by Stacy Green
That settled it.
She padded into the kitchen, flicking on lights as she went. Cage kept cleaning supplies in the bare nook where a table should be, and Dani grabbed the dusty broom. A little heavy and harder to manage with the light, but she’d figure it out.
She tucked the flashlight under her left arm and then reached for the door, the shop broom gripped tightly in her right hand. Sweat beaded across her scalp making it itch. Another menacing growl from the basement, long and drawn out as though the animal knew she was ready to attack. Ignoring the urge to drop everything and run for Cage, she listened hard.
It sounded like the creature was probably along the side of the basement, deeper below the house, and not on the steps waiting to ambush.
Good.
Deep breath, broom ready, bladder weak, she yanked open the door.
“Ugh.” The rotten odor from this afternoon had strengthened. Her eyes watered. “What did you dig up?”
A snarl answered her.
Wishing she’d put on her tennis shoes instead of sandals that left her tender toes exposed, Dani began descending the stairs. They trembled with every step, and she hoped to God they didn’t give out and leave her injured with the stink and the snarler.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but you need to leave.” She pulled the flashlight out from under her arm and shined the beam into the black abyss.
And was it ever dark. The basement’s air seemed to have its own energy, bulbous and heavy, waiting for Dani to make her move.
Or perhaps that was just the set of glowing, yellow eyes that glared at her from the winter kitchen. Somersaults rolled in her stomach as she wiggled the light so her eyes would adjust.
“Please don’t be a raccoon. Anything but one of those mean bastards.”
An angry hiss replied. Sure enough, a large raccoon was balanced on what was left of the winter kitchen’s brick oven, gnawing on a piece of bone.
“Bad boy.” Her voice came out like an angry chicken squawk. “You drop it.”
The animal bared its teeth.
Gagging against the smell, Dani teetered on the bottom step and raised her broom. The raccoon flinched but held its ground. Getting rid of it meant getting closer, and she wasn’t going to do that without a real weapon.
But she couldn’t leave it there to ravage whatever was left of the bones. Which meant she was going to have to wake up Cage. “Bad boy!” She shouted again at the raccoon. “Thanks for making me look like a big wimp.”
He stood up on his hind legs, razor-sharp front claws extended and the bone dangling from its mouth. Strange looking bone.
She took a step forward, squinting. The raccoon turned and raced the length of the stove to escape into the pile of debris, leaving little doubt as to what it was carrying.
A finger.
A fleshy human finger.
Vomit burned in her throat. Dani staggered backward, nearly falling onto the dilapidated steps. Using the broom for balance, she tried to steady herself.
Another wave of horrid stench slammed her nose.
Reality caught up with Dani and punched her in the stomach. It couldn’t be. Mustn’t be.
Sweat beading on her forehead and her stomach ready to revolt, she forced herself to shine light on the area where the bones had been found. For a moment, she saw nothing but dirt. She managed to breathe easier.
Then she moved the beam to the right and saw dark plastic–a round, cylinder shape. Something was haphazardly sticking out of it, a lumpy shape that looked as though it had been pulled out of the ground by the determined raccoon.
Dani took a step closer. Then a second.
Fear gripped her insides until her breath evaporated. Her hot skin turned cold. Blood whooshed through her ears.
She dropped the broom. Clutched the heavy flashlight and staggered up the stairs. Through the kitchen and then the parlor. Into the foyer, plastic sandals loud against the marble.
Fumbled with the lock on the door and then wrenched it open.
Welcoming muggy air greeted her. She ran down Ironwood’s steps and across the lawn, the beam making crazy shapes over the grass. The carriage house. Cage.
She pounded hard on the door, the pattern matching the banging of her pulse.
Dani glanced behind her as though somehow, the horror she’d just seen would emerge from the mansion and drag itself toward her.
“Cage! It’s Dani. Open the door, please!” Her scream shattered the still night, and a throng of birds left a giant oak with angry squawks.
