Forgotten Secrets (8 page)

Her cheeks heated. “Oh.”

“Everything OK?” From the entrance, Thayne’s words held a hint of worry.

Riley touched her red cheeks just before Helen quickly flipped to the next page. “We’re fine, dear. Did you know Riley draws, too?”

“I didn’t.” Thayne sent Riley a pointed, pot-kettle look.

He was right. There were too many details of their lives they hadn’t shared in their comfortable long-distance relationship.

Helen tsked at him. “Really, Thayne. You should know the most important things about a girl
before
you spend the night together. What is it with you kids today? I lectured Cheyenne and her too-serious boyfriend about the very same thing.”

The Blackwood sunroom went silent, and Thayne whipped his gaze around to meet Riley’s shocked expression. Even with Alzheimer’s, Gram had a way of silencing a room.

“Gram, are you certain Cheyenne’s dating someone?” he asked, sitting beside her.

“Of course. What do you take me for? That girl has jumped off a cliff without a bungee cord. I warned her, but do any of you kids listen to me?” She snorted. “Like I haven’t experienced more life than you’ve even dreamed about.” She looked up at Thayne. “So, where
is
Cheyenne?”

He didn’t know what to say.

“She should be here tonight,” Gram argued. “I need to have a heart-to-heart with her about that boy. It’s important.”

The only sounds to be heard were a few summer crickets chirping from beyond the glass-enclosed room.

When no one answered her, his grandmother’s lip trembled and she bit down. Hard. Her brow furrowed, and he could almost see the effort to order the chaos in her mind. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “Don’t lie to me. There should be no secrets between us. Not anymore.” She clutched at Thayne’s shirt. “Tell me.”

“I’m sure she’ll be home soon, Gram,” he lied.

She sagged against the chair, and the sketchbook dropped from her hand. Her leg bounced in an anxious movement. “She’s hurt, isn’t she? I should know.”

Gram whimpered and then began to rock, back and forth. “We were supposed to have dinner.” Gram’s hand shook, and she chewed on her thumbnail. “Or I thought we were. I hate when I can’t think straight.”

Thayne pulled her closer, and she laid her head against his chest. “It’s OK, Gram. Everything’s going to be fine,” he lied, his heart heavy. He knelt down beside her and clutched her hand in his, calming the anxious movement with a light caress of her palm. “Pops dropped you off at the clinic last evening . . .”

“I remember.” She nodded a couple of times. “That’s right. Cheyenne was going to show me around her doctor’s office. She’s so proud. I’d already seen the place, but she wanted to show me again. I knew the truth, though. She wanted to talk to me about her young man. First time she’s been serious, but . . .” Gram looked up at Thayne. “Secrets aren’t good, you know.”

Her leg bounced, and she fidgeted in her chair. “Something’s not right.”

Riley leaned forward. “Mrs. Blackwood, did you notice anything unusual when you went to Cheyenne’s? Any detail could be important.”

“There were . . .” Helen’s brow furrowed. “Triangle.”

The sentence didn’t make sense, and Thayne recognized the problem. Gram had lost her words. Sometimes she made perfect sense, but sometimes an odd phrase would just pop out.

“You saw a triangle? On a car? A logo maybe? Or perhaps a tattoo?”

Riley hid it well, and not many would be able to tell, but Thayne could hear the frustration edging into her voice. He understood. God knows. But the whole family had learned that AD’s effects couldn’t be predicted or controlled.

“Gram said
were
.” Thayne wished he could read his grandmother’s mind. All he could do was guess. “That’s plural. More than one?”

Her eyes widened and grew panicked. She tugged her hand out of his and chewed on her nail some more. Such intense effort, trying to concentrate.

“Damn,” escaped Gram’s lips.

Thayne’s jaw nearly dropped open at Gram’s use of a word he’d heard her utter only a handful of times in his almost thirty years.

She snatched up her sketchbook, flipped to the last page, and drew three stick figures. “Triangle.”

She shoved the drawing at Riley.

“Three people were there?” she asked.

Gram nodded with a relieved expression. “There were . . . three. I’m drowning.” She grabbed a glass from the coffee table and took two gulps of water. “Drowning. Water. Thirsty.” She glanced at Thayne.

