Whisper of Bones

by Leigh, Melinda

  Cate nodded. “Yes. It’s time. We’ve reviewed the case files, and we have more questions than when we started.”

  A sad smile tugged at the corners of Tessa’s mouth. “I feel like we should pinky swear to solve the case, like we used to do with Sam.”

  “That reminds me. Look what I found in my room here the other day.” Cate reached under the neck of her shirt and pulled out a child-size necklace. One-third of a heart dangled from the chain.

  “Mine is in my jewelry box.” Tessa’s heart felt as jagged as the edges of the charm. As girls, the three of them had worn their necklaces everywhere.

  “Do you think Sam is dead?” Cate asked.

  “I don’t know. I want to believe she could be alive, but it’s been a very long time. I think the best we can hope for is closure.”

  They were both in law enforcement. They knew the odds. Child abduction by violent predators was actually very rare. Most kids reported missing ran away, got lost, or simply failed to communicate their whereabouts to their parents. But among abducted children who were murdered, three-quarters of them were killed within three hours of their kidnapping.

  “Hold on.” Tessa went to her bedroom, opened her jewelry box, and removed the top tray. She pulled out a small velvet box and opened it. Her piece of the heart dangled on a delicate chain. She returned to the kitchen and fastened the necklace around her neck.

  The metal felt cold on Tessa’s skin. “All I know is that we need to find out.”

  Tires grated outside, and a car door slammed.

  Tessa glanced out the window. “Patience is home.”

  She and Cate both closed their files before the door opened and Tessa’s younger sister walked in. Patience’s gaze swept the kitchen, her tense features softening. Sadness passed through Tessa. Patience was relieved not to see their mother in the kitchen. For the past few weeks, the teenager had avoided their mother as much as possible. Tessa had no clue how to handle the situation. Like many dementia patients, her mom recalled distant memories better than current ones. She still knew Tessa but not Patience. How did you help a teen whose own mother had forgotten her?

  Tessa made a note to talk to the school counselor. She’d never felt so helpless in her life. Her mother’s illness was a boat heading into a squall, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  “Did you get your schoolwork done?” Tessa asked.

  “Uh-huh.” Patience dropped her backpack on a chair. “And Mallory’s mom made spaghetti and meatballs.”

  Tessa needed to thank Mallory’s mom. “That’s great.”

  The shuffle of slippers on hardwood sounded from the direction of the bedrooms. Mom was awake and moving around her room.

  Patience glanced at the doorway, her face tightening again.

  Tessa’s belly echoed the tension on her sister’s face. She wanted Patience to spend time with Mom, but not after dark. For Mom and everyone around her, nighttime was full of confusion, fear, and frustration.

  Patience hefted her backpack strap over one shoulder. “I’m going to my room to study.”

  “Good night.” Tessa knew she wouldn’t see her sister until daylight.

  Cate stood, her file tucked under her arm. “I’ll make a list of preliminary interviews. I suppose we should start with Sam’s mom, though I’m not sure how reliable her memory is. She hasn’t been quite right since Sam disappeared.”

  Tessa walked her to the door. “Kurt Olson was a deputy back then. The sheriff kept Sam’s investigation close, but Kurt might remember some details.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll start.”

  Tessa watched Cate walk to her vehicle and drive away. Then she turned back to the kitchen.

  Her mother stood in the doorway, shivering in a thin cotton nightgown. Her eyes were cloudy. “Where is Barbara?”

  “Barbara is in Seattle.”

  Mom’s cousin had moved off the island twenty years before, but Tessa didn’t say it. In the daytime, she tried to help her mother remember, but at night, pointing out her mother’s failing memory only made her more anxious.

  The saddest factor in the entire equation was that Mom wasn’t so far gone that she wasn’t self-aware. She knew her mind was failing, and it terrified her.

  Tessa walked toward her mom and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s too late to call her now, but you can talk to her tomorrow if you like.”

