Buried (Bone Secrets, #3)(16)

The question was, how hard would he be looked for? If he put the old man in danger, he’d never forgive himself. The dog splayed his front legs and bent low to the ground, giving a playful growl. His son gave a high-pitched giggle and growled back. Chris silently watched.

He’d die before danger touched his son.

He’d figured he had two or three days after Jamie’s call before he had to make his move. The news had finally hit the Internet, his Google alerts filling his inbox. Oregon school bus. Missing children. Kidnapping.

The names of his schoolmates.

Each one had burned in his brain for twenty years. Their names and their faces. It’d been a shock to see their old school pictures online. And his own picture from that year. Short hair, innocent smile, so trusting. He’d avoided school picture day when he returned, citing his scars, telling his parents that he didn’t want anyone to see pictures of him.

Over the last twenty-four hours, he’d been glued to the Internet, reading every word he could find on the grisly discoveries. He’d shed tears over the descriptions of the tiny skulls, picturing them as the friends he’d once played with. Kendall with her long black hair and lisp. Jeremy with the lopsided grin and mass of freckles.

Why was he the one still alive?

Memories had spilled over as he studied the pictures. And he was there. In the hellhole again. Reliving it all. The man’s lifeless pale eyes, the skin so white Chris could almost see through it. The Ghostman had released the youngest girls first. The other kids had cried and begged to be next. He’d seen Kendall leaving with her hand clasped in the Ghostman’s, a wide smile on her face as they climbed the ladder out of the stinking hole. Had it been a gift that they never knew each other’s fate?

His stomach heaved, and he felt sweat start at his temples. Breathe. In. Out. In. Damn it. This was a certain sign there’d be nightmares tonight. Fine. He simply wouldn’t sleep. Laughter pealed as Brian was knocked over by the dog and it vigorously licked him in the face.

Old Juan cricked his neck to look at the two tussling on the ground. “That’s a good boy you’ve got there.” Brown eyes cannily read Chris’s face. “Parents do anything for their kids, yes?”

Chris nodded and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Anything.”



“Yes! We’ve got a match.” Ray Lusco thumped a fist on his desk in the OSP building.

“On one of the bodies in the mass grave?” Mason asked. Sitting directly across from Ray at his own antique metal desk, he opened the digital file with the photos of the grave, and thumbnails filled his screen. A few lessons from his son, Jake, had improved Mason’s skill with the computer. He had about ten sticky notes for different procedures dotting his monitor. Patiently outlined by Jake.

Mass grave weren’t quite the right words to describe the pit. Each body had been buried at different times. One on top of the other. Why would someone reopen the same site each time? Curiosity? Had he wanted to see what the previous body now looked like? Or maybe the earth was easier to dig since it’d been disturbed several times before.

The dig had been a forensic nightmare. Bodies mixed together. Remains disturbed every time the killer had added another body. Had he purposefully mixed them together?

Five adults had been found. Not old, according to Dr. Peres, the forensic anthropologist on the scene. Late teens or early twenties. The woman had been in full work mode. Mason swore the challenge of the pit had put the anthropologist in heaven. She’d called for a dozen assistants and painstakingly photographed and removed every bone. Mason had seen her eyes light up each time a skull was uncovered. For the most part, she worked silently, keeping her theories to herself, barking curt orders to her workers, and simply telling the police the sex of the victims as each was uncovered.

“Steven James Monroe. Age twenty-four. Arrests for prostitution and possession. Last known address is nearly twenty-five years old. Reported missing a year before our bus vanished. Parents filed the report.”

“Twenty-four years old,” muttered Mason as he studied the old photo of Monroe. The kid looked innocent, young, fresh. How’d he end up in their hole? “Somebody was active before our kids were taken. How much you want to bet the others will be prostitutes, too? Maybe a Jeffrey Dahmer type had been in the area. But I guess this guy liked men and women.”

“If they do turn out to be prostitutes, it adds weight to a sexual motive.” Ray’s voice tightened, and Mason knew he was getting angry. “Coordinates with the shit we found in that underground tank.”

“Just because the first one had a shady past doesn’t mean the rest of them will. They could be missing college kids for all we know. Think he kept adults in the tank first?”

Ray nodded, and Mason heard his teeth grind.

“Why the switch to kids?”

Ray shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person.”

“Wonder if our unsub is still alive?” They could be chasing a goddamned ghost.

Mason grabbed up the receiver as his desk phone rang.

“Callahan.”

“Detective Callahan? This is Cecilia Brody.”

Mason’s grip tightened on the phone. “Dr. Brody, what can I do for you?”

“I’ve been giving some thought to your questions from the other day.”

Right, Mason thought. You mean you’ve finally decided to share something you held back. He’d felt both parents weren’t saying everything that day in the sick woman’s room. At first he’d thought it was because of the presence of their son, but Mason had rapidly discarded that theory. The parents had talked dispassionately to their son like a stranger.