What Lies Below, page 10
She stomped up the steps and tried the door. The knob resisted her attempts to turn it, and she didn’t have her key. Hunching forward, she cupped her hand over the window and peered inside. Nothing looked disturbed or any different from this afternoon’s visit. She turned around, and leaning against the door, she scanned the front of the property. The yellow caution tape had sunk to the ground, weighed down by the moisture in the air.
She descended the porch and circled behind the property. That was where Heath had come from on the night of Toby’s death. Had he come back today to finish the business he started?
She flicked the light toward the two maples towering near the edge of the forest. Heath had seemed unusually interested in those trees today. In fact, his whole demeanor had changed after they left the cabin.
She was about to shine her light on the other side of the cabin when some lumpy objects on the ground near the trees caught her attention. Holding her flashlight in front of her, she crept toward the maples.
When her light picked up mounds of dirt next to several holes in the ground, she almost dropped her flashlight. Had Heath been digging out here? She didn’t remember seeing this disruption a few nights ago. But had she walked back here? Maybe Toby had dug those holes.
She could think of only two reasons to dig holes in the ground: either you were burying something or retrieving something. She scuffed toward the pits and knocked some dirt back into one with the toe of her hiking boot as she peered down with her light. Dirt and more dirt.
Had the digger found what he was looking for? Or had a fire interrupted his search?
She knew where Toby kept his tools, and she crossed the back of the property to a dilapidated shed, its door hanging on one rusty hinge. She pulled open the door, which squealed in protest, and lit up the cobwebby interior with her light.
“Two can play this game.” She grabbed a shovel, which had seen better days, leaning against the wall of the shed and dragged it outside. She tromped back to the site of the little treasure hunt, the shovel heavy on her shoulder.
She placed her flashlight on a log, pointing in the direction of the excavation area, and plunged the shovel in the dirt. As soon as the shovel met solid resistance, she knew why the initial excavator had stopped. You couldn’t dig any farther once you hit the rock beneath the dirt.
She shuffled to the right and tensed her muscles to have another go. As she lifted the shovel, a loud popping noise startled her at the same time she felt something hot whiz by her ear.
Someone was shooting at her.
Chapter Ten
The sound of gunfire had Heath diving for cover on the trail, but Willow’s scream juiced him up. He jumped to his feet and ran toward the sounds, pulling his own gun from his jacket pocket. When he reached the clearing of Toby’s cursed property, he dropped to the ground again and army-crawled toward the cabin. He called out, “Willow! Are you okay, Willow?”
He got a muffled sob as an answer, and then... “I’m okay. Was that a gun?”
“That was a gun. Where are you?”
“I’m behind the house, over by the maple trees you noticed today.”
Heath swore under his breath. “I’m by the cabin’s porch. Can you crawl over here? Flat on the ground.”
“Wh-what if the shooter comes out of the woods and finishes what he started?”
“I have a gun.” He yelled loud enough for every creature in the forest to hear him. “Stay down. If someone comes out of those trees, I’ll take care of him.”
He heard scraping and scuffling noises, so he shimmied toward the back corner of the cabin. The rising moon shed enough light on the scene that he could see Willow make her way toward him.
When she reached his position, he wrapped an arm around her. “Sure you’re okay?”
“No, I’m not okay, but I’m not hurt. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
He pushed her toward the trail that led to the road and duckwalked in a crouch behind her, his weapon ready for an assault. After a few feet of scrabbling along the forest floor, he poked her thigh. “Get up slowly and then run like hell. I’ve got your back.”
Willow galloped through the woods like a sprightly fawn, leaping over roots and fallen logs, bobbing and weaving away from the branches that reached out for her. Heath followed her at a slower and much clumsier pace, but he kept his gun ready in case someone decided to come after them.
When Willow reached the road, she continued running to her truck, which he’d spotted earlier. When he’d seen it, he almost turned around, knowing full well she’d find the holes he’d dug previously. He was happy now he’d followed that sixth sense in his head, telling him to go after her.
When he caught up to her, bent over, hands on her knees, panting, he leaned against her truck. “What happened out there?”
She coughed. “I’m not talking here. Meet me in my hotel room. You have a lot of explaining to do.”
He holstered his gun and tapped the phone in his pocket. “Should we call 911? Someone fired a weapon at you, and I doubt it was a stray hunter.”
“Wild turkey hunting ended in the spring, and other game hunting doesn’t start until fall. Summer is a no-go season, but I guess human prey is year-round.” She grabbed his hand hovering over his pocket. “Don’t call the police—at least, not until we talk.”
“Fine by me.” He blew out a long breath. The last thing he wanted to do was call the police and try to explain his excavation site on Toby Keel’s property.
He followed her truck back to the hotel, with one eye on his rearview mirror checking for a tail. He didn’t believe anyone would be following them—whoever shot at Willow knew exactly who she was and probably where she was staying. But did they know why she was digging? Had they been waiting for Heath to show up?
