Page 59 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

FIVE

Before I'm even fully awake, that list starts scrolling down my mind's viewscreen. All the things I didn’t do last night and all the things I need to do today, tomorrow, and next week flood me like I’m standing at the bottom of the Hoover Dam when the concrete gives way.

Haven’t stepped out of bed and I’m already overwhelmed.

Denying the urge to shut out the world, I peek through squinted eyelids.

Sunlight streams through the sheers covering the huge window that makes up one wall of my loft bedroom, the only room on the second story.

It’s painted ballet-slipper cream, with white and off-white linens and an upholstered rocking chair in the corner.

Daniel made the pine furniture himself, right after we got married.

That was ten years ago, and I still love it as much as I did then.

I wince a little when I see that it’s already nine o’clock. I never sleep this late. I was more tired than I realized. The thought of everything waiting for me bears down a little harder.

Bilbo is at the foot of my bed—which I moved to at some point in the night—pressed up against my feet, snoring.

I relish his comforting weight, thankful he's here. The last five years would have been even more lonely without him. He must sense that I’m up because he opens his eyes and his ears pop up.

He yawns, then belly-crawls up my side to lick my chin .

“Mornin’, buddy. Gonna be a busy day,” I say, scratching his head as I sit up.

“How about a walk first?" I’d had to leave him alone most of yesterday, and though Grady, my landlord, normally comes by once a day to toss a ball with Bilbo, I still feel guilty.

“It’s your turn for some attention before I'm bogged down in work.”

I'm going to have to actually go into Huntsville today. I need to concentrate and, unlike some people, I find that nearly impossible to do at home. The remote working thing never flies for me—but I do usually get a closet full of clean laundry and a spotless fridge out of it.

I throw on my joggers and a T-shirt and head downstairs to brew a mug of coffee when my cell phone rings. I answer and, just like that, all my grand plans are forgotten.

.

“I don’t believe it,” I say. Because I don’t. I can’t.

I’m staring at a hole in the ground a few yards away, where the body of another murdered woman rests.

Another murdered woman.

Tasha stands beside me, right outside the markers cordoning off the burial site.

Her face is a stony sculpture of disbelief, and the only two sentences she’s spoken since I arrived are, “They found her early this morning,” and “This can’t be happening.

” Her face reflects how I feel. A mixture of dread and stupefaction that has the coffee I inhaled on the twenty-minute drive over roiling my stomach.

It’s ten forty-five and we’re standing at the base of a steep cliff face that continues up about a hundred feet to a narrow ledge. Sheriff Tom Vickers and a few deputies are here too, milling around and conferring while the crime scene tech, in his white Tyvek suit, works inside the cordoned area.

A clump of pine trees extends from the foot of the cliff.

Beyond that are patches of scrubby grass, untamed brush, and an eight-foot-square section of earth opened up like a retracted chest prepped for heart surgery.

Lying in the cavity is a decomposing body loosely wrapped in a clear, plastic, disposable tarp .

Just like Teresa Anders.

Through the tarp, I can see the victim is dressed in an orange blouse and jeans. What I suspect is a necklace pendant—a sizable piece of copper-colored metal shaped like an owl—lies where her neck should be. There’s too much decomposition to make out anything else.

“Tell me,” I say, and wait as Tasha clears her throat.

“We got a call this morning.” She lifts her gaze and points to the outcropping above.

“The ledge sits on property owned by a guy named Rick Taybolt. It’s hard to get to, basically inaccessible except by four-wheeler or UTV.

The Moore family lives down the road from Taybolt, and their seventeen-year-old, Anthony, has a habit of taking his dad’s Gator to that ledge to smoke a little pot every now and again. ”

“Okay,” I say.

“Yesterday, Anthony’s sister is telling him about the trial and the verdict.

About the women and how they were left, and that one was buried.

Anthony says, ‘It’d be wild if that’s what that guy was doing out there that night.

’ His sister asks what he’s talking about, but Anthony just wants to drop it.

Finally he tells her that last May he was out on the ledge after midnight, and saw a car pull in down here with its lights off.

“The moon was bright enough to see the car, but not much else. Plus, Anthony was, what—ninety, a hundred feet in the air? Bottom line, he can’t make out any details.

The truck parks and the guy—or whoever, Anthony can’t say for certain—gets out.

