by Lisa Jackson
Warm.
Firm.
Urgent.
The scent of him filled her nostrils, the feeling of his body against hers stripping away the doubts and insecurities of the past twenty years. She closed her eyes for a second, felt the old longing, the ache to be with him, and almost let herself sag against him.
Almost.
For the love of God, Bernadette, what are you thinking?
Stop.
Now.
This is nuts! Alarm bells went off in her head, but she didn’t back away. Strong arms held her tight and his warmth invaded her body. She didn’t respond, or tried not to, but his lips were strong, pliant, and warm, and her crazy heart was beating a thousand times a minute.
The world shrank away and she was caught in memories of a simpler summer, when all that mattered was Lucas. If she let herself . . . No, no, no! This is insane!
As if he’d heard her inner thoughts, he lifted his head.
“No,” she whispered shakily.
“No?”
“Yes, no.”
He took in a long breath, then released her slowly and took a step back.
“Wow. What the hell was that?” she asked, crashing back to reality as she tried to calm herself. Dear Lord, her heart was thundering in her ears and images of making love to him were still teasing at the edges of her mind. “Are you out of your mind?”
A slow grin grew from one side of his mouth to the other. “Maybe. I’ve been accused of worse.”
“By other women?”
“Mainly my boss. And, oh, my partner, too.”
She almost laughed. “Well, they’re right.” For the love of God, what had he been thinking? What had she?
“I just thought we should get that out of the way.”
He was so calm. Irritatingly so. She wished to high heaven that she wasn’t breathing so hard that her chest was rising and falling rapidly. “Okay, well . . . don’t do that again.”
He waited, the only sound being the rain splashing against the roof and gurgling in the overflowing gutters.
“I mean it, Lucas.” Did she? Right now she didn’t trust herself to know up from sideways.
“All right.” He was nodding, his gaze held hers, but there wasn’t a bit of regret in his expression. “Won’t happen again.”
“Good,” she declared. Then added lightly a moment later, “Well, not unless I want it to.”
He laughed. “Deal.” Then he stared hard at her, one of his eyebrows arching.
She knew what he was thinking, read the challenge in his eyes. He’d felt her response, knew that she, too, had been curious.
She let out a breath, then held up one hand in surrender. “Okay, okay . . . let’s start over.”
He nodded, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and asked, “So why did you call?”
“I thought we should clear the air. Jo-Beth wants all the ex-counselors, the women, to get together to make certain their story is the same and I don’t know . . . it feels wrong somehow. She manipulated all of us back then, and now we’re adults living our own lives and . . . living our own lies.” She looked around the buildings that surrounded the parking area. Where once there had been children and teenagers laughing and talking, on their way to horseback-ride on the trails, or to swim or kayak in the lake, or assemble for flag service and prayers in the fading daylight, there was only the quiet of the surrounding forest, the low rumble of the Pacific in the distance. The place was gloomy and dark, seeming to have no vibrance, no soul.
“And . . . there is something I wanted you to know,” she admitted, and bit her lip.
“As a . . . friend? Or a cop?”
“Both.” She walked to one of the few windows that hadn’t been boarded to peer into the darkened interior and Lucas followed. She couldn’t make out much, not even when she brushed away a layer of grime, but noted a few remaining tables and chairs and the huge rock fireplace that still climbed to the soaring ceiling, its grate cold and empty. “Wow,” she said, and in unspoken agreement they walked past the office where she’d first met Lucas. “Lots of memories in here, well, in the entire camp.” They paused at the door and through the remaining glass she saw the peninsula of the reception counter. “It’s kind of nostalgic, but a little . . . eerie, for lack of a better word.” A chill, like a blast of arctic wind, blew through her soul and she shuddered.
“You had something you wanted to tell me,” he reminded her.
“Yeah.”
“And—I’m just guessing here—you wanted to get it out privately before you make an official statement, right?” The look he sent her was assessing, almost clinical.
She nodded.
“Regardless of what you tell me, you’ll still have to talk to someone at the station.”
