Hatch studied an icy bead on his longneck as if it were a tiny crystal ball. Vanessa Milanos? He couldn’t picture a face. The name didn’t ring a bell either, and he certainly didn’t associate it with Cypress Bend. Cypress Bend was Princess Grace’s kingdom. Grace Courtemanche was royalty, and he’d told her that every night as they lay intertwined on the deck of No Regrets, drenched in sweat and moonlight.
But this call from Cypress Bend had nothing to do with Grace Courtemanche. Some other woman claimed he had a thirteen-year-old son. He did the math. The timing could work. In his college days, he’d spent a number of summers on St. George Island, one of the barrier islands below the Florida panhandle. He’d taught sailing to kids at a posh summer camp, and before the summer of Princess Grace, he’d had a string of women on his boat and in his bed. But he was careful about these things.
“At the risk of being blunt, I don’t leave bits and pieces of me around,” he told Evie.
“That’s part of the problem. Sounds like Vanessa Milanos wanted you in the worst way, and she admitted to her mother that since she couldn’t have you, she’d settle for a piece of you. She sabotaged your efforts at protection. Take a look at the picture in the e-mail. Same shaggy blond hair. Same baby blues. Same killer dimples. Plus Parker, being Parker, had a rush DNA test done.” Evie paused. “It’s a match, padre. He’s your son.”
Hatch’s throat constricted, and he stretched his neck, trying to ease the way for words. As a crisis negotiator, words were his tools, his constant companions, always at the ready.
“There’s more, Hatch,” Evie added. “The granny needs you in Cypress Bend pronto. It appears your son has gotten himself into trouble. He’s in jail.”
* * *
Grace needed a bomb. Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated. Just something with the ability to blow up the attitudinal Ford compact she now called her own. She unbuckled her seatbelt, reached across her car, and took a hammer from the glove compartment. Hitting something sounded good.
“’Nother dead battery, Miss Courtemanche?” The security guard that prowled the government buildings clucked his tongue as he walked up beside her.
“This month it’s the starter.”
“Man, you didn’t have problems like this when you owned that fine Mercedes. Now there was a car. You need some help, counselor?”
Help me!
Then call me! Grace shot a look at her phone on the dash. Ringer on. Fully charged. And painfully silent. No more calls from Lia Grant. And no update yet from the deputy at the sheriff’s department who promised to look into the calls immediately.
“Thanks, Armand, but I can take care of it myself.”
An hour later and with Lia Grant’s voice still echoing through her head, Grace turned onto a rutted road winding into the swamp and drove to a one-bedroom shack with a sagging front porch and rusted metal roof. Feathery cypress branches filtered the retreating sun, but even the seductive cover of lacy shade couldn’t soften the wretchedness of her new home. She climbed the rickety porch steps and tripped over a knobby column of white. Another bone, this one a grisly joint speckled with bits of dried flesh.
“Dammit, Allegheny Blue, how many of these do you have?” An ancient blue tick hound sprawled in front of the door opened a cloudy eye. He heaved himself up and rested his head against her thigh. She nudged him away with her knee. “Don’t even pretend we’re friends.”
She tossed the bone into a trashcan on the porch, where it clunked and rattled among the dozen already there. “No more bones.”
Her new housemate licked his lips, sending a line of drool across the hem of her skirt, and followed her inside where she reset the alarm, not that the shack held anything of value. Most of her furniture and home electronics were in storage. But her boss was right; her new place was remote, a good half mile from her closest neighbor, hence the security system.
With Blue at her heels, she filled the dog’s food dish with dry chow, softened with warm water. When he looked at her with drooping eyes that had seen way too many doggy years, she said, “You’re going to die of clogged arteries. You know that, don’t you?”
He licked his lips.
She sighed and opened the refrigerator.
It’s cold…Help me!
“I did!” Grace grabbed a piece of cooked bacon and slammed the door. Another wave of frosted air prickled her skin. “Okay, after the ninth call.” She tore the bacon into bits and threw them in Blue’s bowl. “What more am I supposed to do?”
