Chill of Fear

by Kay Hooper

The skeleton, now half uncovered and with the skull repositioned where it belonged, lay stretched out on its back, legs straight and arms at its sides.

  As if it had been laid out carefully for burial. Quentin made a mental note of that, bothered by it even though it wasn’t particularly uncommon. Some killers took special care with the disposal of their victims, and some did not.

  Both men saw immediately what Chavez had invited them to see.

  “A watch?” Quentin bent closer.

  “Yeah,” Chavez said. “Right wrist, so he may have been a southpaw.”

  “He?” Nate asked.

  “Guess. Mostly from the watch, which looks like a guy type to me. From the size of the skeleton, this was a kid, and gender is a lot more difficult to determine from skeletal remains if death occurred before puberty. I don’t see any obvious signs denoting gender. What I can tell you is that the watch undoubtedly had a band made of some kind of material that must have rotted away. Clearly not metal. Probably not plastic; that stuff lasts forever.”

  “That isn’t really a child-size watch,” Quentin said. “More of an adult watch he was meant to grow into—maybe given for some sort of accomplishment.”

  Nate grunted. “I got one when I made Eagle Scout.”

  “Can we get a closer look?” Quentin asked Chavez.

  “Just a sec. Ryan, will you get a few shots of the watch, please?”

  Her partner, a silent young man, stopped brushing dirt away from the foot end of the skeleton long enough to pick up a nearby camera and take several pictures.

  Chavez carefully worked the half-buried watch loose with gloved hands, looked at it briefly, then slid it into a clear plastic bag and handed it up to her captain.

  “Looks like we got lucky,” she said.

  Quentin and Nate both straightened, and the latter said, “Looks like. The back is engraved. He was named MVP of his Little League team. Ten years ago.”

  “Jeremy Grant.”

  Quentin and Nate both turned, startled, as Diana spoke. She was standing several feet back, certainly not close enough to have been able to see the watch. Her face was tense, her voice a little shaky.

  “That’s what it says, isn’t it? What’s on the back of the watch? His name is—was—Jeremy Grant.”

  Quentin stepped toward her. “Diana—”

  “Just tell me.”

  “How the hell did you know?” Nate demanded.

  Her gaze remained fixed on Quentin. “Tell me.”

  He had been advised to keep her grounded, and Quentin had the certain sense that right now it was a literal thing, that if he didn’t provide an actual physical anchor for Diana, she would be gone.

  Maybe in more ways than one.

  He crossed the space between them and took one of her cold hands in his. “That’s the name on the watch.” He kept his voice low so no one else heard them, but also matter-of-fact. “You saw him?”

  A little sound escaped her, not a laugh and not quite a sigh. “Saw him? Oh, hell, I talked to him.”

  Stephanie Boyd, manager of The Lodge, had her hands full. Not only had a dozen of her guests checked out without hesitation as soon as a skeleton had been found in one of the gardens, but those who were left had been vocally unhappy about the situation. They wanted her to reassure them that this was a one-time unfortunate event, that the police would soon be gone, and that no media would get wind of it.

  So far, there had been no media that she knew of. She was crossing her fingers that continued. But, who knew?

  And now she had a new worry.

  “Captain, you can’t be serious,” she said to Nate McDaniel, trying hard to keep the dismay out of her voice.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Boyd, but I am serious.” He sounded serious. He also sounded frustrated. “It may be a cold trail, but I have to treat this as an active murder investigation. We expect dental records and DNA will positively identify the remains as those of Jeremy Grant, age eight when he disappeared from here at The Lodge ten years ago. His father worked here as a gardener at the time, but died himself of cancer a few years later. The mother relocated; we’re trying to trace her now.”

  “You can’t know that child was murdered on the grounds of The Lodge,” she heard herself objecting. “Or by anyone connected to this place.”

  “He was buried in the English Garden, Miss Boyd.”

  “That wasn’t part of the formal gardens then, Captain.”

