Chapter 50
Chapter
Fifty
Luke radioed his position.
Then he turned to Nash. “Let’s see what’s down here.”
He handed Nash one of his weapons, just in case.
They pulled the doors open together.
The smell hit him first. Nash knew the scent.
Death.
He turned his head and breathed through his mouth twice. Beside him Luke did the same. Neither of them spoke.
Luke shone his light down the steps—six of them, framed in old timber.
At the bottom, he spotted packed earth and empty shelving along the walls.
Luke took the first step down, and Nash followed him into the space.
At the bottom, Luke trained his flashlight on something in the corner.
It was a boot.
But it wasn’t just a boot.
There was something attached to it.
Luke moved his flashlight another inch. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Nash sucked in a breath.
It was a body.
There was a dead body here.
Nash studied the figure a moment.
Everett Voss had been fifty-one when he did gutter work for the Loveless family. Six foot two, per the file Deb had read him over the phone. Heavy through the shoulders.
The man on that floor was small and thin.
“That’s not Voss,” Nash muttered.
“I know.”
Luke came up the steps, got his radio, and called the dead body in.
When the other deputies and the medical examiner arrived, Nash stepped back from the cellar.
He knew how these things worked. It was better if he stayed out of the way.
Besides, he’d seen enough. His preliminary guess was that the man had been dead for a few days—long enough for decomp to begin. Based on the marks on his arm and throat, he’d been attacked, most likely with a knife.
Nash had no doubt the death was caused by foul play.
He watched as a deputy named Whitt went down into the cellar with a camera.
The space was too small for very many people at a time, and Luke had remained down there. Nash watched from above.
On one of Whitt’s passes, his light swung wide and held.
The beam caught the support timber, low on the wall, close to the packed dirt floor.
Nash squinted.
Someone had carved something into the wood there: three curved lines that met at a point at the bottom.
Nash had seen that symbol before. He was certain of it. He waited for the memory to surface, but it didn’t come. But his heart pumped harder, letting him know this was important.
Luke came up the steps a few minutes later and pulled his gloves off. “You saw it.”
“I saw it.”
“Mean anything to you?”
“Not yet.” Nash kept his eyes on the cellar doors. “But I’ve seen it somewhere. I just can’t place it.”
Luke studied him. “Prine is coming here—she’s the FBI agent on the case. She was in Sevierville when I called.”
“She’s due at the Loveless house at two.”
“I know. I’m sure she’ll call them and let them know about the delay. Since this may be connected with the case, she wants to see it first.”
Nash looked back at the cellar. Deputy Whitt’s light moved around, steady and methodical.
Luke pointed to the symbol in the wood. “We should show Christian that mark. Maybe he’ll recognize it.”
“I agree he should see it, but not here.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to risk how he might react to this scene. I’ll show him a photo instead.”
“Good idea.”
As Luke walked away to make a phone call, Nash stared at the cellar doors and tried to recall where he’d seen that symbol before. It would bug him until he remembered.
Wren’s last client was out of the chair by 2:30, and she was out the door before the woman with fresh blonde highlights even reached her car.
If Cody’s truck was already at the school, she’d have to handle the situation carefully—and correctly. She couldn’t say something in front of a school employee that a lawyer could bring up later and use against her.
She hated that she had to think like this, but Cody left her no choice. She still couldn’t believe he’d talked to a lawyer. Sure, they’d had their fair share of arguments before. But never like this.
As she drove, she practiced what she could say to Cody when they spoke. Hey, I’ve got Mason tonight. I’ll have him at your place next Friday at six, just as we agreed.
She’d be calm and rational. She had no other choice.
Wren glanced around as she drove.
The square in downtown Fog Lake looked like it did any other Monday. Two trucks were parked outside at the hardware store. A woman walked out of The Busy Bean, the town’s local coffeehouse. A few tourists strolled with ice cream. Everything looked so normal.
When would things feel normal for her again?
Past the north end of town a siren wailed, and then a second one behind it.
She couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. Her mind went to worst-case scenarios, but she chided herself.
Other people had problems too. Just because she heard sirens didn’t mean they had anything to do with Christian.
She would have heard if they did.
Despite her attempt at comforting herself, unease still sloshed in her chest.