by Brant, Kylie
She exchanged a quick look with Dev, noted the small smile he wore. “No,” she said in belated response to Raiker’s question. “I mean yes. I’m just glad you recognize quality writing when you see it.”
“Thanks, sugar.” Dev brushed a kiss against her hair before he began to move away. “I’ll let you two catch up. I see a friend over there. Nice to meet you, Mr. Raiker.”
When her attention returned to her boss, he was watching her with an expression that had wariness flickering.
“You better not be thinking of leaving the agency, Clark.”
Real amazement flared at the words. “Why would I do that?”
Her response seemed to satisfy him, and they watched in silence for a time as the divers broke the surface, carefully towing something between them. “How many does that make?”
“Eleven.” The governor wasn’t going to get his wish. Buffalo Springs was in the national news again. And this time, the notoriety wasn’t likely to fade anytime soon.
“I keep thinking of this man who came to the morgue. He thought the victim might be his missing daughter.” The thought of Jim Grayson’s anguish made her chest go tight. “And all the time, she was lying at the bottom of the pond.”
The missing record book had been in Ashton’s vault, just as Ramsey had suspected. And when they’d discovered the simple code Ruth had written it in, she was filled with new admiration for the woman who had attempted to stop Ashton well over a century ago. At the very least, she’d tried to record for the ages what the man was. But her attempt had lasted only a few months before it had been discovered. Before she’d become the man’s next victim.
“They won’t find all the remains intact,” Raiker observed. “Going to be a process bringing them up. I’ve got Fleming on her way. Hard to guess how long it’ll take her to sort all the bones out and identify which belong to which victims.”
She nodded. Caitlin Fleming was a colleague, a forensic anthropologist as well as an investigator. She made a mental note to ask her if nearly a century in the pond would have destroyed the remains of Ashton’s original victims. Ruth had recorded the sect members’ names. Dates. And the “sins” that had condemned them to death.
The original record had been updated over the generations with lists of those sacrificed. But Ramsey doubted all the victims’ names would be found there.
“There’s bound to be some surprises brought out of the pond, too,” she added. “All the group members participated with Frost, it sounds like. But Rollins indicated he killed someone after that, and her death wasn’t noted. He can’t be the first member to chafe at waiting for the sect members to decide on the next selection. They got a taste of it. They liked the rape. Didn’t mind the murder. And when it gets in the blood . . .”
“It’s a heady power,” Raiker agreed. “Rollins likely wouldn’t have been the first elder to strike out on his own when the urge came over him.”
She saw Dev standing at the fringe of trees beyond the pond, looking as though he were talking to himself. In the next moment, she saw a flash of a flannel shirt, and realized he’d gone to check on Ezra T., who was watching from afar.
The man’s words came back to her from the first time they’d met. She’d asked what he’d observed near the pond, and he said he’d seen the cops. She’d assumed he meant the police working the crime scene. But after hearing how he’d been shot in the woods by Rollins and left to die, she had to wonder if he’d encountered the sheriff or Stratton the night of the murder. Possibly recognized them.
At any rate, she owed the man her life. According to what he’d told Dev a few days ago, it was he who’d removed the anhydrous Rollins had hidden in the woods. The man’s motives were of less interest to her than was the fact it had bought her needed time to escape.
“You’ve finished with the evidence from the tunnel, I hear.”
With a start, she returned her attention to Raiker. “Jonesy’s identified blood from eighteen different victims. The records indicate nearly three dozen since Ruth’s time. Hopefully Caitlin will be able to match the blood to the remains from the pond.”
And the tunnel itself had been one of the grisliest sites she’d encountered yet. It ended on Thornton’s property, directly beneath the spot where records indicated Ashton’s celestial chapel had sat. One entrance was cleverly secreted on the forest floor, only a few yards into the woods beyond her property. Another narrow passage led to Ashton’s crypt in the graveyard. When they’d moved the vault lid, they’d found no remains from the town’s founding father. The vault floor was missing save for steps that led to the passage.
“Your work’s done here, Clark. Fleming will be using the mobile lab, but I’ve dispatched Jonesy back to headquarters.”
“Good riddance,” she muttered.
There was a ghost of a smile playing across his lips. “He shared a similar sentiment. Always good to know my people play nice together when they’re away from the office.”
Agents Powell and Matthews were conversing with some state police nearby. Both men broke away at that moment to veer over in their direction to introduce themselves to Adam.
“Well, Powell.” Ramsey didn’t trust that tone of her boss’s voice. “You almost had Sanders wrapped up for this. Good thing Ramsey didn’t let go of that turmeric lead.”
Powell flushed, but Ramsey put in, “If we hadn’t been leaning on Sanders, we might not have discovered Frost being stalked in Lisbon by a gray-haired man. I would never have thought much of the stray gray hair found in her apartment. Never made the connection to the one found with the ViCAP victim in DC.”
