by Selena Kitt
“Hot males don’t make bad mates. They are often very loyal. My partner and I have been together for a decade now. I still love him and he’s still the best looking guy I’ve ever seen.” Meg’s smile saddened. “That’s the only thing about this job. I hate being away from home.”
“No wish to settle down and start a family?”
“We’ve discussed it, but it’s never the right time.”
Meg slouched back on her chair, seeming to be unaware of her own natural beauty. Then that was probably one of the reasons Jade had clicked with her so fast. She was natural, without pretention. Jade shook her head. “Don’t think there is any one right time. If you have a strong foundation, you may want to think on it. You’re what…thirty-three or thirty-four?”
“Thirty-seven and turning thirty-eight in a few months. I know the clock’s ticking but that’s not the best determining factor. I’d rather know that gallivanting off on these jaunts is out of my system so I’m content to stay home as a mom. I want to look forward to that stage of my journey instead of feeling tied down by it.”
“That’s reasonable. At least then you’ll be ready inside.” Jade looked down at the stacks of charts in front of her. She might have to work all weekend to get caught up at this rate.
“Hmmm. What about you? No desire to have kids? Although you have more time than I do?” Meg smiled.
Inside, Jade winced. “Yes, I still have time. I’ve thought about it a lot. I was engaged, looking forward to starting a family. It’s amazing how much your perspective changes after a breakup.”
“Breakups are always tough. If you didn’t make it to the married part, chances are you’re much better off without him.”
Jade agreed. She was so much better off. “I know that now. But that’s the thing, when you’re in a relationship it’s hard to see what you really do have. You’re too close, so to speak.”
“True enough. Just don’t take that kind of baggage to your date tonight. Dane looks like he’s the kind of guy who gets out and enjoys life a little. Sounds like you could use the extra attention.”
Jade nodded. “I’m looking forward to that.”
The trek to Peppe’s cabin took only a few minutes. They walked past a clump of spindly trees, their steps sounding loud on the hard-packed dirt path. Dane stopped and turned around. “I thought he was a lot further away. Although that’s a good thing.” He grinned. “I actually have plans for tonight.”
John stared at him in astonishment. “Really? Who is she?”
Dane shook his head. “Not sure I want to say. I haven’t let a lady get close like this in a long time. I’m taking her out tonight.”
“Really? Wow!” He might have been planning to say more but they’d reached the cabin door. There was no sound from within. John climbed the first and then the second stair before turning back to his brother. “All joking aside…” He hesitated. “Peppe isn’t quite right. I know I haven’t said too much about him. It’s complicated. He has good days and bad days but his good days are often hard to distinguish from the others.”
John looked behind him quickly, uneasily. “I don’t know what shape he’s going to be in.
Dane looked at the cabin door behind his brother. There was a wide porch out front but the cabin had to be decades old. If it was sound, age was no problem, but this building could also use some help. Damn. He needed to have a serious talk with his brother. “My question is why is this such an issue?” He strode in front of his brother, opened the door and reeled backward. “Oh for Christ’s sake.”
His arm came up to protect his nose. He stumbled backwards and down the stairs, coughing. After a moment, he bent over his knees and took several deep breaths. “What is that smell? Jesus, John. Please tell me the old man isn’t living in that.”
“The place has been cleaned several times, but that damn smell never goes away.” John winced. He stood with his back to the door, staring back the way they’d come. “That’s why I can’t do this. I’m standing here now because I can’t force myself to go inside. How sad is that?”
Dane took several deep breaths, trying to clear his head. “Damn it, John. Leaving someone to live in that sewer is criminal. If you won’t do something about this, then I will.” He fisted his hands on his hips. “But you won’t like my methods. I’ll call in the authorities over this.”
John snorted. “Like they’re going to give a shit. This isn’t the U.S., Dane. There aren’t the same regulatory bodies there are back home.” He grunted. “Besides Tasha would never forgive you. Or me. They look after their own here.”
Home? That’s the first he’d heard his brother refer to the U.S. as home. Did his brother want to return to Seattle? Take his family with him? Dane would have to give that some thought. In the meantime, this mess had to be dealt with. “That’s fine, if they do look after their own. Living in this cabin can’t be good for anyone. Damn it, John, stand and be a man.”
John shuddered, releasing a deep breath. His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes briefly. “Fine. I will look for someone tomorrow and I just won’t tell her.”
“You’re going to have to hire more than one person or you won’t keep the first one. This place needs to be burned. It’s unbelievable.”
John turned to face the open door and frowned. “I wonder why Peppe hasn’t come out. He never misses a good fight.”
“Then go in and see. For all you know the old man died from the rot in there.”
Shooting his brother a dark look, John took a deep breath and raced inside. He came out several minutes later gasping for air. “He’s not here. I wonder if he’s taken off again?”
Dane snorted. “Hell, I wouldn’t stay in there either. Does he go out much?” Dane spun around wondering where the hell the old man could have disappeared. If he carried the aroma of this cabin they should smell him miles away.
