Bone Deep

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “No.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I’ve given you time. Too goddamn much time. But I’ll leave now.” He backed away, grabbed his parka without his gaze once leaving hers. “I’ll be back, though, Kat.”

  She still stood in exactly the same place when the greenhouse door bounced closed, leaving her alone once again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHAT KIND OF IDIOT WAS HE? Berating himself, Grant went straight to his car. Once he got in, he realized he’d all but brushed past several people without acknowledging them. Worse yet, he had no idea who they were. And he was a cop! Cops were never blind to their surroundings. They couldn’t afford to be.

  Every muscle rigid, he sat behind the wheel and tried to figure out what it was Kat did to him. But there weren’t going to be any answers. She sure as hell wasn’t trying to get to him. She couldn’t have made that any plainer. She didn’t want to be attracted to him.But for the first time ever, she’d admitted that she was. And he hadn’t been able to stop himself from kissing her, any more than he’d been able to all those years ago. Even though this time it was just as wrong, just as stupid, if for a different reason.

  He had no business touching her until he could be absolutely, one hundred percent sure she had nothing to do with Hugh’s death. And face it: right now, he couldn’t with honesty say that he was.

  There was too much emotion storming in her eyes for him to believe she was trying to manipulate him with this unholy hunger he felt for her. No. Not prickly, independent Kat.

  What he did fear was that she had responded to him today only because, in her terror, she needed closeness with somebody, anybody, and he’d been there. While they held each other, she had to know she wasn’t alone, not the way she’d been ever since Hugh drove away. The temptation must have been enormous.

  Making a harsh sound, Grant rubbed a hand over his face. He hated knowing she hadn’t kissed him because she was deeply, desperately in love with him the way he was with her. That made him pathetic, didn’t it? Especially coupled with his reaction to the inference that she and that cheating scum named Hugh had been doing it like rabbits a couple of days before he disappeared. It had been all Grant could do not to flinch.

  Figure this out, he thought. If he could do that, free Kat from her obsession with her long-dead husband, then they’d see. Because, whatever her reasons, she had kissed him back. All right. Think.

  Why now? she’d asked. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t already been wondering that himself.

  One possibility was that whoever had had Hugh’s bones stashed had been out of the area, and had only recently come home. If this were a different kind of crime, Grant would look for someone who’d recently been sprung from prison. Thing was, this was a small town. He’d know if there was someone like that, the kind of someone who might have had contact with Hugh and Kathryn Riley.

  Okay, someone who’d moved away and now returned. Worth considering. He’d ask some questions. Grant didn’t believe that was the answer, though. He thought there was another kind of trigger altogether. Whoever this was—and he now believed that that someone was a killer—had been satisfied by Hugh’s death. Content to let Kat run the nursery and live her life.

  Or, to look at it a different way, maybe he or she had been content, rather, to watch Kat suffer, caught as she was in limbo. She hadn’t known whether she was abandoned wife or widow, whether the business was really hers or she was only a caretaker for it. Even though police interest and gossip both eventually waned, the taint of suspicion stayed with her. So maybe that was the point. Maybe the killer had really, really enjoyed watching her suffer, and had recently come to the conclusion that she wasn’t anymore. Not enough, anyway.

  Oh, hell. That made no sense. Why would someone who was enraged enough by Hugh to kill him give a good goddamn about his wife? If they’d been in on something together, why not punish her then? Why wait?

  Say that Hugh’s death/murder and the reappearance of the bones were separate, connected only by the fact that the person taunting Kat now had somehow discovered Hugh’s body. And that this somebody maybe didn’t care about Hugh one way or another, but hated Kat.

  He didn’t like the sense in that, because it suggested again that she was the likeliest person to have knocked off her husband.

  No, damn it! Assume there were two perps, and she wasn’t one of them. Okay, then. Back to the calculated appearance of the bones. What had she done to earn this kind of malevolence? So far as he could tell, she kept to herself. He’d never heard any rumor that she even dated, far less played around with other women’s husbands, say. She worked sixty-plus hour weeks, if he was any judge, she was a member of the chamber of commerce, she grocery shopped, gardened at home and had reputedly been refinishing kitchen cabinets and stripping and replacing wallpaper in that crap of an old house her husband had left her. Still…something could have happened.

