Ashley Ridge (Haunted Hearts Series Book 3)

by Denise Moncrief

  “It would have been four years this Halloween.”

  And someone found her near Ashley Ridge. Well, wouldn’t that get the haunting rumors all stirred up again?

  Halsey surveyed Josh, scanning him up and down. “What were you doing last night? You should have gone home and gotten some rest. You look like—”

  “Yeah, yeah. You already told me I look like hell. What’s this about Cherish Duncan? Has Epps already made an ID? How could he ID her so fast? She’s got to be just bones by now.”

  Halsey’s face flushed with excitement. “Very little decomp. Epps says she’s only been dead a few hours, since midnight, but he’s pretty certain she was dumped. He said he’d made a tentative ID.”

  Hours? So Cherish’s body was dumped on the trail. He couldn’t remember her very well, but he hated that for her. Being tossed out like garbage. Not a dignified end for anyone. Once her brother Brett heard the news, he would probably go on a drunken rampage.

  “You’d better send someone out to tell Brett before some idiot tells him first.”

  “I just got back from telling him myself.” Halsey appeared proud of his proactive action.

  “And?”

  “He’s in the holding cell. Our discussion didn’t go so well.”

  Josh subdued a snicker. Brett must have taken a swing at Halsey. Josh wished he’d been there to see that.

  “How long ago did the hiker find her?”

  “Early this morning. Jackson was first on the scene, and he’s still out there working it. With Grayson out… We need more experience on this case than Jackson has, but I can’t help that. He’s waiting on a crime scene specialist before he’ll let Epps move the body back to the morgue, and right now, you’re the only one that Hill County has, so get out there and do your job.”

  For the first time since she was hired, Josh wished Tori Downing could go out in the field and leave him to work in the lab. The thought of hiking the trail to the dump site made him weary right down to the bone. He’d seen more of that stupid trail than he’d ever wanted to see in his life.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you hired another crime scene specialist, Halsey?”

  The sheriff shot him a mean glare. It was an on-going argument. Getting Halsey to hire Tori after Barney had gone on permanent medical leave had been like getting the last squeeze of toothpaste out of the tube.

  Halsey made a move toward leaving the room. “Take Zach with you. You don’t look like you can drive.”

  He didn’t need Halsey’s grandson trailing him everywhere he went like he needed a monitor or a guard dog.

  Josh shouted toward the empty doorway. “I got myself here, didn’t I?”

  Halsey walked back into the room and stopped within inches of Josh. “What did you do last night that makes you look like hell warmed over this morning and act like someone peed in your Cheerios? Maybe I need to question you about Cherish Duncan.”

  Really? Was he really going to go there? Why not? He’d been accused of every other violent, unexplained death in Hill County.

  Josh leaned toward him and whispered. “Shaw Bennett and I went out to Laurel Heights to—”

  Halsey stepped back and almost tripped on his own feet. “I don’t want to know.”

  Josh smiled. “You’re right, Sheriff. You probably don’t.”

  Halsey turned on his heel and clomped toward the hall and his office. Before he got out of earshot, Josh started making eerie, ghostly noises and wiggling his fingers.

  “Not funny, McCord. Grow up.”

  Halsey had not reacted well to seeing the ghost of Victoria Hamilton. But then, none of them had.

  Josh laughed and retrieved his crime scene kit from the storage cabinet. Moments later, Deputy Zach Halsey stepped inside the doorway, and Josh nodded toward the hall before the man could get further into the room. He didn’t want Halsey’s grandson in his lab snooping around things where he didn’t belong.

  Zach turned without a word and Josh followed him in silence. No doubt, Zach’s grandfather, the sheriff, had sent him along to make sure Josh didn’t get into any more trouble. Zach popped the handle on the door to the parking lot and kept walking. It appeared the deputy was no happier about escorting him than Josh was about having a tag-a-long. He dropped his kit into the bed of his truck, crawled into the driver’s seat, and cranked the engine. When Zach slipped into the passenger seat next to him, tension sizzled in the air between them.

