CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY
Bree woke with gritty eyes to predawn light. Achy and fuzzy-headed from lack of sleep, she stretched a shoulder. Her neck popped and crackled when she circled her head. Next to her, Kayla snored softly. Her mouth hung open to compensate for her stuffy nose. Feverish, she’d been up most of the night.
Bree slid out of bed and tiptoed downstairs. Matt was stretched out on the couch, one arm and both feet hanging over the edges of the cushions.
“Morning.” He sat up and stretched. He looked as tired as Bree felt.
“I owe you,” she said.
He rubbed an eye. “You do not. Teamwork, remember?”
“Cleaning up vomit seems over and beyond.”
“There’s no such thing,” he said.
This man was a treasure. What had she done to deserve him?
Bree leaned over and kissed him. “How’s your back? You don’t really fit on the couch.”
“I’m fine.” But his grimace as he cracked his neck said otherwise. “How’s Kayla?”
“Seems OK for now. She’s finally sleeping.”
“Good.” He stretched both hands overhead.
Bree headed for the kitchen. Dana was already up, sitting at the table with a cup of something that smelled heavily caffeinated. Through the window, clouds shifted across the brightening sky, and the tall blades of grass near the pasture fence arced in the wind. “Looks like the storm is clearing.”
“I hope so.” Dana set down her cup. “We have more than enough mud out there. What happened last night that sent Hottie to the couch?”
Bree gave her the rundown.
“Ugh. Poor kid.” Dana rose and crossed the kitchen. “Do I need to take her to the pediatrician?”
“Not yet. It’s probably that flu that’s making the rounds. Matt’s dad will probably stop by.”
“OK. Good.” Dana pushed buttons on her fancy coffee maker. “I assume you want the deepest and darkest sludge possible.”
“You assume correctly. I want one step away from chewing the beans myself. Barely a step.”
“Got it.” Dana worked levers, and the machine whirred.
“I don’t remember ever being this tired. I’m old.” Bree opened the fridge and surveyed the full shelves. Nothing appealed. She closed it. “Matt and I were supposed to work last night, but that plan was derailed.”
“It happens.”
Bree reached for a coffee cup.
But Dana stopped her with one raised finger. “Patience. I’m foaming milk so you don’t burn off your stomach lining.” She poured the foam into a small cup and topped it with the sludge. The smell of very strong coffee filled the kitchen. Matt appeared in the doorway, as if called by the scent. He inhaled audibly, a wolf scenting prey.
Dana glanced at him as she handed Bree her cappuccino. “Yours is next.”
“You’re the best,” he said.
“I know.” Dana worked her espresso maker like a veteran barista. The machine hissed as if the levers were hydraulic.
Leaning back against the counter, Bree sipped. She willed the bitter brew to jump-start her brain cells.
Feet shuffled, and Luke appeared in the doorway. His eyes were bloodshot, his face as pale as the milk Dana was currently foaming. He coughed, sounding like a distressed harbor seal.
“Uh-oh.” Bree walked closer and put a hand on his forehead. “You’re hot.” Maybe she was developing the magic palm after all.
“I can’t be sick.” He coughed again. “I have a big English test today.”
“Sorry,” Bree said. “Your sister also has a fever. You’re both out for the day. I’ll call both schools.”
“Do you want to eat or go back to bed?” Dana asked him.
“Eat, then go back to bed.” He walked toward the back door, his shoulders slumped, his steps slow.
“Hold on.” Bree stood. She did not want Luke out in the cold, damp barn. “I’ll feed the horses this morning, and I’ll call Adam to pitch in later.”
“OK. Thanks. I have to email my teacher.” Luke sank into a chair at the table, but instead of reaching for his laptop, he rested his head on his folded arms.
“You need to rest. You’ll make up the test when you’re better.” Bree donned her coat.
“I can’t miss more than six days,” he said into the crook of his elbow.
“Six unexcused days,” Bree corrected. “And you’ve only missed three so far this year.” At the moment, there wasn’t much she detested more than the school’s attendance policy.
Without picking up his head, he sighed.
“Stop worrying.” Bree stepped into her barn boots. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told my deputies. Everyone gets sick. If you focus on getting better, then you’ll get back to work faster.”
“I’ll take care of the horses,” Matt said. “You make your phone calls.”
Bree called her younger brother on speakerphone while she worked. “Both kids are sick. Can you help with the horses this afternoon?”
