Bones Don't Lie (Morgan Dane Book 3)

by Melinda Leigh

  “I can’t believe he’s arresting us.” Lance glared out the side window.

  “We’ll call Sharp from the station,” Morgan said. “He’ll get us out.”

  Lance shook his head. “Knowing the sheriff, he’ll stick us in a holding cell overnight just to prove he can.”

  “I messaged Sharp earlier. He knows where we are. He’ll look for us.”

  “He won’t think to call the sheriff.”

  “Probably not,” Morgan agreed. “We’ll survive a night in a holding cell.”

  “You know what cells are like.” Lance frowned at her. “You don’t belong in one.”

  In her former life as a prosecutor, Morgan had interviewed plenty of criminals. Holding cells, like other jail and prison facilities, were disgusting, filthy places with open toilets and the lingering scent of vomit. From the outside, the sights and smells could gag someone with a strong stomach. The thought of being locked in one wasn’t pleasant.

  “I’m aware of that, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.” Morgan was less surprised at their arrest than Lance. He and the sheriff had butted heads one too many times. They were equally hardheaded, but the sheriff had the law on his side. Sheriff King had warned them, and Lance was right: King was just arrogant enough to want to prove he had the upper hand.

  The sheriff collected their belongings and put them in his trunk.

  Morgan turned to Lance. “You need to remain silent. I mean it. Don’t say a single word to the sheriff or anyone else at the station.”

  Male and female prisoners were not held together. She suspected Lance would be put in the holding cell, and the sheriff would handcuff her to a bench somewhere. She sensed they had finally pushed King over the line.

  “Cooperate, but exercise your right to be silent. Anything you say will be used against you. Anything.”

  “I know.” Lance’s shoulders fell. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you tonight. You were right. We should have called the sheriff and told him about Stan. Now we’ve lost a whole night.”

  “It’ll be all right.” Morgan shivered.

  Lance shifted closer, pressing his shoulder against hers. “I can’t help protect my mother from a jail cell, and now that we’re getting locked up, Stan is free to do what he wants.”

  “Stella and Brody are with your mother tonight,” Morgan said.

  The sheriff climbed into the driver’s seat, ending their conversation. As the vehicle pulled away from the curb, Morgan turned and glanced back at Stan’s bright-as-day neighborhood. Stan had seen them following his car, and he’d gone on the offensive, smartly turning the tables on them.

  No one was watching him now.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Through the window of the sheriff’s vehicle, Lance watched the dark landscape roll by. Flurries whizzed past. They stopped at an intersection, and the sheriff turned left when he should have made a right. Where was he taking them?

  “Hey,” Lance called through the wire mesh that divided the front and rear seats. “The sheriff’s station is the other direction.”

  “We’re not going to the station,” the sheriff said. “You need to be taught a lesson.”

  Lance glanced at Morgan.

  The sheriff was angry enough to inflict some payback on Lance, but surely King wouldn’t hurt her. Would he?

  “Whatever you have in mind for me, drop Morgan somewhere,” Lance said to King’s reflection in the rearview mirror.

  King ignored him.

  Morgan nudged Lance with her elbow, her eyes wide and worried. But what could Lance do? They were handcuffed in the back of a police car, a place designed specifically to keep people contained.

  The landscape became more and more rural. The sheriff turned onto a long country road. Lance snapped to attention. He knew where they were going.

  Grey Lake.

  A few minutes later, the trees opened. The lake shimmered in the darkness. But the car continued past the area where his father’s Buick had been dragged from the water. Two miles later, the sheriff turned onto a dirt lane in a thick patch of forest. Discomfort shifted to paranoia as the trees closed around the car. The car rolled to a stop. A small clearing opened to their left.

  The sheriff stepped out of the vehicle and opened the rear door. “Get out.”

  Was he going to leave them out here? He’d taken their coats, and the temperature was hovering around freezing. As far as Lance knew, the closest houses were on the other side of the lake. The hike was at least five miles.

  “No.” Lance shook his head. Next to him, Morgan shivered.

  The sheriff reached into the car, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her out of the vehicle.

  “Hey,” Lance yelled, anger and terror churning inside him. “Don’t hurt her!”

  “Then get your ass out here,” King called, dragging Morgan into the beam of the headlights. Still holding her bicep, King crooked a finger at Lance. Morgan’s face was as pale as the snowflakes swirling around her dark hair.

  Lance scrambled out of the car. Whatever the sheriff had planned, Lance couldn’t let Morgan face it alone. He walked across the clearing and stopped in front of the sheriff. King released Morgan’s arm and stepped away from her, toward the car.

  “You can’t leave us out here.” Facing the sheriff, Lance put his body between King and Morgan. They were in the middle of nowhere. With the falling temperatures, Morgan wouldn’t make it. Surely, the sheriff knew that.

  But King didn’t respond.

  “Dispatch will have a record of Stan’s call,” Lance argued. “They’ll know we were with you.”

  “Stan didn’t call. Do you really think that dumbass spotted you?” The sheriff snorted. “I was looking for you. You weren’t that hard to find. You’re predictable, and I’m a very good hunter. It’s all about knowing your prey and being able to predict its movements.”

