Cold Case Murder Mystery (Hudson Sibling Solutions #7)

Chapter Ten

Brooke stood in the front yard of Zeke’s house with Viola prancing around her for a long while, not sure what had just happened. Today. The past few days. Maybe her entire adult life.

Her body was still a riot of heat and want, and her mind whirled with confusion.

The same. Oh, boy, was it. Their chemistry hadn’t waned or changed. She wasn’t sure she’d really thought it had, but the angry way he’d thrown it out there suggested that he had. And he wasn’t too happy about it.

She almost laughed. Maybe it was wrong, but having a better handle on their situation than he did was somewhat comforting. She certainly hadn’t initiated any physical contact. He’d been the one to comfort her when she’d cried over Royal. He’d been the one to grab her and kiss her.

Brooke blew out a long breath. She couldn’t ruminate on a kiss when she had work to get to. When she had responsibilities, and her brother, and the threat he thought their father posed. She could not put those aside because she was still hung up on her ex, who just happened to be protecting her because of some strange turn of events.

So, she needed to get ready for work. But before she could, a Bent County Sheriff’s Department cruiser bumped down the gravel drive. She saw Thomas behind the wheel, so she walked over to greet him.

He didn’t get out of the car but rolled down his window. “I’m headed out to the Hudson Ranch to talk to Chloe Brink about the scrapbook you found, and I was wondering if you’d come with me. It’ll put us a little behind schedule on your excavation, but I think you could help here.”

“Oh.”

The Hudson Ranch. She’d been there once. When Detective Delaney-Carson had informed the Hudson family that they’d positively identified last month’s discovered remains as the long-missing parents of the Hudson clan. Brooke had gone along at the detective’s request. Since the family was full of police officers and investigators, Laurel had assumed they’d have a lot of questions about the procedures that only the forensic anthropologist on the case could answer.

It had been . . . awful. Oh, the Hudsons had all handled the news calmly. They’d known it was coming. Still, watching so many people have to sort through their grief, no matter how anticipated, had been . . . painful. Usually, she was in the background of that part of what she did, not the front lines.

“There were some pictures in the scrapbook that I think are in the cave, or near it,”

Thomas explained. “I’d like your opinion on what we’re looking at there. We could arrange a meeting at the station, after your normal hours at the cave, but this is quicker.”

And quick was best. Particularly if her theory she hadn’t shared with anyone yet was correct. Brooke nodded. “Let me go grab my work bag.”

She did so without running into Zeke, and that was best too. She doubted he was unaware of a police cruiser on his property, so he’d know where she’d gone. Or at least who with.

When she had everything she wanted, she returned to the car and slid into the front seat. Thomas immediately drove back out to the highway.

“I did put some feelers out on your father this morning,”

he offered. “Got some pretty straightforward answers. He’s still in jail. There’s no record of him getting out. He’s not exactly a model prisoner. Lots of fights, solitary confinement, that sort of thing. I wouldn’t anticipate him getting out anytime soon.”

It should have been a relief but only left her with a deeper discomfort. Why did Royal think otherwise? Why did it still seem a threat lingered? But that wasn’t Thomas’s problem, so she wasn’t about to lay it on him like it was.

“I really appreciate you looking into that for me,” she said.

“Anytime.”

And he made it sound like nothing, which was kind of him. Like it didn’t matter her father was a former Sons member, in jail for too many things to mention.

Further down the road, he pulled under the big archway that would lead them to the main house where most of the Hudson siblings lived and worked—both the ranch and their cold case investigation group, Hudson Sibling Solutions.

During the long winding drive, anxiety settled into her gut like a heavy weight. Thomas stopped in front of the grand ranch house. Brooke hesitated getting out of the car.

“I get that it feels . . . uncomfortable,”

Thomas said kindly. “I have to deliver a lot of bad news to people I know, people in my life. And so have the Hudsons. We all know how to divorce the messenger from the message.”

Right. She nodded and got out of the car, following Thomas up the porch and waiting after he knocked on the door.

