“She told Amy that she’d never even heard of Maclamara,” Hunter said. “But it sure does seem like she’s going that way.”
Casey kept driving.
“Son of a bitch,” Hunter muttered. “We’re worried about protecting her and it looks like she’s involved.”
“Maybe she’s lost,” Roger suggested.
“With GPS?” Hunter asked skeptically.
About a mile before the turnaround where they’d parked to stake out the barbecue, Casey pulled off the side of the road.
“Should I stop?” Roger asked.
“No, drive by. We’ll stop at the turnaround. See if she’s still there, take a walk back and make sure that she’s all right.”
As they passed, they could see she was looking at her phone.
Roger drove closer to the turnaround and found a place where he could pull a good distance off the road. Hunter leaped out, aware that Roger was following him and that he would do so at a bit of a distance.
He moved along the road. From the trees, he heard shouting and a dog barking. He drew his Glock and leaned against a massive pine, but then realized that ahead of him a familiar crew was in the woods.
He pulled out his phone to call Roger.
“Hey,” he said when his friend answered. “Keep an eye on Casey. I’ve found one of the forensic teams. A dog seems to have found something. I’m going to check on it, meet back up with you.”
“Gotcha,” Roger assured him.
Hunter picked his way through the trees, and when he got closer he called out. “Hello! Special Agent Hunter Forrest here, coming through!”
He moved into a shaded grove.
It was a pretty place, the trees moving lightly in the breeze, the scent of the earth rich, the air pleasant, oaks and pines mingling, needles creating a soft carpet on the ground and the sun breaking through to dazzle the place with glints of illumination.
A woman in a county forensic vest walked toward him, extending a hand. “Nellie Rodriguez,” she told him. “My team is out here with me. However you figured this, Special Agent, you figured it right.”
“What have you found?”
“Come with me—just about fifty yards ahead, there’s another clearing like this one.”
He followed her, nodding to the two men and the woman who finished out Nellie’s team and ducking down to let the two large German shepherds—also part of the team—smell the back of his hand.
“Ajax, Gunther, he’s good!” Nellie Rodriguez assured the dogs.
Hunter patted each dog, and stood, and it was then that he saw what the team had been doing.
The clearing had been dug up—just lightly so far, the team having used the dogs for discovery, then used small tools to start to excavate the earth.
There were four sections that they had dug thus far.
Four shallow graves.
One skeleton had been almost cleared. It was all there: skull, rib cage—crushed—arm and leg bones.
Four people.
Four human beings.
“A good call. They’ve been here awhile, though. We’ll get people out from the anthropology department at the university, and they, along with medical examiners, will hopefully let us know just how long all these bodies have been here.”
“Anything besides bones?” he asked.
“Not much. Pieces of fabric. Two belt buckles. We haven’t gotten very far. But no wallets, no purses, no identification. They might have come from anywhere. From my experience, however, they’ve been here at least ten years, but they’re not historic—there’s still too much integrity in the bones.”
He’d been right. He didn’t feel good about it, but he’d been right. Years ago, when Ethan Morrison had begun his conquest of the tiny town, he’d removed all opposition.
“It’s definitely not an old Indian burial ground,” he said.
“Definitely not,” the woman told him.
One of the dogs—Ajax, he thought—started barking.
They would find more bodies, he imagined. And even though he knew, he found his mind and heart rebelling.
How could this happen? How did intelligent people not see that they were being manipulated?
But it happened; he knew it better than most people.
“Thanks!” he called, lifting a hand to wave to the crew.
“Thank you!” Nellie Rodriguez called to him. “Well, I think. I mean, this is so sad and tragic, but at least we’re on our way to allowing these people decent burials.”
Hunter wasn’t sure how much that mattered.
The greatest cruelty had already been done to them. But he nodded, waved again and moved quickly and carefully back toward the road.
He judged his distance and emerged just a couple hundred feet from where Casey now stood beside her car, leaning against it, Roger at her side.
“I know! I was bad!” Casey called to him.
He joined the two. “Pardon?”
“You people are so good, so wonderful—trying to protect me.”
“So, you ride into danger?” Hunter asked.
Casey shook her head, appearing distressed. “No, I didn’t know that there was a town here. I mean, I knew there were cities and towns, I just didn’t know that there was a town called Maclamara and that my brothers hung around it. When I left Amy, well, I’m sorry. Stupid, I know. But I called Chase when I left the restaurant and he didn’t answer. I’d wanted to see him at his apartment, but then I thought, if the little rug rat wasn’t answering me, I’d come and find him. And it is on the way back to Ocala, so...”
“Casey, I can’t order you to do anything,” Hunter said.
“I explained that,” Roger said.
“But people have died.”
Casey flushed. “My brothers aren’t killers.”
“Even you think that they have friends who could be,” Hunter said.
“But they won’t let anyone hurt me!”
“If you’re seen as a threat, they might not be able to stop the others.”
Her bravado seemed to slip a little. “I—I can’t, I mean, I can’t believe—”
“Casey! You know that we found two murdered women,” Hunter said.
She let out a long breath. “Okay, okay. I’ll go to Ocala. I won’t try to find my brothers. But you need to know that my dad is worried, too. I think he’s planning to leave Karyl in charge at the church and come up here.”