Grave Danger

by Rachel Grant

  “I promise,” she said, her voice husky.

  Her sexy voice went straight to his core. Want conquered restraint. He slipped an arm around her, pulled her to him, and then lowered his lips to hers. Her soft mouth pressed to his, welcoming but hesitant, while her hands rested on his chest. Cradling her face with one hand, he explored her lips with gentle, coaxing kisses. Her lips parted. A ripple of satisfaction coursed through him as he pressed closer to slide inside and taste her.

  Her arms stiffened and she gently pushed him back. “I—I can’t. I can’t do this again.” She looked down at the floor as she flushed. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  Her words brought their situation back into focus. The last time she’d gotten involved with a cop, she’d ended up with a stalker. Again he reached out and touched her chin, urging her to look him in the eye. Her eyes showed desire and confusion. He could be satisfied with that. For now. “I’m the one who should be sorry. But I’m not.”

  She laughed softly. He traced her bottom lip with his thumb one last time and then said, “Goodnight, Libby.” He heard the slide of the deadbolt as he descended the porch steps.

  He could get past her fears. She just needed time. He climbed into his vehicle, hearing Bobby in his head, calling him on the carpet for getting involved with a victim. But still, he planned to convince Libby Aaron was the exception, not the rule.

  HE WATCHED FROM ACROSS THE STREET, in the shadows by the bay. His arms ached from holding the binoculars to his eyes for so long, but he didn’t dare look away. He watched each of the front windows for an interval of five seconds and then moved to the next. He wished he knew where they were inside the house. He had to know what was going on. The police chief had been with her for over an hour. No one should have answered this call. No one should believe her at this point. What had gone wrong?

  A muscle spasm in his shoulder caused him to drop the binoculars. He kept his gaze focused on her door and stretched his arms, feeling the pins and needles sensation in his fingertips and palms as circulation returned. The ache reached the excruciating peak, when there was movement by the front door. His hands felt like clubs as he raised the binoculars again. Pain shot through him as the weight of the glasses pressed against the raw nerve endings on his palms. But that was nothing compared to the frustration that flared when the police chief pulled her against his body and kissed her. Shit.

  He dropped the binoculars and rubbed his eyes. Instead of putting them at odds, his plan had brought Libby Maitland and Mark Colby together.

  The chief left the house. The tingling in his hands eased. He kept the binoculars focused on Libby. He used the zoom on the binoculars until he could count the faint freckles on her nose. Clearly visible was her dazed expression, the warmth in her eyes as her gaze followed Mark Colby.

  He shifted the binoculars to the chief’s face. The man looked pleased with himself.

  He rubbed at the healing scratches on his arm, which he’d gotten when he scoped out the site, planning his strategy. He’d been so careful. He’d laid out the evidence to make her look paranoid. Insane.

  The police chief should have written her off as a lunatic, a nuisance.

  Time was running out. He needed a new approach. He had to scare the hell out of her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LOU WARREN, THE TRIBAL MONITOR personally selected by Rosalie, once again tried to put Libby in her place. “The Burial Treatment Plan clearly states that you are not to analyze the remains,” he said.

  “I’m not analyzing, Lou. Merely looking at the skull to decide how best to remove her.” She instantly recognized her mistake and wanted to bite her tongue.

  “Her?” he asked, drawing out the single word, making it an accusation.

  “I’d have to be blind not to notice she’s female. Even with that crack in her forehead, you can see how straight it is, and her jaw isn’t even slightly squared. There’s nothing remotely male about her.”

  “I suppose next you’re going to say she’s white,” he said, full of self-righteous hostility.

  “Not a chance.”

  Lou referred to a nine-thousand-year-old skeleton that had been recovered in 1996 near Kennewick, Washington. Kennewick Man became controversial when the examining archaeologist determined that the features of the skull were “caucasoidal.” Archaeologists and other scientists wanted to study the remains further, as it was one of the oldest, most complete skeletons ever recovered in the Americas. Several tribes still fought in court to keep the analysis from happening. The Kennewick Man controversy was why she had to jump through so many hoops to please the tribe now.

