The Buried (The Apostles)

by Shelley Coriell

  “It’s important to look out for your buddies. I don’t blame you for keeping quiet.”

  The stick grew still. “You don’t?”

  “My guys, my team, I’d do anything for them.” It was the dead truth. Hatch would put his life on the line for his teammates, and he had, many times, and they for him.

  Alex slumped into the chair across from him. “I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?”

  Finally. An opening. “Depends on what you do from here.”

  The chair leg in Alex’s hand clattered to the table. “Am…am I going to prison?”

  “Nah, the state of Florida doesn’t imprison thirteen-year-olds for taking forty bucks from a shrimp shack.” Hatch casually reached across the table, palmed the chair leg, and slid it to his lap. “But you can do time in juvie for threatening a peace officer.”

  The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Oh shit.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Granny is going to kill me.”

  “Yep, pal, I’d be pretty concerned about that, too.” Hatch waited. The kid’s actions and the repercussions of those actions needed to pound his head, loud and painful, like the sound of the chair crashing into the wall.

  Hatch fingered the scar on the right side his jaw. He’d weathered a few crashes, poundings, too, most of them of the self-destructive nature, but lucky for him, he also had a great aunt Piper Jane who’d hauled his sorry, fifteen-year-old ass out of juvenile detention and onto her thirty-five-foot Tartan. Together, the two of them had sailed around the world.

  Those first few months he pulled ropes until his palms bled, buffed teak until his shoulders flamed, and went hungry because he burned his dinner on the galley stove. For more than a year, his life was the sun and sea and sails. No time for stewing and brewing. Somewhere around the Canary Islands his blisters turned into calluses. At the Suez Canal he officially went from deck hand to first mate. And by the time they sailed past Bali, Hatch knew the secret to the perfect pan-seared grouper. Keep scales on one side. Baste with butter twice.

  That sail and the sailor behind it had saved his life. Unfortunately, Great Aunt Jane Piper was docked in the Sydney Harbor, which left him holding the compass for Alex. God help them all.

  Hatch cleared his throat. “Well?” He held his breath, surprised at how much he wanted the answer to that question.

  Alex studied a scab on his elbow. “What would you do? Being FBI and all?”

  The tightness stretched across Hatch’s throat eased. Alex had made some piss-poor choices, but he wasn’t dumb. “First I’d tell that deputy I made a bad choice and apologize for threatening to break a chair leg over his skull. Then I’d hand over the names of my two buddies. Then, pal, I’d get down on my knees and pray there’s an organization in town that needs a whole hell of a lot of community service this summer.”

  The kid picked at the scab, and a dot of blood trickled down his elbow. Hatch handed him the blue scarf. Alex’s lip curled, contorting his face. Hatch lifted both hands. Okay. He was backing off.

  A minute ticked by. Another.

  Time to close the deal. Hatch stuffed the scarf in his pocket.

  “Fine.” Alex swiped the blood on his jeans and looked Hatch in the eye. “I’ll do it.”

  Hatch shot prayers of thanks to God, the boy’s Granny, and anyone else who’d been guiding his son these past thirteen years. Alex was in choppy waters and rudderless, but he wasn’t completely lost. Not yet.

  “Hey, that magic trick with the scarf.” Alex spat the words. “I know how you did it. It’s fucking stupid.”

  * * *

  Grace’s construction crew had left, replaced by members of the county’s forensic unit who’d roped off a section of the construction site with crime scene tape and colored flags. With tiny shovels and feathery brushes, they sifted through sandy soil, unearthing bones.

  Old bones, Grace assured herself as she paced along the crime scene tape. Denuded of all flesh and gray in color, these bones could not belong to Lia Grant, who was still missing. She’d wanted to head into the swamp at sunup to continue the hunt for the girl, but the detective investigating the grave demanded she stay put until he had a chance to question her about the bones.

  Not bones, but a human being. The person cradled in the earth where her dream home would be built had once been a living, breathing human being. Until now. Until her. Her feet stilled, sinking into the damp earth. In the courtroom she was no stranger to uncovering old skeletons rattling in defendants’ pasts, but there was something disturbing about putting down roots over someone’s grave.

