by B. J Daniels
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Lillie asked, wide-eyed.
“No. You need to take Dad home.” He started to pass his sister but vacillated. “I wouldn’t say anything to him about this. We don’t want to get his hopes up that Tucker might be headed home. Or make him worry.”
She glanced at the box and nodded. “Did you ever understand why Tuck left?”
Flint shook his head. He was torn between anger and sadness when it came to his brother. Also fear. What had happened during Tucker’s senior year in high school? What if the answer was in that box?
“By the way,” he said to his sister, “I didn’t arrest Dad. Ely voluntarily turned himself in last night.” He shrugged. Flint had never understood his father any more than he had his brother Tuck. To this day, Ely swore that he was out by the missile silo buried in the middle of their ranch when a UFO landed, took him aboard and did experiments on him.
Then again, their father liked his whiskey and always had.
“You all right?” he asked his sister when she still said nothing.
Lillie nodded distractedly and placed both hands over the baby growing inside her. She was due any day now. He hoped the package for Tucker wasn’t something that would hurt his family. He didn’t want anything upsetting his sister in her condition. But he could see that just the arrival of the mysterious box had Lillie worried. She wasn’t the only one.
CHAPTER TWO
TUCKER CAHILL SLOWED his pickup as he drove through Gilt Edge. He’d known it would be emotional, returning after all these years. He’d never doubted he would return—he just hadn’t expected it to take nineteen years. All that time, he’d been waiting like a man on death row, knowing how it would eventually end.
Still, he was filled with a crush of emotion. Home. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it, how much he’d missed his family, how much he’d missed his life in Montana. He’d been waiting for this day, dreading it and, at the same time, anxious to return at least once more.
As he pulled into a parking place in front of the sheriff’s department, he saw a pregnant woman come out followed by an old man with long gray hair and beard. His breath caught. Not sure if he was more shocked to see how his father had aged—or how pregnant and grown-up his little sister, Lillie, was now.
He couldn’t believe it as he watched Lillie awkwardly climb into an SUV, the old man going around to the passenger side. He felt his heart swell at the sight of them. Lillie had been nine when he’d left. But he could never forget a face that adorable. Was that really his father? He couldn’t believe it. When had Ely Cahill become an old mountain man?
He wanted to call out to them but stopped himself. As much as he couldn’t wait to see them, there was something he had to take care of first. Tears burned his eyes as he watched Lillie drive their father away. It appeared he was about to be an uncle. Over the years while he was hiding out, he’d made a point of following what news he could from Gilt Edge. He’d missed so much with his family.
He swallowed the lump in his throat as he opened his pickup door and stepped out. The good news was that his brother Flint was sheriff. That, he hoped, would make it easier to do what he had to do. But facing Flint after all this time away... He knew he owed his family an explanation, but Flint more than the rest. He and his brother had been so close—until his senior year.
He braced himself as he pulled open the door to the sheriff’s department and stepped in. He’d let everyone down nineteen years ago, Flint especially. He doubted his brother would have forgotten—or forgiven him.
But that was the least of it, Flint would soon learn.
* * *
AFTER HIS SISTER LEFT, Flint moved the battered cardboard box to the corner of his desk. He’d just pulled out his pocketknife to cut through the tape when his intercom buzzed.
“There’s a man here to see you,” the dispatcher said. He could hear the hesitation in her voice. “He says he’s your brother?” His family members never had the dispatcher announce them. They just came on back to his office. “Your brother Tucker?”
Flint froze for a moment. Hands shaking, he laid down his pocketknife as relief surged through him. Tucker was alive and back in Gilt Edge? He had to clear his throat before he said, “Send him in.”
He told himself he wasn’t prepared for this and yet it was something he’d dreamed of all these years. He stepped around to the front of his desk, half-afraid of what to expect. A lot could have happened to his brother in nineteen years. The big question, though, was why come back now?
As a broad-shouldered cowboy filled his office doorway, Flint blinked. He’d been expecting the worst.
Instead, Tucker looked great. Still undeniably handsome with his thick dark hair and gray eyes like the rest of the Cahills, Tucker had filled out from the teenager who’d left home. Wherever he’d been, he’d apparently fared well. He appeared to have been doing a lot of physical labor because he was buff and tanned.
Flint was overwhelmed by both love and regret as he looked at Tuck, and furious with him for making him worry all these years.
“Hello, Flint,” Tucker said, his voice deeper than Flint remembered.
He couldn’t speak for a moment, afraid of what would come out of his mouth. The last thing he wanted to do was drive his brother away again. He wanted to hug him and slug him at the same time.
Instead, voice breaking, he said, “Tuck. It’s so damned good to see you,” and closed the distance between them to pull his older brother into a bear hug.
* * *
TUCKER HUGGED FLINT, fighting tears. It had been so long. Too long. His heart broke at the thought of the lost years. But Flint looked good, taller than Tucker remembered, broader shouldered, too.
