by Nalini Singh
“I hope not.” Hard lines bracketing his mouth. “Because that area was heavily searched. I asked Nikau to send extra teams out there.”
Anahera sucked in a breath. “That means if it is her, somebody deliberately returned to put her there.” She had to say it out loud to get the horror of it straight in her mind. “I’ll come with you.”
Will shook his head. “You’d just have to sit in the car. I can’t take a civilian into a possible crime scene.” He rose along with her. “I’ll call you the instant I know anything.”
Frustration gnawed at Anahera, but she didn’t argue. This might be a small town, the rules not as hard and fast, but Will was a cop, a good one. And Anahera wasn’t about to mess up a future trial by being where she shouldn’t be; evidence mattered, blood splatter mattered. “I’ll keep my phone with me.”
Walking him to the door, she thought about if she should kiss him good-bye, but what they’d done in the night wasn’t quite settling in the pale dark before dawn.
“I’ll call you,” Will repeated before heading out across the porch. He was halfway down the steps when he turned and came back. Closing one hand around the side of her face, he pressed his lips to hers.
Embers low in her belly ignited, but this was no long burn. Will drew back almost at once and jogged over to get into the police SUV. She watched him reverse into the mist, her lips burning from his kiss and her face bearing the imprint of his palm.
47
Will’s radio crackled as he drove away from a woman for whom he’d never planned. Despite not having any staff who might contact him, he wasn’t surprised by the static. Something about the area did funny things to his radio every now and then. One of the old bushmen had been with Will during a previous static burst; he’d immediately made the sign of the cross.
“Ghost,” he’d muttered. “Never figured one would want to haunt a cop car.”
Will wasn’t afraid of ghosts. It was the real-life monsters walking around that terrified him. Not for the first time, he thought about Vincent Baker and how his mask of grief had slipped when Will mentioned speaking to his wife, how quickly Miriama had changed from his true love to an object he’d used and discarded.
Then there was Kyle Baker.
Both hiding in plain sight. But where Kyle’s ego led him to flip off authority, Vincent had played the part of a trustworthy friend and neighbor his entire adult life. He’d never let the mask slip in public. Which, to Will’s mind, made Vincent the more dangerous of the two brothers.
And Will had nothing on either Baker.
What he did have—courtesy of an email that had come through last night after dinner—was a disturbing report about Tom Taufa: Assault on a girlfriend when he was thirteen and spending the summer with his grandparents in Tonga. Bad enough to have left the girl with a broken nose.
All of which Will only knew because of that scribbled anonymous note telling him to “look into Tom Taufa’s record in Tonga.” He’d followed it up to cross it off the list, never expecting his contact to confirm the allegations.
Boy was never officially charged, the other officer had written. Families sorted it out between themselves. Felt sorry for Tom because his father had been in and out of prison since he was a baby, and his mother had mental health problems.
But the villagers have long memories, and it was a big, shameful thing for his grandparents. They say he’s been making it up to them since—and the girl involved has forgiven him. Apparently, he even helped pay for her wedding.
Tom hadn’t had a single brush with the law since then, so maybe the shock of what he’d done, accompanied by witnessing his grandparents’ shame, had put him on the straight and narrow. Or maybe Tom Taufa had become a plumber because no one noticed plumbers or thought it strange if they saw a trade van parked on the street.
Tom had also been a poor kid with dysfunctional parents to Vincent’s rich boy cocooned in the heart of a successful family.
Not the kind of boy who’d be gifted a puppy by his father.
Will’s hands flexed on the steering wheel as he drove through the eerily silent town. Even Josie’s café was cold and dark—he was used to seeing a light in there in the early morning hours, as Josie and Miriama got to work on the day’s baking. Julia Lee provided the cakes, but the breads, pies, and other products were all made in-house. Every so often, when he had an extremely early start, he’d knock on the door and the women would open up to make him a coffee to take on the road.
The weather didn’t help the sense of gloom that clung to Golden Cove.
The clouds had returned with a vengeance; they hung black and heavy, just waiting to thunder down with rain. He always had a couple of tarps in the back of the SUV, along with some tent poles, in case he had to protect a crime scene from rain, but even as he turned into the road that led to the dump, he was hoping there was nothing to protect, nothing to see.
The idea of Miriama forever gone, all that light, all that talent snuffed out, it seemed hellishly wrong. But hellishly wrong things did happen. Sometimes, they happened to small boys, and sometimes, they happened to beautiful young women just about to spread their wings.
Parking his vehicle in the same spot he had when he’d come out here with Anahera, he grabbed a flashlight, then ran across the dump to the spot where the informant had told him he’d be waiting. “Shane!” he called out from a short distance away, after spotting the writer sitting on what looked to be an upturned plastic crate.
The other man jerked up his head, the dark curls of his hair tumbling across his forehead. “You actually came,” he said, getting to his feet and thrusting that hair back with a shaking hand. “I’d almost convinced myself I’d hallucinated the entire nightmare.”
Taking in the other man’s stark white features and dilated irises, Will said, “You don’t have to come with me. Just tell me where you found it.”
