by Kyla Stone
Moreno scoffed. “Even if it is, that fabric could’ve been there for weeks.”
“Don’t think so,” Jackson said. “It rained this morning, remember? The ground is still damp, which is why we’ve got good footprints to cast. This shirt, it’s still fresh. Hell, it smells like Downy fabric softener. Lavender.”
“How the hell can you smell that, man?” Moreno asked, disbelieving.
But he could. He’d always had a keen sense of smell. Lily had never worn perfume, but she’d used the same fabric softener her entire life.
If nothing else, Easton was a habitual man. If Downy had worked for him and for his daughters, it would work for his grandkids.
Shiloh smelled like her mother.
Shiloh Easton. Thirteen years old. Black hair and blacker eyes. Small and sharp, one hundred pounds of spit and fire. She was Lily Easton’s daughter, through and through.
Devon nibbled on her thumbnail. “She might have seen it. The homicide.”
Jackson rose heavily to his feet. He was thinking the same thing. “She’s a material witness. So is her brother, at a minimum. We need to find them both. Sooner rather than later.”
No one said anything for a long moment. They studied the crime scene, listened to the night insects churring, watched the bugs swarming in the bright search lights. The night grew colder.
“We’ll canvas the neighbors,” Jackson said. “Get a team to search the woods. Interview friends and family. We need to put out a BOLO for Shiloh and Cody Easton. And Eli Pope is our top priority.”
The group nodded, their faces somber.
“Good luck,” Moreno muttered. “We’re not doing jack squat with the power out across the UP. It’s not just us. Everyone’s out across the country. All because of this damn sky.”
“It’ll be back up tomorrow,” Devon said too brightly. “Everything back to normal.”
Jackson felt as far from normal as if normal no longer existed, and never had. Everything seemed tilted sideways on its axis, time spinning, cause and effect turned on its side.
Nausea swirled in his stomach. The corpse, the blood, the eerie reddish glow bathing the scene like a technicolor nightmare. It was getting to him.
He was a man of order, of rules, of law. He liked things to make sense. Easton dead after all this time didn’t make sense. That damn blood-red sky didn’t make sense.
They worked the scene for another hour but found nothing. The crime scene techs would scrape the entire salvage yard and surrounding area with a fine-tooth comb.
If there was something else out here, they would find it.
Jackson and Devon were silent as they exited the salvage yard and made their way back up the hill toward the weedy parking lot. The trees threw murky shadows across the oil-black grass. The aurora blotted out most of the stars, the moon. It was after two a.m.
“Who do we notify?” Devon asked. “The next of kin.”
Jackson stilled. “There’s only one person. Easton’s wife died twenty-five years ago. No living parents. No aunts or uncles. No one except Lena.”
A flood of memories struck him. Lily and Lena, sisters and best friends. Lena was the older, responsible sister to Lily’s reckless charm. Lena’s blue eyes were serious, while Lily’s brown eyes had danced with mischief. They were beautiful, Lena’s hair rippling in long chestnut waves; Lily’s hair had been dark and curly.
“Easton’s other daughter.” He paused. “She lives in Tampa. They were estranged.”
“She’ll come back when she hears her father is dead.”
“I don’t think so. Things went badly the last time they saw each other.” He didn’t mention the trial. “She hasn’t been back. Not in eight years.”
“What about the kids? They’d be her niece and nephew, right?”
Jackson thought about the last time they’d spoken. Each year, he called Lena on November twenty-fifth, the anniversary of her sister’s death.
They didn’t share much anymore, but they would always share that. They were the two people who’d loved Lily Easton the most in the world.
Time seemed to thin, the past and present converging. He recalled how protective Lena had been when it came to Lily. How fiercely she’d defended her family and friends. One of those people who jumped in feet first to help, no matter what was needed.
That was the Lena he remembered.
Maybe she wouldn’t give a damn about her father’s death. But the welfare of her niece and nephew? He had to believe that mattered. That she was still the Lena Easton he’d known so long ago.
“Poor kids,” Devon said. “Without her, they’re screwed. When we find them, they’ll go into the system.”
He pulled out his phone. No service.
The blood-red sky undulated above them. The sky on fire, like the world itself was in mourning. Or maybe it was burning to the ground.
“She’ll come,” Jackson said with more faith than he felt. “She’s the only family they have left. Lena will come.”
LENA EASTON
DAY TWO
“We have a missing person.”
Those were the words that drove Lena Easton, that motivated her to get out of bed before dawn every morning, to hike or swim five miles a day, to train, to improve with each passing day.
Sweat beaded Lena’s forehead and trickled down her shoulder blades. Tampa was in the middle of a heat wave. It was ninety degrees at nine a.m. She felt every sweltering degree.
Her giant Newfoundland dog, Bear, sat obediently beside her, panting. “Good dog,” she murmured and patted his giant furry head. “Good boy.”
The Newfie was over one hundred and fifty pounds of thick chocolate brown fur, pure loyalty, adoration, and mischievous affection. He was an intelligent, sensitive dog. He liked to work and loved a challenge.
