Page 22 of Vanish From Sight (High Peaks Murder, Mystery and Crime Thrillers #2)

There was no suicide note. Nothing to indicate she’d willingly done this. As several deputies took photos, others secured the scene. Noah’s gaze drifted through the tree line toward the historic property of High Peaks Academy.

His mind wandered.

Two victims found a few miles from each other, one in water, the other hanging from a tree. Both made to look as if they’d committed suicide, yet on closer inspection, it was much more.

“Noah.”

His mind was lost, making connections, thinking about times, days, the way each one met her end.

“Noah!” Callie said again, clicking fingers in front of his face.

He turned back in time to see deputies cutting Laura down.

Searchers were turned away, thanked, and told not to speak to media or anyone until an official statement was made by the county sheriff’s office.

“What?” he replied .

“This place will be swarming with media and oddballs in the next hour. You know how it goes. We need to get the coroner out here.”

“Yeah, best of luck with that.”

He turned his attention to Laura. It didn’t matter how many times he saw the dead, it didn’t get any easier.

As they set her down, he noticed her blonde hair was matted in blood.

Noah got closer, gloving up. “Roll her over,” he said.

He used a pen to lift some of the hair to get a better look.

There at the back of her head was a deep laceration.

Was it from being dragged or cracked on the back of the skull?

He looked up, entertaining for a second the idea that she’d had some kind of manic episode.

In his years, he’d seen it all. Those who had attempted suicide and failed, then tried again and succeeded.

He scanned the ground and noticed droplets of blood leading away to a jagged rock. “Bag that,” he said.

Noah stood below the branch Laura had been dangling from. He glanced down, noticing more blood. Although his mind wanted to go to murder, as everything was pointing to that, he couldn’t help but rule out what this attempted to look like.

“Seems someone cracked her over the back of the head with the rock,” Noah said.

“Then why hang her?” she asked

“To make it look like suicide. I figure she put up a fight,” he replied.

He stepped back and looked up at the knot around the tree. It was a similar knot to those used on Katherine. He’d have to break the branch and slide it off to get a better look.

Noah looked back at Laura. Her one foot was bare. There were grazes on the bottom but not on the heel as if to indicate she’d been dragged. Her other one still had on a sneaker and sock .

“The ankle sock?” Callie said, observing him. “It’s inside the other sneaker back at the trailhead.”

He rose and looked back at the branch.

“What is it?”

“I’m thinking.” He pointed to her foot. “She was walked out here. The grazes could indicate that.”

“So she was conscious?”

“Conscious, maybe. At least for a while. Perhaps she came to and tried to make a run for it while whoever was setting this up… or…”

“You think she could have done this to herself?” Callie gazed down. “But what about the laceration on the back of the head?”

“I don’t know, Callie. Again, it’s just a theory. We have to explore all possibilities. Maybe the first attempt failed. The rope came away from the branch and she landed hard hitting the back of her head.”

“But why would she take her life?”

He looked at her. “Could be any number of reasons. Guilt maybe? And, if so, did she play a hand in Katherine’s death? Or was she targeted? We need to speak with Rector Hawthorne again.”

As he was speaking, his train of thought was interrupted by singing.

He glanced past Callie. She turned and the two of them watched as the coroner of the region came sauntering into view.

His love of metal music was obvious from the faded black T-shirt emblazoned with Slayer under his brown suit jacket.

It looked as if it had been fished out of a thrift store bargain bin.

Oscar Westborough had shoulder-length curly black hair, dark jeans and was sporting a pair of red Doc Martens.

Noah’s brow furrowed, he was a stark contrast to the serious and somber atmosphere. He arrived wearing earphones, bopping his head from side to side, cigarette in the corner of his mouth with a very devil-may-care attitude .

“Thank God it’s not the summer, right? Mosquitos love to eat me more than my lady does,” he said, grinning. “Oscar Westborough, but you can call me Ozzy.”

“I wonder why,” Noah muttered.

Ozzy dropped to a crouch, humming to whatever tune was playing in his ear. He took out his cigarette and blew smoke. “Well, she’s dead. That’s for sure.”

Noah rolled his eyes.

What was this, amateur hour?

He took a tablet out of his backpack and began tapping. “Well, we better get her back to the hospital. I expect Dr. Adelaide Chambers will be just rearing to get her grubby hands on this one.”

“Laura Summers.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s her name,” Noah said.

“Well, you would know. I just examine the bodies, pronounce death, you know, usual run-of-the-mill stuff.”

“How long you been a coroner?” Noah asked.

Ozzy took one last drag on his cigarette and dropped the butt. “A couple of years.”

Noah looked at Callie. It was hard to hide his disdain for the kid. “There are four coroners in this region, and they sent you?”

“Three actually. One quit two weeks ago, realized he didn’t have the stomach for it. Five years.” He laughed. “You’d think he would have figured that out by now.”

“And the other two?”

“Oh, well, you’d be hard pressed to reach them, they like to play hard to get,” he said, cracking a joke to which Noah didn’t smile.

Ozzy picked up on it almost immediately, especially after Noah reached down and picked up the cigarette butt .

Ozzy coughed, clearing his throat. “Anyway, we should get this moving.”

Noah placed the cigarette butt in Ozzy’s top jacket pocket, patted it to make it clear that’s where it belonged, not at a crime scene, then Noah walked past him. “You do that.”

“Where you going?” Callie asked.

“To pay a visit to Nate Sawyer,” Noah replied over his shoulder.

“You want me to come?”

He turned, answering her as he walked backwards.

“No. Have Laura’s phone dusted for prints, get Rishi on it to see what we can extract, and then get a list of all licensed blue Kia Sportage’s in the area.

Canvass the neighborhood for video footage and check with local PD and State to see if there have been any reports of stolen vehicles in the last month matching that model.

” He walked on, then stopped. “Oh,” he waved a finger at the ground.

“Bag the rope. Check for prints, hair, you know the routine.”