“Sometimes the right words don’t quite come, do they, Gram? But eventually we figure it out.”

Helen shook her head, pressing her hand to her head, tears in her eyes. “I’m s-s-sorry. I’m not good enough anymore.”

Thayne kissed her forehead. “Nothing to be sorry for, Gram.”

His grandmother nodded, but her eyes glistened. She glanced at Riley. “You’re here to help, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to try.”

“I believe you,” Gram said. “It’s important to uncover the secrets. They destroy.”

“Can you tell me what the men who hurt you looked like?” Riley asked.

Gram shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

“You mentioned red,” Thayne coaxed. “Does that remind you of anything?”

She smiled at him. “Lincoln had red hair when we met.” She flipped to the beginning of the sketchbook and ran her finger along an image of his grandfather when he couldn’t have been more than seventeen. “You look so like him . . . except your hair is brown, of course. Like your mother’s. A good catch.”

She winked at Riley, leaned back in her chair, and crossed her legs. “Now, tell me, since the two of you are sleeping together, when are you getting married?”

After a decade in the Navy, Thayne hadn’t imagined he could still blush, but as he stared at his slip of a grandmother, her eyes twinkling with a touch of the devil and smile widening, he couldn’t help himself. “Gram!”

“Well, I’m not getting any younger. I need great-grandbabies to dote on before . . .” Her voice trailed off. “What was I saying?”

She sat up straight, and her gaze whipped around the room, desperate and confused, searching for something or maybe someone. Thayne wished he knew what was going on in her mind.

His grandfather strode into the room and cleared his throat. “Helen?”

She didn’t say a word. She jumped up and ran into his embrace. He held her close, breathing in, closing his eyes and rubbing her back in comfort.

“I don’t know what’s happening. I’m scared.” She let him hold her quietly.

Thayne sighed. At least Gram hadn’t pushed Pops away. Each time she did, he could see the agony in his grandfather’s eyes.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said.

Thayne drew Riley to her feet and toward the door of the sunroom. She paused and looked back, her lips tight with frustration.

“That’s all we’ll get for now,” he said. “She’s hovering between the present and the past.”

Thayne stopped in the hallway leading back to the living room and his father.

“Somewhere in her mind she remembers, Thayne. She knows Cheyenne is in trouble.” Riley clutched his arm. “Maybe if we talked to her some more—”

“Dad and Pops will do it, but we can’t count on her information, Riley. The answers might be inside Gram unable to get out, or they might not be there at all. Then again, the situation could change tomorrow. She could have a great day, be completely lucid, and remember everything.”

“What about this boyfriend of Cheyenne’s? She seemed very certain.”

“Her memories aren’t reliable. Particularly recent ones.” He thrust his hand through his hair and looked at her. “Gram is why I called you in the first place when we didn’t find Cheyenne that first night. We need a miracle.”

Riley closed her reddened eyes. He hadn’t meant to put more pressure on her, but he needed her to understand. “Two months ago, you tracked down that pervert who snatched teenage girls off the street. There were no witnesses. No one thought the case could be solved.”

“My team closed the case,” she said, averting her gaze.

“Don’t give me that. I was with you on the phone at least three or four times during the case. I know what you found, the pieces you put together. No one else could have, and we need you to do the same thing.”

She rubbed her hands over her face, her mouth drawn with obvious stress. After a deep breath, she straightened her back. “We may need to consider another possibility. What if everything that happened in your sister’s clinic was made to
look
like a robbery? What if Cheyenne
knew
her abductor? We’re talking about an entirely different profile.”

“Dad said most victims know their kidnapper,” Thayne said, shifting closer to her. He didn’t like the somber expression in her eyes. He’d grown accustomed to intensity and determination, but right now she seemed uncertain.

If only he could get inside that head of hers. He moved in so he could almost touch her. The narrow hallway offered her no escape.

“A stranger abduction is much less common,” Riley said, her words certain, but a slight tremor underlying them.

She’d backed herself against the wall. Thayne didn’t hesitate. He moved in and bowed his head down to her ear. “What do you need from me?”

“To talk to your brothers about Cheyenne’s alleged boyfriend, especially Hudson, since you told me he’s closest to her.”

“No problem. Anything else?”

