“We’re not going to find my truck, are we?”
“We’ll find it.” Unexpectedly he removed one hand from the wheel to squeeze hers, knotted on her lap. “I’m betting it’s parked right next to Hugh’s now.”
After a pause, during which he took his hand back, she flexed hers. “We could be wrong. It might turn up abandoned in Everett.”
“It might.” He glanced at her again. She didn’t meet his eyes. “Where to?” he asked.
The closest place to rent a car was in Marysville. She directed him there.
He made a couple of other remarks. She replied, although by the time he dropped her off she didn’t have the slightest idea what either of them had said.
“Don’t stay at the nursery by yourself,” he told her as she slid out.
“I promised I wouldn’t.”
He gave a terse nod.
“Thank you for the lift.”
“Call if you have any problems.”
She agreed then closed the door, walking into the rental place without looking back.
She rented a compact car. Joan drove a pickup, if something absolutely had to be hauled. If her own pickup was recovered, fine; otherwise, she’d get by until the insurance company deemed enough time had passed to reasonably assume it wouldn’t be recovered and paid out.
She got to the nursery by ten-thirty, in time to interview another applicant. This was the one with so much experience, she ought to be running her own plant nursery.
When Kat said something to that effect, if more tactfully, Helen Kitts grinned.
“But I don’t want to.” She sighed. “Here’s where I’m going to say something that isn’t exactly music to employers’ ears. The thing is, I started a family. You notice a big gap in my résumé.”
Kat had.
“I’m starting to get bored, and we can use some extra income. But I have three kids—four, five and seven years old. I don’t really want full-time, and you have to understand that kids get sick. Sometimes I’ll want to rearrange my schedule so I can go on a field trip. I’ll be a good employee, but right now I can’t give any job my all.”
“In return for my being flexible,” Kat said thoughtfully, “I’d be getting a walking, talking horticultural encyclopedia and someone who might even have ideas about what we can do better.”
A small but stocky woman with a cheerful face and a few threads of gray in her curly dark hair, Helen said, “Which I’ll keep to myself unless you want them.”
Kat laughed. “Oh, I want them.” She pushed away from her desk. “Let’s take a walk through the nursery.”
They took their time, talking about favorite plants and the difference between growing conditions locally compared to central Oregon, where Helen had lived last. She was as knowledgeable as her résumé had claimed her to be, and likable besides. Kat promised to check out her references, and didn’t doubt they’d be good.
They were. The two people she reached raved, and only a few hours after the interview, Kat called and offered her the job. Helen was ready and eager to start immediately. Hallelujah.
One problem down.
The nursery was busy. Mike Hedin caught Kat in an unwary moment to ask about the rumors he’d heard that Hugh’s remains had been discovered. He whipped out a small spiral notebook and held it with a pen poised.
She froze for an awful moment, but knew she couldn’t dodge the question entirely. “It’s true,” she said finally. “I can’t tell you any more than that, though. You’ll need to talk to Chief Haller for details.”
“He said he can’t compromise an investigation by giving out details.” Mike’s disgruntlement was obvious.
“Your deadline’s not for a couple of days, isn’t it? He might be able to tell you more by then.” She hoped. Prayed.
Or did she? Because if Grant learned more, it would probably be because something else happened. And she didn’t want anything else to happen.
Except, if it didn’t, she’d be caught in this state of suspension forever. Purgatory. And she didn’t know if she could bear that.
“Any chance you’d like to have dinner tonight, if I promise not to grill you?” Mike asked, ultracasually.
Was he asking her on a date? Oh, God, he was, Kat realized in dismay. For a wild moment, she thought about accepting. Being seen publicly with another man would divert any interest in her relationship with Grant.
But she couldn’t do that. Not to Mike, who was a nice man, and not to Grant, who would be livid and hurt both. And…she didn’t want to make conversation with Mike, however nice. If she couldn’t spend the evening with Grant, she didn’t want anyone.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t, Mike.”
