Amanda (37 page)

At the top of another rise, she shouted their names again, and this time frowned when she realized the responding sounds were still distant. Surely she’d
closed at least some of the distance by now? But the barks were … oddly unexpressive, now that she thought about it. Flat, mechanical—not at all like two eager dogs hearing a human voice they were rather fond of. Not that she’d ever heard the Dobermans bark, but still …

A chill feathered up her spine, and Amanda looked around to realize she had gotten a long way from any recognizable path.
Don’t panic! Turn around and retrace your footsteps—with all this mud you must be able to see them. …

She found her footprints easily enough, but relief vanished when she became convinced someone was following her. She stopped twice, staring around her, but the trees in this part of the forest grew densely and little sunlight could penetrate even on bright days. Everything was dark and dripping, curiously alien, and Amanda thought she could hear her own heart pounding.

Beginning to panic, she slipped and slid down a slope, grabbing at saplings to keep her balance, and making so much noise that anyone following her must have known she was aware and trying to get away. The ground was impossibly muddy underfoot, slippery one minute and clinging thickly to her shoes the next, and Amanda was sure her breathing sounded as loud as the wind.

She might not have looked back that last time, except that her foot slipped and she was neatly spun around when she grabbed a supple little oak for balance. That was when she saw him. He was coming toward her, face grim … and he had a rifle in his hands.

It happened so fast that it was like a blur. Amanda heard a strangled sound that seemed to come from her own tight throat, and she tried desperately to use the
sapling to propel herself forward, away from Sully. But she lost her balance and fell, slithering over last year’s slimy leaves into some kind of a ditch that smelled foul.

A drainage ditch, she thought dimly, or what had been a creek. Then she looked down at the hard ring of rock surrounding her fingers—and screamed.

Half buried in oozing mud, a human skull grinned up at her.

“I
’LL SAY IT ONE MORE TIME.” SULLY’S
voice was bleak. “I went into the woods because I thought I heard a dog barking, and I had my rifle because I’d planned to set up some targets out by the garden. I saw Amanda tearing through the woods like a bat out of hell, and I went after her. I didn’t mean to scare her. Yes, I should have called out something, but I didn’t think.” His frown deepened. “You want to take a poke at me, Walker—go ahead. Take your best shot.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Walker snapped.

“Who found the bones?” Sheriff Hamilton wanted to know, making notes.

“She did.” Sully laughed shortly. “The hard way. That’s why she fainted. Bit of a shock, I’d say, finding your fingers in what used to be somebody’s mouth.”

As if the remark triggered something, the sheriff licked the end of his pencil. “And you carried her into the house, Sully?”

“Yeah. She’s upstairs with Kate now, getting cleaned up. That skeleton was stuck in about six inches of mud, and she had it all over her.” He looked down at himself. “Which is why it’s now all over me.”

“Suits you,” a new voice remarked.

All three men turned their heads to see a slender redhead watching them from a distance of about four feet. Hands in the back pockets of her jeans, she stood negligently and wore a little smile.

“In fact,” she said to Sully, “you should always wear mud.”

Nobody had the nerve to ask what she meant by that.

“What are you doing up here?” Sully asked instead.

Amused, Leslie Kidd said, “If you’d care to beat the bushes, you’ll find most of the riders scattered about. It’s not every day somebody finds a human skeleton in the woods; we’re curious. I’m more curious than most, which is why I’m braver.”

“Braver?” the sheriff asked confusedly.

“Standing out in the open rather than hiding in bushes,” she explained solemnly. “Sticking out my neck and risking getting my head lopped off. Sully does that, you know. He’s worse than the Red Queen.”

Sheriff Hamilton did not appear to find this explanation at all helpful, and eyed her uneasily.

With a grunt that might have been a sound of amusement, Sully introduced her to the sheriff and Walker, neither of whom had met her formally. Then, barely giving them time to make polite noises, he said, “Who’s riding?”