“Sure.” Adam sounded pleased to be asked. “Are the kids OK?”
“Probably that flu that’s going around. If you want to remain flu-free, stay out of the house.”
“Just tell me what needs to be done.” Adam had come a long way over the past year, overcoming his introverted nature to be a true uncle to the kids. “I’m here for you all.”
Loner tendencies ran in the family, Bree thought. We’ve all come a long way.
She gave him a list of instructions. “There’s a feeding chart posted in the barn too, in case you forget.”
“Got it,” Adam said.
“You don’t mind mucking stalls?” Bree asked. She’d lived on a farm until the age of eight. Manure didn’t bother her. Adam had spent only his first year there. He lacked the olfactory desensitization.
He snorted. “I won’t love it, but I’ll get it done.”
Bree laughed. “Yeah. No one loves it, but you won’t need to hit the gym today.”
“I’ll text Dana and see if she needs anything from the store too.”
“Thanks, Adam.”
“This is what families do, right?” Adam chuckled. “As if we’d know. We’re just becoming a real family.”
“That’s not true,” Bree said. “You always supported Erin and the kids.” Bree, however, had been less than attentive, something she now regretted with her whole, broken heart.
“That was just money.” Adam’s artwork was a hot commodity. “This is harder. This takes effort and conscious thought, at least for me. I don’t always know what to do for the kids.”
“Me either, but we’re learning, and we’re trying. I think the trying is the important thing. Being there and making sure they know that’s always going to be the case.”
“I can do that. Tell Dana to call me if she needs anything before this afternoon.”
“Will do.” Bree ended the call.
Kayla appeared in the doorway. “Aunt Bree? I feel bad again.”
“Oh, honey.” Bree turned to the little girl and touched her forehead. “You’re burning up.” She had little experience with sick kids. For the first year, their difficulties had been more emotional than physical. But somewhere in the depths of her brain, a voice said, Eat some toast, sweetheart. You can’t take medicine on an empty stomach.
Bree paused. She knew—knew—it was her mother’s voice. She didn’t have many good memories of her childhood. The memories she did have, she didn’t want. She’d been eight when her father had shot her mother while Bree hid her siblings under the back porch. Bree had blocked some memories of that time—including those of her mother—in self-defense. A child could handle only so much trauma before shutting down. But now, the voice sounded so clear.
Why? Why could this memory suddenly bob to the surface like a buoy on a lake? She closed her eyes and tried to conjure an image, but nothing appeared, leaving her feeling empty, grief welling inside her like unshed tears. How could she miss a thirty-year-old memory she hadn’t known she had?
She’d always excelled at compartmentalizing, but lately that particular superpower was failing her. Getting in touch with her own emotions gave her the tools she needed to be a better guardian, but it had its downside. She had never fully worked through her own childhood grief. Did she need to do that to help the kids handle theirs? Because she didn’t feel like she had the time for both of those things.
Her head bowed. She pressed a hand to her forehead, where exhaustion and sorrow knitted into a tight ache.
A hand on her shoulder broke the moment. Bree’s head jerked up. Dana stood beside her, looking worried.
Dana’s fingers tightened. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah. Just a headache. I could use another espresso.”
Dana lifted a doubtful brow but didn’t argue.
Bree halted her trip down nightmare lane and focused on Kayla. “Can you eat something?” Bree didn’t even know if the advice was true, but repeating it was comforting in a weird way, as if some small part of her mother had survived inside her.
“I think so.” Kayla’s voice was small and heartbreaking.
Dana steered her to a chair. “I’ll make you some breakfast.”
“OK.” Kayla sniffed.
Bree kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry I have to go to work today.”
“It’s OK.” But Kayla sounded so sad Bree wanted to send in her letter of resignation that very moment. Then she remembered a killer was targeting young women in her county, and Bree had to stop him. The weight of responsibility felt crushing.
How could she leave? She pictured the three bodies in the clearing and the blood stains on Jana’s carpet. How could she not?
Someday, Kayla would be a young woman, like those discarded in that clearing.
She hugged her niece. “I’ll call you later.”
Kayla nodded.
Dana motioned toward the door. “I’ve got this, and I have plenty of help. Go.”
Bree nodded, her voice failing her as she put on her work boots and uniform jacket. She didn’t look back, and she and Matt went out the back door. The damp air smacked her in the face like a wet towel. She walked to her vehicle and slid behind the wheel.