  “Sharp will figure it out.” Lance tried to think of an argument, even though it would be futile. The sheriff had already gone beyond the law.

  Beyond reason.

  “I’m not worried about Sharp,” King said.

  Morgan seemed to shake off her shock. “What do you mean, leave us out here? You can’t do that.” The chatter of her teeth punctuated her words.

  “I can do whatever I want,” King said in a voice as cold as the falling snow. “But I have no intention of leaving you out here to freeze.”

  Lance took a deep breath. What a prick! The frigid air felt like needles in his lungs. Was this all an attempt to intimidate them? To scare them out of ever crossing him again?

  Morgan’s whole body was shaking now, and her shoulders hunched against the cold. The misery on her face stoked rage inside Lance’s chest. If the sheriff thought he could get away with a stunt like this with a PI and a lawyer . . .

  Wait.

  Even the sheriff’s ego wasn’t that big. A PI didn’t have much clout, but a respected lawyer, a former prosecutor, did. Plus, Morgan had connections. Nearly every member of her family was or had been in law enforcement.

  “This is kidnapping,” Morgan said in a quivering voice. “You’ll never get away with it.”

  No, the sheriff wouldn’t get away with leaving them to hike out of the woods in the cold. He had no intention of letting them hike anywhere. Lance could see it in King’s eyes. A veil of detachment slid down like a curtain. Anger and frustration faded. The cool that replaced emotion in his eyes was stone cold.

  He was going to kill them.

  But why?

  Lance’s belly chilled, as if he’d swallowed snow. He had no time to analyze the sheriff’s motive. Whatever the reasons, Lance could not let Morgan die.

  Instead of drawing his service weapon, King reached into his pocket. Lance shifted onto the balls of his feet. The sheriff had a spare gun. Before he cleared it from his pocket, Lance charged him. His shoulder hit the sheriff in the ribs, knocking him off balance. King stumbled backward. Without his arms for balance, Lance went down too. But
he was younger and more athletic than the sheriff. He landed on his opposite shoulder and rolled. Momentum carried him back to his feet.

  “Morgan, run!” he shouted.

  She turned and fled into the woods. The sheriff turned onto his stomach, got one foot under his body, and reached for his weapon again. Lance rushed him again, body slamming him a second time. Prepared, the sheriff stayed on his feet. Lance jumped back and drilled a front kick into his solar plexus, but the sheriff was wearing his body armor, and the kick had little impact, except to throw him off balance one more time.

  King recovered quickly and reached for his weapon again, his face a mask of determination.

  If he killed Lance, Morgan would be easy to hunt down.

  Jumping forward, Lance brought his forehead down onto the sheriff’s nose. Blood squirted, and the sheriff went down on his ass. But King had his gun out of its holster. Before he could aim, Lance kicked his arm and sprinted for the trees.

  A gunshot echoed through the woods. The bullet hit a tree a few feet to Lance’s right. A piece of debris struck Lance in the face, but the sting barely lasted a second. He turned around a large pine and zigzagged.

  He had two objectives: stay alive and find Morgan.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  A gunshot rang through the thin air. Startled, Morgan stumbled. With her hands behind her back, she had no hands to catch her fall. She went down on one knee. Pain shot through her kneecap, but it was fleeting and adrenaline blotted it out.

  Lance!

  Had King shot him?

  Branches crashed. Lance?

  Or King . . .

  Continue to run or circle back?

  Morgan’s lungs burned. Her thighs burned. Everything burned.

  The most running she’d done in the last six years was teaching Ava how to ride a bike. Trying to find any sort of stride on the uneven forest floor with her hands bound behind her back felt impossible. She didn’t want to leave Lance behind if he was wounded. But if he wasn’t wounded, he would catch up easily. She would be the one to slow him down.

  She put her feet together and squatted until her chest pressed against her thighs. She slid her bound hands under her butt until they were behind her knees. Then she rocked onto her back and wiggled her feet through one at a time. When she stood, her hands were in front of her body.

  A rock the size of a fist on the ground caught her eye. She grabbed it, pushed to her feet, and broke into a jog. Out of breath, she sucked the freezing air in through her mouth. If it was King on her trail, he’d hear her gasping for air from a half mile away. Lungs on fire, she ducked behind a tree.

  The crashing came closer.

  Once she stopped moving, Morgan shivered. She pressed against the tree trunk, using it as a shield and wind-block.

  Please, let it be Lance.

  Steeling herself, she peered around the tree and raised the rock over her head. A body flew toward her. Black pants. Black shirt. Legs churning. Strides sure and swift despite the hands bound behind him.

  Lance.

  Relief weakened her for a second. Then she pushed away from the tree and staggered toward him.

  “Keep going.” He barely broke stride, his voice just a whisper.

  She stumbled after him. She had no idea how far her initial sprint had taken her, except that it wasn’t far enough.

  He slowed his pace and lined his shoulder up with hers. For him, the pace was a light jog.

  “Where is he?” she whispered in three pants.

  “I don’t know,” Lance said, his words barely audible over the sound of her footsteps. He frowned at her. “Let’s walk for a minute.”

