Riptide

shoulder blades. It was a beautiful day and everything was a
    mess. He was her guardian angel? Her arm muscles were burning.
    He started to say something more, then stopped. It was the look
    on her face that kept him quiet. It was like they were both frozen
    in time and place. Then she surprised the hell out of him. She
    dropped the knife to the ground and walked straight up to him.
    She stopped a foot short, looked up at him thoughtfully, then stuck
    out her hand. He shook hers, bemused, as she said, "If you're my
    guardian angel, then get on the phone to the medical examiner's
    office in Augusta and find out how long that poor woman who fell
    out of my basement wall was buried in there."
    He didn't release her hand. She was tall. He didn't have to look
    down that far. "All right."
    She snapped her fingers in front of his nose. "Just like that?
    You're so powerful you can find out something just that fast?"
    "In this case, yes, I can. You don't look much like your mother."
    The hand stiffened, but she didn't jerk free. She said calmly,"No,
    I don't. Mom always told me that I'm the picture of my dad. My
    dad--his name was Thomas--he died in Vietnam. He was a hero.
    My mother loved him very much, probably too much."
    "Yes," he said. "I know all about that."
    "How?"
    "It's not important right now. Believe me."
    She didn't, of course, but she was -willing to put it on hold for the
    moment because she said then, "I saw a really old snapshot of him.
    He looked so young, so happy. He was very handsome, so tall and

straight." She paused a moment, and he heard the hitch in her
    voice. "I was too young to remember him when he died, but my
    mom said he'd seen me born, held me and loved me. And then he left
    and didn't come back."
    "I know."
    She cocked her head to one side, and again she let it go, saying,
    "When I first saw you in Food Fort, I thought you looked hard, like
    you didn't smile very often, like you ate nails and hot salsa for
    snacks. I thought you could be mean if you had to, maybe even
    cruel. You still look mean. I can sense that you're dangerous; actually,
    I just know it, so don't even bother trying to deny it. Who are
    you, really?"
    "I'm Adam Carruthers. I told you that at Food Fort. That really
    is my name. Now, take me to your house and I'll get on the phone.
    We won't find out who the skeleton is, but we'll find out at least
    how long she was in that wall. They'll have to do DNA tests; that
    takes a while. First things first."
    He watched her pick up her Coonan and stuff the bullets in her
    jeans pocket. He picked up her kitchen knife and followed her
    back to Jacob Marley's house.
    It took him eleven minutes and two phone calls. When he laid
    down the phone the second time, he looked over at her and smiled.
    "It shouldn't take long." In no more than three seconds, the phone
    rang. He motioned her away and picked it up. "Carruthers here."
    He listened, wrote something down on a sheet of paper. "Thanks
    a lot,Jarvis, I owe you. Yeah, yeah, you know I always pay up. It just
    might not be tomorrow. You know how to reach me. Okay, thanks.
    Bye."
    He carefully laid the phone back into the cradle. "It isn't Ann
    McBride, if that's what you're worried about."
    "No, of course it's not Tyler's missing wife. I never thought it

was. I've known him since I was eighteen. I've never met a more
    decent man. Really." But she was nearly shaking with relief, and he
    saw it. However, it was his turn to let it go.
    But then she said, "I couldn't have stood it if Tyler had been a
    monster instead of a really nice guy. I guess I would have just hung
    it up."
    "Yeah, your boyfriend is off the hook. The skeleton was buried
    inside that wall for at least ten years, possibly more. She was probably
    in her late teens when she was killed by a hard blow right in the face,
    the forehead actually. Whoever did it was really pissed, enraged, totally
    out of control. Jarvis said it was a vicious blow, killed her instantly."
    "It looks like Jacob Marley really might have killed her, then."
    He shrugged. "Who knows? It's not our problem, thank God."
    "It's certainly mine, since she tumbled out of the wall onto my
    basement floor. I can't believe anyone would kill a teenager for
    wandering across his yard, and with such viciousness."
    A second later the phone rang. It was Bernie Bradstreet, owner
    of The Riptide Independent, wanting to know what she could tell
    him. "I know the sheriff wants to keep a lid on this, but--"
    She told him