By the time he pulled into the hotel parking lot, next to Willow standing beside her truck, he’d decided to come clean to her. Why not? He didn’t owe Toby Keel anything.
They walked side by side into the hotel, silently. When they got to the elevator, Heath turned to Willow. “Why’d you go out there tonight?”
The doors opened. Willow entered the car and jabbed the button for the fourth floor. “I didn’t believe your story this afternoon. I figured you’d been at Toby’s place again. I just didn’t know why. I still don’t know why.”
When they got to her room, she sat on the edge of a chair, folding her arms.
He took the corner of the bed. “You know I was digging on Toby’s land.”
“What are you looking for?”
“My mother.”
Willow’s mouth dropped open, and she stopped kicking her leg. “Your mother is buried on Toby’s property?”
“I don’t know.” The hand he plowed through his hair came away dusted with soot. He rubbed his palms together. “Toby knew something about my mother’s disappearance. He started sending me cryptic notes several months ago. When I pinned him down, shortly before I showed up on Dead Falls Island, he told me that he and my mother had been friendly. That they’d had a special relationship.”
“An intimate one?” Willow chewed on the side of her thumb. “They were having an affair?”
“I’m not sure about that. He said my mother would confide in him about her bad marriage, her unhappiness, her depression. He tried to help her, but she was determined to kill herself.”
“Wasn’t much help. Do you believe him? Did he tell you your mother committed suicide?”
He nodded as a sharp pain shot through the back of his head. “He said she’d spent a lot of time at his place to get away, and when he got home one day, he found her dead.”
Willow gasped and covered her mouth. “Why didn’t he call the police?”
“Because she told him she just wanted to disappear.” Hunching forward, he braced his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands.
“And then what? He buried her behind his house. He kept mum when everyone was looking for her.” Willow wound a strand of hair around her finger, her gaze never leaving his face.
“He never claimed he buried her.”
“Then why are you digging? Where is she?”
“That’s what I was trying to find out the night he died. I didn’t go to his cabin to talk about the land deal. I told him I wanted answers.” He stood up and shoved his hand in his pocket, withdrawing the frayed piece of paper. He thrust it toward Willow. “This was his last note to me.”
She smoothed out the paper and read the words aloud. “‘Where the mist meets the earth, between the giant maples.’”
“He told me I’d find my mother there. I don’t know if he meant her actual body, something belonging to her, or if he just meant it metaphorically. I went to his cabin to find out.”
“Oh my God, Heath.” She crumpled the paper in her fist and moved from the chair to a position next to him on the bed. “That’s terrible. He’s evil for putting you through this, for playing games with you.”
His heart thumped painfully in his chest. “Do you think he was playing games? Maybe this was all some sick joke to punish me for being Brad Bradford’s son.”
“Toby was a strange man. I don’t think anyone ever really knew him. My father probably got the closest to him. Even my mother shared with me today that Toby was a womanizer. Got the impression he may have hit on her, too.” She tossed the balled-up note onto the table. “Maybe your mom rejected his advances. Maybe this is his revenge on her, on you. Who knows?”
“I have to find out for myself.” Heath pinched the bridge of his nose.
“And to do that, you’re going to excavate Toby’s property—I mean, my property.”
“I didn’t think it would be such a big deal to dig a few holes...but someone doesn’t want me digging.”
Clasping her hands between her knees, she twisted her head to look at him. “You mean that bullet wasn’t meant for me?”
“I mean, someone has an eye on Toby’s property, saw you digging and took a potshot at you. Maybe they didn’t even mean to hit you. They just wanted to drive you away.”
“Like the fire drove me away.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Do you think the two incidents are related? I’m the common denominator. It might not have anything to do with the holes. With Toby gone, why would anyone care about your mother? Sorry—except you, of course.”
“I don’t know.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He’d dozed off when Willow left his room but hadn’t slept very long, his dreams compelling him to wake up and finish what he’d started.
Willow encircled his wrist with her fingers. “You know you still have soot in your hair and your hands. Now you’re getting it all over your face, and you still look exhausted.”
“This hasn’t been the best day of my life.” But her understanding and gentle touch had just made it a whole lot better.
“Have you even eaten since your heroic rescue of the dogs? Unless you grabbed something between your nap and your heroic rescue of me at the excavation site, I don’t think so.” She nudged him. “Go take a shower, and I’ll order you some room service.”
He pushed up to his feet. “428.”
“What does that mean?” She jumped up and grabbed the phone by the side of the bed.
“That’s my room number for the room service. Burger and fries are fine and another beer, unless you want to give me one from your minibar.”
She placed two hands flat on his back and pushed him. “You can clean up and eat here. That shooting incident still has me rattled. I’d rather not be alone right now, and you do have a weapon.”
“Are you sure?” He glanced at her bathroom door. He didn’t want to leave her alone, either, but his motivation was purely selfish.
“I’m sure. I haven’t even had time to use the shower yet, so knock yourself out.” She waved the phone at him. “I’ll order the food.”