Shuddering, Shane sank back down on his makeshift seat. “That way”—he pointed—“about fifty feet in. Follow the path.”
Will had a lot of questions for Shane, chief among them, what the hell he was doing here at this time of the morning—it wasn’t even five thirty—but first, he had to see what the other man had found.
Heading in the direction Shane had indicated, he followed the pathway of beaten-down grass that looked to have seen several pairs of booted feet relatively recently.
Shane’s find was impossible to miss.
Bones, bleached so white they glowed under the beam of the flashlight.
A full skeleton.
Nothing appeared to be missing. Not the smallest finger or toe bone. And while Will was no forensic anthropologist, he had eyes. The leg bones weren’t anywhere near long enough for a woman of Miriama’s height.
48
Will had kept his promise to Anahera. He’d called.
Just long enough to say, “It’s not Miriama.”
The full horror of his words had only penetrated after he hung up. Because Will hadn’t said there was no body. Just that it wasn’t Miriama’s. Which meant someone else was dead.
The first thing Anahera did was call Josie.
Please answer. Please answer.
Her relief when her friend said a cheery, “Hello, Ana. Are you keeping baker’s hours now?” threatened to crumple her to her knees.
Wrenching it together, she somehow managed to sound normal in her reply. “You prepping for the café at home?”
“Yes, Tom doesn’t want me in there alone right now.” A pause. “I don’t want to go anyway. It feels awful knowing Miri won’t walk in the door yawning and demanding a coffee before we get to work.”
“I’m sorry, Josie. I know you miss her.”
“So much.” Josie bit back a sob. “Even Tom misses her and you know him—he likes things settled and orderly and Miri’s never been that way. She puts smiley faces on his coffee or bags h
im up chocolate cake when he came in to grab a muffin.”
Anahera felt a stab of suspicion, shook it away at once. Tom Taufa was as in love with Josie as it was possible for a man to be with a woman; the idea of him cheating on his wife . . . no, it didn’t fit.
But she’d thought Vincent a man of honor, too. “Do they know each other well?” she asked and hated herself for mistrusting a man who’d done nothing to deserve it.
“Well, he’s her cousin—in a long, roundabout way. Used to babysit her way back when. I think he still sees her as that small girl.” A smile in her next words. “Now and then, when we see her dressed up to party, he shakes his head and mutters about her short hems. Honestly, he can be a fuddy-duddy, but I adore him.”
A man who noticed the length of a woman’s dress might just be a protective older cousin—or a jealous one. No. Anahera fisted her hand. She couldn’t allow this situation to poison her ability to trust. Tom was a stick-in-the-mud tradesman who didn’t enjoy change. He’d do nothing to fracture his life with Josie. “I’m in awe of how you’ve managed to keep him in the dark about your own wild ways, Josephine.”
Josie giggled at the pointed use of her full name. “Shh. Josephine the Bad Girl shed her skin and became Josie the Good Girl the day I realized Tom had grown up into a big, beautiful creature I wanted to kiss.”
“Yes, I remember your sudden fondness for church.” Josie had made Anahera go week after week.
Laughing, Josie said, “Faith, keeping his promises to God, that’s always been important to Tom.” Her voice softened. “I knew from the first that Tom Taufa would never break any vows he made to me.”
A sharp, beeping sound.
“Oh, I have to go! That’s the oven timer.”
Hanging up, Anahera wondered what a man of such deep faith would think of a young woman who was partner to the sin of adultery. “No,” she said again, this time with conviction. She’d known Tom his entire life and had never seen him be violent.
This whole situation was just getting to her.
She consciously put aside the dark thoughts and got herself ready for the day—and as soon as the clock ticked over to seven, she called Nikau. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t passed out drunk.”
“I’m making hot dogs for breakfast,” Nik replied. “Want one?”
“No, thanks, I’ll stick with cereal.” That done, she called Jemima, exhaling quietly when the other woman answered.
“Anahera, I’m so glad you called.”
“Is everything all right?” Anahera went to stand in the open doorway, watch dull morning light creep over a turbulent ocean. “You sound different.”
Jemima laughed. “I’m happy,” she said. “Vincent came home last night with the most gorgeous diamond necklace for me and a huge bunch of red roses. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but it’s like I have my husband back again. He’s the way he was when we were first dating.”
Anahera’s hand clenched on the phone, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I’m very happy for you,” she said, while her mind tried to make sense of Vincent’s abrupt burst of affection. “Are you both going to be in town for a while?”
“Yes. Vincent doesn’t need me to accompany him to any cocktail functions. He’s also going to fly in and out when he does have meetings. Doesn’t want to be away from me.” The poised and elegant woman sounded like a teenager in love for the first time, a giggly excitement to her.
After Anahera hung up, she stared at the sea. Was it possible that Will’s interrogation of him had brought it home to Vincent just how much he had to lose? He’d smothered Jemima in love in the aftermath. Edward had been like that at times, so suddenly loving. In his case, Anahera thought it must’ve been as a result of guilt.
With Vincent, could it be a combination of guilt and fear of losing his family?
