by Robin Perini
“I hope not.”
His hand tightened on her shoulder in a quick squeeze before he released her. Riley shut her eyes. Please don’t be here, Cheyenne.
Underhill and Deputy Quinn Pendergrass troweled away the dirt slowly, methodically. Thayne’s brother Jackson hovered over them as well. Their resemblance ventured into eerie when she saw them standing side by side. Same short-cropped brown hair, same ripped muscles, same determined gaze. And same haunted eyes. As a smoke jumper, he’d probably faced hell, just as Thayne had. But they shouldn’t be watching. Not this closely. Not if they uncovered Cheyenne in this grave.
Riley faced them and straightened her spine. “You can’t be here. Go to your father,” she said, glancing over at the sheriff. “He needs you now. I promise, I’ll let you know the truth as soon as I know.”
Both men froze. Jackson glared at her, but Thayne gave her a short nod, trusting her with his sister in that moment.
Jackson cursed a storm before stalking over to his father. Thayne followed until the three Blackwood men stood together, stoic, tense, intently watching. The fourth, Hudson, was still out there searching.
With each shovelful of dirt, Carson’s jaw tightened. Her heart ached for them. She knew exactly what they were going through. She’d traveled to countless—OK, not countless, exactly twenty-seven—grave sites since she’d turned eighteen, wondering if her sister would be uncovered from the earth.
Madison’s body still hadn’t been found.
A shiver skittered down her back, and she studied Thayne. As if sensing her stare, his gaze rose and met hers. His expression revealed nothing, not the stark effort of Carson’s control or the raw despair of Jackson. Thayne betrayed no emotions. His SEAL training, perhaps? Or simply the need to shoulder the burden.
Her gaze fell to his right hand. Infinitesimal, rhythmic movements of his fingers, the only giveaway that Thayne wasn’t calm and dispassionate.
She wanted to join him, to slip her hand into his, to let him know she was there for him, but she couldn’t. Most profilers didn’t work the scene like she did. But she’d discovered early on she needed to be present to immerse herself in the mind of not only the criminal but also the victim. So she stood alone, watching, waiting.
Minute by minute, a new mound of earth grew. Underhill slid the shovel into the dirt again. Riley detected a soft clunk.
The man froze, and the Blackwood men surged forward.
Riley quickly placed herself between them and the grave. “Don’t,” she said. “Let me.”
“If it’s Cheyenne—” Carson said.
She met his tortured gaze. “Sheriff, let me do my job. That’s why you brought me here.”
He gave her a tight nod. Riley shifted her attention to Thayne. He touched his father’s shoulder. They backed off, Thayne still in absolute control.
Too controlled, actually. She understood the need.
Riley turned away, unable to face their stoic grief any longer. She and Underhill moved closer, with Deputy Pendergrass at their side.
She knelt down and pointed to a small sprig that had been stirred up. A hint of optimism for the Blackwoods ignited inside Riley. “Do you recognize that plant?”
“Of course. It’s sagebrush. Probably broke off from that bush”—he nodded to his left—“when the perpetrator buried the body.”
“The one with the small yellow flowers?”
Underhill nodded.
“Except the twig in the dirt isn’t flowering at all.”
Another time or place, she might have enjoyed Underhill’s stunned-mullet look. Instead, she glanced behind her where Thayne stood with his father and brother. She lowered her voice. She didn’t want to give them hope. Not until she was absolutely certain. Hope destroyed lives as often as despair. “I think an animal churned the dirt.”
“Damn, you’re good.” Thayne’s whispered words just behind her ear nearly sent her careening to the ground.
She rose and slapped the dirt from her pants. “Don’t sneak up on me,” she said, facing him with a scowl while her racing pulse slowed to normal.
“Those are wolf tracks,” Thayne said, nodding to a set of prints.
“Just because a wolf sniffed around doesn’t mean the victim isn’t here,” Underhill argued, though his tone lacked the same conviction as before.
“That’s true,” Riley admitted.
“Is it her?” the sheriff called out. “Thayne?”