“I know. I texted Detective Dobbs and asked to meet with her tomorrow. I think that will be cleaner than talking to you in an official sense.”
“Makes sense,” he agreed. “She get back to you?”
“She left some phone messages earlier, before I decided to come here, and I finally responded that I’ll be around tomorrow morning. So we’re on. At nine. At the sheriff’s department.”
“Good.”
“You’ll be there?”
“In some capacity.”
She straightened, quit peering into the windows to face him. As she did a gust of wind kicked up, scattering damp leaves. “I heard that they think the skull belongs to a woman.”
He nodded, squinting. “It has to do with size of the skull, shape of the orbits, the eye sockets, as well as the temporal lines.”
“ID’ed?”
“Not yet, but according to the lab, they’re just waiting to hear on the dental records. Probably today, I’d guess. DNA will come later.”
Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she got to the reason she’d phoned him, had wanted to meet. “I don’t know if you know this or not, or if the sheriff’s department wants the information, but about a week before she went missing, Monica told me she was pregnant.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It wasn’t common knowledge. I’m surprised she told me, to tell you the truth. But she did say that the baby was Tyler Quade’s, and I think she’d told him about it.” She searched his face but saw no reaction. “I thought maybe Tyler mentioned it, you know, when he first gave his statement.”
“First I’ve heard of it.”
“Don’t you think that’s odd, that he wouldn’t say anything?”
“He was laid up in the hospital, but yeah, you’d think he’d say something.”
She went on. “Anyway, so Monica’s pregnant and worried, and then Elle went missing, and the next night, when we, the counselors for the girls, were all supposed to meet? Monica didn’t show up at the grotto, you know, under Cape Horseshoe.”
“Where we found the jawbone.”
“I guess,” she said. “I don’t really know about that. But everyone was supposed to show up to get our story straight. Jo-Beth’s idea. She thought, and we all agreed, that we should hide what really went on from our parents and the owners of the camp and even the police.” She walked to the edge of the porch and stared toward the ring of trees surrounding the parking lot. “It was a stupid, stupid idea. Not everyone wanted to go along with Jo-Beth’s plan, but she convinced us all. Except for Monica.”
“Because she never showed up.”
She realized he’d no doubt read the reports that the girls had met at the cave on that night. Everyone knew about it.
“So what was really odd about the whole thing,” she went on, remembering the girls gathering in the cave with its eerie light and tide pools, “is that the instigators, Reva and Jo-Beth, were both late. Jo-Beth said she was sick with cramps, I think, and Reva backed her up, but . . .” She shrugged, unsure of herself, just as she had been twenty years earlier.
“You don’t believe her.”
“I think that Jo-Beth, and maybe Reva, too, had their own agendas. What those ag
endas were, I don’t know.”
“You think it has something to do with Monica’s pregnancy?”
“Maybe. Jo-Beth had found out that Tyler was seeing Monica and she was furious, but I don’t know if she knew about the baby. Anyway, I heard her talking to Reva after Elle went missing. The next day they thought they should do something to Monica. Really scare her, ya know? Like have someone dress up as a ghost of Elle or something and then get a big laugh about it. But no one wanted to go along. Elle had just gone missing and it seemed . . . heartless and cruel and just too mean. So, she scrapped it.”
“But a couple of girls thought they saw Elle that night, right? Didn’t Annette say she saw her?”
“Yeah, and maybe Sosi. And this is weird,” she added, hesitant to even bring it up, “but as I was driving here, a car was following me, like a dark blue Ford, I think, I’m not really good with cars, but . . . well, it seemed to be behind me all the way from the hotel and I thought maybe I’d seen it pull out behind me when Annette got out of the car, but I’m not sure about it. Anyway, it blew past me as I turned off and that’s when I saw the driver, a woman, I mean a blond woman who reminded me of Elle.” She glanced at him and saw the edges of his mouth tighten. “I didn’t get a good look at her and I’m not saying she was Elle, for God’s sake, but, I have to admit it, she reminded me of Elle.” She shivered inside. “Maybe it’s just being back here, y’know with all the talk about her and the whole ghost story thing. I . . . I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“No, you’re not the only one, although,” he admitted, “some of the people who thought they saw her aren’t the most reliable of witnesses.” He seemed worried.