  Sure. She could have been rude to someone. Snubbed them. Sent a bounced check to collections. He could think of a million small offenses, none of which seemed in any imaginable way to explain why that somebody would be mad and hateful enough to start a campaign of terror. Not to mention risk getting caught planting a missing man’s bones at the nursery.

  He wanted to tear his hair out. No, logic said Hugh’s death and his current, bizarre reappearance—so to speak—were related. Were, in fact, parts one and two of the same thing, whatever that was, as Grant had said to Kat earlier.

  Which took him to her desperate, whispered question: Why now? Had the killer been happy, only something had recently happened that was a trigger, that set him or her off again?

  But, once again, that suggested the original grudge had been against both Hugh and Kat. And if so, why not take action against her at the time?

  Grant circled to the simple answer: because she was suffering. And now she wasn’t deemed to be suffering enough.

  Had the killer kept the body handy with this in mind from the beginning, rather than disposing of it?

  Keeping a corpse “handy” was problematic. Decomposition was messy and smelly. Ask any homicide detective. Some of them would claim they got used to the stench, but for most, it would be a lie. There was nothing quite like that smell.

  Buried then, in a coffin or well wrapped in some other way? No animal had gotten to the bones that had shown up so far. Grant grunted. Hell, he guessed someone could have stashed the body in their basement, if they didn’t mind living with the stench for a few weeks as it seeped up through the floorboards. Or they had rural property and a secure outbuilding. God knows there were plenty of places like that around here. About two-thirds the kids in the school district were bused from outside the city limits. Farming was still a way of life here, and the rest of the rural landscape had been carved up into two-and-a-half acre and five acre lots. People hereabouts liked their slice of rural Americana. Detached workshops, RV garages and small barns were a dime a dozen. A long-unused, concrete-lined well might work, or an empty septic tank.

  Yep. Lots of places to stash a body.

  Sitting there, Grant made up his mind. Whether the city would pay for it or not, he was going to have security cameras installed. If he had to foot the bill himself, he would. Covering the whole damn nursery probably wasn’t feasible, but half a dozen would give them a good shot at catching a glimpse of someone who wasn’t where they belonged. He’d need to get Kat’s permission…but not right now. He’d call her later, when the tension between them cooled down a little.

  Grant drove to the station mulling over how and when the cameras could be installed the least conspicuously. Normally a business wanted security cameras to be visible and therefore deter crime. This was an exception. By God, he wanted this sicko to creep into the greenhouse or Kat’s office with bones. He wanted that face captured on digital imagery.

  He wanted this to be over.

  KAT HAD BARELY WALKED in the door at home when her cell phone rang. Damn. She’d hoped to avoid talking to a single soul all
evening. Worse yet, when she glanced at the number on the screen, she recognized it as Grant’s cell phone.

  Although tempted to mute the ring and ignore the call, she groaned on the fourth ring and flipped the phone open. “Hello.”“Kat, this is Grant.”

  She couldn’t read his voice. Surely this wasn’t personal. Hadn’t they said everything this afternoon?

  “Yes?”

  He started talking about installing cameras, and she relaxed.

  “That’s actually a good idea,” she admitted.

  “Thank you,” he said drily.

  “I’ve been thinking of putting a couple in the main building, anyway. Shoplifting has become more of a problem than it used to be.” Which was true, but she was thinking more that cameras would make her feel safer.

  “You haven’t called us out there that often. I didn’t realize you had much shoplifting.” He sounded mildly surprised at her comment.

