Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Preston’s shoulders hunched as he drove the shovel into the ground again.
He could hear voices behind him. Sharp calls.
But Preston didn’t look up. Sloane crouched near him.
She’d been digging, shoving the dirt—the mud—away with her bare hands.
She’d been helping him. Noble had been digging.
Even Frankie had been dragging out the mud.
Sirens blared. Lightning still flashed. Rain still fell.
The sheriff and her deputies had arrived—those were the voices Preston heard behind him. More help.
The metal edge of his shovel hit something hard.
Fuck. Fuck. Did I hit the woman? He’d tried to be careful while he was digging, but…
Coffin. Wooden coffin. He’d hit that. His head angled toward Sloane.
He found her looking back up at him. It had grown so dark out there, but his phone, Frankie’s phone, and Noble’s all had their flashlights on and were pouring as much illumination as they could into the hole.
“That’s a coffin,” Noble said. “Shit. Shit. That’s a coffin.”
“Bridget!” Sloane yelled. “Bridget, if you can hear me, we’re getting you out!”
The voices behind them rose. The sirens were still shrieking.
Using the muddy edge of his shovel, Preston tried to pry open the slats of wood on the top of the coffin. He was half-in the grave, struggling to get down closer, and he couldn’t attain good enough leverage to pry open the damn thing.
Noble pushed closer to him. The shovel wasn’t working, not at this angle, so they both grabbed the wood. They grabbed and heaved and—
Crack.
One of the slats on the handmade coffin broke. Preston threw it aside. He grabbed for the broken edge of wood that was still attached and pried it up. Out.
“I can see her!” Frankie leaned over the edge of the hole. “I see her!”
“Everyone, move back! Now, now, now!” Sheriff Tooni’s voice boomed in the night. “Get back!”
He didn’t. Preston broke more wood. Tossed it aside. Chunks of mud fell into the coffin. Rain poured in.
I can see her, too. Bridget Russell. Sprawled inside the coffin. Not moving when the rain hit her. Or the mud. Or when Preston reached out to touch her.
She did not move.
Arms grabbed him. Yanked him back. Up. Instinctively, Preston fought at those arms because he was determined to get back to the woman in the coffin. He had to get her out. He took a swing at his attacker.
“Ouch!” Eugene cried out. He immediately let go of Preston. “Don’t! I’m a deputy! You can’t—”
Sloane grabbed Preston’s hand. “We need to let them get her.” Low. Sad? She tightened her grip. “Come on.”
He went with her. Eased completely out of that hole. His clothes stuck to him, wet and muddy. His muscles burned because he’d been digging and digging. Digging down so deep. So fast. He stood by the grave, with Sloane at his side, and he watched the water pour inside the gaping hole.
“More lights!” Debra barked.
And there were more lights. Big, bright lights. Searchlights. Bobbing flashlights. So many lights, shining down into the hole. Showing the mud. The streaming water from the rain. The broken wood.
The woman inside the coffin. The woman who was so still. Too pale.
“Jesus.” Eugene’s dazed voice.
Preston’s gaze jerked toward Eugene.
With one hand, the deputy held up one of the broken chunks of wood that Preston had tossed away. With his other hand, the deputy shone a light on the wood. He turned the broken chunk of wood, angling the board. “Damn.” Eugene shook his head. “I think there are scratch marks on here.”
“Out, out, out!” Debra’s voice boomed again. “Deputies, get her out!”
Sloane pulled Preston with her, moving him back a few more feet to the side. He watched, numb, as the woman was removed from the grave. It took four people to get her out.
“That’s Bridget,” he heard another deputy say. Lucinda Chambers. “I went to high school with her. She was always nice, you know? Not one of those mean girls.”
Frankie and Noble had moved back. They watched the scene near Preston. Waiting. Silent.
EMTs rushed up. EMTs in bright, reflective, yellow raincoats. A gurney was put near the grave. Bridget lowered onto it. She still did not move. The lights showed that her skin had gone waxy. Her arms and legs looked tense. Her lips were slightly parted, her jaw a bit stiff.
She’s not breathing.
From the look of things, she hadn’t been breathing for a while. Hours.
“Dammit.” Debra’s head tipped back, her eyes closed, and the rain hit her face. “Dammit!”
Sloane reached for Preston’s hand. Her fingers curled with his.
“Cover her up!” Debra bellowed. Her eyes had opened once again. “I want this woman covered! Now!”
Two EMTs were near the gurney. They looked at each other, and one began to take off his raincoat.