  He’d never had any conflict with the sheriff’s grandson, so what was the attitude all about? The last thing he needed to deal with at the moment was some rookie’s know-it-all arrogance. Sometimes the new deputies came in thinking they owned the world. Let a bit of reality bite Zach in the butt, and he’d either become a lot more humble or he’d turn into a man like his grandfather, all bluster.

  Josh glanced at his watch and then buckled his seatbelt.

  Zach finally spoke. “Where are we headed?”

  “Down Highway 65 to the parking lot at the Ashley Ridge trailhead. A hiker found the victim on the trail. I hope you’re prepared for a walk.”

  Zach turned his head toward Josh. “Really? I was—”

  Whatever Zach had been about to say ended in an awkward silence.

  Josh had just been on the highway. He and Shaw Bennett hadn’t left Laurel Heights until nearly three that morning. Their experience had drained them, and neither of them talked much on the way back to Fairview. Josh had returned home exhausted and irritable.

  The younger man’s mind seemed to be absorbed with his own thoughts, and that was okay with Josh. He didn’t want to talk to the brat anyway.

  After a mile or two, Josh glanced at Zach. A disturbed expression had settled across his features. The way the deputy’s mouth worked, Josh was certain he had something he wanted to say but wasn’t quite sure if he should say it.

  He sighed. Zach was going to speak his mind sooner or later, and Josh preferred to get it over with.

  “Go ahead, Halsey. Spit it out. What’s on your mind?”

  “Is Epps sure the woman is Cherish?” Zach’s anxious voice echoed around the cab of the truck.

  “He won’t be able to confirm her identity until he gets her back to the morgue, but he must be pretty certain, because the sheriff didn’t seem to have any doubt that she was Cherish Duncan.”

  Zach seemed to consider that for a long time before he spoke again. “I knew her in high school.” He paused, drew in a deep breath. “We were all shocked when she went missing.” His statement sounded like a flat line from bad movie dialogue.

  An alarm sounded in Josh’s brain. The odd tone in Zach’s voice made Josh want to ask more questions, so he started with one that should be easy for Zach to answer. “How well did you know her?”

  Zach hesitated a moment too long. Just long enough Josh knew Zach was about to lie to him. “I didn’t know her at all.”

  Which meant that he did know her.

  Josh pushed the accelerator a little harder, nudging the truck to keep it from stalling as it climbed a steep uphill grade just outside the Fairview city limits.

  “This is going to be a tough case. Jackson might have to go back four years to get some answers.”

  Zach laughed, a tight uncomfortable burst of something that didn’t sound at all like mirth. “What does the past have to do with her death? It’s been four years. She obviously ran away and started a new life somewhere else. Surely Jackson needs to focus on what she’s been doing since she left. I’ll bet someone in her new life followed her here.”

  Whoa! Zach’s vehemence was a bit more than the discussion warranted, revealing more than a professional interest in the case.

  “Maybe she came back home and someone didn’t like it. He probably needs to focus more on what she’s been doing since she got back.”

  Zach shook his head. “If someone from her past killed her, the person would have buried her far away from here, so that no one would know she had ever come back. They couldn’t let anyon
e know why she left. No one around here ever saw her again. No one knew she was back. She wouldn’t have been able to hide her presence long enough. It’s not possible. Someone would have recognized her. Somebody must have followed her here and killed her. Where she came from…that’s where Jackson needs to look.”

  Josh studied Zach from the corner of his eye. His comments seemed downright argumentative. Why was Sheriff Halsey’s grandson acting so weird about someone he claimed he didn’t really know?

  “Who were her friends in high school?”

  “She didn’t have any. She was old man Duncan’s granddaughter. Nobody wanted to hang around with her.”

  Josh nodded his head. That he understand. Cherish Duncan had been an outcast. It was the same with her brother Brett. His unpredictable behavior had driven away the last friend Brett had. “If I were her, I think I would have run away too.”

  “Yeah, a girl like her might run away. None of us were surprised she was gone.”

  The guy was contradicting himself. Hadn’t Zach just said they were all shocked when she went missing?