It made sense. But Anahera wasn’t inside the Baker marriage, could only guess—and hope for Jemima’s sake that Vincent wasn’t setting her up for an even worse fall. Because it could be that he’d shrugged off Miriama’s loss and turned his attention to another conquest. It sounded cold, but it was also cold to ignore and isolate your wife while stringing along a gifted young woman full of dreams.
She called a few others on the pretext of catching up, but no one had worry in their voice for anyone but Miriama. Whatever Will had found, whoever Will had found, it wasn’t a person who’d already been missed. It might, she suddenly realized, not be anything suspicious at all—one of the locals who lived rough could’ve had an accident. Sad, but not a thing of horror.
Despite that realization, she felt too restless to stay inside the cabin. She needed air, needed the salt, the sand. Pulling on a lightweight jacket, she slipped her phone into a zippered pocket. It was cold out, the sky heavy, but Anahera didn’t want to be too comfortable. She wanted to feel the chill on her face, wanted to experience the wind cutting across her skin, wanted to be brilliantly, painfully alive.
She closed the door behind herself but didn’t bother to lock it—though, surprisingly, the old lock on the door still worked. Whoever had picked it after Anahera left Golden Cove hadn’t damaged the mechanism. Josie had even dug up a copy of the key.
While Anahera used it at night, when she slept, she couldn’t see the point otherwise. She’d hidden her laptops, old and new, under a hiding spot beneath the floorboards, and there was nothing else for anyone to take. Anahera wasn’t naïve; she knew people stole even in a small town. But she also knew that if the clouds broke, someone might stumble out of the bush seeking shelter.
She was halfway down the porch steps when she paused.
What if the person who’d taken Miriama hadn’t done it because she was Miriama? What if he’d done it because she was a beautiful young woman?
Anahera didn’t consider herself beautiful by any measure. Neither was she tall and lissome like Miriama, but she was a woman. And some predators weren’t that picky. Frowning, she went back inside the cabin and brought out a blanket to leave on the chair outside. She added a bottle of water and several energy bars.
Then she locked the door and pocketed the key.
The winds were hard but not vicious today, and she scrambled her way down to the beach without too much trouble, though she did have to keep her eyes on the path the entire way down. A single slip and she would’ve gone tumbling.
Anahera did not want her headstone to read “Death by Stupidity.”
When she reached the beach at last, her heart was racing and her breath coming in hot puffs. Drawing in the salt-laced air, she looked up at the sound of chopper blades. Daniel, no doubt, being an arrogant ass flying in such portentous weather. Her guess seemed borne out when the chopper swept around to face her.
As if he was saying hello.
Anahera waved up at him. Yes, he could be an egotistical bastard, but it wasn’t looking like he’d had anything to do with Miriama in life or in death.
The chopper turned back around, the waves frothing under the wind created by its blades, and then it was gone, sweeping across the water. She wondered where he was going that he was crossing the water rather than heading inland. Most likely, he was taking the scenic route and would swing back inland soon enough.
Shrugging off the encounter, she began to walk down the beach. The waves were big today, huge smashing things that pounded hard onto the sand. It looked like they’d been in a mean mood the previous night as well; she could see mounds of waterborne debris deposited on the wet gray sand. Long streamers of seaweed; sea glass polished and rubbed until it was as smooth as stone, no edges to it; broken and battered shells along with the odd one in perfect condition.
Anahera picked up a couple of pieces of particularly lovely sea glass. She’d collected it as a child and as a young woman, lining them up along the window where the sunlight would hit them. She’d thrown away her collection after her mother’s
death, but today, she found beauty in watching even the cloudy morning light spear through the glass.
It was as she was putting a third piece into a pocket that she spotted a huge hunk of seaweed up ahead. It almost looked like the seaweed had wrapped itself around a tree trunk or perhaps the carcass of a dolphin or small whale.
Anahera walked over, curious but careful. The seaweed sat close to the far edge of the ocean. A single freak wave and it would be pulled back in—and so would Anahera if she got too close. The seaweed fronds gleamed wet and dark, splayed out across the sand like fleshy fingers. The closer Anahera got to the hunk, the less she felt like exploring it, but she couldn’t stop her feet from moving forward. There was something about the shape of it, the way it curved. And the color. Not just green.
Pink.
Orange.
Anahera didn’t realize she was running until she’d reached the seaweed that wasn’t wrapped around anything as prosaic as wood or a whale bone. Her breath painful in her throat, she began to drag the seaweed as far as she could up the sand. She had to make sure it didn’t get sucked back out to sea.
A massive wave crashed ashore, licking dangerously at her feet. Anahera braced her legs, somehow just managing to keep hold of the seaweed and its chilling cargo. Then she pulled, pulled, pulled.
Collapsing on dry sand well clear of the water, her knees sinking into the fine grit of it, she forced herself to look at the seaweed again . . . forced herself to acknowledge that it wasn’t seaweed she’d hauled up the beach but a body. A body that was discolored and so badly damaged as to be unrecognizable, but that wore an orange top and black leggings with pink side stripes.
Miriama’s shoes were gone, but she still wore her socks.
For some reason, that single detail was enough to crush Anahera’s lungs and drive a scream from her body.