Winners do, Gracie, and doers win. Not Lia’s words. Her daddy’s.
She breathed in his calm and confidence. “You need my help, Lia? Fine. You got me.” She set Blue’s bowl on the floor with a clank. The old dog thumped his tail against her leg and dug his nose into his dinner.
Grace dug out her phone and called Jim Breck, the internal security chief and her go-to guy with a local wireless phone company. The SA’s office regularly turned to him for wiretaps and call records.
“Counselor Courtemanche, why does it not surprise me that you’re working after hours?” Jim said. “Haven’t you heard there’s life beyond the office? Things like families and hobbies.”
She laughed. “Not for souls like you and me, Jim. Now, did someone from the sheriff’s department contact you this afternoon for a call search?”
“Not yet.”
Probably because the deputy didn’t have Lia Grant screaming in his ear. “I need to know the subscriber’s name and contact information on a series of calls I received.”
“Got the paperwork?”
No, and she wasn’t likely to get a subpoena, not while on vacation. “This isn’t an official investigation,” she said.
“Sorry. Can’t move forward without a subpoena.”
Sometimes you had to bulldoze past a few roadblocks. “I received nine calls from a stranger begging for my help. This whole thing could be a series of crank calls from associates of a convicted felon who’s been harassing me. Or it could be a young woman in danger and running out of time. I’m seriously leaning toward the latter.”
Jim said nothing. She said nothing, letting her track record speak.
“Let me see what I can do,” he finally said. An excruciating two minutes later he came back on the line. “Interesting.”
Without a subpoena, they were walking a fine line. “Can you verify the subscriber’s name?” Grace asked.
“No.”
“Can you verify the subscriber’s address?”
“No.”
No surprise there. “Can you verify it was a prepaid phone?”
“Yes.”
“And let me guess, the subscriber is listed as Mickey Mouse.”
Jim cleared his throat and said with a cough, “Clark Kent.”
Much like Allegheny Blue and his search for bones, Grace couldn’t let go. “Where was the phone purchased?”
“Retailer in Port St. Joe.”
“If I give you the time of the calls, can you tell me the location?” She rolled her shoulders and flexed her wrists, a warm-up of sorts, like in tennis.
“Caller didn’t activate GPS functionality, but according to the Call Data Record, the call came off the Cypress Point cell tower. It’s an OmniSite covering a three-mile section. Topo map shows dense swamp, a handful of high-end resort properties, and a few residences.”
Her wrists stilled mid-circle as she peered at the shades of gray outside her kitchen window. Lia Grant’s calls had been made within three miles of her home. Creepy coincidence? She gave both hands a shake. Even more reason to keep digging.
After thanking Jim, she called up a search engine and searched for “Lia Grant” and “Florida.” A dozen hits turned up, including one about a young woman who lived in nearby Carrabelle. Within fifteen minutes Grace had a full page of notes on the nineteen-year-old nursing student, including a current address and—she grabbed her cell—a phone number.
After eight rings, a groggy voice came on the line. “’lo.”
“Lia Grant, please.”
“Lia’s not here.” Yawn. “Who’s this?”
“Grace Courtemanche. She called me this afternoon.” Nine times. “I’m returning her call.”
“You spoke to Lia today?” Something rustled, and when the voice spoke again, all fuzziness was gone. “I’ve been trying to reach her all day. Last night she had a volunteer shift at the hospital, and she borrowed my car but hasn’t returned it. If you talk to her, tell her to get her ass and my wheels home.”
“I’ll be sure to relay the message.” Because Grace was going to find this girl. She phoned the Cypress Bend Medical Center, and the woman manning the welcome desk said Lia had not shown for her volunteer shift.
“Quite odd for Lia,” the chatty woman said. “Although she’s young, she’s a responsible little thing, a real good girl.”
Tell Momma I tried to be a good girl.
