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“Wait,” Jim called out.
She turned to face them one last time. She stared. Waited. They stared back.
“It’s your choice,” Jim said. “You can walk out of here with no job, walk away from this town again, even...but if you genuinely care about the museum, the way I believe you do, then you’ll take the two-week trial period option.”
One heartbeat. Then two. She let the silence stretch out, pretended to consider it. As though she had a logical choice. She was caught. And they knew it. She waited anyway, too prideful to seem too eager.
One more heartbeat.
“All ri—”
Her answer was cut off by screams.
In a man’s voice they were even more terrible to Gemma’s ears, especially because they echoed the screams she still believed she’d heard on this property ten years before—the screams the police told her she must have imagined, when she’d thought two of the men involved in the smuggling had started to fight.
One of them she hadn’t been able to identify, though his voice had sounded familiar. One of them—Harris Walker, who had been somewhat of a drifter but had spent time in Treasure Point regularly—had been gone by the time the police arrived. No one had ever seen him again.
These screams were like his had been, and they took her back to those terrifying moments ten years earlier, when she’d been running through the woods as fast as she could, trying not to be the next victim...
Harris had disappeared and Gemma was almost certain he had been murdered, but no one had believed her when she’d told them. Not the police, not anyone.
After the screams came a silence. The kind that chilled a person to her core.
And Gemma knew her nightmare had come back to life.
* * *
In an instant, Matt O’Dell’s patrol had gone from predictable to intense enough that he felt as if he was on the opening segment of a crime show on TV. He’d run from where he’d been patrolling in the woods when he’d heard the construction worker’s yell. He’d found a group of them clustered at the outside edge of the construction site.
“What happened?” Matt directed the question to Ryan Townsend, the foreman.
The man looked up at Matt, looked back down at something on the ground and his face paled, contrasting starkly to his sunburned neck and shoulders. He shook his head. Not really an answer.
At that moment Jim Howard ran across the gravel parking lot toward the construction area. “What’s going on?”
Matt saw several more of the historical society members clustered in the doorway of the portable office building. “Stop.” He put one hand up and said the word firmly, shaking his head. “I need everyone back inside while I deal with this.”
“But—” Jim started to argue.
“Inside, now.”
The man turned around and went back, and he and the others went inside.
Matt approached the scene cautiously, trying to be ready for anything since no one seemed able to speak. The silence was startling after the constant noise of construction. “Move.” The men stepped aside quickly. Not the way he had expected them to respond. Matt braced himself, wondering how bad it had to be to get a group of men like this to be quiet and compliant. They were nice enough guys, but they didn’t typically like being told what to do.
He looked down at the ground, wet from last night’s rain, and saw bones.
Hand and finger bones, reaching out from the dirt.
Matt felt goose bumps rise on his arms despite the eighty-degree heat. The bones seemed to be reaching up. Asking for help.
Treasure Point wasn’t a perfect town—Matt had dealt with crime before as a police officer. But nothing like this. He took a step backward, needing the distance, and looked up to meet Ryan’s eyes.
Matt took a deep breath and centered himself. “Tell me about how you found this.”
Ryan’s eyes swung to another man. “Bruce was working on leveling the site and doing some grading work. When he went on his break, I walked around a little, just to get a feel for the site. I do that with almost everything I build. I saw something sticking out of the ground over here, assumed it was a root and reached down to pull it up.” Here he started to look green. “I looked closer at it and...” His gaze dropped down to the remains.
Matt looked down, too, then glanced up at the construction worker. Ryan’s story made sense and it was hard to fake the level of uneasiness he was showing.
Someone had put that body in the ground, but Ryan was one person Matt was pretty comfortable ruling out, although he’d have to keep him on the official suspect list until he could investigate further. That was policy. Now he had an entire town full of people to consider. A whole state.
The bones looked old—old enough for the flesh to be gone—which made his chances of solving this case go down substantially. This was going to be like looking for a needle somewhere much bigger than a haystack.
The Treasure Point Police Department hadn’t had an official crime scene investigator until a year or so ago when Shiloh Evans—now Shiloh Evans Cole—had gotten certified and stopped working patrol to pursue her interest in forensics and crime scenes. A couple of the other officers could do the basic forensics work, and Matt could do it in a pinch, but Shiloh was the best. Assuming this was a crime scene, and not the accidental digging up of an Native burial ground, her opinion would be invaluable. And even if it did turn out to be an old burial ground with no crime to worry about, it was better to have been safe and called in Shiloh than to have compromised a possible crime scene and risked her wrath.
“I need everyone to move away from the scene.”
Everyone complied quickly. Almost too quickly. Matt shrugged off the suspicion. The construction workers were spooked because they had discovered the body, nothing more. Their actions weren’t indicative of any guilt. He placed the call to Shiloh, and then waited, standing guard over the body.