“He’s been on his own for a long time so I have no idea. I’ve avoided coming here for months. But from what Emile and Tasha have said, he used to take off for weeks on end.”
Dane hopped up, took a deep breath, pinched his nose and walked into the small cabin. There was no sign of the old man. His bed was empty, the one chair in the place… Empty. There was nothing but dirt, trash, waste.
He shuddered. Unable to hold his breath any longer, he bolted outside.
“Whew. That is beyond rank, John.”
“Tasha said Emile had been shaving and washing the old man.” John turned back to stare inside the small cabin. “I wonder if Tasha knows Emile hasn’t been looking after him?”
“He’s her brother. She has to know what he’s like.”
Dane stepped several steps further away, gasping for clean air. “Hell, I know what Emile’s like and I can tell you he does the minimum at every turn. If he can get out of a job, he will and if he can get away with a half-assed job – then consider that done too.”
John shuddered. “I wonder if he’s even been feeding him?”
“I’d say chances are, he started out with good intentions a few months ago, whenever Tasha quit looking after him and then he’s done less and less each trip back here. That’s probably why Peppe’s taken off.”
John’s face twisted.
“What?” Dane puzzled why John wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“Tasha quit looking after her father a long time ago. She’s using her pregnancy as an excuse to get out of coming to help with her father for right now, but she had a broken leg before that, remember? Anyway I don’t think she’s cared for him for close to a year not since the big quake, I think.”
Staring at the woods around them, Dane shook his head. “Why? I don’t understand. I’m trying, John but your new family is a little weird.”
“I know. The thing is you don’t realize just how weird until something happens. It’s like the earthquake changed things. She wasn’t like this a couple years ago. I loved her so much then.”
“Then?” Dane jumped on that one word. It went along with John’s ea
rlier comment about back home.
John ran his right hand over his short dark hair. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just that she was more loveable back then. I feel like I live in a war zone. Each day I have to work hard at being tolerant and patient. Sometimes, I’m not sure I’m going to make it to the end of the pregnancy.”
“As it is, I didn’t think you had it in you to be this patient. I don’t think I could be.” Dane meant it. He thought he’d been a very patient man until he’d seen his brother’s tolerance. His brother was a bloody saint.
“I have to find a way to make this all work. I can’t lose it all again.”
It was that one word – again – that broke Dane’s heart. “Damn it John. You have to stop letting the past haunt you. You’re not going to lose Tasha. Just because you lost Elise in a car accident that doesn’t mean you’re going to lose every woman you love. You don’t have to lose anything or anyone. If this isn’t working out, you need to take another look and figure out how to make it work.”
“I know… I know,” he cried. “Why do you think I’ve been paralyzed with inactivity on the Peppe issue? And it’s the same for my company. I’m bankrupt. My marriage is on the rocks and I don’t know how to save it. My child is due to be born in a month and I don’t know how to make that a good thing. I can’t stand my li––”
John’s voice cut out as if sliced by a knife. He stared at Dane, horrified. “Oh God. I didn’t say that, did I?”
Dane’s heart broke. “Yes, you did.” He pursed his lips and thought about what John had really said. “How much of your problem is because you don’t know what you really want?” John appeared to not want anything he currently had – but had he figured that out yet? Some truths had to be reached on their own. God help John if that was what he decided.
John lifted a trembling hand. “Probably everything. I should never have started my own company. I’m not cut out for it. I need a job that pays decent and lets me go home to my family every day. I can’t keep doing this.” John plunked down on the bottom step. “I haven’t been able to tell Tasha that there’s no money left. No business left.”
“That’s why you’ve been so patient and let her walk all over you?”
He nodded. “I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams. I’ve been waiting for the right time to discuss it, but it never comes.”
“Jesus John, there is no right time for bad news. You have to tell her.” Dane groaned and stared at the festering cabin in front of him. “That’s why you haven’t done anything about Peppe; you don’t have the money, do you? What about the chunk I gave you?”
Gazing at his brother with a defeated look, John shook his head.
“No. It’s all gone.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dr. Mike stared at the bones, the poor light in the lab trailer derailing his progress. He hadn’t left with the others even though it was end of work on a Friday afternoon – their time for beer out on the garden patio. And beer would be good right now. Not to mention he’d planned on talking to them about the hike he had in mind. Only he hadn’t had a chance to check the options yet.
This mess with the manacles and bones sitting on his table had to be sorted out first.
He didn’t know what to do with the information he had. The authorities didn’t care. The local people didn’t appear to care. So few people had shown for DNA tests, he was beginning to suspect all their processing would be for naught. They could have just created a second gravesite right beside the first one and moved over the bodies that didn’t fit the parameters of the ones they were looking for. Would have cut the work in half.
Damn it. He knew these women had been murdered. He’d put his thirty-year reputation against it. And no one cared. That’s what hurt the most. All these women mistreated, captive for who knows how long… And then they’d been murdered. And no one cared.
And the details his team unearthed weren’t required or welcome because, as far as the police were concerned, this wasn’t something they were going to follow up.