“Stop it!” A wild yell. Then another man was rushing toward them.
A man in one of the same yellow, reflective raincoats.
Another EMT. But one that Preston recognized.
The guy had been in the ambulance with him and Sloane the night before.
Adam. He’d told them that his name was Adam.
Adam East. “That’s my partner!” A desperate cry from Adam.
“Don’t you give up on her! Don’t!” He shoved the others out of the way.
“You have to perform CPR. Bridget will come back. You don’t give up on her!
” His hands slammed down onto her chest. “Bridget?” One hand was over the other, fingers locked, as he pushed on her chest. “Bridget, you’re safe. ”
“Get him,” Debra quietly directed her deputies. “Pull him back. Now.”
The other EMTs were just watching, stunned.
“Bridget, please,” Adam begged. His hands pushed harder. “Open your eyes. Come back. It’s okay. It’s okay, you’re safe. Just open your eyes—”
Two deputies put their hands on his shoulders. “Sir, you have to step away,” one said.
“She just has to breathe. I’m helping her. I’ll help her to breathe!”
“That’s a dead body,” Eugene muttered to no one in particular. “Doesn’t he know that?”
The deputies on either side of Adam pulled harder. They forced him back. Adam was crying, his whole body heaving as he tried to reach out to a motionless and stiff Bridget.
“We have to help her!” Adam protested, desperate. “She is my partner! We have to help her. Help. Her!”
But there wasn’t going to be any help for Bridget. They’d found her too late.
Sloane’s fingers squeezed Preston’s. His head turned. He stared at her. Her hair was soaking, the white shirt clinging to her body. A shiver slid over her as she stared at Adam and Bridget.
That could have been Sloane. It could have been me. We could have been found dead.
No one would have mourned over Preston. But Sloane’s friends would have grieved. Maybe Lily would have even fought as hard as Adam was fighting against the deputies as he struggled to get back to Bridget. To try and help her.
None of us can help her.
It was far too late.
Sloane’s head turned slowly toward him. She met Preston’s gaze.
It could have been Sloane.
Then, right after that thought…
I will never—fucking never—let it be Sloane.
Then she threw her body against him and held on as she cried.
“How did you know where the body was?” Debra asked.
They were back at the Range Rover. There were at least four patrol cars at the scene. Two ambulances. A fire truck. Help had come in with a fury, but, unfortunately, it was help that had done no good.
Sloane knew teardrops mixed with the rain on her cheeks. She’d never forget seeing Bridget’s body in that coffin.
And the deputy—Eugene—had been right. There had been scratch marks on the wood. Because Bridget had been alive when she’d been buried.
We didn’t get to her fast enough.
We got out, we escaped, but she didn’t.
Adam paced about five feet away as the rain drenched them. The poor guy appeared dazed. Eugene had been assigned to stay with Adam. But Eugene seemed just as dazed as the EMT. Sloane figured that there weren’t a lot of murders in this county. Might even be Eugene’s first dead body.
He kept putting his hand to his mouth every few moments, and Sloane worried he might vomit at the scene. She’d seen green cops do that at plenty of other crime scenes in her time.
Not my first dead body. Not even close.
But, still, you didn’t forget the bodies. The people. They stayed burned in your mind.
“How?” Debra repeated as the rain dropped from the brim of her hat.
Sloane stood underneath an umbrella with Preston. A big, wide umbrella. Frankie had dug it out of the Range Rover for them. Not like it was gonna do much at this point. Goosebumps covered her, and she shivered every few moments. But were the shivers from the cold or from finding the dead victim?
I wanted to find her in time. Why couldn’t we find her in time?
“We were looking for Sloane’s bracelet.” Preston held the handle of the umbrella. He’d positioned the umbrella so that it fully covered her. She knew his left arm and shoulder were getting drenched.
Everyone was drenched out there.
“Her bracelet?” Debra shook her head. “What? Why on earth were you looking for it?”
“It had a tracker in it,” Sloane reminded her.
She was sure that they’d discussed the tracker with the sheriff before.
When Debra had interviewed her at the hospital, this topic had definitely come up.
“This perp was trying to draw our attention. He wanted us to know what he was doing. With the shooting at the station. With the shovel in the back of the Honda.” He was nearly drawing them a map.
“He wanted us to know so that meant there had to be a way for us to find her.” She glanced toward Adam.
He’d turned away from them. His shoulders hunched.
He’s crying again. “My bracelet should have been at the sheriff’s station. ”
“It was.” Debra shoved her hands into the pockets of her rain coat.