The Third Grave

by Lisa Jackson

  “While she was seeing Owen.”

  “ ‘Seeing him’ isn’t what I’d call it. Did they hook up?” Brit thought about it a second. “I don’t know. She liked him, yeah. Owen held some weird fascination with her because he was different, I suppose, but . . . it was never serious. He wasn’t the kind of guy she went for, not in the long term anyway.” Brit shrugged as three women in their sixties climbed onto stools a couple of tables away. They were laughing and talking, hooking their purses over the back of their chairs and caught up in their conversation. Ashley leaned across the table and lowered her voice as if afraid the trio might overhear her. “If you want to know the truth, I was surprised that she was his alibi.”

  “Why?”

  “Because”—she let out her breath—“well, because it would get her into trouble, you know, with her parents, and it also kind of messed with her rep.”

  “Her rep?”

  “Reputation. It was one thing to be friends with Owen the outcast, you know, but to be his alibi, to be cast as the girl he’d been with that night, was weird. Ashley was always so worried about appearances: what she wore, who she hung with, her grades . . . everything.”

  “You’re saying she’s lying?”

  “No—I mean, I don’t think so.”

  Which seemed to indicate she did.

  Nikki asked, “Why would she lie if she was all about protecting her rep and staying out of trouble?”

  “Exactly.” Brit frowned. “I mean, it doesn’t make sense, but then, what does?” She checked her watch again. “I really gotta go. I told you this was a busy day.” She climbed off her chair and, using both hands, tightened her ponytail. “I don’t know anything else.”

  Before Nikki could ask another question or thank her, she was off, running, starting at a trot until she reached the street, then as the pedestrian light changed, she sprinted away across the street, her ponytail swinging side to side with her strides as she sped around a woman walking a dog and a cluster of teenagers vaping and talking, all the while scanning their cell phone screens.

  Nikki texted Millie, asking for Ryan and Ashley Jefferson’s address on Tybee Island, then bought an iced coffee inside the shop before walking home.

  She thought about calling her husband.

  And tell him what? that naggy little voice in her head demanded.

  Is that what you want, to always be reporting in?

  To be one of those women on an oh-so-short leash?

  Scowling, she reentered the park, deep in thought, hurrying past a woman pushing a stroller, looking at the baby swaddled beneath pink blankets, and her heart twisted a bit.

  Someday, she thought, someday.

  She wasn’t giving up. She had an appointment later in the day with Dr. Kasey and then she’d find out when they could try again. The sooner the better. She walked, moving quickly, rounding the fountain, when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Sensing someone was watching, she glanced over her shoulder and saw a few people in the park. Was anyone following her? Someone suspicious?

  No.

  It was a warm day under clear skies, a breath of wind whispering through the trees in the park.

  So why did the back of her arms still have goose pimples?

  Why did the muscles in her chest tighten?

  She picked up her pace and told herself she was being a ninny, a “’fraidy cat,” as they said in grade school. But she did understand about Reed’s concerns. Who wouldn’t be after the other night when a stranger had entered their home unannounced and uninvited?

  She made her way out of the park, crossed the street and once on the steps of her home, glanced over her shoulder.

  Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Whatever she’d seen or thought she’d seen was gone.

  But the uneasy feeling remained.

  * * *

  Reed was on his way out of the office when his cell phone rang and he took the call, settling back into his chair. “Detective Reed.”

  “Hey. Yeah. You been callin’ me and, um, I decided if I didn’t call ya back, you might come knockin’ and I don’t need any of that kind of trouble.” The voice was male and rough.

  “I’m sorry. You’re—?”

  “Oh, uh. Reggie Scott. You’ve been phonin’, leavin’ messages.”

  Owen Duval’s biological father. “That’s right. I didn’t recognize the number.” He sat on his desk and hit the record button on his phone. “You’re in Atlanta.”

  “Yeah, got me a job at the mill and I don’t want no one messin’ it up for me. Don’t need any cops comin’ to the mill or nothin’, but I ain’t got nothin’ to say anyway.”

  “I’m calling about the bodies that were found at the Beaumont estate.”

  “The Duval girls, yeah, I know. I put two and two together. Look, I don’t know nothin’ about that.”

  “What about your son?”

