The Buried (The Apostles) (8 page)

Grace continued to stand at the lip of the grave. She’d been a part of Lia’s final moments, and there was something she needed to know. “Conclusive cause of death?” Grace asked the M.E.

“We’ll know more after the autopsy, but given the retinal hemorrhaging along with lack of ligature marks and no apparent bruising around the mouth, I’d say asphyxiation brought on by entrapment suffocation.” The weight of those words pulled at the corners of his mouth.

Grace stared at the wooden lid, at the tracks of blood and crescent-shaped gouges no bigger than a young woman’s fingernails.

Lieutenant Lang pointed to Lia’s right hand. “But with a lifeline.” Lia still gripped the cell phone, its face darkened with blood.

The steamy swamp spun. Grace tightened her stomach muscles and fought the nausea. Lia had used that phone to reach out in a final cry of help, but Grace hadn’t found her soon enough.

The M.E. placed the phone in an evidence box, and Lieutenant Lang pointed to one of the crime scene techs. “Get that to the station ASAP. I have a tech specialist on his way.”

After the M.E. finished with the body, he climbed out of the hole, and two techs spread a tarp on the ground before placing a body bag on top. She’d seen death’s gruesome face but only in photos within the antiseptic halls and walls of a courthouse building. Up close, the girl looked smaller, younger. Beyond the smell of sweat and urine was a faint hint of strawberries. Was it her shampoo? Perfume? Favorite bubblegum? Grace knew nothing about this young woman being tucked into the body bag. Except for her final plea.

Help me, Grace. Help me…

Grace’s entire upper body rocked in a silent sob.

A hand landed on her shoulder. Hatch. Who still moved as silently as the wind.

“It’s not your fault,” Hatch said.

“She called me.” Nine times.

“With a call any sane human being would have thought was a crank, especially given the previous disturbing messages from Morehouse. Unlike most people in that situation, you reported it to the proper authorities, kept on those authorities, and even did investigative work on your own.”

“I could have helped her.”

He put a hand on either shoulder and turned her so she faced him. “Did you or did you not call the sheriff’s department and report the call?”

“Yes, but—”

“And were you not the one who went out at midnight and found the girl’s abandoned car, who got the lieutenant on the investigation?” He slid his palms along her arms, along her neck, and cradled her face.

“Yes, but—”

“Grace, you’re not a law enforcement officer. You’re not called on to investigate or protect.” He drew his face within inches of hers until they shared the same breath. “You did everything you needed to do.”

Ziiiiiip.
Lia Grant was gone.

Grace shoved his hands from her shoulders and jabbed her fingertips at her chest. “I let her down, Hatch. I failed Lia Grant.”

G
race knew how to rock a set of pearls. She looked sexy as hell in a short tennis skirt. And when draped in only the soft glow of the moon, she literally stole Hatch’s breath. But tonight she wore guilt so thick and heavy it threatened to smother her and everyone else in the conference room at the sheriff’s station.

Lia Grant was dead, and Grace shouldered the blame. Because she hadn’t answered her phone. Because she hadn’t done enough.

Hatch settled his hip against a windowsill and crossed his ankles. He’d offered to take Grace home, but she refused to call it a night until she heard the report from the tech investigating Lia’s phone. She was obsessed with the phone, with the fact that Lia had called her again and again. Latent had checked the phone for prints and swabbed for DNA. So far no leads.

When the tech finally set down the phone, Grace asked, “Well?”

“Pre-paid with five hundred minutes. Domestic calls only,” the tech said. “Phone history shows only nine calls, all made to the same phone number.”

“Mine,” Grace said with a snag in her voice.

Hatch left the windowsill and stood behind her chair. He didn’t touch her but was ready to catch her in case she cracked. Her face was the color of ancient marble.

“Why did Lia call
me
?”

“Because it’s the only number she could dial,” the tech said. “This phone was altered to dial only one number, relatively simple technology sometimes used with parent-controlled phones.” With the tip of his index finger, he pushed send. Seconds later, a soft chirping sounded from Grace’s purse. “The bottom line is anyone using this phone can dial for a month of Sundays and never get anyone but Ms. Courtemanche.”

“So Lia didn’t necessarily want to contact me, but whoever gave her this phone did.” Grace’s words were as hard as the set of her jaw.

“What kind of sick SOB are we dealing with?” Lieutenant Lang asked.

In his hostage negotiation training days at Quantico he’d studied abnormal psychology. “It all comes down to wants and fulfillment,” Hatch said. “Our bad guy wants something, he perpetuates the crime, and he gets his payoff. Sometimes it’s external: money or sexual gratification. Other times the gain is more primal: revenge, hate, fear.”

“No.” Grace stood, a rush of color heating her cheeks. “I won’t give that bastard anything.”

“He got your attention,” Hatch said.

Grace shoved in the chair. “And he’s going to regret the day he did.”

Hatch pulled the SUV into her driveway, turned off the ignition, and pocketed the keys.

“You can go now,” Grace said. She had too much on her mind tonight to deal with Hatch. Lia Grant had died, and she’d been dragged into a murder by a madman with a phone. “I’m fine.”

