When she tried to speak, it was around a hard lump in her throat. “We need the skull, Ryan. There’s a forensic odontologist at the Smithsonian who can compare dental records. For any of your missing persons.”
“Right.” He turned back to the muck in front of him without meeting her gaze.
Jenna had been like a sister to her, too, but she knew it wasn’t the same. She’d walked away from Sandy Bluff, successfully escaping into a brand-new life, but Ryan had had to live every day here without Jenna for the last decade. Her heart ached for him, but she could hardly say anything in front of the other officers. Instead, she settled for resting one mud-crusted hand lightly on his forearm and squeezed gently. He glanced back at her, shooting her a weak smile before crouching down again to work.
Another half hour of digging in silence yielded two scapulas and a broken clavicle. They were getting close. Laney’s fingertips brushed against something round and hard. Big enough to be what they needed. “I’ve got something,” she said. Ryan clambered out of the mud and worked his way back to her as she loosened the sediment around the bone.
Cam hurried to them—a sure sign to the reporters they’d found something critical. They’d have an ordeal getting out of here once they were done.
The camera clicked rapidly as she hunched over, arms beneath the mud and water up to her elbows, fighting to free the object without damaging it. With a last bit of gentle pressure, the bone came loose, and she swirled it slowly in the water as she floated it to the surface.
Any last vestige of hope washed away with the debris as she lifted the skull out of the water. Somewhere in the back of her mind, despite all reason, she’d thought maybe the skull would prove it wasn’t Jenna. That there’d be some obvious feature that couldn’t possibly have belonged to her.
What she’d told Ryan was true—they couldn’t know for sure until the forensic odontologist studied the teeth. But as she rotated the skull in her hands, she could feel the truth deep in her own bones.
Ryan’s sharp inhalation of breath pulled her back into the moment. He pointed to an indentation on the back, where the bone had cracked. “A blow to the head?” The words were faint, and he clenched and unclenched one hand as he spoke.
“Yes. And it happened close to the time of death. See these jagged edges? They would’ve smoothed out if the bone had had time to heal.”
He nodded. “I remember from the Wilson trial. The prosecutor pointed out places where the bones had started to remodel.”
Laney raised an eyebrow. “He kept his victims alive for a while?”
“Yeah. It was...ugly.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “But did that happen in this case? Was this head injury the cause of death?”
“Possibly. It looks more like a homicide than a hit-and-run to me.” Her heart twisted as she imagined what could have been Jenna’s final moments. “But I need to examine all the bones to say more conclusively.”
“All right.” He jerked his head toward Cam, who held out a large collection bag for Laney.
She slid the skull inside and attached the identification number. In the distance, the other officer approached from the patrol cars, carrying a large plastic bin. It took another hour to gather the remaining fragments of the skeleton and do one last sweep of the area, but finally all the bones were labeled and secured in the bin.
“Here’s the plan.” Ryan kept glancing over to the dirt road, where his vehicle was walled in by news trucks and people. “We’ll walk directly to the car. I’ll escort you around to the passenger side, and you get in. Whatever they ask you, you can tell them it’s classified. And do not, under any circumstances, give them your name.”
“I grew up in this town. Half those people have probably recognized me already.”
“But the less publicity you get, the better.” His lips tilted to one side. “Besides, you have mud all over your face.”
“Yours isn’t much better.”
Cam and the other officer hauled the bin of evidence, and she and Ryan followed behind, Ryan shadowing her every step. While she appreciated his concern, that’d be sure to get the rumor mill up and running again for anyone who did recognize her.
The reporters swarmed as they approached, holding out mobile devices and barking questions.
“What did you find in the bog?”
“Are those the remains of college student Madison Smith?”
“What can you tell us about the disappearances? Was Ronald Wilson responsible?”
Laney kept her head low, letting Ryan answer. The same thing over and over, “I’m sorry, the details are classified until we know more.”
She’d been around the media plenty of times in DC, but most often at press conferences or post-trial interviews. They didn’t usually swarm crime scenes.
Of course, this story was a big deal for Sandy Bluff. From what Ryan had said, more people than his family waited for leads on their missing loved ones. Maybe the reporters had already sniffed out the possibility the real killer was still at large.
She couldn’t shake the feeling of claustrophobia as Ryan held the reporters back while she yanked off her muddy hip waders and stuffed them into the trunk. When she’d accepted this job, she’d done it for the Mitchells. But what had she gotten into? Something that went far deeper than a single cold case. The smart thing to do would be to get these bones packed up and shipped back to the Smithsonian, then book herself the next flight out.
Ryan pried the car door open and she slid into the vehicle, grateful for the metal and glass separating her from the people who wanted answers. By the time he joined her, the two officers had loaded the bin of bones into the other patrol car.
As Laney settled back into her seat, trying to roll the tension out of her shoulders, her cell phone chirped out its cheerful ringtone. She dug for it in her purse, pulse quickening as she stared at the number a second before answering.
“Mom?” She frowned. Her mother never called outside their arranged semi-annual chats.
