“What about my farm?” Keely asked. “Have you heard anything about that, about the skull I found?”
The officer nodded. “I was about to get to that. The forensics team didn’t find anything, but I called in a few favors so they’re going to keep working on it. They haven’t cleared the site yet, so they’re asking you not to go out and work on salvaging anything from the house yet. But so far, nothing.”
“The skull was right there. I hit it with my shovel. It was uncovered.” She felt, and sounded, panicked. She had seen a skull, she knew she had. “Couldn’t they see that the scene had been disturbed?”
“They didn’t see it before, ma’am, so they really can’t tell,” the trooper pointed out. “There was a lot of activity out there this morning, too. It might not have been disturbed by anyone on purpose. We just don’t know right now.”
Jake’s gaze tightened. “I was out there this morning and saw the earth freshly turned, as if someone had been digging this afternoon. That was before the forensics people were out there and after the rescue team had left. And you know someone was out there. They tried to run me down.”
“We just don’t know,” the trooper repeated. “It could have been something that happened this morning—during the rescue operation. There were a lot of people out there. And we don’t know who was out there or why they were out there. Might have had nothing to do with what Ms. Schiffer saw. Someone could have been there trying to take something from the rubble. If we had a plate number—”
“It happened too fast,” Jake said. “But the soil was damp. The sun was hot yesterday—the soil would have been dried if it had been something that had been disturbed in the morning. I think whoever broke in here could have been looking for the box Keely’s husband left her.”
“What box?”
“A birthday present,” Keely explained. “I guess we were thinking maybe it was connected to the murder.” A tingle of fear rippled up her spine.
The trooper shook his head. “We don’t have a murder yet.”
“Someone took the skull,” Jake said.
The trooper stared at him. “As I said, they haven’t cleared the site yet, but they haven’t found anything.” He looked back at Keely. “Even if they do, we’d be a long way from connecting your husband to it, though we’d certainly start there. I don’t know what we could do with your box at this point.”
“Investigate?” Jake suggested.
She could see the frustration in the rigid set of his jaw. She was frustrated, too. She felt helpless and she was tired of feeling like her life was out of control.
“Here.” She dug the box out of her purse and handed it to the trooper. Nerves jangled up her spine and the box felt cold in her hand. She was glad to drop it into his. “Why don’t you open it and see what it is.”
The trooper took the box. He tore the wrapping and pulled off the lid.
“It’s a necklace,” he said. “Just a necklace.”
He tilted the box so she could see. A silver-and-garnet-encrusted heart lay inside, a long chain tangled beneath it.
“I don’t see what we can make of this,” the officer said. “I don’t have a murder. I don’t have a case to file evidence on. It looks like a gift to me.”
It looked like a gift to her, too. She felt silly suddenly. And yet…Someone had broken in here tonight for something. If it wasn’t the box from Ray, then what was it?
“If you’ll make me that list while I get prints,” he said, “I’ll get out of your way.”
She looked around for some paper and a pen. Her head hurt and she resisted letting out her frustration on the trooper. He was doing his job as he saw it. She just didn’t like the feeling that no one was taking her seriously about what she’d found in the garden. No one but Jake.
He was right about one thing, at least—if someone was out there to get that skull, then Ray hadn’t acted alone in whatever was going on. And maybe that person had been right here in her apartment tonight.
Or maybe she’d imagined that skull had been human and the whole thing was nonsense. She didn’t think so, but she was so confused, she didn’t know what to think anymore.
The officer went around the apartment taking prints, then downstairs. When he came back, he took the list of employees with keys.
“I’ll give you a call if anything turns up with the prints,” he said. “And I’ll let you know when the site is cleared out on your farm.”
Jake followed the officer downstairs. She could hear the sound of the bolt sliding back, the key turning in the lock.
His tall, broad-shouldered frame filled the doorway of the apartment again. She met his gaze across the room.
“You’re not staying here alone tonight,” he said. “In fact, you shouldn’t stay here at all. They might come back.”
That wasn’t a comforting thought. She was pretty much over the independent attitude with which she’d turned down Jake’s offer to walk her upstairs earlier.
“I could go to my parents’ or Lise’s or Mary’s….”
But then she might be bringing danger to their door, she thought with a sick, hollow dread in her stomach. Fear rippled through her. She wanted Jake to hold her again, but she was scared of that, too. He was a stranger. How could he be the one she wanted to run to for security? She felt like her life had become some kind of creepy roller-coaster ride in the dark and she didn’t know when, or if the next frightening drop would occur.
She just knew that if it did, she wanted him to be the one seated next to her when she screamed.
His hard, comforting gaze seared right through her, as if he knew what she was thinking.
“I think you should stay with me,” he said.
Chapter 12
“It’s gonna rain again.” The air was heavy, damp. The night stirred with a soft breeze and Keely shivered as she turned after locking up the store. “I love rain.” Her expression was painfully wistful.
