Buried (A Bone Secrets Novel) - By Kendra Elliot
Eighteen Years Ago.
He crouched behind the woodpile, carefully watching the little girl through an opening in the stack. She looked about ten years old but exuded the confidence of an older child. She carried a striped kitten into the little playhouse near the woodpile, chatting to the animal about tea and cookies. She was dressed for play in cutoff shorts and a lunch-stained T-shirt.
The plastic playhouse had to be stuffy. The weather was hot and dry, but that was good. It meant he’d been comfortable while sleeping the last few nights in the woods, but during the day the heat could be deadly. He’d spotted the big white farmhouse this morning. His first sighting of civilization in…years. He’d slowly crawled to his current hiding spot, moving between shaded spots, watching every movement about the property. An hour ago he’d seen a couple of older teenage boys leave in a beat-up farm truck and a woman let two gray cats out the back door. She looked kind.
He ached to experience some kindness.
He nestled in closer to the wood, resting his head, blinking hard as his vision blurred. He was days past feeling hunger; food barely interested him. He just wanted water. There was a hose near the back door, but it was a good hundred feet away. Maybe he should just approach the woman and ask for help. But he wasn’t going anywhere until he felt safe. He’d wait until dark. By then—
“Tabby! Come back!”
He grasped at the woodpile with both hands as the kitten shot by his feet.
Uh-oh.
The little girl burst around the corner of the woodpile and slammed to a stop as she spotted him, her mouth falling open and her eyes widening. She took two cautious steps in his direction, studying him intently.
He couldn’t move.
He knew he looked bad. His filthy clothes blended with the brown of the wood and dirt. Under the layer of grime on his skin, he suspected he was lily-white from lack of sunshine.
Curiosity filled her bright blue eyes, and she moved closer, looking him over. Her gaze slowly traveled from his blistered bare feet to the old, bloody shirt he’d wrapped around his head. She stopped five feet away. A healthy distance if she needed to make a fast exit, but she’d obviously judged him to not be a danger. She was right. He was about as threatening as a baby seal.
“Do you speak English?” she asked loudly.
He bit his cheek. That was her first question?
“Do you live in the woods? How old are you?” Her gaze narrowed.
He slowly stood, bracing himself against the wood, feeling his head swell with the movement. Her eyes grew wide. He was thin, stork-thin. She could see his bruises and abrasions, and he knew many more were hiding. “Yes, I speak English. No, I don’t live in the woods. And I’m thirteen,” he croaked.
She stood straighter, concerned. “Are you alright?”
He touched a gentle finger to his makeshift turban and winced. “Do you have any water?”
She nodded and raced into the playhouse. She reappeared, carefully carrying a blue floral cup and saucer. His hand shook as he lifted the cup to cracked lips. The warm water was heavenly, but he winced as his muscles went through the foreign motion of swallowing. The simple act of her help made him want to cry.
“How did you get those pink circles on your face?”
The cup rattled as he set it back on the saucer. The scars. Cigarettes. The bunker. Stories he could never share without endangering lives. “May I have some more, please?” This time she brought out a little pot and refilled his cup. He drank and then slid back down into his crouch before his legs gave out on him. Nausea gripped him. Did he drink too fast? “Is your mom home?”
She nodded. “Do you want me to get her?”
“Please. Don’t tell anyone else I’m here, okay? Just get your mom.” He leaned his head back against the wood and closed his eyes. Bright colors shifted on the back of his eyelids as the world began to gently spin. Speaking had sapped his energy, but he’d escaped the forest and this family would help him. Now he just had to keep his wits about him and his mouth shut.
“What’s your name?” she whispered.
He opened his eyes a crack. Her expression was one of simple curiosity. “Chris. Chris Jacobs.” His dry lips twisted. “Could you get your mom? Please?”
She turned and ran, tan legs pumping hard.
Present Day
“No press.” Suspicious cop eyes squinted at Michael.
