Bone Secrets 03 - Buried

Michael’s sweep. Hove scanned the backyard.
    “Where’s the gate go?” he asked Michael.
    “Alley behind the property.”
    “Look in the alley?”
    “No.” Michael’s mouth dried up.
Shit.
He started to dash out of the room.
    “Hold up. We’ll all go.”
    The three men marched through the bed-and-breakfast as Michael fought the urge to sprint ahead.
Why hadn’t he checked the alley?
    Spencer pointed at the back door to the yard. “That been unlocked all day?” He directed the question to Chuck, who nodded.
    If it hadn’t been in the high nineties still, the backyard would have been inviting. The sun had nearly set, but the sky was still very light. Michael focused on the wood gate. It was open slightly into the alley. The hedge on either side had to be close to ten feet tall.
    “Sucker is tall,” muttered Hove, eyeing the hedge.
    Spencer pushed the gate open, and the three men stepped into the empty alley.
    Michael’s heart plummeted.
What had he been expecting?
    The cops split up, one heading left and one to the right. Michael tailed Spencer. The alley was surprisingly clean. The other properties bordered the alley with wooden fences, hedges, or nothing. A few garbage cans stood in the alley but nothing else. Spencer peeked through a few gates and then turned aroundto head back to the bed-and-breakfast. Hove was doing the same from the opposite end.
    “Pretty clean for an alley,” said Spencer. “Won’t find this in a big city.”
    Chris stepped through the gate into the alley. He nodded at Michael and scanned the alley both ways.
    “Where’s Brian?” Michael asked as the men regrouped at the gate.
    “Got distracted by the bird feeders.” Chris gestured behind him.
    “There’s some trash down that way.” Hove gestured behind him. “But nothing else caught my eye.”
    “Trash?” Michael frowned. “Our end of the alley was clean enough to eat from.” His legs started moving toward Hove’s end. Up ahead, he could see some plastic cellophane litter next to the hedge. He drew closer and couldn’t help but smile.
    Some kid somewhere is gonna be upset.
    The packages hadn’t even been opened. At least a dozen Twinkies littered the concrete. He snorted. As a kid, that would have killed him to see all those go to waste. Too bad—
    Michael whirled around when Chris violently retched into the hedge.

    Mason barreled into the office. The traffic had finally let up. He’d passed a nasty-looking accident between a semi and one of those tiny Smart cars. The site had been crawling with cops and emergency personnel, so he hadn’t stopped, but he’d done as much rubber-necking as all the other vehicles, adding to the slowdown. It was one thing to rubberneck at a simple fender-benderon the side of the freeway, but this was a sight he hadn’t seen before.
    The damned fairy-sized car was under the semi.
    It appeared the truck had jackknifed, and the car had zoomed directly into the side of the trailer. And stuck underneath. It was about half of its original height now.
    Mason didn’t want to think about the driver.
    He took off his hat, hooked it on its knob, and nodded at Ray, who was flipping through a stack of paperwork on his desk. Ray wore one of his two hundred polo shirts—his summer uniform. This one was a girly colored lavender. Mason didn’t bother teasing him. Ray didn’t give a shit about the color, and he easily pulled off the look. Mason didn’t know crap about fashion, but somehow, Ray always looked like he’d stepped out of a men’s health magazine.
    Mason always felt like he’d stepped out of
AARP
magazine.
    “Took you long enough,” Ray greeted.
    “Would you believe it was an accident like we’d never seen before?”
    “Bullshit. Between you and me, we’ve seen everything”
    “I shoulda took a picture. This was something else. A Smart car and a semi.”
    “Really?” Ray’s brows shot up. “That’s new.”
    “Told ya. What’s going on?”
    “I just finished up with the ME’s office. Dr. Campbell got another positive ID on a pit body from her dental records. One of the women.”
    “Hooker?”
    “No. This one walked the straight and narrow as far as I can tell.”
    Something odd in Ray’s voice put Mason on high alert. “What?”
    Ray reviewed his notes and cleared his throat. “Katy Darby. Reported missing fifteen years ago at age twenty-seven. Grew up and lived in Salem.”
    Mason’s gut tightened. Ray’s voice was off.
    “She was into politics.