A muscle in Thayne’s jaw throbbed. His focus veered to the hole. “What should I tell Dad?”
“Let me finish here,” she said, linking fingers with his for a brief squeeze. “Go to him. He needs you right now, and I need to be absolutely certain before I say anything.”
Thayne hesitated.
“Please. If I make a mistake—” She paused. “I can’t be wrong.”
He gave her a quick nod and crossed back to his father.
Riley stiffened her shoulders against the penetrating and desperate stares searing her back. She knelt beside the hole, her artist’s eyes noting every detail.
“When was your last rain, Deputy?”
“The night before Cheyenne vanished,” he said.
She glanced at Pendergrass and Underhill, her brow arched. “I don’t think a human being disturbed this site. The grave isn’t wet enough. And from the sagebrush, I’d guess this is a six-month-old grave, dug sometime in winter. The hole was covered over before the abduction.”
The DCI investigator couldn’t argue. He gave her a grudging nod of respect. “You going to tell them?” he asked.
“Once I have absolutely no doubts. Do you mind?” She picked up a brush.
“You seem to know what you’re doing.”
She couldn’t have hoped for more than that. Riley excavated methodically, pushing aside the dirt, layer by layer. Twigs, pine needles. The next scrape, she sensed resistance beneath the metal. She set the tool to her side and smoothed away the dirt with her gloved hands. Within seconds, the front portion of a skull revealed itself.
No flesh, only a bit of hair remaining.
Her heart thudded, and she bowed her head. Someone had buried a human being in the middle of nowhere. Thrown him or her away.
She looked over her shoulder at the Blackwood men. “It’s not Cheyenne.”
Carson’s knees buckled. Thayne propped up his father. “You’re sure?”
“These bones have been here long enough to decompose.” She glanced at the DCI investigator. “How long for a body to skeletonize in this part of the country?”
Agent Underhill glanced at the soil. “The roots there were disturbed. This time of year, I’d guess three to six months.”
Carson hugged his sons. They clung to one another, then Thayne picked up the phone. Obviously to call Hudson. Riley let out a small sigh. This grave might not belong to Cheyenne, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t buried somewhere else. Hopefully Thayne and his family could handle whatever happened next, though most couldn’t.
Riley turned away and, with care, brushed aside the dirt until she could examine the entire skull. She was no forensic anthropologist, but she’d learned a few things—some from her training, most from the long hours of research and interviews she’d waded through searching for her sister.
The skull was larger than most women’s. She turned it to one side. The ridge along the temporal line was definitely pronounced. Lastly, she looked into where the victim’s eyes would have been and ran her finger along the lower section of the orbits. A relatively sharp ridge. Add that to the prominence of the arch above, and she was almost certain.
“It’s a man,” she said to Underhill. She turned the skull to the other side. A small, round hole right above where the ear would have been. Definitely not natural.
She rose to her feet. “Sheriff?”
Carson glanced up at her, his eyes swollen and red. “Riley?” He crossed to her and gripped her hand. “Thank you.”
She’d done nothing but fail to find Cheyenne.
She couldn’t manage more than a grimacing smile. “Have any hikers gone missing in the last six months?”
“Not from Singing River, but I’ll check the reports.”
“Search for pairs of hikers first,” she said.
“Why? Is there more than one body?”
“No, but this man didn’t die of natural causes. He was murdered.”
Cheyenne was dying. Her stomach cramped, and she whimpered, rolling into a tiny ball on the cot in her prison cell.
Her belly ached, acid burned in her throat. She shot to her feet and ran to the back of the room, flinging open the bathroom door.
She slammed it shut and fell to her knees in front of the toilet. By the time her stomach had emptied out, small flecks of blood streaked the clear fluid. She fell backward, heaving. Her pulse raced. She blinked and pressed her hand to her lower abdomen.
Biting her lip to avoid crying out, she let her head fall back against the wall, her breathing shallow, panting.
She’d never felt anything like this before. But she’d witnessed the symptoms.
In Bethany.
Her forehead beaded in sweat, Cheyenne struggled to focus. Causes of two people with identical symptoms.