“Nobody.” Her melting brown eyes widened at
him in an exaggerated expression of awe. “My idea. Aren’t I brave?”

“You told the others they could quit for the day?”

“Yes, I did.”

Sully, who had been known to raise hell and rain brimstone on anyone who usurped his authority in even a trivial way, said mildly, “You should have asked me first, Leslie.”

She nodded gravely. “Next time, I will.”

Before anything else could be said, Helen came out of the woods and crossed the lawn to where they were standing near one of the big magnolia trees that flanked the house. She wore thick rubber boots caked with mud and carried rubber gloves in one hand, and she looked a bit tired.

“Where’s Jesse?” she asked.

“Inside,” the sheriff told her. “But report to me first, if you don’t mind, Doc.”

“I was going to. You’ve got a skeleton uncovered by a flash flood, J.T.,” Helen reported flatly. “There isn’t much I can tell you as long as the bones are in the ground like that. When can I have them?”

Hamilton shook his head doubtfully. “I called up to Asheville and asked for a forensics team to be sent down, Doc; they don’t want anything moved till they get here—probably tomorrow.”

“Why the hell did you do that?” Sully demanded.

Aggrieved, the sheriff said, “Because I’m supposed to when unidentified bodies are found, dammit. With all these serial killers and whatnot around, you never know when some bone a dog dug up’ll turn out to be Charlie Manson’s third-grade teacher or Ted Bundy’s left toe!”

Sully scowled at him for a moment, but then caught the glinting amusement in Leslie’s eyes and found
himself trying not to laugh. “All right, I just asked,” he muttered.

Sheriff Hamilton straightened his fedora and settled his shoulders. “You were saying, Doc?”

Helen, who had waited patiently through this, said, “All I can tell you is that We’ve got the bones of a man, probably in his twenties or thirties when he died, and that it could have happened ten years ago—or forty. Your forensics specialists will be able to tell you a lot more.”

“Was he murdered?” Walker asked abruptly.

Helen pursed her lips. “If I had to guess … I’d say he could have been. Lot of bones broken at the time of death, especially in the upper body, and I found a depression in the skull I doubt was postmortem.”

“He could have fallen,” the sheriff objected in the tone of a man cherishing hopes.

“Of course he could have. Could have buried himself, too. You’ll have the paperwork from my so-called examination tomorrow, J.T.” Helen nodded at them briskly, then headed off toward the house, presumably to report to Jesse.

“She doesn’t think he fell,” Hamilton said, more or less to himself. He sighed. “Well, I’d better go make sure my boys have that tarp rigged over the bones. Sully, I’m going to post a man up in the woods to watch it till that forensics team gets here. Tell Jesse, will you?”

“Yeah.”

When the sheriff had trudged off, Walker said, “You heard a dog barking?”

“Thought I did.” Sully met Walker’s gaze.

“But you didn’t see a dog?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should look up there again, Sully.”

“Maybe you should—” Sully began in a grim voice,
only to
be interrupted by Leslie’s gentle one.

“Maybe a bunch of us should. I’ll volunteer, Sully. We can form search teams again, this time concentrating on the area where you heard the barking.”

For a moment, it seemed that Sully preferred to remain there and come to blows with Walker. He looked like a man who would have found a good fight to be a handy release valve. But, finally, he turned away from the lawyer and started toward the edge of the yard, slowing his customary headlong rush because Leslie Kidd habitually strolled.

Watching the turbulent Sully match his pace to hers as if by instinct, Walker had a sudden realization.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

“I’m all right,” Amanda said.

She wasn’t, Walker thought, but she was better than she had been. Shock lingered in her haunting eyes, but her face was no longer colorless and her voice was steady.

Jesse said, “I know it was an awful thing for you to find, honey, but try to forget about it.”

“I will.”

She wouldn’t, Walker knew, but before he could comment, Kate was asking a bewildered question.

