Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THORNE
The house is too quiet with Leaf gone. I don’t think I like it. He’s become a fixture in my life since the moment I walked into that dingy motel and saw him standing in the room, looking haggard and entirely out of place.
I can admit to myself now that all I’d wanted to do was wrap him in a blanket, feed him soup, and then make him come until all the stress left his body.
I wanted his hands all over me. I wanted to feel the rumble of his moans, to hear the tremble in his voice as he begged for more, to feel the tension of his body as I tipped him over the edge.
And now I want even more.
I want forever. I want to go scorched earth on this case and this property and build something new from the ashes. I want to give him the life he’s always wanted. A life that means he doesn’t have to stress or work or chase random, vindictive groundhogs around.
The immediate future is already set. I’m going to turn this case over to my colleagues once I have enough evidence for them to go on. Then we’ll head back to Portland until he’s given the okay to return, and…
And…
Shit. I’ll probably start packing the moment we get there. I’ll push up my retirement and sign everything I need to so I can get my pension. I’ll say my goodbyes, cancel all my doctor appointments, and find a way to make this place a home.
Which won’t be hard.
Not with Leaf.
But for now, I have this daunting task ahead of me.
With a heavy grunt, I try one more time to open the fucking cellar door, but I can’t get it to budge. The thing has been purposefully sealed so it would take a demolition crew to get in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it took even that team an entire day to break through.
It’s wild to think that a woman directly related to Leaf could be capable of all of this. I move to the kitchen chair and sink down, staring at my phone.
I have a few more steps I need to take. The second is to finish a more thorough search of the property, but the first is to make a call I don’t want to make because I didn’t tell Leaf I was going to do it.
I’m just not sure I have a choice.
In one of the cabinets, I found Lynda’s old address book, and there was a number inside for her son. I don’t think Rain is going to appreciate me dragging him back into his mom’s bullshit, but if anyone can tell whether she was acting strange or suspicious over the years, it would be him.
Leaf already told me Rain mostly lived with his dad, but it’s the only lead I’ve got with a connection to her.
I just pray Leaf forgives me for not telling him first. Picking up my phone, I put in the number, then hit the button for FaceTime. My breath sits heavy in my chest as I wait.
And wait.
And I’m pretty sure he’s not going to pick up. Shit. My number comes up as unknown, of course. Thanks to my status with the FBI, my profile can’t be listed on my iPhone account.
I’m about to hang up when suddenly the screen goes black, and a second later, a face appears.
He looks a lot like Leaf, which is strange—a bit older but the same hair and similar eyes. His narrow on me, and he clears his throat. “Yes?” he asks aloud.
His Deaf accent is very thick. I turn and prop my phone up on the taller cabinet so I can use both hands. ‘Hi. My name is Thorne Logasson. I’m with the FBI.’
Rain’s eyes widen. ‘FBI?’ he repeats, then licks his lips. ‘You sign?’
‘Hard of hearing,’ I tell him, then turn my head and pull my ear down so he can see the edge of my hearing aid. ‘I’m not fluent, but I’m learning.’
He looks suitably impressed, and I’ll take it because that expression is not going to last very long after I tell him why I’m calling. And as if on cue, he leans his face toward his phone screen.
‘Are you at my mom’s?’
I sigh. ‘Yes. I’m investigating her.’
He sits back, his brows furrowed. ‘You know she died? My cousin lives in the house now.’
I do everything in my power not to blush, but I feel my ears getting hot in spite of my willpower. ‘I know. Leaf and I…the two of us…’ My fingers hesitate, even when my brain doesn’t want to. ‘Friends.’
Rain’s eyes flare wide just for a second, and one side of his nose raises twice. Something Denver taught in class. It means he understands. I appreciate that he doesn’t ask me to clarify. ‘What are you investigating?’
I take another deep breath and roll my eyes toward the ceiling for a second. This part of the job never gets easy. Especially when the person I’m talking to is kind, and Rain seems very kind.