The Oregon farm smelled strongly of manure, but there wasn’t a cow in sight. His research had told him the old dairy farm had been out of operation for over twenty years. Wood and wire fencing traced the edges of the fields in crooked, drunken lines. A hundred yards away stood a barn that Michael wouldn’t step foot into for a million dollars. He didn’t mind taking risks, but this building looked ready to collapse if a bird landed on the sagging roofline. “I’m not here as press. I’m meeting up with Dr. Campbell,” Michael lied.
“The medical examiner left an hour ago.” The cop tilted up the brim of his hat, doubt in his gaze, knowing Michael was name-dropping to get into the recovery site. How many reporters had he chased off today? The discovery of multiple hidden remains tended to draw out the vultures. One brow rose and challenged him to create a more original ruse.
Luckily, Michael had one. “Not that Dr. Campbell. His daughter. Dr. Lacey Campbell.”
The cop ran a hand across his sweating forehead and checked his clipboard. His instant lascivious grin made Michael’s jaw clench.
“Oh, her. Yeah, she’s still here.”
Jackass.
“Can you let her know—”
“What’s your business with her? She’s in the middle of an excavation and a murder investigation. I don’t think she’ll appreciate me bugging her ’cause some stalker is looking for her.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ.” Michael took half a step forward and lowered his voice. “Pick up your radio and get someone back there to tell Dr. Campbell that Brody’s finally here. She’ll want to talk to me.” He glanced at the fleet of police cars and obvious unmarked American sedans. “Callahan here yet?”
The cop’s eyes narrowed at the detective’s name, and his hand moved to his radio. “Not yet.” He deliberately turned his back and spoke into his radio.
About time. Michael rubbed at the skin of his baking neck and wished for an icy bottle of water. Or beer. Would Lacey drag herself away to talk to him? When she was deep in a case, she had a tendency to forget about the outside world. Her cell was turned off; he’d tried to call a dozen times.
The cop half turned his head and watched Michael from the corner of his eye as he spoke quietly into his radio. Michael ignored him, studying the recovery scene in the ninety-degree heat. It was hot, dry, and dusty. Every time he inhaled, his lungs were coated with fine dirt.
Cops in navy-blue uniforms dotted the brown fields. God, they had to be dying in this summer heat. Small white tents hid private procedures from prying eyes and the news helicopters’ cameras. Too many tents. More tents meant more bodies. A tall figure in a Tyvek protective suit strode from tent to tent.
Aw, shit.
Victoria Peres. Identifiable at any range. The rangy forensic anthropologist probably wouldn’t let him on the site even if Lacey held his hand. Michael blew out a hot breath and felt sweat trickle down the center of his back. He slipped his sunglasses back on and turned away. Might as well start making some more calls instead of wasting his time trying to get into Fort Knox. He needed to know what they’d found buried beneath the dirt; he wasn’t here for a story. This was personal.
“Hey!”
At the cop’s bark, Michael looked over his shoulder. He’d finished with his radio and had crossed his arms over his chest, biceps bulging below the short sleeves of his summer uniform. His name badge read “Ruxton.”
“You’re the damned newspaper reporter who raised a stink about our overtime pay,” Ruxton sneered. “Had every suit on the city council pissed off about the overtime we get paid.”
Not again. Michael briefly closed his eyes.
Ruxton wasn’t nearly done. “If the city would loosen its ass to gives us some cash to hire more police, then we wouldn’t have to work overtime.”
“I didn’t—”
“You reporters just write headlines when someone decides to sue us because they dinged their head while running away during an arrest. Or because they broke a rib fighting against being cuffed. You don’t know—”
With two rapid steps, Michael closed the distance between them, eyes hot. “I’m also the reporter who helped hunt down that sick son-of-a-bitch cop killer last winter.”
The cop’s mouth slammed shut.
“Some of my closest friends are cops, and I’ve got nothing but respect for the job you do, but don’t judge me by what you read in the paper, and I’ll do the same for you.”
Unflinching, the men stared at each other.
“Michael?”
Michael turned at the female voice, his day instantly brighter and the cop completely forgotten. Lacey looked fantastic but tired. The petite forensic odontologist had just stepped out of a micro-thin, crispy jumpsuit and was holding it between one finger and thumb. Her nose wrinkled.
“In this heat, no deodorant can win against these damned plastic bags they make us wear.”
