Even their house looked the same, down to the arrangement of the furniture and the pictures on the walls. The family portrait over the mantel made her heart hurt. Jenna was in it, seated beside Ryan—they’d had that picture taken the winter before Jenna vanished. Jim and Mary had left it up all these years.
“Come on,” Mary said, squeezing her arm. “It’s late. Let’s get you settled. We’ll pick up some things for you at the store later, if you want to write us a list.”
“Tomorrow we’ll go to the bog.” Ryan’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat.
As she followed Mary, she cast a last glance back at him. For a brief moment, as their gazes locked, something flickered between them—the shared bond of the past, the weight of memories too permanent for time to erase. But then he blinked, and she turned back to walk the familiar path through his house.
* * *
Ryan tossed and turned all night. Maybe it was the bruises and the itching ache of the burns on his back, or the trauma of the explosion, or the fact someone had tried to hurt Laney. But more likely, he suspected, it was knowing she was sleeping upstairs in the bedroom that used to be Jenna’s. The one where she’d crashed so many nights back in high school when the three of them had stayed out late at a school event or Laney’s mom was drunk and Laney couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping at home in that squalid trailer.
How often he’d taken for granted his own childhood and how secure it’d been compared to what Laney had endured. No wonder she’d wanted to escape.
But ten years’ perspective still couldn’t erase the bitter regrets she’d left trailing in her wake, or the sense of abandonment. Maybe he could understand her better now, as an adult, but he’d be a fool to let her close again.
Thankfully, as they leaned against the countertop drinking coffee in silence the next morning, she didn’t seem any more interested in reopening the past than he was.
He gestured at her blue jeans and brown T-shirt. Bright red painted toenails peeked out from beneath the cuffs of her too-long pants. “Mom found you some clothes?”
“She ran out to the store early this morning and picked these up, along with some toiletries. It was thoughtful of her.” Laney’s lips tilted. “She guessed my size, though.”
Without her heels, she didn’t even reach his shoulder now. An image flashed into his mind of their last dance, that night at senior prom when he’d held her close, her head tucked beneath his chin. But he refrained from making any comment that might veer close to remembering the way things used to be. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight today. Not with a crime scene to investigate and a potential killer on the loose.
His father strode in through the front door a few minutes later. “You two ready to go?”
Ryan set down his mug and followed Laney to the door, where she pulled on socks and laced up a pair of his mother’s old boots. She gave him a wry smile. “Best we could manage under the circumstances.”
“I can take you to find a new pair later, if you like.” Despite how she’d hurt him, his insides warmed anyway. The interaction felt so...normal, as if they could actually become friends again. Friends, not anything more.
His father drove them to Ryan’s place, a well-maintained town house in an area of newer construction. Ryan dashed inside to grab a change of clothes before he and Laney took his car to the police station. He’d have to pick up a replacement cruiser while his was in the shop.
“Nice place,” Laney said as they pulled out of his complex to head to the station. “I don’t recall seeing those before.”
“Thanks. They were built after you left.” It took a serious effort to keep the bitterness from leaking into his voice at those last two words. A place like his would’ve been just what Laney wanted back in the old days.
But there were other, more pressing concerns than expired daydreams, like getting Laney over to the bog. They’d had to assign an officer to patrol the crime scene to keep both the press and curious locals from messing with the evidence. But first, they needed to go over the files Hannah had pulled to see if Laney recognized any of the potential bombing suspects.
She followed him through the maze of desks and cabinets to a room at the back. After pulling up an extra chair for Laney, he settled into his seat and logged on to his computer. A few clicks later, he opened the first file, which contained a photograph and personal records on a Delta employee from Indianapolis.
“What are we looking for?” Laney asked as she scooched her chair closer to his. A light fragrance—peaches, maybe—wafted from her. A scent he didn’t remember, another reminder that she wasn’t the same eighteen-year-old girl anymore. And yet that didn’t stop him from wanting to slip an arm around her shoulders and tuck her against his side.
He kept his fingers firmly wrapped around the computer mouse. “We’re still working on getting the video footage, so...anyone you recognize. Anything in the file that shows a possible connection with you or the case.”
“Okay, I can do that.” She leaned closer to the screen, scanning the picture of a middle-aged woman with long blond hair. “I think this is the woman who checked the bag for me in Indianapolis at the gate.”
“Did you hand it off to her directly?”
“No, I had to wheel it down the boarding ramp and leave it near the door to the plane. Baggage handlers took it from there.”
“So, not likely it was her.” He dragged the file into a new folder on his desktop.
Half an hour later, they’d sorted the pile into three stacks—unlikely, possible and unknown potential suspects. It wasn’t much of a start, but until they got the security footage, there was little else to be done. He’d pressed her for a description of the man who’d handed her the suitcase at Evansville Regional, but she couldn’t positively identify him among the pictures they had.
