The waves of worry radiating off Jane on the flight home and the drive out to her dad’s compound kept Reid from thinking about the revelation of his mother’s death. Their son was all that mattered now.
He followed her into her father’s house where they found Will and Charles playing chess. Will was in denim shorts and a baseball T-shirt. His black hair stood on end from sleeping so he must have just gotten up, even though it was nearly noon. Charles gave a nod in their direction.
Parker gave a happy bark and left his position at Will’s feet to rush to Jane. She stooped to pet him as Will stood with his hands in his pockets.
Reid eyed the circles under their son’s eyes. “You okay, Will?”
Will shrugged. “I didn’t sleep much. Are they going to arrest me, Mom?”
“We’ll figure this out.” Jane rose and went to hug him, but he stood stiffly in her arms and didn’t return her embrace.
Reid went to them and put his arm around Will’s shoulders. “You didn’t do anything wrong, son.”
Will turned tortured eyes in his direction. “I should have just let her hit me, Dad. It was wrong to fight with a girl.”
“You didn’t strike her back. You just tried to keep her from slapping you. She shouldn’t have attacked you,” Charles said.
“I could tell Officer Brown was upset with me.”
Jane stepped back and dropped her arms to her side. “He was just investigating, Will. That’s his job. I talked to Augusta at five thirty this morning, and they hadn’t found Lauren yet. I tried to call her when we landed but had to leave a message. I’ll head to the scene and see what we’ve got. You’ve heard nothing about anyone finding her?”
Will shook his head. “I talked to Mrs. Davis, and she said there’s been no recovery of a body. And Lauren’s car was still in our driveway when we left last night. Officer Brown hasn’t been back so far today though.”
“Olivia would know. So there’s been no progress in the case.”
It was Reid’s property, and he felt a responsibility to walk the tree line along the water. He knew the property well, and if Lauren was there, he’d find something. “Let’s take Parker to the pier and see if he can find her.”
Jane buried the fingers of her left hand in the dog’s red coat. “Good idea.”
“Can I go too?” Will asked.
“Better not,” Jane said. “If we find anything with you along, it could compromise the investigation.”
Charles placed his hand on Will’s shoulder. “She’s right, Will. I can finish tromping you in this chess game. Let your mom do her job and try not to worry.”
The grin Will sent his grandfather was his game face, the one Reid saw every time his son was scared but trying to be brave. His heart ached at what Will was feeling, but he sent his own encouraging smile toward the boy and turned to follow Jane back out to his SUV.
She loaded Parker into the back, then climbed into the passenger seat. “I have a bad feeling about this, Reid.”
“So do I.”
Her phone indicated an incoming call, and he fell silent.
“Jackson, I’m en route to the scene. Where are you?”
Reid strained to hear, but without the call being on speakerphone, he couldn’t make out anything being said. He shot glances her way, but her expression stayed set. Nothing in her demeanor indicated Will was on the brink of being arrested.
“Okay, I’ll see you there.” She put her phone down and glanced at Reid. “He’s got a forensic team going over things and is on his way there too.”
“Do you need to recuse yourself from the investigation?”
“The mayor will probably demand I step away, but that doesn’t mean my team will keep me in the dark about their findings. When do we talk with Scott?”
“He said to stop by when we got to town. He’s concerned.”
“There’s plenty to be concerned about.”
Reid pulled into his drive, where two other vehicles clogged the lane. A van and another SUV. The town’s forensic tech, Nora Craft, nodded their way and pushed her humidity-fogged glasses up on her nose.
Jane was out the door before his SUV fully stopped. “Find anything, Nora?”
Reid got out and opened the back door for Parker.
“I’ve been through her car and collected hair and print samples. We’ve taken anything of interest from it. Nothing obvious from the pier, but I swabbed the fishing pole and anything I thought might hold trace materials. You just got back to town?”
Jane nodded. “Can we get a diving team down there?”
“Lot of gators, Chief. I don’t think it’s safe. And you can’t go. Neither can Reid.” Nora didn’t have to say they were too close to the case. That much was obvious to all of them.
“Reid knows this property better than anyone else, and we’d like to see if Parker fixates on anything. Jackson is on his way here, and he can come with us.”
So much unsaid. Reid could feel the tension and questions ping-ponging between Jane and Nora. They had to conduct this investigation correctly to make sure there were no accusations of a cover-up. Jane was walking a tightrope, but as long as she had other officers in attendance every second, there could be no questions of mishandling evidence.
Tires crunched on the blacktop, and he watched Officer Brown’s car roll up the drive. Detective Richards was in the passenger seat. The entire small force was on scene, and for an instant Reid’s face flushed as he clenched his fists.
Jane touched his arm and mouthed, Calm down. They had to do it this way. No one was pointing a finger at Will. Not yet. And they didn’t want their behavior to cause anyone to think they were hiding something.
The two officers got out and came their way. Augusta glanced at Parker. “Ready to let your K-9 officer have a crack at this?”
“He’s got some cadaver skills, but they’re rusty,” Jane said.
Cadaver skills. Though he’d known they were looking for Lauren, it still jolted him to think about the dog finding her body. Maybe she was lying in the cattails injured somewhere. That would be a much better outcome.
“Let’s go,” Jane said.
“This way.” Reid led the way toward the water.