Her warm brown eyes looked Michael up and down. Lacey frowned and glanced at the glowering cop. Instant understanding crossed her face. She gave the cop her brightest smile, and Ruxton’s spine visibly relaxed. He lazily dragged his gaze from her hiking boots up those shapely tanned legs to her shorts and snug tank top. Wavy blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and stuck out the back of her Seahawks’ cap.
Michael’s strongest ally. A woman who wasn’t tall enough to come up to his shoulders. Gorgeous, blonde, hot, kind, sexy, and smart. The whole package. Every man’s dream girl.
The cop didn’t have a chance. She’d wrap him around her finger just like that new gold band on her left hand. The band with the big-ass diamond.
Not Michael’s diamond.
Damn you, Jack Harper.
Lacey flashed perfect teeth at Ruxton. “Mind if I bring him in? Dr. Peres has been waiting for him.”
Michael coughed. Victoria Peres? Not f*cking likely.
Ruxton blinked and looked at Michael like he’d appeared out of a genie lamp. Michael smirked. Lacey had that effect on men. “He needs to sign the log. Here.” Ruxton thrust the clipboard at Michael, a wry tilt to his mouth. He’d spotted the ring.
Lacey winked at Ruxton and pushed Michael toward the listing barn. Her steps slowed considerably after twenty feet. Michael pulled her to a stop and lifted her chin with a finger, taking a closer look at what the cop hadn’t noticed. Dark shadows hung below her eyes, and her lids were red and swollen.
“Is it bad?” He crushed his lips into a hard line. It took something truly horrid to upset this woman.
She briefly closed her eyes, all flirty pretense evaporating. “They’re all children, Michael. One after the other.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “At first, only one skeleton had been reported, but the cadaver dog keeps finding more.”
His stomach swirled, a deep dread emerging. No, not now. “How long ago?”
Lacey shook her head. “I don’t know when they died. Long enough. They’ve been underground long enough to leave nothing but brown bones.” Her chocolate eyes filled, and she wiped a dusty wrist under her nose. “So far we’ve found seven. They’re so small…” Her voice faded.
His hands were on her shoulders, squeezing. “Any boys?” he asked hoarsely. He could feel his marrow quake. Several children…something in his gut told him this was the place. This was the place.
“Well, yes. Two, for certain. It’s hard to tell on some of the youngest. For now we’re sort of going by what’s left of the hair and their shoes…” She grabbed at his arms as her eyes widened. “Oh God, Michael. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think…you don’t think…”
“I always think about it, Lace. Every time I hear about child remains, I think about it.”
She stepped forward and pressed her cheek against his chest, her arms wrapping tightly around his waist. Michael bent his head and wished her cap wasn’t in the way. Right now he’d like to sink his nose into her hair, get lost in her female scent, and simply forget. She had the power to do that for him, but he no longer had the right to take it.
Daniel. His brain screamed with his brother’s name, images of the boy ricocheting through his skull. Images that had slowly faded over twenty years. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, willing the images to sharpen, come alive.
“The ME’s office already has Daniel’s dental records, right?” Lacey sniffed as she stepped back to look him in the eye.
He could only nod.
“I’ll check them first thing, Michael.” She slipped her phone out of her pocket and turned it on. “I’ll have Sara scan them and send them to me right now. That way I can at least try to rule them out against what we’ve found.” She froze mid-dial. “I don’t know how many bodies there will be…my gut tells me there are more children out there.”
“There’ll be eight,” he whispered.
Michael couldn’t relax. Sitting still while others were working their butts off was making him antsy. He wanted to jump in and help. But he had no role in the excavation.
“Why don’t you go home?” Lacey asked Michael for the tenth time. “I’ll call you if something comes up. There’s no point for you to be sitting here waiting and waiting. It’s not going to speed things up.” Hands on her hips, she glared at Michael as he petted the German shepherd in the shade of one of the little tents.
He shook his head, avoided her eyes, and buried his hand in Queenie’s soft fur. The dog’s tongue lolled in joy. Rule one in an argument with Lacey: Keep your mouth shut. Drove her crazy.