  “Owen. He ain’t my son. Gave him up way back when. Figured he’d be better off with Margaret.” He snorted. “I was back on the booze then, y’know, had my share of troubles and so I guess I can’t blame her for lookin’ for somethin’ better, but still it was a pisser, y’know.”

  “What was?”

  “You know. To find out your wife is bangin’ someone else? Sheeit. Doesn’t do much for a man’s ego, if y’know what I mean.”

  “She was involved with another man?”

  “Well, hell yeah. Harvey. She and he were gettin’ it on while I was doin’ a little time and when I get out, she tells me she’s takin’ my boy and to leave her and her new family alone. She offered me some money and I’m not ashamed to say I took it, and Harvey adopted Owen and she had her perfect little family.” The sarcasm in his voice was palpable. “Guess it didn’t turn out all that perfect after all.”

  “Where were you the day the girls went missing?”

  He laughed. “That’s a good one. Never met ’em. That was twenty years ago or so? How the hell would I know?”

  “Seems like something you would remember.”

  “Oh, for the love of Christ. If I remember correctly a friend of mine—Bill Seymore—and I were shootin’ dice, but he’s dead now. Can’t confirm. So just leave me the hell alone. I had nothin’, not one damn thing to do with those girls. Hell, I wouldn’t have recognized ’em if I ran over ’em. As I just told ya, I never met ’em. When Margaret and I split, that was it. Never saw her again and as for Owen, just a time or two. It just wasn’t worth it. I borrowed money from him a couple of times, but that was it. We didn’t have what you’d call a normal father/son relationship, if you know what I mean.”

  “He loaned you money.”

  Reggie snorted. “Had to pry it out of him. I figured he owed me. He did owe me. Look, man, now you know, so leave me the hell alone.”

  He ended the call, and Reed went back to the records but saw no mention of Reggie Scott in the reports other than a mention that he was the biological father of Owen Duval.

  Nothing else.

  Somehow Reggie had fallen through the cracks.

  Reed made a couple of quick notes and headed out to grab some lunch. He’d just stepped outside and was crossing the parking lot when the phone rang again. “Detective Reed?” a sharp female voice inquired.

  “Yeah.” Using his remote, he unlocked the driver’s door.

  “This is Deputy Tina Rounds.” He remembered her. Tall, by-the-book, with mocha-colored skin, near-black eyes and a no-nonsense attitude. “Hey, I got a call from emergency. A fisherman found a body. He came up here to Black Bear Lake and found the remains. Freaked, called 911, and I caught the call. I’m here now and all I can tell you is that it’s definitely human cuz the skull is still there, though other body parts are missing, and it’s small. A kid.”

  “Rose Duval,” he whispered under his breath, his heart sinking. Damn. He’d hoped she had somehow survived.

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Jesus. He started jogging to his vehicle. “I’m on the way. Tex
t me the address.”

  She did and he typed it into his GPS, then drove out of the lot, the Jeep’s interior already warm, the windshield dusty. He hit the wipers and wash, then hit speed dial on his phone.

  Delacroix picked up before the phone rang twice. “Yeah.”

  “Looks like we may have found Rose Duval.”

  A pause. “Really?” Disbelief.

  He filled her in.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered. “That’s about what . . . less than a mile upriver from the Beaumont place?”

  “Yeah.” He checked the map as he drove away from the heart of the city, centuries-old buildings giving way to strip malls. “Closer to the old Marianne Inn.”

  “Don’t know the place.”

  He pushed the speed limit, cutting around an old diesel truck pulling a dirty, time-worn boat filled with crab pots and fishing nets.

  “The Marianne’s been closed for years but used to be kind of a resort or fishing lodge.”

  “You really think it’s Rose Duval?” Again, he heard the skepticism in her voice.

  “No idea,” he admitted. “Only one way to find out.”

  Delacroix said, “I can be there in fifteen.”

  “I’ll meet you there.” His pulse kicked up and he pushed the speed limit, driving out of town, through suburbia to the road that wound along the river.

  The thought of finding the third Duval girl bothered him, and he was surprised at his disappointment. At a gut level he’d hoped to find her alive, living under an alias, perhaps not even knowing she was the missing Rose Duval, that the memory of her youngest years had been erased or blurred with the passage of time. But why would she be located away from the crypt, where it seemed the killer had created a space for her.

