by Lisa Jackson
“It’s my job.”
“Then quit. Okay? It’s too dangerous. No. No, that’s wrong. You make it too dangerous. You, Nikki. Not only for yourself, but for others.” He was beside himself.
“But, Reed. I saw something,” she said. “There was a boat under the willow tree.”
“What?”
“I think someone was there who shouldn’t be.”
“You’re right about that,” he said, and she knew he was talking about her.
“Just listen—”
“No . . . I don’t care if you saw a boat, or a yacht, or a damned submarine in the river, okay? It doesn’t matter!” He was shaking his head, his emotions raw. She’d known that he’d been worried sick when he’d dragged her from the river, had heard his voice crack with fear. “Nikki! Nikki, oh, Jesus, honey. Are you okay? Oh, please, God. Nikki!” He’d been kneeling beside her in the tall grass and the mud and had looked over his shoulder frantically. “I need an ambulance! Right now! For my wife! Can someone call an ambulance? Now!”
But once they’d made it to the hospital and she’d been diagnosed with only a dislocated shoulder, her pregnancy still viable, his fears had morphed into a quiet, seething rage as he’d heard from a deputy that Morrisette was teetering between life and death, on the edge and in emergency surgery.
All because she’d tried to save Nikki.
“How is Sylvie?” She hated to ask, but had to.
“Who knows?” he snapped, then quickly gained control of himself. “Still in surgery. But as far as I know, alive.”
She’d heard that Morrisette had suffered a broken jaw and not just a mild concussion but a serious brain injury requiring surgery.
Blowing out a sigh, he shook his head and stared at the ceiling tiles. “I don’t . . . I don’t really know. I mean, they’re not saying she’ll pull through.”
“Not saying?” she repeated, sick inside. “But surely . . . I mean . . .” She couldn’t, wouldn’t think that Reed’s tough-as-old-leather partner wouldn’t make it.
“She’s strong. A fighter. You know, she always says she’s ‘Texas strong,’ whatever the hell that means. But . . . well, we just have to wait.” He cast a look to his wife that was a little less caustic. “She took a bad blow.”
“I know.” Nikki cringed beneath the bedsheets and remembered the prow of the boat striking Morrisette with a horrid sharp crack. Blood had poured from Morrisette’s head, staining the river as the detective had lost consciousness and turned ash gray. Reed had dragged Nikki from the river while a female deputy had gone in after Morrisette and hauled her out of the water to start CPR on the muddy bank in the ensuing pandemonium.
The ambulance Reed had demanded had arrived within minutes, the EMTs taking over from the deputy who had started CPR on Morrisette on the muddy bank of the river. Within seconds Reed’s partner had been put on a stretcher and carried into the waiting vehicle. The second ambulance showed up seven minutes later. Reed had ridden with Nikki to the hospital and stayed with her during her examination in the ER. Her diagnosis was simple: a dislocated shoulder, the result of being rammed into by the unmoored boat lurching wildly in the swollen river. Thankfully, despite a feeling that something had broken while she’d been in the river, she hadn’t miscarried.
At least not yet.
She touched her abdomen with her right hand, consoling herself with the new life still growing tenaciously inside her. That, at least, was a blessing.
She thought about Morrisette’s phone call, the one Nikki had overheard while hiding beneath the rim of the bank. “So,” she asked carefully, as she knew Reed wouldn’t want to discuss his case. “Is it true that Bronco Cravens called in the homicide?”
“What?” Reed said, his eyebrows knitting. “How did . . . What did . . . How do you know about Bronco?”
“So it is true. How’s he connected?” she asked, unable to stop the questions that had been plaguing her to keep from rolling off her tongue. “And what’s with the empty grave? Two bodies, but three burial sites? Was one moved?”
“Oh, my God! Nikki—stop! Just . . . Stop!” He held up a hand, palm out, his expression one of utter disbelief that she would still be investigating. “You’re in the damned hospital for crying out loud, so just—”
At that second there was a soft tap on the already half-open door and a uniformed cop, a woman Nikki didn’t recognize, peeked in. “Detective?”