He’d watched her fiancé slowly learn the trick over the last few months. At first the poor sap had actually tried to win arguments with the woman. Impossible.
She huffed at him and turned her attention back to the tiny mandible a tech had placed in her hands moments before. “Too young,” she muttered, and Michael’s spine relaxed. Barely.
But the happy cadaver dog under his fingers had hit on another spot thirty minutes ago, and that Amazon of a woman, Dr. Peres, was supervising the beginning of the unearthing. F*cking amazing dog. Michael had witnessed a lot of things in his life, but watching the dog scent death below the dirt had blown his mind.
The handler, a graying, earthy woman who talked a mile a minute, had been working a grid pattern when the dog abruptly sat and refused to move. A hit. Sherrine had rubbed the dog’s head and given her a hug, gently backing her away from the place of the hit. Sherrine had nodded at a uniform, and he drove a pole a foot into the dirt at the spot three times, leaving small openings over the area.
Michael wondered how many times Sherrine and the cop had gone through the morbid routine. She’d led Queenie by the holes again, where the dog took one sniff, promptly sat, and wouldn’t budge.
No question.
“The holes let out more of the scent,” Lacey had whispered at his side. The cop had promptly whipped out stakes and tape and cordoned off another sad square. Crime scene techs covered the dusty farm like ants. Oregon State Police had thrown everything they had at the site. Skeletons of multiple children motivated everyone.
Now Michael restlessly patted Queenie and waited for the results of the current find. Sherrine returned with three bottled waters. “Thirsty?”
Michael took one of the bottles with a nod. Lacey took the other and ground her heel into his shoe. “Wha—thanks for the water, Sherrine,” he muttered.
The woman chortled and winked at Lacey. Sherrine pulled a collapsible dish out of her backpack and poured half her bottle into the dish for the dog.
“You don’t work for the state police, do you?” Michael asked.
Sherrine shook her head. “Private contractor. Queenie and I have helped out dozens of times. State police, counties all over the state, and at least ten other states.” The talkative woman paused to count silently on her fingers. “Thirteen other states, actually. We had a fascinating case last month in Washington. I’d never officially tried Queenie over water. We’d trained for it, but never had needed to use the skill. She found a missing boater trapped between rocks below twenty feet of water.” The woman frowned. “Too late, of course. He’d been missing for three days. We’ve done searches in Idaho, Nevada—”
“The twin towers in New York?” Michael couldn’t stop the question.
A flat, blue gaze briefly flicked to his and looked away. “Yes.”
She didn’t expound, and the silence filled the tent.
“Sorry,” Michael muttered. Idiot.
“Dr. Campbell?”
Lacey jumped up at Dr. Peres’s question. The tall woman had come up behind them with no one noticing. “I want you to look at something.” Victoria Peres glared at Michael but didn’t say a word. Lacey had gone to bat for him earlier with the woman. Once Dr. Peres had heard about his brother, she’d allowed his presence, but first he’d received a strict lecture on staying out of the crime scenes. Michael had solemnly nodded and replied. “Of course, Vicky.”
He swore the woman had growled.
Lacey had rapidly intervened, distracted the doctor, and then given her own lecture in furious tones in Michael’s ear.
Both women were so easy to infuriate. And he’d needed something to keep his mind off what was being found under the dirt.
This time he kept his mouth shut. He could still taste his foot in his mouth from his question to Sherrine.
Without meeting Michael’s eyes, Dr. Peres flatly stated to the group, “It’s an adult. Female.” She stalked out of the tent.
Lacey followed after a single, silent transmission to Michael with her eyes. Don’t move.
No problem. Michael blew out a breath. An adult. Not another boy.
Beside him, Sherrine stretched. “I think we’ll head out.” She clapped her hands at Queenie, who bounded to her side. “We’re done here.”
Done? “Wait a minute. You can’t be done.” Michael stood, ignoring the sweat that rolled down his neck. “There’s more.”
The woman glanced up from examining her pack. “No. I’m positive we’ve found everything. Queenie and I have been back and forth over this farm all day. Unless the police decide they want to start gridding the forest on the south side, we’re done. It looks like everything was buried in this immediate area.”