  A siren wailed and lights flashed as Lieutenant Lang pulled up to the excavation site. She hopped out of the SUV and jogged to Grace’s side. “Any ties to Lia Grant?”

  Grace shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. Still no news on Lia?”

  The lieutenant wore wrinkles, swamp mud, and grim lines around her mouth. “Not a damn thing. I stopped by to see if this buried body might shed light on the one I’m looking for.” Lieutenant Lang ducked under the crime scene tape. “Pretty desperate, huh?”

  Because Lia Grant may be running out of air. Grace followed the lieutenant. “With the sun up, we can get more searches on the Point.”

  “Absolutely.” Lieutenant Lang picked her way through the camellia bushes.

  “And we can get some deputies over to the medical center where Lia’s car was found.”

  “That’s the plan, but first, the bones.” The lieutenant stopped at the depression and nodded at the tech from the forensics team. “What do you have?”

  The man in the pit dusted the sand from his hands. “Given cranial development and femur length, definitely an adult. Pelvic tilt and girth suggest a female.”

  Like Lia. Grace knotted her fingers behind her back.

  “How long has she been here?” Lieutenant Lang continued.

  “Hard to determine at this point. Years, probably at least a decade.”

  “Anything unusual found with the body, like a phone?” Grace asked. If that was the case, they could be looking at a serial offender. A shiver rocked her spine at the thought of madness multiplied.

  He shook his head. “Nothing yet, but we still have a lot more dirt to move.”

  “Any religious symbols or markings?” Lieutenant Lang studied the surrounding area, which consisted mostly of camellia bushes and a few sycamores. “It’s possible Grace’s crew stumbled on the Giroux family cemetery.”

  “Not likely,” Grace said, even though she would prefer her crew had discovered a family’s burial plot, a place where the dead rested peacefully amid flowers, shade trees, and prayers of the living. “Lamar Giroux lived here for more than sixty years. No wife, no kids.”

  “But we did find this.” Another forensic tech held up what looked like a small black pebble. “Bullet slug. Discovered it lodged in the back of the skull.”

  Lieutenant Lang raised her weary face to the sky and let out a tired laugh. “You’re doing wonders for my job security, Grace. Got any other buried bodies I need to know about?”

  Grace was about to laugh—because with all she’d been slammed with in the past twenty-four hours, she needed to laugh—when she sucked in a gasp. “The bones.”

  With a tight knot in her stomach, she led the lieutenant from the construction site, past the black gum and myrtles, and to her shack, the one with the sagging front porch and a dented metal garbage can. She lifted the lid with one hand and pointed to Allegheny Blue with the other. “He’s been digging them up and dragging them home for months now.”

  The lieutenant took a step back. “What kind of place is this?”

  This was the land coveted by developers and half the town, the earth she’d paid for with every dollar she could scrape together, the place where she wanted to put down roots. Her home.

  “You should probably head into town for a few days,” Lieutenant Lang said. “Until we find out what’s going on here.”

  Were there other human skel
etons on the property, literally under her feet? Did any of this have to do with Lia Grant? The idea shook her to the bone. The brutal reality was Grace had nowhere to go. Her parents and grandparents were long gone, and she had no brothers or sisters. She had colleagues at work and tennis partners at the club, but not the kind she could phone and ask to crash in their spare bedrooms. She spent most nights with case files and her computer, which led to limited romantic entanglements. And she had no money to rent a hotel room.

  She settled the lid on the garbage can with barely a clank. “I’ll be fine, Lieutenant, right here.” For now she had no choice but to stay on her land amid the garden of bones.

  * * *

  As Hatch and Alex walked out of the sheriff’s station, the boy was quiet, but his gait, the set of his face, spoke volumes. Correction. Only three words.

  Fuck you, world!

  Hatch knew that hateful glare, the swagger, the attitude, and the words. Hell, he’d shouted them on a regular basis when he’d been Alex’s age, and his old man had answered with the back of his hand. A ghost of pain rammed his jaw.

