Fear For Me: A Novel of the Bayou Butcher(79)

“Because it didn’t happen.”

Wesley faced Anthony. “I searched for Jennifer out here.”

Anthony gazed steadily at the other man.

“If you want to dump a body, the swamp’s the best place to go. I looked, over the years…”

Strange, for a man who hadn’t known Jenny.

The suspicion must have showed because Wesley’s jaw hardened. “When I get word of any disappearance, I always search. It’s as necessary as breathing for me.” He waved his hand toward the swamp. “My grandfather was half Choctaw. He taught me early to love the land and treat it with respect.” His head shook sadly. “The swamp isn’t a dumping ground. It’s not where those girls should have ended up.”

“You never saw any signs of them?”

“No. Never found any clothes, any shoes, any tracks at all that told me they’d been here.”

“Maybe because the killer was just as good at tracking as you were.” Walker had known the area like the back of his hand. Anthony bet Walker’s partner had, too. “Who do you know who’s like that? Who can slip into this area, know every trail and every path, and leave no trace behind?”

A man who’d be the perfect killer.

“Did I ever tell you…” Wesley rocked back on his heels. “That Jon Walker and I went to high school together?”

Sonofabitch.

“Hated the bastard back then. He was a mean jerk who got off on bullying weaker kids.” Wesley’s gaze had returned to the trees. To Lauren. “If you’re looking for someone who knew Walker back then, for someone who could never get lost out here, but someone who could make a body vanish into the swamp…then you’re looking right at me.”

Yes, he was. Anthony’s question had been deliberate, to see what Wesley’s response would be.

His response had been chillingly cold.

Wesley’s eyes narrowed. “Do you suspect me?”

Anthony waited. When he didn’t speak, Wesley’s stare came back to him. “I knew you went to school with Walker.” Like he hadn’t gotten his hands on Walker’s old yearbooks first f*cking thing. “I asked if you knew someone who’d fit the profile.” His smile sharpened even more. “And you just listed yourself.”

Wesley grimly shook his head. “Go look somewhere else, Marshal. I’m not the killer. If I were, I wouldn’t be trying to help you find the body, would I?”

“Anthony!”

Lauren’s cry. High. Excited. In the next instant, Anthony was racing toward the echoing sound. His feet thudded over the earth still wet from an afternoon shower.

He turned to the left. The right.

He saw her with Matt at her side, beneath the sloping branches of a weeping willow tree.

The willow had been hidden, crouched beneath tall pines and cypress trees, blocked by moss.

But it was there. Not too big and with branches bleached light by the sun.

He touched Lauren’s shoulder. She flinched and spun toward him. “Is she here?” Lauren asked, her voice filled with hope so desperate that it hurt him.

There was only one way to find out.

Anthony glanced at the men who’d circled them. “We need the shovels.”



Lauren stood back while the uniformed men worked. Louis might have tried to shut her down, but she was the freaking DA. She still had pull and plenty of cops and techs who owed her. If her sister was in that ground, then Lauren was doing this scene right. There’d be no blunders with evidence as shovels were driven into the dirt. No contamination.

Every care would be used. Every. Care.

The pile of dirt grew. The silence in the area was thick as the men worked.

Lauren’s stomach was twisted into knots. Her hands were shaking. Every whisper of movement from the deepening hole had her adrenaline spiking.

Anthony was at her side. Watching. Waiting. Every few moments, his assessing gaze would drift to her. She knew he was worried about her. About what she’d do if they found the body.

And if they didn’t.

If she’s not here, I won’t give up. I won’t ever give up.

Her parents had kept looking for Jenny. They’d offered rewards, sent out so many missing posters, even bought a few billboards.

Her father had flown to LA twelve times, following rumors that Jenny had run away with an LSU grad student.

She didn’t run away.

Her parents had been so determined to never give up on Jenny.

Then cancer had ravaged her mother. Taken her so quickly, in the blink of an eye.

Her father had been the only one left for Lauren then. He’d still been searching for Jenny, always searching, when a heart attack took him far too soon.

Lauren had been nineteen.

Alone.

She wanted to reach out for Anthony. With him at her side, she didn’t feel so alone. But so many eyes were there, watching them, noting her every movement and gesture.

I’ll pick you up after school, okay, Laurie? Jenny’s voice, the memory of her smiling face, darted through Lauren’s mind. They’d been at the kitchen table, fighting over pancakes, rushing for school. Since I’m all street legal—Jenny had flashed her new driver’s license—Mom said I can take you to piano today.

She’d rolled her eyes. You just want a reason to drive.