Page 28 of Dead Girl Running

Kellen waited until he paused, then shouted, “Lloyd!”

LLOYD MAGNUSON:

MALE, 5’7”, 130 LBS., BALDING IN FRONT, DREADLOCKS IN BACK, AGE 46, LOOKS 60. CAPE CHARADE POLICEMAN, DUTIES INCLUDE DEALING WITH: SPEEDING TICKETS, VEHICLE COLLISIONS, UNRULY TOURISTS. MAIN INCOME FROM CARPENTRY WORK + CREATING OBJETS D’ART FROM DRIFTWOOD, SHELLS, FISHING NETS, FLOATS. SELLS AT CAPE CHARADE GROCERS.

He looked up, startled, dropped his ear protection around his neck, wiped his sleeve over his safety glasses and pulled his mask to the top of his head. “Now what?”

They’d had an argument about the size of the cornice board, Annie had taken Kellen’s side and he was still irritated.

“I need you to be a policeman.” She pulled off the top napkin and held the bones cradled in the other napkin. “I found this in the rhododendrons and I was wondering… That is, I thought it looked like…”

Lloyd pulled a pouch out of his pocket, unzipped it and pulled out a clean rag. He wiped off his safety glasses. “Yep. I’m a hunter, and that’s a hip joint.” He studied it. “No animal I’ve ever seen.”

“A woman’s?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah…”

She put it down, napkin and all, on the cornice board.

“Don’t! After all the work I did on that cornice board, I’m not having someone’s moldy bones mess it up.”

“Then you move it. I’m not holding that any longer.”

He stepped back instead.

“Maybe the coyotes had dug their way into the local cemetery?” she asked hopefully.

“Are you kidding? Agnes visits Felix and Oscar every day.”

Kellen blinked. “Um…”

“Agnes Juettner. Spinster lady who donated a new fence around the cemetery in return for getting her dogs buried there. This is probably a suicide or an accidental drowning that washed up onshore in the high tide. Let me check in with the sheriff. She’s in Virtue Falls, north of here. I swear, Sheriff Kwinault’s got connections with everybody in the county, and with the state and Feds. She’ll know if anybody local is missing and for how long.”

“How did the hip bone get to the resort grounds?” Kellen answered the question herself. “Coyotes.” And said, “Oh God. Oh no.” She had connected the dots. The carcass she had sent Temo to collect wasn’t a deer or a raccoon. It was a woman. She pulled out her phone. It rang in her hand. She answered before the first ring finished. “Temo?”

His voice was tense. “I’ve got a situation here. We need the cops.”

Kellen looked at Lloyd Magnuson. “I’m here with the cop.”

“Thecop. Of course there’s only one.” Temo laughed harshly. “Bring him—her?—and come out. Now.”

9

Kellen was pretty sure she already knew the situation out there in the scrubby grass, and she drove that ATV fast enough to make the rain splat against the windshield and Lloyd Magnuson clutch at his seat. He didn’t say a word, though. He, too, knew what they were likely facing.

When they got close to the place where Temo stood, draped in rain gear and leaning against a shovel, she rolled to a stop. Not only because she didn’t want to run over any evidence, but also…she didn’t want to see this.

My God, hadn’t she witnessed enough death in the war zones and…

A pickax, its long spike lethal and shining. Gregory lifting it above her cousin’s head…Kellen blinked the rain out of her eyes. It was just rain…

Lloyd leaped out before the ATV stopped moving and hurried to stand over the carcass. Except it wasn’t a carcass. Even from a distance, she could see that. The scavengers had stripped away most of the flesh and scattered some of the bones over the landscape. But the bones that remained were concentrated and arranged in roughly a human shape. This was a body.

Kellen got out, the wet turf squishing beneath her black leather shoes.

Lloyd stood over the remains, then backed away. “Gross.” Then, “Either of you got a camera?”

“Um. Yes.” Kellen pulled out her phone.