The woman who answered carried a tiny baby. She greeted them with a politeness and warmth that was antithetical to the situation. She ushered them into a big, cozy living room. Chloe was already there, sitting next to one of the Hudsons Brooke could remember by name. Jack Hudson was the sheriff of Sunrise, and the de facto leader of his siblings. He’d also been shot twice last month in the situation that had led to the discovery of human remains in the cave, causing her to stick around beyond just identifying the remains of his parents.

It wasn’t obvious he’d been seriously hurt from just looking at him, but Brooke noted a cane in the corner next to the couch he sat on. And the careful way Chloe sat next to him.

“Chloe. Jack,”

Thomas greeted. “You remember Brooke Campbell, the forensic anthropologist.”

Another woman entered. She didn’t look like a Hudson, but a lot of significant others lived on the property, so Brooke assumed she was one of them.

“Brooke, this is Dahlia,”

Thomas introduced. “She’s a librarian, but she has some archivist training. She’s helping us keep the integrity of the scrapbook intact, like you suggested.”

They exchanged pleasantries then everyone who was still standing sat down around a coffee table where Thomas placed the scrapbook with care. He opened up to a page in the middle. The pages were black, with black-and-white photos pasted in careful rows. He pointed to one such row.

“Doesn’t this look like the preserve?”

he asked everyone.

Jack and Chloe leaned forward and peered at the picture while Brooke did the same. She felt like an expert of the area around the cave now, but the photo wasn’t very clear, and the black and white made it difficult to really determine. The picture could have been any rocky area with mountains in the distance.

Thomas slowly turned the page. “And these.”

These pictures had two men in almost all of them. The prints weren’t much clearer than the photo of the preserve, but it was obvious the subjects were in some kind of rock enclosure. It could definitely be a cave—but it could be their cave or any others.

“Aren’t these pictures too old to use flashes or whatever in a dark cave?”

Chloe asked. “Those guys look pretty old-timey.”

“Yes, they do, but flash photography is pretty old,”

Dahlia replied. “Flashes have been around in some form or another for a long time, and there could have been other light sources involved outside the picture. There are photographs of caves over a hundred years old.”

“Do you know who the subjects are?”

Brooke asked. The surroundings didn’t tell them much, but something about the two men drew her attention. She didn’t know enough about historical fashion to know what era they were from, but certainly a long time ago.

“Let’s see if we can remove the photo from the page. There might be a label on the back. Besides, we’ll want to eventually remove all the pictures. The glue and paper used in these old scrapbooks are often harmful to photographs over time.”

Dahlia rummaged through her supplies, pulled out what resembled dental floss, and then carefully slid it under the upturned corner of the photo. With a sawing motion, she pulled the floss through until the photo detached from the page.

She lifted the photo to the light, looked at the back. “The writing is faded, but it looks like it says ‘F. Brink and L. Rogers.’”

Everyone turned to Chloe, whose father was a Brink and mother was Jen Rogers, the suspected murderer.

Chloe shook her head. “Far as I know, my grandpa Brink’s name was George. Never met my mom’s father. I always assumed he was dead or a deadbeat. But Rogers certainly explains my mother’s connection to the scrapbook.”

Brooke studied the picture. She didn’t think anyone would assume the background of the black-and-white picture was a cave if they weren’t currently dealing with a cave. But she could see what Thomas was talking about.

Certain formations surrounded the people were similar to the area she had just started excavating. Not irrevocable proof of the same cave, but maybe too much of a coincidence to not be.

“I could look into the family histories. See if these are direct ancestors of yours, Chloe. And if they are, it’d help us date the photograph. If you think it might help the case, Detective Hart.”

Thomas frowned. “Not sure it’ll help, but it can’t hurt.”

“This book adds to the case against Jen,”

Jack said. “She was living in that cave. She’s the one who took the scrapbook from the police. Now you’ve found the scrapbook in there and there’s a link to the Rogers family. Maybe it doesn’t tell us anything new, but it can be used in the case against her.”

Thomas nodded in agreement. “But why did she want to steal it then hide it?”