“Laney...” Her voice was so weak, she was barely audible. Laney tapped the button for speaker, and Ryan leaned in closer, straining to hear. “I need help. Now.”
“Where are you?” Laney asked, one hand clutching the door handle. Some internal warning pulsed through her system, especially with the way Ryan had tensed beside her. It wouldn’t be the first time her mother had overdosed herself or gotten into trouble, but...she had local friends to call. Never Laney.
“Home,” her mother rasped. “They’ve got—”
The line went dead.
FOUR
Ryan took one glance at Laney’s blanched face and flipped on his lights and siren, despite the bad timing. The other car could get the evidence back to headquarters without him, and he and Laney could be at her mother’s trailer within minutes.
He tilted his face to his shoulder mic and notified the dispatcher, then turned to Laney. “What’s her lot number?”
“Thirty-five,” Laney supplied, her voice faint. Her knuckles had turned white where she still clung to the door handle.
“You okay?”
She nodded, saying nothing more as the crowd parted before them like the Red Sea. He turned onto the main road heading back toward town, but then turned north again a mile later, taking a road that would lead them to the trailer park. A couple of cars pulled off to the side as he approached.
“I haven’t seen her in ten years,” Laney murmured.
Of course she’d be worried about her mother. Even though Ryan had never felt anything more than anger toward Kim Hamilton and her destructive life choices, it was only natural Laney would be concerned. And while he suspected this call was some ploy of Kim’s to get Laney back into her life, now probably wasn’t the time to point that out to Laney.
Now would be the right time to be supportive. Show they could still be friends.
Besides
, there was another possibility dancing around in the back of his mind. What if someone was trying to get to Laney through her mother?
She kept talking, letting go of the door to rub her hands back and forth across her denim-clad knees. “I only talk to her twice a year.”
He gritted his teeth, despite his best intentions. “You have a good reason for that, Laney.” So many times he’d wanted to rescue Laney from her life in that dive of a home. Or demand his father arrest Kim. But the evidence was never enough to press charges, and if it had been, Laney would’ve ended up in foster care.
They’d gone over their plan so many times. Four years of college at Indiana University for Laney to earn her nursing degree so she could get a job as an RN. He only needed two years at the community college in Evansville before entering the police academy, and then he’d join the force, working for his dad. They’d get married and she’d be able to go back to school for a master’s degree if she wanted. Maybe even be a nurse practitioner one day.
Maybe it had been foolish to think it could’ve worked. At least Laney had escaped, and she’d clearly done well for herself without his help.
The sign for the trailer park loomed in front of them, and he spoke into his shoulder mic, updating the dispatcher on his arrival.
Laney’s knees bounced up and down like a pair of jackhammers. “Please, God. Please let her be okay.” The words were muttered under her breath, so low he almost didn’t catch them.
Had she found new hope in Christ too? And the means to forgive her mother?
Ryan pulled the car to a stop a trailer down from lot number thirty-five. He rested a hand on Laney’s vibrating knee and she glanced at him, startled out of her reverie. “He’ll never leave us or forsake us, Laney. Trust His goodness.”
Her mouth dropped open, but she clamped it shut, nodding in agreement.
The exterior of the trailer appeared more or less secure, despite its obvious need for repairs. Most of the screens had been torn or were missing from the windows, but nothing sat open. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry, especially after what had happened to Laney at the airport.
He pulled out his gun and reached for the car door handle. “I need you to stay in the car while I check things out. If anything happens, get down and out of sight. Got it?”
Taking her silence for assent, he stepped out of the car. Dust rose from the packed dirt as he walked past the nearest trailer toward Kim’s. This place had probably been nice once...fifty years ago. Now it housed the poorest residents of Sandy Bluff, the down-and-out, the suffering and the oppressed. A baby cried inside the thin walls, and his heart broke for the child.
But he wasn’t here to bemoan the fate of the residents, he was here to ensure their safety. Stopping on the lower step leading up to the trailer, he rapped on the metal door. “Ms. Hamilton? Can you open the door?”
Silence from inside. He knocked again, harder this time.
“Ms. Hamilton, this is Sergeant Ryan Mitchell. I’m here with Laney. Can you open the door?”
Still no response. Had she passed out? He tried the doorknob. Unlocked. He pushed the door open a couple of inches and called again for Kim, then gritted his teeth when there was no answer. Most likely explanation was that she’d overdosed and required medical attention. The alternative—that somebody was using her to get to Laney—was far more disturbing, especially since Laney had barely had any contact with Kim in a decade. Somebody would have to be pretty familiar with both of them to know the connection.
He glanced back at Laney, still waiting in the car, and then gestured at the door to show he was going in.
* * *
He’ll never leave us or forsake us, Laney.
Ryan’s words replayed through Laney’s mind as she watched Ryan push his way into her mother’s trailer. He’d found faith in Jesus, too, during the last ten years. After all those times they’d turned down Jenna’s invitations to youth group... She must be smiling up in heaven. Laney’s heart warmed, thankful for what God had done in his life, but it couldn’t change things between them.