Lena worked as a paramedic three days a week, but her volunteer work with the Canine Search and Rescue Association was her passion, her purpose. They were certified in urban and wilderness rescue. Bear was her partner, both in SAR work and in life.
Lena waved at the other SAR handlers and their dogs. Base was a portable tent set up in the vacant lot next to a stucco house with Spanish tiles. Several law enforcement officials stood around, studying maps and giving orders on radios.
Once everyone had arrived, the search coordinator briefed the unit. “The subject is Stanley Mills, aged eighty-two. He suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s with dementia. He lives with his son in the Arbor Green neighborhood, which abuts the Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve.”
Lena’s stomach tightened. The state park contained five hundred acres of woods, interspersed with rivers, streams, and mangrove-covered swampy wetlands. A lot of area to get lost. And with the heat wave…
The sun could be deadly in more ways than one.
“The son found him missing at approximately seven-thirty a.m. He checked with the neighbors and drove nearby neighborhoods before contacting law enforcement. Stanley has likely been exposed to the elements for ten to twelve hours. He was last seen wearing blue crocs and dressed in a white T-shirt and red cotton Snoopy pajama bottoms. His favorite Buccaneers cap is missing, so he likely took it with him.” The coordinator clapped her hands. “Let’s go find Stanley.”
Lena and Bear were assigned to quadrant three, half of which was marshland and swamp. She hoped their subject hadn’t wandered into the swamp. She hated snakes and alligators, but she’d wade in if that’s what it took to bring the missing home.
The other handlers loaded their packs while a volunteer handed out small paper bags. Each bag contained an item of clothing worn recently by the subject. The dogs scented the item and identified their target.
“Find Stanley,” Lena said to Bear. “Go find Stanley. Good boy!”
And then they were off. Lena and Bear were on the hunt, working their sector. They worked in a “Z” pattern, scenting the air until they caught the one scent they sought.
Every human being had his or her own scent. The skin gave o
ff dead skin cells called rafts. Every person shed about forty thousand per minute.
Bear’s tail stiffened, his hackles going up as he caught the scent. He barked and raced into the trees, heading toward the park.
“Good boy!” Lena scrambled after him. As they worked their way deeper into the park, Lena studied the trees, the sky, the paths the way Stanley might have seen them.
Stanley could have taken a detour, backtracked on himself, or looped away from the intended destination at any point.
Inside the park, the paths were marked by different colored diamonds on the trunks of various trees, but they were easy to miss if someone became disoriented. Or forgot what they meant.
Ahead of her, Bear sniffed the air. His tail went up, his hackles rising, and he bounded ahead and disappeared between some bushes. He’d alerted on something.
Lena followed him, struggling through the swampy undergrowth, surrounded by mangroves. They were nearing the water.
Bear stopped, turning in tight circles, tail wagging.
She saw the disturbed ground first. A patch of leaves scraped into piles along with several damp imprints. She imagined the elderly man catching a foot on a root, tumbling forward and landing on the heels of his hands and knees.
Not three feet away, a few strands of red cotton were snagged on the thorns of a briar bush.
“Good boy, Bear. Good boy.” Removing a roll of blue tape from her pocket, she marked the area, then checked her compass, figured her bearings, then called it in. “Base, this is Lena. I’m a hundred yards from my east boundary, just short of the swamp. I found some red threads on a briar, possibly from the Snoopy pajama pants. It looks like he fell here but got back up again. He’s headed for the swamp.”
She and Bear kept going. Five minutes later, her radio crackled. “Base, this is Charlie. We just found one of his crocs. Caked with mud. Lena, Champ is alerting in your direction.”
Before she could say a word, Bear barked and bounded ahead. Lena hurried to catch up.
Her boots sank into muck as she entered the marsh. Algae slicked the surface of stagnant black water. Mosquitos swarmed in dense clouds. The sweltering heat pressed down on her. Humidity curled her hair at the base of her neck.
She paused to drink bottled water from her backpack and inhaled a protein bar to keep her blood sugar levels up. She kept a collapsible water bowl for Bear and called him back to drink as well.
Ten minutes later, Bear paused and looked over his shoulder. His fluffy tail drooped. He whined. It was an alert—but not the one either of them wanted.
Lena’s stomach dropped. She let out the breath she’d been holding.
Bear was trained to alert to both the living and the dead. His alert was different for each find. Trained dogs could identify the scent of death not just on corpses, but also on blood splatter, bone, and even cremated remains.
When a person died, the scent was the same, but it had the scent of decay mixed in. The smell was unique to humans and incredibly complex—a person released 478 different chemical compounds as their body decomposed.
With a heavy heart, Lena approached the spot where Bear waited, whining pitifully. Stanley Mills lay on his side in six inches of swamp. Black mud clotted his wispy white hair. Muck splattered his soaked pajama pants. In one gnarled fist he clutched the red Buccaneers cap.
Shucking her pack, Lena knelt beside him, heedless of the water drenching her pantlegs or the six-foot alligator sunning himself on the opposite bank. “Stanley, can you hear me?”