He nodded, glum but accepting. Making conversation after that was hard going, but they both made the effort to dissipate the awkwardness.
At the end of the day, Kat and Joan left together.
“I can’t believe Mike finally asked you out,” Joan was saying, shaking her head as she unlocked her pickup. “He’s been thinking about it forever.” She shot a wicked grin over her shoulder. “George Slagle, too.”
“Oh, ick.” Kat grimaced. “I didn’t say that.”
Joan clapped both hands over her ears. “Can’t hear anything.”
Kat grinned. “I’ll see you in the morning. You can meet the new hire then.”
“Good.”
Kat drove home, and, despite the shiny new locks, walked through the house to make sure everything looked untouched. It did. She had soup from a can and a bagel with cream cheese, probably not nutritious but easy. She couldn’t concentrate on a book, and the TV sitcom she turned on wasn’t any better. At eight-thirty, her cell phone rang. She picked it up to see Grant’s number.
“Hey,” he said, when she answered. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”
Warmth percolated through her. She hadn’t known it, but she had wanted to hear his, too.
“I’m glad you called,” she admitted.
“Okay day?”
“Yeah. I hired someone to replace Tess.” She told him about Helen. “Business was good. No surprises.”
“I half wish there had been.”
“Bite your tongue.”
“I’ve never liked sitting on hold.”
Kat’s fingers tightened on the phone. “That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?” After a moment, she said, “What I’m doing.”
He didn’t like that. “We’re in this together.”
She opened her mouth to argue then closed it. It scared her, how much she wanted that to be true, but she did. Last night had been…wondrous. Revelatory. She’d thought sex with Hugh was the way it was. That her whole relationship with Hugh, sometimes tepid, sometimes frustrating, sometimes hurtful, was also the way it was. But now she knew. It didn’t have to be. She wanted—oh, she wanted—to believe that Grant would be her future, but fear blossomed in her chest again. Wanting something so much was dangerous. She’d never gotten what she wanted.
Except the satisfaction and growing self-esteem the nursery had given her. Which made it all the more frightening that her foolish assumptions about her marriage weren’t the only thing under assault—it was her business that might be in the most danger.
Or her. But she didn’t want to think about that.
“Kat?” Grant prompted. “You’re not alone.”
She closed her eyes and said softly, “Okay.”
“Don’t shut me out.”
“No.”
“Swear.”
She remembered his rumble of laughter last night, and found herself, despite everything, smiling.
“Cross my heart.”
“Poor choice of words,” he said gruffly, “but I’ll take it in the spirit it was meant.”
Poor choice…? Oh, Lord. Cross my heart and hope to die.
“You’re right,” she said hastily. “I’m glad you called, Grant. Today, I kept wishing…”
“Me, too.” His voice had lowered so
it was deep, tender. “Good night, Kat. Sleep tight.”
“Good night,” she whispered, ending the call. Weirdly enough, she was smiling again even as her eyes prickled with tears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KAT PULLED A SWEATSHIRT over her head and let herself out the rear door of the main building.
She was grateful to have a little time before they had to open. Joan, bless her heart, had volunteered to start arriving at eight-fifteen.“You shouldn’t be here alone,” she’d said in her stalwart way.
So she was currently opening the cash register, and Kat began the walk-through that had always been her habit, but now had a different purpose than it used to. She still saw the plants, the gaps in rows, still thrust her fingers at random into the soil in pots to be sure nothing had gotten too dry, still made mental notes about low inventory or how a particular impatiens on the annual table or a new hybrid of spirea didn’t seem to be selling. But really, of course, she was looking for bones. Human bones. Hugh’s bones.
She walked through all of the greenhouses, annoyed with herself at how uneasy she was made by how closed in she felt, how heavy the humid air was. Finally she circled by the toolshed. Part of her morning routine was to unlock it… But, frowning, she saw that the padlock hung open. Hadn’t she checked it last night? She wasn’t positive.
