Bone Deep

by Debra Webb

  “I... I need you to be right,” she murmured, the misery in her voice tearing him apart one tiny piece at a time.

  “I have a heightened sense of recent memories made by others, especially the deceased. I refuse to call it anything else.” He hadn’t meant the words to sound so harsh, but his chest felt ready to implode. “I pick up on some things from the living, but I’m better with the dead.” He exhaled slowly, deeply. “I’m right most of the time. When I really try.”

  She appeared to consider his answer for a time. “Then, when you said my sister murdered her husband, you were fairly certain? You... saw it?”

  Another not so easy to answer question. “I didn’t see her do it. I felt her do it.”

  Her sharply indrawn breath made him flinch. He didn’t have to look to know she’d just recoiled physically.

  “How do you cope with those feelings?”

  To his surprise there was no accusation in the question. No pity... no horror. Just concern. He looked at her this time. A long, lingering look that forced him to come to a near stop in the street. I don’t, he didn’t say, which was the truth. He hid from it, locked it out. Sometimes he tried his level best to drown it.

  “I...” He forced his gaze back to the road and his right foot on the accelerator. “I keep it turned off as much as possible. But to answer your question, yes, I believe Kate killed her husband.”

  Silence stretched between them. It wasn’t a bad kind of silence... not wrought with building tension or unspoken censure... just a quiet time to slowly assimilate those things which were simply too big or too overwhelming to accept all at once.

  “So,” she began again as they rolled into Paradise proper, “when you said my nephew was alive... somewhere, you feel that with the same certainty?”

  He braked for a red light and rested his gaze on hers. “Yes. I believe he’s alive.”

  Slowly, as if fearing the wrong move might trigger some terrible chain of events, she showed him the photograph she’d been clutching since escaping the burning house. The streetlights and dash lights provided enough illumination for him to make out most of the detail.

  “This is where he is,” she said with complete certainty.

  He studied the small village in the photograph, then the label that dubbed it A Safe Place. His gaze settled on hers and that same certainty moved through him. “You know where this place is?”

  “Sort of. See that bald spot in the forest on the mountainside?” She pointed to the photograph. “I know where that is. From there I should be able to find this village.”

  A safe place.

  “She told us,” Jill said, hardly believing it could have been so simple. “Kate told us she took him to a safe place.”

  Paul leaned across the seat and kissed her cheek. “We’ll find him.”

  He would not let this woman down. Whatever it took. Whatever it cost.

  ~*~

  Showered and changed, Jill had calmed down considerably since the confrontation with the mayor. She’d even managed to go over everything that had occurred with her mother while Paul delved into a search on the Internet. He’d said he had more research to do. She’d also tried to call Cullen Marks again to give him an update, but, just like last time, he was unavailable. Jill was more than a little perturbed at his evasiveness. Another attempt to reach Connie had failed as well. She couldn’t sit around waiting for either of them to call her back, she had to do something. If she closed her eyes or stopped long enough to think those hateful words taunted her.

  You drove your daddy into an early grave.

  Some small part of her had believed that all along, the accusation had hovered over her like a dark cloud all these years. But hearing it out loud from someone else was so much more painful. As raw as the memory was, it was done... she couldn’t change the decisions she’d made any more than she could change the ones her father had made. She had loved him, still did. But he was gone. Her mother, on the other hand, was still here. Maybe if she could make her see... but even after her detailed explanation, Claire Ellington remained skeptical.

  “Mother, don’t you understand what this means?”

  Claire sat on the sofa in the family room, purple bruises across her forehead. She looked distraught rather than relieved by Jill’s revelations.

  “But the body. I identified the...” Her voice quivered. “We have to come to terms with Cody’s death, Jillian. Denial won’t do either of us any good.”

  Jill took her mother’s hand in hers. “I’m trying to make you see this whole thing is wrong. We can’t trust anything we’ve been told. We don’t know what set off this chain of events but the chief is covering up something. We can’t be sure that’s Cody’s body. We only have the chief’s word.”