  “No, but it was inside the fence. On the grounds of The Lodge.”

  She leaned back in her chair and stared at him across the desk. Her office felt more than usually small with his rather large presence occupying it. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have no evidence aside from the location of the remains that this is in any way connected to The Lodge.”

  “Miss Boyd—”

  “Make it Stephanie.” Dryly, she added, “From the sound of things, we’re going to be seeing quite a lot of each other, at least for a while.”

  “I’m afraid so—Stephanie. I’d like to be able to offer Jeremy Grant’s mother more closure than just the information that her son was murdered.” He paused, then added, “And I’m Nate.”

  She nodded rather absently. “Just how do you mean to conduct an investigation into a ten-year-old crime? There are certainly a few longtime employees here who probably remember when the boy disappeared, but evidence? How can you possibly find anything after all this time?”

  Nate didn’t want to admit that the two aces he was counting on were one obsessive FBI agent with an even older murder to solve and one fragile guest and maybe-psychic who, if Nate was any judge, was about a whisper away from some kind of breakdown.

  So all he said was, “We have to try, Miss—Stephanie. Now, obviously, it’ll be better if we can conduct our investigation and interviews as quietly as possible. Which means keeping things inside The Lodge as much as we can. We don’t want to be transporting employees back and forth from here to the police department, do we?”

  “That has the nasty ring of a threat, Nate.”

  He lifted both eyebrows. “Not at all. Granted, without more evidence than I have that a crime was committed here, I don’t have the legal authority to force you to turn over a room or cottage or other adequate space to me so that I can set up and conduct interviews here at The Lodge.”

  “No, you don’t. And after ten years, I doubt a judge would grant you the right to do that.”

  Nate kept his tone pleasant. “But I doubt any judge in the county would forbid me to investigate this crime, especially given that it’s the murder of a child. So you can have it one of two ways, Stephanie. Either I ferry employees back and forth—in police cars—from here to the station to be interviewed, for however long that takes, or else you do set aside a space for us to do what we have to do quietly and discreetly here on the grounds of The Lodge.”

  She didn’t like either of the alternatives, but she knew damned well she was stuck with them.

  Discarding her manager’s hat for a moment, she said, “You really believe that child was murdered here?”

  Nate hesitated, then said, “It gets worse. Another child was murdered here twenty-five years ago, and there could be more.”

  “What? Jesus.”

  “I guess they didn’t tell you about any of that when they hired you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “We didn’t really discuss the history of The Lodge. That history, anyway. Twenty-five years ago? And you think that is related to this? Two murders that occurred fifteen years apart?”

  Nate sighed. “It’s reaching, I admit. But it’s not unheard-of for a serial killer to operate over that span of time.”

  Even more startled and dismayed, she said again, “Jesus. Serial killer?”

  “Just a possibility. But one I have to investigate, surely you see that?”

  “All I see is a hotel on the front page and empty of guests,” she said. Then she grimaced. “Sorry. I know that sounds callous, especially with children dead. But . . .
if this boy was killed ten years ago, and nothing like that has happened since, then—”

  Nate hated to do this to her, but interrupted to say, “In the last twenty-five years, we have here at The Lodge or in the area three children dead of illnesses, one reported runaway, two so-called accidental deaths, two undoubted murders—counting what we found today—and two unsolved disappearances of children. We also have at least two adults who disappeared without a trace while they were staying here.”

  It took a full minute before Stephanie could say, “How much of that happened since the little boy?”

  Nate ran through the facts in his head—the ones Quentin had provided—and said slowly, “One kid disappeared nine years ago; two of the ones who died of illnesses died six and eight years ago; and the runaway was seven years ago. So, since Jeremy Grant disappeared, we have four kids dead or missing.”

  “You said some of them died of illnesses. Can’t we discount those? I mean . . . You know what I mean.”