“But there’s more. There’s got to be one more.”
The woman blinked at him. “And you know this how…?”
“Because…because…” He leaned closer. “There were nine children taken. One walked out. The rest were never seen again.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Sherrine’s hands froze on the zipper to her pack.
“How long have you lived here?” Michael’s heart was ready to bust out of his chest.
The woman shrugged. “Eight years.”
He swallowed hard. “About twenty years ago, nine kids and their bus driver vanished. The bus, too. One boy showed up two years later, half dead, unable to remember what’d happened to him. The others are still missing. You just found seven children and an adult. This has to be the place. It has to.”
“You think the woman Dr. Peres just mentioned is the driver?”
Michael nodded urgently. “There’s got to be one more child buried here somewhere.”
Sherrine looked ready to blow her stack. “How come no one mentioned this to me? Everyone knows what we’re looking for but me?”
“No, not everyone,” a new voice spoke. “And let’s keep it that way.”
Michael spun at the male voice and turned to find himself nose to nose with Mason Callahan, OSP Major Crimes detective. Michael automatically glanced over Callahan’s shoulder, looking for his ever-present partner, Detective Ray Lusco. Ray flashed him a white grin, his eyes twinkling at Michael’s surprise.
“Detectives. Wondered when you’d show up,” Michael managed to say evenly.
“We’ve been in and out since the first discovery yesterday, Brody. Didn’t realize we were supposed to report to you. What the f*ck are you doing on the scene?” Callahan’s dark green eyes glittered dangerously under his cowboy hat.
Lusco fought a cough.
Aw, hell.
“How can you wear that hat in this heat?” Michael asked. At least the hat was a pale straw instead of the detective’s usual black felt. Shitkickers and faded jeans made up the rest of the detective’s uniform. Lusco looked his usual GQ self in khakis and short-sleeved knit shirt. Michael wondered if Lusco deliberately matched his belt to his shoes. No doubt.
No one had ever truly intimidated Michael, but the aging cowboy detective was near the top of the ladder. Vicky Peres stood a rung higher. Not that he’d ever let her or the detectives know that fact.
“When are you gonna stop dressing like a skateboarder? What are you, thirty-five or fourteen?” Callahan fired back.
Michael had a hunch the detective knew exactly how old he was. And his date of birth.
Michael first crossed paths with the state detectives last winter when Lacey had been stalked by a killer. Michael had been standing in the right place at the right time when the detectives had needed an immediate hand. Had he ever gotten a thank you? A note? Nothing.
“These are the missing Condon Academy kids. You know it,” Michael stated quietly.
“We don’t know shit. We’ve got a couple of bodies that are kids. That doesn’t automatically make this related to your brother.”
Callahan knew exactly why he was there.
Callahan also believed it was the missing bus, and he hadn’t been one bit surprised to find Michael on his scene. He probably had wondered what had taken Michael so long. Damned detective probably knew every relative of every missing kid on that bus. Oregon’s saddest mystery was never far from every cop’s thoughts.
Nine children from the elite, private Condon Academy. Returning from a field trip to the state capitol building. The bus never made it back to the school. No kids. No driver. No bus.
Until thirteen-year-old Chris Jacobs walked out of the forest two years later on the other side of the Cascade Mountain Range. Emaciated. Near death. No memory.
“You think this is the place,” Michael stated.
Lusco’s phone beeped, and he stepped away to answer.
Michael held Callahan’s gaze and saw something briefly soften in the cop’s face. “We don’t know,” Callahan repeated carefully. “What my gut says and what the facts are might be two different things.”
“Callahan.” Lusco was staring at the screen of his phone. He looked up, amazement crossing his face. “They just found a decrepit bus in the woods a quarter mile south of here.”
Michael looked at Callahan. “What’s your gut say now?”
“I don’t understand. If that is the place…where is…Daniel?” Michael’s mother whispered.