He makes a noise to get my attention. ‘Tell me,’ he begs.
I nod. ‘A few decades ago, some people went missing. The last place they were seen was here. At your mother’s farm. A few years after that, another man went missing. There’s a pattern, and I think I’ve found some evidence that might prove the last person to ever see them alive was your mom.’
Rain says nothing, his face blank. Then he swallows thickly. He looks…afraid. Not surprised, but not guilty.
‘Is there anything you can tell me about her?’
He shakes his head.
I nod and take another breath for my final question. ‘Is there anything you think you might know about the missing people?’
He pales slightly, his hand shaking as he lifts it, forms a fist, and tips it forward. ‘Yes.’
What Rain knows is a lot of speculation from the perspective of a child. He was ten when his dad took him away for good. It was already a struggle for him to be at his mom’s, who didn’t sign, and Rain hadn’t learned to lipread until he was in high school.
He was in her house without any method of communication and no access to anyone or anything since she never went into the city and didn’t know her neighbors.
‘One night, right after I turned ten, she sent me to bed early with no dinner because I wouldn’t use my voice,’ he explained to me near the end of the call.
‘I was hungry, so snuck downstairs after all the lights were out. I was scared because I knew things made noise, but I didn’t really understand how at that time.
But I was careful. I grabbed a bowl of fruit from the kitchen table and started to go back up to my room when she came in through the cellar door.
She had dirt all over her—in her nails, in her hair. ’
He was very clearly distressed by the memory.
‘She had something dark brown on her legs. It looked like blood, but I wasn’t sure. In the morning, I tried to get into the cellar, but it wouldn’t budge. She caught me and looked at me like she knew I’d seen her.’
That answered my question about when the door was sealed.
‘When my dad came to pick me up the week after, I begged him not to let me go back. She never asked to see me again. I would visit for holidays if the guilt got to me. But she became different in the last few years before she died.’
‘If you were asked if you think she could have done this,’ I asked him right before ending the interview, ‘what would you say?’
‘I would say that anyone is capable of anything…especially her.’
Rain agreed to speak to another investigator in the case, and I promised he’d be given a professional interpreter when it happened who was not his cousin. He gave me his work email, and then the call ended.
Now I’m sitting at the table with more suspicion laid at Lynda’s feet, but no concrete proof she did anything except dig in the dirt and seal a door shut.
Rising from the chair, I grab my phone and shove it into my pocket, then head outside. Leaf left me the keys to the shed on a hook, so I snag those from the wall, then make my way across the grounds, scanning the horizon.
There’s so much property here, I don’t know how long it’s going to take, or if the Bureau is going to bother spending money and resources digging around.
I need to find more than a tooth and a bin full of shoes and photos.
I’ve sent copies of the potential victims to one of my friends in forensics, but I haven’t heard back yet, so I currently have zero leads.
God, I don’t want to upend Leaf’s world for nothing, and I realize I care way more about what this will do to him than solving some big case before I leave. Personal growth, maybe? Or is this just the way people feel when they fall in love?
Unlocking the shed, I step inside, and it looks much the same as it did when I put the plants in there. They’re on the table, waiting to be transplanted into the ground, and I check the moisture of the dirt before grabbing a shovel from the wall and heading back out.
I have no idea where to start. I march over to the concrete stamp that was meant to hold the underground silo, and I know there’s not a chance in hell that I’m going to be able to dig any of that up.
And then my eyes spot something to the right of it. There’s a ton of wild grass growing, but there’s also a mound of dirt. I peer down into the hole and realize it’s one of Michael’s little tunnels.
“What have you been doing, you little shit?”
Suddenly, there’s a loud noise—it’s high-pitched, right in the range that I can hear it almost perfectly. I stand up, not quite sure what direction it’s coming from or what the hell could make a sound like that.
But it doesn’t take me long to see what it is.
Michael is standing up on his back legs about a hundred feet away from me, and he’s got something in his mouth. My glasses are inside, so this far away, I can’t make it out, but my stomach does that thing it’s always done when I’m right on the verge of discovering something real.