  “I know. And, no, we can’t discount them. I’m told in all three cases the attending doctor ascribed the deaths to some kind of fever, which is why the police weren’t involved at the time.”

  “Wouldn’t that fall under the definition of natural causes?”

  “Not necessarily. I’m also told some poisons would present that way.” He was hoping she wouldn’t ask who’d told him all this.

  Stephanie propped her elbows on her blotter, rubbed her face with both hands, and muttered, “Oh, shit.”

  Nate felt more than a twinge of sympathy for her, helped along by the fact that she really was a very attractive woman. He’d always had a soft spot for brown-eyed blondes, especially when they were nicely woman-shaped rather than absurdly thin, as fashion so often pushed them to be. And she wasn’t wearing a wedding or engagement ring. As soon as those thoughts occurred, he reminded himself that his first marriage had ended badly and that he liked living alone and being unattached.

  He did.

  He was almost positive he did.

  But when she uncovered her face, he couldn’t help but notice that her brown eyes were both intelligent and humorous, even now.

  “So, Nate, you seriously believe that we might have a serial child-killer who’s been operating here at The Lodge or at least in the area for the past twenty-five years?”

  He yanked his mind back to work, hesitated, and said, “I believe it’s possible. And, to complicate your life even more, you have a guest staying here who also believes it, and he’s had experience with just this sort of thing.”

  She frowned. “The FBI agent?”

  “You knew he was staying here?”

  “Well, yeah. He has his weapon, and when he checked in he was good enough to inform us of that as well as furnish his badge number so we could verify his identity.”

  “Which you did?”

  “Standard procedure. Somebody walks in here carrying a gun, I sure as hell want to know they’re legit. So, yes, I personally called to verify Agent Hayes’s identity.” She frowned again. “Is this why he’s here? Was he expecting to find skeletal remains in one of our gardens? Because I was told he was here on vacation, nothing more.”

  “Call it a busman’s holiday.” Nate sighed. “Quentin was a kid staying here twenty-five years ago when that first little girl was murdered. He never forgot it. And it never sat right with him that the case went unsolved. The last ten or twelve years, he’s been coming to Leisure pretty regularly, looking for whatever information he could find on that and the other deaths and disappearances possibly connected to The Lodge.”

  Shrugging, Nate added, “And so he’s pretty much the expert on all this. Carries the facts and details in his head.”

  “Sounds like a man obsessed.”

  “You could say that. I have.”

  Stephanie nodded slightly. “He’ll be helping you investigate this child’s death? All the deaths and disappearances?”

  “Unofficially. Although he’s going to tap Bureau resources to help us out with DNA and that sort of thing. The Leisure Police Department isn’t really equipped to handle the kind of forensics work we’re likely to need in investigating old crimes.”

  “I see. Well, I understand the point you made earlier about keeping this investigation as quiet as possible. Needless to say, I agree with that. So I’ll allocate a room for your interviews, and I’ll make available to you those employees who were here during the times you’re investigating. I assume you’ll provide a list with the relevant dates?”

  “Of course,” Nate responded, thinking of the busy night ahead of him.

  “All I ask in return,” Stephanie continued, “is that you do keep your activities as low-key as possible and don’t disturb my guests any more than you absolutely have to.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I assume you mean to start first thing in the morning?”

  Nate nodded. “Jeremy Grant was in the ground out there for ten years, so one more night isn’t likely to change anything. The remains are on their way to the state medical examiner. So, yeah, we’ll get started on the interviews in the morning. Plainclothes, no uniforms. We will do our best not to disrupt your routines any more than necessary.”

  “I appreciate that. And Agent Hayes?”

  “Agent Hayes will be approaching you for permission to go through old employee records and other paperwork stored here at The Lodge. I’m asking that you grant that permission.”

  She sighed. “I’ll check with the owners, but under the circumstances, I’m sure they’ll okay it.”

  “Thank you.” He got to his feet and was on the point of leaving her small office when he found himself hesitating. “Stephanie, I know this is not what you signed on for, and I’m sorry it’s happening on your watch.”