Michael hadn’t wanted to tell her. She didn’t look good. She hadn’t looked good for months, and Michael still hadn’t come to grips with the fact that Cecilia Brody might die. The Senator sat beside her on the huge bed, gripping her hand. He was never “Dad” or “Father.” He was “Sir” or “The Senator.” Michael had always pictured the title with capital letters, and he’d often written it that way as a child.
The frail woman in the bed couldn’t be his mother. Michael closed his eyes. His mother was head of surgery at the prestigious teaching hospital on the hill overlooking Portland. She had been the head, he reminded himself. She’d stepped down since her diagnosis. For the past three months, The Senator had been in Oregon more than Michael could ever remember. He’d often wondered what it’d take to keep his father out of Washington DC for an extended period of time. Cecilia had refused to give up her important position at the hospital when her husband was elected, so Maxwell Brody had continuously flown back and forth across the country for twenty-five years.
A tough woman, Cecilia had devoted her energy to her hospital, relying on nannies and private schools to raise her two boys. Working long hours and flying to DC when her husband needed her to make a social appearance. Now she spent ninety percent of her time in her bedroom; a room where Michael had always felt like he’d stepped into an overpriced hotel and shouldn’t stand on the expensive area rugs. He glanced down and shifted his feet onto the hardwood.
“They’re still looking, right?” The Senator barked. “They haven’t finished yet?”
Michael nodded. “Once they found the bus yesterday, they expanded the search area. They’re still looking for one more set of remains…Daniel.”
Cecilia leaned back against the pale peach pillows and closed her eyes. The Senator glared daggers at Michael, and Michael steadily held his gaze. The Senator had a habit of blaming the messenger, but Michael had learned to ignore it. If anything, the glare showed The Senator’s devotion to his wife. That was good. Devotion was good.
Too bad there wasn’t enough for anyone else.
Finding the missing bus outside the farm had been a coup. Michael had seen some cops giving high fives and others relating the old story to the younger cops. Callahan and Lusco had practically run to the site. Far back in the woods to the south, an ancient outbuilding had hidden a secret for twenty years. The school bus was one of the short ones, not the giant long buses most kids ride. Michael had hated riding the bus on field trips because outsiders assumed the kids on board were handicapped. It was the only bus the small academy had owned; it didn’t offer bus service. All the children had been driven to and picked up from school. Some in limousines. Michael and Daniel were usually dropped off by the housekeeper or gardener.
The frail outbuilding had collapsed onto the bus. A mass of moss, bushes, and overgrown trees hid the building from a casual passerby. Not that anyone ever passed it by. The misshapen building was completely isolated. The narrow access road probably hadn’t been used since the bus had been abandoned. Hidden.
No children were in the bus.
The Senator rubbed at his wife’s hand, and her eyes opened, meeting her husband’s gaze. She gave him a faint smile, reassurance. The intimate moment stretched, and Michael felt like they’d completely forgotten he existed. It wasn’t a foreign sensation.
Michael had been told a million times his parents were a handsome couple. They still were. His father was tall, silver, and imposing with a direct green gaze that mirrored Michael’s. Cecilia was elegant and slender, always perfectly dressed, frequently surprising strangers with the iron will that hid beneath the soft surface. Successful. Wealthy. Perfect.
The only flaw in their perfect lives had been the disappearance of their second son, Daniel. He’d been eleven years old to Michael’s thirteen when he’d vanished with a group of schoolmates. Michael’s memories of that time were a blur. Police, news cameras, reporters, more police. The kidnapping of the son of Oregon’s junior senator had made national headlines for weeks. Then faded away as no sightings of the children or their bus driver emerged. No confirmed sightings. Unconfirmed sightings had placed the bus in Mexico, Canada, and Brazil.
Chris Jacobs had appeared two years later, and the story flared up again. The boy had been no help. He’d spent months in the hospital, part of the time in a coma, and more months in therapy for head injuries. His parents had kept the cameras and reporters away, defending their privacy.
Michael had hated the child. Why had that boy survived? Why not Daniel?
