Scene of the Crime: Deadman's Bluff (2 page)

It all felt like a weird dream to Seth. As she was freed of the sand, his mind clicked off details. She was dressed in worn jeans and a blue T-shirt. One foot wore a gold sandal, the other one was bare. Her hair was dark, although it was so embedded with sand it was hard to discern an exact color.

“Sheriff Atkins is here,” one of them said in relief.

Seth didn’t look up from the woman. Once again he sought the side of her neck to assure himself that she was still breathing. At that moment her eyes flew open.

Bright blue, they connected with Seth for one long moment. Before Seth could react, she skittered backward like a crab, her pupils dilating as her eyes filled with an abject terror Seth knew he’d never forget.

“It’s okay. You’re safe now,” Seth said as she continued an attempt to escape, her eyes darting around wildly, like a crab seeking a rock to hide under.

As she moved she made sounds that no human being should ever make, the sound of terror too great for words. She got about three feet away from them and then with an audible moan, she collapsed.

By that time the sheriff had joined them. “FBI Agent Seth Hawkins,” he said quickly. “We called for an ambulance,” he added curtly. “We’ve got a crime scene and a live victim here who needs immediate medical care.”

“We only have two ambulances who serve this area and both of them are currently working a four-car pile-up on the other end of town,” the sheriff said as he raked a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.

Seth immediately assessed that the man appeared not to know exactly how to proceed. “We’ve got to get her to the hospital now.” Seth took control.

“Hey.” He focused on the dark-haired young man who’d helped uncover the victim. “You know where Linda and Samantha Willoughby live?” He shook his head, but the taller blond nodded. “I do,” he replied. Seth threw him his truck keys. “Load my bike and drive my truck to their place. Put the keys under the floor mat.”

Seth turned to the sheriff. “We’re going to put her in the back of your car and you’re going to drive us to the emergency room as quickly as possible. And you might want to contact some of your men to cordon off this scene so there’s no more contamination.”

He didn’t wait to see if anyone followed his orders. Instead he approached the unconscious woman and bent down next to her. He was aware that by picking her up, that by transporting her in the back of a car, he might be doing more harm than good, but her pulse had been weak and thready and he didn’t want to wait around for an ambulance that might never come.

He saw no visible wounds on her, no blood to indicate she had been wounded with a knife or by a gunshot. He knelt down beside her and gently scooped her up in his arms and then stood.

She was a tiny thing, short and slender and even though she was deadweight in his arms, he had no problem carrying her to the sheriff’s car.

The local lawman hurried in front of him and opened the back door to his cruiser. Once Seth and the woman were in the backseat, the overweight sheriff quickly made his way to the driver’s side.

He slid into the car and started the engine and only when they were driving away from the dunes did he radio in location and instructions for somebody named Raymond to grab a couple of men and get their butts out there as quickly as possible to protect the crime scene.

As he talked on the radio, Seth stared down at the woman in his arms. What had happened to her? How had she come to be buried in the dunes?

Despite the sand that clung to her, she was very pretty, with long dark lashes and a hint of cheekbones and shapely lips that at the moment hung slack and partially open.

He thought he’d never forget that moment when her eyes had first opened, when for just a moment her gaze had connected with his. In that first instant, he’d felt electrically charged, as if her eyes had held an appeal he had to answer.

It had lasted only a heartbeat before the terror of whatever she’d endured had obviously coursed through her, momentarily stealing away anything human inside her. She’d been a wild animal seeking escape.

“By the way, I’m Sheriff Tom Atkins,” the older man said from the front seat. “What’s an FBI agent doing in my town?”

“I’m here on vacation visiting my sister and niece, Linda and Samantha Willoughby. I just got into town this morning.”

“Hell of a way to start a vacation,” Atkins said.

“This woman is definitely having a worse day than me,” Seth replied. “Do you know her?”

“I don’t recognize her and this is a pretty small town where most faces are familiar to me.”

Seth once again looked down at the broken woman in his arms. “Hopefully when she comes to she’ll be able to tell you who she is and how she came to be buried in the sand. I’m assuming you’ll question thoroughly the boys at the scene. They are not only potential witnesses but also potential suspects, as well.”

