Buried (A Bone Secrets Novel 03) (3 page)

No one had ever truly intimidated Michael, but the aging cowboy detective was near the top of the ladder. Vicky Peres stood a rung higher. Not that he’d ever let her or the detectives know that fact.

“When are you gonna stop dressing like a skateboarder? What are you, thirty-five or fourteen?” Callahan fired back.

Michael had a hunch the detective knew exactly how old he was. And his date of birth.

Michael first crossed paths with the state detectives last winter when Lacey had been stalked by a killer. Michael had been standing in the right place at the right time when the detectives had needed an immediate hand. Had he ever gotten a thank you? A note? Nothing.

“These are the missing Condon Academy kids. You know it,” Michael stated quietly.

“We don’t know shit. We’ve got a couple of bodies that are kids. That doesn’t automatically make this related to your brother.”

Callahan knew exactly why he was there.

Callahan also believed it was the missing bus, and he hadn’t been one bit surprised to find Michael on his scene. He probably had wondered what had taken Michael so long. Damned detective probably knew every relative of every missing kid on that
bus. Oregon’s saddest mystery was never far from every cop’s thoughts.

Nine children from the elite, private Condon Academy. Returning from a field trip to the state capitol building. The bus never made it back to the school. No kids. No driver. No bus.

Until thirteen-year-old Chris Jacobs walked out of the forest two years later on the other side of the Cascade Mountain Range. Emaciated. Near death. No memory.

“You think this is the place,” Michael stated.

Lusco’s phone beeped, and he stepped away to answer.

Michael held Callahan’s gaze and saw something briefly soften in the cop’s face. “We don’t know,” Callahan repeated carefully. “What my gut says and what the facts are might be two different things.”

“Callahan.” Lusco was staring at the screen of his phone. He looked up, amazement crossing his face. “They just found a decrepit bus in the woods a quarter mile south of here.”

Michael looked at Callahan. “What’s your gut say now?”

“I don’t understand. If that is the place…where is…Daniel?” Michael’s mother whispered.

Michael hadn’t wanted to tell her. She didn’t look good. She hadn’t looked good for months, and Michael still hadn’t come to grips with the fact that Cecilia Brody might die. The Senator sat beside her on the huge bed, gripping her hand. He was never “Dad” or “Father.” He was “Sir” or “The Senator.” Michael had always pictured the title with capital letters, and he’d often written it that way as a child.

The frail woman in the bed couldn’t be his mother. Michael closed his eyes. His mother was head of surgery at the prestigious teaching hospital on the hill overlooking Portland. She
had been
the head, he reminded himself. She’d stepped down since her diagnosis. For the past three months, The Senator had been in Oregon more than Michael could ever remember. He’d often wondered what it’d take to keep his father out of Washington DC for an extended period of time. Cecilia had refused to give up her important position at the hospital when her husband was elected, so Maxwell Brody had continuously flown back and forth across the country for twenty-five years.

A tough woman, Cecilia had devoted her energy to her hospital, relying on nannies and private schools to raise her two boys. Working long hours and flying to DC when her husband needed her to make a social appearance. Now she spent ninety percent of her time in her bedroom; a room where Michael had always felt like he’d stepped into an overpriced hotel and shouldn’t stand on the expensive area rugs. He glanced down and shifted his feet onto the hardwood.

“They’re still looking, right?” The Senator barked. “They haven’t finished yet?”

Michael nodded. “Once they found the bus yesterday, they expanded the search area. They’re still looking for one more set of remains…Daniel.”

Cecilia leaned back against the pale peach pillows and closed her eyes. The Senator glared daggers at Michael, and Michael steadily held his gaze. The Senator had a habit of blaming the messenger, but Michael had learned to ignore it. If anything, the glare showed The Senator’s devotion to his wife. That was good. Devotion was good.

Too bad there wasn’t enough for anyone else.

Finding the missing bus outside the farm had been a coup. Michael had seen some cops giving high fives and others relating the old story to the younger cops. Callahan and Lusco had
practically run to the site. Far back in the woods to the south, an ancient outbuilding had hidden a secret for twenty years. The school bus was one of the short ones, not the giant long buses most kids ride. Michael had hated riding the bus on field trips because outsiders assumed the kids on board were handicapped. It was the only bus the small academy had owned; it didn’t offer bus service. All the children had been driven to and picked up from school. Some in limousines. Michael and Daniel were usually dropped off by the housekeeper or gardener.

The frail outbuilding had collapsed onto the bus. A mass of moss, bushes, and overgrown trees hid the building from a casual passerby. Not that anyone ever passed it by. The misshapen building was completely isolated. The narrow access road probably hadn’t been used since the bus had been abandoned. Hidden.

No children were in the bus.

The Senator rubbed at his wife’s hand, and her eyes opened, meeting her husband’s gaze. She gave him a faint smile, reassurance. The intimate moment stretched, and Michael felt like they’d completely forgotten he existed. It wasn’t a foreign sensation.

Michael had been told a million times his parents were a handsome couple. They still were. His father was tall, silver, and imposing with a direct green gaze that mirrored Michael’s. Cecilia was elegant and slender, always perfectly dressed, frequently surprising strangers with the iron will that hid beneath the soft surface. Successful. Wealthy. Perfect.

