Chapter 3

THREE

After receiving Rio’s call, Jenna disconnected and looked at Kane. “We don’t need to rush. Rio has handled everything and Wolfe has taken the bodies to the morgue. He’s calling in Norrell to assist. He said to drop by around ten and he might have some information for us.” She brought him up to date with the finer details.

“Do you recall anyone mentioning two college kids going missing when you arrived here?” Kane added crispy bacon to plates of pancakes and set them on the table before adding maple syrup to Tauri’s stack and sitting down.

Jenna shook her head. “Nope. The records, as you know, are practically nonexistent. We’ll need to check news reports once Wolfe has given us an approximate year they died.”

Adding butter to her pancakes and then the maple syrup, she sucked the sweet nectar from her finger and hummed in contentment. Having a ferocious appetite was, as Wolfe had insisted, quite normal after many weeks of morning sickness. She exercised every morning. Kane had found a suitable program for pregnant women and she followed it religiously most days, unless an emergency arose, which hadn’t occurred until this morning with the murders in the snow. They’d already booked birthing classes for her third trimester. Although she understood the mechanics, Kane had, as usual, wanted full immersion in the birth. She smiled at Tauri. “I’m sorry we woke you so early. We had a call from the office, but Uncle Zac is handling it.” Her deputies were family, and Tauri had given all of them the title uncle .

“Mommy.” Tauri swallowed a bite of pancake and then swirled a strip of bacon in a few drops of syrup on his plate. He appeared totally engrossed and wasn’t looking at her.

Jenna sipped her milk and looked at him. “Is something wrong, sweetheart?”

“Will you still love me when the baby comes along?” He lifted golden eagle eyes to search her face. “One of my friends said his mommy and daddy got angry all the time when his sister arrived.”

“Maybe it’s because babies take a lot of time.” Kane smiled at him. “At first, Mommy might not be able to do so many things with you because she’s feeding the baby or changing its diaper. They cry and need to be held. It’s what mommies and daddies do, but it doesn’t mean we stop loving you. That can never happen.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Jenna met Tauri’s gaze. “You’re my sunshine. I could never stop loving you, not if we have another ten babies. Just think how fun it will be to have a baby brother or sister to play with. Babies always need a ton of attention when they first arrive, but in no time, they are crawling around the floor getting into mischief. It will be strange and new for all of us, but Mommy and Daddy have lots of love to share.”

“We’ll have fun watching them grow.” Kane grinned. “You can help them learn how to crawl and walk. Maybe even teach them some words. You’ll be their big brother and they’ll look up to you to show them how to do things.”

“Okay, that will be fun.” Tauri stuffed the bacon into his mouth and then sucked his fingers.

Jenna looked at Kane and smiled. “We don’t argue now, do we? Nothing will change. We could never ever stop loving you.”

“It’s funny.” Kane rubbed the back of his neck and looked at her. “My mom told me my sister asked the very same question when they told her about me.”

Jenna chuckled. She did know Kane was from a military family, just not which one. She’d discovered he’d had a sister, who’d been murdered. “Oh, I can just imagine the answer in your family. It would be ‘That’s need to know.’”

They finished up and headed into town. Brown water swirled through the ditches alongside the highway, spilling across the blacktop in dirty slicks of dirt and gravel. The gray snow piled from the last pass of the snowplow was filthy and crumbling as the water rushed by. Her fleece-lined rubber boots were proving to be good protection against the freezing water spilling everywhere across the ground. It was just as well, as her leather boots always ended up wet or stinking in this weather. She’d filled a bag with a few changes of clothes and boots to leave at the office, and was glad she’d taken the trouble when she took in the threatening sky. “Is that snow or rain coming? If it gets any wetter, the town will be isolated. In all the years we’ve been here, the last two have had the worst weather I’ve ever seen. Now the mountain shudders every few days. How long before we get a mudslide like last time?”

“The forestry has been planting new trees all through that area.” Kane glanced her way before returning his attention to the road. “The wildfire we had a few years ago destroyed much of the vegetation, vines, and roots that created a net around the soil. It will take time to regrow enough to prevent the mudslides.” He sighed. “I’m thankful they don’t harvest the trees here. Logging and mudslides go hand in hand.”

They drove to Nanny Raya’s house and Jenna made sure Tauri was settled. She took her to one side and told her about Tauri’s question. It was something they could talk about. Her son had a great connection with his nanny but sometimes kids liked assurance from someone outside the family. Confident that Tauri was happy, she kissed him goodbye and they headed to the office. “Park around back, just in case it starts raining.”

“Sure.” Kane drove into the parking lot. “I’ll take Duke for a walk. I’ll be along soon.” He opened the back door and lifted the bloodhound from the seat.

Jenna watched them go and then went inside. She waved her deputies upstairs to her office and then dumped their extra clothes and boots into the locker room. She hurried back into her office. “I know this is a cold case, but we owe it to these kids to identify them and find out who murdered them. We’ll treat this like any other case.”

“We’re assuming they died twelve years ago.” Deputy Jake Rowley had been with Jenna since her first day in office. He started out as a rookie straight from college. She’d trained him, and Kane had shared his skills with him as well. It had been time well spent. Rowley was a fine deputy.

