“Thank you.” I stop. “You realize that I’ve been opening doors since I was two years old, right? Like, it’s not foreign to me.”
But something has Eli’s interests piqued as he motions me out of the truck. I get out and come around to the ATV alongside him.
“This ATV has been here for a while. See how the tires are sunken into the wet mud?” He points out. “Pools of water are in both the front rack and the cupholder.”
Eli writes down the registration number, and I follow him back to his truck.
“Going to run the number in the system.” He types on his computer, and I walk back to the ATV to examine it.
“Hey, Eli. There’s some front-end damage underneath. Maybe the rider got stuck?”
He hops out of the truck, handing me my backpack and then grabbing his own, a pencil and small notebook in his hand. “Could be. John Richardson, the registered owner, is up-to-date with the tags. Why would he leave his ATV on the side of the road? Why not have it towed?” Eli looks down the trail. “In for a hike, Cali?” Eli lets Rookie out.
I try not to smile. “Your words are not funny, Maine Man. Keep your Cali jokes on low today.”
Eli laughs, catching my eye as he takes the lead, and Rookie and I follow.
We follow a trail off the road to see if there are any ATV tracks that the rain hasn’t washed out.
Eli explains, “Just going to check things out and see if we can find anything. Tolman Pond is up ahead. We’ll go up there and check things out.”
After a few minutes of walking on the muddy trail, we find a semi-submerged canoe on Tolman Pond’s shore. A backpack, two fishing poles, and a tackle box full of water. Eli opens the backpack and finds a Ziploc bag full of tackle. He bends down and unzips a side pocket, only to find a thin piece of plastic.
“Bingo. A fishing license.” He closely examines it. “John Richardson. Same guy who owns the ATV.” Eli stands and looks at me. “There could be a body in this pond.”
I try not to impede on his thoughts. I know he’s talking more out loud than to me.
“Clearly, I’m not certified to handle this information, but I do watch Dateline. Anyhow, if you need my expertise, I’m here.”
“I’m all ears, Cali.” Eli smiles his smile, the one that can only belong to him. The one that makes my heart beat faster and harder.
I roll my eyes, enjoying the banter, though the word Cali still makes me cringe. “Richardson’s ATV was pointed toward the road, right?”
Eli nods.
“So, it could be possible that he made it from the boat to the road and jumped off his ATV—maybe to catch a ride?”
“Possibility, Warden Fisher. Let’s keep looking.”
Once again, Eli takes the lead as we continue to the left, along the bank of the pond, and then north about seventy steps. Something catches Eli’s eye. Now, I see it—a tent. We walk to the clearing, and the stench of death is upon us.
Eli covers his nose and looks down at me. “Smell that?”
I nod, covering my nose, trying not to gag. To be honest, my stomach drops and grows twisty, but I’m not sure if it’s because of the stench or more because of fear of what we might find. Rookie sniffs the perimeter of the makeshift campground.
Two tents, a propane tank, a cooler.
“Hello?” Eli calls out. “Maine Warden Service.” The stench gets stronger as we approach the tent. “Maine Warden Service. Anyone in here?”
I gently place my hand on the small of his back, peeking over his shoulder as he unzips the tent, knowing what I’ll see could be both traumatizing or nothing, all at the same time. It’s like watching a scary movie, and you can’t stop. Even though you’re peeking through your fingers, the sick part of your brain can’t wait to see what happens next.
Although the tent is a mess with socks, sleeping bags, and a few soda cans, there’s nothing that indicates a dead body.
We walk to the next tent. The stench gets unbelievably strong—so strong, I gag.
Eli glances at me. “Rookie.” Rookie’s ears perk up, and he lifts his head. “No, not you, buddy. The other rookie.”
A propane tank sits just outside the tent, and it’s connected to something inside the tent.
“Are you kidding me?” Eli whispers under his breath. “Ninety percent of Maine’s land is privately owned, and one guy has to mess it up for the rest of us. He abuses the land—then the land owner has every right to shut access off for recreational use.”
