27

The Cave

Boyett Farm

Good Hollow Road, Fayetteville, 2:30 p.m.

Bent went first. Vera insisted. She really didn t want to get down on all fours and stick her butt in the air while he watched.

When he was through the opening, Vera crouched down but hesitated before going inside. The path they d taken from the house ensured the reporters hadn t seen their arrival. There was just the uniform guarding the cave entrance nearby. The evidence collected had already been transferred to the lab. The tent was gone. Vera glanced at the deputy. She didn t know him. He only knew her by name, she suspected. She d been gone so long, she doubted anyone under the age of thirty-five remembered her.

Hesitating was ridiculous. It wasn t like she hadn t been in there before. But it had been a long time. The possibility that Bent had finally agreed to allow her on the scene only because he wanted to show her something that would prove she was keeping secrets had crossed her mind. Now she was just being paranoid.

Get over it, she muttered. Big breath, and she went for it. Crawled through the opening and braced for whatever would come next. Bent waited for her on the other side. He offered his hand, and she accepted the assist.

Dusting off her knees, she glanced around. The place was lit by auxiliary lights, so it didn t look the same as the last time she was here. Back then, there had been no lights except their pathetic flashlight.

Funny how light made such a difference.

It looked like a cave. With its rock ledges and worn-smooth-by-time walls and rocky, sandy floor. When they were kids and it had been mostly dark, it had felt like a scary, evil place where all manner of unknown creatures might be lurking or hidden.

The ceiling was lower than she d realized. Funny how it all seemed so big back then.

Sheree was here. He gestured to the ledge wall that ran a short distance on that side of the cave.

Vera stared at the ledge, flashes of memory slashing across her brain. Lifting Sheree s lifeless body. Mindlessly placing rock after rock over her. Eve rushing out of the cave to find flowers. Luna feeling so heavy on Vera s back.

She blinked the memories away. What about the others?

The others were in the next cavern. The opening is over here. He hitched his head toward the other side of the space. This way.

In the opposite corner, once you got down on your hands and knees, you could see another narrow tunnel passage.

He asked, You want to have a look there too?

Vera wasn t looking forward to it, but it was necessary. Might as well.

Again, Bent led the way.

I think, Bent said, once they were on the other side and back on their feet, whoever put the bodies in here hoped they would never be found. Whoever left Sheree didn t seem to be so concerned about discovery.

Vera couldn t tell him that Sheree was where she was because they had been kids. Just damned kids who had been desperate and had no idea what they were doing. It hadn t seemed real . . .

Any headway on ID ing any of the other remains?

Nothing yet.

She looked around the smaller space. All those times as kids when she and Eve had played here, they had never come into this part of the cave. Vera hadn t even known it existed. There was no reason to believe Eve had either.

Standing here like this . . . with all that was happening, she felt the walls closing in on her. She felt trapped and out of options. Her career was over . . . her personal life was unraveling.

Maybe her and Eve s secret wasn t the only one in the family.

Was it actually possible her father did have something to do with this?

No. She refused to believe such a thing.

A hunter or caver-maybe the dead guy who d been tucked in here or someone he d known. Someone who d found it obviously by accident and used it for his own private dumping ground. Unless there was a friend of her father s who d taken advantage of their family.

Had her mother ever been in here?

The possibility that Eve knew things that she was keeping from Vera still terrified her. She walked closer to the ledge where the two women s remains had lain. She surveyed the area slowly, carefully, and still she almost missed it.

Her attention jerked back a few feet to the small, scattered stones . . . white stones about the size of a dollar coin. Their mother, Vera, and Eve had spent hours searching for stones like that . . . just the right size and color for artwork.

Cold flashed through her. Didn t mean anything. Those stones could have been in here already. The cave could be full of them for all she knew-she glanced around, scanned the ground-except it wasn t.

The FBI wants to interview your father.

Vera jerked back to the present, and her gaze collided with his. You know what they ll do. Twist his words and make him out to be the killer behind all this.

I ve told them you and your sisters will have an answer for them tomorrow. He looked around, as if needing a place for his attention to land. If you get the doctor to go to a judge and attest that nothing your father says can reasonably be considered true or accurate, we can likely either stop the interview or have it ruled as inadmissible in court.

Vera struggled to push the stones out of her head. Focus on his words. It was important for her to know every step Bent and the FBI took. As for the medical opinion, she was well aware of this, but she appreciated his bringing up the possibility.

As much as I would hate to appear like an impediment to justice, she said, it s the only way to protect him. At this stage in his illness, we really can t know for sure that anything he says is accurate. He could confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby in his current state.

You re right. Bent set his hands on his hips. The trouble is, they won t stop until there s a break.

No good cop would. I get it. They want to solve this thing.

Don t we all, he said, more to himself than to Vera. Then he set his gaze solidly on her. I m worried about Eve. I still think she s holding back.

Okay, so this was about more than showing her the crime scene. I m not going down that road, Bent. She held up her hands. We ve talked about this more than once. You think I m hiding something. You think Eve is.

Forcing her gaze straight ahead and away from where the stones lay scattered, she headed for the narrow opening that would get her the hell out of here.

Don t do that, Vee, he said, coming up behind her, daring to put a hand on her arm. I m not trying to pin anything on you or Eve or your father.

She shook off his touch and rounded on him. What happened to the two of us conducting our own parallel investigation?

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Higdon usurped our morning. You were there. As for the other, whether you want to see it or not, Eve is hiding something.

Vera damned well knew they were both hiding one big-ass secret, but there was no way in the world she could tell this man. She couldn t even tell him about those little pale stones until she knew what they meant.

So she lied. What else was there to do? I have no idea what you re talking about.

He chuckled. Really? I ve kept up with you, too, Vee. I know just how good you are at what you do. In my humble opinion, there s no way you ve missed the signs.

Humble? Ha! The man didn t have a humble bone in his body.

You re right. She summoned all the anger simmering inside her. I wouldn t miss the signs. So maybe you re just seeing what you need to see to close your case. I m fairly certain all eyes are on you right now. Will he be able to see the truth when it comes to his former lover? Will he see that justice is served? Can he really fill Walt Fraley s shoes?

He bowed his head in acknowledgment. Now those were some seriously low blows.

Our father did not murder anyone, Vera snapped, tired of this back and forth. Eve and Luna didn t murder anyone.

He looked at her then. No, not looked at . . . looked inside her. Whatever you think you know, understand this: They re going to dissect the lives of everyone around these remains, he insisted, as if she didn t know how these things were done. They re going to question every single person who knew Sheree and the other vics, as soon as they ve been identified. And then they ll go after anyone close to them. Because they will conclude exactly what I have: whoever did this did not do it alone, and they were familiar with this cave.

I am well versed in how the FBI works, so my advice, she offered, is to do your best to find what you need to find. The problem is, you re not going to find it where you re looking.

She had nothing else to say. Not to him or to anyone else.

For Vera the real trouble in this tangled mess was the extra sets of remains. There was no way a killer brought remains all the way out here without some idea of where he intended to plant them.

An organized killer didn t work that way, and this killer had definitely been organized.

Whoever took the lives of these victims knew about the cave . . . obviously knew her parents and the farm.

That meant only one thing to Vera: it had to be someone close to them.