Kat unhooked the padlock so she could turn the hasp, then opened the door and recoiled. Good Lord, what smelled so bad?
A dead animal. It had to be. At least, thank goodness, it must be inside the shed and not underneath, where they might not have been able to get to it. Breathing through her mouth, she reached for the cord and turned on the bare, overhead bulb. Ugh, there it was, a dead…something. Rabbit, she thought, but whatever creature it was didn’t have a head. How could it have gotten in here…?
And then she forgot the dead rabbit. Because right there on the floor, beneath rakes and shovels hanging on the wall, were what she momentarily took for a jumble of bones.
Breath coming fast, she crouched over them, her back to the door.
Which closed with a bang, followed by a scraping sound.
She jerked in surprise and almost fell over, then swiveled on her heels. What…? Had Joan not seen her in here? There hadn’t been any wind…
She hurried to the door and pushed on it. It didn’t give at all. Oh, God. She’d left the padlock hanging, as they always did, on the open hasp. Had somebody locked her in? Kat hated the feeling of panic. There wasn’t any reason to be scared, for goodness sake. The other employees would be arriving soon. She’d hammer on the door until someone heard her. At worst… She gave a queasy look over her shoulder. At worst, she’d be stuck in here with her only company a beheaded rabbit and more of Hugh’s bones.
Bile rose in her throat and she laid a hand on her stomach to quell the nearly irresistible need to retch. With the door closed and with no windows, the stench was almost unbearable.
The rabbit had been bait, she realized. She might not have stepped in otherwise. She might not have discovered the bones until later. Gagging, she tried to figure out why that mattered. Somebody would have needed a tool out of here in the next hour or two, and seen the bones.
She battered on the door with her fists for several minutes, yelling, “Let me out!” There was no answer. She couldn’t hear anyone or anything at all.
Her stomach did heave. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Maybe if she put a terracotta pot over the rabbit, upside down. And plugged the hole with gunnysacks or something. She followed through quickly, but the whole space was permeated with that awful stink of decomposing flesh.
She hammered again. Yelled some more. Her hands were getting sore.
Then, gulping, she went to the bones and crouched again.
It wasn’t a jumble, as she’d first thought. That was…it was a pelvis. It had to be. Those cupped sort of wings were hipbones, she thought. But it was butted up to another pelvis. And no human had two.
Nose plugged, sobbing for breath beneath the hand she’d clapped over her face, she stared at the two pelvises, and thought, Dear, God, if two people were having sex, their hips would press together almost like that.
The taste in her mouth suddenly wasn’t just stomach bile, wasn’t that unholy stench. She went still, some primal instinct screaming an alarm. Kat let go of her nose and smelled it. Wood smoke.
When she turned, she saw the smoke, too. Seeping in from the back corner, dark and somehow oily.
She flew at the door and began hammering again. The first curls and drifts of smoke were thickening, and a lick of flame ate through the wall.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help!”
GRANT WAS GETTING OUT of the shower when his cell phone rang. While he let hot water beat down on his bent head, he’d been mulling over a meeting he’d had the previous afternoon with half a dozen owners of downtown businesses. They were concerned about the increase of shoplifting they were seeing, and linked it to the numbers of teenagers loitering along the main street. The high school, unfortunately, was within easy walking distance, and school let out early for those not staying to play a sport. Grant wasn’t a fan of closed campuses; damn it, these kids were on the cusp of adulthood and should be eased into responsibility, not locked down as if the school had the dual function of educating and jailing them. But he was having trouble thinking of a better fix. If he had the budget to add officers—at least one bicycle officer who did nothing but cruise downtown during the peak afternoon hours, pop in and out of stores…
He snorted. If he had the budget. He didn’t.The sound of the phone ringing made him go rigid. It couldn’t be later than 8:45. Either dispatch or one of his officers was letting him know about a major crime, or…it was Kat.