Eli unzips the tent, and I prepare myself. Even though, at this point, I want to chicken out, go hide in the truck, there’s no way in hell I’m leaving Eli behind.
I swallow the bile that creeps up into my throat.
I breathe a sigh of relief, only because it’s not what I envisioned. Blood. A massacre. A gutted dead body.
Too many episodes of Dateline, I tell myself.
Eli says something under his breath as he sees the propane tank connected to a camp stove inside the tent.
After he examines the makeshift campsite, there are no signs of foul play or of a person, alive or otherwise.
“Let’s go pay a visit to John Richardson’s address.”
We load back into the truck.
“Are you hungry?” Eli asks.
I grimace. “Not yet. It might take a while for me to recover any appetite after the fumes we inhaled back there.”
Eli laughs. I watch as his Adam’s apple dances up and down.
I like the way he laughs, I decide for the ninth time.
“Where does Mr. Richardson live?”
“South Hope. It’s about five miles west.”
Eli flips on his turn signal, looks behind his shoulder, and places his hand in the same spot he did last night, touching my shoulder, sending chills up my spine. It takes me to last night. After he brought me home. How intimate we got. Naked—in more ways than one. Allowing another man to see not only my body like that, but also see me in that state of mind. Obviously, I care for him. The way that I felt when I watched him walk toward the fire—it was as if I were losing Kyle all over again. But it wasn’t Kyle. It was Eli. A different man. A different man that I have begun to really care about.
I do something out of the ordinary. I reach up and touch his fingers with mine. Immediately, my face grows hot. I’m not sure if this is right or wrong, but I know how it makes me feel inside.
His fingertips intertwine with mine, and I pull his hand to my lap. Holding hands can be an intimate act. It can also be an act of compassion. Of kindness. Of love. It can be as simple as a mother holding her daughter’s hand. But it can also be an act of something more.
I look up at Eli, whose eyes are on the road.
“You’re grinding your jaw again,” I say.
The lines form around his mouth.
“What are you thinking about? Is this okay with you?” I look down at our hands, fingers tangled together.
“Yes.”
There’s a long silence that sits between us, allowing us to feel this moment.
“South Hope is the name of a town?” I break the quietness. “It’s cute. I hope the town is as cute as the name.”
“It’s not Granite Harbor, but it’s nice.”
I look over at Eli again. “You’re still grinding your jaw.” I take his hand and leave it on my thigh.
He sighs, as if he’s not okay and okay at the same time. He leaves his hand there, expanding his long fingers so that they’re now covering my thigh, his pinkie and ring finger lingering between my legs. I’m well aware of how close his hand is to my opening, and I’m sure he is, too. I’d never make him do something he didn’t want to do, especially while in uniform and in his work truck of all places.
Stop thinking about sex, Alex.
We pull up to a house with an American flag on the outside. It’s white with green trim and a screened porch. It seems that most the towns we’ve visited in Maine don’t have housing developments. They’re plots of land with space between houses. Mo
st of them have a certain look to them. Shutters. Two-story. A-framed. A steep roof, not a flat roof. John Richardson’s house is no different.
“What’s with the steep roofs on the houses?” I ask Eli.
He doesn’t remove his hand from my leg but instead leans over, close to me, looking out my side of the window. “The snow. We usually get a lot of snow in the wintertime. So, this way, the snow slides off and won’t collect, causing the roof to fall in.”
Eli’s eyes meet mine. And, for a moment, I think I see what his heart is made of. Not that I didn’t before, just by the way he carries himself. But, now, I see regret and honesty and hope.
“Let’s see what Mr. Richardson is up to.”
Staring at him, I think maybe, just maybe, I was supposed to end up in Granite Harbor, Maine. And maybe, just maybe, I was supposed to meet Clay and Randall on my flight that day. And maybe, just maybe, Eli was supposed to walk into Hello, Good-Pie that morning.