His mother had walked the house in a fog for months; his father had raged and held meetings with his brother Phillip, detectives, and other statesmen for hours in his study. Michael had hidden at the door, listening, hoping for good news but hearing only angry voices. Uncle Phil had become the family spokesman; The Senator was unable to speak publicly about Daniel and keep his composure. Phillip Brody had been a newly elected state representative. The tragedy placed him in the spotlight, and he drafted new crime bills, using Daniel’s case to push them into law. The election gods had shined favorably on Uncle Phil and slowly moved him up the political ladder into the governor’s mansion, where he currently sat, holding court for the last four years.
Right now the publicity cyclone hadn’t started circling yet, but Michael knew it would. He could feel the pressure of the discovery ready to burst onto the front page and national news. This time Michael had the power to spin things to protect his mother. Nothing would be printed in the Oregonian without his okay. Better yet, no one would write about it but him. His editor knew Michael could present things in a balanced fashion and would back him up. The long years of a solid working relationship and award-winning investigative reporting were about to pay off. He was going to call in every f*cking favor owed him.
He pulled his ever-present digital recorder out of his pocket and switched it on.
“What in the hell are you doing with that?” The Senator nearly roared. “This isn’t the time for an interview.”
Cecilia looked like a wounded kitten.
“Time for the spin,” Michael said flatly. “You know how this works. You want to deal with the press or with me?”
“Call Evelyn,” The Senator snapped. “Now.”
Michael had already contacted his father’s publicist. “Evelyn agreed it was best I talked to you first. She’s going to have her hands full with the television reporters. I’m going to handle most of the print.”
Michael’s mother squeezed her husband’s hand as The Senator opened his mouth to speak and then clamped it shut.
“I’m sure Michael knows what he’s doing,” she stated calmly.
He shot his mother a look of gratitude.
“If you want to talk to someone, go find that boy. Jacobs.” His father’s voice cracked ever so faintly on the name. “Maybe he’s remembered something after twenty years. Maybe the discovery of so many graves will shake some memories loose.” A ribbon of spite wove through the words. The Senator had never forgiven the boy for living while his son was still missing. And he’d believed the boy hadn’t told all he knew, believed the police had been too lenient in their interviews, and the boy’s parents too overprotective.
“I will.” Chris Jacobs was next on his list. After Michael’s parents. He pulled a delicate-looking chair from his mother’s desk and sat carefully, his heart heavy. He looked at his parents, and his mouth dried up. God, this was going to suck. He took a deep breath.
“I know you’ve told the story a thousand times, but you haven’t ever talked to me about it. I need to hear everything that happened twenty years ago. And every other thought or suspicion you’ve had since then about who could have done this.”
“Mind if I sit in for this?”
This time Detective Callahan’s voice didn’t surprise Michael one bit.
Mason had been standing outside the door for a few seconds. Long enough to know the doctor was tired, the senator was angry, and the reporter used a firm hand when it came to managing his parents.
“Ma’am.” Mason nodded at Dr. Brody and then her husband. “Senator. I’m Mason Callahan, Oregon State Police Major Crimes, and I’d also like to talk with you.” He started to return his cowboy hat to his head but thought better of it and set it on the desk behind Brody. The reporter hadn’t flinched as Mason spoke.
Mason hadn’t met the doctor and senator. He knew who they were. Senator Brody had been a familiar face in Oregon politics for over three decades. In the Portland area, Dr. Brody was well known for her philanthropy and important position at the medical school. Mason knew she’d been severely ill, but her appearance still shocked him. She looked like a thin shell of the vibrant, strong woman he’d seen in the paper and on TV. Cancer? Mason couldn’t remember what had happened to her. Maybe something with her liver?
“Where’s your shadow?” The reporter stood and surprised Mason by holding out his hand. Mason shook it, grateful for Brody’s deliberate acceptance of his presence in front of the distrustful parents.
“At the Carling home.” Elizabeth Carling had been eight when she vanished with the bus. Mason heard Dr. Brody catch her breath.
“Has she been identified?” Michael asked.
“Your girlfriend made a preliminary ID. I guess the child had braces on her top teeth and distinctive decalcifications on her molars that’d been noted by her dentist long ago.” Braces at eight? Mason still didn’t quite understand that. The odontologist, Dr. Lacey Campbell, had shrugged and commented that some orthodontists do movement in two stages. The first when the child is young and the second after they’ve lost their baby teeth.
