stately and grand. They’d already learned from the Internet that the house and surrounding land had once belonged to Frederic and Eleanor Brandenhall. After the couple perished in a 1952 plane crash near Seattle, the city found out Frederic and Eleanor had arranged to leave their sizeable estate in a trust to help with the care and feeding of the island’s animal population.

  For more than fifty years Adopt-A-Best Friend had stood as one of the best in the state. The place had a good reputation as a well-run facility that provided quality care on a full-time basis with a competent veterinarian and medical staff on call twenty-four-seven.

  As soon as they crawled out of the Subaru, every dog in residence set up a din of barking. Whether it was a showy welcome or to get attention, the gesture worked. Skye went through the gate first and spotted Kiya.

  She nudged Josh in the ribs to take a look. In a corner of the huge yard the wolf played with a baby, a silver-gray Alaskan malamute with big blue eyes and the largest feet she’d ever seen on a puppy.

  Skye wasn’t surprised when Kiya scrambled over and the pup followed. Though her wolf sat like a dignified lady at her feet, the cute little bundle of fluff did not—the idea of manners seemed foreign to the fuzzball. She jumped and danced around Skye’s legs before bounding into her arms with a lick to the face.

  “Aren’t you a pretty girl? You’re just a puppy, aren’t you?”

  “The vet says she’s between four and five months old.” From a few feet away Debbie went through the pup’s story and how she’d been found.

  Once the dog nuzzled Skye enough to win her over, the puppy moved on to Josh, making sure all her bases were covered.

  Josh crouched down, ran his fingers through the girl’s fur. “You’re a roly-poly wad of energy is what you are. Does she have a name?”

  “Not yet. That’s up to her new owners. I think you’ve found a new best friend.”

  Skye met the woman’s amused eyes. “Your sign says this is the place for it.”

  “It’s true. We’ve hooked up quite a few serio
us relationships since I’ve been here. This one is a sweetheart. Got a name picked out yet?”

  Skye looked at Josh.

  “Your dog, your call.”

  “Our dog. But I think I’ll call her Atka,” Skye asserted as she rubbed the pup’s ears. “She’s Alaskan so it seems fitting.”

  “That’s a beautiful name,” Debbie decided. “Does it have special meaning for you? I’ve never heard of it before.”

  “It’s Inuit. The name means guardian spirit.” Skye scooped the dog up into her arms and said, “Come on, Atka, let’s go fill out some paperwork so we can get you home.”

  They worked the rest of the day unpacking boxes while Atka settled in around them, most of the time underfoot. The curious pup sniffed and explored her new home, but didn’t stay very far away from her owners for long.

  That was okay by Skye. Standing in the kitchen perched on a stepladder, she stacked plates in the cabinet as Josh handed them off to her.

  “Don’t worry, we’ve almost got this room knocked out then we’ll move to the living room, get that squared away.”

  Like a general with a plan of attack, she’d been working like a fiend to put the house right. Josh shouldn’t have been surprised in her resolve—she put Mr. Clean to shame. “Do we get to break for lunch?”

  She grinned. “I’ll ignore that while you make sandwiches. If you’re bored, I can finish up. Why not take the dog out?”

  “Come on, Atka. Let’s get some fresh air.” He took the leash down off the peg as the dog made a mad dash for the door when it cracked open.

  “We’ll need to think about training and teaching her some manners,” Josh said as he disappeared down the back steps.

  What the hell, thought Skye? The sun peeking through the clouds drew her outside. She crawled down off the ladder, abandoned her mission and took off running after man and dog. She caught up to them near the little ornamental pond. As they cruised past the hydrangeas, Skye watched Atka snub her nose at the flowers and squat between the sweet fern and pepperbush.

  “Good girl.”

  “She’s that, and smart,” Josh said, easily enough. “You know she has wolf blood running through her, don’t you? I can sense it.”

  Skye nodded. “I figured Kiya picked her out special for us for a reason. It never occurred to me that she would.”

  “It should have. The protector is on guard twenty-four seven.”

  “The bond we witnessed this morning is unconditional love, loyalty.”

  “Look up ahead. Kiya’s teaching her until Atka finds her own way.”

  She followed his eyes, saw her wolf walking along the shore ahead of them, sniffing sand and surf. Atka trotted off to the same stretch of beach.

  They followed the dog, drifting to the strand, hand in hand. Skye toed off her shoes, breaking the contact between them long enough to reach down and roll up the bottoms of her pants legs. She waded into the current with arms spread wide, spinning and turning.

  Josh cupped his hands in the ice cold water and heaved it in her direction.

  Darting just out of reach, she laughed and splashed him.

  He was about to set off in pursuit when the wolf growled low in her throat. It got their attention about the same time the puppy began to bark loud and distinctive.

  “They share an ability to pick up on good versus evil.”

  “That’s handy since you may want to take a look at what Atka’s carrying in her mouth,” Josh observed.

  Skye stared down at Atka. “Oh my God. That’s a bone. Atka, where did you find this?” But as Skye knelt down, scrubbed the pup’s ears, she looked up at Josh. A realization beat a drum inside her. “He knows where we live.”

  “Yeah. And he left that bone—looks like a small rib bone to me—right where the dog would find it. He wants us to know there isn’t a place we can run or hide, nowhere he won’t be able to find us.”