  “No, we hardly ever catch anyone. Stuff is just gone. Maybe smaller plants, too, we don’t know. I mean, it would be easy for someone to pop an extra perennial or annual or two in a flat of plants they’d already paid for. But I’m talking garden art, tools, some of the pricier stuff. And it’s hard to prevent, because on a busy day we’re all distracted so often. Plus, it’s not like a pharmacy or department store where clerks know to keep an eye on teenagers. We don’t get that many, and they’re mostly with parents. And what fifteen-year-old would want a concrete garden gnome?”

  “Unless they intended it as a murder weapon.”

  She laughed, something she would have sworn when she walked in the door was beyond her capability. Who knew murder could be funny? “Or a practical joke.”

  “Mother’s Day present.”

  “That’s true.” She sighed. “No matter what, it’s hard on the bottom line.”

  “I’m thinking at least half a dozen cameras,” he said. “Maybe more. A couple inside. I’d like one that catches the door to your office. Maybe motion-activated ones in the greenhouses.”

  They talked over possibilities for a few minutes, and agreed that Sunday would work to get them quietly installed. Hiding them entirely wouldn’t be possible, but some of them could be screened, the outdoor ones peeking through lattice, for example.

  “Sunday is, um, still a few days away,” she said finally.

  “I know.” He sounded grim. “I’ve made a few calls, though, and getting anyone out sooner would be tough. Plus…working at night would be likelier to draw attention, wouldn’t it?”

  “Maybe.” Kat thought about it. “Although there are grow lights in the conservatory for the indoor plants and orchids, and I do have some outdoor lighting. Plus I sometimes stay late. So it’s not like the place is pitch-dark at night.”

  “Quit staying late,” he said flatly.

  Another time, Kat would have bristled, but with the things that had been happening, there was no way she’d have stayed alone at the nursery anyway. She was nervous enough home alone, and at least here she could lock up.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “I’ll see if I can persuade this guy to come sooner. Friday or Saturday night, maybe.”

  “Just let me know.”

  “All right.” He paused. “Don’t let what happened this afternoon keep you from calling if you need me, Kat.”

  The softness of his voice made a lump form in her throat. It was a moment before she could speak.

  “No.” She swallowed. “I have you on speed dial.”

  “Good. I’ll be talking to you.”

  Silence suggested he was gone. Slowly Kat closed her phone. He could shake her up so easily. He was the only person she’d ever known who could. Even Hugh…

  No. She wouldn’t compare the two men. She wouldn’t.

  Kat settled on a salad for dinner. She tried to watch TV and didn’t care about a show she’d always found at least mildly gripping. TV-land drama wasn’t all that compelling compared to her own, real-life version.

  She slept poorly, as she had ever since the first bone appeared in the compost, and woke tired. She had a cup of coffee before she even looked out the window, atypical given how weather-dependent her business was. The sun was out, Kat saw with mild surprise.

  She’d have put on makeup to try to cover the purple smudges under her eyes, except she was bound to sweat once she got to work, which was hell on foundation. And who would even notice what she looked like, anyway?

  Lots of people, she discovered, as the morning progressed. The nursery was busy, and plenty of the customers had come to gape.

  At her.

  At first she thought she was imagining it, but no. People she’d barely met made excuses to talk to her, or stared at her over rows of bare-root roses. The good part, she concluded grimly as the day went on, was that most of them bought something. Grant was right. Scandal was good for business.

  Joan wasn’t supposed to work today, but she appeared after lunch and said, “I guessed we’d be busy,” and dove in. Moments later, she’d led a woman who had been waiting for help to the hanging flower baskets.

  Annika got out of her SUV, met a couple of other garden club members in front and smiled when Kat stopped to say hi.

  “We’re browsing for roundabout plants, no need to bother with us. We’re still at the discussion stage. Looks like everyone is taking advantage of the sun.”

  At least the perennial/shrubbery contingent of the garden club apparently intended to buy at her nursery, Kat was grateful to see. Who knew about the bedding plant group? She hadn’t noticed any of them yet today, but then, she wouldn’t necessarily.

  She was loading a lilac for a customer when she felt a tug on her sleeve.

  “Uh, Kat?” It was Jason, and his eyes were wild. “I need you.”