The elderly man didn’t respond. Even knowing what she would find, she still went through the motions of checking for vital signs. There was no pulse. His skin was paper white, his lips cracked. He had become severely dehydrated and had likely suffered heat stroke.
Devastated, Lena rocked back on her heels, swallowed hard, closed her eyes. Sorrow washed over her in waves, in mourning for an elderly man she didn’t know and had never met.
This was someone’s father. A grandfather. Someone who was loved and would be sorely missed. Every loss felt personal, like she had failed. She hated it.
Lena called it in on the radio, her words like stones in her throat. Then she logged in the time, date, and details in the notes on her phone. Her signal had been crappy since last night, but she didn’t need cell service to take notes.
Her backpack felt like it weighed a million pounds. She signaled for Bear to return to her side, which he did immediately, head down. She gave him more water from the collapsible bowl as she checked her insulin pump.
The tiny screen read 140 mg/dl. Her numbers were good, though she felt sick to her stomach. They’d been searching for less than an hour. It had felt like an eternity.
“You did so good, boy. You did a good job. Not your fault we didn’t get here in time.”
Crouching, hardly noticing the water sloshing over the rims of her hiking boots, Lena buried her hands in the thick fur of his neck.
Bear snuffed mournfully and licked her face.
She tilted her forehead. Her dog lowered his snout. Their heads touched. It was one of Bear’s favorite poses. Hers, too. “You did it. Good job. Thank you.”
The rest of the early afternoon was a blur. Waiting for the officers to reach her location, then the flurry of activity as they loaded the body on a stretcher and hiked back to the empty house, the grieving son.
On her return to base, she endured the excruciating debrief. It was late afternoon before they dismissed her.
On the way to her SUV, her phone vibrated in the back pocket of her jeans. She yanked out her phone, relieved. Finally, service was back. Then she noticed the identity of the caller.
She halted on the sidewalk in midstride. Bear sensed the tension and returned to her side, his tail thumping her shins. He looked up at her, panting with that goofy grin.
“It’s him,” she said aloud. Before she could think better of it, she answered. “Jackson.”
“He’s getting out.”
“What?”
“It’s true.”
“What happened?”
“A technicality. The appeals court decided the initial search of his vehicle was illegal. They threw everything out. The blood. The thumbprint. Fruit of the poisoned tree.”
She closed her eyes.
“Without the beer bottle, the DA doesn’t have enough evidence to retry the case. He’s getting out.”
She breathed in, breathed out. Focused on her pulse, her breathing. Her sister had been dead for eight years. The man who’d been convicted of murdering her was about to be set free.
He was also the only man she’d ever truly loved.
“I thought you should know, Lena.”
“When?”
“Last night. I’m sorry I couldn’t get through. Service was down up here. I wanted to tell you before it was all over the news.”
She’d managed to shut out the past as best she could. For years, she’d ignored the annual “anniversary” news articles, the flurry of phone calls from intrusive journalists after a salacious tidbit, jackals feeding off her pain.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Lena. There’s more.”
She stiffened at the strain in his voice. “What?”
“Lena. It’s your father. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but he’s dead.”
LENA EASTON
DAY TWO
Lena went still. Her body turned to stone, her legs, her arms, her chest.
Sensing her distress, Bear nuzzled her free hand. His doggy breath was hot on her skin as he licked her fingers. She patted his muzzle, ran her hands over his face, his floppy ears, the top of his giant head.
Her father. The man she both hated and loved. She hated him more. She forced the words out, calm and even, like she didn’t care. Like if she pretended enough, it might be true. “What happened?”
“He…” Jackson’s voice trailed off.
“Just tell me.”
“Lena, he was murdered.”
Lena waited for the expected wave of grief, but it didn’t come. Numbness sprouted in her chest and spread slowly outward. Her veins filled with lead.
Her father had been many things, but he’d made sure she could change a tire, shoot a gun, and start a fire. Much as she resented him, she’d never resented that.
She squared her shoulders. “Tell me everything.”
“He was murdered. Someone bashed in his head with a tire iron. Last night. Like I said, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for the last twelve hours, but—”
“The solar storm.”
“Yeah, the solar storm.”
As if on cue, the line went dead. She called him twice before the line reconnected. Whatever was happening with these storms, she didn’t like it. It made her feel unsettled.
“Are you okay?” Jackson asked. Typical Jackson, always worried about other people’s feelings. “Can you hear me?”
“I’m fine.” Though she wasn’t, far from it. “I’ll be fine.”
“Can you come home?”
“That place isn’t home. Not anymore.”
“There will always be a place for you here, Lena. No matter what. The investigation—”
“Do you know who did it?”
“We have some leads. I promise, Lena, you’ll be the first to know.”
She glanced across the street at the bank, sunlight glancing off the expansive glass windows, the patrons hurrying in and out, several fanning themselves with newspapers.
There were more guests in line than usual. The banks had been shut down yesterday due to the power outages, but they appeared open. Several cars waited at the ATM.
She made a mental note to visit an ATM and take out more cash from her dwindling bank account. She always kept five hundred in twenties on hand for emergencies, but it didn’t feel like enough, especially today.
“Where is Shiloh? What about Cody?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
