by C. J. Lyons
“Other gear? Like bear spray? Maybe that shotgun?” Both she and Lucy carried nine-millimeter Berettas, but TK doubted that would stop a rampaging bear. She’d much rather have the Remington pump-action Lucy kept stowed in her trunk.
“If I were you, I’d be more afraid of snakes,” Lucy said, slamming the trunk closed and leaving the shotgun behind. She moved toward the trail, using the walking stick to offset her limp. “Rattlers and copperheads are both common around here.”
Oh, great, TK thought as she followed, keeping one eye on the ground and the other on her phone, where Wash had overlaid Sarah’s photos onto a topo map. “We’ve got four areas Wash tagged,” she said.
“We only have maybe two hours of sunlight. Let’s start at the top and work our way down.”
“Then we’ll be staring at the first place he spotted—the one with the ballerina charm.”
They entered the forest, and the light was already cut by half. TK took the lead, surprised that Lucy didn’t lag too far behind despite the obvious pain her ankle caused. Not for the first time, she thought that Lucy would have made a decent Marine. It was the highest compliment TK could give anyone, and she didn’t give it lightly.
“If we do find something,” TK continued as they climbed the trail, “what then? I mean, I’ve read reports and seen the photos, but I’ve never been involved right from the start. With a body.”
“Lucky you. First, we’ll call the authorities—in this case the state police would have jurisdiction. They’ll send a trooper who will secure a perimeter and call their sergeant or corporal to dispatch an investigator and CSI team. If it is skeletal remains, they’ll call in a forensic anthropologist, probably from Pitt or Penn State, depending on who’s available, and together with their team they’ll work on searching the entire area and documenting it. Then they’ll excavate any remains they do find, and begin their analysis.”
“So how long before we actually know anything? All that doesn’t happen overnight.”
“I wish. But sometimes you get lucky—personal belongings to provide a preliminary ID, medical equipment with serial numbers like breast implants or orthopedic plates. Finding a jaw is always a help.”
“Because of dental records.”
“Not just them. Remember, you need to have a name to start with in order to pull records for a comparison. But molars are also a good source of DNA.”
TK slowed as they approached the coordinates where Sarah had taken the photo of the pink flower and the silver charm.
“Okay, we should be near.” She squinted in the fading light, searching for a reference point, but it was Lucy who spotted the log about eight yards off the trail.
“Wait there,” Lucy said as she carefully picked her way through the leaves and underbrush.
“I know how to not disturb a crime scene,” TK protested.
“It’s not that. Just wait.”
TK didn’t care for Lucy’s tone—the kind of tone that implied that something was off. “Why?”
“Because this log is a fallen tree trunk.”
Well, duh. “We’re in a forest.”
“It’s a pine tree.” Lucy crouched down a few feet away from the moss growing around and under the tree trunk. She held out her phone, recording everything. “You see any pines this size around me?”
TK looked up. “No. They’re all oaks and maples. Nearest pine tree I see is over here, on the other side of the trail.”
“Exactly. Know any deer or wild animals that drag a fallen log over to weigh down something they’ve buried?”
“Shit.” They hadn’t even seen the maybe-could-be bones yet, and Lucy had already figured out that they had a crime scene. “Should I call the staties?” She glanced at her phone. “Wait. I can’t—no reception.”
“The charm in the photo, it was right beside the orchid, right?”
“Yep. About four inches, I’d guess. Between the flower and the log.”
“It’s gone.”
“Do you see the bones Wash spotted? They were at the far edge of the photo, in the shadow of the log.” She was still amazed Wash had seen them at all. Guy had a hell of an eye for detail.
“Yes.” Lucy leaned forward, bracing herself with her walking stick to get as close as possible without disrupting or touching anything. TK saw the flash from her phone fill the shadows with bright light. “Can you carefully follow my tracks? I need more light.”