  His fingers clenched more tightly over the wheel as he turned off the main road to a lane where the asphalt had buckled and finally turned to gravel. Dry weeds scraped the undercarriage while the Jeep’s tires bumped through potholes. Around a scraggly pine he found the deputy’s cruiser and a dirty white pickup with a canopy, fishing poles propped against its side.

  Tina Rounds was as daunting and by-the-book as ever. The man beside her, Frank Mentos, was no more than five-six, a little round in the middle, his eyes huge in their sockets. His hair was gray beneath a baseball cap, and he was wearing hip waders and a fisherman’s vest.

  The story was simple: Mentos had been fishing around the lake, started back to his truck, when he noticed something half covered in brush and dirt. Upon closer examination, he’d realized he was looking at a denim jacket, beneath which he thought he saw bones. He’d freaked, called 911, and Rounds was the first on the scene. She’d phoned Reed.

  “Damnedest thing I ever seen,” Mentos said, swallowing hard as he stared at the partial skeleton.

  Reed bent down on one knee, careful not to disturb anything, but looking at the bones and tattered clothing: the raggedy jacket and once-red shirt. If there had been pants, they had either disintegrated or been dragged off by animals, along with several obviously missing bones.

  His heart nose-dived. The skeleton was, indeed, small.

  “Hey!” A shout behind him caught his attention and he turned, still kneeling, to find Delacroix, her expression serious, sunglasses over her eyes as she hurried down the path. “What’ve we got? Oh, geez.” She nodded at Rounds and Mentos, and Reed filled her in as she, too, crouched for a better look at the body. “This all there is?” she said. “Missing leg bones and an arm?”

  “All we’ve found so far,” Rounds said as the sun beat down, and Reed felt himself sweating.

  “It’s not Rose Duval,” Delacroix said, rocking back on her heels and shaking her head. “But some other kid.”

  Rounds asked, “How do you know?”

  “Size,” she said, and Reed agreed. The skeleton would be too large for a five-year-old. “And she was too young to have lost her baby teeth. This one has adult-size incisors.”

  “Unless she was brought here later,” Reed hypothesized. “The killer could have kept her a few years, then returned her here.”

  “Unlikely.” Delacroix straightened and kept her voice low. “He already had a spot picked out for her,” she said, reminding him of the space for a third body at the Beaumont estate. “Why leave her here?”

  Mentos’s Adam’s apple wobbled. “You think there were more?”

  “Victims?” Delacroix asked.

  “Yeah.” Mentos nodded and licked his lips. “Like more than those poor girls?”

  “Unknown,” Reed said.

  “Could be unrelated,” Delacroix said. “Why don’t you come down to the station and make a full statement?”

  “I thought I just did.” Mentos looked from one cop to the other.

  Delacroix offered a hard grin. “I know. Thank you. But there’s some red tape involved. Not much, but you know, this way it’s official.”

  Mentos turned his eyes on Reed, as if looking for confirmation.

  Reed backed up his partner. “You heard the detective,” he said. “Best way to wrap up your part.”

  Mentos gave a short nod, as if he’d just won an argument with himself. “Okay, then. I will.” He glanced down at the bones now exposed to the harsh afternoon light. “I just hope this was an accident of some kind. That there ain’t some psycho out there pickin’ on kids.”

  “You and me both,” Reed agreed. “You and me both.”

  CHAPTER 18

  It was after three when Nikki finally hit the road to drive to Tybee Island. Since her meeting with Brit Sully, she’d attended back-to-back appointments with her physicians. The first had been with an orthopedic surgeon, who had been satisfied with her shoulder.

  “Healing nicely,” he’d said, and when she’d asked if she could ditch her sling, he’d told her she didn’t have to wear it twenty-four /seven, but not to overdo it and start by easing out of it a couple of hours a day.

  She had. It was now on the passenger seat next to her.

  She rotated her shoulder as she drove through the city. It felt fine. A little tight maybe, but no real pain. Nothing serious.

  She guided her Honda into the thin stream of traffic heading across the Talmadge Memorial Bridge to the island.