A police car pulled up only minutes later and Shiloh stepped out. She started surveying the scene even as she walked toward it; he could practically see the wheels in her mind turning, working at sorting out potential puzzle pieces. “What happened?”
“Ryan Townsend thought he saw a root and bent to pull it. Turned out to be a skeleton’s finger.”
Shiloh shook her head. “That’ll give you nightmares.”
“What are your thoughts?”
“You were right to call me. I think we’re dealing with something more recent than anything Native American. This was really close to the original site of the Hamilton house, before it burned down last year. That place had been around forever. They would have known better than to build on any kind of graveyard or burial ground.” She bent down, examined the bones a little more closely. “Besides, bone structure looks too big. We need to get an ME in here.” Shiloh stood and shook her head. “I don’t like how this feels.”
Ryan walked back over before Matt could respond to Shiloh. “Do you need to talk to any of us anymore? Our shift’s over, but we can stick around to give statements or anything you need.”
Cooperative. That made his job easier. “It would help to talk to a couple people, but then you’ll be free to go.” As he gave his answer, movement near the portable office building caught his eye. A woman hurried down the stairs, and straight to the cleanest, most expensive-looking car in the small dirt clearing that had become a sort of parking lot when the Treasure Point Historical Society was meeting in their office. Matt frowned. Why was she running? He hadn’t seen her at all today, so he knew she had nothing to do with the discovery of the body. In fact he didn’t think he’d even seen her around town, although something about her looked familiar, reminded him of... He squinted as he thought.
Gemma Phillips.
What was she doing back in town?
Seeing her again here of all places messed with his mind. What were the chances? This was where the worst night of both of their lives had taken place—although Matt had had plenty of nights that were a close second with his upbringing. Though he’d always wished he could get to know her better in high school since she’d always seemed sweet and fun, they’d been in very different circles. And that night had driven the wedge between them even deeper, separating them further.
She’d left town right after they graduated, before he could ever work up the nerve to see if she might ever consider being friends with someone like him.
And here she was, turning up again when crime was surfacing in Treasure Point, which was a huge rarity. Did the woman just bring trouble with her?
Matt wasn’t sure if she was leaving in such a hurry because she’d heard about the discovery of the body or if she was just anxious to get away from the place that must carry painful memories for her. Either made just as much sense. And either way, he’d put her on his list of people to talk to later. Something about the purposefulness of the way she ran... It seemed that Gemma Phillips had something to hide.
He just wondered whose life would be turned upside down by her latest revelation.
“I’m going to call the ME.” Shiloh pulled her phone out.
Matt nodded, then walked in Gemma’s direction. She was too fast for him; before he could do anything, even call out to her, she’d climbed into her car and driven away. He stood for a minute, watching her and trying to figure out how she played into this.
“You know her?” Shiloh’s voice beside him caught him off guard. Apparently she’d finished her phone call. He nodded.
“Who is she?”
“Gemma Phillips.”
“Phillips... Any relation to Claire at Kite Tails and Coffee?” Shiloh’s mention of Claire’s coffee shop made him wish he’d swung by there on the way to work this morning. He’d had a cup at home, but the way this day was going, he’d need more soon.
“Her sister.”
Shiloh’s eyes narrowed. “Is she the one who testified in that criminal smuggling case a decade or so ago? She looks younger than I would have thought.”
He nodded. “She was in high school at the time. How’d you know about that case?” Shiloh wasn’t from Treasure Point originally, and it was a taboo enough subject that officers didn’t even discuss it among themselves much.
“The smuggling ring was stealing historical artifacts. I found write-ups in old newspapers at the library when I was doing research for a history class I was teaching.”
Matt forgot sometimes that she’d had a different life before joining the police department. It was hard to imagine her as a timid history professor. In his mind, she was 100 percent law enforcement.
“Why do you think she ran?” Shiloh was full of questions today.
“I don’t know, but I’m planning to find out.”
“Don’t leave yet. I still need you here until after the ME comes. This is your case, right? Your first big one?”
He nodded. His chance to prove himself as something more than a criminal’s son, maybe the only chance he’d ever have.
Another police car pulled up. Lieutenant Rich Davies stepped out and strode in their direction, a determined look on his face. Next to him, it seemed like Shiloh stood up straighter. She’d had some unpleasant run-ins with Davies in the past. Matt felt his own shoulders tense. The way Davies was looking at him, he was afraid his time had probably come, too.
“You found a body?”
Matt jerked his head in the direction of the construction workers. “They did. I was patrolling.”
“You can go back to it. I’ll handle the investigation.”
“I don’t think so.”