“Brown hair, hazel eyes. Weathered face.” She shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry. I would’ve paid better attention if I’d known it was important. You know me, Ryan. I can’t even remember what I ate for lunch yesterday.” A hint of pink crept across her cheeks at the admission.
It was true. He did know her. She had an incredible memory—could ace any test in school—yet forget where she’d parked the car outside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway because the detail didn’t seem important at the time. The memory of wandering that scorching parking lot for hours filled his chest with warmth. Back then, he’d been right at her side to help with the things that slipped through the cracks.
Everything had changed...and yet here she was again, needing his help once more.
“That’s okay, I get it.” He fought to keep a smile off his face and instead pushed his chair back from the desk. “We’ll find out who did it. In the meantime, let’s get over to the crime scene. The sooner you can examine the remains, the sooner we can get you home to safety.”
And if he were being honest, it wasn’t only her physical well-being he was concerned about. It was the little problem that this new Laney Hamilton was just as mesmerizing as the old one had been, and every minute he spent with her took him one step closer to saying or doing something stupid. Sending her back to DC as soon as possible was the best course of action for them both.
THREE
Ryan couldn’t stop glancing Laney’s direction as they headed east out of town toward the bog. In a place as small as Sandy Bluff, with one high school, a Dairy Queen and a shopping center they called a mall only because it had a JCPenney, entertainment had to be invented rather than purchased. The city had grown a bit in the past ten years, but back when he and Laney were in school, they’d spent weekends and long summers traversing the outskirts of town looking for fun and mischief.
Cliff diving at the quarry, despite the no-trespassing signs plastered everywhere.
Late night tag in the farmers’ fields.
Throwing biscuits at the cars o
n the hairpin bend on Fourth Street.
He still hadn’t confessed to his parents half the things they’d done. And, as he all too painfully remembered in his quiet times with the Lord, he hadn’t been bothered by any Christian morals back then.
How many of those memories were racing through Laney’s head right now as she watched the farms and forests roll past? Did she share his sense of extra regret, knowing how they’d been disappointing not only earthly authorities but their heavenly Father as well? Maybe one day he’d muster the courage to ask her, but not now. Not where they were headed.
The air between them felt thick with unspoken thoughts by the time he pulled the squad car onto a dirt road running adjacent to the bog. Bushes, spongy sphagnum moss and wildflowers concealed the muddy bottom, where water pooled up to three feet deep in places. On the far side of the bog, the ground rose to meet dense forest.
He followed the bumpy road a short distance until they reached another patrol car. Pulling in behind it, he shut off the engine and climbed out. The air smelled of humidity and mud and rotting vegetation. A ring of yellow police tape was visible about a hundred feet into the bog, where an officer stood on watch.
Laney followed Ryan to the trunk. He pulled out two sets of hip waders.
“Did you remove any of the remains yet?” she asked, leaning against the car to pull off her shoes and slide her legs into the green fabric and rubber boots. The hip waders practically swallowed her whole.
“Only what the kids turned over to us—the femur and some small bones we think are part of a hand. I imagine you’ll need them shipped back to your lab?”
She nodded, but her gaze was distant as if her thoughts were elsewhere.
As he pulled on his waders, another officer climbed out of the other car and Ryan waved him over.
“Cam Peters, this is our bones expert, Laney Hamilton.”
She shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Cam.”
“I remember you.” Cam smiled, pointing a finger at her. “Sandy Bluff High, class of ’11, right? I was a sophomore that year. You and this guy—” he smacked Ryan’s arm “—you were thick as thieves, weren’t you? What happened?”
Her cheeks flushed, and Ryan shifted his weight. Awkward. After Jenna’s disappearance and then Laney leaving him, it’d taken months for his name to vanish from the gossip circles. Too bad anyone still remembered.
He cleared his throat. “No one from the press out here today?”
“Not yet,” Cam said. “Though once word gets out that we’re collecting the bones, I’m sure that will change.”
“Well, let’s get to it.” Ryan pulled some evidence bags from the car along with a collection kit containing gloves, a couple of bristle brushes, tweezers and various other implements.
Each step through the mucky bog produced a gooey, suction-y sort of sound, and gnats and flies buzzed around their faces and necks. When they reached the crime scene, he waved at the other officer and held up the yellow tape to allow Laney to duck underneath. The air hung still for a moment as she waited, watching him.
He tugged at his shirt collar. Cam and the other officers could never understand what these bones might mean to his family, not at a visceral level. But Laney knew, and more importantly, she’d feel it almost as much as he would. Sure, Jenna was his twin sister, but she’d also been Laney’s best friend since grade school. Since before he’d finally worked up the nerve to ask Laney to the homecoming dance in ninth grade.
That was half the reason he’d been so shocked when she left town as soon as the prayer vigil ended. His parents’ church and their circle of friends had insisted on holding the service to give them a sense of closure once the search was called off. Who were they kidding? There could be no closure for him or his parents. A member of their family had vanished, and they might never know what had happened to her.