TK pulled the high-intensity flashlight from the pack and joined Lucy. The gathering shadows were quickly banished by the LED beam. She knelt in the damp leaves beside Lucy and angled the light under the log. There she could make out three not-quite-parallel rows of grayish-tan colored material stained by dirt and moss. They didn’t resemble the polished ivory of bones from an anatomical skeleton. Maybe they were just twigs? Or pebbles? Whatever they were, they’d been exposed to the elements for a while.
Lucy took TK’s hand and aimed the light at a slightly different angle, revealing a flash from something metallic. Two rings fallen into a gap between the gray bits. Okay, not twigs. Not pebbles or bits of debris. Bones.
“A woman,” TK breathed, craning her head, trying to see if there was anything more. Was that a piece of cloth or just a brightly colored leaf? Impossible to tell without moving the log, and they couldn’t disturb the crime scene.
“Let me try something before we go down to call the staties,” Lucy said. She stood and readjusted her angle, aiming her phone from the opposite side, zooming in on the rings. She took several photos with TK moving the light, then sat back on her haunches to examine them, zooming in even more with the photo editor.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” TK asked, looking over her shoulder as Lucy scrolled through the photos. One of the rings was becoming visible thanks to the bright light. “Are those hands?”
“It’s a claddagh.” Lucy breathed out, then blanked the phone as if she couldn’t bear to see any more. She used her walking stick to haul herself up, wincing as she put weight on her leg. “I spent the morning reviewing Charlotte Worth’s case. Her engagement ring was a claddagh design. Two hands holding a heart made of green agate.”
TK remained on the ground, still staring at the rings caught in the flashlight’s beam. The stone between the hands definitely looked green, but maybe that was from the moss? “No. It can’t be. I mean—what are the odds? Tommy and Sarah were just up here today. And Sarah—her amnesia, coming to us—it’s impossible, right?”
“Most cops don’t believe in coincidences,” Lucy replied in a grim tone. “Tommy is in for a rough time.”
TK pushed herself up to standing. “No way. Not Tommy.”
“Then who? Someone who targeted his wife, and then a year later, Sarah Brown? Someone who chased Sarah down this mountain, and when he didn’t catch her, somehow arranged for her to be sent to us for help? How exactly does that work?”
“I don’t know. But dammit, it did.”
Lucy stared at TK for a long moment, shadows clouding her expression, then finally nodded. “Okay. Then it did. Which means we have a lot of work and little time to do it. I’m going to wait here while you run down the mountain and call the staties. Ask their permission to call Burroughs in as well, since Charlotte is his case.”
“Maybe it’s not Charlotte. You said yourself, it’ll take days to confirm an identity.”
“Then I’ll owe Burroughs. But I want to get our part over with as soon as possible.”
“Should I call Tommy?”
“No,” Lucy snapped. Then she softened her tone. “No. I’ll go, tell him myself.”
“Right. We shouldn’t upset him, not until we’re certain.”
Lucy sighed. “I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting that long. But we can at least give him a few more hours. Now go, hurry.”
Chapter 24
AFTER DINNER, GLORIA took Nellie up for her bath while Peter cleaned up the kitchen. Tommy found himself in the living room, slumped in his usual place on the worn,
overstuffed couch. The night was chilly and he debated starting a fire, but didn’t have the energy. Just as he had no energy to protest when Sarah sat down at the other corner of the couch, unknowingly taking Charlotte’s place.
“Why’d you leave the ER to work with the Beacon Group?” she asked. “All those cold cases with no answers… doesn’t seem a good fit. You seem like someone who likes to be doing, taking care of problems, not plowing through ancient history.”
“If you had any idea what I see in the ER—”
“See. Present tense. You miss it.” She tucked her legs under her and leaned toward him, squeezing a throw pillow on her lap. “Why don’t you go back?”
He turned away.
“You’re awfully young to leave everything you trained so long for behind forever.”
He started to give her the same story he gave everyone else. The story he told himself every morning when he looked in the mirror. That it was too hard being a single father working rotating shifts, that Nellie needed his full attention. All true.
And all lies.