  Her mother looked away. “That’s just too unbelievable. I refuse to listen to such nonsense. You’re grasping at straws.”

  Calm, Jill told herself. Stay calm. “Mother, this is what Paul does. He knows the truth. I know the truth. My God, what about Benford Chemical and all those dead children?”

  Claire shook her head. “Benford Chemical was a long time ago. People try to put nasty business like that out of their minds. I don’t know what you mean about the dead children. I’m sure we don’t have a higher child mortality rate than any other town.”

  “But we do,” Jill said gravely. “I checked.”

  Her mother’s gaze snapped to hers. “You must be mistaken.”

  Jill shook her head. “I’m not mistaken. Whether you choose to believe it or not, it’s true.”

  Claire paled, looked away once more.

  The idea that her mother was hiding something niggled at Jill. “What is it you’re not telling me? You begged me to forget this investigation. What is it you know that scares you so badly?”

  Claire shook her head. “I can’t talk about it. Please don’t ask me to.”

  Tension stiffened Jill’s spine. “At least tell me this much, are you keeping quiet because you’re afraid?”

  Claire’s gaze collided with hers. “I’m terrified.”

  ~*~

  The search box appeared on the screen and Paul typed in: Josef Mengele.

  A few seconds later dozens of subject lines filled the screen. He selected the first: Josef Mengele, The Angel of Death. Words jumped out at him... Hitler’s henchmen... hideous crimes against humanity... willfully and with bloodlust. Twins were the focus of his madness. They were rescued from the NAZI gas chambers only to fall victim to a decidedly crueler fate.

  Twins were selected and placed in special barracks. Auschwitz offered Mengele unlimited specimens where twins could be studied at random. One could serve as a control while the other endured the experiments. Experiments included injecting blood samples from one twin into another twin of a different blood type and then recording the reaction. The injection of dye into the eyes of several twins to see if eye color could be altered. If the twins died, Mengele would harvest their eyes and pin them to the wall of his office.

  Isolation cages housed twins who were subjected to a variety of stimuli to see how they would react. Castration, sterility. The removal of limbs and organs without the use of anesthetic were performed routinely. Injections of infectious diseases to see who would succumb and who would not and how long it would take. Why did this one live and that one perish? Ultimately the corpses were dissected.

  Paul stared at the screen, no longer seeing. A cold hard fist of fear had taken hold of his gut. Though cruder and much less humane, these experiments bore a striking likeness to those he’d read about in Manning’s files.

  But Manning was in to far more than Mengele had been able to do in his time under the Hitler regime and with the knowledge and equipment available. Genetic alterations, cloning. One of Manning’s favored experiments zoomed into vivid focus in Paul’s mind. Cannibalism in the womb. He quickly typed those words into the search box.

  When identical twins were conceived, one fetus was destroyed invivo. After absorption occurred
, the surviving twin was then studied to see if a higher cognitive ability resulted. Stronger physical attributes. A heightened sense of survival... heightened senses period.

  Paul closed his eyes and banished the words from his mind. Manning was all that Josef Mengele had hoped to be. He’d secretly carried out hideous experiments for years right here in Paradise. The whole town had been bought and paid for with the promise of offspring. In exchange for the promise of heirs the citizens who had made the original deal would take the secret to their graves. No one would ever know. Manning had the perfect setup. An entire town as his lab. Only something went wrong. Kate found out. Or somehow her son was threatened and she fought back.

  The certainty that Cody Manning was being sought behind the scenes for a particular reason wouldn’t let go. Kate and her son were at the center of this, as was Jill…somehow. Simply being a twin wouldn’t be enough for the boy to be so important. It had to be cloning. Manning had likely been conducting those experiments well before being granted license to do so. Paul’s thoughts went back to the child in Lynchburg and he wondered... could Cody and the other child be MedTech’s first successful venture into cloning?

  Paul rubbed at his eyes. Damn he was tired.