Hatch grabbed a flashlight, hopped out of the car, and poked the light beam through the darkness hanging over her shack. “I know.”

Grace slammed the SUV door. “The lieutenant has drive-bys planned for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Know that, too.”

“Dammit, Hatch, would you just leave?” Her words came out in a tangled rush, but that was nothing new. With Hatch, her well-ordered, carefully planned life got tangled.

Hatch reached out with his free hand and cupped the side of her face. “After I get you inside, but first I want to make sure everything’s okay.”

No, everything is not okay
, she wanted to scream. They’d just unearthed a nineteen-year-old girl who’d been buried with a phone programmed to call only Grace. For the second crazy moment in this crazy day, she thought of leaning into Hatch’s big, callused hand. Which would only add to the crazy.

She took a step back and hurried up the steps but drew up short when she spotted the big, circular red splotch. She closed her eyes. Breathe in, two, three. Breathe out, two, three. When she opened her eyes, she still saw red.

Hatch was at her side in seconds. “What the hell happened here?”

She pointed to Allegheny Blue, who limped from a shadowy corner of the porch. “
He
happened.”

Blue plunked down at her side and rested his bony head against her thigh. She nudged him away, but he leaned harder. Good, she could deal with this type of trouble because unlike the killer who murdered Lia, the human skeleton unearthed on her property, or the reappearance of her ex-husband—she knew how to handle the stupid dog.

She squatted and checked the dog’s right paw. “You went carousing again, didn’t you? And look here, you split it open.”

Hatch scratched at the stubble along his cheek. “You have a dog?”

“He’s not my dog. He came with the house.”

A laugh rumbled from Hatch’s direction. “Now there’s a marketing tool. Buy a shanty, get a free hound.”

She let go of Blue’s paw and stood, an unexpected smile curving her lips. She appreciated Hatch’s attempt at levity, at anything to lighten the heaviness weighing on her chest. “The dog wasn’t in the contract, and if he had been, I would have had the clause removed.”

She unlocked the door and walked into the living room, the steamy mildew rolling over her like an ocean wave.

“Good Lord,” Hatch said with a wave of his hand. “What died in here?”

“My central plumbing.” She opened the windows in the living room, and Hatch unlatched the panes in the small dining area and over the kitchen sink.

In the kitchen she took a plastic bag from the refrigerator. “You know I don’t have time for this,” she said to Allegheny Blue, who hobbled behind her as she opened the back door, the molding shifting from the doorframe so it tilted like a fun-house door. The old dog had dislodged it two days ago chasing after a big cat caterwauling by the creek. Outside she fired up a propane stove on the porch. Setting a small, dented pot on a burner, she dumped a dollop of chunky liquid from the bag into the pot and tried not to gag.

Hatch joined her, sniffing the air. “Remind me to say no next time you invite me to dinner.”

She stirred the offensive liquid. “It’s for his foot.”

“What is it?”

“Bear grease, pitch, and kerosene. Hunters have used the stinking concoction for years to treat the pads of their hounds’ feet. I refuse to heat it inside.”

Hatch’s dimples carved slashes on either side of his face, and he laughed.

“It’s not funny,” she said as Blue plunked down beside her. “This is my second batch.”

Hatch gave the old dog’s ears a ruffle. “He seems to like you.”

“The feeling is not mutual.”

Hatch hopped up on the porch railing, the old wood straining and groaning. She waited for the decrepit railing to break, but it held, as did Hatch’s gaze.

“I’m fine, Hatch,” she said again. “I’m rattled and mad as hell, but I’m fine.”

Hatch finally relinquished his eagle-eye stare and pointed to Allegheny Blue. “So what’s the story?”

She gave the pot another stir. Hatch loved a good story, and he’d told so many that summer as they walked the white sand beaches of St. George Island and glided along Apalachicola Bay tonging for oysters. He told tales of hunting for treasure in three-hundred-year-old Spanish ships shipwrecked in the Florida Keys and adventurous yarns about his ’round-the-world trip with his great aunt Piper Jane. It was so easy to get lost in the music and magic of a good story. And maybe that was what she needed tonight, a good story to get her mind off Lia.

With most of the fat melted, she took the pot off the stove. “Once upon a time there was a really, really stupid dog.” A rumble sounded from Hatch’s chest, and she rested her butt against the table holding the stove. “Said dog belonged to the former owner of this place, Lamar Giroux, an eighty-four-year-old hunter who never married and spent most of his waking moments in the company of dogs and critters they chased. Earlier this year, Lamar broke his hip and moved to his sister’s place in Tallahassee. He sold off all of his canine companions except his favorite, Allegheny Blue, who got a nice new cushy dog bed at Lamar’s sister’s two-bedroom patio home, complete with central air and a therapeutic Jacuzzi. But the canine hero of this tale did not buy into the new living arrangements. The really, really stupid dog walked from Tallahassee to Cypress Bend. Took him three days, and by the time he landed on my front porch, he’d torn the pads from his feet and was nothing but skin and bones.”

“That’s almost a hundred miles. He walked it all?”

“Twice.”

“Huh?”