The carriage house door flew open. She saw only Cage’s shocked eyes before the words tumbled out of her mouth.
“There’s a body in the basement.”
8
Cage tried to dislodge the cobwebs of sleep from his brain. “You mean there are bones in the basement.”
“No.” Dani’s eyes went wide, wild. Her hair fell in tangled waves to her shoulders, and her entire body trembled. “There is a body in my basement. As in one covered with flesh.”
“You’ve had a long day. New place, the skeletal remains. You had a bad dream, s’all.”
“Listen to me.” Her voice turned shrill. “I heard noises and knew it was an animal. So I went to investigate.” He stared at her mouth as she spoke, trying to comprehend what she was saying.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Hold on.” He ran upstairs and tugged on some jeans. Thankfully, Dani had been too freaked out to notice he was only wearing his boxers. Back at the door, he slipped on his old running shoes.
He held out his hand. “Can I see the flashlight?”
“Be careful.” She handed him the impressive model. “My best one. Which is a really stupid thing to say right now, sorry.”
“Right. Come on.”
He hoofed it across the yard, trying not to walk too fast so Dani could keep up. Inside the house, he told her to wait in the parlor. She sat down on the couch. “No argument here. But be careful. That raccoon is a mean one.”
He pulled his service revolver out of the back of his jeans. “That’s what I brought this for.”
“Don’t shoot him!”
“You just said–”
“I said be careful. I didn’t say kill him.”
“Fine. Just stay here.”
Cage prayed Dani had just been sleepwalking or had grotesquely vivid dreams, but the smell emanating from the basement promised something horrifyingly different.
“Where the hell is that smell coming from?” Dani asked from the top of the stairs. “It wasn’t there when I got home, or I would have noticed.”
“If this body’s got flesh like you say,” Cage gritted his teeth, “I’d guess the coon found remains that are a lot more recent than the bones we’ve been digging up.”
She swayed on the spot and then took a deep breath. “God Almighty.”
“Pretty much.”
The raccoon growled from somewhere deep in the darkness, and Cage readied his pistol. At the base of the steps, he found the string and turned on the weak light. Something skittered beneath the junk pile and ran for cover, but he barely noticed.
Jeb and his intern had been digging in a six-by-six grid as they carefully sifted for more parts of the skeleton. This afternoon, the earth outside of that grid had been untouched except for the impressions of their shoes. But now, thanks to the raccoon’s skilled scavenging, the area was churned up. In the middle of the animal’s playground, a human arm stuck out from what looked like a black trash bag. The arm extended toward Cage as if begging for help.
A finger was missing.
“Aw, sonofabitch.”
He crossed the basement, pulling his t-shirt up over his nose. The smell was one of the worst things he’d ever encountered. Trying not to breathe, he knelt for a closer look.
Definitely a trash bag. Body had probably been secured inside until the raccoon discovered it tonight. Most of the visible flesh was waxy and white and looked loose enough to be mu
shy. Yellow, greasy slime oozed out of the tear in the plastic. That’s why the smell had come on so suddenly tonight.
This was not happening. An old skeleton? Fine. Happened more than a person might think in these old houses. But a body? He couldn’t begin to guess time of death, but the plastic wrappings had certainly preserved the corpse’s shape.
Someone had used Ironwood to cover up a murder.
He pulled out his cellphone and made the call. Sheriff was going to love this.
Upstairs, he found Dani still sitting in the same spot. Her mouth was parted, and she breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. He hurried into the kitchen, ran her a glass of water, and brought it back to her motionless form.
“Drink this.” He put the glass into her hand and then knelt in front of her, his right hand hovering above her knee. He made a fist and rested it on the couch beside her.
She blinked. A single tear welled out of her eye and trickled past the smattering of freckles across her nose. “There’s a body in my basement.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it…is it all there?”
“Looks like it.”
“What happens now?”