  “When did she go to Seattle?” Mom resisted Tessa’s efforts to steer her toward the table. Tessa released her and went to the thermostat to turn up the heat.

  “How about a cup of tea and a cinnamon roll?” Tessa hated redirecting her like a child, but her mom had a sweet tooth. Bribery sometimes worked.

  “I’m not hungry. I want to talk to Barbara!” Her mother’s voice became shrill.

  “OK.” Tessa tapped her phone and sent Barbara a text. “Let me see if she’s still awake.”

  It was going to be a long night.

  8

  The explosion rocked the dusty desert street beneath Logan’s feet. He raced toward the vaccination clinic, the one he’d just walked past on patrol.

  The one that had been filled with dozens of women and children. The blast had deafened him, and all Logan could hear was the drumming of his own heart. The explosion had ripped a jagged hole in the south wall and torn away most of the clinic’s roof. He slid to a stop in the entryway. The door had been blown off its hinges. Bloody, burned bodies littered the floor.

  He scanned the room for movement but saw none. In the center of the space, a woman was draped across an overturned chair. Blood soaked her head scarf. Her eyes stared vacantly at nothing. Two children sprawled alongside her. Both clearly gone. Logan breathed, his body operating on autopilot. He could not allow his brain to process what he was seeing. If it did, he would be useless. The sheer horror would paralyze him.

  He sensed more people coming through the doorway behind him. Two other soldiers. They swung left. Logan turned right.

  A faint scuffle caught Logan’s attention. He looked down. A little girl lay in a heap of spindly limbs. Logan squatted in the debris. She was covered in so much blood, Logan could not identify where it was coming from.

  A hunk of ceiling rafter fell to the ground three feet from the child. Dust and ash billowed in a cloud. He had to get her out of here.

  The child screamed, the high-pitched sound of pain and terror penetrating Logan’s muffled ears.

  “You’re going to be OK. You’re going to be OK,” Logan promised the bleeding child as he scooped her into his arms and headed toward the door. Squinting against the blinding desert sunlight, he paused. He could see a triage area being set up down the street.

  The child’s screams faded into soft choked moans.

  “You’re going to be OK.” If he kept saying it, maybe it would come true.

  Holding her tightly against his chest, he broke into a run. Blood soaked his uniform, the warmth of it reaching the skin of his chest and arms. He reached the triage area in a minute or two. All around him, mothers and children screamed, but the little girl in his arms sagged, silent and still.

  Bang!

  Logan rolled off the bed. He landed facedown on the floor, instinctively covering his head with both hands. Sweat dripped down his chest and back, and his pulse slammed through his veins as he waited in the darkness for more explosions, gunfire—or screaming.

  Gradually, he became aware of the hardwood floor under his body, the black shapes of the bed and nightstand in the predawn dim, the faint gray light seeping through the slats of his window blinds. Twenty seconds passed before he realized he was in the forest ranger cabin on Widow’s Island, not Afghanistan.

  The nightmare must have woken him. Odd. He’d had the same dream dozens of times, and he never woke before the horrifying conclusion. He was always forced to relive the entire event. He would hear the high-pitched wailing of terrified children until the day he died.

  Logan sat up and shoved a shaky hand through
his hair. He knew how the flashback ended, with him handing the child to a doctor—and his heart breaking as the doctor gently put her tiny lifeless body aside so he could concentrate on the victims who could be saved.

  His T-shirt was damp with sweat, and the room was cold. Shivering, he got to his feet. His legs were shaky. Even though he was alone, the weakness of his knees embarrassed him.

  Three loud raps came from the other room, startling him. Someone was knocking on his door.

  Shit.

  He reached for a pair of cargo pants folded neatly at the foot of his bed. He stepped into them and drew them up over his boxers. Buttoning his fly, he headed for the door. He glanced out the window. Tessa stood on his porch. She held a stainless-steel travel mug. Happy to see her but also still a little embarrassed, he opened the door.

  Her gaze scraped over his face. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah,” he said, though he knew he must look like hell. “What’s up?”