“I told you, he’s double the stupid.” She dropped a dollop of the bear fat mixture on her wrist. Still too hot. “After Allegheny Blue’s first trek, Giroux’s nephew drove down, got the dog, and took him back to Tallahassee, but Blue took off the next day. A week later he arrived on my front porch, this time in worse shape. I called the vet, who made a house call and said Blue wouldn’t make it through the night. The vet offered to take him to his office and put him down, but it didn’t seem right, taking the old dog away from a place he so clearly longed to be. Long story short, I offered to let him stay, and the vet gave him some pain meds. Why not let him die in the place he loved?”

“But he didn’t die.”

She grabbed the wooden spoon and gave the mixture two more turns. “Not yet.” Dipping the spoon into the bear grease concoction, she dribbled another spoonful onto her wrist. Just right. With an ease from way too much practice, she slathered the mixture on the old dog’s front right paw.

“Hold still,” she told the dog. “You need your stupid sock.” She dressed the wound with one of her old tennis anklets and first-aid tape.

With the dog no longer bleeding all over the place, she walked into the kitchen where the dank smell had dissipated. Hatch, stickier than a jar of tupelo honey, parked his backside at the kitchen table where he thumbed through her mail. She should ask him to leave. Her life would be less complicated that way. But during this hellish day, he’d found a way to make her smile, and for the few moments when she’d been telling Blue’s story, she’d forgotten about Lia Grant and that bloody phone. But now it all came back to her, especially the desperate cries of the girl she’d failed.

Hatch set down the mail and reached for her hand, his fingers curving around hers.

He’d always been so good at reading her.

She stared at his hand. Everything about Hatch was smooth, except for his hands. The ropes of his sailboat had rubbed permanent calluses along his palms and fingers, and tonight she took a strange comfort in the rough edges that took her to a different place, a place filled with sun and light, a place of wind and billowy sails. A place that had almost destroyed her.

She shrugged off his touch and bent to check on Allegheny Blue’s sock. Good. No more blood. “You can go now,” she said.

Hatch didn’t move. He was worse than the mildew smell that refused to let go. Mildew? No. Hatch smelled of the sea and sun. And salt, for he was a man who spent his days bare-chested and sweating on the deck of a boat called
No Regrets
. She breathed through her mouth and looked at Hatch out of the corner of her eyes.

To her surprise, he wasn’t giving her a sugary grin but frowning at her back porch. “I’ll go as soon as I fix that door.”

She shook her head in amazement. Evidence of the newly responsible Hatch. If she hadn’t heard it with her own ears, she wouldn’t have believed it. “I can take care of it.”

“I know. You can take care of everything. Now where can I find a hammer?”

She pictured him shirtless and working on the deck, sweat trickling down the planes of his back to the slow-slung waistband of his swimming trunks. A man who lived alone, often away from the civilized world, needed to be handy. And what hands he had, she remembered. An unexpected heat crept along her face, and she jumped up and rummaged through a drawer near the sink until she found a small tool kit. “Here,” she said. She had no doubt she could win this argument with Hatch, but in the long run it would be quicker to let him fix the door.

He squared up the door and began hammering nails, the mounds and valleys of his arms bunched and tightened, and waves of sun-kissed hair flopped over his forehead. Hatch had always been easy on the eye and fascinating to watch. He was always moving, his eyes, his mouth, his long bronze limbs. Now, like then, he proved to be a major distraction.

She grabbed the stack of mail, anything to keep from looking at Hatch. She thumbed through a catalog from a local tupelo honey co-op and opened another bill from the vet. With a glare at Blue, she reached for the final two pieces of mail, both small envelopes, the type that carried invitations to parties. Inside the first envelope was indeed an invitation from the couple who’d purchased her parents’ house. They invited her to come for tea any time this week to pick up a few things that belonged to her father. Inside the second was a single piece of glossy paper. She flipped it over, a breath catching in her throat. It was a picture of Lia Grant, a red X slashed across her face.

“What is it?” Hatch asked from across the kitchen.

She checked the envelope. No return address. No postage meter mark. Her hands shaking, she squinted at the handwritten notation along the bottom of the photo:

Me: 1

You: 0

Lia’s smiling, buck-toothed face slipped from her hands.

“Grace?” Hatch was at her side in less than a second, looking over her shoulder. “What the hell?”

“It’s a game,” she said. Hatch settled his hands on her shoulders, and for the first time she realized her entire body shook. She pointed to the jagged red X, horror sending tremor after tremor through her fingers. “It’s a game, Hatch. Someone abducted Lia and gave her a phone programmed to call only me. Then it was my turn. I was supposed to find her, but I struck out.”

Hatch stared at the photo and envelope, and slowly, his face twisted with a sickness Grace felt to her core.

The lack of oxygen was making her head dizzy. Names, hundreds of names, spun through her head—she had so many enemies. She’d spent the past decade putting bad people behind bars, most recently whorehouse king Larry Morehouse.

Hatch dug out his phone and called the lieutenant. Good. They needed to have the photo and envelope checked for trace. Her mailbox, too, as it appeared the message was hand delivered.