“It’s probably nothing.”
“But maybe not. I’ll look into it.” His eyes narrowed as he rubbed the back of his neck in a gesture she remembered from her youth, and she tried not to let her mind wander back to that time when she spent her days getting through her chores and dealing with the campers, trying to be enthusiastic for the girls, when most of the time she was anticipating the nights alone with Lucas. She’d been an idiot then, head over heels in lust or love or probably both, and it surprised her that those raw emotions, the insecurities, the highs, the lows, the tingling sensation whenever he was nearby were not dead, but still simmered just under the surface. She was now an adult, twice the age she’d been when she met him, but still, that same needle-sharp awareness, a sexual energy, still existed.
Which wasn’t just odd, it was a pain in the neck. And now she’d almost thought she’d spied the ghost of the girl he’d broken up with twenty years earlier? God, she was losing it. That was insane. Seeing Lucas again was destroying her equilibrium, her rational thought, and being here at the camp where she’d fallen in love with him and all hell had broken out wasn’t helping.
She’d come down here to talk to the police, to see him again, to do what she had to do to put her past to rest, and now she feared all she’d done is roiled it up, bringing back the ghosts that were better off buried.
His cell phone chirped and he pulled it from his pocket, read a message, and said, “Duty calls.”
“Okay.” She had to get going as well.
“You’ll come into the station and give an official statement?” he asked as they walked off the porch, shoulders hunched against the rain as they hurried to their cars.
“Yeah, of course.” She reached for the door handle and felt his hand catch in the crook of her elbow. Her reaction was immediate, her pulse quickening.
“Bernadette?”
“Yeah?”
His face was serious, his hazel eyes dark, and she felt the back of her throat go dry. Her heart began to thump again.
Oh. Dear. God.
Without the hint of a smile, he said, “It was good to see you again.”
“You . . . You too.” She waited, half expecting him to draw her into his arms and kiss her again, but instead he turned on his heel and hurried to his Jeep. As she climbed into her own car and surveyed him through the window, she saw him slide behind the wheel of his rig and press his cell phone to his ear. She drove out of the camp with a feeling of nostalgia for what might have been had tragedy not struck.
Would she and Lucas have continued to see each other? Would her life have been here, in some small coastal town rather than in Seattle? Or would they have broken up anyway?
What did it matter, Bernadette thought, her little car bouncing down the rutted lane. Would-have-beens? Could-have-beens?
All fantasies. Now she had to deal with reality.
And Lucas Dalton was very much a part of it.
CHAPTER 29
Averille, Oregon
Now
Lucas
The second Lucas stepped into the sheriff’s office, Locklear, from behind her desk, ordered, “Into the conference room.” Maggie, who had been sitting in one of the visitor’s chairs, shot to her feet and threw him a “don’t ask” look.
Maggie had called him while he’d met with Bernadette at the old campgrounds. His partner had been curt and told him to hightail it to the department. He’d complied but had spent most of the drive thinking about Bernadette while dealing with all the old emotions that had come to the fore. He’d been a damned fool and had mentally kicked himself over and over again for kissing her so impetuously. That had been a mistake and she’d called him on it, even though she’d responded. He’d felt her warmth and desire, at least for a second, but he’d been out of line. It was almost as if he’d reverted back to his randy teenage self at the sight of her. Then again, she was still gorgeous with those long legs, intelligent eyes, and lips that were quick to turn into a smile. Thankfully, Maggie had phoned and told him to get his butt back to the department before he made a complete fool out of himself.
Locklear glared at him. Her features seemed set in stone, lips thin, dark eyes without a trace of humor, her bad mood radiating off her. “If there’s anything you need from your office, pick it up on the way. The body’s been ID’ed as being Monica O’Neal.”
