Thomas moved closer to Claire.
“How soon can we get Dr. Stone to Wolf Lake?”
“I’ll make a call,” Claire said, glancing at Virgil for approval. He nodded. “If she’s in Oswego for the summer, we can have her here by morning.”
While Virgil and Claire photographed the remains, Thomas set evidence markers along the creek. The water rushed a few steps away. If another storm came through, the creek would swallow the shallow grave. He stopped beside the skull and glanced over Virgil’s shoulder. It was a partial skull, half the head sticking out of the dirt as though the person died screaming. Bits of fractured bone gleamed under the flashlight. He could tell from the size and shape this wasn’t a child. But whether the skull belonged to a male or female, teenager or senior, he didn’t know. Studying skeletal structure in a lab or textbook was one thing. Identifying victims in the field was quite another.
Thomas noticed Darren staring at him from the trail. While Virgil and Claire worked, Thomas climbed the embankment.
“What’s on your mind?”
Darren folded his arms.
“Remember last spring when I told you the Harmon Kings were using the state park to transport drugs?”
“You pinned the trafficking on LeVar.”
Darren had blamed LeVar Hopkins, the former enforcer for the Harmon Kings gang, for murdering a teenage prostitute. After Darren asked out LeVar’s sister, Raven, Darren and LeVar became friends. Now LeVar lived in the lakeside guest house behind Thomas’s A-Frame. Raven worked as a private investigator in the village.
“And I still feel guilty about accusing LeVar. But I was right about the Kings moving drugs through the state park. I’m positive they use the lake and the trails after dark.”
“You think the Kings had something to do with these bones?”
“The creek bed and lake are great places to dump bodies. Had it not been for the storm and the hiker moving off trail, we wouldn’t have found the remains.”
Thomas glanced at Virgil and Claire. They hunched over the unearthed grave, the bones scattered along the creek bed where the flood swept them downstream. Thomas had already dealt with two serial killers since returning from Los Angeles. He’d worked as a detective with the LAPD before a gunshot sidelined him. The idea of another murderer stalking Nightshade County twisted his insides into a knot. Since spring, everyone in the village locked their doors and windows at night, the residents walking on a razor’s edge of panic. It seemed inconceivable ghastly events like these occurred inside the idyllic lake community. Thomas removed his hat, wondering if he’d ever get used to wearing the sheriff’s badge. He cleared the sweat from his eyes.
“What do you intend to do?”
“I was poking around on the internet last night and found those automatic cameras hunters and scientists use to photograph wildlife. If I place them on the trails, maybe I’ll figure out who keeps sneaking around the park after dark.”
Thomas hoped Darren’s plan would work. Nightshade County couldn’t stomach another killer.
But a more troubling thought floated inside his head. He was good with numbers and committed significant dates to memory. Since he returned from Los Angeles to join the Nightshade County Sheriff’s Department, he’d memorized the missing persons database for the entire county, going back ten years. Six years ago, seventeen-year-old Skye Feron vanished during the summer before her senior year at Wolf Lake High. Her parents never gave up the search. Every year, the local newspaper wrote a story about the missing girl and fished for answers to the six-year mystery.
Did these bones belong to Skye Feron?
CHAPTER TWO
Monday, August 9th
6:45 a.m.
The red sky bled through the canopy like a silent warning. Thomas sipped coffee from his thermos and watched a large-boned woman with slate-gray hair and a strong chin lead a team of graduate students into the creek bed. He hadn’t met Dr. Astrid Stone yet, and by the way she barked orders at her students, he felt it was wise to give the crew space and stay out of her way.
Deeper in the gorge, Darren searched the trail with the careful precision of a former police officer. Deputy Tristan Lambert, who stood a hair taller than Darren, watched Stone’s crew from beside the creek. Lambert grew up in Minnesota and joined the army before accepting the deputy’s position in Nightshade County. In Thomas’s opinion, Lambert had all the makings of a fine sheriff. But the deputy showed no interest in running.
The doctor’s team fanned out around the bones, Stone’s scoff loud enough to travel halfway up the ridge as she assessed the myriad of footprints moving through the gorge.
“Someone already disturbed the scene,” she said, shooting a glare at Lambert. “It’s as if a shrewdness of apes trampled through. If a single bone is broken because some fat-footed oaf didn’t bother to look where he was stepping, I’ll have his hide.”
Lambert glanced up the ridge at Thomas. The sheriff shrugged back at his deputy. A door slammed from the access road when Virgil and Claire returned. Virgil led the way until he observed Stone snapping at her subordinates. Then he fell in behind Claire. Stone’s face softened when she recognized Virgil’s assistant.
“Ah, Ms. Brookins. Finally, someone who understands how important it is to preserve a dig site.”
“Dr. Stone,” Claire said, high-stepping over the branch of a pricker bush. “I worried you wouldn’t remember my name.”
“Nonsense. I remember all my students. At least the ones who show up for class on time.”
Stone shot a withering glare at a male graduate student with thick glasses and a bucket hat pulled over his head. The boy’s face reddened.
Dr. Stone divided her crew into specific tasks. The pudgy female assisting Stone worked on