  “I called your cell, but you didn’t answer.”

  Logan glanced at the clock. It was nearly seven thirty. “I’m sorry. I must have slept through my alarm.” He’d also been up half the night with insomnia.

  “I brought you coffee.” She brushed past him into the tiny living room–kitchen combo and set the cup on his kitchen counter.

  “Thank you.” It wasn’t full daylight yet, but December days were short this far north. The sun didn’t rise until almost eight a.m. “I can be ready in a couple of minutes. I just need two minutes to shower.” He turned toward his bedroom.

  “Logan.” Tessa stopped him with a hand on his forearm. “You’re clearly not all right. Please don’t hold back. If this is going to work between us, you have to tell me what you’re feeling.”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again. His reflex was to blow off her comment. But their relationship, though new, was never going to be anything but serious. He’d known her too long—and he’d cared about her for too many years—to risk her heart on a passing fling. He needed to be honest with her.

  “It was a nightmare,” he admitted.

  She squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry you have those. They seem to be getting worse.”

  “I didn’t expect them to go away overnight.” But he had expected to improve once he got home.

  “Have you talked to anyone about them?”

  “You mean a psychiatrist?”

  She nodded.

  “Not since I came home.” He’d had a few decompression sessions right after the explosion.

  “I think you should.”

  “I’ll think about it.” He scratched his head. Just because he understood the need to be honest didn’t mean he would ever be comfortable talking about his flashbacks. “Thanks for interrupting.”

  “Anytime.” She smiled and tugged him closer.

  “I’m all sweaty.” He stiffened.

  “I don’t care.” She wrapped her arms around his waist.

  He resisted for approximately a nanosecond, then leaned into her, accepting the comfort she offered. He rested his face on the top of her head. Her hair smelled fresh and clean, like lemons.

  Leaning back, she smiled up at him. “That’s better.”

  She rose onto her toes and pressed her lips against his.

  Comfort shifted into desire. Logan’s hand slid to the small of her back, and he pressed her more tightly against him. He considered taking her into the shower with him, but he didn’t want to be rushed. Not for their first time. He wanted to make a grand romantic gesture, but planning a special night was proving impossible. Tessa was overloaded with responsibility.

  Her phone beeped, and she sighed. “If only we had normal lives and normal amounts of free time. I’ll take this call while you shower.”

  He stepped back. “I’ll be quick about it.”

  Tessa moved away to answer her call. Logan returned to the bathroom. He turned the water to cold, stripped, and stepped under the spray.

  He’d barely lathered up when a knock on the doorframe startled him. Tessa stood in the doorway, and he almost laughed at the hand she held over her eyes. “We need to go. That was Bruce. Someone attacked Marybeth this morning.”

  Anger filled him at the thought of someone hurting Jason’s spunky secretary.

  “Give me two minutes.” Logan rinsed, dried off, and dressed. He grabbed his socks, boots, and jacket and carried them toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  Tessa started the engine while he locked his cabin. In the front seat, he finished dressing while she drove, lights swirling, to a condominium complex on the other side of North Sound. “Bruce said she didn’t show up at Jason’s office this morning. He called her, and when she didn’t answer her phone, he drove over to her condo. She didn’t answer her door either, so he was worried and got the building manager to let him in. She wasn’t in her apartment. The manager said she walks every morning. Bruce found her on the jogging path.”

  Tessa turned into the entrance and braked hard at the front of the parking lot.

  Logan pointed to the doctor’s vehicle. “Henry’s already here.”

  “He was closer than we were.” Tessa climbed out of the driver’s seat and removed a blanket from the trunk.

  Logan followed her toward a macadam path that seemed to loop around the buildings. “Which way?”

  “Toward the water.” Tessa broke into a jog. They ran a hundred yards before they spotted Bruce kneeling on the path. The body on the ground next to him wore a puffy purple jacket and bright-yellow athletic tights. Marybeth.

  Someone didn’t want her searching Jason’s office.

  Henry was kneeling at Marybeth’s other side.