  Her second doctor’s appointment, with her OB/GYN, had been good news as well. Dr. Kasey had informed her that physically she was fine, that everything checked out normally after an exam.

  “I know it’s hard and there is bound to be a lingering sadness and sense of loss. You’ve been down this road before and there are support groups you can join,” she advised.

  “I have.” The truth was she was still part of an online group of families who had survived miscarriage and early child loss and she would reach out to them again. She’d even made a couple of friends through the connection, but Reed hadn’t. Wouldn’t. Preferred to bury his loss deep in his soul and not discuss it.

  “Good, so when you and your husband are ready, there’s no physical reason you can’t try again,” the doctor had said once Nikki had dressed and was seated across the cluttered desk in the small office tucked inside the clinic. “It’s the emotional and mental part that concerns me.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Nikki had said, meeting her doctor’s gaze. “Been here before.”

  Her doctor’s eyes had been kind and understanding and she’d offered Nikki a small smile. “Good. But it doesn’t hurt to talk to someone if you need to. A counselor. Someone who deals in loss and grief.”

  “Got it.” She nodded. “If I do, I will.” And she meant it.

  “Okay, then. If you decide to go for it and do get pregnant again, we’ll monitor you very closely.”

  She hadn’t said “again,” but it was there.

  “You’re in the high-risk category because of the multiple miscarriages, but that doesn’t mean there’s any reason you can’t have a healthy baby.”

  As always, Dr. Kasey had been encouraging and comforting, though Nikki had heard the words before.

  N
ow, as Nikki drove onto the wider part of Tybee, she decided she was ready. She wanted a baby. Reed wanted a baby. They could afford a child and though she’d considered the idea of going throughout life without becoming a parent, it wasn’t for her. She had friends who had happily made that decision and were very happy, but Nikki couldn’t see herself without a growing family. So, she saw no need to wait, and her biological clock was already ticking loudly in her ears.

  But Reed? He might need some convincing.

  She didn’t know if he was ready to jump back on the pregnancy train so soon. The losses just tore him up inside.

  She turned her thoughts to the interview ahead.

  Ashley Jefferson hadn’t returned any of her calls and probably wouldn’t be thrilled to see Nikki on her doorstep. Well, too damned bad. The woman was Owen Duval’s alibi, so Nikki needed to talk to her.

  Tybee Island had been in the hurricane’s path and was still recovering, utilities still iffy in some places, the road clean but buckled in spots where trees had been uprooted. She caught glimpses of the Atlantic, peaceful now, the tide lapping at the wide, sandy beaches, the rage of the hurricane now a memory.

  Traffic clogged near the center of the island, where a construction crew was still working. She inched her Honda around a series of orange cones only to be stopped by a huge white truck parked near an open manhole cover with two workers peering into the depths. She checked her rearview, making certain the white Cadillac that had been on her bumper stopped. It did. Inches from her own bumper, a small, elderly woman peering over the steering wheel. Behind the Caddy a gray pickup with darkened windows idled and behind the truck, a motorcycle revved, its rider obviously impatient.

  The driver of the Caddy honked.

  Nikki threw up a hand. “Nothing I can do,” she said into the mirror, as if the drivers behind her could hear.

  Finally, a flagger waved her through, the small caravan following. A few blocks later she found the address listed for Ryan and Ashley Jefferson. Their house wasn’t in a “gated community,” as Brit Sully had told her, but had its own set of private wrought iron gates and a tall stucco wall that blocked it from the street. Now the gates were propped open and Nikki seized her opportunity, turning into a wide drive that circled an area where palm trees surrounded a dry fountain, no water spraying upward or pouring over the sides of the tiered basins. Instead a pool of sludge had collected in the reservoir, and across the yard, palm fronds and shingles that had been torn from the roof littered the ground. A Georgian mansion, built of stucco and painted the same pale pink as the walls surrounding it, dominated the landscape. Tall black shutters framed the door and windows, and one door of three to the garage was open. Nikki spied a Range Rover and a Bentley SUV, parked side by side, a golf cart, bikes and various sporting equipment filling the third bay. A second two-storied building with more garage space beneath was positioned on the other side of the circle, a beat-up van parked near the covered entrance.