  He had to rest... just for a few seconds. Jill needed him. He couldn’t function without a little shuteye. He leaned back in the chair and surrendered.

  Help me. Please help me. The small, frightened voice sobbed.

  He was there. In that dark, dank cave. With the girl he’d failed…the first of several.

  Help me, please.

  Paul tried to pull back from the darkness but he couldn’t. That black abyss sucked at him, drawing him deeper... deeper.

  You have to help me.

  The voice was different now. No longer a frightened little girl’s.

  I told you what they’d done.

  The voice sounded like his…was his.

  They sacrificed me for you.

  Now do you see?

  I’m dead... because of you.

  In the dream he stared at the reflection in the mirror…his reflection only not him.

  Paul jerked awake. He sat up straight, blinked at the lights. Focused on the ticking wall clock. Five minutes. He’d only been asleep five minutes.

  He wasn’t in the cave anymore. He was here... with Jill.

  He forced his heart rate to slow... took long, slow, deep breaths. Just a dream. The same one he’d had a thousand times.

  I’m dead... because of you.

  Sweat slicked his skin. The voice was his. The face was his…but it was someone else.

  Paul scrubbed a hand over his face then slammed the laptop closed. He didn’t want to look anymore. He didn’t want to think about the evil... the sick madness of men like Manning.

  What about all the dead children? a voice demanded from one dark corner of his mind.

  What about all those who don’t know?

  He forced the voices away. He couldn’t save the world. He couldn’t save those children. It was too late.

  Paul pushed back from the desk and stormed out of the Judge’s study and through the front door. He had to have air. Had to clear his head.

  On the wide verandah, he shook a cigarette from his half empty pack and lit it. He couldn’t even remember when he’d smoked last, but he damn sure needed it now. Hell, maybe he needed a drink too.

  Then he thought about the fire and the failed brakes and he rejected the idea of a drink. He had to keep his head on straight. Someone was out to shut them up.

  He drew deeply on the cigarette and exhaled the smoke after his lungs had grabbed up enough nicotine to send a little buzz through his system. He should never have allowed Jill in the Manning house and he should have beaten the hell out of that mayor. Maybe he still would. But then he wouldn’t be here to protect her.

  Another long drag. Maybe it was time to call Cuddahy and spill the beans. Solid evidence or no, things were getting a little too hot around here, no pun intended. Most of Manning’s basement files probably survived the fire. The place was like a vault. The Bureau could bring in a recovery team. He flicked the fire from the tip of his spent cigarette butt, pinched the end to make sure it was out and stuffed the butt into his pocket. He didn’t know why he even bothered to smoke. It was more trouble than it was worth.

  The front door slowly opened behind him. Jill came outside, looking tired, but like heaven on earth to a man accustomed to nothing but hell.

  “There you are,” she said, a weary smile on her lips.

  “Here I am.”

  “Mother won’t talk about what she knows.” She massaged her temples. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  He ached to make her forget for just a little while but that was far too risky to his ability to maintain control. “We’ve done all we can today.”

  The door jerked open behind them. “Jillian!”

  Claire stood in the doorway, the entry hall light silhouetting her trembling frame.

  Jill went to her mother. “What’s happened?”

  Paul steeled himself for bad news.

  “Ruth Neil just called.”

  “Mrs. Neil? Is everything all right?”

  Paul remembered the name. The girl who had been Jill’s best friend back in high school was a Neil. She’d behaved strangely since Jill came back to Paradise. Friendly one minute, avoiding her the next. She’d left a voicemail but Jill hadn’t been able to connect with her since.

  Tears streaked down Claire’s cheeks as she shook her head adamantly. “They’ve just found Connie.” She pressed her fist to her mouth for one fleeting second. “She’s dead, Jill. Connie’s dead.”

  Chapter 14

  Sunday, July 17

  Jill and her mother sat on the parlor sofa, holding hands, faces weary, eyes red rimmed and underscored with dark hollows, painful testimony to a sleepless night and far too much grief suffered in too short a time.