“They’ll be brought in for questioning.” That was all Atkins said as they pulled up to the emergency room entrance. Seth lifted the woman out of the car and carried her in where he was relieved of his burden by an orderly with a cart.

Within seconds, the woman was taken back behind doors that forbade Seth’s entry. Sheriff Atkins had disappeared, probably headed back to the crime scene.

Seth sank down in one of the plastic chairs in the waiting room and drew a couple of deep, steadying breaths. He felt as if he’d been flying on a sickening surge of adrenaline since the moment he’d seen that haunting face in the sand.

He looked up as he saw his sister hurrying down the hallway toward him, her blue scrubs looking crisp and clean. Linda worked as a nurse and had left for her shift here at the hospital when Seth had left her house for the dunes.

“Hey,” she said as she approached.

“Hey yourself,” he replied with a soft smile. At thirty-eight Linda was three years older than him, but the two siblings had always been unusually close, especially since Linda had gone through her divorce from her domineering, verbally abusive husband, Mark.

She sat down next to him. “I heard the strangest story in the break room a few minutes ago. I heard that you went out dirt-bike-riding and wound up here with a woman you dug out of the sand.”

He nodded. “Strange, but true.”

“A couple of months ago another young woman was found dead in the dunes,” Linda said. Seth sat up straighter in his seat, his questions obvious in his eyes as Linda continued. “Apparently some of the teenagers in town decided to have a party out there. From the story I heard there was a lot of booze, some drugs and at the time that the woman was discovered Sheriff Atkins thought it was some kind of a freak accident resulting from partying.”

Seth frowned. “This today definitely wasn’t an accident.” His frown deepened as he thought about the scene. “She couldn’t have been there that long before I got to the dunes. It was almost like she’d been intended to be completely buried but something or someone chased the killer away before he could deliver the final shovelful of sand onto her face.” He wondered if perhaps the three young men who had arrived at the dunes before him had interrupted the murderer or had buried her themselves.

Linda reached over and patted his hand. “Go home, Seth. This isn’t your crime scene. Remember, you’re on vacation.” She stood. “And I’m not, so I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you at home late tonight.”

He nodded absently and watched as she disappeared back down the hallway. She was right. This wasn’t his job. He’d done what he needed to do and there was nothing to keep him from walking away.

Except those startling blue eyes and that moment of connection he felt with her before she’d freaked out and then had passed out. He couldn’t just head home and forget about all of this. Besides, he thought with a touch of humor, he had no way to get home.

He had no doubt that the kids from the dunes would see to it that his truck and bike got back to Linda’s okay. This was a small town and if they screwed with his rides, there would be no place for them to hide.

Still, despite the fact that he was on vacation, he couldn’t walk away from this until he had some answers. He wanted to know her condition, assure himself that she was physically okay. He wanted to know her name. He needed to know what had happened to her.

He jumped up from his chair as his cell phone rang. Seeing on the caller ID that it was his boss, Director Forbes, calling from Kansas City, he answered and walked with the phone outside the building doors and into the early-evening sun.

“Hope you’ve enjoyed the first few hours of your vacation because it’s officially over,” Director Forbes said. “I just got a call from Sheriff Atkins requesting your aid in the investigation of a serial killer who is burying women in sand dunes. Apparently you’re already a part of the most recent case.”

“A serial killer?” Seth felt as if he were missing a significant piece of a puzzle. Linda had mentioned one woman whose death had been ruled some sort of an accident, but nothing else.

“The sheriff has managed to keep the details of the other two murders under his hat. This woman you found is apparently the third victim in as many months. Since you’re already there in town Sheriff Atkins would like you to assist his team, and it sounds like you need to be there. Three women buried in the sand sounds like a case where the locals might be in over their heads. They definitely could use your help.”

“Yes, sir,” Seth replied, fighting an overwhelming irritation that the sheriff had gone directly to his boss before mentioning to Seth what he intended to do, and he’d neglected to tell Seth that this wasn’t the first woman found buried in the sand dunes.

