Buried (A Bone Secrets Novel 03) (2 page)

“Hey!”

At the cop’s bark, Michael looked over his shoulder. He’d finished with his radio and had crossed his arms over his chest, biceps bulging below the short sleeves of his summer uniform. His name badge read “Ruxton.”

“You’re the damned newspaper reporter who raised a stink about our overtime pay,” Ruxton sneered. “Had every suit on the city council pissed off about the overtime we get paid.”

Not again.
Michael briefly closed his eyes.

Ruxton wasn’t nearly done. “If the city would loosen its ass to gives us some cash to hire more police, then we wouldn’t have to work overtime.”

“I didn’t—”

“You reporters just write headlines when someone decides to sue us because they dinged their head while running away during an arrest. Or because they broke a rib fighting against being cuffed. You don’t know—”

With two rapid steps, Michael closed the distance between them, eyes hot. “I’m also the reporter who helped hunt down that sick son-of-a-bitch cop killer last winter.”

The cop’s mouth slammed shut.

“Some of my closest friends are cops, and I’ve got nothing but respect for the job you do, but don’t judge me by what you read in the paper, and I’ll do the same for you.”

Unflinching, the men stared at each other.

“Michael?”

Michael turned at the female voice, his day instantly brighter and the cop completely forgotten. Lacey looked fantastic but tired. The petite forensic odontologist had just stepped out of a micro-thin, crispy jumpsuit and was holding it between one finger and thumb. Her nose wrinkled.

“In this heat, no deodorant can win against these damned plastic bags they make us wear.”

Her warm brown eyes looked Michael up and down. Lacey frowned and glanced at the glowering cop. Instant understanding crossed her face. She gave the cop her brightest smile, and Ruxton’s spine visibly relaxed. He lazily dragged his gaze from her hiking boots up those shapely tanned legs to her shorts and snug tank top. Wavy blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and stuck out the back of her Seahawks’ cap.

Michael’s strongest ally. A woman who wasn’t tall enough to come up to his shoulders. Gorgeous, blonde, hot, kind, sexy, and smart. The whole package. Every man’s dream girl.

The cop didn’t have a chance. She’d wrap him around her finger just like that new gold band on her left hand. The band with the big-ass diamond.

Not Michael’s diamond.

Damn you, Jack Harper.

Lacey flashed perfect teeth at Ruxton. “Mind if I bring him in? Dr. Peres has been waiting for him.”

Michael coughed.
Victoria Peres? Not fucking likely.

Ruxton blinked and looked at Michael like he’d appeared out of a genie lamp. Michael smirked. Lacey had that effect on men. “He needs to sign the log. Here.” Ruxton thrust the clipboard at Michael, a wry tilt to his mouth. He’d spotted the ring.

Lacey winked at Ruxton and pushed Michael toward the listing barn. Her steps slowed considerably after twenty feet. Michael pulled her to a stop and lifted her chin with a finger, taking a closer look at what the cop hadn’t noticed. Dark shadows hung below her eyes, and her lids were red and swollen.

“Is it bad?” He crushed his lips into a hard line. It took something truly horrid to upset this woman.

She briefly closed her eyes, all flirty pretense evaporating. “They’re all children, Michael. One after the other.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “At first, only one skeleton had been reported, but the cadaver dog keeps finding more.”

His stomach swirled, a deep dread emerging.
No, not now.
“How long ago?”

Lacey shook her head. “I don’t know when they died. Long enough. They’ve been underground long enough to leave nothing but brown bones.” Her chocolate eyes filled, and she wiped a dusty wrist under her nose. “So far we’ve found seven. They’re so small…” Her voice faded.

His hands were on her shoulders, squeezing. “Any boys?” he asked hoarsely. He could feel his marrow quake. Several children…something in his gut told him this was the place.
This was the place.

