Excerpt from Smoky Mountains Graveyard by Lena Diaz

Faith Lancaster wasn't in the Smoky Mountains above Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for the gorgeous spring views, the sparkling waters of Crescent Falls or even hunting for the perfect camera shot of a black bear. Faith was here on this Tuesday morning searching for something else entirely.

A murdered woman's unmarked grave.

If she was right, then she and Asher Whitfield, her partner at the cold case company, Unfinished Business, were about to locate the remains of beautiful bartender and single mother of two, Jasmine Parks.

Five years ago, almost to the day, Jasmine had disappeared after a shift at a bar and grill named The Watering Hole, popular for its scenic views and a man-made waterfall behind it. Instead of returning home that night to her family, she'd become another sad statistic. But months of research had led Faith and Asher to this lonely mountainside, just a twenty-minute drive from the home that Jasmine had shared with her two small children, younger sister and her parents.

Faith shaded her eyes from the sun, trying to get a better look at the newest addition to the crowd of police lined up along the yellow tape, watching the techs operating the ground-penetrating radar machine. Once she realized who'd just arrived, she groaned.

"The vultures found out about our prediction and came for the show," she said.

Beside her, Asher peered over the top of his shades then pushed them higher up on his nose. "Twenty bucks says the short blonde with the microphone ducks beneath the crime scene tape before we even confirm there's a body buried here."

"You know darn well that short blonde is Miranda Cummings, the prime-time anchor on Gatlinburg's evening news. Toss in another twenty bucks and I'll take that bet. Only I'll give her less than two minutes."

"Less than two?" He arched a brow. "Deal. No one's that audacious with all these cops around."

No sooner had he finished speaking than the anchor ducked under the yellow tape. She tiptoed across the grass wet with morning dew, heading directly toward the group of hard hats standing by the backhoe.

Faith swore. "She's the kind of blonde who gives the rest of us a bad name. What kind of idiot wears red stilettos to traipse up an incline in soggy grass?"

"The kind who wants to look good on camera when she gets an exclusive."

"Well, that isn't happening. She's about to be arrested." She nodded at two of the uniformed officers hurrying after the reporter and her cameraman.

"Double or nothing?" Asher asked.

"That they won't arrest her?"

"Yep." He glanced down at her, an amused expression on his face.

"Now who's the idiot?" Faith shook her head. "You're on."

The police caught up to the anchorwoman and blocked her advance toward the construction crew. She immediately aimed her mic toward one of the officers while her equally bold cameraman swung his camera around.

"Are you kidding me?" Faith shook her head in disgust. "Are men really that blind and stupid? They're fawning all over her like lovesick puppies instead of doing their jobs."

Asher laughed. "They're fawning all over her because she's a hot blonde in red stilettos. You want to go double or nothing again? I can already picture my delicious steak dinner tonight, at your expense."

"I'm quitting while I'm behind. And she's not that attractive."

His grin widened. "If you were a man, you wouldn't say that."

She put her hands on her hips, craning her neck back to meet his gaze, not that she could see his eyes very well behind those dark shades. "You seriously find all that heavy makeup and hairspray appealing?"

"It's not her hair, or her face, that anyone's looking at." He used his hands to make an hourglass motion.

She rolled her eyes and studied the others standing behind the yellow tape like Asher and her. "Where's the police chief? Someone needs to put an end to this nonsense."

"Russo left a few minutes ago. Some kind of emergency at the waterfall on the other side of this mountain. Sounds like a tourist may have gotten too close and went for an unplanned swim."

She winced. "I hope they didn't hit any rocks going over. Maybe they got lucky and didn't get hurt, or drown." She shivered.

"You still don't know how to swim, do you?"

"Since I don't live anywhere near a beach, don't own a pool, and I'm not dumb enough to get near any of the waterfalls in these mountains, it doesn't matter." She motioned to the narrow, winding road about thirty yards away. "Our boss just pulled up, assuming he's the only one around here who can afford that black Audi R8 Spyder. Maybe he'll get the police to escort the press out of here. Goodness knows with his history of helping Gatlinburg PD, Russo's men respect him as much as they do their own chief. Maybe more."

Asher nodded his agreement. "I'm surprised Grayson's here. I thought he was visiting his little girl in Missouri. Now that she knows he's her biological father, he visits as much as he can."

"I'm guessing his wife updated him about the search. He probably felt this was too important to miss."

"You called Willow in on this already?" he asked.

"Last night. She's with the Parks family right now, doing her victim's advocate stuff. It's a good thing, too, because it would have been terrible for them to hear about this search on the news without being prepared first."