  Paul had taken a position next to an overstuffed side chair, his hip resting on its sturdy arm, choosing to simply observe for the moment. Separating himself from the women was a strategic maneuver designed to enhance sympathy for the grieving and allow scorn a different place to fall. He didn’t want the chief’s dislike for him projected elsewhere.

  Chief Dotson stood at the opposite end of the sofa, his back to the wall rather than the door, like any good cop, and facing the room at large so that his attention could shift easily to anyone gathered. His uniform was freshly starched, his leather dress shoes buffed to a high sheen. Here was a man come to deliver news. The kind that forever changed lives and the course of what was to come.

  “Ms. Claire, Miss Jill,” he said somberly, slowly rotating his hat in his hands. “There’s been a major break in Ms. Kate’s case.”

  Jill’s face reflected the surprise she felt. “She’s all right, isn’t she? We called the hospital at eight this morning and she was fine.”

  The renewed sense of panic in her voice scraped over Paul’s already raw emotions. This intense aspect of the bond between them was new territory and he was having a hell of a time maintaining objectivity.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the chief assured her. “Ms. Kate is just fine. Just fine.” He nodded once and drew in a deep, bolstering breath as if bracing for what he was about to convey. “What we have this morning is new evidence that completely clears her of all wrong doing.” His gaze moved from Jill to her mother and back, avoiding Paul altogether.

  Claire eased forward a bit, drawing her daughter’s hands tighter to her chest. “I don’t understand.”

  The chief stared at the floor for a time. “Well, ladies, I’m sure you’ve heard that we discovered Connie Neil’s body late last night.”

  Both women nodded. “What does that have to do with Kate?” Jill wanted to know.

  “She was young, you know,” the chief went on. “Like you and your sister. I believe you girls attended school together.”

  Jill nodded jerkily. Connie’s death had troubled her deep
ly. Last night she kept replaying the last time they spoke and the fact that, like her sister’s call, Jill hadn’t been there for Connie when she called. Paul couldn’t completely console her though he’d held her in his arms until, exhausted, she’d fallen asleep. There weren’t any words to make this kind of cumulative hurt go away.

  “Anyway,” the chief continued, “she took an overdose of her own sleeping medication.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t comprehend such a thing. “It’s just so hard to believe that a pretty young woman with a good job and her whole life ahead of her would do something so foolish.”

  Paul tensed when a flash of light seared through his brain. Edith Scott’s image followed close on its heels. Her husband forcing her to take pill after pill as she begged him to think of their children. Memphis PD had been prepared to close the case, certain the poor woman had ended her life. Multiple Sclerosis patients did that sometimes. But her grown children hadn’t been convinced. They had come to Paul. Once he’d opened her case file, Edith had haunted him until he’d gotten Memphis PD to take a closer look at the husband.

  With effort, he pushed the mental pictures away, dragged his attention back to the chief. “You’re sure it was suicide?”

  “Positive.” The chief looked at him for the first time, his disdain evident. “She left a note.” His attention shifted back to the women. “A long, startling one.” Dotson shook his head. “It’s still hard for me to believe, but it was her handwriting. Her mother and sister verified it.”

  “What does this have to do with Kate,” Jill pressed. She was growing impatient.

  Paul had already gone way beyond that. He wanted the chief to get on with this. He had other questions for him. Questions the man wasn’t going to like.

  “It appears that Miss Neil had an obsession with Karl Manning.”

  Claire gasped, the sound echoing in the quiet room. Jill looked stunned.

  “As you probably know she’d worked at MedTech as one of Karl’s personal assistants for several years.” The chief shrugged. “We’re not accusing Karl of anything, mind you, but Connie’s letter indicates that an affair had been ongoing for most of that time. She related she’d finally gotten tired of his promises that he would leave Kate. Unfortunately, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She kidnapped Kate and Cody, with the intention of murdering them both so Karl would be free. The details are somewhat vague. She rambled a bit there. We know, of course, that somehow Ms. Kate managed to get away.”