“Just keep searching.” Riley raised her gaze to his. “I really admire you and your family, Thayne. Not all families pull together when times get tough.”

The touch of wistfulness in her voice caught his attention. Family had been something neither of them had wanted to discuss during their long-distance affair. He had his reasons, of course, but he hadn’t really considered hers.

Before he could ask what she meant, his cell phone rang. He tugged it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. His younger brother. Jackson had been searching the mountains. “What’s up?”

His brother didn’t answer, and Thayne’s heart seized.

“You alone?” Jackson asked finally, his voice tense.

Thayne peered down the hallway, then tugged Riley out a door to the back porch. “I’m with Riley Lambert, the FBI profiler I told you about. We’re outside at Gram and Pops’s. You’re on speaker.”

“My grid covered the old swimming hole at the southeast edge of the property. At first I didn’t see it,” Jackson said, his voice choked. “There’s an unmarked grave, Thayne. And the digging looks fresh.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

A waxing gibbous moon provided just enough light to recognize the mound of dirt in front of Riley. Several flashlights beamed over her shoulder, illuminating circles of the scene. She crouched beside the freshly displaced earth and shoved aside the familiar nightmarish dream playing through her mind.

There was no compost odor here, not like the rose garden where her team had uncovered her last victim—Patricia Masters had still been warm to the touch.

She hated this part of her job. The body had been buried, hidden either to prevent detection or as a sign of remorse. She’d know more when she viewed the remains.

Allowing her senses to grasp the minute details, she scanned the setting. An open hillside overlooking a large swimming hole. A thick tree limb holding an old tire hung over the pool. She could imagine the four Blackwood siblings cavorting during the summer in this place.

Behind a boulder, just inside the tree line, lay a low mound of dirt, six feet by three feet—unmistakably a grave.

She stood over it, feeling the intense stares boring into her back.

“Damn DC Feds always think they know better than we do in the flyover states,” Underhill, the Wyoming DCI forensic investigator, muttered under his breath.

He didn’t even try to disguise his annoyance with her presence at
his
crime scene. He tapped his foot, clearly irritated she’d horned in on his investigation. Well, she’d faced tougher obstacles than this guy. Pretty much every time the local LEOs requested her FBI unit’s assistance, some prima donna cop got his feelings hurt.

Riley couldn’t respect anybody who focused on their own ego more than the victim. She lived by a single tenet: The victim mattered more than anything. More than sleep, more than her own safety, and definitely more than pride.

Underhill knelt beside her with a smirk. “There’s nothing left to see,
Agent
Lambert. We took photos. Now it’s time to quit studying the mound and let us do our job and dig. It’s a grave, and it’s recent.”

She stared him down with a cold gaze. “It’s FBI
Special
Agent Lambert. And you’re partly right, Underhill. It’s a grave. That’s all we know at the moment. Now step back and let me do my job.”

Underhill glared at her but moved away.

Riley bit down hard on her lip.
Don’t antagonize him.

She had to be careful. If she provoked this guy, he might call her boss. Tom would order her on the first plane back to DC to face a very pissed-off supervisor and a disciplinary hearing. She couldn’t let that happen.

Thayne’s hand tensed on her shoulder. She wished he hadn’t heard the investigator’s comment. She wished she hadn’t been forced to respond. She prayed Cheyenne Blackwood wasn’t lying in this grave.

Riley slipped a sketch pad from her bag, angling the paper toward the moon.

“We need light,” Thayne shouted.

Within minutes, one of the deputies had rigged a couple of spotlights. He ran the cord to the generator and flipped on the switch.

Night turned to day.

“Thanks,” she said to Thayne when he returned to her side, her pencil flaring over the paper.

“We do have cameras,” Underhill commented, his voice thick with sarcasm.

She ignored him, used to the skepticism. But she’d discovered over the years—particularly in an undisturbed crime scene—that the pencil and paper allowed her subconscious to take in the minute details that her mind didn’t. Sometimes the smallest element provided her a lead.
If
the person buried here wasn’t Cheyenne, a family was waiting for answers. Once Underhill processed the scene, the moment would be lost.

The sound of hushed conversations faded away, and she focused on each line and shape, then the shading. Finally, she closed the sketchbook and faced Underhill. “I’m finished. It’s all yours.”