  She slowed to a walk. A stitch in her side doubled her over. She pressed her hands against it.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Fairly sure I broke his nose, but I doubt that will slow him down for long. We need to keep moving. You got through your handcuffs?”

  “I fell.” She huffed and puffed, her lungs working like fireplace bellows to catch up on airflow. But the incoming air was so cold, she felt like she was inhaling needles. “Seemed like a good time.”

  He nodded and veered to the left.

  Morgan jerked her hands to the right. “But the road is that way.”

  “It’s unlikely that a car will come by this late at night. The road is too open. He’ll catch us. There are houses on the other side of the lake.” He scanned the darkness. “Our best chance is to keep the lake on one side.”

  Morgan’s gasps and heart rate slowed, but with the reduced activity, the cold hit her hard.

  “Can you move faster now?” he asked.

  She nodded and broke into a heavy, toe-dragging jog. She tripped. A thin branch cracked under her foot, the sound carrying through the quiet woods. She regained her balance, but the temperature and exhaustion were taking their toll. Her movements were clumsy.

  She was running as fast as she could. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He could move a lot faster without her. She would slow him down. He was going to get killed because of her.

  “You should run ahead and get help,” she said. “I won’t make it. It’s too cold, and I’m too out of shape.”

  “I will not leave you. We are stronger together, remember?”

  But tonight, she was the weak link in their partnership. Physically, she could not match Lance’s strength and conditioning.

  She hadn’t even begun to process what the sheriff had done. Did this mean King had killed Crystal and the Hoolihans? What about Mary? Had the sheriff tried to kill Lance’s mother? Why?

  Whatever it was must be related to Mary’s death and Vic’s disappearance. King had been the chief deputy in 1994. Only one thing linked the sheriff’s department to August 10, 1994: Lou Ford’s death.

  A mental image of Eric’s bruised face appeared in her mind. My face hit the floor when the sheriff handcuffed me.

  The sheriff had used excessive force when he’d arrested Eric. Had he been involved in Ford’s death? How? King hadn’t been the arresting officer. As chief deputy, had he initiated a cover-up?

  Morgan tripped over a rock and stumbled to her knees. The pain brought her back to the present.

  Lance took her fall as an opportunity to roll to his back and work his cuffed hands in front of his body the same way she had.

  She got her foot under her body and stood, swaying from lack of oxygen.

  They paused for a moment. Morgan caught her breath. Lance listened.

  He put his lips to her ear. “I don’t hear him.”

  “He’s out there.” Morgan felt the sheriff behind them, a shadowy presence, a threat that her body recognized even if her eyes and ears couldn’t discern his location.

  “Stop thinking,” he whispered. “Just put one foot in front of the other.”

  But they both knew that King wouldn’t let them go. He was out there. And he was coming after them.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  He should have known Kruger wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  Face aching, he climbed to his feet and holstered his pistol. Kruger was too far away to hit with a handgun. He watched the handcuffed man disappear into the trees. Kruger moved with impressive speed and agility.

  But he wasn’t worried.

  He walked to the rear of his vehicle and opened the trunk. Opening his first aid kit, he mopped the blood from his face. He punched an instant ice pack and held it over his throbbing nose. Kruger had likely broken it. A few minutes with an ice pack now might stave off some swelling. Clogged nasal passages would slow him down.

  Besides, he was in no rush. They were miles away from help, and even Kruger couldn’t run at top speed through the woods in the dark. The PI would have to slow down or risk breaking an ankle. But even if Kruger could make good time, he didn’t have to catch Kruger. He only had to catch Ms. Dane. The counselor was smart, loyal, and determined, but she was not athletic.

  And Kruger would never leave her.

  The key to a successful hunt is knowi
ng your prey and being able to predict its behavior.

  They were both handcuffed and unarmed. No one knew where they were.

  He moved aside the evidence bag containing Kruger’s and Dane’s personal possessions. When he’d stashed their phones in the trunk, he’d removed the batteries. No one would be able to track them. Their last known location was outside Stan Adams’s house. If Dane’s sister on the SFPD went looking for her, that was where she’d start.

  Maybe he could plant some evidence at Stan’s house . . .

  He’d sort it out later. Tonight, his focus had to be on stopping Kruger and Dane. Those two were relentless. They’d discovered Lou Ford’s death. It was only a matter of time until they tied Ford’s death to Mary’s.

  He removed the battery from his own phone. He wanted no GPS record of his upcoming trek through the woods either.

  After laying the ice pack aside, he took four ibuprofen tablets from his kit and swallowed them with water. He stripped off his coat and uniform shirt and tossed his Kevlar vest into the trunk. Kruger and Dane weren’t armed, and the vest would slow him down. Instead, he layered a long-sleeve thermal shirt and a fleece pullover, then put his coat back on. He exchanged his campaign hat for a wool cap.

  Then he began loading his many pockets: water, protein bars, spare fully loaded magazines, a flashlight he wouldn’t use unless necessary, a compass, fire starter sticks, and matches. He didn’t plan to be out all night, but a good hunter was always prepared. Reaching back into the trunk, he added a silver emergency blanket.