In the U.S. there would have been teams of specialists digging out this site to determine the type of dirt above and around, collecting the bugs etc. Here, there was only him – and his team. And he didn’t have the necessary equipment to collect all the evidence and record all the details.
Tony had been adamant. Pass over the information to the authorities and get off the case. He’d said, ‘There’s no joy in being the bearer of the bad news here. They aren’t going to thank us, not with the thousands of people unaccounted for here. Let it go. Process and move on.’
Speaking to the empty trailer, Dr. Mike said, “Right. And what about justice for these women?”
He walked over to the front of the trailer and stuck his head out. When he looked around, he could hear something rustling in the woods, only he couldn’t see anyone.
“Hey, doc.”
Dr. Mike squinted. John’s brother-in-law walked toward him. Emile. Dressed for the heat in tank top and blue jeans – the uniform of choice the world over – he strolled toward the lab trailer.
“Hi. Are you looking for Dane?”
“Nah, I know where he is, we’re all looking for my father who’s gone wandering. He’s not quite right in the head and gets lost easy.” Emile’s gaze shifted from the lab trailer to the rocks surrounding the clearing.
“Oh dear. I haven’t seen him around. Sorry.” Dr. Mike couldn’t help but glance around the clearing at the same time.
Emile shoved his hands into his pockets. “No problem. I figured you were here, so I asked.”
Dr. Mike hesitated. He hated to ask the young man, but a few minutes of his help would be huge. He needed to get the remains stored away. “Hey, while you’re here, would you mind giving me a hand moving a few things over to the other trailer?”
Emile’s face twisted. “As long as it’s not bodies. I don’t hold on touching the dead.”
“It is bones, only you won’t have to touch them. I already have them in sealed bags, on the stretchers.” His words rushed out to reassure Emile. “I just need you to grab an end and help me move them to the other trailer.”
Emile looked like he wanted to refuse but couldn’t figure out how. Dr. Mike pressed his advantage. “Honest. A five-minute job – not even that. I can’t leave them here over the weekend. They need to be locked in the reefer truck.”
Emile’s face scrunched in horror.
Dr. Mike spoke faster, before Emile could run as far and as fast he could in the opposite direction. “I promise. You won’t even see them. They are packed up. They’re so small I can even put them both on the same stretcher.” He stared hopefully at Emile. “Please!”
Emile stared around as if hoping someone else would show.
“There’s no one else. It has to be you.”
Emile’s shoulders sagged. “One trip – and I don’t touch anything but the stretcher handles.”
“Done.” Dr. Mike brightened. “Let’s do it right now. It’ll be over in five minutes.”
Emile, once the decision was made, followed along willing enough. He grabbed the one end of the stretcher and waited while Mike shifted the bags and laid them on top of each other. Mike grabbed his end of the stretcher. “Okay, here we go.”
He’d been right. The trip took about two minutes. And Emile, true to his word, refused to help open doors or touch the bags. Mike shook his head, trying hard to understand. Not everyone could handle his profession. Death freaked out so many people.
Too bad. Everyone came to the same end, regardless of how hard they tried to avoid it.
“Thanks Emile. I can take it from here.”
Emile backed away from the freezer trailer as if afraid he’d be bagged and laid next to the others. Mike watched him almost hyperventilate with relief.
“Hey, are you all right?” He walked down to check on him.
Emile glanced back. “Yeah. I’m okay. Just don’t want to be in there.” He motioned toward the trailer. “Have these one
s been identified now?”
“Not yet.” Mike looked back down the long interior. “We have lots to do.”
“What about the ones we just brought over. Are they done?”
“They’ve been processed, just not identified.” Mike walked out the rest of the way and slammed the heavy door shut. He slid the bolt closure across and snapped on the big lock.
“Most are on one side. We put those on the opposite side,” Emile pressed.
“Yeah.” Mike gave him a weary smile. “Those ones are special.”
Emile’s gaze narrowed. “Why? Are they not all special?”
With a long look at the gravesite and the bodies that still waited to be uncovered, Mike couldn’t help but agree with him. “That is so true. Yet even in a large grave like that there are some that are different.” Mike headed back to the lab. “Thank you for the help.”
Emile followed him back and glanced around the small room. “Lots of equipment. Not much space.”
“Yeah. That should be our new logo.” Mike glanced up at him with a smile – in time to see horror scrunch Emile’s face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Emile pointed to the floor where they’d moved the stretcher. “What’s that?”
Bending down, Mike found two chain links that must have fallen out from one the women’s body bags. The rusty iron clanged as he placed the links into a clear bag. “Damn. I missed these. I wonder which bag they came from.”
Emile’s face paled. He straightened and raced outside.
“Thanks again for your help, Emile,” Dr. Mike called after him.
He never responded. Mike walked outside, sealing the chain in a small plastic bag. Emile was bent over a bush off to one side. Uh, oh.
As Mike watched, Emile coughed and spewed again. Mike stepped back to give him some privacy. Damn. He hadn’t meant to upset him. Some people just didn’t handle this stuff well. He set about putting the piece of chain away properly.
He walked out to check on him a few minutes later but Emile had left.