“Ever hear of the term poleaxed?” he asked her. She looked up, puzzled, not realizing that he’d answered her question more truthfully than he’d answered that same question asked by anyone else in the past year.
“No. I don’t think so. Is this a memory test?” A shy smile. “You know I’d fail.”
“When I was a kid I thought it meant something to do with pole vaulting. Those guys fascinated me, how high they went, closest thing to flying.”
“What does it really mean?”
“I’ll be fine. Look fine. Act fine. Even my thinking will feel fine. Like I’m functioning normally. Like life is normal again. That’s one second. Then the next, no warning, no hint, it’s like someone flips a switch. I’m in the dark, lost. Absolutely lost. Sinking into a black so complete I’m suffocating—I can’t even find the strength to keep fighting to breathe. My body goes numb, like it’s not even my own. And my mind—it’s a fog so thick I struggle to remember my own name, much less who I am or why I’m here. Forget making any kind of complex decision. Like how to save a life.”
His shoulders slumped. He hadn’t told anyone this before: not his friends, not the counselors, none of the well-meaning well wishers constantly asking how he was but not really wanting the answer.
“I simply,” his voice dropped to a whisper, cowering against the weight of the truth, “disappear.”
“Poleaxed,” she whispered back.
They sat in silence for a long time. Somehow her hand ended up on top of his. He didn’t pull away. Since Charlotte left, Sarah was the first person with whom he’d felt comfortable enough not to raise up defenses and retreat behind a facade.
“What about—I mean, there are drugs, medications?”
He stopped her with a shake of his head. “Single dad, remember? Can’t risk adverse reactions. I need to stay alert in case Nellie needs me.”
“You can’t take care of her unless you take care of yourself,” she argued. Then to his surprise, she smiled. “Ouch. I’ll bet you tell all your patients and their parents that. Sorry.”
Not for the first time today he wondered if she was a mother. He had a feeling she might be. Or maybe if she didn’t already have children, she’d make a good mother in the future.
“When’s the last time you slept?” she asked.
A sigh escaped him at the thought of sleep. A distant memory. “Sometimes when Charlotte’s folks have Nellie I’ll take a pill. But when Nellie’s home I can’t sleep. Can’t risk it. I wander the house checking the doors and windows, checking in on her. Then I work at the computer, following up any leads on Charlotte. I’ll hear a noise—the furnace turning on, the fridge defrosting—and I’ll know it’s Nellie and something awful has happened and…”
“You panic.” Her hand clasped his. “I don’t remember having those feelings, and yet, when you talk about them, I feel it. Here.” She raised her free hand to beat against her chest, then closed it into a fist and pressed it against her throat. “And here. Like I can’t breathe, my body’s too heavy.”
He nodded grimly. “Yep, that’s about right.” He sagged against the sofa. Damn, it was comfortable. This was where he and Charlotte sat together and finished each day. In silence that wasn’t silence but something so much more. He could almost imagine…
“You’re safe here,” Sarah said quietly. “Go to sleep. Just a short nap. I’ll watch over you. Wake you if anything happens.” Her voice was soothing, hypnotic. And he was so damned tired…
His eyes closed against his wishes. He tried to will them open, but they were heavy, too damned heavy…
<><><>
THE FIRST STATE trooper arrived just as the sun set. After Lucy explained the situation, he took a quick look at the scene, then radioed for backup. Lucy had always thought of the state police as the unsung heroes of law enforcement: as more and more municipalities closed down their own police departments, the staties stepped in to fill the gap, stretching their own resources thinner and thinner.
Like now. With an unexpected, rural crime scene to protect, assignments would need to be shifted, investigators called in—whether on duty or not—and a forensic team scheduled, not to mention additional help to search the mountain for more evidence, a painstaking, tedious job.
“At least most of it can wait until morning,” Lucy told TK after the trooper sent her down the mountain and she returned to the parking lot.
“I’m more worried about Tommy. They’re going to think he did it.”
“If it is Charlotte up there.”
“It is. It has to be. Right?”