"Kudos to you, Faith. I didn't even think about calling her. Then again, I didn't expect the word to leak about what we were doing up here this morning. It's a shame everyone can't be more respectful of the family."

She eyed the line of police again, wondering which one or ones had tipped off the media. None of her coworkers would have blabbed, of that she was certain. "At least Willow can tell the family there's hope again."

"That we'll find Jasmine, sure. But all that will prove is that she didn't accidentally drive her car into a pond or a ravine. I doubt it will give them comfort to have their fears confirmed that she was murdered. And we're not even close to knowing who killed her, or how."

"The how will come at the autopsy."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

She grimaced. "You're probably right. Unless there are broken or damaged bones, we might not get a cause of death. But if she's buried up here, there's no question about manner of death. Homicide." She returned their boss's wave.

Asher turned to watch him approach. "As to knowing who's responsible, we're not starting from scratch. We've eliminated a lot of potential suspects."

"You're kidding, right? All we've concluded is that it's unlikely that anyone we've interviewed was involved in her disappearance and alleged murder. We still have to figure out which of the three hundred, thirty-five million strangers in this country killed her. Almost eight billion if we consider that someone from another country could have been here as a tourist and did it."

He crossed his arms. "I'm sticking to my theory that it's someone local, someone who knew the area. Out-of-towners tend to stick to the hiking trails or drive through areas like Cades Cove to get pictures of wildlife. There's nothing over here to attract anyone but locals trying to get away from the tourists."

"I still think it could be a stranger who travels here enough to be comfortable. We shouldn't limit our search to Gatlinburg, or even to Sevier County."

"Tennessee's a big state. How many people does that mean we have to eliminate, Ms. Math Whiz?"

"The only reason you consider me a math whiz is because you got stuck on fractions in third grade."

"I'd say ouch. But I don't consider it an insult that I'm not a math nerd."

"Nah, you're just a nerd."

He laughed, not at all offended. She reluctantly smiled, enjoying their easy banter and the comfort of their close friendship. As handsome and charming as he was, it baffled her that he was still single. She really needed to work at setting him up with someone. He deserved a woman who'd love him and appreciate his humor and kind heart. But for the life of her, she couldn't picture anyone she knew as being the right fit for him.

"Play nice, children." Grayson stopped beside them, impeccable as always in a charcoal-gray suit that probably cost more than Faith's entire wardrobe. "What have I missed?"

Asher gestured toward Faith. "Math genius here was going to tell us how many suspects we have to investigate if we expand our search to all the males in Tennessee."

"No, I was going to tell you if we considered all of Tennessee, the total population is about seven million. I have no idea how many of those are male."

Grayson slid his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. "Females account for about fifty-one percent of the population. Statewide, if you focus on males, that's about three and a half million. In Sevier County, potential male suspects number around fifty thousand." He arched a dark brow. "Please tell me I'm not spending thousands of dollars every month funding this investigation only to narrow our suspect pool to fifty thousand."

They both started talking at once, trying to give him an update.

He held up his hands. "I was teasing. If I didn't trust you to work this cold case, you wouldn't be on it. Willow told me you may have figured out where our missing woman is buried. That's far more than we had at the start of this. If the case was easy to solve, someone else would have done it in the past five years and Sevier County wouldn't have asked us to take it on. Give me a rundown on what's happening. I'm guessing the German shepherd is part of a scent dog team. And the construction crew standing around is waiting for guidance on where to dig. The guy pushing what looks like a lawnmower—is that a ground penetrating radar machine?"

Faith nodded. "The shepherd is Libby. She is indeed a scent dog, a cadaver dog. Although Lisa, her handler, prefers to call her a forensic recovery canine." She pointed at various small clearings. "Lisa shoved venting rods in those areas to help release potential scent trapped under the ground to make detection easier."

"It's been five years," Grayson said. "I wouldn't expect there to be any scent at all."

"Honestly, Asher and I didn't either. But after our investigation brought us here as the most likely dump site, we contacted Lisa and she said there would absolutely be scent. One study showed cadaver dogs detecting a skeleton that had been buried over thirty years. And Lisa swears they can pick up scent fifteen feet deep."

"Impressive, and unexpected. I'm guessing those yellow flags scattered around mark where the dog indicated possible hits. There are quite a few."