“I’ll be right back,” Reed said, then quickly stepped into the hallway, disappearing and leaving the door ajar before Nikki could ask the next question already forming on her lips. But he’d practically confirmed that Bronco had made the call. She strained her neck to peer through the crack in the door but couldn’t see Reed or the cop, only the view of a curved desk of blond wood, where three nurses—two women and a man, all in blue scrubs—were huddled over monitors, the man speaking into a phone as he stared at a computer screen.
Nikki shifted on the bed to get a better view, or to find out if Reed was anywhere within sight, but a sharp pain in her left shoulder caused her to suck in her breath and reminded her that she was far from a hundred percent. Damn. For the next several weeks she would have to keep her arm immobile, which would slow her down. She’d also have to ice her shoulder and eventually start physical therapy. The only reason she hadn’t been discharged yet was because of her pregnancy, considered high risk because of her previous miscarriages, and the ER doc wanted to talk with Nikki’s OB/GYN.
The last thing she needed was to be laid up, but, she reminded herself, she was lucky. Yeah, she had to wear a sling to keep her arm immobile for a while, but other than that she was okay.
Unlike Morrisette.
* * *
“Hey, Detective!” a voice boomed down the corridor. Reed looked down a hallway and spied a tall, muscular man in khakis and a black tight-fitting T-shirt striding toward him. His blond hair was clipped so close to his skull that the beginning of male pattern baldness was visible and two days’ worth of beard covered a tight, angry jaw. His eyes, laser blue, were focused on Reed as he skirted past an aide pushing an empty gurney toward a bank of elevators.
Tyson Beaumont, Reed guessed. And he looked as if he were fit to be tied.
A few steps behind him was a trim man in his late sixties or early seventies who looked as if he’d just stepped off the golf course in his Izod shirt and crisp plaid shorts. Reed supposed it was Baxter Beaumont, Tyson’s father.
He braced himself.
“You!” Tyson charged, heading in Reed’s direction, the older man following. “I’ve been looking for you!” He closed the gap between them. “I heard you’re in charge!”
The elevator call button dinged, the doors parted, and the aide and gurney disappeared inside.
“What the hell is going on?” Tyson demanded as the elevator’s doors closed. “I heard there was a body found on my property, maybe more than one. Is that right? Who are they, what happened?” His face was flushed, his eyes worried as another elevator opened and two nurses in scrubs hurried into the hallway as Baxter caught up.
“Baxter Beaumont,” the older man said, jutting out his hand. He was tanned and fit, only his shock of silver hair and the crow’s-feet at the corners of laser-blue eyes giving away his age. His handshake was firm, his teeth a brilliant flash of white. “You’re Detective Reed?”
“Yes.” Releasing the man’s hand, Reed offered up his ID.
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Tyson said dismissively. “We’ve been looking for you. Or whoever is in charge. Went to the old house and were stopped by cops. Got the runaround, let me tell you.” He was agitated, his lips twisting down. “Finally found out from a deputy that you were here. I—we”—he motioned with his hand to include his father—“we need to know what’s going on.” His blue eyes, so like his father’s, narrowed on Reed. “Dead bodies? Really? In the old house?”
“Impossible,” Baxter said. “That’s unimaginable!” He shook his head. “Two, right?” He scowled at Re
ed. “That’s what they said on the news. Two bodies and you’re looking for more.”
“That’s crazy!” Tyson ran a hand through the stubble over his skull.
The elevator dinged again and an orderly pushing a thirtyish woman in a wheelchair appeared. Her casted leg was propped in front of her and she was holding two vases of flowers. A man who appeared about the patient’s age lagged behind and was struggling with a plastic bag, another vase and a bouquet of metallic Mylar balloons in a rainbow of colors that caught inside the elevator car before floating loftily behind.