“When did you get so handsome?” Tucker said as he pulled back, his eyes still burning with tears. It surprised him that they were both about the same height. Like him, Flint had filled out. With their dark hair and gray eyes, they could almost pass for twins.
The sheriff laughed. “You know darned well that you’re the prettiest of the bunch of us.”
Tucker laughed, too, at the old joke. It felt good. Just like it felt good to be with family again. “Looks like you’ve done all right for yourself.”
Flint sobered. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Like Dad used to say, I’m like a bad penny. I’m bound to turn up. How is the old man? Was that him I saw leaving with Lillie?”
“You didn’t talk to them?” Flint sounded both surprised and concerned.
“I wanted to see you first.” Tucker smiled as Flint laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently before letting go.
“You know how he was after Mom died. Now he spends almost all of his time up in the mountains panning gold and trapping. He had a heart attack a while back, but it hasn’t slowed him down. There’s no talking any sense into him.”
“Never was.” Tucker nodded as a silence fell between them. He and Flint had once been so close. Regret filled him as Flint studied him for a long moment before he stepped back and motioned him toward a chair in his office.
Flint closed the door and settled into his chair behind his desk. Tucker dragged up one of the office chairs.
“I wondered if you wouldn’t be turning up since Lillie brought in a package addressed to you when she came to pick up Dad. He often spends a night in my jail when he’s in town. Drunk and disorderly.”
Tucker didn’t react to that. He was looking at the battered brown box sitting on Flint’s desk. “A package?” His voice broke. No one could have known he was coming back here unless...
Flint’s eyes narrowed as if he heard the fear in his brother’s voice. “I thought maybe you’d sent it on ahead of you for some reason.”
Tucker shook his head. “Apparently someone was expecting me,” he said, trying to make light of it when the mere sight of
the box made him sick inside.
“Well, I’m just glad you’re back,” his brother said. “Whatever it was that sent you hightailing it out of here... We’ll deal with it as a family. I only wish it hadn’t taken you so long to return.”
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”
“You think?” Flint sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I knew something was going on with you your senior year.”
Tucker nodded, his gaze shifting to the box sitting on his brother’s desk. He swallowed. “It wasn’t something I could talk about back then.”
“And now?” Flint’s phone rang. He buzzed the dispatcher to hold all his calls unless they were urgent. “I’m sorry. The phone’s been ringing off the hook. You probably haven’t heard. One of the locals found skeletal remains in Miner’s Creek.”
“Actually, I did hear. That’s—”
Flint’s phone rang again. He groaned as he picked up, listened and rose from his desk. “That was the coroner. I have to run next door. Not sure how long it’s going to take. Where are you staying?”
“I just got in.”
“You’re welcome to stay with me and my wife, Maggie. Or you can always go out to the ranch. I think your room is as you left it. Hawk and Cyrus have been busy running the ranch. No time to redecorate even if they had an inclination to do so.”
Tucker nodded. “I’m looking forward to seeing the place—and the rest of the family. So you’re married. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I have to run.” Flint came around his desk to put a hand on Tucker’s shoulder again. “I’m glad you’re back. I hope it’s to stay.” He looked worried. Not half as much as he was going to be, Tucker thought.
“I’ll be sticking around.”
Flint sighed. “Then we’ll talk soon. You have a lot to catch up on.”
As his brother went out the door, Tucker rose and stepped to the desk and the box sitting there. Just as Flint had said, it was addressed to him. He didn’t recognize the handwriting—not that he figured he would. Picking up the pocketknife lying beside the box, he still hesitated, afraid of what was inside, but unable not to open it to find out.
He sliced the tape across the top and carefully turned back the flaps. A faintly moldy scent rose from the box along with the rustle of newsprint. For a moment, he didn’t see anything but wadded-up newspaper and what appeared to be pages from a magazine.
Hesitantly, he pushed some of the paper aside and blinked, unsure for an instant as to what he was seeing. With a startled gasp, he jerked back as though bitten by a rattlesnake. Heart pounding and sick with disgust, he reached in and removed the wadded-up paper until all that remained in the box was the tiny battered naked doll.
One dull dark eye stared up at him—the other eye missing from the weather-beaten toy. Shaking all over, his stomach heaving, he lurched around his brother’s desk to throw up in the trash.
CHAPTER THREE
FLINT STOOD AT the edge of the autopsy room, trying to breathe normally. He’d never liked the morgue, especially early in the morning when the smells always got to him.
Today the morgue reeked of eggs and sausage. Sonny had been eating a breakfast sandwich when Flint had come in.
“Busy morning. They brought in a homeless man.” He nodded toward the second table where the naked corpse lay, its chest cavity open. “Looks like a heart attack given the condition of the heart.” He made a motion as if offering to show it to him, but Flint waved that off.
Sonny, making a “your loss” face, put aside his sandwich to move to the other table where the skeletal remains had been placed in the positions where each had once been when connected.
“Amazingly, she’s only missing a few fingers,” Sonny was saying. “But the deputy who brought back the earth she’d been found in is still sifting through it, so he might find them yet.”