“Still, Sanders is a scumbag,” Matthews put in. He gazed at the scene of the pond moodily. “Hate to see him profit off Frost’s death, even if he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
She went silent as the men continued to talk, her mind still on the night she’d killed Rollins. The church members’ names were listed in the record book, too. A father passed the duty down to his eldest son. It had taken them three days to make all the arrests. She’d been shocked by the listing for Beau Simpson, the man who’d supposedly committed suicide. But it had been Doc Thiesen’s arrest that had shaken her the most.
She imagined his stint as county coroner had come in handy when mistakes were made and victims were discovered.
One name they hadn’t found in the records, much to Dev’s disappointment, was that of Reverend Biggers. The man wasn’t exactly a role model as a church leader, but he hadn’t been involved in the secret sect. Which just went to show, she considered, that evil lingered far deeper below the surface than did mere unpleasantness.
“Ramsey.”
She turned at Dev’s voice, immediately concerned by his expression.
“What is it?”
He drew her away from the group. “I heard one of the deputies say he’d just come from Rose Thornton’s place. She’s been found dead.”
It took a moment to make sense of the words. “Not murdered.”
He shook his head, his expression a little dazed. “No. But Ramsey . . . they say she’s been dead at least three months.”
“It’s impossible.” Dusk was falling as they made their way toward Rose’s property, avoiding the emergency vehicles in the rutted overgrown drive. “You just didn’t remember what she looked like and we were talking to someone else, that’s all. You said yourself you hadn’t seen her for years.”
“It was her,” he said flatly. “Her that we talked to at her place. It was Rose that I spoke to on the road the night she warned me you were in danger. I’m tellin’ you, they’re carrying the wrong body out of that cabin. It’s not Rose’s.”
The medics were carrying out a stretcher holding a long black-zippered bag. Dev stopped the car behind a state police vehicle and Ramsey got out. Jogged over to the stretcher. Flashing her temporary badge, she said, “I’d like to ID the victim.”
“That’s already been done, ma’am.”
“I need to see for myself.”
The two medics looked at each other. Shrugged. “Ain’t gonna be pretty,” one said as he reached down to partially unzip the top of the bag. “There were so many flies in that cabin we had to go out and get masks.”
It wasn’t the sight of the partially eaten away remains of the face that had Ramsey taking a step back. It was the fact that she recognized it.
Dev slipped an arm around her waist as the medics continued toward the ambulance. “It’s impossible,” she said again, but weakly this time. “How can that be? We saw her. We talked to her.”
“We thought we did.”
The emergency vehicles were starting to pull out. Dev pulled her toward the side of the house. Ramsey was still shaking her head as they made their way to the back of the cabin. “Maybe she hasn’t been dead as long as they think. Insects inflict a lot of damage. Closer examination might have the ME revising time of death.”
“But I’m tellin’ you, she was there on the road that . . .”
When his words halted, she turned to look at him. Followed the direction of his gaze to the area beyond the cabin’s back porch.
Rose was standing there. Floating, really. The woman she’d just seen in the body bag. In the same clothes she’d worn the one time Ramsey had met her.
It looked like Rose Thornton. But the image of her wavered at the edges, like a reflection in a clear pond. And in the next moment her image melded into that of a young woman in a high-necked buttoned-up gown. Her eyes were filled with sorrow.
“Ruth,” Dev breathed.
As if his voice banished it, her image trembled. Faded. And then there was nothing but the lights. Dancing balls of illumination that flickered and skipped across the yard. Burning bright and brighter. Over the garage. Above the brush. Into the woods before they vanished.
“Shit.” She was holding on to Dev’s arm so tight she had to be hurting him, but Ramsey couldn’t bring herself to let go. “What the hell was that? What was that?”
“That,” he released a shaky breath, his voice filled with a wonder she was far from mirroring, “was one of those things that can’t be explained by science. I have a feeling the residents of Buffalo Springs have seen the last of the red mist.”
Her mind was still grappling with implications she couldn’t let herself fathom. He turned her to face him. “See, that’s what I’ve been sayin’.” The curve of his lips was belied by the serious light in his eyes. “You can’t analyze everythin’ in this world. Some things you just have to accept for what they are. For what they could be.”
Her voice was shaky. “I think someone told me that once.”
Dev nodded. “Sounds like a wise man. Here’s some facts for you to think ’bout. We both do some travelin’, but when I’m writin’, I can do that ’bout anywhere. I’m not fussy ’bout where I live.” His smile hadn’t faded. Neither had the intensity in his gaze. “I am fussy ’bout who I live with. Guess I’m hopin’ you’re not quite as fussy, ’cuz I’d like to be livin’ with you.”
She sensed he was feeling his way with her. Offering only as much as it took to keep her from running like hell. Away from what he offered. Away from what he wanted.
Her palms dampened. There was a hammering in her heart. A thundering in her ears. “I’m not a good bet.”
“Honey, I chase ghosts for a livin’. You’re the one takin’ a risk here.”
