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“Gemma Bonner back in Coyote Wells?”
“Yes. Birk is about as close-minded as anyone can be when it comes to thinking outside the box. My visions lead to a gut instinct and always have. I use that gift to know who to trust. It tells me about character. But Birk has a problem with anyone who doesn’t think like he does. Whether it’s power stones or visions, Birk’s a realist. He’s a major skeptic, a hard ass. You know he is.”
“That’s true. But he was a Navy SEAL,” Brogan pointed out.
“So? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Oh, come on. Birk’s led how many special ops missions? I’m sure he’s experienced his fair share of gut feelings during those events. A gut feeling is almost the same as intuition, or getting a vision, or relying on your power stones to get a feel for a situation or size up a person.”
“Tell Birk that,” Jade murmured.
“I just might do that the next time he mocks anyone seeing Scott. He’s real, Jade. Lucien and I just had a conversation with Scott out at the cemetery. I can’t explain Scott Phillips on so many levels. I wouldn’t even try. But I don’t give a hang what Birk says. Scott has haunted this town twenty-four-seven for the past dozen years or so. It’s not my problem or yours if Birk doesn’t believe in ghosts, power stones, or visions.”
“So you believe me?”
“Why wouldn’t I? What kind of vision did you have about Vera Lockhart?”
“I saw the woman’s dark aura when I drove past her house this afternoon. But it wasn’t the first time.”
“But that was before you knew anything about her.”
“No. I was at the grocery store this afternoon when Birk texted me about having dinner at your house. Lucien mentioned the name to Birk about running a background check on her. Birk dropped the name while I was picking up milk. I recognized it immediately from her memorial service last spring. It seemed like the entire town turned out. I was one of the people there.”
“You went?”
“Sort of by accident. I’d spent the weekend with Birk. It was before I moved in with him. After he left on a business trip, I took a tour around town one day and noticed everyone gathering at the park. I got curious and went over to check it out. There was a crowd. Once the service began, I thought it would be rude to leave. Plus, making an appearance would be the neighborly thing to do, right? So I stayed. Why weren’t you there?”
“I don’t know. I must’ve had work to do. Besides, I didn’t even know the woman.”
“Neither did I. Nor did I want to know her. What I saw about this woman that afternoon in the park scared the crap out of me. Someone had put up an easel with a dated photograph of her from the 1980s. Someone mentioned she owned a snack stand at the bus terminal. I walked closer to inspect the picture, and that’s when Vera Lockhart’s aura slammed into me like a fist. It freaked me out. The woman was a fraud and a phony with a very dark past. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that she kept a body at the foot of her bed.”
7
When Brogan finally made it inside an hour later, the house seemed too quiet. She tiptoed into the kitchen despite it being too early to go to bed. But it had been a long, head-scratching, stressful kind of day. Maybe Lucien had gotten tired of waiting and took Poppy and Stella upstairs.
He’d left the kitchen light on and the French doors open, indicating he was still up. That’s when she heard his voice outside, talking on the phone.
She dropped her bag on the counter and stepped onto the terrace into the cool night breeze. The dogs had curled into one of the chair cushions together and were sound asleep.
She plopped onto one end of the outdoor sectional and kicked off her shoes. Fatigue engulfed her. She stretched her legs out and propped her feet on the table. Until that moment, except for dinner, she didn’t realize she’d been on the go all day. She closed her eyes but could still hear Lucien’s side of the conversation—something about Vera Lockhart. Of course, it was. They’d spent their entire day focused on the mystery of the older woman.
Lucien ended the call and sat beside her, sinking into the cushion and letting his head fall back in exhaustion. “That was Brent. He called about the remains in the blanket box. The coroner spotted nicks, small but deep grooves left behind from obvious stab wounds, impressions that left marks on several rib bones. Seven, to be exact. The medical examiner already ruled it a homicide.”
“Not much of a surprise when you think about it.”
“I can’t wrap my head around this. Before Brent, I spent twenty minutes talking to Birk. He can’t find anything on Vera before 1970. The woman didn’t exist before then. 1970 is the year she began using a social security number belonging to one Helen Driscoll, born in Lakin, Kansas, in 1919. Curiosity would indicate digging deeper to find out if anything untoward happened to Helen. Turns out, I’m the curious type. Helen disappeared from Garden City, Kansas, in or around 1969 at the age of fifty. She owned a farm and left one morning to pick up chicken feed. No one ever heard from Helen Driscoll again.”
“Not a coincidence, I take it?”
“I don’t think so. Helen’s missing flyer poster states that she has brown hair and is five feet six inches tall. Our Pelican Pointe Vera had a California driver’s license beginning in January 1970 that agrees with the five-six height and lists dark brown hair. That description is dead on to Helen’s. The age doesn’t match up with our Vera. But who knows how old she was when she started using someone else’s name and identity to get a driver’s license? If the eighty-year-old Vera stuck to her real age, that is.”
“If that’s true, then our Vera Lockhart could have come from anywhere.”
“Yup. And who did our Vera murder around that time? Now we have another unidentified victim. Whoever it was, she brought John Doe here with her and kept him in a morbid box out of ghoulish love or twisted retribution. Take your pick.”
“Could the coroner be mistaken about the gender? Could the blanket box remains belong to the Kansas Helen Driscoll?”
“I like the way you think. We’ll need to give the coroner time before questioning his ruling.”