The only flaw in their perfect lives had been the disappearance of their second son, Daniel. He’d been eleven years old to Michael’s thirteen when he’d vanished with a group of schoolmates. Michael’s memories of that time were a blur. Police, news cameras, reporters, more police. The kidnapping of the son of
Oregon’s junior senator had made national headlines for weeks. Then faded away as no sightings of the children or their bus driver emerged. No confirmed sightings. Unconfirmed sightings had placed the bus in Mexico, Canada, and Brazil.

Chris Jacobs had appeared two years later, and the story flared up again. The boy had been no help. He’d spent months in the hospital, part of the time in a coma, and more months in therapy for head injuries. His parents had kept the cameras and reporters away, defending their privacy.

Michael had hated the child. Why had
that
boy survived? Why not Daniel?

His mother had walked the house in a fog for months; his father had raged and held meetings with his brother Phillip, detectives, and other statesmen for hours in his study. Michael had hidden at the door, listening, hoping for good news but hearing only angry voices. Uncle Phil had become the family spokesman; The Senator was unable to speak publicly about Daniel and keep his composure. Phillip Brody had been a newly elected state representative. The tragedy placed him in the spotlight, and he drafted new crime bills, using Daniel’s case to push them into law. The election gods had shined favorably on Uncle Phil and slowly moved him up the political ladder into the governor’s mansion, where he currently sat, holding court for the last four years.

Right now the publicity cyclone hadn’t started circling yet, but Michael knew it would. He could feel the pressure of the discovery ready to burst onto the front page and national news. This time Michael had the power to spin things to protect his mother. Nothing would be printed in the
Oregonian
without his okay. Better yet, no one would write about it but him. His editor knew Michael could present things in a balanced fashion and
would back him up. The long years of a solid working relationship and award-winning investigative reporting were about to pay off. He was going to call in every fucking favor owed him.

He pulled his ever-present digital recorder out of his pocket and switched it on.

“What in the hell are you doing with that?” The Senator nearly roared. “This isn’t the time for an interview.”

Cecilia looked like a wounded kitten.

“Time for the spin,” Michael said flatly. “You know how this works. You want to deal with the press or with me?”

“Call Evelyn,” The Senator snapped. “Now.”

Michael had already contacted his father’s publicist. “Evelyn agreed it was best I talked to you first. She’s going to have her hands full with the television reporters. I’m going to handle most of the print.”

Michael’s mother squeezed her husband’s hand as The Senator opened his mouth to speak and then clamped it shut.

“I’m sure Michael knows what he’s doing,” she stated calmly.

He shot his mother a look of gratitude.

“If you want to talk to someone, go find that boy. Jacobs.” His father’s voice cracked ever so faintly on the name. “Maybe he’s remembered something after twenty years. Maybe the discovery of so many graves will shake some memories loose.” A ribbon of spite wove through the words. The Senator had never forgiven the boy for living while his son was still missing. And he’d believed the boy hadn’t told all he knew, believed the police had been too lenient in their interviews, and the boy’s parents too overprotective.

“I will.” Chris Jacobs was next on his list. After Michael’s parents. He pulled a delicate-looking chair from his mother’s desk and sat carefully, his heart heavy. He looked at his parents,
and his mouth dried up. God, this was going to suck. He took a deep breath.

“I know you’ve told the story a thousand times, but you haven’t ever talked to me about it. I need to hear everything that happened twenty years ago. And every other thought or suspicion you’ve had since then about who could have done this.”

“Mind if I sit in for this?”

This time Detective Callahan’s voice didn’t surprise Michael one bit.

Mason had been standing outside the door for a few seconds. Long enough to know the doctor was tired, the senator was angry, and the reporter used a firm hand when it came to managing his parents.

“Ma’am.” Mason nodded at Dr. Brody and then her husband. “Senator. I’m Mason Callahan, Oregon State Police Major Crimes, and I’d also like to talk with you.” He started to return his cowboy hat to his head but thought better of it and set it on the desk behind Brody. The reporter hadn’t flinched as Mason spoke.

Mason hadn’t met the doctor and senator. He knew who they were. Senator Brody had been a familiar face in Oregon politics for over three decades. In the Portland area, Dr. Brody was well known for her philanthropy and important position at the medical school. Mason knew she’d been severely ill, but her appearance still shocked him. She looked like a thin shell of the vibrant, strong woman he’d seen in the paper and on TV. Cancer? Mason couldn’t remember what had happened to her. Maybe something with her liver?

“Where’s your shadow?” The reporter stood and surprised Mason by holding out his hand. Mason shook it, grateful for Brody’s deliberate acceptance of his presence in front of the distrustful parents.

“At the Carling home.” Elizabeth Carling had been eight when she vanished with the bus. Mason heard Dr. Brody catch her breath.

“Has she been identified?” Michael asked.

“Your girlfriend made a preliminary ID. I guess the child had braces on her top teeth and distinctive decalcifications on her molars that’d been noted by her dentist long ago.” Braces at eight? Mason still didn’t quite understand that. The odontologist, Dr. Lacey Campbell, had shrugged and commented that some orthodontists do movement in two stages. The first when the child is young and the second after they’ve lost their baby teeth.

“Daniel?” Senator Brody finally spoke. His knuckles were white, holding his wife’s hand.

Mason shook his head.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” muttered Michael.