  “Don’t write down the gender in your notes either,” he said.

  She tried to keep her voice cheerful. “I wasn’t planning on it. My notes will be minimal.” The post-Kennewick Man Burial Treatment Plan forbade scientific analysis and required that the soil around the body be collected and given to the tribe. She could not screen the dirt. She was allowed to write the location, type, and style of artifacts found in association with the remains, but couldn’t photograph or even draw them. The artifacts would be reburied with the remains. That was about as minimal as you could get.

  She scraped away another layer of dirt and her trowel snagged on a rock. Brushing it off, she expected to see another chunk of fire-cracked basalt, but was surprised to see a caramel-colored chunk of cryptocrystalline silicate. She quickly uncovered it. She had found a tool. After marking the location on her map, she picked it up.

  “Here’s the top half of a projectile point,” she said and handed it to Lou, bracing herself for his next complaint.

  He didn’t disappoint her. “The break looks fresh,” he said, clearly implying she had broken it. “Where’s the base?”

  “I couldn’t have broken a rock that thick with just my trowel. It must’ve broken last week when we were using shovels—before we found the remains. We’ll look in the soils we collected on Thursday to find the other half.”

  Lou placed the broken artifact in the bentwood box made by a tribal member to hold the remains and associated artifacts.

  Libby wrote as much as she could about the point tip and then resumed digging. Her thoughts returned to the life of this woman, who’d lived and died around the time of the Battle of Hastings. Her teeth didn’t show the usual wear patterns associated with prehistoric burials, especially for women, who tended toward more dental wear than men because they used their teeth to soften hide. Perhaps this was an indication of status, that she didn’t do the same work as the other women in her tribe, or it could be a simple indication that there was natural fluoridation in the water supply. Regardless, that was the type of detail Libby wasn’t allowed to record.

  When the surrounding soil had been removed, she lifted the skull and handed it to Lou. He placed the cranium in the bentwood box, closed his eyes, dropped his head, and murmured softly.

  She waited in silence, dropping her own eyes respectfully. She would give him as much time as he needed. She knew that most tribal members loathed working with remains of the ancestors. It went against their deepest held beliefs. But the spread of urbanization made it increasingly necessary. Most tribes had to find one or two willing individuals to consult with archaeologists during the removal process. But being willing didn’t mean it was easy or pleasant to oversee burial removal. This was a spiritual issue, which explained Lou’s hostile attitude. It must be difficult for him. Libby’s annoyance evaporated as she witnessed the toll it took on him to go against his belief in the name of progress.

  Lou’s face was grim—in no way resembling the cliché of the stoic Indian—when he nodded for her to continue. Back down in the excavation unit, she looked for the first time at the smoothly indented soil where the base of the skull had rested. And she had a problem.

  The dirt was the wrong color.

  She reached down and touched the yellow sandy-silt, sifting a tiny amount between her gloved fingers. The soil should be the same rich, dark brown floodplain
silt she’d been digging through, but this looked more like the fill dirt that had been imported to the site in 1984.

  No. Not just more like. Exactly like the modern fill.

  A few weeks ago, before the excavation began, the imported yellow dirt had been scraped off the top of the site with a backhoe, and was now piled in a large mound that cradled that part of the site. She felt Lou’s scrutiny as she climbed out of the excavation unit to examine the yellow dirt. With her trowel, she scooped a sample from the mound into a small zipper-top artifact bag, and then stepped back into the pit.

  “What are you doing?” Lou asked.

  “There’s something strange here. Soil where it shouldn’t be. I needed a comparative sample.” She placed the bagged dirt next to the indentation where the skull had been. The colors matched and the sand and silt content looked the same. “Lou, we’ve got a problem. I know you’re not going to like this, but I need to look at the skull.”