I watch as he climbs out of the truck.
“You ready?” He looks back at me. His words aren’t just asking me to pay a visit to Mr. Richardson’s house. It’s more. His question is about life and love, second chances.
“Absolutely,” I say with fear, and I open my own door.
We knock on the front door and wait. Nothing. We knock again. Still nothing.
Eli walks to the carport, to a side door, and he knocks again. “A lot of times, family members don’t report missing family members out here. Sometimes, they don’t have family to report them missing.”
“Mr. Richardson has a wife.”
Eli stops and smirks. “Why do you think that?”
I peek in the side window of the carport. “There’s a stained glass hummingbird hanging on the refrigerator and vitamins on the counter. Two sets. But neither has been taken. See?”
“They could be together,” Eli says, now peeking in the window, too. “We’ll come back to the house tomorrow. If anyone isn’t home by then, we’ll go from there.”
Eli’s phone rings. He gets it on the first ring after he glances at the caller ID. “Warden Young.” He stops and places his free hand on his hip. “Yeah.” But then silence. Eerie silence. Silence that you could slice a knife through. Eli’s eyes slowly meet mine. “You’re kidding. What the fuck? Yeah. All right. Gotta run Alex home, and then I’ll be in.” Eli hangs up.
“What?” My curiosity gets the best of me.
His eyes burn into mine. “That was Ryan. Got a DNA match on Jane Doe’s body parts. Matches back to a Lila Richardson.” His eyes narrow as he stares at the house.
“As in John Richardson, who lives here?”
There’s more he isn’t telling me.
“Don’t know yet.” Eli grabs my hand and walks me to the truck. “Get in.”
“Eli—”
“Alex, get in the truck.”
I do.
He shuts the door, and he’s already on the phone. I can only hear his side of the conversation, but judging by the look on Eli’s face, he’s not happy. He hangs up.
“Eli, what’s going on?”
He’s driving now, deep in thought, his jaw grinding harder than I’ve seen it. His left hand rests against his face. “I’m taking you back to the Malcomb Place. I want you to call Lydia to come sit with you.”
“Eli,” I whisper, “is all this necessary?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because”—Eli’s voice is calm, but there’s a tone I haven’t heard before. Fear? Anger?—“there was a picture of you at the latest crime scene, which consisted of another finger and this time a moose. I’m going to the scene to make sure this fucker doesn’t get away with it. You have social media accounts?”
I give him a deadpan look. Immediately, I realize he isn’t from my world of work, so he doesn’t know most all authors must have social media accounts. I hate mine. I loathe them. I adore my readers, and that’s the only reason I keep them.
I nod.
“How many followers? Roughly.”
“Eli, I don’t know. Roughly?”
“Roughly.”
“Maybe two hundred thousand followers.”
His eyes grow big. “Holy shit. That many?”
I shrug. “Women like their romance, Eli. What can I say?”
We turn on to the road and head back toward the Malcomb Place.
The state of Maine, I’ve noticed, is covered mostly by water and trees. I start to think about how easy it would be to get lost in the north woods of Maine. How easy it would be to hide a body. How cold it gets in the winter, how deep the snow gets. Until the spring comes. The snow melts. The land becomes saturated in mud. Maybe that’s when law enforcement can find a body.
But how on earth would you find the killer? Months would have passed by then.
He, or she, might be long gone to Mexico. Evidence linking the killer to the scene would be long gone.
And all that would be left was a trail of fragmented parts.
Seventeen
Eli
October 15, 2017
I don’t pull away from the Malcomb Place until I see a patrol unit pull up.
I head down to the substation just south of Granite Harbor and pull in next to Ryan’s truck.
Ryan’s in an office in the back. The substation is just open for game wardens traveling through who might need to do internet research, get a cup of coffee, use the restroom, or print out an email. We have complete access in our trucks, but when nature calls or technology fails, the substation is the place to go.
