What Lies Below, page 14
“This feels nice.” She allowed the heat to seep into her rigid muscles, but she couldn’t allow herself to get too comfortable. “You asked who would benefit from my death? My mother. As you mentioned before, my mother is my natural heir. She would get that land if I died.”
“You really think your mom would put out a hit on you?”
“Would your dad put a hit on you?”
Heath clenched the steering wheel, his knuckles pale. “My father is a lot of things, and we haven’t always had the best relationship, but kill his only son for a land deal? No way.”
“Same.” She curled one leg beneath her. “My mom won’t win any mother-of-the-year awards, but she’s made a nice life for herself, and we’re on good terms now. Not only is she not the killing type, she couldn’t care less about this island.”
“But you said she’d sell the land if she had the chance, take the money and run.”
“Of course she would if it dropped into her lap. But she’s not going to take any extreme measures to get it. I’m sure she doesn’t even know the drama surrounding this land deal.” She stopped and nibbled on the tip of her finger. Or did she?
Heath glanced in her direction. “What? Did you think of something else?”
“Just something my mom said earlier about having contacts on the island. She knew we had a new sheriff, so maybe she does keep tabs on what’s going on here.” Willow flicked back her hair. “No. She’s not going to have me killed to get property on Dead Falls. That’s absurd.”
“Okay, so we’ve ruled out our respective parents as murderers. That just leaves a whole bunch of other people.”
She said, “Before the meeting, I’m going to my cabin to sort through the mess to see what I can salvage. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to dig—and I mean that literally.”
Wagging her finger in the air, she said, “You’re supposed to wait for me.”
“Let’s do this. We’ll regroup at the hotel, swing by your cabin to check it out and then head to Toby’s cabin to resume digging.”
“Okay. Can we squeeze in a visit to the dogs at Astrid’s?” She put her hands together. “I don’t want them to think I abandoned them.”
“Meeting’s at seven. I think we can do it.” He gunned his engine. “Let’s face the people trying to kill us.”
* * *
WHEN THEY GOT back to the hotel, Heath retreated to his own room and fell across the bed. He couldn’t decide what shocked him more—learning that his father already knew he owned the mineral rights to Toby Keel’s property or discovering Captain Mark passed out in the pilot’s chair on the Cessna.
Unseeing, he stared at the ceiling. He’d done his best to play it cool around Willow, but he’d been terrified flying that plane. He didn’t know if Mark was dead behind him, or if something had been released in the Cessna and he and Willow would be the next ones to collapse. The act of flying had come back to him quickly, even though it had been a few years since he’d piloted a plane on his own.
The weather and course had been his friends today. If they’d had a longer flight or poor visibility, he didn’t know if he could’ve flown and landed that craft safely.
And what the hell had happened to Mark? Nobody could tell him his mission on San Juan and Mark’s incident were unrelated. He had to talk to Mark.
Rolling onto his stomach, he grabbed his phone and looked up the number for the hospital. He placed the call and explained to the nurse that he’d been with Mark Santos on the plane and wanted to speak with him.
The nurse wouldn’t allow him to talk to Mark, who was resting, but she assured him the pilot would be fine and make a full recovery. She also wouldn’t clue him in on what had caused Mark’s collapse.
The police on the scene at the airport didn’t seem overly invested in finding out what had happened to Mark. They saw it as an aviation issue and under their investigation. That agency would most likely be interested in what and how much Mark was drinking before the flight, or if he had any medical conditions that would preclude him from flying.
Heath was more interested in where Mark went when he was on the island and who he met. Someone knew he and Willow were headed over there, but Heath couldn’t figure out how.
He gave up on the nurse and left a message on Mark’s voicemail. If the hospital released him tomorrow or even the next day, Heath wanted to talk to him.
After he changed into a pair of grungy jeans and his hiking boots, Heath went down the hall to check on Willow. He barely tapped a second time when she swung open the door.
His gaze flicked over her outfit, a carbon copy of his own, only she looked a lot better in it than he did. “Ready?”
“Uh-huh. I checked with the fire department, and they told me I could go back inside the cabin. I mostly want to check for photos and my clothes. I can always go back to my place in Seattle to pick up more clothes for the rest of the summer, but I want to salvage what I can.”
“And the suitcase that holds your father’s papers, right?”
“Honestly—” she let the door slam behind her as she hitched a small backpack purse over one shoulder “—I didn’t find anything of importance in there when I looked.”
“You should still take it, if the fire didn’t damage it.”
“Do you think someone searched those papers for the mineral rights?”
He shrugged as he stabbed the call button for the elevator. “At least we know it wasn’t my father. He already knew.”
Once outside, they climbed into the truck, and Heath’s finger hovered over the control for the heated seats. “You want your seat heated?”
“No. I recovered, sort of.” She clicked her seat belt. “Do you see why I don’t like flying in those little death traps?”
“It’s not every day your pilot passes out.” He reached over and squeezed her knee, which was bouncing up and down. “I called the hospital to check on Mark. The nurse wouldn’t give me much, but he’s out of danger.”