“Well, yes. Two, for certain. It’s hard to tell on some of the youngest. For now we’re sort of going by what’s left of the hair and their shoes…” She grabbed at his arms as her eyes widened. “Oh God, Michael. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think…you don’t think…”

“I always think about it, Lace. Every time I hear about child remains, I think about it.”

She stepped forward and pressed her cheek against his chest, her arms wrapping tightly around his waist. Michael bent his head and wished her cap wasn’t in the way. Right now he’d like to sink his nose into her hair, get lost in her female scent, and simply forget. She had the power to do that for him, but he no longer had the right to take it.

Daniel.
His brain screamed with his brother’s name, images of the boy ricocheting through his skull. Images that had slowly faded over twenty years. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, willing the images to sharpen, come alive.

“The ME’s office already has Daniel’s dental records, right?” Lacey sniffed as she stepped back to look him in the eye.

He could only nod.

“I’ll check them first thing, Michael.” She slipped her phone out of her pocket and turned it on. “I’ll have Sara scan them and send them to me right now. That way I can at least try to rule them out against what we’ve found.” She froze mid-dial. “I don’t know how many bodies there will be…my gut tells me there are more children out there.”

“There’ll be eight,” he whispered.

Michael couldn’t relax. Sitting still while others were working their butts off was making him antsy. He wanted to jump in and help. But he had no role in the excavation.

“Why don’t you go home?” Lacey asked Michael for the tenth time. “I’ll call you if something comes up. There’s no point for you to be sitting here waiting and waiting. It’s not going to speed things up.” Hands on her hips, she glared at Michael as he petted the German shepherd in the shade of one of the little tents.

He shook his head, avoided her eyes, and buried his hand in Queenie’s soft fur. The dog’s tongue lolled in joy. Rule one in an argument with Lacey:
Keep your mouth shut.
Drove her crazy.

He’d watched her fiancé slowly learn the trick over the last few months. At first the poor sap had actually tried to win arguments with the woman. Impossible.

She huffed at him and turned her attention back to the tiny mandible a tech had placed in her hands moments before. “Too young,” she muttered, and Michael’s spine relaxed. Barely.

But the happy cadaver dog under his fingers had hit on another spot thirty minutes ago, and that Amazon of a woman, Dr. Peres, was supervising the beginning of the unearthing.
Fucking amazing dog
. Michael had witnessed a lot of things in his life, but watching the dog scent death below the dirt had blown his mind.

The handler, a graying, earthy woman who talked a mile a minute, had been working a grid pattern when the dog abruptly sat and refused to move. A hit. Sherrine had rubbed the dog’s head and given her a hug, gently backing her away from the place of the hit. Sherrine had nodded at a uniform, and he drove a pole a foot into the dirt at the spot three times, leaving small openings over the area.

Michael wondered how many times Sherrine and the cop had gone through the morbid routine. She’d led Queenie by the holes again, where the dog took one sniff, promptly sat, and wouldn’t budge.

No question.

“The holes let out more of the scent,” Lacey had whispered at his side. The cop had promptly whipped out stakes and tape and cordoned off another sad square. Crime scene techs covered the dusty farm like ants. Oregon State Police had thrown everything they had at the site. Skeletons of multiple children motivated everyone.

Now Michael restlessly patted Queenie and waited for the results of the current find. Sherrine returned with three bottled waters. “Thirsty?”

Michael took one of the bottles with a nod. Lacey took the other and ground her heel into his shoe. “Wha—thanks for the water, Sherrine,” he muttered.

The woman chortled and winked at Lacey. Sherrine pulled a collapsible dish out of her backpack and poured half her bottle into the dish for the dog.

“You don’t work for the state police, do you?” Michael asked.

Sherrine shook her head. “Private contractor. Queenie and I have helped out dozens of times. State police, counties all over the state, and at least ten other states.” The talkative woman paused to count silently on her fingers. “Thirteen other states, actually. We had a fascinating case last month in Washington. I’d never officially tried Queenie over water. We’d trained for it, but never had needed to use the skill. She found a missing boater trapped between rocks below twenty feet of water.” The woman frowned. “Too late, of course. He’d been missing for three days. We’ve done searches in Idaho, Nevada—”

“The twin towers in New York?” Michael couldn’t stop the question.