"A lot of flags, yes, but Lisa said it amounts to six major groupings. As good as these types of dogs are, they can have false positives. Other decomposing animals and vegetation can interfere with their abilities. And scent is actually pulled up through the root systems of trees, which makes it more difficult to find the true source. There could be a hit in, say, three different areas. But the decomposition actually originated from only one spot. Thus, the need for the ground penetrating radar. Lisa recommended it, to limit the dig sites. Asher called around and found a company already in the area." She motioned to Asher. "Where'd you say they were?"

"A cemetery near Pigeon Forge. The GPR company is ensuring that an empty part of the graveyard doesn't have any old unmarked graves before a new mausoleum is erected. Originally, I was going to ask a local utility company to bring over their GPR equipment. But what I found online is that it's more effective if the operator has experience locating the specific type of item you're searching for. Kind of like reading an X-ray or an ultrasound. The guys from the cemetery know how to recognize potential remains because they tested their equipment on known graves first. To find the unknown, you start with the known."

"Bottom line it for me," Grayson said.

Asher motioned to the guys wearing hard hats. "As soon as the radar team tells us which of the flagged sites has the most potential, the backhoe will start digging."

"How soon do we think that will happen?"

"Everybody stay back," one of the construction workers called out as another climbed into the cab of the backhoe.

"Guess that's our answer," Faith said.

Lisa and her canine jogged over and ducked under the yellow tape to stand beside Faith. Asher held up the tape for the GPR team as they pushed their equipment out of the way. The anchorwoman and her cameraman were finally escorted behind the tape as well.

Thankfully, they were a good distance away—not for lack of trying. The blonde kept pointing in their direction, apparently arguing that she wanted to stand beside them. No doubt she wanted to interview the radar people or maybe the canine handler. But Lisa had asked the police earlier to keep people away from her dog. By default, Faith and the small group she was with were safe from the reporter's questions.

For now at least.

Their boss formally introduced himself as Grayson Prescott to the others, thanking them for the work they were doing for his company. And also on behalf of the family of the missing woman.

"How confident are you that we'll find human remains in one of the flagged areas?" Grayson asked the lead radar operator.

"Hard to say. We didn't check all of the sites since the sediment layers in those first two areas seem so promising. They show signs of having been disturbed at some point in the past."

"Like someone digging?"

He nodded. "There's something down there that caused distinctive shaded areas on the radar. But false positives happen. It's not an exact science."

"Understood."

The backhoe started up, its loud engine ending any chance of further conversation.

The hoe slowly and surprisingly carefully for such a big piece of equipment began to scrape back the layers of earth in the first of the two areas. Ten minutes later, the men standing near the growing hole waved at the operator, telling him to stop. They spoke for a moment then loud beeps sounded as the equipment backed up and moved to another spot to begin digging.

Faith sighed in disappointment. "Guess hole number one is a bust."

"Not so fast," Asher said. "They're signaling the forensics team."

A few minutes later, one of the techs jogged over to Faith and Asher, nodding with respect at Grayson.

"We've found a human skull. That's why they stopped digging. We'll switch to hand shovels now and sifting screens to preserve any potential trace evidence and make sure we recover as many small bones as possible."

Faith pressed a hand to her chest, grief and excitement warring with each other. She'd been optimistic that their research was right. But it was sad to have it confirmed that Jasmine had indeed been murdered. She'd only been twenty-two years old. It was such a tragedy for her to have lost her life so young, and in what no doubt was a terrifying, likely painful, manner.

"You don't see any hair or clothing to help us confirm that the remains belong to a female?" she asked.

"Not yet, ma'am. An excavation like this will take hours, maybe days, because we'll have to go slowly and carefully. But as soon as the medical examiner can make a determination of gender, the chief will update you. Since the GPR hit on those two sites, we'll check the second one as well. Natural shifts underground because of rain or hard freezes could have moved some of it. We also have to consider that the body might have been dismembered and buried in more than one area."

She winced. "Okay, thanks. Thanks for everything."

He nodded. "Thank you, Ms. Lancaster. Mr. Whitfield. All of you at UB. Whether this is Jasmine Parks or not, it's someone who needs to be recovered and brought home to their loved ones. If you hadn't figured out an area to focus on, whoever this person is might have never been found."

He returned to the growing group of techs standing around the makeshift grave. Hand shovels were being passed around and some of the uniformed police were bringing sifting screens up the incline.

"Looks like our work here is done," one of the radar guys said. "We'll load up our equipment and head back to Pigeon Forge."

"Wait." Asher pointed to the backhoe operator, who was excitedly waving his hands at the techs. "I think you should check out all of the other groups of flags too."

Faith stared in shock at what one of the techs was holding up from the second hole.

Another human skull.