As the conversation ended Seth noticed with dismay that the wind was picking up. A little wind out on the dunes would destroy any hope of collecting any evidence that might have been there.

He went back into the waiting room and within half an hour Sheriff Atkins showed up once again. “Any word on the victim?” he asked.

“Nothing so far. The only thing that’s happened is that I got a call from my director indicating that I’m now on this case. Why didn’t you tell me while we were in your car that this was the third woman found buried in the sand dunes?”

Sheriff Atkins winced, the lines on his face appearing to deepen into bone-weariness in the span of a heartbeat. “I wasn’t sure what I had going on here until you found this woman today. This makes number three and that officially makes it bigger for me to handle. It’s obviously a serial killer at work and I know as FBI you’d have more experience with this sort of thing.”

Whatever else he might have said was interrupted as a doctor came into the room. “Tom.” He greeted the sheriff with a nod.

“And this is Special Agent Seth Hawkins,” Sheriff Atkins said. “Doctor William Kane. How is she?”

“Other than being a bit dehydrated and showing some sand abrasion, she appears to be surprisingly fine physically. Her vitals are stable, but we’re giving her fluids and we’ve drawn blood for a tox screen.”

“Is she conscious?” Seth asked. “Has she said anything?”

“She’s conscious and we’ve moved her to a regular room, but she came to so agitated we had to give her a mild sedative. She’s calm now but so far she hasn’t said a word to anyone,” Dr. Kane replied.

“Can we see her?” Seth asked.

Dr. Kane hesitated a moment and then nodded. “But I have to warn you that she appears to be emotionally fragile. I don’t want her upset. I understand that you have questions and want answers, but right now my main concern is her health and welfare.”

“Understood,” Sheriff Atkins agreed.

“Room 223.”

Seth took the lead down the long corridor that would take him to her room. He told himself his eagerness to see her, to talk to her was because she was now his case. It was official business.

Room 223 was in semidarkness, the curtains pulled across the windows to shield the late-day sun, and only a small light illuminated the area just above the bed.

Seth nodded in surprise at his sister, who rose from a chair next to the bed at their entrance. “We did the best we could to clean her up, but there’s still a beach-full of sand in her hair,” she said in a soft whisper. “I think she’s asleep right now, but it’s hard to tell. She hasn’t made a sound since you brought her in.”

Linda moved away from the bed as Seth stepped closer. Sheriff Atkins remained just inside the doorway, as if perfectly happy to take a secondary role to Seth.

Seth gazed at the woman in the bed and then looked up at the sheriff. “You sure she isn’t a local?” he asked, his voice low and soft.

“Fairly sure,” Tom replied.

Seth sank down into the chair that Linda had vacated, satisfied to simply sit and watch until the mystery woman woke up. He had no idea how long Sheriff Atkins was willing to stand in the doorway, but Seth was committed to sitting all night if that’s what it took.

It didn’t take all night. They’d only been waiting about fifteen minutes when she drew a deep intake of breath and opened her eyes. Almost instantly the tension level in the room shot through the ceiling.

She half rose from her prone position, eyes wild until her gaze landed on Seth and then she appeared to relax a little bit and leaned back into the pillow.

“You’re safe now,” he said softly. “You’re in a hospital and nobody is going to hurt you again.” He realized her eyes weren’t just a simple blue, but had silver shards around the pupils, giving them a depth that drew Seth in.

“Can you tell us your name?” Tom asked as he stepped up to the foot of her bed.

She looked at the sheriff and then back at Seth and tears began to fill her eyes. She clutched the sheet that covered her and Seth noted that her fingernails were medium-length and polished with a pretty pink gloss that had dulled slightly, probably from sand abrasion.

Still, no broken nails, no obvious defense wounds, no wounds at all on her. So, what had happened to her and who had attempted to bury her in the sand?

“Can you tell us your name?” Seth repeated gently, aware of the tremor that had begun to show on her face, in her shoulders.

Slowly, she shook her head and closed her eyes, as if seeking the numbness of sleep once again. Seth and the sheriff remained in the room for another fifteen minutes or so and then left her room and stood just outside it in the hallway as Linda resumed her seat next to the sleeping woman.