  She smiled slightly. “Don’t worry about me, Nate. I’m an army brat. We learn early to cope with the unexpected.”

  Nate was tempted, but in the end decided not to ask her if the unexpected included the paranormal.

  He’d find out the answer to that soon enough. They both would.

  “You don’t understand.” Diana’s voice was rock-steady in a way that only those holding on to control with teeth and fingernails could manage. “I talked to him. I took his hand and—and it was warm and solid. Flesh and blood. He wasn’t cold, or wispy, or any of the things a ghost is supposed to be.”

  Quentin stirred an extra spoonful of sugar into the tea and then put the cup into her hands. “Drink this.”

  She stared at the cup for a moment, then looked around her, frowning. The sitting room was surprisingly large and comfortable, occupying part of an open space that also included the kitchenette and a small dining table.

  Both the big sofa and the oversized chair in which she sat were plushly comfortable, and were grouped along with a large, square coffee table around a gas fireplace with a plasma TV placed above the mantel.

  “We’re in my cottage.”

  “Yes. It was closest. Drink the tea, Diana.”

  “How long have we been here? Oh, Christ, I didn’t black out, did I?”

  Which, Quentin thought, answered at least one of Bishop’s questions.

  “Not as far as I could see,” he said matter-of-factly. “But you’re in shock, and no wonder. I’m told it takes quite a while for a medium to adjust.”

  “I’m not a medium.” But for the first time, her protest was more defiant than certain.

  Again keeping his tone prosaic even though what he was saying certainly wasn’t, Quentin said, “You met and talked to Jeremy Grant, and he’s been dead for ten years. Either you’re a medium, or else you imagined the whole thing. I know damned well you didn’t imagine it, at least partly because there’s no way you could have known whose grave you had found.”

  “A hallucination—”

  “Probably wouldn’t have given you his name, don’t you think? Not the correct name, at any rate.”

  She stared at him.

  “Drink the tea, Diana.”
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  After a moment, she took a sip of the steaming liquid and grimaced, either because it was so hot or because it was so sweet. “I . . . don’t remember coming here,” she said finally.

  “Shock, like I said. After you told me you’d talked to Jeremy, you didn’t say anything else. It seemed to me the best idea would be to get you inside and give you a little time to come to terms with all this.”

  “I’m sure that cop had questions.”

  “Oh, he has plenty.”

  “Then—?”

  “He’ll talk to you tomorrow. He and his people will be talking to everybody tomorrow. Or at least everybody who was here or might know something about what happened to Jeremy Grant ten years ago.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “He didn’t happen to mention how he died, huh?”

  She stared at him wonderingly. “No.”

  “Yeah, they never do. My boss says it’s the universe reminding us that nothing is ever easy.” He took a sip of the coffee he had ordered for himself, and added, “I think it sucks, though, frankly. I mean, you have this cool—and scary—ability to communicate with the dead, and they seldom tell you anything you couldn’t figure out for yourself.”

  Diana cleared her throat. “It doesn’t seem . . . quite fair,” she agreed.

  “No. It’s like most psychic abilities. They come along with limitations, just as the other five senses do. Mine, for instance, never work when I need them to. I can’t look into the future and see who’s going to win the World Series this year, or if it’s going to rain tomorrow, or even whether I’ll be able to solve whatever case I’m working on at any given time. Hell, I can’t even reliably predict the turn of a card. In fact, using tests developed years ago to measure psychic ability, I score below average.”

  Intent now, she said, “And yet you’re psychic.”

  “And yet,” he agreed. “Sometimes I just know things. They don’t appear in my mind in neon, and I don’t get visions. Sometimes I hear a faint whisper, as though someone is telling me something. Other times I just . . . know.”

  “And you really believe that?”

  Quentin smiled at her. “Of course. I’ve seen and experienced too much in the last twenty-five years not to.”