Lucy had no answer except a shrug. “It might be days or weeks before we know for certain.”
“Burroughs won’t wait. He’ll go after Tommy. And the press, they’ll crucify him.”
Lucy was silent, busy rearranging her own priorities. They still needed to help Sarah, but now her review of Charlotte’s case had become urgent.
“You think he’s guilty, don’t you?” TK said, her tone biting. “How could you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what we can prove. To answer your question, no, I don’t think he killed his wife.” At least she hoped not. She liked Tommy. But she didn’t know him, not well enough to let it cloud her judgment. “But I need—we need—to stay objective, investigate every possibility. That’s the best way to clear Tommy, prove that he didn’t do it.”
“You can’t prove a negative,” TK grumbled. A new set of headlights entered the parking lot. Burroughs’ white Impala. “Oh look, your partner in the lynch mob.”
“I warned you,” were Burroughs’ first words as he barreled out of the car, despite the fact that there was no urgency, not at this crime scene. “Didn’t I tell you not to trust him? Not to let him near Sarah?”
“You can’t seriously think Tommy had anything to do with Sarah’s accident?” TK stepped forward, squaring off with Burroughs.
“Maybe it’s not an accident,” he answered. “A new witness came forward before we closed down the public service announcements. Guy who left before the smash and grabs, didn’t know about what happened to Sarah until he read it this morning.”
“What did he see?” Lucy asked, her gut tightening as if preparing for a blow.
“Said Sarah wasn’t alone on the trail. Said he saw a man with her—they were talking and she seemed upset.” He paused. “Description sounds a lot like Worth.”
“I don’t believe it,” TK said. “How good of a look did he get?”
“He only saw his back and profile,” Burroughs admitted. “But if those remains up there are Charlotte’s, then—”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Lucy urged. “The staties have a lot of work to do before we know anything for certain. In the meantime though, we should prepare Tommy and his family. Update them on what’s happening. I can do that if you want to stay here.”
“No,” Burroughs said. “I want to see his f
ace when he hears. And like you said, they won’t be doing much here until morning.” He tilted his head to look up at the dark mountainside now awash in headlights. “I’m not sure if I want it to be her or not.”
“I know how you feel,” Lucy admitted. Families always said they wanted closure—until you gave them answers they weren’t prepared for. Answers that destroyed their worlds and reshaped their lives forever. “TK and I will come with you to tell Tommy.”
“You’re a civilian now.” His tone warned her to tread lightly when it came to his investigation.
“Right. And Tommy is on my team. I’m going to be there for him.”
“We’re going to be there,” TK amended.
Burroughs stared at them both with narrowed eyes, then shrugged. “All right then. Best get to it.”
Chapter 25
TOMMY WASN’T DREAMING, but neither was he awake. He lay in a languid half-state, his body paralyzed while his mind raced. And he wasn’t alone. Charlotte. He felt her heartbeat as she held him in her arms, her breath stirring his hair, her scent filling his lungs. Not a dream. It had to be real…
She smiled down at him, her fingers dancing through his hair. “I miss you,” she whispered.
He tried to speak, but he couldn’t. Every muscle in his body was weighed down with exhaustion. He fought to open his mouth, to move a limb. He felt her slipping away and he was powerless to stop her. The paralysis that gripped him was terrifying, but even more frightening was the thought of losing her again.
No! He tried to scream but still couldn’t move. Don’t go!
“Tommy.” It was a voice almost exactly like Charlotte’s. A hand shook his arm. “Tommy, you and your friend need to wake up.”
Gloria, Charlotte’s mother. Disappointment washed over him, freeing his body from the sleep paralysis. He opened his eyes. Gloria was frowning in disapproval—and behind her stood Peter, TK, Lucy, and Don Burroughs.
Pushing himself up, he realized he had been sleeping in a woman’s arms: not Charlotte’s, but Sarah’s. Sarah. He’d forgotten all about her. As he disentangled himself from her embrace, her eyes fluttered open. “What?” she asked with a yawn.