“The kids will be fine.” Matt fastened his seat belt.
“I know.” Bree started the engine. “But I still feel guilty for leaving them.”
“That’s probably never going to change.”
“I know that too.” The windshield fogged, and Bree turned on the defroster and windshield wipers, which just smeared the condensation in an icy, wet arc. “I can’t articulate how awful this feels. They need me, and I’m choosing not to be there.”
“There’s a serial killer on the loose. The kids have a virus, and my dad—the doctor—will look after them. This isn’t much of a choice.”
“My brain knows that, but my heart doesn’t care.” Bree extended her hands toward the heater vents. “I never thought I’d be in this situation. I’d planned to be alone and miserable, focused on chasing killers for the rest of my life in a hazy, neon, noir existence.”
“I can’t help you with your existential crisis, but if there’s more vomit to clean up, I’m your man.”
Bree smiled, her face softening. She reached over and took his hand, which felt twenty degrees warmer than her own freezing one. “I hope you know how much I appreciate you.”
“I do.” Matt squeezed her hand between his palms, warming it. “The little things matter.”
“I hear that.” Bree watched the windshield clear like magic as the air blowing from the vents warmed.
She shifted into reverse. Bree turned to look out the rear window. The backup camera provided a better view, but old habits were hardwired. Her tires spun in the slippery earth. Mud flew, and Bree eased off the accelerator. She worked the gear shift and gas pedal to rock the vehicle back and forth until the tires caught.
The SUV eased backward. Something creaked, then snapped. Water and leaves fell from above. A large bundle dropped from the tree branches onto the vehicle with a rattling thud that buckled the hood. The end of the bundle struck the glass in front of Bree’s face with a sickening smack that sounded like a watermelon had been tossed from a second-story window. A crack shot across the windshield and spiderwebbed outward. More leaves, small branches, and water droplets rained down.
Bree’s heart rate bolted, and she jerked backward, the back of her skull striking the headrest. The bundle was torpedo shaped, but the shape of the end portion embedded in Bree’s windshield was the size of a bowling ball.
Or a human skull.
Next to her, Matt gasped. His hands shot out to brace on the dashboard. “What the—”
Bree couldn’t respond. Her throat constricted. She felt as if she were breathing through a cocktail straw. Her eyes locked on the bundle. Like a witness to a terrible auto accident, even though she didn’t want to see what was happening, she still couldn’t look away.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Matt was also frozen, his gaze similarly riveted. The sun slid out from behind a cloud, the brightness of it almost blinding. It shone down like a spotlight. Bree wanted to close her eyes against the forced clarity. Her brain didn’t want to recognize the camouflage tarp, but she couldn’t deny what she was seeing. She knew what it was wrapped around—another body.
Matt exhaled. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
Without another word, she opened the car door. Matt did the same. They moved in a strange synchronicity, each stepping onto the soaked ground and turning to face the other over the hood of the SUV, their motions mirroring each other. Bree met his equally grim gaze. Then, as a unit, their eyes drifted upward, to the broken, dripping branches of the tree above the vehicle, and back down. Matt broke the spell, turning away to study the setup.
A surreal feeling passed over Bree, as if she were watching this scene in a movie instead of living it. She stared at the body, still mesmerized by disbelief. A rope trailed limply across the body like a dead snake. Not just rope, she noted. Black Paracord. It draped over the top of the SUV and disappeared behind the vehicle.
“The rain last night washed away any footprints that might have been here.” Matt circled the vehicle, studying the ground. He stopped behind the SUV. “Simple setup. He put the body in the tree, tied the rope to your bumper. When you backed out, the rope pulled the body out of the tree and it fell on your vehicle.”
“How did he get the body into the tree?”
“We already know he’s strong.”
Bree reached into her pocket and fumbled for a glove. She tugged it onto her hand. Her fingers shook as she reached forward, her arm stretching out toward the end of the tarp. With two fingers she grasped the edge and gently lifted the fabric, exposing a mass of blonde hair. Blood matted the hair on the side of the head. Longer strands covered the face like a curtain. A sudden gust of wind surged across the yard, a violent current of air that stirred dead leaves and sent them scurrying across the muddy ground at Bree’s feet. The wind caught and lifted the hair away from the victim’s face.
Staring back at her were Jana Rynski’s cold, dead eyes.