Laney couldn’t possibly have found closure, either, and yet she’d just...left. Like none of them mattered. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the way his stomach hardened. No reason to prod at the scar tissue over that wound.
Her dark eyes didn’t reveal anything now either. Did she expect him to crack and fall apart in front of her and the others?
Not going to happen. No matter what they found.
He pushed ahead, pointing to a muddy gap between a clump of squishy-looking bog plants and a tuft of moss. A single, obvious bone fragment stuck out of the mud. “The kids were able to show us the approximate area where they’d found the bones. After the department’s forensics team located and examined the site, the chief made the call to bring in outside help.”
Laney knelt on the tuft of moss and held out a hand to take a pair of gloves from Cam. She prodded gently at the exposed piece of bone but didn’t move anything. “You’ve photographed this already?”
Ryan nodded. “We’ve got a camera with us to record the excavation of the remains.”
“Excellent.” She glanced up at him, something flickering across her face. “There’s no guarantee these bones are from...any of your cold cases.” Her voice trailed away, and he knew what she’d wanted to say.
These remains might not be Jenna. We might have to keep living with the uncertainty.
“I know,” he said. “But if these bones are human, they’re somebody’s cold case. Somebody who deserves to know what happened.”
Her jaw tightened as she pressed her lips together. “Then let’s get to work.”
* * *
The only visible bone was splintered, with maybe three inches protruding from the sulfurous-smelling muck. If she had to guess from the diameter, Laney would say it was a fibula, the smaller bone of the lower leg. But she’d have to remove it to know.
“The damage here looks recent,” she said, pointing at the tip of the bone and glancing up at Ryan. “See how the edge along this break is colored differently? It hasn’t been exposed to water as long.”
He nodded. “Maybe the teenagers broke it?”
“Or an animal. Or whatever brought these remains closer to the surface.” Partly it depended on how long and how deeply they’d been buried, but she didn’t want to speculate. Not with how important these bones could be.
She pulled a trowel out of the kit Cam had placed next to her and gently scooped mud away from the bone, one thin layer at a time. Water collected in the space as she cleared it, making for difficult working conditions but better preservation.
The work was slow and painstaking, like an archaeological excavation. Each layer had to be photographed and documented, each bone fragment tagged and placed in a separate bag for later analysis. But the work kept both her hands and mind occupied, leaving little space to reflect on who these bones once belonged to, or the look on Ryan’s face as each piece came up out of the ground.
The pile of plastic bags beside her grew steadily larger, but they still hadn’t found the skull. Her heart sank a little more with each bone she examined. The signs were all there, but her scientific mind refused to entertain any possibilities yet.
Across the bog, cars had collected on the side of the county highway, and a few of the braver news trucks had pulled onto the dirt road behind the squad cars.
Laney dragged the back of her arm across her forehead, wiping away the growing perspiration. She stood thigh deep in the mud, and while the rubber hip waders kept her legs dry, her arms and shirt were coated in thick muck. Now that it was afternoon, the sun scorched down on their heads, making her wish she’d worn her hat on the plane instead of packing it in her carry-on.
“Here.” Ryan passed her a bottle of water. “Do you want to take a break?”
She glanced at the waiting reporters. Sandy Bluff only had one newspaper, and no TV news station. They must’ve driven in from Evansville and Bloomington. “And face that crowd? No thanks.” After a long drink, she recapped the bottle and wedged it into the moss.
“They�
��ll wait us out, you know.”
“I know. We have reporters in DC too.” She turned back to the excavation. This patch had almost been cleared, but depending on how long the bones had been here, they might find more among the roots of the surrounding plants. “I think it’s time to expand our search radius. See what you can find on the other side of these plants.”
Ryan traipsed around the back of a clump of swamp milkweed and prodded gingerly at the ground a few feet away.
“So...” He hesitated, and she could feel his question hanging in the air before the words came out. “What can you tell so far?”
“I try to avoid any conclusions until the bones are clean,” she said lightly.
When his brown gaze met hers, the veiled anguish in his eyes nearly stole her breath. “Laney...”
She glanced at the other officers. Cam was occupied snapping photos. The other one had returned to the dirt road to deal with the reporters. Ryan deserved to hear first.
“From what we’ve unearthed, I’d say female. Approximately five foot six.” Jenna’s height. From the way his eyes shuttered, he had the same thought. “Based on the growth plate on the fibula, I’d guess she was near full height. Late teens.”
She hated the way his expression went slack. To have to be the one to deliver this news.
“And—” he cleared his throat “—how long have the remains been here?”
Laney sighed. “It’s hard to say. Given the discoloration and cracks forming in the bone, anywhere from eight to twelve years. She’s not a recent disappearance.”
He pressed a mud-speckled wrist to his mouth and stared beyond her as if he were looking back into the past.
Buried Evidence Page 3