Our involvement in this case is strictly the animals. But, now that Alex’s picture was on scene, shit just got personal. Not that I would ever botch a case. I just want to make sure I know all the facts. Ryan is a fact-finder, and he specializes in re-creating crime scenes. Our crime scenes usually consist of poaching, but he can figure out the trajectory of a bullet or how fast a car was going when it hit an animal, such as a moose. The Maine State Police often call Ryan to help them re-create scenes.
“You talk to Merit?” Ryan asks as I walk to the large desk in the tiny office.
Topography maps fill the wall space. A coffee mug that says, We’ll Moose You. Come Back Soon, sits on a small counter space just left of the desk.
“This morning. Why?”
Ryan shrugs, looking up from some of the crime scene photos. “Just want to make sure she’s all right with all this crazy shit going on.”
I stand next to Ryan. The amount of blood at the scene would make anyone want to heave whatever they’d eaten. My stomach drops—and not because I can’t handle the blood. It’s because a picture of Alex was recovered here.
“Where’s the picture?” I ask.
“Here.” Ryan points to a tree, and stuck to it with a nail is a picture of Alex.
It’s definitely Alex, like a headshot or something. I thought the picture maybe could have been mistaken for any beautiful woman with dark brown hair and her pale skin tone. I want to rip the picture off the tree and hide it. Hide her. Staring at the photograph of the photograph sends a wave of anger through my body.
“DNA recovered on the scene links back to a Lila Richardson from South Hope. But there’s no missing person case filed; that doesn’t really mean anything, but it might.”
I fill him in on what Alex and I found at Tolman Pond and what we didn’t find in South Hope. I tell him about the vitamins on the counter.
“Is Lila Richardson related to John somehow? What about the mother? What’s her story? More importantly, what’s her name?” I ask rhetorically.
This is how we brainstorm.
“This is fucked up, man. Something is all wrong about this.”
“We need to find John Richardson. He has some explaining to do.”
October 16, 2017
It’s Monday night, and Alex and I spent the better part of the day keeping things simple by checking fishing licenses and pulling over a car traveling at an ungodly rate of speed. We’re stuck at a standsti
ll with the Richardson case until we get results from the lab.
When we drop off a drunk transient found passed out by the Harbor at the Granite Harbor Police station, Alex runs to Hello, Good-Pie and picks up lunch, and I leave the divorce papers at the courthouse.
I drop her at her house while I run home, shower, and grab some extra clothes and a toothbrush.
I pull into the driveway at the Malcomb Place as the police cruiser waves and pulls out.
Rookie jumps out of the truck and takes in all the familiar scents.
I knock on the door. This feels weird. Like a first date or something. I’m nervous.
“Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” she says as she hands me a glass of wine. “I hope you like red.”
“Red works.” I follow her in and set down my bag. “Rookie, come.” I call into the darkness.
He comes to the door and runs to Alex. She kneels in front of him and grabs his face in her hands.
“And you know what I got for you today, buddy? A big bone. I hope that’s all right.” She looks up at me with her soft brown eyes.
“You know he’s a trained killing machine, right?” I smile.
He’s not. It just sounds better.
Alex stands and places her hands on her hips. God, she looks good in a long-sleeved, button-down plaid shirt and leggings. Her hair is tied back into a ponytail with a few strands of hair falling in her face.
“I can tell.” She gives Rookie one last pat before she tells me she bought him a bed, which is already next to the fireplace.
“Huge storm moving in tonight.” I take a spot at the bar that overlooks the kitchen and face Alex. “What are you making?”
“Fish tacos. My mother’s recipe.”
“You miss home, don’t you?”
“I miss my family and my cat, Larry.” She stalls. “But I think I’d miss you and Rookie if I were on the West Coast.” Her voice is barely a whisper, and her eyes meet mine.
I think she’s wondering if she just said that out loud.
Right now, take her to the bedroom, slam the door, and don’t come out until morning—after she’s good and tired from the lovemaking we’ve done.
Peony Red (The Granite Harbor Series Book 1) Page 16