“Let’s find a spot where we can talk,” Reed said, watching the trio make their way to the main doors. He figured he had a few minutes. Nikki was stable and Morrisette was still in surgery; there was nothing he could do for her. “There’s a spot just around the corner.” He led them around a corner, past the Information Desk and down a short distance to a windowed alcove with a view of the parking area near the main doors. A couple of chairs and a small love seat were arranged around a coffee table, where someone had left a half-empty paper coffee cup and an out-of-date People magazine.
“Sit,” Reed suggested. Father and son took the chairs while Reed dropped into the small couch across from them.
“Who are they?” Baxter asked. “The bodies. Who the hell are they?”
“Unknown at this time. We’re working on that.”
“How many?” Tyson asked. “As Dad said, the news reported that you found two, but that you were still looking.”
“That’s right. Two in the basement.”
“Of the old house?” Baxter clarified. “Jesus God . . . I . . . I can’t believe it. How long were they there?”
“Looks like years.”
“Men?” Baxter asked, rubbing one hand over his bare knee as he sat. “Or . . . women?”
“Still figuring that out.”
“You couldn’t tell?” Tyson’s mouth dropped open. “But—”
“He’s saying they were decomposed beyond recognition,” his father pointed out.
Tyson shot to his feet, stood back to the windows, his reflection watery behind him. “But they must’ve had something, their clothes or something to ID them, let you know if they were men or . . .”
“Unless they were naked.” Baxter glared up at his son. “Just let the detective tell us.”
“Fine.” Tyson crossed his arms over his chest, stretching the fabric of his shirt. “What did you find, and what’re we supposed to do about it?”
Reed was reticent to give out too much information until the police had decided which details they would keep to themselves, at least for now, information that only the killer would know. “Other than that there were two bodies located in the house and it looks as if they’ve been there years, there’s not a lot I can tell you. We received an anonymous tip that they were there and we went to investigate, cordoned off the place, searched and confirmed, then kept searching.”
“And someone got hurt. There were ambulances and you ended up here.” He motioned to the surroundings.
“Right.”
Tyson demanded, “Who? Another victim? This isn’t making any sense!”
“An officer was injured while trying to help someone who’d fallen into the river. Look, I can’t tell you any more than that,” Reed said, his guts squeezing as he thought about Morrisette and Nikki and the baby. “There are privacy laws.”
“Will they be okay?” Tyson asked.
“We’re hoping.”
“Oh, Lord.” Baxter let out a long breath. “This isn’t good,” he said, “not at all. We’re trying to sell the property, you know.” He motioned to include his son. “And we’ve got a couple of interested parties, two different construction companies, or is it three?”
“Two for certain and a third, maybe.” Tyson’s jaw tightened. “After all these years and finally the zoning is going through. It looks like a deal might finally go through and now . . .” He ran a hand through his short hair.
“And now this,” his father finished for him.
“Yes, and so we’ll need a statement from you,” Reed said, and spying a nurse, cell phone plastered to his ear, hurrying past, added, “Probably it would be best if you could come down to the station.”
“What!” Baxter said. “A statement? Why? We certainly didn’t have anything to do with what happened!” For a second he seemed panicked.
“Whoa, Dad. Slow down. We do own the property.” Tyson placed a steadying hand on his father’s forearm. “Of course the police are going to want to talk to us.”
Reed nodded. “We just need a thorough list of anyone who had access to the house, who lived in the house or nearby, who takes care of the place, that sort of thing.”
“And for that we need to go to the police department?” Baxter asked, his chin tightening.
Reed eyed the older man. “For privacy.”
“Makes sense.” Tyson was quick to agree as he stared out the window, and Reed, following his gaze, spied a news van roll into a parking lot near the emergency room. “We don’t need any bad publicity . . . or any more than we already have. Detective Reed is just trying to do his job and be discreet.”
“Well, yes. We want that. We need discretion.” Baxter, too, eyed the news van as it took up two parking spots in the lot. “We don’t want to lose any potential deal.” He was nodding to himself. “It happened before. We ended up losing a buyer on the property north of the house.”
“We’ve lost a lot of deals.”