  But Hatch would never raise his hand to his child, any child. He had other resources. “You want to stop and get some lunch before we go to the cemetery.”

  Alex kicked at an empty soda can that went flying across the parking lot, nearly missing a small blue Ford pulling into a space near the front door. “I want you to go to hell.”

  Hatch jammed his hand into his pocket and took out the keys to the SUV he’d sweet-talked out of the front desk clerk. Welcome to a whole new generation of father-son dysfunction. “Fine, we’ll meet with Black Jack and—”

  A woman in matched pearls the color of frosted ocean swells stepped out of the blue car, and Hatch forgot what he was going to say. Hell, he forgot to breathe. The edges of the world blurred and dimmed. His heart slammed his chest, rattling his ribs.

  He opened his mouth. No words, except for the tiny voice in the back of his head.

  Back away from the pearls, and no one gets hurt.

  He wanted to laugh. He should have laughed, but he couldn’t. His throat was too dry, too tight. The woman tugged at the pearls, as if she, too, couldn’t breathe. At last she cleared her throat and managed to say on a breathy rush, “Theodore.”

  The boy at his side asked, “Who the hell is Theodore?”

  The blonde didn’t move. Hatch didn’t breathe.

  Alex stabbed his elbow into Hatch’s gut. “And who the hell’s the hot chick in pearls?”

  Hatch focused on the jab, on the pain, on the distraction. After removing Alex’s elbow from his ribcage, he winked at Grace Courtemanche. “I’m Theodore, and this is Grace, my wife.”

  Chapter Five

  Ex-wife.” The single word rushed over Grace’s lips as she steadied herself against the side of her car. She hadn’t seen Theodore “Hatch” Hatcher for more than ten years, not since the day he’d sailed out of Apalachicola Bay with the wind in his hair and her broken heart in his hand.

  Hatch continued to stare at her with eyes the color of a steamy July sky. But then, Hatch was summer. Lazy days and lustful nights. Sun and sand. And heat. A heat so intense, even with a decade’s distance, warmth crept along her cheeks, rushed down her neck, and pooled in her belly in a bubbly geyser.

  Hatch’s dimples deepened. God, she’d forgotten how easy it was to get lost in the depth of those creases, for a man like Hatch knew how to wear—and work—a smile.

  She straightened the pearls at her neck.

  “Yep, Alex, the lovely prosecutor is correct as usual. Tell me, Grace, do you ever get tired of being right?” He lowered his voice, his words pouring over her like honey, sweet and wild and golden.

  For a moment she forgot everything and simply listened to his words, the words of a charmer. Grace tried to go to the calm, cool place in her head, but her heart slammed triple time, beating up a heat that left her dizzy. From the moment they met on St. George Island the summer after she graduated law school, Hatch Hatcher had left her off balance. She’d spent the summer teaching tennis at an exclusive children’s camp, and he’d taught sailing. That hot, whirlwind summer led to a disastrously short marriage. It took them all of ten weeks to learn the universal truth: Mind-blowing sex does not a marriage make.

  She’d come a long way since then. She was older now, stronger and harder. She straightened her pearls, centering the clasp at the back of her neck.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Hatch gave her a breezy shrug. “Just taking care of a little crisis situation.”

  The boy standing next to him, the one he called Alex and who was Hatch’s spitting image, said something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like asshole.

  Hatch’s jaw flinched. The boy’s nostrils flared.

  “I see you ended up with the Bureau,” she said to break the tension.

  “Keeping tabs on me, Princess?” He waggled his eyebrows, the wicked grin back.

  Hatch and his stupid nicknames. “It’s hard not to. One of the country’s premiere hostage negotiators receives a good deal of media attention.” When she’d known him, he’d been a sun-soaked sailor without a paycheck or a plan, and she’d been shocked when she first heard he was working for Parker Lord’s elite team of Apostles. “I saw the talk-down in Atlanta last month of the high school boy with the bomb. It was all over the news. Good for you.”

  “Good for the twenty kids in that boy’s science classroom.” Hatch rested his backside against her car, crossing his legs at the ankles.