“About time,” he muttered and glanced expectantly over at Carson Blackwood.

“Dig it up,” the sheriff said, his voice thick with emotion.

Riley frowned at the sheriff’s sickly gray face. “Your father doesn’t look too good,” she whispered to Thayne.

“I tried convincing him to go home, but a blizzard wouldn’t stop him from being here. A case of myocarditis definitely won’t.”

Thayne stood so near her, the heat from his body seeped through her clothes, even as the night turned the air cool. “Cheyenne’s not in there, is she?”

Riley weighed the risk of telling him.

She must have paused too long. Thayne turned her to face him. “I want the truth, Riley. For my father.”

“I hope not.”

His hand tightened on her shoulder in a quick squeeze before he released her. Riley shut her eyes.
Please don’t be here, Cheyenne.

Underhill and Deputy Quinn Pendergrass troweled away the dirt slowly, methodically. Thayne’s brother Jackson hovered over them as well. Their resemblance ventured into eerie when she saw them standing side by side. Same short-cropped brown hair, same ripped muscles, same determined gaze. And same haunted eyes. As a smoke jumper, he’d probably faced hell, just as Thayne had. But they shouldn’t be watching. Not this closely. Not if they uncovered Cheyenne in this grave.

Riley faced them and straightened her spine. “You can’t be here. Go to your father,” she said, glancing over at the sheriff. “He needs you now. I promise, I’ll let you know the truth as soon as I know.”

Both men froze. Jackson glared at her, but Thayne gave her a short nod, trusting her with his sister in that moment.

Jackson cursed a storm before stalking over to his father. Thayne followed until the three Blackwood men stood together, stoic, tense, intently watching. The fourth, Hudson, was still out there searching.

With each shovelful of dirt, Carson’s jaw tightened. Her heart ached for them. She knew exactly what they were going through. She’d traveled to countless—OK, not countless, exactly twenty-seven—grave sites since she’d turned eighteen, wondering if her sister would be uncovered from the earth.

Madison’s body still hadn’t been found.

A shiver skittered down her back, and she studied Thayne. As if sensing her stare, his gaze rose and met hers. His expression revealed nothing, not the stark effort of Carson’s control or the raw despair of Jackson. Thayne betrayed no emotions. His SEAL training, perhaps? Or simply the need to shoulder the burden.

Her gaze fell to his right hand. Infinitesimal, rhythmic movements of his fingers, the only giveaway that Thayne wasn’t calm and dispassionate.

She wanted to join him, to slip her hand into his, to let him know she was there for him, but she couldn’t. Most profilers didn’t work the scene like she did. But she’d discovered early on she needed to be present to immerse herself in the mind of not only the criminal but also the victim. So she stood alone, watching, waiting.

Minute by minute, a new mound of earth grew. Underhill slid the shovel into the dirt again. Riley detected a soft
clunk
.

The man froze, and the Blackwood men surged forward.

Riley quickly placed herself between them and the grave. “Don’t,” she said. “Let me.”

“If it’s Cheyenne—” Carson said.

She met his tortured gaze. “Sheriff, let me do my job. That’s why you brought me here.”

He gave her a tight nod. Riley shifted her attention to Thayne. He touched his father’s shoulder. They backed off, Thayne still in absolute control.

Too controlled, actually. She understood the need.

Riley turned away, unable to face their stoic grief any longer. She and Underhill moved closer, with Deputy Pendergrass at their side.

She knelt down and pointed to a small sprig that had been stirred up. A hint of optimism for the Blackwoods ignited inside Riley. “Do you recognize that plant?”

“Of course. It’s sagebrush. Probably broke off from that bush”—he nodded to his left—“when the perpetrator buried the body.”

“The one with the small yellow flowers?”

Underhill nodded.

“Except the twig in the dirt isn’t flowering at all.”

Another time or place, she might have enjoyed Underhill’s stunned-mullet look. Instead, she glanced behind her where Thayne stood with his father and brother. She lowered her voice. She didn’t want to give them hope. Not until she was absolutely certain. Hope destroyed lives as often as despair. “I think an animal churned the dirt.”

“Damn, you’re good.” Thayne’s whispered words just behind her ear nearly sent her careening to the ground.