“Jesus,” Lucas said, his muscles tightening reflexively, though he’d been half-expecting the news. The lab had concluded the skull belonged to a female and had been buried for years, and Lucas had already come to the conclusion the skull found on the beach belonged to Monica or Elle. Still, the confirmation, the certainty, was a blow, and he realized he’d held out a slim hope that the victim wasn’t one of the girls he’d known.
“Okay.” Maggie nodded and headed toward the door. “Now we have something concrete to go on.”
“Right. An identifiable victim.” Locklear was out of her chair and rounding her desk. “So, now that we know who she is, we’re going to discuss the case. Top to bottom. Her mother is going to be informed ASAP, and the press will know soon enough. So let’s get going.” She beat Lucas to the door and gestured him through after his partner. “Everyone’s going to bring me up to speed. Including both of you.” With that, she stepped into the corridor behind them, pulled her office door shut, then took the lead, walking ahead of them down the short hallway. Lucas stripped off his jacket, dropped it in his office along the way, and grabbed up a notebook.
“What did I tell you the other day? Warpath,” Maggie murmured, hanging back to wait for him in the doorway.
“I heard that.” Locklear’s voice came down the length of the corridors, echoing off the polished floors.
“Careful,” Lucas warned under his breath.
They caught up to the sheriff in the meeting room.
“Sit,” Locklear ordered, then tempered it with, “please,” as she dropped into the chair at the head of the broad table, a laptop open in front of her. A large screen hooked wirelessly to her computer was on the wall at her back so anyone at the table could view what she saw on her monitor. Aside from the table and a slim credenza the room was devoid of furniture, the only windows cut high overhead next to the ceiling and showing that night was rapidly falling.
As Locklear typed into her keypad, images a
ppeared for all to see. The first photographs were of Monica O’Neal. Lucas recognized O’Neal’s driver’s license photo and graduation picture, both shots of a beautiful, vibrant girl on the cusp of womanhood. Black curly hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile that was almost sexy. The picture of youth. The next pictures were grim: several photos of a deteriorated skull and jawbone, both of which Lucas had seen in person.
Acid crawled up his throat.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. A short man with a soul patch, thin sideburns, and rimless glasses stepped into the room—an African-American tech from the crime lab by the name of Winslow Tatum. He was carrying an iPad and slid into one of the unoccupied chairs as other approaching footsteps could be heard.
Ryan Tremaine appeared next and took a seat across from his ex-stepbrother. Their gazes clashed for a second before another set of footsteps, accompanied by a low, rumbling voice, could be heard. Half a second later, Junior Detective Alejandro Garcia strode into the room, a cell phone pressed to his ear. “Call you back later,” he said as he dropped into the chair nearest the door. Short and stocky, with buzz-cut black hair and deep-set, dark eyes, Garcia pocketed his phone.
“Okay, let’s get to it,” Locklear said, touching the screen of her computer. “This is gonna be a long one, so I’ve asked Dottie to bring us coffee, sodas, whatever. If you want something else, something not on the cart, like iced tea or whatever, let her know.” She shot Lucas a hard glare. “And if you were going to suggest something stronger like whiskey or a beer, either because you’re serious or even just as a joke to break the ice, forget it. I am definitely not in the mood. We all may need a drink later, but for now, we’ve got work to do. Serious work.”
“Excuse me.” A tap on the open door indicated Dottie had arrived. She stuck her head into the office.
“Come on in,” the sheriff said, waving the receptionist into the conference room.
In heels and a crisp gray suit, a remote phone headset buried in her white curls, Dottie pushed a cart laden with cups, carafes, and bottles of water into the room. Also on the cart’s surface were small baskets of tea, a variety of sweetener packets, and a pitcher of cream. “Anything else?” she asked as she parked the rolling cart in a back corner. The aroma of coffee mixed with the faint scent of the receptionist’s signature perfume sifted through the air.