A laugh escaped at that, although she knew it wasn’t true. Of the two of them, she was the one terrified to disappoint. Terrified that whatever she gave could never be enough.
But when she looked at him, she knew what her answer would be. Because whatever else she felt, the biggest fear that loomed was elicited by the thought of never seeing him again.
“I’ve taken the easy way most of my life. Easier not to feel anything at all. What I feel now, for you . . .” She drew in a breath. “It scares me to death. But the thought of losing it, losing you, scares me even more.”
The bruises on his face still lingered, but it was the pure joy in his expression that had her heart stuttering. “We’ll take it slow,” he promised, his head lowering to hers. “How do you feel ’bout namin’ our firstborn after my daddy?”
She started, the panic at peak alert, until she saw the wicked light in his eyes. “We’ll take it slow,” Ramsey repeated firmly.
But as her lips met his, she knew that she was going to find a way to accept every last thing Dev was offering.
And offer him the same.
Turn the page for a preview of the third book in Kylie Brant’s exciting Mindhunters series
WAKING THE DEAD
Available November 2009 from Berkley Sensation!
Seven stainless steel gurneys were lined up in the morgue, each occupied by a partially assembled skeleton and a large garbage bag. The bones gleamed under the fluorescent lights. At the base of the last gurney was a heap of stray bones that had been found lying separately. Caitlin Fleming’s first thought was that they looked forlorn. Deprived of their dignity, until they could be rejoined to form the remnant of the person they’d once belonged to.
Her second thought was that without the skulls, the chances of identifying those persons decreased dramatically.
“What do you think?” Sheriff Marin Andrews demanded. Her booted feet sounded heavily as she walked from one gurney to the next. “The bones were pretty much loose in the bags, but the medical examiner made an attempt to reassemble them. We brought out the bones scattered on the bottom of the cave floor in a separate body bag. Recovery operation was a bitch, I’m telling you. The cave branches off from the original vein, gets wider and higher. Then it drops off to a steep chamber about seven feet down. These were probably dumped from above into that chamber.” She must have caught Cait’s wince, because she added, “We had an anthropologist from the university supervise the removal process.”
Cait nodded. She was rarely brought onto a case in time to help process the crime scene. But that didn’t stop her from questioning what might have been destroyed or overlooked in the recovery. “I’ll want to see the cave.”
Andrews’s expression first revealed shock, then amusement. “Fortunately for you, that won’t be necessary. It’s on the face of Castle Rock and not easily accessible. Either you climb down from the top, or you scale upwards nearly eight hundred feet. There are trails, of course, but they could be tricky for an inexperienced climber. We don’t need an injury on our hands before we even get started.”
“I’m not inexperienced.” Cait knew exactly what the sheriff saw when she looked at her. It was, after all, the appearance she’d cultivated for well over a decade. But her days on the runways of New York, Milan, and Paris were long behind her. She was as comfortable these days in a room exactly like this one as hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The other woman shrugged. She was probably about fifteen years Cait’s senior. Her looks were nondescript. A sturdy build filling out a beige uniform. Close-cropped light brown hair and hazel eyes. But Cait knew better than anyone that appearances could be deceiving. Marin Andrews had a reputation for being an excellent, if ambitious cop. And that ambition, along with her father’s millions, were rumored to be priming her for a chase to the governor’s mansion.
Cait’s help in solving this case would provide a stepping-stone to that end.
“Figured you’d want to see the area, anyway. That forest fire in the eastern Cascades has depleted the personnel at the forestry stations, but we’ve hired Zach Sharper to stay available during the course of the investigation. He’s the outdoors guide who found the bodies. Said he was preparing for a client who wanted to spelunk some out-of-the-way caves, so Zach explored a few off the beaten path. Thought he’d discovered a new one when he stumbled on this.” Andrews waved a hand at the skeletons. “He runs a outfitting company. Rafting, kayaking, mountain climbing, hiking, that sort of thing.” The assessing look in her eye said better than words that she didn’t believe Cait’s assertion of her outdoor experience. “He’s also o
n the search and rescue team when campers and hikers go missing. He’s got some rough edges, but he’s supposed to be the best in the state.”
“I can handle rough edges.” Cait walked around the gurneys to peer more closely at the nearly identical junctures where the skulls had been separated from each skeleton. She looked around then, spotted a magnifying loupe on a set of metal shelves in the corner, and retrieved it before continuing her examination.
“The guy from the university said it looked like a knife or saw was used to decapitate them.”
Cait moved to another gurney to peer at the vertebra. “I’d say a saw. With luck I may be able to narrow the type down for you.” Straightening, she scanned the remains lined up on the stainless steel tables. “You’ve got four men and three women, but I suspect the medical examiner told you that.”
“He did. He also tried, and failed, to find a cause of death for any of them. But this thing is way out of his league and he knows it. He’s a pathologist, not a forensic anthropologist. When I saw what we had here, I immediately thought of Raiker Forensics. Adam Raiker assures me you’re the best in this field.”