He grabbed for a towel and walked, wet, into his bedroom where he’d left the cell phone on the bedside stand. The number on the screen was local, but not Kat’s cell phone he saw, with a rush of relief. He answered, “Haller.”
“Chief Haller?” The woman’s voice was familiar. “This is Joan Stover at the nursery. I thought you’d want to know. Kat was locked into the shed and it was set on fire. One of our employees saw the smoke as she was pulling in. Thank the Lord, she ran out back and heard Kat yelling for help.”
He felt like his heart had just stopped. Throat dry, he said, “She’s all right?”
“I called for an ambulance. I think she’s suffering from some smoke inhalation. She can’t quit coughing and retching.” She was quiet for a moment. “Chief Haller, there’s some more bones in there. We’re still pouring water on the shed, but I shut the door.”
“I’m on my way,” he said tersely.
He’d never gotten dressed so fast in his life. He didn’t bother drying himself first; the cotton of his uniform shirt clung clammily to his back and the trousers to his legs. He grabbed keys, weapon, badge, and ran for the garage.
Camera. Hell. He went back for it.
He wanted to go to the hospital, not the nursery. He didn’t like to think of Kat there alone, hacking up black phlegm, scared. But his obligation was to go to the crime scene, and that’s how he could help Kat best.
Maybe somebody from the nursery had gone with her. He wished that was a comfort. Grant couldn’t help thinking the nursery employees were in the best position to be behind this crap. The trouble was, he hadn’t been able to find anything on any of them. Most of them hadn’t even worked there when Hugh was alive.
The closed sign still hung on the front door when he tore in, even though it was now 9:05. The front door was unlocked, though, and a white-faced woman he didn’t know was waiting for him inside.
“Um…Joan followed the ambulance to the hospital. I’m new here. Today. She asked me to meet you.”
“Good,” he said, holding out his hand. “Chief Grant Haller.”
“Chief Haller.” She shook his hand. “Helen Kitts. Kat just hired me. This isn’t quite how I expected my first day to go.”
“Hell of a thing,” he agreed. “I n
eed to go take a look.”
“I’m assuming it would be better if I didn’t open.”
“Please don’t,” he told her. “If any customers show up, tell them there’s been a fire and you’re not certain whether the nursery will be open today or not.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
Out back, he found James Cheung holding a hose, the stream of water directed over the roof of the redpainted toolshed. Acrid smoke still rose from the charred back. Grant knew the smell immediately. The fire had been fueled by gasoline. He’d have to get the fire marshal out here.
After greeting Cheung, Grant inspected the pattern blackened on the shed wall opposite the main nursery building, saw footprints that weren’t adequately defined in the squishy—and now wet—sawdust to even let him venture a guess as to size, and finally circled to the front.
“It looks like it’s out,” he told James. “And I need to go in. Why don’t you turn that off, but I’d appreciate it if you’d hang around in case the fire flares up again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Grant put on latex gloves before he reached to turn the metal hasp. He was careful not to touch the padlock itself. They hadn’t gotten a print yet, but everyone got careless eventually.
The minute he opened the door, a foul stench fairly boiled out. Cheung choked and backed up. Swearing, Grant looked immediately for the source of the smell. The overhead bulb was on despite the fire. Kat would have turned it on when she stepped in. It wasn’t hard to guess that she’d gone in to see what the hell stank so bad.
He didn’t see anything immediately, although he couldn’t miss the bones. Pelvis… Hell. He stared for a minute. Two of them. Pressed together in a way that was damned suggestive. Somebody had to be making a comment on Hugh’s sexual mores.
The question was, if one of those pelvises was Hugh’s, who did the other one belong to? He was no expert, but even he could see that they were different. One was female, one male. Had to be.
The large, upside-down terracotta pot was oddly placed. Especially with a couple of gunnysacks bundled atop. Grant gingerly lifted it and came closer to puking than he would have wanted any of his subordinates to see. He let the pot drop, although he wasn’t sure that helped the smell any.
Bone Deep Page 15