“But that one stung, y’know.” He turned his gaze to Reed. “We had an interested investor from Chicago. Very interested. A big developer. But then he got wind of what had happened to Nell and . . . well, the deal fell through and we had to sell locally. Lost nearly two hundred grand on the deal.” He was shaking his head, lost in thought.
Tyson was having none of it. “Bodies were found on the property, Dad! What is it you’re not getting about that?”
“Nothing I can do about that,” Baxter pointed out.
Tyson held up his hands, palms out, to Reed, then let them drop. “Sorry. It’s just that we don’t want a lot of bad publicity.”
“Exactly my point.” Baxter threw his son a disgusted look.
Tyson explained, “The deal we’re working on, it’s been a long time in the works and a hard decision for Dad. We haven’t sold off any of the estate since the Cravens bought the parcel on the other side of the river, and that was years ago. So, what we don’t want is a media circus.”
“I can’t stop that,” Reed said.
“We know. Well, I do anyway,” he said, sending his father a sharp glance. “It’s just . . . just when you’re done with your investigation at the old house, if, you know, everyone could clear out.”
“We will,” Reed assured them. He thought of his wife, how she’d risked her damned life, as well as Morrisette’s, all for a story. “I can’t speak for the press, though. You’ll have to deal with them.”
“Great,” Tyson muttered.
“Signs,” Baxter chimed in. “More of those NO TRESPASSING signs that tell them they’ll be prosecuted if they set one foot on the property. And cameras! We’ll get some of those little spy cameras—you can pick them up online these days and they’re pretty cheap—so we catch the damned violators. That should do it. We’ll threaten them all with legal action, that’s what we’ll do!” His eyes actually brightened at the prospect as a woman in her twenties, phone in hand, scanned the alcove, then found a seat not far away, across the hallway, very much in earshot. She half-lay in a chair, long legs over one arm, flip-flops dangling from her feet as she texted like mad.
Tyson watched her and said, “Maybe you’re right. We should do this at the station. We can come up with a list of people who’ve been on the property that we know of, or people who were interested, but my guess is no one who was thinking about buying the place was stashing bodies there.”
“Include workmen. People you hired.”
“You were at the house
today, right?” Tyson said as Reed nodded. “Then you already know we don’t exactly have a crew maintaining the place.”
“But you did have a caretaker?”
Baxter said, “Wynn. We had Wynn Cravens on the payroll for years. My mother hired him.”
“That’s right,” Tyson said. “Wynn took care of the place while Beulah, that’s my grandmother, lived in the house. Then, over time, you know, when we moved out of the place and eventually Grandma, we decided to sell off parcels and didn’t really need him.” Tyson slid his hands into his front pockets and rolled back on his heels. “Besides, he was getting older.”
“Just passed on,” Baxter said. “I read his obituary in the Sentinel.”
“What about his son or grandson?”
Baxter shook his head. “Didn’t deal much with Jasper. He wasn’t around much, and the grandson . . . what was his name, Buster?”
“Bronco,” Tyson supplied. “Well, really Bruno, but everyone called him Bronco.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s what it was,” Baxter agreed.
“And a real loser.” Tyson shrugged. “I was in school with him, he was a little younger, but he kind of faded into the woodwork, y’know. Wasn’t a jock, or a brainiac, just . . . kind of was.” He frowned, remembering. “We didn’t hang out.”
The woman in the nearby chair stood and stretched, then settled into the chair again, draped out over the cushions and once again started texting, just as a nurse pushing a rattling pill cart made her way down the hallway.
“Maybe you’re right,” Tyson said to Reed. “Maybe talking at the station would be better. Dad and I can come down there tomorrow, or the next day, and give a statement and a list of anyone we can remember who’s been on the property. We’ll call and set it up.” And then to his father, “Come on, Dad. Let’s go.” He was already striding toward the exit doors on the other side of the Information Desk.
CHAPTER 6
Nikki felt another serious pang of guilt over Sylvie’s condition. If only Reed’s partner hadn’t spied her in the river. Or for that matter, if only Nikki hadn’t slipped and ended up in the water.