“I called the sheriff. He’s sending out the head of the investigative department.”
She blew a shaky breath and took a sip of water. “Will you work the scene?”
Cage shook his head. “I’m a patrol deputy. Adams County has five investigators who handle major crime.”
“What about Jeb? Shouldn’t he be informed?”
“Sheriff called him. He’ll be here, along with Captain Barnes. She’ll handle the investigation.”
“The head of your Criminal Investigation Department is a woman?”
“Yeah, can you believe that?” Cage made sure to thicken his drawl with sarcasm. “We Rednecks are comin’ out of the dark ages.”
“Nice.”
“This isn’t the old South anymore, you know. I mean, sure, our way of life and our priorities are different. But most of us don’t believe a woman’s place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.”
“Did I say that?”
“You don’t have to. Your shock and awe says enough.”
Dani thinned her lips. “I’m shocked and awed you’re still single with such a sunny disposition. After all, who wouldn’t want you grumping around in their life?”
“Beats me, I’m a catch.” He looked past Dani and tried to hide how deeply her comment had sliced. Is that why Jaymee had never seen him the way he wanted her to? He might take life too seriously at times, but he’d tried to be what he thought Jaymee wanted.
“Sorry.” Dani sighed and leaned back in the chair. “That was low and bitchy. I’m just in shock. And it’s nearly midnight and still baking in here. God Almighty, how do you people survive?”
9
There was a body in her basement, and whoever it was had obviously met with some kind of foul play.
Maybe not. Maybe it was an accident. Or a suicide. And someone panicked and buried the body.
Right.
She pressed her fingertips against her aching forehead. Tomorrow, she was supposed to be digging up bones and making sure Ironwood’s foundation wasn’t harmed. She should be talking to the historical foundation about contractors who knew how to treat the house’s fragile mantles and crown molding. Talking to floor specialists, window experts, a heating and cooling guy who wouldn’t steal every dime she had. Not worrying about a rotting body in the basement!
One by one, Adams County cops arrived. Introductions were made, but Dani was too stunned to remember all of their names. Jeb nodded solemnly, and a gangly kid with dark hair and perpetually tanned skin followed him, looking far too excited to be here. Jeb introduced him as Billy the intern.
“What the hell’s going on here, Cage?” Captain Regina Barnes had been the first to arrive. “First a skeleton, and now this?”
Dani tried to clear her head enough to get an honest impression of Captain Barnes. Likely in her early forties, small and compact but clearly an authority figure. No makeup, but she didn’t really need it. There was warmth in her grim smile.
“Don’t ask me, Gina,” Cage answered. “This is a few feet away from the skeleton, and I don’t think it’s got anything to do with it. Looks too…fresh. Raccoon must have smelled the remains after we started digging up the bones. You can imagine the rest. It’s running around down there with a finger, by the way.”
“You’ll need to take care of that.” Turning her attention to Dani, Gina laid a heavy black case on the table. “Captain Regina Barnes. You must be Dani.”
Dani extended a shaking hand. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but under the circumstances, it really sucks.”
“Not a very welcoming start to Roselea, is it?” Gina asked.
“Not at all. But I guess it can only get better from here, right?”
Gina sighed. “God I hope so.”
Heavy shoes smacked against the foyer’s marble floors. Another investigator with hard-soled boots and stomping feet banging around on the French marble. It had survived for centuries only to be beaten down now. Tears brewed in her eyes, but she didn’t have the energy to get up.
“Jesus, Landers.” Cage strode into the foyer. He stopped at the door, long fingers on his hips, the muscles in his arms tense. Sweat stained the back of his t-shirt, and his hair stuck to the back of his neck in wet curls. “Don’t stomp across these floors like that. And make sure ya’ll carry those shovels and anything else heavy. Don’t even think about dragging anything.”