  “He was here while we were at the shelter.” Skye stood up, steeled her spine. “We aren’t running.”

  “No. And we damned sure aren’t hiding.”

  “And because of that, we’ll be the ones who’ll end him.”

  After Harry had come and gone and taken his report, he’d left with one more souvenir destined for the coroner’s office.

  “It’s like a puzzle. He’s sending us these pieces of his first victim. He doesn’t know we’ve ID’d her. Now we need to solve the mystery of this guy, what makes him tick, the why, the where, of his other victims. How many are still out there?”

  “We keep circling back to the military base. That has to mean something.”

  After they made dinner, the light of the full moon drew them outside onto the back porch. As they stood there locked up in each other’s embrace, Skye cozied up against Josh’s body. She looked out over the sparkling sea and felt as though her life had tilted perfect.

  The only problem was she didn’t trust perfect. Never had.

  She’d looked into the eyes of evil before and she’d won. Now, she would do it again—for Trisha, for Vanessa, for Maggie and for young Willa.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Monday morning Skye faced the day with a newfound outlook. Maybe it was because she’d brought along the newest addition to the Ander household or the fact that she’d spent a relaxing couple of days resting her brain. Whatever it was, today she was ready to tackle the case from a new angle, a new perspective. And she had help.

  At the rate volunteers were showing up to offer assistance at the Artemis Foundation, she might have to get a bigger place soon.

  In addition to Velma Gentry and Karen Houston donating their time for a few hours each day, she could now add Travis and Tate to the mix. The two men had offered to come in three times a week as had Vanessa Farrington’s parents, John and Doris. The state senator and his wife had written a generous check to help out the Foundation with expenses. Since there was still a string of other women unaccounted for, they’d also given Skye permission to use the money wherever she thought it would do the most good. Skye decided to do just that.

  Today, she had dangled a fat cash incentive in front of three hardworking programmers, only to have each one tell her the same thing. Keep the money for getting the word out or use it to post a reward for information.

  Leo, Reggie, and Winston had agreed to do whatever they had to do to stay as long as necessary until they found the man responsible for their coworker’s death. They had only one request—food and drink—provide them with a steady stream of soda, burgers or pizza and they’d be a slave for as long as Skye needed them.

  And she needed all the help she could get. It wasn’t just Maggie Bennett on everyone’s mind though or Willa Dover or Vanessa. Selma Tolliver was still missing. Her family hadn’t heard a word from her and no one had found a body. Without a body, there was still hope.

  That’s one of the reasons so many people had shown up today. It made for a crowded work space. And because the clock kept ticking, they’d all gotten an early start.

  Travis and Tate had showed up at seven a.m. to go through a stack of case binders that she and Josh had put together. The two men had gone page by page, making any notations with sticky notes about anything that law enforcement should check out a second time.

  At the other end of the table the programmers sat elbow to elbow as they banged on their keyboards. It was nine a.m. and they’d picked up exactly where they’d left off the night before.

  So when Winston came across a property tax record in Pierce County belonging to a man named Jason Berkenshaw, it was a big deal.

  “I’ve been searching for all property owners in the specific area and zip code you and Josh suggested I look at. There aren’t that many. It’s fairly rural. But this Berkenshaw owns forty acres near the area you guys searched the other day. It fits because it’s less than a mile from the military base. And since tax records are public, I didn’t even have to hack anything to get the info,” Winston said, a bit embarrassed by how unbelievably simple the process
had been.

  “You might want to look at this,” Leo added, pointing to his laptop screen. “Berkenshaw is also a member of law enforcement. He’s been a member of ICE for thirteen years now.”

  “ICE?” Skye asked, placed her hands on her hips. “You’re telling me this guy works in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that he’s one of the good guys who tries to stop human trafficking?”

  “And a long list of other duties,” Winston added.

  “ICE agents do everything cops do but in the name of national security,” Reggie stated.

  Skye met the eyes of each programmer. She didn’t want to rock the boat or toss water on their fire but… “What makes you guys so certain about this Berkenshaw guy? What about him sends up red flags?”

  But in the amount of time it took her to spout the questions, a flash of memory kicked in.

  “Wait. Wait a minute. Jason Berkenshaw. I’ve heard that name. I know that name,” Skye repeated. Then it came to her. “That’s the MP who questioned Daniel Cree after Ellen Schreiber went missing. I’m almost sure of it. You were there, Josh. Wasn’t that the name Harry mentioned?”

  Caught up in the amount of data Winston and Reggie had been able to grab on their suspect, Josh raised his head, peered over the computer. “Yeah, I’m almost certain that was the name. Leo, do me a favor and look that up,” he directed. “Look to see if Berkenshaw was ever an MP at Fort Lewis. If he was, then he’s our connection to the military base.”

  Leo began hitting keys on his Mac. Five minutes later, he turned the screen around. “He’s an army veteran, all right.” Leo rattled off his length of time in the military, his rank, his pay grade and his assigned duties while stationed at the nearby base.

  Skye scanned through the details herself. “Berkenshaw started out as an MP when he was just eighteen, but got drummed out after nine years for having violent outbursts. And get this, he was stationed there during the time Trisha Danes and Ellen Schreiber disappeared two months apart.”