Davies said nothing but his face registered shock. More than anybody else, Matt did what he was told, took the jobs he was assigned without complaining. But after years of working easy patrols, of dealing with nothing more interesting than one incident of vandalism that had been tied to an adolescent dare, this was his chance to show the guys on the force that he was capable of real investigations, of doing something that mattered.
“We’ll talk to the chief about this,” Davies warned.
Matt only nodded. “Fine with me.” The chief was a sensible man. There was no reason for this assignment to be taken from him—he hadn’t even had the chance to mess anything up yet.
The chief pulled up in his own car and joined them moments later, ending their silent standoff. “Officers, something wrong besides the body we should all be investigating?”
“I was just telling O’Dell that I was happy to take over the investigation from here.” Lieutenant Davies spoke up first.
The chief glanced between both of them, settled his gaze on Matt. “Any reason you can’t handle this case, O’Dell?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, it’s in your patrol area. I’d like you to see it through.”
Matt blinked. Although he’d been hoping and expecting that he’d be able to keep the case, the relief of knowing his boss thought he was up to the challenge was so strong that he almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He nodded anyway. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t let me down. Now come on, both of you, show me the scene.”
The three of them walked toward the remains together, Matt’s head still spinning at the fact that he’d actually been given the case. He’d wanted a chance to prove himself? Here it was. Now he just had to do it—failing at this wasn’t an option.
TWO (#ulink_1ba6a75a-0599-5faa-9418-feabfe4314ef)
Gemma sat on her sister’s porch swing, trying to enjoy the warm night, hoping the back and forth of the swing would calm her mind down enough that she could sleep. She’d run from the Hamilton Estate and come straight back to Claire’s house, her home for now.
For a few hours, she’d debated her course of action—she could run and go back to Atlanta, find a job anywhere she could so she could at least live somewhere she loved...but she’d agreed to the trial period with the historical society, and she wasn’t a quitter. Her only other options were to ignore everything that was happening and continue with her normal life—or to jump into the investigation fully and end this for good.
So far, she’d decided nothing. So she sat. Swinging.
Darkness fell faster than she’d expected—it always seemed to catch her off guard. Soon it was too dark for her to feel comfortable out in the open. Surely by now word had gotten around town that a body had been discovered. If it was tied to the crime she had witnessed all those years ago like she was almost sure of...was she in danger again?
Still?
Katydids chirped a night song, just another sound that was familiar and yet foreign to Gemma. She’d forgotten how loud it was even out here in the middle of nowhere. The sirens, the traffic she’d grown used to in Atlanta were absent, but the night noises were just as loud.
She’d loved this town once. Before its lack of support for her had broken her heart.
Gemma couldn’t keep hoping this part of her life would go away with no action from her. She couldn’t keep sticking her head in the sand, and she certainly couldn’t run. Maybe going to Atlanta in the first place had been running, although of course her eighteen-year-old self hadn’t seen it that way. But now, all these years later, it was time to face this. Past time. Gemma walked down the porch steps, climbed into her car, backed out and took a deep breath. She needed to go back to the office at the historical society.
If they were half the society they claimed to be, they’d have records. Maybe even records that might tell her more about the crime she’d uncovered ten years ago when she’d walked up on a gang of thieves hiding stolen artifacts deep in the woods behind the Hamilton House. Gemma wasn’t sure yet what information about the items the thieves had stolen would do to help her, but she wanted all the information she could get. She’d never believed the case was fully solved. And the town couldn’t move on until it was.
Neither could she.
Gemma swallowed hard, fought back emotion as she kept her eyes focused on the beam her headlights left on the road for her to follow into the darkness of the night. She’d run today because she already believed she knew who the body belonged to. And if she was right about who the body belonged to, then there was a good chance she was right about several other aspects of this case, too.
Meaning the Treasure Point Police Department had been wrong to declare the case closed.
Meaning that as Gemma had always feared...the man most responsible for the crimes still walked free. Maybe right here in this little town. And there was one more crime to add to his tally that she had been sure of—murder.
She turned into the Hamilton Estate, drove her car to the construction site and parked but left the engine running. Was she sure about this?
It looked safe enough out there, although she knew looks could be deceiving. Gemma took a deep breath, shut off the car and opened the door. The minute she did so, an owl hooted. Startled, she slammed the door back shut, then laughed at her own cowardice. She was from here, not an out-of-towner. She should be used to those noises. Unafraid of them.
But the truth was that every heartbeat of the night, everything that should seem normal, took her back to that night when everything had started.
Being here again, seeing it at night, made her wonder if the setting would jog her memory in a way it hadn’t when she’d been here in the daylight earlier, make her remember anything about the crime that had faded in her memory.
So far there was nothing new. Only fear. But growing within was also the determination to be done with this, to do something good for this town and make her parents proud.
Gemma could do this.