“Come on, Cheyenne. Think.”
Two possibilities. Infectious or environmental.
Her belly cramped again. She crawled to the toilet, and her body spasmed and retched, but nothing remained in her stomach. Dry heaves overwhelmed her until she collapsed onto the floor of the bathroom.
What was causing this? She fisted her hands, pressing short nails into her palms, trying to force herself to think.
Differential diagnosis. She’d done it hundreds, thousands of times.
Never hurting like this, though.
Start with Bethany. Cheyenne had eliminated all the obvious causes of the woman’s pain. Ticking through the list of infectious agents she could recall, Cheyenne couldn’t think of one with such a short incubation period.
So, if the problem wasn’t disease or infection, that left one possibility. Something in the environment.
Except Ian and Adelaide weren’t sick. No one else here had shown any symptoms.
Cheyenne pushed herself up from the floor, struggling to her feet. Legs shaking, she gripped the sink and splashed water on her face. She didn’t know how long it took her to feel somewhat steady on her feet again. On weak legs, she walked over to Bethany’s bed and sat down beside her.
“What is it, Bethany? What’s making us sick? What’s so toxic that in less than a day, I’d be showing symptoms?”
She scanned the room; she knew every inch of the space. She’d gone over the room herself with hospital-grade cleaning supplies before the surgery. She’d seen nothing to cause such an acute reaction.
Unable to avoid the one option left, Cheyenne clasped Bethany’s hand. “I’ve ingested it, haven’t I? So have you. Someone’s poisoned us.”
To her shock, Bethany squeezed Cheyenne’s hand.
“Bethany? Bethany?”
The woman’s eyes didn’t open.
Cheyenne waited for several minutes, but Bethany didn’t flinch again and didn’t regain consciousness. Exhausted, Cheyenne stumbled to her bed and fell onto the blankets, her mind whirling with possibilities.
She couldn’t think anymore. But she knew one thing. Whoever had planned the abduction believed Bethany’s diagnosis was appendicitis. Why else steal the supplies and medication? Why force Cheyenne to operate?
The implications made her shiver.
Someone wanted Bethany dead. Someone who had access to this room or to the food and water brought into the room.
And given Cheyenne’s symptoms, they wanted her dead as well.
The rumble of engines broke the silence of the clearing. Odd sounds given the normal quiet of this isolated portion of the ranch. Thayne stepped through the tree line. He’d threatened to arrest a couple of reporters who’d found their way to the location. Damn locusts. They’d seen just enough to make for a juicy headline and endless speculation.
Cheyenne’s abduction had gone national. This would mean their small town would have fifteen minutes of notorious fame.
The forensics team worked on the grid surrounding the grave under Jackson’s watchful eye. Thayne joined his brother.
“Dad looks like he’s going to keel over,” he said under his breath, looking at his father at the opposite edge of the site.
“You want to try to convince him to go home, big brother?” Jackson whispered.
“Someone has to.” Thayne rubbed his face.
When he caught sight of Carson swaying, he’d had enough. “Come on.” He tilted his head toward Jackson, and they joined their father.
“You need to go home, Dad,” Thayne said. “When we find Cheyenne, she’ll chew us all out if you’re back in the hospital. And I sure as hell don’t want to face my sister when she’s on a tirade.”
A weak smile crossed his father’s face. “She’d do it, too.” He sighed. “I know when I’m outgunned.” He flicked on his radio. “Status report?”
One by one, the search teams reported in. One by one, the bad news built. They’d found nothing. Not one sign of Cheyenne.
With each call, his father’s shoulders sagged a bit more, and what little energy remained vanished.
Jackson cleared his throat. “Dad, I’m taking you home. The search teams won’t stop. Thayne and Quinn Pendergrass will see to that. Besides, Gram and Pops need you.”
Their father hesitated, but finally he nodded. “You’ll call with any news. No matter what.” He glared first at Thayne, then at Jackson, a warning in his tired but sharp eyes.
“Of course.”
A rustle of trees and ground cover tore Thayne’s attention from his father.