“Did you get the impression the deputy at the scene was eager to turn the investigation over to the FAA?”
“Yep. Not his fault, though. Did you want to be the one to explain to him how we went over to San Juan to look up mineral rights, and we suspected that someone was trying to kill us because of that by incapacitating our pilot?”
“No.” She twirled an auburn lock of hair around her finger. “But maybe West would be interested in our theory. He, at least, has an idea of what we’ve been facing.”
“I also believe he thinks Toby was murdered. Whether the ME will find for homicide or not, West has a strong suspicion. He would’ve treated the scene in a different manner if he was sure Toby’s death was an accident.”
“I agree, so why didn’t you report the gunfire last night?”
“You know why. I don’t want anyone to know I’m digging holes around Dead Falls Island, not even Sheriff Chandler.”
With a later sunset, they didn’t need electricity to see inside Willow’s cabin. The fire had burned away one wall and portions of the roof, so the sunlight streamed through the openings, giving them a clear picture of the wreckage.
As they stood in the doorway, surveying the damage, Heath entwined his fingers with Willow’s. “This is bad. I’m sorry.”
A smile wobbled on her lips, and she dashed a tear from her cheek. “It’s not my permanent residence, and I’d already gotten rid of most of the furniture from my childhood. At least the dogs are safe, and I have you to thank for that.”
He withdrew a pair of gloves from his back pocket. “You wear these while you’re mucking around. I’ll get the bins from the back of the truck, and you can tell me what to load up.”
It took them about an hour to wade through the mess to locate framed pictures, a few salvageable books, dog food and the majority of Willow’s clothes, still hanging in the closet in her room.
Outside, she brought a pile of clothes to her nose and buried her face in it. “They don’t even smell that bad. I think a good wash will get the smoky smell out of them.”
“I’m going back for that suitcase under the bed. You never know.” He left her sorting through her clothing and tromped to the bedroom in the back where she’d pointed out the suitcase before.
Crouching down, he grabbed the handle and pulled it from beneath the bed. He glanced over his shoulder once and flipped open the top. Paul Sands had left behind a bigger filing nightmare than Toby Keel. Who could find anything in this mess? But maybe that was the point.
“Are you done?” Willow called from the front door, or at least the space where the front door used to function as a door.
“Coming.” He heaved up the suitcase and lugged it outside. “Why didn’t anyone think of putting wheels on suitcases back then?”
“One of the mysteries of life.” She shrugged. “Who files paperwork in a suitcase?”
When they finished loading the bins in his truck, Heath stood beside it, one hand on his hip. “Do we take the trail through the woods to Toby’s, or should we drive around the bend and park near the other trailhead? I don’t like the idea of leaving the truck with all your stuff in the back parked on the side of the road.”
“Let’s hike in. That way, we can see beforehand if anyone is skulking in the woods with a shotgun.”
Their mode of transportation decided, Heath locked up his truck, and he and Willow ducked onto the trail that led to the other property. He carried the shovel and pickax with him. Willow assured him she’d found a shovel on Toby’s property and had left it there when the shot rang out.
She said, “I can use that to dig.”
He shifted the pickax from one shoulder to the other. “You don’t have to dig. Just keep a lookout. Too bad we don’t have the dogs with us.”
“Exactly. We should’ve picked up the dogs first.”
They emerged into the clearing for Toby’s cabin, and Heath’s gaze darted around the property. The yellow crime scene tape was even more bedraggled than the previous time he was here, and they still didn’t even know if a crime had been committed or not.
He circled around the back of the cabin, and Willow followed him. He dropped his tools near the holes in the ground that he’d dug earlier and that Willow had enlarged. Pointing at the cabin, he said, “Why don’t you go inside and look around some more? I’d feel better if you were inside instead of out here in the open.”
“What am I looking for?”
He pulled on his gloves. “More documents, maybe some hiding places. Toby was a man with secrets.”
“Okay, I’ll pretend to be busy while you dig out here. Don’t forget. I want to stop off at Astrid’s to see the dogs before that meeting.”
“I’ll be quick.” He clapped his hands together, dislodging some particles of dirt from the gloves. “I have a strange feeling about this place.”
Heath breathed easier when he heard the cabin door close. Then he got to work. He hadn’t been exaggerating to Willow about sensing something about this location. He’d felt it the first night he’d come to this cabin, winding up behind it instead of at the front door. An eerie sensation had made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and quiver. Willow’s scream had punctuated that feeling, and finding Toby’s body had convinced him that his original unease had been some kind of premonition about the man’s death on the other side of the cabin.
Now that he knew this was the location that matched Toby’s note, the feeling was back stronger than ever. That conviction gave strength to his efforts, and he plunged the shovel into the earth over and over.
After about an hour of work, during which Willow called out to him a few times and brought him a bottle of water, Heath leaned on the handle of the shovel. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. He’d made progress, but it would help if he actually knew what he was looking for.