Flint merely nodded.
“You can tell a lot from bones. Like this fibula,” Sonny said, picking up the left leg bone. “The length of the long bones tells us about what age she was—early twenties. From measuring the femur, tibia, humerus and their radii, I can tell that she was about five foot six. She was medium boned. If you look at the state of the bones, you can get a pretty good indication of how long she was buried along the creek bank. Fifteen to twenty years, but closer to twenty years.”
“You’re sure it’s been that long?” Flint asked, thinking how impossible it might be to identify the woman, let alone locate next of kin if they did.
“It’s not an exact science. It takes a while for the body to decompose to the skeletal stage.” Sonny started to put the leg bone back but held it up one more time. “Looks like she broke her left leg. It’s an old break that was long healed before she went for a swim.”
He put down the bone and picked up another one. “These bony ridges form where the muscles were attached to the wrist. She could have had a job where she used her hands, like a waitress.” Putting that bone back, he picked up the skull.
Flint saw that tufts of long blond hair were still attached to it. “What about DNA from the hair?”
“Already sent some over to the lab. But look at this.” He pointed at the teeth. “Not a great diet. She had cavities and not much dental work.”
“So what killed her?” Flint asked.
Sonny shrugged. “The obvious would be drowning, right? But this is what I really wanted you to see. I thought you’d find it interesting.” He turned the skull. Flint had to move closer to see what Sonny was pointing to. “Wood. See, some of the wood splinters are still embedded in the side of the skull. I’m betting that’s what killed her.”
“Wood?”
He nodded and began to walk him through it. “Assuming she either jumped into the river to swim or fell, depending on what time of year it was, her head made contact with a tree limb violently enough to kill her.”
“Is it possible the blow to her head didn’t kill her instantly? Her remains were found a dozen yards from the creek.”
“She might have been able to get out of the water, but she wouldn’t have been able to go far. She wouldn’t have survived long with that kind of head injury. Certainly not long enough to hide herself under a pile of driftwood.”
“So it appears to have been an accident, but someone covered up her death by hiding her body,” Flint said.
Sonny gave that some thought. “Had that one a few years ago, you might recall, where the fisherman slipped on the rocks, fell and hit his head. Made it almost back to his car before he died. His wound wasn’t as severe. I supposed she might have been able to get out of the water and crawl a few yards. Seems more likely someone helped her and, when they saw that she was badly hurt or dead by then, hid her body. At least she wasn’t swimming in the creek alone.”
“My brothers and I used to go fishing and swimming by ourselves all the time. Never even considered that we might fall and hurt ourselves badly enough to kill us.”
Sonny shook his head. “Kids. But this woman was old enough to know better. I have to wonder why her companion tried to cover up her death. Must have felt responsible. Well, whoever it was, he’s had to live with it all these years. Guess it’s come home to roost now, though, huh.”
“Maybe,” Flint said, not as optimistic as Sonny apparently that justice would get done on this case. Fifteen to twenty years was a long time. The case was ice-cold. Not to mention the fact that the statute of limitations had run out for the crime of hiding a body.
He said as much to Sonny. “No hurry on this case since no one reported a woman this age missing fifteen to twenty years ago.” He frowned as he looked at the coroner and realized what he’d said. “What makes you think it was a man who buried her?”
“No woman would cover up her friend’s death,” Sonny said with confidence.
“You ever meet my ex-wife, Celeste?” he joked.
The coroner laughed. “I have five dollars that says it was a man.”
“You’re on, but more than likely we’ll never know.”
“Oh, you’ll find him. Want to bet that I’m wrong about her age?” Sonny asked.
“No. I’m not going to let you hustle me.” Flint took one last look at the bones on the table. “What I don’t understand is why someone didn’t report her missing,” he said more to himself than to the coroner. “A family member, a friend, someone. I’ve checked and there are no missing-persons reports that match up from that time period.”
“Could be she wasn’t from here. Or maybe family tried to report her missing. It was before your time as sheriff. Anyway, as you know, law enforcement doesn’t get too involved when the missing woman is in her early twenties unless there is reason to believe it might have been foul play.”
Flint knew that to be true. Often missing persons that age simply have hit the road and don’t want their relatives to know where they’ve gone. Kind of like his brother Tucker.
“Could be, too, that she didn’t have any kin looking for her,” Sonny said. “Or they had some reason they didn’t want the law involved.”
* * *
AS TUCKER HEAVED up the last of his breakfast and wiped his mouth, he heard Flint’s concerned voice behind him.
“Tuck?”
He turned slowly to look at his brother. All the years, all the fear and pain, rushed at him like a locomotive barreling down on him. “It’s my fault,” he said, his words coming out as broken as his heart. “The remains you found in the creek? I killed her—and our baby.”
Minutes later, Tucker slumped into the chair his brother offered him. He pressed the cold can of cola Flint had gotten from the vending machine down the hall against his forehead. After a few moments, he opened the can and took a sip as he tried to gather his thoughts. He’d known this would be hard. But after seeing what was in that package...