Chapter 21

 

I sat bolt upright in bed. My heart pounded like a jackhammer inside my chest. Had I been dreaming? Or had it been real? Had a shrill bloodcurdling scream awakened me from a dead sleep?

Then I heard it again.

An unmistakable cry of pain. An eerie, high-pitched howl that made the tiny hairs at the nape of my neck stand at attention. A sound that filled me with terror. And seemed to be coming from just outside my bedroom.

What was it? Who was it?

Not stopping to weigh the consequences, I bounded out of bed and flung open the French doors that opened onto the deck that ran along the back of the house. I stood there in my nightclothes, shivering in the chill night air, trying to see through the murky darkness into the fringe of woods beyond. The only sound I could hear now was the rustle of wind through the boughs of the trees.

I took a half step forward and recoiled when my bare foot encountered something hard and cold. I peered down at it—and sucked in a breath. Not believing what I was seeing, I stooped down to examine the object more closely.

A bone.

Long, pale, and undeniably a bone.

Part of a leg? Part of an . . . it? My mind refused to go there. I stared at the object as though it might disappear if I as much as blinked. I stretched out a hand to touch it, but stopped myself in time. Who had brought this grisly offering to my doorstep? And why?

Even more important, who had screamed in such anguish?

The thought sent goose bumps chasing up and down my spine. What if the person who brought the bone was still present, watching, hidden deep in the woods? I straightened slowly, wrapping my arms around my body for warmth. Keeping my eyes fastened on the woods beyond, I retreated backward step by cautious step until my feet were firmly planted on thick carpet. My hands shook as I turned the lock. I rattled the door a final time to make sure it was securely fastened, then reached for the phone and punched in 911.

My teeth were chattering so hard I had to repeat myself twice but finally managed to stammer the words scream and bone. The person on the other end of the line promised to dispatch an officer to the scene.

“H-hurry,” I stuttered.

“Do you want me to stay on the line until someone gets there?” the disembodied voice inquired.

I thought of how I had charged out of the bedroom barefoot and in my nightgown without a thought to my own safety. How dumb can you get? I asked myself. Staying on the line now with the dispatcher would be a little like closing the barn door after the horse ran off. “Thank you, but no. I’ll be fine,” I said, then hung up.

I threw on a pair of sweats while waiting for a deputy to arrive. For good measure I pulled a pair of woolen socks over feet that felt like blocks of ice. I’m not a particularly patient person. The minutes ticked by with frustrating slowness. I went about the house turning on every light in every room, and when the house blazed like a Christmas tree, I put on the kettle for tea. After what I had just been through, there was no chance in hell I was going to get any more sleep tonight.

A cruiser from the Brookdale County Sheriff’s Department arrived within ten minutes. Ten minutes that seemed more like an hour. I recognized Deputy Preston from our encounter at the campground the moment he stepped out of the car. I was disappointed he hadn’t deemed lights and siren appropriate for the occasion. I thought sadly of Law & Order and my beloved CSI, and realized life doesn’t often imitate art.

I watched from the kitchen window as he walked toward the house, and answered the door before he had a chance to ring the bell. “Did you bring backup?” I asked, looking up and down the street for reinforcements.

“Ah . . . no, ma’am,” he replied. “This is a Code Two.”

I stared at him uncomprehendingly. Obviously I was the one who wasn’t up to code. Something else I’d have to look up in The Complete Idiots Guide to Forensics. “Did the dispatcher tell you I heard someone scream?” I shuddered at the memory of that horrible sound.

Preston scratched his head. “Didn’t say anything about a scream. Said the caller mumbled something about being out of cream and claimed she found a bone. Told me I better come check things out.”

“I’m not out of cream—in fact, I never use cream. Too many calories.” I digressed, but who could blame me after what I’d just been through? “I called because I heard a scream.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“No, I went outside for a look around, but it’s too dark to see much.”

Preston’s thick black brows drew together in a frown. “Let me warn you, ma’am, going out like that probably wasn’t a good idea. There’s a killer on the loose, you know.”

As if I needed a reminder. I was, after all, one of the original discoverers of that sad fact.