Brooke didn’t have any answer for that question, but she kept studying the picture, trying to orient herself. Because caves changed over time, so it wasn’t the same as now. But the formations were in the same spots, just different sizes.

And if she was seeing things correctly, and not jumping to conclusions, both men were standing next to each other in a corner of the cave she hadn’t yet gotten to but knew made up the edge closest to the center of the cave. She’d purposefully left that spot for last because she’d wanted as much space around the interior studied and opened.

Maybe caves could appear similar, but there were too many coincidences here.

“Do you have a magnifying glass?”

she asked absently to no one in particular. Some object at the men’s feet looked like . . . something. Maybe if she could make it out, she could be sure one way or another.

Dahlia pulled a magnifying glass out of her supplies and handed it to Brooke. Brooke used it to analyze the lower corner of the bottom photograph. As the magnifying glass settled over the corner, the shape of something that looked like . . . hair and an ear. But the angle was all wrong. It was straight up and down, like it didn’t have a body but had been propped there.

Brooke’s heart started beating hard in her chest. She swallowed so her voice would sound calm. She held out the magnifying glass to Hart. “Is that a head?”

No one had been able to agree if the shape was a head. If the strands were hair, if the ear was indeed a human ear. They’d pored over the rest of the photos, searching for anything that might confirm what Brooke thought she saw.

No consensus could be made. Dahlia discussed some photo scanning and editing options to enhance the photos so the Hudsons were going to work on that angle. After all, if the pictures were that old, they might be dealing with a cold case—the Hudson Sibling Solutions specialty.

So, once they’d agreed on how to handle the photographs, Thomas had driven her to the cave. She’d jumped into work immediately, trying to focus on the place in the photograph. It was hard to pinpoint with the changes to the cave over time and from what little she had to go on.

Brooke wanted to dig with wild abandon. To see if she could find a skull right there. But she reminded herself to breathe, to take her time, to fall back on her training.

Finding answers relied on her ability to pay attention to every tiny detail. She couldn’t rush just because they’d maybe discovered something.

So, hours went by, of careful, meticulous, slow-moving digging. She couldn’t be haphazard. That wasn’t her job. Her job was to unearth every last detail. Document them for study.

When she first came across a flash of bone in the cave fill, she nearly cried with relief. Her back muscles screamed, her eyes were gritty, and her hands were cramping. She was both somehow sweating from exertion and shivering from the cold air in the cave.

But she’d found something. So she focused her brainpower on the steps to carefully, correctly unearth whatever it was.

More time passed. She forgot Thomas was even there, and he never suggested they break for lunch, like he usually did. He just waited in silence and out of the way so she wouldn’t concern herself with him or breaks.

Slowly, she uncovered what she’d hoped she’d find. A skull. In almost the exact place she might have seen a head in that picture. And just like in the photograph, the skull was buried with the jawbone down, top of the head up. There’d been some damage to the upper part of the skull. It just had to connect. It had to be the same. Skulls weren’t buried like this.

She took a slow breath, reminding herself to remain calm. Reminding herself she was uncovering a mystery, not putting herself in danger.

“Thomas? Can you take some pictures?”

He walked over with his Bent County camera strapped around his neck. He looked at what she’d uncovered. He didn’t outwardly react, but she knew he was feeling that same ticking clock she felt.

They were close to some kind of break in the case. So close. And if she could push through everything, they might have one.

“Just take as many photos as you can. I’m going to keep uncovering the skull.”

So, that’s what she set out to do. If she could remove the skull intact, with photo evidence of how it had been buried . . . She didn’t know, but it was something.

Brooke lost track of anything but unearthing the skull, and once she could remove it from the cave floor and debris, she discovered exactly what she was afraid she might.

There was nothing directly underneath the skull. No bones from the neck or even shoulder that should be within the area she was excavating.

Just like the photograph.

“If that picture included a decapitated head, and this skull is that head, this death occurred before Jen Rogers,”

Thomas said, his voice devoid of any emotion, though she knew he felt something about that information whether he spoke it aloud or not.

Brooke looked up at Thomas and said what she’d been worried was true for a while.

“I think we’re dealing with more than one killer.”