As she spoke into the phone, Heath toed off his shoes and shut himself in the bathroom. He stripped off his clothes and stepped under the warm spray of the shower, the coils in his shoulders loosening for the first time today.
He should’ve told Willow sooner. It felt good to have someone on his side.
* * *
WILLOW ORDERED THE food and collapsed into the chair. Whatever motive she’d imagined Heath had for digging those holes, looking for his dead mother was not on her bingo card. What was Toby playing at? Had he told Heath some tall tale about Jessica Bradford to distract him from the land deal?
News like that would take Heath right out of the game of pressuring Toby to sell his land—and it had. His meeting with Toby that night was supposed to be about his mother, not the casino deal.
Was that another reason Toby didn’t want to sell the land? He didn’t want the developers to make any discoveries on his property, like a dead body.
With Toby dead, who else would want to stop that discovery? Heath could be completely wrong about the shooter. That bullet could’ve been meant for her, regardless of what she was doing. The fact that she was back on the land could’ve been motivation enough for someone to take a shot at her.
The shower stopped, and Willow held her breath. For a second, she’d thought Heath would refuse her offer of showering and eating in her room. He had a perfectly good shower two doors down. She knew playing to his protective instincts would get him to stay.
Was she really afraid to stay here by herself? She didn’t believe the shooter or the arsonist, whether that was the same person or not, would track her down to the hotel and finish his business, but it eased her mind to have Heath here.
The hair dryer whirred from behind the closed door, and Willow shut her eyes for a second, indulging in the fantasy of Heath Bradford naked in her bathroom. That vision could keep her warm on a cold, rainy Seattle night.
The door cracked open, and Heath stuck his head into the room. “Is the food here yet?”
She spied a lot of bare skin in the sliver of that opening and swallowed. “Not yet. Take your time.”
Five minutes later, when he stepped out of the bathroom on a cloud of citrus-scented steam, he’d left just his feet bare. The T-shirt and clean pair of jeans he’d changed into after the fire covered the rest of him.
He cocked his head back and forth as if releasing a kink in his neck. “That feels better. I’m halfway to human.”
“Eating a cow is going to complete the process?”
“I think that should about do it.”
“Start with one of these.” She held out a cold beer to him, the cap popped.
Studying the label on the bottle, he said, “I don’t know. The last time I drank one of these, it knocked me out, and you sneaked back to Toby’s to find out what I was up to.”
“You were dead on your feet then. You’ve been revived by a gunshot.” She clinked the neck of her bottle against his and took a gulp of beer.
The knock on the door startled them, and they both rose to answer. Heath held out a hand. “I’ll get it.”
Pressing a hand against the door, he peered through the peephole first and then stepped back to open it.
A hotel employee rolled a cart, a white tablecloth flapping around it, into the room and parked it by the window. After he transferred the contents of the cart to the table, Heath thanked him and handed him a wad of cash.
When Heath saw the waiter out of the room, he returned and whipped the silver domes off the two plates. He snatched a french fry from a heap of them stacked next to a mile-high burger and nudged the other plate, overflowing with a garden salad, in her direction. “Is this yours?”
“It actually came with the burger and fries. It’s all yours.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Did you eat before swinging your shovel at the ground?” He rubbed his hands together and pulled a chair up to the table, setting his beer next to the plate of food on the tray.
“Astrid packed some food for me when I dropped off the dogs.”
“Nuts and berries?” He cut into the burger, and pink juices flooded the plate.
“Hilarious.” She jabbed a finger at the mess on his plate. “I ordered you a medium rare. Too pink?”
“It’s perfect.” He tapped the edge of the salad plate with his fork. “Help yourself. I doubt I’m going to eat that.”
Picking up a fork, she took the seat to his left. “Do you need this fork?”
“I’m a real man. I eat with my hands.” He pounded his chest.
“Okay, Tarzan.”
She let him eat in peace as she picked at the salad. This was the most relaxed she’d seen him all day. Why would Toby tell him he could find his mother here on the island? It seemed almost like torture.
Heath practically inhaled one half of the burger and started on the second half. He washed a bite down with his beer and said, “Do you want some fries?”
“I’m fine.” She dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Are you going to keep digging? What if you don’t find anything?”
“I’ll keep digging. My father was satisfied to have my mother declared dead a few years ago, but I can’t let go as easily as he did.”
“What exactly does he think happened to your mother?”
“He believes she committed suicide and made sure nobody found her body.” He pushed away his plate with the rest of his burger.
She’d meant to allow him to eat without dwelling on his mother or Toby’s sadistic clues. She picked up one of the fries and nibbled on the end. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know.” He raised and dropped his shoulders quickly. “My father said she always threatened to go out that way. And I’m not saying my father was lying. My mother was an unstable woman, but you know...”
“I do know. She’s still your mom.” She plucked up another fry and held it out to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your appetite. Finish your food.”