  To any bystander, he was just a guy kickin’ back and catching up with an old flame. But this man was an Apostle. He was one of the best crisis negotiators in the world. And she damn well knew every movement he made and every word he uttered served a purpose. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “And you?” Hatch said. “I hear you’re working as an assistant state attorney and destroying bad guys with your lovely little hands.”

  “I’ve had a few successes.”

  “A few?” He laughed, but there was an edge to it. The edge surprised her. The old Hatch had been smooth, like the mirrored glass of a windless ocean. “You got what you always wanted, Princess, success so grand, so high no one can touch you. I bet your daddy’s right proud.”

  Grace’s back straightened. Hatch knew where to land a punch. “My daddy’s dead.”

  Hatch’s head dipped in a slow nod, and he remained conspicuously silent. He offered the respect the dead deserved but no condolences. No surprise there. Her daddy had despised Hatch. According to her father, Hatch was too light-hearted, lazy, and lethal to her future. Ultimately her father had been right. Marrying Theodore Hatcher had been a gargantuan mistake that had almost lost her not only her father, but her career.

  “From what I’ve heard, you’re on top of the world.” Hatch uncrossed his arms and raised his palms to the sky. “And someday I bet you’ll own it.”

  “And you’ll simply drift through it.”

  The air grew still, and the afternoon clamor of the swamp silenced. It was like the heavy, pressurized seconds before a summer storm, before the swollen clouds and electric sky clashed in a thundering display of power.

  He was the first to break. His mega-watt smile lit up his face, and he motioned to the building behind them. “And what brings you to the sheriff’s office? Are you here for business or”—his dimples sharpened like tiny scythes—“pleasure?”

  “Business.” The short, tense word catapulted her to the present. She shouldn’t be wasting precious time talking to Hatch. She’d spent the day in the swamp searching for Lia Grant, and with each passing hour, the girl’s voice grew fainter.

  It’s cold. And dark. I can’t breathe.

  Hatch uncrossed his ankles and took a step toward her. She backpedaled. He’d always been so intuitive. He knew how to read people, especially her. This skill, coupled with his gift of words, gave him the power to unnerve her like few ever could.

  She nodded at H
atch then the boy. “You’ll need to excuse me.”

  “Of course. I’ll leave you to your business.” A light flecked in his eyes, like little whitecaps in a sea of blue. “But before you go, I have something for you.”

  Hatch fanned his fingers, reached behind her ear, and pulled out a small sprig with long, waxy leaves and tiny white flowers.

  A gasp escaped the O of her lips.

  “The sweetest flower of all.” Hatch placed the small cluster of tupelo flowers on the hood of her car. “As always, Princess, seeing you has been an exquisite pleasure.”

  With those words, Hatch and the boy climbed in an SUV and disappeared. And so did her breath. With him out of sight, she leaned against her car, thankful for her temperamental Ford. How like Hatch. Waltz in. Send her world spinning. Waltz out.

  She shook off the dizziness.

  She had no time for dancing.

  Lia Grant had been missing almost twenty-four hours, and finally, they’d gotten a break. One of the deputies had found a witness who saw Lia Grant last night in the hospital parking lot.

  * * *

  Greenup, Kentucky

  Kentucky State Police Detective Tucker Holt heard bells, and not just any bells—giant church bells clanging right behind his eyes.

  He grabbed the pillow and crammed it over his head, but the damn clanging wouldn’t stop. His right hand snaked out, groping along the nightstand until he found his cell phone. He sent the call to voicemail and sunk deeper into the mattress, hoping he still had enough Wild Turkey left in him to burrow deeper into oblivion.

  The giant bells clanged again.

  He snatched the phone, ready to throw the thing across the room, when he saw the number. Damn. “Holt,” he said around a tongue that was two sizes too big.

  “Hey, Tuck,” his boss, Henderson Rhodes, said. “We need you at Collier’s Holler. Got a double.”

  Not only was his tongue too big, it was wearing a woolen sock that scratched the roof of his mouth. “A double?”