  Josh let the subject rest, but he made a mental note to come back to it with Zach. Soon.

  Finally, they arrived at the Ashley Ridge trailhead. Several patrol units, as well as the medical examiner’s van, were parked on the lot, none with their lights flashing. Apparently, the action wasn’t anywhere near the lot. Halsey had told him the body had been found on the trail. Josh groaned. More hiking. He lifted his kit from the back of the truck and headed toward misery without glancing over his shoulder to see if mini-Halsey followed him.

  Five or six minutes later, Josh had traveled the trail until he’d come upon the activity around the scene. He turned to find Zach Halsey practically breathing on him. He shifted a little to put some distance between them.

  Josh spotted Epps’s gray hair downhill. A few feet down the trail stood Jackson, his cellphone glued to his ear. The man was young, too green to handle such a sensitive case. Definitely not a good time for Gray to be absent.

  Josh took a moment to wonder if Gray had finally collapsed with grief. The moment was coming for the man. He’d put it off by talking to Caroline’s mother and Jeremy’s father first, but Josh knew about grief. Going out to see Fred Haskins had only stalled the inevitable heartache. Gray might not have loved Caroline, but he cared about her. A person couldn’t be intimate with another person like that without having some leftover feelings when the relationship fell apart. Josh knew the heartache well. Regret was an old friend of his. All he had left of his relationship with Ashley was leftovers.

  He grabbed Jackson by the elbow and pulled him out of earshot from everyone at the scene. Jackson disconnected his call and glared at Josh. “Where have you been?”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “I don’t owe you any favors—”

  “Get over it, Jackson. It wasn’t my idea to leave the hospital when I did. If you’d had a gun shoved into your side, you would have done exactly what I did. It was either trick you into leaving my room unguarded or risk that psycho bitch putting a bullet in my side. Which would you have preferred?”

  “The bullet.”

  “Shut up and listen. Assign Zach Halsey duty away from the body.”

  That got Jackson’s attention. “Why?”

  How to get what he wanted from Jackson without alerting him to Josh’s growing suspicions?

  “Because he’s Halsey’s grandson and he’s here to report back to the sheriff. Do you really want him with his nose up your butt?”

  Jackson glanced over his shoulder at Zach. “No, I don’t.”

  “Good, then let’s keep him out of our way so we can work.”

  Jackson nodded and headed toward Zach. “Hey, Halsey, I need you to…”

  A burst of wind drowned whatever Jackson had said to Zach. A frown spread across Zach’s face while Jackson continued to converse with him. Zach glanced toward Josh. It didn’t matter if Zach perceived the maneuver Josh had just performed. He could tell the sheriff whatever he wanted, just as long as he stayed away from the body. Neither Josh nor Jackson needed the sheriff’s grandson contaminating the scene.

  Why had that thought popped into his mind? Why would Zach mess with the crime scene? There was only one reason he’d do so. If there was something he didn’t want Josh to find.

  Josh turned and headed toward the activity around the body. When he was within several feet of the medical examiner, Epps lifted his head and glared at him. “It’s about time you got here.”

  “So you got here before I did? You must not have had a date last night.”

  Everybody knew about Epps’s nocturnal activities. Everyone except his wife.

  “Watch what you say, McCord. I’ll file a formal complaint—”

  “What are you gonna complain about? I’m here to do my job.”

  Epps muttered under his breath, but Josh really didn’t want to know what Epps was grumbling about. Whatever it was wouldn’t be kind to Josh.

  “How long has she been dead?”

  Epps glanced up at him. “Didn’t Halsey tell you that already?”

  “He said it happened after midnight. It’s almost seven now. You usually give me a better estimate than that.”

  Not true. Epps was notorious for his reluctance to estimate time of death.

  Epps grunted. He’d obviously understood Josh’s not-so-subtle jab. The doctor of the dead pulled a long thermometer from the girl’s abdomen. “According to her liver temp, she’s been dead almost eight hours. She was found on her back, but there’s lividity in her torso and upper legs. She was moved here. Probably not more than four to six hours ago.”