“A body buried on Glory? Who could it be?”

“In the past forty years,” Walker said, “how many people have passed through here? How many workers have quit or been fired, or just failed to show up one day? It must be hundreds.”

“Any hope of identifying the body—I mean, the bones?” Reece asked of the room at large.

Walker shrugged. “Forensic science is incredibly sophisticated, but it all depends on whether there was
a missing-persons report filed. If not, if he was somebody who just wasn’t missed, then there probably won’t be medical or dental records on file anywhere for comparison.”

“we’re upsetting Amanda,” Jesse said.

“No,” she said, “I’m fine.”

She was sitting at one end of one of the sofas, looking curiously isolated even though Kate was sitting beside her. The mud of her fall had been showered away hours ago; as usual, she looked cool and neat, dressed now in white jeans and a pale blue polo shirt.

It was almost nine o’clock and not quite dark outside. A lone deputy sat miserably up in the woods by a tarp-covered patch of muddy ground, everyone else having been chased away by a brief thundershower an hour or so ago. The search teams had mostly given up and gone home, though Sully had not yet come in.

The other Daultons—plus Walker and Ben—were in the front parlor, where everyone had gravitated after a rather grim evening meal no one had done justice to. And though it was obvious curiosity about the skeleton was strong, it was also clear that everyone was choosing their words with care.

Amanda had been very quiet.

Walker hadn’t had a moment alone with her since he’d got here; though he didn’t give a damn about having an audience, and wanted to hold her in his arms so badly he ached, the first flickering glance she had sent him warned him to keep his distance. He had the feeling that Amanda had withdrawn from them all, that she was holding herself aloof out of
necessity.

“You should have an early night, honey,” Jesse said worriedly.

She looked at him for a moment and then smiled. “I don’t think I want to go to sleep just yet. Not until I can close my eyes without seeing … that skull. Besides,
when the big storm hits tonight, I’d just as soon be awake.”

“I’ll stay and keep you company,” Walker said immediately.

“I was hoping you would.” She sent him another brief glance, this one holding something other than warning, and then she looked at Jesse, brows slightly lifted. “it’s all right with you if Walker stays—isn’t it?”

The sound of the phone in his study ringing prevented Jesse from answering right away. He looked at Maggie, who slipped out to take the call, then Jesse gave Amanda a rather rueful smile.

“Of course it’s all right.” Then, to everyone’s surprise, he looked at Ben and added calmly, “You too, Ben. It’s up to Kate to invite you, of course, but I’ve no objection.”

Ben, who was leaning on the back of the sofa behind Kate, said merely, “Thanks.”

A slightly wry expression passed over Kate’s beautiful features, and Walker understood it quite well. Jesse had at least noticed—and apparently accepted— his daughter’s lover, but with entirely characteristic arrogance, he had voiced his acceptance to Ben rather than Kate.

Maggie came back into the parlor. “Amanda, it’s for you; Helen wants to talk to you.”

“Probably checking up on me,” Amanda murmured as she got to her feet. “I keep telling everybody —I’m fine.”

“Say it a few more times, cousin,” Reece murmured, “and we might start to believe you.”

Amanda smiled at him, then went out of the parlor and down the hall to Jesse’s study. She went over to the desk, vaguely conscious of the faint scent of smoke
in the room, but didn’t think too much about it as she picked up the receiver.

“Helen?”

“Amanda, are you alone?” the doctor demanded without preamble.

“Right at this minute?” Amanda looked around. “Yes. I’m in Jesse’s study. Why?”

“Listen. I just had a late delivery from the lab. The report on all the specimens from the party.”

As she had been all evening, Amanda was peculiarly detached. “And?”

“The specimens from everyone else who got sick showed clear and definite baneberry poisoning. No question. But your stomach contents and blood analysis showed monkshood as well as baneberry. A very high concentration of monkshood. There’s no way it could have been accidental. Someone tried to kill you, Amanda.”