Riley stood just behind the tree line, her sketchbook in her hands.
His father followed Thayne’s line of sight. “You and I both know Riley’s our only hope.” He clutched Thayne’s arm. “If we were going to find Cheyenne easily, we already would have.”
“I know.” He faced his dad.
“Give her whatever she needs, Thayne. I’ll call in every favor I have coming. Hell, I’ll be indebted to whoever will help us for the rest of my life. As long as we find Cheyenne alive and well.”
“Let’s go, Dad.”
Jackson led their father past Riley toward his truck. They disappeared through the woods as Thayne crossed to her.
“I’m glad you convinced your father to go home.” She closed her sketchbook so quickly he couldn’t make out what she’d drawn.
“Dad doesn’t give in easily, and he doesn’t know his own limitations these days. Cheyenne can get him to follow doctor’s orders. She’s the only one, though.”
“Your family is bound to this land, aren’t they?” Riley said. “I saw your initials carved on that tree, along with your brothers’ and sister’s. You have so much here, Thayne. Why did you leave home when you obviously love this town and your family?”
Thayne kneaded the muscles at the back of his neck. “My great-granddad homesteaded here. He became sheriff. Pops was sheriff. Dad was sheriff. I grew up facing the Blackwood legacy every single day. I couldn’t breathe here. I had to find my own way.”
“I get that,” Riley said. “More than you know. After Madison, I faced my own set of expectations.” She touched her bracelet. “Do you want to come back here permanently?”
“I never imagined moving home for good, but I got a call last week from my commander. I’m running out of time. I have to decide whether to continue with the SEALs and my Navy career or opt out. The team is one short. They need me.”
“So does your family.”
What could he say? Family trumped everything.
“Are you finished here?” he asked.
She nodded. The body had been removed and most everyone had moved off to continue the grid search for Cheyenne. Only Pendergrass and Underhill remained.
The rumble of an engine on its last l
egs shattered the darkness. Uneven headlights swept across the trees. The vehicle gave a loud hiccup, the backfire spewing exhaust. Oh boy. He recognized the POS truck. Carol Wallace jumped out of the vehicle and stumbled toward the open grave of the crime scene.
At the edge, she swayed and sank to her knees. “Is it her? Is it Gina?”
“Oh my God,” Riley whispered. “Carol Wallace.”
Before Thayne could move, Riley raced to the woman. Carol looked up at Riley and nearly toppled over.
“Y-you.”
The slurred word told Thayne all he needed to know. By the time he reached Carol’s side, the overwhelming smell of alcohol hit him.
Riley clasped Carol’s arms. “Your daughter isn’t here,” Riley said. “Look at me, Carol. It’s not Gina.”
Her words didn’t penetrate Carol’s alcohol-soaked mind. The poor woman sank to the ground and just sobbed, tears flowing down her cheeks. Her fingers clutched at the dirt, digging into the ground.
Thayne grasped her shoulders and forced her to stand. “Carol, listen to me. It’s not Gina. We haven’t found your daughter.”
Slowly, the cries diminished. She sniveled and looked at Riley. “But you’re the FBI agent looking for her. If this isn’t her, what are you doing here?”
“She’s helping us find Cheyenne,” Thayne said.
Carol’s eyes widened. “Is she gone?”
Thayne could only stare at her in disbelief.
“Cheyenne was kidnapped Friday evening,” Riley said. “I’m trying to find her.”
“Like you found my Gina?” Carol blurted out the bitter words.
Riley flinched, and Thayne turned on Carol, his jaw throbbing. “Back off, Carol. Riley doesn’t deserve that. She’s the only Fed who’s opened Gina’s case in a decade.”
Carol slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Ummm . . . Friday was rough,” she said, unable to meet Riley’s gaze. “I just want my baby.”
In other words, Carol had been drinking since he’d arrested Ed. Thayne shook his head. “Pendergrass, I’m taking Carol home. Can you call someone in to drive her truck back to town when you leave?”
“Sure, Thayne. As soon as we’re done here.”
He looked at Riley. “You ready to leave?”