He hadn’t let himself think about how much easier his life would be without Lauren in it. It wouldn’t be worth the cloud hanging over Will’s head.
* * *
Please don’t be dead.
The thought and prayer played over and over in Jane’s head as they tramped through high weeds along the water’s edge. Mosquitoes buzzed around her head, and she kept her attention on Parker as he nosed through the fallen leaves and moss in the dense tree line. She heard a splash on occasion and jerked to look, but so far it had only been frogs or a gator’s tail.
Reid kept close to her side as if he thought she needed his support. And she was more thankful than her sharp tone telling him to stay back indicated. She had grown to depend on him, and it made her feel weak.
She was the police chief, and she needed to shoulder that responsibility on her own.
They halted under a tall water oak tree dripping with hanging moss. She wiped the back of her hand over her damp forehead. The heat and humidity today were brutal, but her terror for their son was even more debilitating. The stench of rotting vegetation mingled with the sweet scent of wildflowers in the familiar smell of the marsh.
Parker stopped and raised his nose into the air. His ears and tail went up, and he whined low in his throat before bounding across a small stream toward a huge tree overhanging the main bay.
Jane leaped after him. “He’s got something!”
She crashed through the underbrush to follow her dog, but he was a streak of red fur in his quest to follow whatever scent he’d detected. He aimed for a craggy, half-rotten water oak tree. Its gnarled tree limbs hung down into the water like fingers. Mats of moss hung low to the ground and obscured the tree even more.
Parker sat down and whimpered. He put his head on his paws and peered up at her with mournful eyes as she reached him. Her heart plummeted to her toes.
He’d found a dead body.
“Good boy.” She petted his head and waited for Augusta and Jackson to reach the scene.
She had no doubt about what they’d find, and she couldn’t be the one to discover Lauren.
Her team approached, and she rose. “It’s his death signal. Something’s here.”
Reid touched Jane’s arm, and she allowed herself the luxury of clinging to the comfort of his hand before she squared her shoulders and led them both away a few feet.
“Nora, would you take pictures as the body is brought up? I want to do this right, every step of the way.”
“You got it.” Nora moved closer.
Jackson waded into the water up to his thighs and shone his flashlight into the tree roots and branches. “Got a body, Chief. Looks to be a woman. Blonde.”
Jane’s lips trembled, and she swallowed. “Lauren.”
“I think so.” He stepped out of the water and pulled out a radio. He called Nora and the state forensic tech.
This all felt like it was spiraling out of her control. She couldn’t let herself consider what it might mean for their son. Surely he wouldn’t be implicated.
But even a charge of manslaughter could ruin the rest of his life. Her life felt as fragile as a spiderweb. There had to be some way to save Will from the train barreling down on them. She hadn’t yet allowed herself to lock gazes with Reid. He would be as shattered as she felt.
Reid took her hand. “Look at me, Jane.” His voice was a whisper so the bustling techs and officers didn’t pay them any attention.
She dared a glance up into his sorrowful brown eyes. “This is going to be bad, Reid.”
“I know. And we’ll take it one step at a time. God isn’t surprised by this. This is where our fear meets the bedrock of our faith. We can’t let ourselves sink into a quagmire of doubt. We know Will is innocent of any wrongdoing. We know God is good. We can hold on to those two truths in this moment.”
Something in her calmed as he held her gaze and squeezed her fingers. “You’re right.” She sank into the calm anguish of his eyes. He was afraid too, but he wasn’t letting it take him under. And she couldn’t either. She had to hold on to what she knew.
She glanced toward the team lifting Lauren’s body from the water. “I’ve spent my whole life chasing justice for other people. I have to believe God won’t let a miscarriage of justice happen now.”
He squeezed her fingers tighter. “That’s my girl. You’ve got good people on your team. They will unravel this mess.”
Augusta rose from beside the body, and she beckoned Jane with a wave. “Chief.”
Jane approached the body and let her gaze linger a long moment on Lauren’s face. Dirty water pooled around her blonde hair, and her eyes were half open. There was no doubt she was dead. It took a moment for the reason for the summons to register. A large contusion dented the right side of her head.
Jane’s vision wavered, and she took a deep breath. “She appears to have been bludgeoned.”
Nora looked up from beside the body. “Maybe. It could have been postmortem.”
“There’s not a lot of current here,” Jane said.
“True enough.”
A look of understanding passed between them. Nora was asking with her eyes if Jane wanted her to help cover this up, but Jane couldn’t do it. She was committed to truth no matter where it took her.
She gave a slight shake of her head. “You’re the best tech I’ve ever seen, Nora. I have no doubt you’ll get to the bottom of exactly what happened here. If Lauren’s been murdered, we have to find out who did it. Let’s call in help and see if we can find the murder weapon, just in case.”
Sorrow vied with approval in Nora’s eyes. She poked her glasses up on her nose and nodded. “If I were guessing from a cursory examination, I think we’re looking for something heavy and square. Maybe a brick.”
“The autopsy will tell us for sure. They should find trace materials of something in the wound.”
Will had been fishing. Where was that old tackle box of her dad’s he always used? She had no idea if it had been retrieved yet. She fought with the urge to find it and hide it.
She knew Will wouldn’t hurt anyone. And God was good. That was all she could cling to right now.