Walking away from him all those years ago had been brutal, but she’d had to do it. Had to get away from their mistakes, from what had happened to Jenna. From that night just before graduation when Laney and Ryan had fully given in to their feelings and she’d come this close to going full circle and walking her mother’s path right back to this trailer park.
She picked absently at the fabric of the patrol car’s seat. Hard to believe she’d grown up here, riding her bicycle barefoot around these packed dirt roads. The place looked even more squalid than she remembered. Her mother’s trailer would never have graced the cover of Country Living magazine, but it had decayed even further in the past ten years. Dents in the side, rust along the windows, one screen hanging off at a weird angle.
An image flashed into her mind of the day she’d left. Her mother had stared out the window, her shoulders slumped and her mousy brown hair hanging limp against pale cheeks, as Laney explained she’d be going to Jenna Mitchell’s vigil and then catching a ride to the nearest Greyhound station to head out of town.
Permanently.
She had a single duffel of clothing packed—she’d had it packed for weeks—and the strap had dug into her shoulder as she’d stood with one hand on the door. Waiting for anything, any reason to stay.
Her mother hadn’t turned, not even when Laney had slammed that stupid aluminum screen door shut. Laney had said her goodbyes to the Mitchells and, with her university acceptance in hand, escaped to build a better life.
Only now she was back.
Black flashed at the corner of her eye, startling her out of the memory. Instinctively she pulled away from the passenger-side window as something smashed into it. She screamed as it shattered, covering the floor and the seat and her lap with cascading fragments of safety glass.
She fumbled for her seat belt, fingers connecting with the button. A dark figure loomed outside the window, and a gloved hand shot inside, fingers grasping for the shoulder of her T-shirt.
Laney’s heart catapulted into her throat. She swiveled in the seat out of reach, throwing her feet against the inside of the passenger door. Kicking hard, she launched herself backward over the center console, her spine dragging painfully over Ryan’s equipment.
Her attacker groped inside the car, catching the oversize boot on Laney’s left foot and yanking her back toward the door. Laney’s throat burned from screaming, and she struck with her free foot at the knife looming perilously close to her leg.
The boot came free and she pulled both legs back into the relative safety of the driver’s seat. Her fingers scrabbled for the driver’s-side door latch and she pulled, falling backward out the door. Footsteps pounded on the hard earth as her attacker ran around the back of the car. Laney dove behind the open door and crawled on all fours to the front, searching the ground for anything she could use to defend herself.
In the distance, a door banged open. Ryan? Footfalls thumped at the far end of the car, and Laney glanced around the bumper to see a black figure dashing toward the gap between the nearest two trailers.
“Freeze!” Ryan commanded, his voice filling her chest with relief. He stood on the steps outside the trailer, gun out and aiming at the back of the squad car.
But her attacker ignored the order and dove behind the nearest trailer, out of sight. Without hesitating, Ryan leaped off the steps and sprinted past Laney in hot pursuit.
Her heart beat double time, but she swallowed in a couple of deep breaths and climbed back into the police car. It took a few tries to find the right button to activate the radio in the center console. She had no idea what codes Ryan would have used, but when the dispatcher answered, she sputtered out an account of what had happened. The dispatcher told her backup would arrive within ten minutes. She sat behind the wheel, waiting in eerie silence for the report of a guns
hot or some other telltale sign Ryan had caught up with her attacker.
God, please keep him safe.
An engine roared to life on the far side of the trailer park. Was it some unsuspecting resident or the getaway car?
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel for a few eternal minutes before Ryan jogged back into view, face red from exertion and gun secured back in its holster. His eyes widened briefly as he scanned the road for her, until she waved from inside the car.
A moment later, he knelt beside the open driver’s-side door, his face lined with concern. “Laney, are you all right?”
She gave herself a quick once-over, looking for any sign of injury. Everything felt normal, though she still bore fragments of safety glass on her clothing. “Yeah, I think I’m okay.” She glanced at Ryan, her lips twisting. “I tried to wait in the car like you said.”
He raised an eyebrow, humor wrestling with the worry in his dark eyes. “You never were any good at following instructions.”
Laney hid a smile. “I take it whoever it was got away?”
“Unfortunately, yes. He had a truck waiting a few streets over. With that ski mask he was wearing, I didn’t get a good visual. Give me a minute and I’ll call it in.”
“Already done,” she said as she climbed out of the car. “Backup will be here any minute.”
Ryan quirked an eyebrow. “Nice work. Then I’ll report the getaway car.”
She stood to one side, brushing glass fragments and dirt off her clothes as Ryan’s voice drifted from the inside of the police cruiser. “Blue Ford truck, pre-1997...”
He returned a moment later. “They’ll dispatch somebody to look for the truck. Henderson and Johnson will be here in five to help gather evidence.”
Another crime scene. How many more would she be part of before this case ended? Or someone ended her?
And the million-dollar question behind it all—why? Why her, when dozens of other forensic anthropologists could take her place?
Buried Evidence Page 4