Close to the Bone (Widow's Island #1)(26)

“No. We’ve got an active shooter. Procedure is to go after him.”

A long moment stretched between them. Henry pressed his lips into a thin line, and he gave a short nod. Cate turned and dashed up the hill.



Cate bent low under the trees, leading with her weapon, keeping her ears open. She’d kept far to the right from where the bones had been found, hoping to loop around and come in from the north, where she remembered there were boulders she could use for cover.

As she moved away from the fire, its roar quieted, and she listened for sounds of digging.

I hear him.

She reached the boulders and carefully looked around one.

Twenty feet away, a tall man with his back to her thrust his shovel in the loose dirt. The bin with the young girl’s bones was beside him. Cate looked for his weapon. She didn’t see it. She took a breath, ready to identify herself, when she realized he was crying. Blubbering crying. Heaves-and-snot-and-choking-breaths crying. He was muttering something between the shovelfuls of dirt, and she strained to hear it.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“FBI!” she shouted. “Put down your weapon, and get on your knees.”

The man jerked and spun in her direction, his shovel in his hands.

Milton. The stuffy waiter.

Cate stared. Why . . .

She didn’t have time to figure it out. A man had been shot. “Where’s your weapon, Milton?” she shouted. “Throw it aside!”

“I didn’t mean to do it!” he shrieked, his face wet with tears. He ran the back of his hand under his nose. “It wasn’t my fault!”

“Throw aside your gun. Then you can tell me what happened.” Where is his gun?

He clutched the shovel. “You don’t understand. It was an accident!”

“What was an accident?” At least his hands are occupied with the shovel.

“The girl. I didn’t mean to hurt her. It was to be just for a few days.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Milton, and I’m still waiting for you to get rid of your gun!”

“I was going to bring her back. She was fine!”

“Who?”

“The girl. Becca.”

Cate’s heart sank. “Becca Conan? Did you . . . hurt Becca?”

“It was an accident!”

Metal pressed into the back of Cate’s head. “Lower your weapon,” said a female voice.

Ice ripped through Cate’s limbs, and she fought to breathe.

I screwed up. I didn’t check for another person.

“Weapon. Now!” the woman ordered.

Her heart pounding, Cate lowered her weapon and slowly turned her head, trying to see behind her out of the corner of her eye.

Naomi.

Did she kill Becca with Milton?

“Drop the gun.”

Cate let the weapon fall to one side. Backup is coming. But when?

She was on her own.

At Naomi’s urging, she stepped out from behind the rocks and moved toward the hole. Milton had stopped to watch. Tears continued to track down his cheeks.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen, Naomi,” he pleaded.

“Then you shouldn’t have set the lighthouse on fire for everyone to see!”

“I had no choice!” He raised the shovel as if to fling it at Cate and Naomi. “She wouldn’t shut up!”

“No one was talking to you!” Naomi snapped at him.

“I could hear her!”

“Who was talking to you?” asked Cate, remembering Dustin’s comment about burning out the ghost.

“Shut up,” muttered Naomi behind her. “Don’t encourage him.”

“She told me I’d pay for what I did to Becca,” he choked out. “I’m trying to make it right.” He gestured at the hole.

He killed Becca.

Why?

“You buried Becca here?” Cate asked. She got a rap on the back of her head with the gun for the question.

“She wasn’t supposed to die,” he wailed. “But she tried to escape, and I tackled her and she fought me and I pinned her—”

“Milton. Shut. Up.” Naomi was livid.

“You knew all along what had happened to Becca,” Cate said to Naomi. Hurry up, Tessa. “You helped him cover it up.”

“Wrong,” Naomi sneered.

“Naomi had nothing to do with this,” Milton said earnestly. “She didn’t know anything about Becca until her bones were found.”

“Why are you reburying the bones, Milton?” Cate asked softly. He wasn’t in his right mind. The formal waiter had been replaced with a crazy-eyed man with a shovel on the verge of a breakdown.

“I tried to take care of her, and I brought her back to her home because I messed up. But you guys dug her up and put her in a bin!” He placed a gentle hand on the bin. “She belongs in the ground on her island.”

He’s cracked.

“You haven’t done anything wrong yet, Naomi,” Cate said to the woman behind her. “You didn’t kill Becca. Let me go so we can get Milton some help.”

“Shut up.” Naomi ground the muzzle into Cate’s hair. “You don’t know what he needs.”