Grace hung up and reached for her purse. “No, Lia, I’m not going to talk to your mother because you’re going to tell her yourself.” The lump of dog struggled to his feet. “You’re not going with me. You shed and drool, and you stink.” She opened the front door and Blue lumbered past her, a slow-moving avalanche. “Dammit, Blue! Get back here.” He plodded across the drive and planted his butt near her car. Tonight she didn’t have time to fight. She opened the passenger door. “The vet said you’re supposed to be dead by now.”
This time her car started on the first crank, and Grace took the route from Lia’s apartment—the place she was last seen—to the medical center—the place where she never showed. She crept along the two-lane highway bordered by swamp, pine forests, and a deserted oyster processing plant that reeked of long-dead fish. No stalled vehicles. No signs of foul play.
The employee section of the hospital parking lot had two security lights, both burned out. She aimed her headlights at the rows of cars, slamming on the brake when she spotted a blue hybrid. She checked the license plate number Lia’s roommate had given her. A match.
“This is too easy,” Grace said to Allegheny Blue as they got out of the car.
The hybrid was locked. No obvious damage, but between the front tires, Grace spotted something white and knobby, like one of Allegheny Blue’s bones. She dropped to her knees, gravel digging into her shins, and pulled out a white purse. Sitting on the backs of her heels, she dug out a wallet with a driver’s license and held it up to her car’s headlight beam. Blunt bangs and a toothy grin with a slight overbite. Grace ran a trembling finger over the name.
Lia Marie Grant.
* * *
“Get prints off each door, the steering wheel, and passenger seat,” Grace told the evidence tech from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. “Also, get some more lights out here. There’s blood on the asphalt we need to get typed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The tech rushed to his van.
“My people know how to do their jobs, counselor.”
Grace spun and found Lieutenant Isabel Lang, the head of the FCSO’s Criminal Division, standing behind her with her arms crossed. Grace wasn’t a law enforcement officer, but thanks to the personal invitation from Lia Grant, she was on the hunt. “This is a priority case, lieutenant. We have a young woman missing and probably endangered.”
Lieutenant Lang slipped her phone from the holster at her belt. “Which is why I’m taking the lead.”
Excellent. The lieutenant had been with the department only a year, but Grace had worked with her on two cases. Lang had been rock solid, both in the field and on the stand.
Surround yourself with the best, and you’ll become the best. Daddy.
“You know this girl?” Lieutenant Lang asked as she scrolled through notes on her phone.
Grace had wracked her brain, recalling names at work, in the news, even at her former racquet club. “Never heard of her. She called me by name, but she could have gotten that off my voicemail. No connections that I know of.”
“I’ll have the boys hunt down the girl’s family and friends and get a search crew on Cypress Point. I want you to forward me her phone messages. Then I want you at home with doors locked.”
“I’ll be more use to you in the field. I know that area better than most of your men.”
“All well and fine, but you’re my only link to this girl. I need you safe and ready to answer your phone if she calls again.”
Grace gave a single nod. No time for counter arguments. And no worries about missing any calls. She had excellent coverage throughout Cypress Point. She pushed slow-moving Blue onto the passenger side seat and turned to the darkened swamp. “Keep breathing, Lia. Keep breathing.”
Chapter Three
Grace nosed her car to the edge of a bayou spiked with branches that reminded her of bony fingers clawing out of the water. Lifting the binoculars from her chest, she searched the shore for the tip of a wooden box, disturbed earth, footprints, any sign of Lia Grant. Next to her in the passenger seat Blue lifted his head. His nose twitched.
“Must be bacon out there.” The dog—allegedly one of the best hunting hounds in the Southeast—had been snoring like an airboat at full throttle for the past hour.
His ears perked, and he jumped to his feet, aiming a low growl out the driver’s side window. She followed his gaze, squinting through spirals of fog to a stand of shivering shrubs. She tapped her brakes. The headlights flickered. “Don’t you even think about dying on me,” she warned her car.
The dog leaned across her, his growl deepening. The shrubs shook. Leaves tumbled to the earth. Blue bared his teeth. His body convulsed.