  Tessa crouched next to Henry. “How is she?”

  The older woman lay still. Too still. Logan looked over Tessa’s shoulder. Blood trickled down Marybeth’s forehead. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow. Logan felt sick.

  Henry was starting an IV. He took the blanket and spread it over her body.

  Henry’s eyes were grave. “We need to get her to the mainland.”

  There was no urgent care or ambulance service on Widow’s Island.

  Bruce got up and paced. “If I’d thought she was in danger, I would have stayed with her.”

  “No one anticipated this, Bruce.” Tessa straightened and stood in front of him, blocking his pacing. “Do not blame yourself. Can you carry her to your patrol vehicle?”

  Bruce nodded.

  “Then I need you to drive her to the hospital on the mainland.” Tessa whipped out her phone. “I’ll call the ferry station and have them hold the boat for you.”

  “I’ll ride with you.” Henry packed up his supplies.

  Bruce gently scooped Marybeth from the ground. Logan looped the IV line across her body and tucked the blanket around her. Her face was sunken and eggshell white with no sign of her energy or spunk. Anger sparked in his chest. What kind of scumbag would beat an old woman over the head?

  Bruce and Henry left with Marybeth.

  Tessa and Logan inspected the grass and surrounding area but found nothing. They went to the condo building and spoke with the manager. The surveillance cameras did not cover the jogging path, and none of the camera feeds on the building entrances showed any strangers that morning.

  Logan followed Tessa back to the parking lot.

  “Why do you think someone attacked Marybeth?” he asked.

  “They were afraid of what she would find.” Tessa climbed into her vehicle.

  “That’s what I thought.” Logan slid into the passenger seat. “So we go back to Jason’s office and turn it upside down?”

  “Absolutely,” Tessa said. “We must have missed something.”

  She drove to Orcas Road and parked in front of Jason’s house. Tessa put on gloves and handed him a pair. They went into the office. The cold followed them inside. Tessa rubbed her hands together and headed for the second doorway. “I’ll take Jason’s inner sanctum.”

  Logan stood in front
of Marybeth’s desk. Surely, she would have finished searching it the day before. Just in case she had focused only on the contents, Logan removed the drawers and checked their bottoms and sides. He crawled under the desk but found nothing. He pulled back the area rug and ran his fingers along the floorboards. None were loose or cut.

  Logan moved to the other side of the room and shifted each of the filing cabinets to make sure nothing was concealed behind or under them. He checked the backs and sides of these drawers as well. The back of every picture hanging on the wall was examined.

  He was scanning the room, looking for other potential hiding places, when the heater turned on with a rattle. Logan stopped. As he concentrated, he thought the noise sounded less like the rattle of metal and more like paper fluttering. He turned to stare at the HVAC wall register.

  Why not?

  He went to the kitchen, where he had seen a screwdriver in a drawer. He brought the tool back to the office, sat on the floor, and removed the screws from the vent cover. He worked the cover loose, then set it on the floor beside him. The fluttering sound increased.

  “Hey, Tessa?” Logan called out. “Can I borrow your flashlight?”

  She poked her head in the doorway. “Did you find something?”

  “Maybe.”

  Tessa crossed the room and crouched next to him, handing him the flashlight. He turned it on and shone it into the hole. He saw nothing. The duct ran from side to side. Logan reached his hand into the vent. He felt first to the left and then moved his hand to the right. His fingers brushed paper. He tried to tug it free but couldn’t. He ran his fingers around the edge until he found where it was taped to the inside of the duct. He worked the tape free and brought out a yellow clasp envelope. He handed it to Tessa.

  She opened it, seeming to hold her breath as she drew out papers. Her forehead creased as she read them. “These are soil reports for the Smuggler’s Point Farm property.” She held two pieces of paper side by side. “One looks like a normal report with no major concerns.” She scanned the second page. “But this one indicates toxic levels of arsenic and lead.”

  Logan read the sheets over her shoulder. “They have the same date.”