Jake guessed she was thinking about her normal life, the one she didn’t have anymore.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I think it’s gonna rain. Come on.” He left his rental car parked in front of the store and they walked across the road even as the first splashes of the oncoming storm hit them.
Maybe someone was watching them. He wasn’t sure that they were that much safer across the road than they were at the store except that there was a good chance whoever had gotten in the store had gotten in with a key. At least at his rental house, they’d have to break in, make some racket.
He’d be ready if they did.
Inside the house, he flipped the switch by the door that turned on a lamp in the front room. Keely was quiet, her expression exhausted and troubled. He didn’t know what to do to make her feel better. She sat on the brown-and-red-checked couch, seeming to try to make herself as small as possible. The house was simply decorated, comfortable, with cozy cream walls and serviceable furniture. An antique German clock ticked softly from across the room.
“Nobody believes me about the skull I saw,” she said quietly.
“I believe you.”
He saw the flare of fear in her eyes and he wished he could do something to take that fear away. He hated to scare her more, but she needed to see the reality of her situation.
“Someone put that skull in your garden. Last fall, we can guess, if that’s when the old shrubs were torn out. And most likely Ray was involved. What was going on last fall, before he died?”
She turned her hollowed gaze to him. “He’d had a string of affairs. The women—I know their names, well, the ones I know about, I guess. There could be others for all I know.” She looked away, at her hands fisted in her lap. “Otherwise, I don’t know. He’d bought the store last year and we both worked there. Nobody’s gone missing around here lately that I know of.”
“We don’t know when the murder took place.”
Her gaze rose to him again. “But it couldn’t have been any longer ago than last fall.”
“Unless the bo
dy was being moved. But you only saw a skull, right?”
She nodded. It was possible that more of the skeleton could have been buried than she’d uncovered, or someone had only moved the skull. Maybe by tomorrow the forensics team would dig deeper and find further evidence out at the farm.
He watched as Keely opened her purse and pulled out the small box. She set it on the coffee table in front of her as if she didn’t like touching it.
“I guess they weren’t after this,” she said. “It’s just a necklace.”
She lifted the lid again. The silver heart inlaid with garnets gleamed in the low lamplight from its nest inside the box. It was a necklace, just a necklace.
Keely didn’t move to pick it up.
The air in the room remained taut somehow.
“It’s just a necklace,” she repeated finally, low. “It looks kind of old. There’s a little tarnish on it. Maybe he got it on one of his antiquing forays.”
“Maybe.” There were other possibilities, including a link to murder. There was no proof of it, but he wasn’t excluding the idea yet.
“I feel silly,” Keely said. “Really, I think this whole situation has made me a little nuts. I think the whole town is going a little nuts. Positive ions. Flashing lights. Earlier, when I picked up the box, I felt…” She looked up at Jake. “I felt strange, like this weird rush of air.” She gave a forced laugh. “The power of suggestion, you know? I mean, I think I was just hungry, feeling a little faint. Look at Mary. She thinks she’s really psychic now.”
None of that explained the skull she’d seen in her rose bed, though. That was before the quake. He didn’t think Keely was the type of person to be swept up in a paranormal hysteria, either.
“None of this makes sense, that’s all,” she said. “And I don’t like it.” She shivered again, visibly. “I’m cold,” she said. “I’m really, really cold. I just want to go to sleep.”
“You can use my bed.” There was only one bedroom in the little rental house. It wasn’t more than eight hundred square feet total, just the bedroom, kitchen, front parlor and bathroom.
“No. I’ll take the couch. You’re paying me to rent this house. I’m not taking your bed.”
He wanted to argue with her, but he could see her obstinate exhaustion. Her shining eyes stabbed him.
“I’ll get you a blanket.” He went to the bedroom, pulled the blanket from the bed, along with a pillow, and brought them out to her. “I’d rather you took the bed,” he said. “But you can do what you want.”
“I’d feel better about it this way.” She took the blanket and wrapped it around herself. She was pale and he could still see her shaking.
The temperature in the house couldn’t be below seventy-five. There was no air-conditioning in the house, and the spring night was cool, but not that cool.
He didn’t want to leave her alone, and he had no intention of sleeping. She needed sleep, though. She looked almost sick. He wanted to do something, but he felt helpless.
“I’ll be in the kitchen, if you need me,” he told her. “I’ll turn on the heat. I can fix you some coffee, if you like.” He’d picked up a few things before he’d left the store earlier.
She shook her head. “I just need to get some sleep.” She put her head down on the couch, stretching her legs.
Outside, he could hear rain, steady now. He felt the pull of her, the desire inside him to find a way to comfort her and make her feel safe.
The best thing he could do for her, and himself, was to let her sleep.
He adjusted the thermostat, turned off the lamp and headed for the kitchen. He sat down at the laptop he’d brought with him and opened it. Connecting to the Internet, he did a search for the local newspaper. Six months ago, Ray had dug up a rose bed and now there was a skull in it. Something happened six months ago—either the murder itself, or the location change of the body. That was the theory he was going on.