“Take it easy, old man.” She dug her fingers into the folds of his neck and scrubbed. “I can’t handle you and the car dying on me out here.”
Blue stretched his neck and let loose a long, low bellow. A branch snapped, and a dark, lean shape darted on two legs from the shrub toward a stand of pines. She shoved aside Blue to get a better look. The moon glinted off a piece of shiny metal. A belt buckle? The blade of a shovel? Her heart hammered the pearls dangling from her neck.
Blue planted his front paws in her lap and leaped out the window, a narrow missile of muscle and gnashing teeth. He bayed, the rumble rattling the night, as he chased the shadowy figure up a tree. Grace jammed the car in reverse and aimed the fading headlights at the stand of pines. The lights flashed off the silver.
She banged her fists on the steering wheel. “Congratulations, Blue. You just busted a garbage-loving bear for possession of a can of baked beans.” Grace shoved open the door and slogged through decaying leaves and twigs to the pines. She grabbed the dog by the collar. His tail thumped her leg. “Glad one of us had fun.”
She dragged him toward her car when a shrill noise cut the night. Bull frogs and crickets silenced. The bear stopped rooting in the can.
“Was that a pho—”
Rrrrrring!
The back of her neck prickled. Blue growled. She spun toward the ringing sound, which came from an ancient cypress tree with buttress roots the size of her shack. “Who’s there?” Grace demanded.
Rrrrrring!
Every muscle in her legs tightened. “Lia? Is that you?” Someone could be calling the young woman’s phone, which meant the girl and the box that held her could be nearby, just inches below her feet. Grace ran toward the tree. “Lia! It’s Grace. I’m here to help. If you can’t talk, make some kind of noise.”
Grace tucked back the sides of her hair, praying for a bang or clatter or even a whisper of breath. Blue stood at her side, his head jerking from side to side as he sniffed the air.
Rrrrrring!
Grace and Blue jumped in tandem. This time the sound came from behind them.
“What the—” Grace turned and squinted.
Rrrrrring!
Dampness slicked her palms. The sound came from a group of saw palmettos thirty feet up the bayou. Was it a searcher? Someone out frog gigging or poaching game?
She wiped her palms on the front of her trousers. “I’m with the Franklin C
ounty State Attorney’s office. Indentify yourself.” Grace’s words were steady, her tone calm but commanding. Never show your fear. More solid advice from her daddy.
Every sense on overdrive, she waited. Blue jabbed his nose in the air, here and there and everywhere, like he was searching but couldn’t find a scent.
Seconds ticked. She scoured the area for shifting fronds, listened for slurping mud. A minute dragged by. Two.
Rrrrring!
The ringtone shot up her spine like a ramrod. Blue yelped at the sound, now coming from a tangle of bushes behind her.
Rrrrrring!
Enough of this twisted version of phone tag. She ran to her car, grabbed her phone from the dash, and punched in Lieutenant Lang’s direct number. “Get your people on the Gilbert Bayou road, third turnoff, ASAP,” Grace said. “I found something.” Keeping her eyes on the tangle of bushes, she inched to the back of her car and squatted near the trunk, the bayou eerily silent.
The silence was wrong. Death and decay filled the bayou, but it was still a living, breathing world of creatures of the land and sea and air. She should be hearing something.
Next to her, Blue’s nose stilled, and his ears perked.
Then came the words, soft and at the back of her neck. “Quiet as a cat. Into the black.”
Grace spun. The bayou spilled out behind her, puddles of blue and black ink. She squinted through swirls of steam but saw no one.
* * *
“Try over here.” Wiregrass stabbed at Grace’s ankles as she poked her way along the shore to the saw palmettos.
Lieutenant Lang swept the high-powered spotlight across the slick mud and rotting leaves. “No footprints, no flattened grass, no broken branches.” Which had been the pronouncement for the past fifteen minutes, ever since Lieutenant Lang and two deputies had arrived in search of a fast-moving phone.
Grace studied the blue-black bayou. “Then he must have been on the water.”
The Buried (The Apostles) Page 2