He slid the shovel down the side of one of the ditches and heard a rustling noise. He aimed his flashlight into the hole and saw the edge of something blue. Scraping the point of the shovel across the area revealed a larger swath of what looked like a blue-and-yellow rug. With his heart galloping in his chest, he raked the tip of his shovel across the object, removing more dirt and exposing more of the thick, rolled-up rug.
He dropped to the ground, lying flat on his belly, his head dipping into the ditch. The beam of his flashlight swept back and forth across the rug as he stretched his arm to reach it. Using his fingers, he sifted through some clods and rocks in the dirt until he met a long, smooth object.
He scrabbled in the dirt to free the item. Closing his fingers around it, he pulled himself from the hole.
Sitting back on his heels, he unfurled his hand. He gaped at the bone in his palm and released an anguished roar.
Chapter Fourteen
A strangled cry from outside assaulted her ears, and Willow clutched the notebook of recipes she’d found under a floorboard beneath Toby’s bed to her chest. She scrambled to her feet and tore out of the cabin, stumbling down the porch steps.
“Heath?” She dropped the notebook as she careened around the corner of the cabin. Relief made her knees weak when she saw Heath crouched next to a ditch, the one he’d been working on the last time she came outside. He hasn’t been shot.
Scooping in a breath, she charged toward him. “Heath!”
He slowly lifted his head and cranked it toward her like an automaton. His eyes blinked, and he held out his open hand toward her. “I found this. There’s more.”
She sank to the ground beside him and held out her hand. “What is it?”
Cupping his hand over hers, he dumped his find into her palm. “It’s a bone. A human bone.”
Willow examined the piece of bone, running a thumb along its concave surface. “I-it looks like a metatarsal bone—from a foot, but I can’t tell if it’s human. We don’t know if it’s from a human being.”
“Do you know many animals out here that have metatarsal bones?”
“Deer, goats, pigs.” She ran a tongue around her dry mouth.
“This long?” He jabbed a finger into the ditch. “And who wraps a dead deer in a rug?”
Willow clambered to the edge of the ditch on her hands and knees and peered into the darkness. It didn’t remain dark for long as Heath lit up the area with his flashlight.
Her gut churned when she spotted the rolled-up rug at the bottom of the hole. Shaking her head, she choked. “You can’t really believe this is...”
“My mother?” Heath clutched his hair with his dirty hand, and the grime streaked down his sweaty face. “Why else would Toby Keel direct me to this spot? He flat out told me that I could find my mother where the mist meets the earth between two giant maples. And here she is.”
“Why? Why?” Willow clutched the base of her throat. “What does this even mean?”
“I’m heading back to the road to call the sheriff. Don’t touch anything else.” Rising to his feet, he stretched out a hand to her. “In fact, leave it. You’re coming with me. I don’t want you out here by yourself.”
She waved vaguely at the buried rug. “Whoever killed this person—and I’m not convinced it’s your mother—is long gone. I think I’m safe.”
“Willow, you’re not safe.” He grabbed her hand and practically yanked her to her feet.
He kept a hold on her until they reached the trail that led to the road on the other side of Toby’s property. Then they went single file while he literally watched her back.
She kept her phone out, waiting for a decent signal, and several yards before they hit the road, she got it. “I’m calling the sheriff’s department right now.”
She talked while she followed Heath onto the road. It took her a few minutes to explain to the sergeant at the desk that they had discovered bones and not a dead body. Once she made that clear, the sergeant’s urgency level went down.
Willow rolled her eyes at Heath as he herded her into a turnout. “It’s not an animal. The bones are wrapped in a blue carpet. Just tell Sheriff Chandler that the body...bones were found on Toby Keel’s property, about twenty feet from where he died.”
When she ended the call, she said, “I think I finally got through to him. Mentioning the sheriff helped.”
Heath paced back and forth a few steps. “I don’t know what this means. Did Toby murder my mother? If he’d just found her body after a suicide, why not report it? Why bury it?”
“Slow down.” She rubbed a circle on his back. “We don’t even know if that’s your mother. Hell, we don’t really know if the bones belong to a human. I just bluffed it with the sergeant so he’d get someone out here.”
“Are they coming this way?” He jerked his thumb down the empty road.
“Yes. It’s always easier to get to Toby’s property from this direction.”
“You don’t have to wait.” He glanced at his phone. “I know you want to see the dogs before the meeting tonight.”
“Meeting is still on?” She raised her eyebrows. Heath seemed too shaken right now to conduct a contentious meeting of warring parties.
“Now more than ever. I’m going to announce this development at the meeting and watch what happens.”
His jaw tightened, and Willow revised her previous judgment of his emotions. Heath Bradford was determined...and maybe a little mad. Betrayed by his father. Betrayed by Toby. Maybe even betrayed by his mother.
“I’ll stay with you. The dogs can wait. Astrid and Olly are spoiling them, from all accounts, and Sherlock likes having more canines in the house.” She tucked her hand through the crook of his arm. She didn’t want to leave him alone.
He trailed a finger across her cheek and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Thanks.”