He hunched over the screen, tapping through articles. Crime was low in Haven. No reports of missing persons. No murders. A few domestic violence reports, a suspicious fire, a case of animal neglect, minor burglaries, drug possession charges…He searched other news stories. Controversy over an iron bridge that needed repair or replacement, local elections, youth sports reports, a cancer run, a baby beauty contest, 4-H meetings…He would have thought life in a small town would have put him to sleep, but an unfamiliar tug gnawed at him as he scanned the stories.
The simple life. It was oddly appealing.
The stray thought took him by surprise. So far, Haven had been quite a few letters short of heaven. He should hate Haven at this point and he sure as hell had no business even thinking about feelings of attachment to either Haven or Keely.
Detach. Focus.
The edgy feeling he’d had before came back. He didn’t feel right in his own skin anymore.
Pushing aside the uncomfortable train of thought, he clicked on the next story. A two-hundred-acre abandoned farm the town had tried to buy. Tom Tanner had fought hard to convince the town to fork over the funds needed to purchase the land for use as a nature preserve. A developer had sneaked in under the wire and bought it out from under the town’s nose with a higher bid. Flipping forward in time, he found that construction on a small subdivision of midpriced homes was underway.
His nape tingled. Reason to move a body?
It was a possibility, but there was certainly no evidence to suggest he was doing anything other than wildly speculating.
The site had a search function. He searched on missing persons, and came up with an Alzheimer’s patient who’d wandered off, a few small children, a runaway—all found alive. A sixty-year-old local businessman had disappeared and been found dead, the killer apprehended and sent to prison. Nothing he could connect up to what Keely had uncovered back at her farm.
He pushed back from the table and started to walk toward the front room to check on Keely. Then he started running.
She was screaming.
Raging wind. Cold. Lights. Lights in the dark, roaring straight for her. She couldn’t run fast enough. White light cut a swath right through her. Run! Terrified, she stumbled, hit hard—
“Keely!”
“No!”
“Keely! I’m not going to hurt you.”
Gentle arms cradled her, holding her down. She’d hit him. She’d hit—Jake.
Her head reeled. She blinked, awareness coming at her in sickening increments. She still half felt as if she were somewhere else.
Someone else.
Where had that thought come from?
“I won’t hurt you, I promise. Shh.” He whispered to her, rocking her against his solid, warm body.
She was cold, so cold.
“I was—” She struggled to get the words out, her teeth chattering. “I had a bad dream?” She didn’t mean it to be a question but she heard the confusion in her own voice. She struggled to focus on her surroundings, on reality. The dream had seemed so real….
“It’s okay now. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, I promise. You’re okay. You fell off the couch.”
She felt her heart pounding violently. Jake shifted and she gripped his shoulders, afraid he’d leave her. His gaze on her was deep, unwavering, shockingly patient, and she told herself to stop panicking. He wasn’t going to leave her, he’d promised.
Promised. She hated promises, but she believed his. That was scarier than her dream.
He held her tighter. She was scared. He was comforting her. But that had nothing to do with the dangerous need causing her to practically climb up his body.
“Tell me about your dream,” he said softly, still rocking her. “Tell me.”
“I don’t know.” Already, the dream was disintegrating in her mind, disjointed images fading in and out. “It was like I was on a road. I think it was a road. I fell and it was hard. Lights were coming at me, like a car.”
“You were afraid you were going to be killed.”
“I guess so. I don’t
know. I guess all of this, it’s getting to me. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
Yes, there was. There was plenty to be sorry about. She wanted Jake, not as a friend, and maybe he even felt the same, at least physically. He desired her. She’d seen that last night, and even now, she could swear that wasn’t just her heart she heard pounding. It was his, too.
But he didn’t want to take advantage of her. And he’d said that because what had happened between them wasn’t anything more than sex to him.
Emotion choked her throat. She reached up, felt something hard against her chest….
Her fingers closed around it. She pulled it away from her, staring down at it in the slash of light that streamed in from the kitchen.
The hair rose on the back of her neck and it took everything inside her to keep from screaming.
“What is this doing on me? I didn’t put it on. I didn’t put it on!” She held the silver-and-garnet heart in her fingers.
Lights beaming. Run!
Surreal images flashed through her. She was dreaming, only she was wide awake. The chain felt hot in her cold hands. Burning hot. But at the same time, she was so cold.
She didn’t feel herself pushing to her feet. She only knew she was there, standing, staggering backward, clawing at the chain. She heard Jake’s voice, as if from a distance.
“Keely—”
“I have to take it off!” She struggled, ripping the necklace over her head.
The heart hit the ground, thudding softly.
Her veins nearly exploded. “Put it back in the box. I don’t even want to see it.”
Jake reached for it, plucked it up, stuck it in the box on the table. “You don’t remember putting it on?”
“No, I don’t remember putting it on! I don’t want to put it on.” She didn’t want anything from Ray, especially not this necklace.
Secrets Rising Page 11