He moves around the car, so now, in addition to the low light, the clump of trees is blocking Anthony’s view.

He might have heard digging sounds. He’s not sure.

After about forty-five minutes, the driver takes off.

“Anthony’s sister freaks out, starts thinking her brother may know about another body, and tells her mom everything.” She holds her palm out. “And now here we are.”

“This kid never checked it out for himself?”

“I asked him the same thing at ten o’clock last night. He says—likely due in large part to his activities that night—he forgot all about it by the next morning. Until his sister made the buried body comment, he hadn’t thought about it since it happened. ”

“You’ve been dealing with this since last night?” I ask.

She blinks slowly before sighing. “All night.”

My shoulders drop. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“And say what? That some kid saw something suspicious a year ago? We just finished up the trial yesterday. You were exhausted. There wasn’t any point in dragging you in unless there was something to drag you into.”

“So is it there?” I don’t have to be more specific. We both know what I’m talking about.

Tasha nods. “The plastic was wrapped tightly, especially around the arms and legs. There’s enough preserved to make out the writing.”

Not such a Perfect Princess now.

“You think it’s him?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but it sure seems to be lining up.”

Drawing the conclusion that Fogerty is responsible for the dead woman in front of me wouldn’t be so much a jump as a slight lean, but I hear what she’s saying. “Anything else?”

“Appears to be an African-American. Decomp can change pigment somewhat, so we’ll have to wait for confirmation. Gold guesses she’s in her twenties, but again, we’ll have to wait for the report.”

Sheriff Vickers walks up to us, his heavyset frame—the result of his decades-long diet of root beer, beer-beer, and nachos—testing the limits of his uniform. His typically good-natured expression is sour, worry lines creasing his forty-three-year-old forehead.

“Sophie.” Sheriff Vickers offers me a sharp nod, which I return. “Heck of a business here,” he says, rubbing a hand against his jaw.

“It is,” I agree. “Any idea who she is?”

“Not yet. Gold is doing what he can here”—he ticks his head at the crime scene tech—“but most of it’ll have to wait till he gets her back to the morgue, given the bad shape she’s in.

We’ll run DNA, see what comes up, but that’ll take several days.

In the meantime, I’d love to have you on this.

I mean, take the weekend if you need to, but?—”

“I’m not taking the weekend,” I counter. “Fogerty’s sentencing is Monday. We need to know what’s what by then. At least as much as we can. ”

Tasha nodded enthusiastically, her dark hair bobbing.

“Agreed. If this is Fogerty, and we put together enough evidence to prove it, we can go to his attorneys before Monday. Possibly convince them to push for a deal that incorporates the sentencing on the convictions and a plea in this new case. Then we could avoid another trial.”

“It would be nice to give this victim’s family quick justice, save the county a lot of money, and be done with this monster,” I say, thinking out loud.

Sheriff Vickers shakes his head. “I don’t see him confessing. Why would that waste of skin do anything to make anyone’s life easier? He’s already getting life, at a minimum , if not worse. What’s his incentive?”

“Not dying? His attorney might be able to exchange a guilty plea in the new case for a recommendation from the D.A. for life without parole for both the new case and the current convictions. Of course, they’ll have to hope the jury takes the D.A.

’s recommendation to heart, but it might be the only chance they have of saving his neck. ”

“That’s a big ‘might,’” Sheriff Vickers says, rocking on his heels.

“And March is set on the death penalty,” I add.

“True,” Tasha says, “but I really think if it means avoiding the expense and uncertainty of another trial, March might reconsider. It’s at least worth trying to gather enough proof before Monday.”

“So let’s gather it and keep this from turning into another six-month circus.” As the words issue from my mouth, all the other things on my overloaded plate run through my head. “I’ll have to work around some other commitments?—”

“No problem. I get it,” Sheriff Vickers says.

“We’ve monopolized you for weeks now. Just do the best you can.

” The Sheriff has always been more than understanding about my multiple obligations and the reality that I’m not exclusively employed by Mitchell County.

He’s had a bit of a soft spot for me since I came here with Daniel as a newlywed.

His department was my first client after Daniel passed, and he’s made sure I’ve never wanted for work.

Though I’m completely self-sustaining now, I’ve never forgotten his kindness.