I walk slowly, afraid he’ll take off, but he doesn’t move. He just sits there until his fuzzy brown form starts to get more and more clear. And so does what he’s holding.
He blinks at me with his big, inky eyes, then opens his mouth, and it falls to the ground. His nose twitches, and before I can react, he’s gone.
But he’s left the thing behind.
No, not a thing.
A dirty, pale brown set of bones…
In the shape of a human hand.
I make the call.
First, to the local department to get some forensic detectives here so they can declare the property a crime scene, then to my boss. I filter the call through the Bluetooth in my hearing aids while one of the detectives takes down my badge number.
I don’t miss the frustration in Carlo’s voice, as much as I wish I could be too deaf for it. “Do I want to know how and why you’re there to find a set of human fucking bones?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “It’s a long, complicated story. I have some evidence photos with Branson right now. He’s trying to get a match on some cold case files.”
“You went after a cold fucking case, Logasson?”
“No. I went after a man I thought was keeping someone locked in a basement. This just sort of…happened.”
Carlo lets out a soul-deep sigh. “Of fucking course it did. The owner of the property?”
“Not a suspect presently,” I tell him. “The cold case file was started before he was born, and from what I can tell, either birds picked this hand clean, or it’s been underground for decades.”
He’s quiet for so long I think maybe he’s hung up. Then he clears his throat. “It’s going to take me a couple of days to get a team out there. Is this guy going to give us shit about digging around?”
“He’s ready to fully cooperate. You can send me the papers, if you want, to get them signed before I take off.”
“Oh. You’re taking off, are you?”
“This isn’t my area,” I say. I know I’m going to get it for that.
“Neither is leaving your fucking desk. I—” His voice drops off for a beat. “I get it, okay? What’s happening with you, it’s shit. You deserve better than to rot behind a computer, but you know it’s out of my hands.”
“Yeah.” I do know that. Carlo has always been good to me. In his own way.
“I’m going to overlook this. But don’t leave yet. I want you to talk to my guys when they get there. Show them everything you found.”
“Yeah, I can do that. Matias set me up with a rental.”
Carlo groans. “Of fucking course he did. That fucker is going to be hearing from me.”
“Are you coming down?”
“I don’t think I have much choice now, do I? God, my kid has a soccer game on Friday. My wife is going to be pissed.”
Fuck. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you are. I’ll see you in a couple days. Don’t leave,” he reiterates like he’s afraid I’m going to flee. He pauses and then says, “Do I want to know how you got access to the house in order to find this evidence?”
I can’t help a tiny grin as I glance over to see one of the local detectives using Leaf’s shovel to widen the groundhog hole. “Probably not. But it wasn’t illegal.”
“That’s all I give a shit about at this point. Don’t do anything reckless before I get there.”
This time, he does hang up. I fire off a text to Leaf, telling him he might want to look for a room for the rest of the week and promising to head over to him when I’m done.
I don’t wait for a response, shoving my phone back into my pocket when the digging detective stops, then looks up. I know that expression on his face.
I hustle over so I’m in the range to hear him when he says, “It looks like we have a body wrapped in a blanket.”
I don’t know if I hate that I was right about this whole thing. Rain seems like a nice guy, and I’m not sure he’s going to cope with the idea that his mother really was the monster he was afraid of.
And I’m not sure Leaf will ever sleep comfortably here again. But I am going to try to fix it.
The detective looks up at me. “Your guys coming in?”
“It’s an FBI cold case, so yeah. They should be here in a few days.”
The detective tosses the shovel. “What do you need from me?”
“Shut this place down completely and pause your investigation until we get a few photos verified.”
“You the lead here?”
I shake my head, and while that might have pissed me off once, right now, it’s nothing more than relief. I’m not the lead in the case, which means they won’t need me as much.
It means I can focus on Leaf and getting him through what is sure to be an absolute emotional fucking shitshow.