Excusing himself, he switched on the industrial-size Maglite he carried and proceeded to inspect the premises. I could hear his radio crackle as he made his way around the perimeter of the house, and felt comforted he could call for backup if need be. His inspection finally over, he returned to the door where I stood waiting.

“Didn’t find anything that looked suspicious, ma’am. Whoever, or whatever, didn’t leave any trace behind. Now show me this bone you found.”

I led the way. French doors opened onto the deck from both the master bedroom as well as the great room. Since the great room was closer, I chose those. “There,” I said, pointing to the offending discovery I’d made earlier.

“It’s a bone all right,” he agreed, squatting down on his haunches much as I’d done earlier to examine it.

Duh! I didn’t need an anthropology degree to know a bone when I saw one. I kept my comments to myself, saying instead, “Well, aren’t you going to photograph it?”

He looked at me blankly.

“You know, snap pictures like they always do on TV.”

“Yeah, sure, I was just about to do that.” He left and returned with a camera, then took a photo from two different angles.

“Good,” I said, nodding approval. “What’s next?”

“I’ll take it back and have it sent to the lab in Columbia for proper identification.” He started to reach for it, but froze when he heard my sharp intake of breath.

“You can’t do that!” I cried, aghast at his technique—or lack thereof. “Where are your latex gloves? Where’s the evidence bag?”

“Right,” he muttered. “Be back in a flash.”

Good as his word, he returned promptly, snapped on a pair of gloves, and dropped the bone into a bag marked Evidence. “Guess that about does it.”

“Guess so.” I rubbed my arms, feeling a bit let down now that the adrenaline rush had subsided. I trailed after him through the house.

His studied me with kind, dark eyes before he turned to go. “Go back to bed, ma’am. Try to get some sleep.”

Fat chance of that happening, I wanted to snap. Instead, I mustered a smile and thanked him.

 

• • •

 

“You did what?”

“Kate McCall, what were you thinking?”

“You could have been killed!”

“Weren’t you scared?”

I was being bombarded with questions after telling my friends about my latest escapade. The four of us, Connie Sue, Pam, Monica, and me, were gathered around our usual table at the Cove Café. Pam and I had just finished Tai Chi; Connie Sue and Monica had come straight from land aerobics.

“Once your kids find out what you’ve been up to, they’ll have you out of here in a New York minute,” Pam cautioned. “It’ll be Assisted Living ‘R Us.”

Monica shuddered. “What if you had found a . . . a . . . ?”

“But I didn’t.” I said. “What I did find, however, was a new theory. A really scary new theory.”

Connie Sue speared the remaining grape at the bottom of her fruit cup. “Sugar, I’m not sure I want to hear this.”

I glanced around the restaurant, but no one seemed to be paying us any mind. “I think there’s a serial killer on the loose.”

My announcement was met with stunned silence.

Pam was the first to regain her speech. She leaned closer and lowered her voice, “Surely, Kate, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead serious.” I winced at the poor choice of words, but continued undaunted. “We still have no clue where Vera and Claudia have disappeared. What about the scream I heard last night? What about the bone I found literally on my doorstep? What if the killer is escalating?”

“Escalating? What the devil does that mean?” Monica looked more angry than confused.

“They use that term on that TV show, Criminal Minds, all the time,” Pam said, taking pity on her. “It means things are speeding up.”

“Ohh.”

“It means we have to speed things up. We can’t just sit back and wait for the sheriff to figure out who killed Rosalie. We need to think about Vera and Claudia. What if the sheriff is so focused on Rosalie’s murder he isn’t trying to find them. What if that bone I found is theirs?” I paused, waiting for this to sink in.

Monica’s face took on a mulish expression. “Things like that just don’t happen here in Serenity Cove Estates.”

Connie Sue shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t cotton to the notion of a serial killer right here in our own backyards.”

“Then prove me wrong.” I tossed my napkin down, a symbolic gesture, since gauntlets were scarce here at the Cove Café. “Let’s find Vera and Claudia and show the sheriff what the Bunco Babes can do.”