Buried (Bone Secrets, #3)(57)

“They’re gonna have to do something with it. Fill it up with concrete or weld it shut. Don’t need any other *s deciding to make use of it.”

“There’s been talk of the welding idea. That’s probably what they’ll do. I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.”

The trooper gave an informal salute and went back to his book.

Mason used his own hat as a fan. The forest was giving off a dry, dusty smell that reminded him of a woodstove burning old wood. It was going to be a bad summer for wildfires if they didn’t get some rain. In Oregon, usually you could count on rain off and on until July 5th, but this year had been hot and dry since April.

He strolled to the bunker entrance and stared at how the earth had been flattened and trampled around the hatch. So many feet over the last few days. The quiet of the forest was overwhelming. No sounds at all. Was this how it’d been for the children? During the investigation, the site had been crawling with people. Now it felt empty and lonely.

How long had the children been in there?

Mason looked up. The firs blocked his view of the sky. A few pieces of blue shone through here and there, but the dark-green ceiling felt ominous. Like it was smothering something, keeping something hidden from the rest of the world. Which was exactly what it’d done for twenty years. But it was still hiding one thing.

Where was the body of Daniel Brody? The forest hadn’t revealed that secret.

Mason stared into the dense woods. Another boy was in there somewhere; Mason imagined the trees hiding his final resting place. Why hadn’t Daniel been buried with the other children?

The cadaver dog and her handler had been through the immediate surrounding woods several times. Her amazing dog had found nothing. He’d had her walk the farm again, too. Daniel’s final resting place was staying buried for now.

When Mason had a suspect in his hands, he was going to get that answer. No matter what it took. Cecilia Brody deserved to know the fate of her son before she died.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Ray was calling.

“Yep.”

“Got a minute?” Ray asked.

“You bet.” He hadn’t decided if he was going back down in the bunker today. His previous two descents had given him emotional nightmares that he didn’t care to repeat. He moved toward the pit and stared into the abyss where five bodies had been hidden for years.

“We’ve put together another ID on one of the bodies from the pit.”

Mason stepped back from the yellow caution tape, slightly disturbed by the coincidence of his location. “I’m f*cking staring into the thing right now. That’s freaky. What did you get?”

“One of the females was reported missing fifteen years ago.”

“Fifteen?” Mason pressed the phone tighter to his ear. “She was seen that recently?”

“Yes, she was reported missing by an aunt who’d seen her the week before.”

“So our unsub brought vics here after Chris Jacobs escaped. What’s her history?”

“One solicitation arrest. Eight years before she vanished.”

“Nice. Let’s hope our guy keeps sticking to the same MO. We’ll pin him down.”

“Even better. She had a previous address in the same neighborhood as the other victim we identified.”

“They were neighbors?” Mason wanted to rub his hands together. Would the other victims come from the same fishing pond? Enough dead fish from one area and they could start narrowing in on the common denominator. History had proved serial killers were creatures of habit. They liked routines. When something worked well for them, they had a tendency to repeat, trying to match that success.

“Dawn Henderson. She was thirty when she went missing. Had a decent job as a receptionist at a car dealership, no steady relationship at the time, and no issues with past boyfriends that we could find back then. One day she was at work, and the next day she wasn’t. Basically, she vanished.”

“Basically, all these victims vanished. That’s part of this guy’s MO. He really knows how to take people without leaving a freaking clue. They vanish off the radar without a blip.”

“I haven’t gotten in contact with Henderson’s aunt yet, but there’s an interview with her in the file that the vic had been distraught in the past over the murder of her roommate several years before but had received therapy at some point and had been doing well. For a while, she’d been nearly suicidal.”

Mason’s Spidey-sense went off. “How many years before she vanished was her roommate murdered? Was that in the same neighborhood?”

Ray shuffled papers in the background. “Nine. Almost ten years. Ugly scene. And the address is close to where Dawn was living when she disappeared. The roommate was attacked in their home. Name was Sandra Edge. She was sexually abused and then strangled. Dawn Henderson wasn’t home at the time, but she found the victim after.”

“They catch him?” Hope rose in Mason’s chest.

“Yep. He’s in Salem.”

Shit. “The state pen?” Mason asked. “He’s been locked up this whole time?”

“I’m looking…yeah, he hasn’t been out at all.”

“Name?”

“Lee Fielding.”

Mason’s brain was working at full speed. There was something here…he could feel it. But the guy had been locked up the whole time? “I still want to talk to him. And would you run a search for the registered sex offenders who were living around the residence…aww crap! That’s before they had to register with the state, isn’t it?”