AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No. I assume Vanna’s foster parents will have dental records or whatever they need to prove the skeleton is hers. They’ll be the ones to do the ID.”
Lia tucked away the knowledge that Vanna had come from a foster home. It didn’t seem relevant, but who knew? Right now all they had was questions.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“To find out what happened,” he said without hesitation. “For my brother.”
Lia nodded. She understood. Not knowing was like an aching tooth that gnawed at her year after year. They both obviously needed closure.
“Have you spoken with the sheriff?”
He rolled his eyes. “Apparently there are no officials on duty during church hours.”
Lia grimaced. “Our real sheriff is out of town. And our best deputy, Lindsay, just took a job in Green Bay. We’re down to Anthony and a couple new deputies who work part-time.”
“When will the real sheriff be back?”
“I don’t know. Not until after the holidays.”
Lia swallowed a sigh. No one begrudged Zac his time off after what he’d gone through the past few months; then again, it was a pain in the ass when they needed a lawman with an actual brain.
“So who’s in charge?” Kaden demanded.
“For now it’s the mayor, Tate Erickson. Unfortunately.”
“Why do you say ‘unfortunately’?”
“He’s barely capable of being mayor.” She ground her teeth, still angered by Tate’s rude dismissal of her eyewitness account. It was as he if wanted to pretend the skeleton was tossed off the train with no connection to Pike. And maybe he did. God knew the town didn’t need any more bad press. “There’s no way he can be a decent sheriff.”
Kaden shook his head in disbelief. “I feel like I wandered intoThe Twilight Zone.”
“More likeThe Dukes of Hazzard. Complete with Boss Hogg.”
* * *
Drew Hurst shivered, cursing as the icy wind cut straight through his letterman jacket. It was his bright idea to meet at the graveyard. It was not only on the edge of town, but the tall cedar trees that framed the cemetery made sure no one could see him from the road. The perfect spot when he wanted some privacy.
Unfortunately, it was also cold enough to turn his balls blue.
At long last he heard the gruff rumble of a pickup that echoed loudly enough to wake the dead. That had to be his best friend, Cord Walsh. He’d inherited the piece-of-shit truck from his grandfather his freshman year and hadn’t bothered to replace the muffler. Or the tires. Or the sketchy brakes. The thing was a rolling death trap. The engine cut off and a few minutes later, Cord pushed his way through the trees.
Like Drew, his friend was almost as broad as he was tall. And he was wearing a matching letter jacket that barely fit over his broad shoulders. They were raised in farming country where they spent the summers tossing around hay bales and hammering fence posts. Their size and strength made them perfect linemen for the high school football team.
“Dude, where have you been?” Drew stomped his feet against the frozen ground, trying to get some feeling back in his toes. “I said to meet at eleven.”
Cord hunched his shoulders, spitting a stream of tobacco juice through his front teeth. “I had to wait for my mom to head out for church.”
“Why?”
“She’s decided you’re a bad influence on me. I’m forbidden to see you.”
“Forbidden, eh?” Drew chuffed out a breath, pretending he found the idea funny as hell.
Mothers had been forbidding him to be around their precious kids since he was in preschool. What the hell did he care?
“That’s what she said.”
“Bitch.”