“Daniel?” Senator Brody finally spoke. His knuckles were white, holding his wife’s hand.
Mason shook his head.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” muttered Michael.
Mason felt a twinge of guilt for trying to push the reporter’s buttons. Wrong time, wrong place. “Sorry.” Michael nodded diffidently, but Mason saw regret flash in the man’s eyes. Sucks to have your woman swept away right under your nose. Been there, done that.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear your answers to your son’s questions.”
The senator’s face stated he did mind, but he kept his mouth closed. Mason lifted a brow to Dr. Brody, asking her to go first. The woman wiped at her eyes and began to quietly speak.
An hour later, Mason hadn’t heard anything that he hadn’t already read in the old police reports and found in newspaper articles. Michael Brody’s pointed questions and frustration revealed he felt the same. Mason had let Brody do most of the interview. The reporter was sharp, asking questions as identical ones crossed Mason’s mind. And the parents seemed to open up better to their son. Mason made notes and wished Ray was there to take notes instead. Mason could concentrate better if he wasn’t writing and listening at the same time. He eyed Michael’s digital recorder. He’d ask him to download the interview and e-mail it to Ray. Computers and Mason didn’t mix. Ray usually handled any computer work beyond the basics.
“It was never known if just one child was the target or if all of them were,” Mason jumped in as Michael paused. “Ransom or blackmail was expected at first, considering the socioeconomic class of the children. Usually, crime motives boil down to money, drugs, or sex.” Dr. Brody blanched. Considering the age of the children, the thought of sex as the motive made Mason queasy, too. “If you imagine Daniel was the prime target. Over the years, has someone come to mind, even very briefly, that could do this?”
Dr. Brody looked away and twisted the sheets in a fist. Several times over the last hour, tears had streaked her face, and Mason knew they were about to start again. He shifted his gaze to the senator. The tall man sat on the bed by his wife; his usually stiff shoulders had slowly deflated through the interview. He met Mason’s gaze. “No, no one.”
Dr. Brody said nothing.
“My wife is tired. Are we done?” The senator directed his question at his son. Mason’s ears perked up at the accusing tone, and he saw Michael’s back stiffen. The reporter nodded and stood. He picked up Mason’s hat and handed it to him.
Mason got the message.
He shook the senator’s hand and said his good-byes. He silently followed Michael through the maze of hallways and out of the big house into the blazing heat. Mason wiped at the instant sweat on his forehead and put on his hat. Jesus Christ. Seven in the evening and the temp was still hovering around a hundred degrees.
Mason stopped beside Michael on the wide wraparound porch and stared at Portland’s skyline.
Stunning view.
What had it been like growing up in such wealth? Michael Brody came from some of the bluest blood in the state but didn’t show it. The guy always needed a haircut and dressed like he spent his days at a beachside bar. Except for the watch. Mason knew shit about watches. All he cared about was if it worked, but Ray had once commented that Brody’s watch probably cost a third of Mason’s yearly salary. Gross salary.
Mason struggled to wrap his brain around that. His gaze went to the black Range Rover in the driveway. Oh yeah. And the vehicle. Another sign that Michael Brody wasn’t the beach bum he presented himself as. Not to mention the dual master’s degrees in international studies and economics, the investigative articles Brody wrote about his year in a motorcycle gang, running with the damned bulls in Spain, and jumping out of anything that could fly.
“They aren’t telling us everything,” the imposter beach bum stated.
Mason nodded. Brody’s green eyes were narrowed in deep thought. The brain behind those eyes was one of the sharpest Mason had ever met. Too bad the guy had a problem with following the rules. Or listening to authority. Oregon State Police could have used someone like Brody. Or the CIA. But Brody liked to do things his own way.
“I agree,” Mason said.
The men stood in silence until Mason glanced at his cheap watch. “I need to go.” He moved down the steps, leaving Brody behind.
“Callahan.”
Mason turned.
“I’m going to find out what happened to Daniel.” Brody held his gaze.
Mason nodded, unsurprised. He believed Brody would do just that. Maybe even before he did.