  Not, Kat thought with a sinking heart, to explain the soil and exposure needs of a Choisya ternata to a potential customer.

  “Give me a second,” she murmured, then made nice to the one who’d already written a sizable check for two lilac bushes and a mountain laurel. Only when the station wagon was backing out did she turn to Jason.

  “What?”

  “You know we put that Viburnum carlesii by the shed? I looked over there, and right behind it—” A shudder rattled his skinny length. “There’s a skull, Kat. It’s…wow. It’s hanging on the wall like…like some kind of garden art.”

  “You’re sure it’s…?” Real, she was going to say, human, but he was already nodding.

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Did you cover it?”

  “Well, it’s sort of behind the viburnum.”

  “Oh, God,” she said. “All right.” Without even looking to see if he was following, she started through the nursery grounds. She couldn’t run. She even had to smile and pause briefly to talk to a couple of people. Ahead she could see the red-painted toolshed with a barn-style door. To one side of the door, a trellis held a clematis that would burst into salad-plate-size, sky-blue blooms in June. To the left was the potted viburnum, which would have gloriously fragrant clusters of white blooms soon.

  Apparently no one had wandered close until Jason had, because even from some distance away she could see the ivory something against the red clapboard siding. It was barely veiled by the new spring leaves of the viburnum.

  She turned abruptly. Her teenage employee was all but stepping on her heels.

  “Jason, keep customers away. Don’t let anyone—anyone—near. Got it?”

  His head bobbed. “I won’t. I promise.”

  “And don’t tell anyone else. Not even coworkers.”

  “Okay.” Wide-eyed, he kept nodding.

  She spun away. I’ll take it down, hide it in the shed.

  Grant wouldn’t like that. He’d want to photograph it in place, check for fingerprints. Like there’d be any. Mind working frantically, Kat thought, To hell with him.

  But then it occurred to her that there were gunnysacks in the shed. She could cover the skull until Grant could get here. No. Sh
e didn’t want him here until after closing. He’d understand, wouldn’t he?

  Leaving Jason to stand guard, Kat stepped close enough to the shed to see the awful grin through the newly unfurling leaves. The skull was so pale, almost unreal, like a plastic decoration for Halloween, except she knew it wasn’t. The texture wasn’t plastic. It was granular, like the other bones had been. The eye sockets were horrible, gaping pits, as was the nose, and it seemed to be grinning with those two awful rows of protuberant teeth.

  She was shaking all over when she reached for the door to open it. A glimpse of color made her pause, take another look. The lower jaw was wired in place, she saw, with green-wrapped garden ties. Perfect for the purpose. She sold them herself.

  Kat shivered at the idea of touching the skull. Covering it was a much better idea. Hugh. She slipped through the open door, snatched up a gunnysack and hurried out. A glance told her that Jason had stood firm and was talking expansively to a couple of women. His body blocked her from recognizing them.

  Bile rising in her throat, its sour taste in her mouth, she managed to drape the roughly woven sack over the skull. Then, despite unsteady hands, she unclipped her cell phone from her belt and, grateful for the fact that she had set Grant’s number up on speed dial, pushed number one and Send.

  It rang only once. “Kat?” he said.

  “Grant. Thank God.” She closed her eyes. “I need you, but I don’t want any customers to see you. We’re…really busy.”

  “More bones?”

  “Skull. It’s…” Even her voice shook. “Hanging on the shed wall.”

  He swore inventively. “Okay, Kat. Is it in plain sight?”

  She told him what she’d done.

  “All right. That’s good. When do you close?”

  “Five.”

  “I’ll be there then. Just don’t let anyone get near.”

  “No. I’ll…find something to do near here.”

  If it hadn’t been midafternoon already, she didn’t think she could have survived. As it was, she pretended to rearrange shrubs, hurrying to talk to the few customers who ventured her way. The one time she was called away to answer questions, she caught Jason’s eye and he took her place. By five, Kat felt wrung out, almost worse than she had in the days following Hugh’s disappearance.