Jenna nodded. “It’s what we’re assuming as the college jacket worn by the male has a year embroidered on the front. It could be an old jacket, but Wolfe will make a determination.”

“Rio said the inside at the front was like new.” Rowley raised both eyebrows. “There weren’t any decay marks from the body either as the victim was bundled up in sweaters. So we know this happened late fall to winter.”

“Yeah, it was kind of creepy, like old, wrinkled people in college clothing.” Rio shrugged. “I figure we start with newspaper reports from twelve years ago and see if we can find anything.”

Collecting her thoughts, Jenna nodded. “That’s a good idea, but first up, we use the townsfolk’s memories. People who have lived here all their lives would recall kids going missing.” She looked at Rowley. “Do you remember any kids going missing?”

“I do vaguely recall the incident but not enough to give you the answers you need. These are college kids and I’d have maybe been in high school.” Rowley ran a hand through his curly brown hair, making it stick up in all directions. “My early teenage years and younger were taken up by chores rather than watching the news. I was raised on a ranch. It was school, chores, assignments. That’s about all.”

The door opened and Kane walked in with Duke on his heels. The bloodhound went straight to Jenna and placed his head in her lap. She absently rubbed his cold ears and turned to Rio. “We’ll use the media to assist us. It’s a mystery the news channels will love, so Rio, use your experience with the media and get them to run a story for us. With luck, you might not need to be in the library archives searching through years of old newspaper articles.”

“The families should still be around.” Kane slid into a chair and crossed one boot onto his other knee and leaned back, making the wood groan. “I figure what we need is college yearbooks from ten to twelve years ago. From what you mentioned to Jenna, the faces wouldn’t be recognizable.”

“No, they are kinda squashed and thin.” Rio swiped a hand under his nose. “They kinda look like leather. Wolfe believes they were desiccated, which is why they’re intact. If they were buried in dry sand, that could account for it.”

Jenna swallowed bile. “You mean mummified?”

“I do believe so, yeah.” Rio met her gaze. “I figure one was on top of the other because, as Jake mentioned, the jacket of the male and the front of the female’s coat are in good condition.”

“So their killer dug a grave and rolled them in on top of each other?” Rowley paled. “There are thousands of caves all around here. We’d never find it, not with rivers bursting their banks and landslides all over.”

Two people died and then the killing stopped, or did it? Jenna ran possibilities and scenarios through her mind. She moved her attention to Kane. “Motive?”

“With college kids, likely a lovers’ quarrel.” Kane shrugged. “Jealousy runs high in that type of scenario, or maybe it was a prank or dare that went wrong. We’re only assuming one person is involved in the murders. It’s not easy to dig a grave deep enough to prevent wildlife from eating the remains. It’s possible but multiple involvement is an angle we can pursue.”

As usual the think tank with her team turned up multiple ideas. “Okay, so we have a starting point. Rio, you get onto the media, and Rowley, you hunt down yearbooks from the local college going back about twelve years.” Jenna checked her watch. “When you’re done, Rio, contact the local newspaper and find out if they have any online archives available going back twelve years. I do recall their mentioning something about making the online archives available to the public for a small fee.”

“Do you want me to mention that we’ve discovered bodies in the media release, or do you just want to ask for anyone to come forward who recalls anything about college students going missing approximately twelve years ago?” Rio glanced up from his notes.

Jenna tapped her pen on the desk, thinking for a beat. “Maybe just ask for information at this stage as we don’t want the parents of these kids to find out through the media that their missing children have been discovered floating in the local river.”

“Gotcha.” Rio closed his notebook and pushed to his feet. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll get right on it.”

Jenna held up her hand. “Fine, but wait up. I’m going with Kane to the medical examiner’s office to view the bodies and get his determination on the age of the victims, and Norrell is going to give us some idea of when they were buried.” She stood. “I’ll leave you to handle things until we get back. If Cade and Piper want to help out on the hotlines again, I’d be very happy to have them back in the office.”

Rio’s twin siblings both had ideas of going into law enforcement but in different areas. Cade was pursuing a law degree and Piper’s career choice was to work in an area that protected abused men, women, and children. They usually welcomed any exposure to the day-to-day running of the sheriff’s office. Jenna paid them an hourly rate for their assistance, and as it was spring break, they were usually happy to drop by.

“I’m sure they’d love to help Maggie out again. Each time they work here, it’s more experience they can add to their résumés.” He turned to go. “I’ll call them.”

Jenna looked at Rowley, who was getting slowly to his feet. “Is there anything else you need, Jake?”

“No, I just wanted to share some good news.” Rowley blushed scarlet. “Sandy is pregnant. We’re very happy. We both always wanted a bunch of kids.”

“Maybe it will be another set of twins.” Kane grinned at him, jumped to his feet, and slapped him on the back. “I’d love to have twins but I’m very happy to be blessed with one.”

“Ah, well it’s too early to know yet.” Rowley collected his things. “She sends you both her love and she wanted me to tell you, Jenna, that she hasn’t gotten sick this time.”

Overflowing with happiness, Jenna went around the desk and hugged him. “Congratulations! That’s wonderful news. I’m so happy for you both.”

“Thanks.” Rowley took a step back and collected his things. “I’d better get back to work.” He hurried out of the door.