  “Why?”

  “The soil under the skull is modern. It’s the fill that was brought in before they paved over this area for the school bus lot.”

  Lou stared at her for a long moment before finally giving a slight nod. He stepped away from the bentwood box, as though he wanted nothing to do with this new desecration she was about to commit. But at least he allowed it.

  She climbed out of the pit and examined the skull. Damn. She knew she was right, but she needed a second opinion. “Lou, I need Simone to look at this too.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s something odd about this skull. I don’t think she’s part of the site.”

  He gave her a curt nod. “For your sake, Libby, you’d better be right.” One phone call was all it would take for him to shut down the dig—permanently. In an obvious power play, he pulled out his cell phone.

  Libby turned and called out for Simone.

  “What’s going on?” Simone asked, looking warily at the skull in Libby’s hands.

  “I need you to look at this.”

  Simone glanced at Lou, whose gaze was hard, meaning to intimidate. “Do it,” he said.

  She took the skull in her gloved hands, holding the mandible against the maxilla, preventing the loose jaw bone from opening. “What should I look at?”

  “Her teeth.”

  Simone moved the mandible so she could see the teeth from all angles. She looked up at Libby, her shock clearly visible. “She’s not prehistoric. She’s not even Indian.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  MARK STEPPED INTO THE DOORWAY of the squad room in time to hear Luke say to Sara, “I heard on the radio a minute ago the Maitland nutjob thinks she found a murder victim in the archaeological site. Ten’ll get you twenty she’s crying wolf ’cause she wants to get into the chief’s pants.”

  “No way am I taking that bet,” Sara said.

  “But I will,” Mark said, leaning against the doorjamb.

  Luke’s cheeks reddened as he faced Mark.

  “Stepped in it again, didn’t you, Luke?” Sara snickered.

  Mark entered the room, pulling a ten-dollar bill from his wallet. He handed the money to Sara. “Give her ten, Luke. Sara’ll be the judge.”

  “You can’t be serious, Chief,” Luke said.

  “I’m completely serious. Care to make it twenty?”

  Luke shook his head. His mouth moved, forming words, but no sound came out. He grudgingly handed Sara ten dollars.

  “Okay, Sara, if Libby’s found a murder victim that money’s mine. If she hasn’t, it’s Luke’s.”

  Luke recovered his voice. “Dispatch ordered a patrol car to the scene, but you called them off. If you believe her, why did you do that?”

  Ordinarily, Mark wouldn’t explain his actions, but he had been mentoring both officers so he gave Luke some leeway. “Because I’m going to check this one out myself.” He turned to Sara. “You’re assisting,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He faced Luke. He was pissed at the young officer but he needed another investigator at the scene and Luke needed the experience. “I’ll meet you both at the site.”

  He left the room and headed to his vehicle. Several minutes later, he pulled into the gravel parking area that bordered the archaeological site, Luke and Sara driving right behind him.

  “Stop being a pussy and get over it,” Mark overheard her say as she climbed out of the squad car. “You only stand to lose ten dollars, not your job.” Mark knew she hated whiners and treated them with the maximum contempt allowed by law. Luke must have had one hellish car ride.

  Libby approached them from across the site. She was different today. Gone was the sleek professional who’d dressed in business attire to interview locals all weekend long. Today she wore a ragged pair of jeans with holes in the knees, an old stained T-shirt, and dirt on much of her exposed skin. He found this grubby, rugged change sexy as hell.

  The last time he’d seen her, she’d pushed him away. Since then he’d spent more time than he cared to admit considering ways to change her mind and hadn’t factored in seeing her in these circumstances.

  A hint of nervousness flashed across her face before her features settled in what he’d come to regard as her cool work demeanor. Mark introduced her to Sara and Luke, and then said, “So, what’s going on, Libby? I understand you think you’ve found a murder victim.”

  “I know I’ve found a murder victim,” she said.