A flat, blue gaze briefly flicked to his and looked away. “Yes.”

She didn’t expound, and the silence filled the tent.

“Sorry,” Michael muttered.
Idiot.

“Dr. Campbell?”

Lacey jumped up at Dr. Peres’s question. The tall woman had come up behind them with no one noticing. “I want you to look at something.” Victoria Peres glared at Michael but didn’t say a word. Lacey had gone to bat for him earlier with the woman. Once Dr. Peres had heard about his brother, she’d allowed his presence, but first he’d received a strict lecture on staying out of
the crime scenes. Michael had solemnly nodded and replied. “Of course, Vicky.”

He swore the woman had growled.

Lacey had rapidly intervened, distracted the doctor, and then given her own lecture in furious tones in Michael’s ear.

Both women were so easy to infuriate. And he’d needed something to keep his mind off what was being found under the dirt.

This time he kept his mouth shut. He could still taste his foot in his mouth from his question to Sherrine.

Without meeting Michael’s eyes, Dr. Peres flatly stated to the group, “It’s an adult. Female.” She stalked out of the tent.

Lacey followed after a single, silent transmission to Michael with her eyes.
Don’t move
.

No problem.
Michael blew out a breath. An adult. Not another boy.

Beside him, Sherrine stretched. “I think we’ll head out.” She clapped her hands at Queenie, who bounded to her side. “We’re done here.”

Done?
“Wait a minute. You can’t be done.” Michael stood, ignoring the sweat that rolled down his neck. “There’s more.”

The woman glanced up from examining her pack. “No. I’m positive we’ve found everything. Queenie and I have been back and forth over this farm all day. Unless the police decide they want to start gridding the forest on the south side, we’re done. It looks like everything was buried in this immediate area.”

“But there’s more. There’s got to be one more.”

The woman blinked at him. “And you know this how…?”

“Because…because…” He leaned closer. “There were nine children taken. One walked out. The rest were never seen again.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Sherrine’s hands froze on the zipper to her pack.

“How long have you lived here?” Michael’s heart was ready to bust out of his chest.

The woman shrugged. “Eight years.”

He swallowed hard. “About twenty years ago, nine kids and their bus driver vanished. The bus, too. One boy showed up two years later, half dead, unable to remember what’d happened to him. The others are still missing. You just found seven children and an adult. This
has
to be the place.
It has to
.”

“You think the woman Dr. Peres just mentioned is the driver?”

Michael nodded urgently. “There’s got to be one more child buried here somewhere.”

Sherrine looked ready to blow her stack. “How come no one mentioned this to me? Everyone knows what we’re looking for but me?”

“No, not everyone,” a new voice spoke. “And let’s keep it that way.”

Michael spun at the male voice and turned to find himself nose to nose with Mason Callahan, OSP Major Crimes detective. Michael automatically glanced over Callahan’s shoulder, looking for his ever-present partner, Detective Ray Lusco. Ray flashed him a white grin, his eyes twinkling at Michael’s surprise.

“Detectives. Wondered when you’d show up,” Michael managed to say evenly.

“We’ve been in and out since the first discovery yesterday, Brody. Didn’t realize we were supposed to report to you. What the fuck are you doing on the scene?” Callahan’s dark green eyes glittered dangerously under his cowboy hat.

Lusco fought a cough.

Aw, hell.

“How can you wear that hat in this heat?” Michael asked. At least the hat was a pale straw instead of the detective’s usual black felt. Shitkickers and faded jeans made up the rest of the detective’s uniform. Lusco looked his usual GQ self in khakis and short-sleeved knit shirt. Michael wondered if Lusco deliberately matched his belt to his shoes. No doubt.