“Foster, we got a body to worry about,” a man’s voice boomed in response. “I don’t care about–”
“You’re going to care.” Cage pointed a finger at the unseen voice. “You wouldn’t go into someone else’s home like a herd of damned elephants. You ain’t going to come in here like it, either.”
“Place is old.” The voice’s owner–Landers–appeared. He looked exactly like he sounded: short and squat with a bulldog-like face. His meaty hand clenched a shovel.
If he tried to drag that across the marble, Dani would beat him with the nearest heavy object.
“Which is why you’ll be extra careful.” Cage squared his shoulders. “Show her some respect.”
Lander’s donut-belly jiggled. “Who? The house or the Yankee? Where is she, anyway?”
A muscle in Cage’s jaw twitched. He turned his head towards Dani, still sitting in the middle of the tattered couch. Their gazes locked, and the humidity in the room swelled to bursting.
She needed to install ceiling fans, pronto.
“Sid Landers, meet Dani Evans, new owner of Ironwood.” Cage pointed at Dani.
She sucked in a deep breath and hauled herself to her feet.
Lander’s eyes slid over her as she approached, taking in her red, sweaty appearance with a raised eyebrow. “Ma’am.”
“It’s Dani. Or the Yankee, if you prefer.”
Cage’s soft laugh made her feel a little less like her world was imploding. She took in Lander’s shovel. “I realize you’ve got to do your job, Mr. Landers–”
“It’s investigator.”
“Investigator Landers. But this is my house, and I’m planning on saving her. So please be careful with your equipment.” Her tone left no room for argument.
The investigator’s jowls wobbled, his eyes narrowed. “Yes ma’am.”
She stepped aside, and Landers stalked past, muttering a barely disguised “damned Yankee” under his breath.
Cage shook his head. “He’s an ass, but he’s good at his job.”
“Thanks for watching out for the house,” Dani said. “I know it seems ridiculous considering what’s down…” She glanced toward the kitchen, “but I don’t want any more damage done to this place than absolutely necessary. And if they’re digging downstairs, the foundation has to be watched.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Cage said.
“Thank you.” Emotion suddenly overwhelmed her. Her eyes grew
wet again, and her lips trembled. “I just…I’m not sure what to do.”
He looked down, shuffling his feet. “This is a crime scene now.”
Understanding dawned on her. “I can’t be here.” She threw up her hands. “Where am I going to go? How can I make sure the house is safe?”
“I’ll take care of the house,” Cage said. “I probably won’t be allowed to be directly involved in the investigation, but Adams County is a small staff, and I have a feeling they’re going to need every set of hands on this.”
She ran her hands over her pulled-back hair. “Okay. As long as you’re here. And I’ll find somewhere. I saw a bed and breakfast in town.”
“No need to pay money. You can stay in the carriage house.”
“That’s your place.”
“You also own it. And I can stay with a friend. This way, you’ll get to stay on the property.”
“You’d do that for me?”
He searched her eyes, the hard planes of his face softening. “Good old Southern boy, remember?”
She forced herself to smile instead of cry. “Thank you.”
Voices rose in the basement–it sounded like Landers and Jeb were arguing. “I’d better get down there. Why don’t you gather your things and head over to my place, get some sleep? I’ll check in when I can.”
She nodded, and he turned for the kitchen.
“Cage?”
“Yeah?”
“The stairs. Make sure they’re secure before anything is brought up. I don’t want someone getting hurt.”
* * *
He hated to kill the pissed off raccoon, but it was faster than trapping it, and the police needed the finger, not to mention whatever evidence it had consumed. The animal was bagged and set aside while the body was recovered.
Cage hoped Dani hadn’t heard the gunshot from the carriage house.
More lights had been brought down, sitting precariously on whatever surface investigators could use. The result was a garish yellow glow that made the entire scene even more alien. Cage stood on the periphery, the humidity making the white paper mask Jeb had given him stick to his face. That was about all the flimsy paper had done. The smell was unholy. But the sight was even worse.