  Josh pondered the time frame. That meant she’d been dumped on the trail between one and three in the morning, while he and Shaw were at Laurel Heights.

  The victim lay naked on the ground spread-eagled. Her killer had no remorse for his actions. He was displaying his victim for the world to see what he’d done. Josh’s stomach muscles tightened. He diverted his eyes from her nakedness to concentrate on her face.

  “Are you sure that’s Cherish Duncan?” She didn’t look much like her brother Brett.

  “I’m not going to made a positive ID until I have her back at the morgue. You know that, McCord. I don’t know why you always ask me that—”

  “That’s what Halsey told me.”

  “Halsey is a… I made a preliminary ID. That’s all.”

  Epps could be so persnickety. Like a declawed cat.

  “Based on what?”

  Epps sniffed. He’d never liked being questioned about his professional opinion.

  “The woman had a driver’s license on her.”

  Josh lifted an eyebrow. “Oh yeah, from what state?”

  “Arkansas.”

  “Did you bag it?”

  “Of course, I bagged it. Jackson has it.”

  Josh would bet Cherish Duncan had once involuntarily contributed her fingerprints to AFIS. Somewhere along the way in her short, but misbegotten life, someone had inked her and scanned her print. “I’m gonna want a ten card.”

  “Of course, you are.”

  This was typical Epps behavior. The longer the investigation at the scene wore on, the more cantankerous the old man would get.

  “And I’m gonna want a hair sample for DNA—”

  “I know protocol, McCord.” Epps pointed toward the woman’s feet. “She was barefoot, but there was an unidentified substance between her toes, so I bagged her feet. There appears to be skin beneath her fingernails, so I bagged her hands, too. I’ll take the samples when I get her back to the morgue. Take your pictures, look her over, and get what you need to get. And do it quickly. I need to get her back to the morgue before it gets infernally hot out here.”

  Too late. It was early in May and seven in the morning, but already the thermostat was climbing.

  Josh took his sweet time processing the body. The longer he took, the more antsy Epps became. Josh glanced uphill and locked eyes
with Zach Halsey. The panic on Zach’s face was hard to miss.

  Chapter Eight

  The diner where he was supposed to meet Laurel Standridge and Chase Peterson was halfway between Fairview and Little Rock. At nearly noon, the place was hopping with vacationers. Shaw could spot tourists a mile away. There were usually two or three urchins tagging along with two weary-looking adults.

  He’d stopped at the restaurant once before and remembered that it served decent chicken fried steak and loaded mashed potatoes. Not something he would eat everyday, but a pretty good option once in a while. He preferred to eat meals that were high-protein and low-carb. That and routine exercise was how he kept his post-adolescent weight off.

  As he entered the place, he mentally zipped through the questions he had to ask Laurel and Chase. Grayson had told him the two would cooperate with him, and Peterson had sounded agreeable enough on the phone, but Shaw had adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

  The couple had chosen a table in the far corner, away from eavesdropping ears and prying eyes. Shaw hovered over them until they glanced up at him.

  “Laurel?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Then, you must be Chase?”

  The man held out his hand and Shaw shook it. An unusual tattoo peeked out from beneath the sleeve of the man’s shirt. He’d never seen ink quite like it—a black rose with thorns. He’d bet there was a story behind the choice.

  “Have a seat.” Chase motioned toward a chair at their table and pushed his empty plate away from him.

  Laurel had ordered a salad, but Shaw couldn’t tell how much of it she’d eaten. Some restaurants put the whole lettuce farm in the bowl.

  Shaw slid the chair back and lowered his weary body into the seat. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  Chase grunted. “Didn’t think we had much choice. You would have put out an APB for us.”

  The man was correct. He would have.

  The waitress approached their table, and Shaw ordered black coffee and a piece of cherry pie. Once the woman was out of earshot, Chase pulled a couple of crumpled papers from his back pocket and slid them across the table.

  “Grayson told us you’d want our statements. We’ve written them out for you. I’ve worded things so that Grayson doesn’t get into too much trouble with Halsey. I’m sure the sheriff is not happy that he called in the state police.”