  “That’s for me to decide. You and others can speculate, but the homicide detective makes the call,” Mark said, as much for Luke’s benefit as Libby’s.

  “Okay then,” Libby said with a slight smile. “I know we found the bones of a woman who was buried here on April ninth or tenth, 1984—just before the area was paved. I’m speculating someone was hiding a body.”

  “How do you know the date?” Sara asked.

  Libby’s smile became a confident grin. “Like most archaeology, the information is in the strats.”

  “Strats?” Luke asked.

  “Stratigraphy—the different layers of dirt. Come on, I’ll show you what I found after I removed the skull.”

  Libby’s employees were gathered next to a large rectangular area sectioned off with orange flagging tape. Within the rectangle, yellow string divided the area into a grid. Each square looked to be about a yard on each side. The rectangle was seven squares long by three squares wide. Several of the twenty-one squares had been dug. Three in the middle row were excavated consecutively, one several inches deeper than the other two. A skull lay at the base of the deepest one. In the other squares, long bones protruded from the dark soil.

  Libby handed Mark a stack of papers. “Jack gave me these. They are part of the site history. Back in 1984, he had this area graded, filled, and paved into a lot for City of Coho vehicles and equipment. Those are copies of the construction invoices.” She then explained the difference between the types of soil, how she’d found the yellow fill dirt under the skull, and why that was significant.

  “So,” Mark said, “the fresh fill spilled into the hole someone dug to hide the body.” He glanced through the papers in his hands and found the invoice for the fill. “It says here the dirt was delivered on April ninth.”

  “Exactly,” Libby said. “If you look through the papers, you’ll see paving began on April eleventh.”

  “So there was a two-day window when someone could have buried the body,” Sara said.

  Mark scanned the site. He could see tracks and teeth marks from the backhoe, which gave him a rough idea of the size of the area that had been paved. “She was buried right in the center of the paved area.”

  Libby nodded.

  “So the person who buried her knew where and when the paving would happen,” Sara said. “We can contact the construction company and see if they can give us a list of employees.”

  “Your first task,” Mark said, knowing it was doubtful they’d learn anything useful, but they had to start somewhere.

  “What else can you tell us about the skeleto
n?” Sara asked Libby.

  Libby pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. “I’ll show you what we found. When you walk around the open excavation units, please walk on the boards we’ve laid out. If you step too close to the edge, the sidewalls could collapse. And please use buckets as steps to climb in and out of the pits.” She stepped onto an upturned bucket to descend into the pit and then picked up the skull, revealing the yellow fill underneath.

  “See, here on the jawbone, she doesn’t have wisdom teeth, but you can see by these bumps that they were removed. Probably surgically, because the wound healed cleanly. These other holes are where the molars should be. There is no healing; this is outside my expertise, but I’m guessing they were removed post-mortem.”

  “Which would make it harder to identify her in 1984—before DNA,” Mark said.

  “Someone pulled her teeth after she was dead to hide her identity,” Luke said.

  Libby shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Can you tell if she’s Caucasian, Indian, Asian?” Sara asked.

  “She lacks shovel-shaped incisors, which can be indicative of Native American ancestry, and none of her remaining teeth have wear patterns you’d expect on an adult prehistoric female. But I wouldn’t dare try to guess her race without extensive study of the entire skeleton. What I can say with confidence—and my field director agrees—is this is a modern female skeleton, between the ages of twenty-five and fifty years old at the time of her death.” She held out the skull. “She’s not part of the site. Except for the skull, her bones are in situ—in their original, natural position. When we initially discovered the burial, we began saving the soil without screening. Those bags over there contain the soil that came from these three pits.”

  Mark glanced in the direction Libby pointed. Several dozen bags were lined up in the mid-morning sun. Condensation from the damp soil had built up inside the bags, making the plastic more opaque than clear. He turned to her. “Go ahead and put the skull back in the pit. The coroner will want to see where you found it.”