She rose and slapped the dirt from her pants. “Don’t sneak up on me,” she said, facing him with a scowl while her racing pulse slowed to normal.

“Those are wolf tracks,” Thayne said, nodding to a set of prints.

“Just because a wolf sniffed around doesn’t mean the victim isn’t here,” Underhill argued, though his tone lacked the same conviction as before.

“That’s true,” Riley admitted.

“Is it her?” the sheriff called out. “Thayne?”

A muscle in Thayne’s jaw throbbed. His focus veered to the hole. “What should I tell Dad?”

“Let me finish here,” she said, linking fingers with his for a brief squeeze. “Go to him. He needs you right now, and I need to be absolutely certain before I say anything.”

Thayne hesitated.

“Please. If I make a mistake—” She paused. “I can’t be wrong.”

He gave her a quick nod and crossed back to his father.

Riley stiffened her shoulders against the penetrating and desperate stares searing her back. She knelt beside the hole, her artist’s eyes noting every detail.

“When was your last rain, Deputy?”

“The night before Cheyenne vanished,” he said.

She glanced at Pendergrass and Underhill, her brow arched. “I don’t think a human being disturbed this site. The grave isn’t wet enough. And from the sagebrush, I’d guess this is a six-month-old grave, dug sometime in winter. The hole was covered over before the abduction.”

The DCI investigator couldn’t argue. He gave her a grudging nod of respect. “You going to tell them?” he asked.

“Once I have absolutely no doubts. Do you mind?” She picked up a brush.

“You seem to know what you’re doing.”

She couldn’t have hoped for more than that. Riley excavated methodically, pushing aside the dirt, layer by layer. Twigs, pine needles. The next scrape, she sensed resistance beneath the metal. She set the tool to her side and smoothed away the dirt with her gloved hands. Within seconds, the front portion of a skull revealed itself.

No flesh, only a bit of hair remaining.

Her heart thudded, and she bowed her head. Someone had buried a human being in the middle of nowhere. Thrown him or her away.

She looked over her shoulder at the Blackwood men. “It’s not Cheyenne.”

Carson’s knees buckled. Thayne propped up his father. “You’re sure?”

“These bones have been here long enough to decompose.” She glanced at the DCI investigator. “How long for a body to skeletonize in this part of the country?”

Agent Underhill glanced at the soil. “The roots there were disturbed. This time of year, I’d guess three to six months.”

Carson hugged his sons. They clung to one another, then Thayne picked up the phone. Obviously to call Hudson. Riley let out a small sigh. This grave might not belong to Cheyenne, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t buried somewhere else. Hopefully Thayne and his family could handle whatever happened next, though most couldn’t.

Riley turned away and, with care, brushed aside the dirt until she could examine the entire skull. She was no forensic anthropologist, but she’d learned a few things—some from her training, most from the long hours of research and interviews she’d waded through searching for her sister.

The skull was larger than most women’s. She turned it to one side. The ridge along the temporal line was definitely pronounced. Lastly, she looked into where the victim’s eyes would have been and ran her finger along the lower section of the orbits. A relatively sharp ridge. Add that to the prominence of the arch above, and she was almost certain.

“It’s a man,” she said to Underhill. She turned the skull to the other side. A small, round hole right above where the ear would have been. Definitely not natural.

She rose to her feet. “Sheriff?”

Carson glanced up at her, his eyes swollen and red. “Riley?” He crossed to her and gripped her hand. “Thank you.”

She’d done nothing but fail to find Cheyenne. She couldn’t manage more than a grimacing smile. “Have any hikers gone missing in the last six months?”

“Not from Singing River, but I’ll check the reports.”

“Search for pairs of hikers first,” she said.

“Why? Is there more than one body?”

“No, but this man didn’t die of natural causes. He was murdered.”

Cheyenne was dying. Her stomach cramped, and she whimpered, rolling into a tiny ball on the cot in her prison cell.

Her belly ached, acid burned in her throat. She shot to her feet and ran to the back of the room, flinging open the bathroom door.

She slammed it shut and fell to her knees in front of the toilet. By the time her stomach had emptied out, small flecks of blood streaked the clear fluid. She fell backward, heaving. Her pulse raced. She blinked and pressed her hand to her lower abdomen.