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.
So?
Don’t be late, Jenny. I’ve got to practice for my recital—
I’ll be there. Jenny had given half her pancake to Lauren. Count on me.
More dirt rose from the ground.
Count on me.
The men working in the hole stilled. “We’ve got something!”
Her heart stopped.
I’ll pick you up after school…
Paul shouldn’t have been there, but when they’d called the station to get the crew, he’d come. Shaking and pale, he’d been determined to join them.
Now he made his way to the hole.
Lauren found that she couldn’t move at all.
Anthony took her hand in his. His fingers were warm. She felt ice-cold. “Lauren?”
She forced herself to speak. “What did you find?” Her voice was too high.
Paul stared down into the hole. His face looked even paler. The lines near his eyes and mouth appeared even more defined. After a tense moment, he looked back up at Lauren. “Bones.”
Count on me…
A tear slid down Lauren’s cheek.
The men continued working in the hole.
“There’s clothing down here, too…”
Clothes and bones would be all that remained. Lauren’s lips pressed tighter so she wouldn’t cry out.
“Looks like a red shirt…” The words seemed to drive right into Lauren’s heart.
Part of her had stubbornly clung to hope. Hope that Jenny was alive somewhere. Alive, happy.
But…
Jenny had been wearing a red shirt when she vanished. A red shirt. Blue jeans. Her brand-new boots—Lauren’s birthday present to her.
“I want to see,” Lauren said. She took a step forward, locking her knees.
Anthony blocked her path. “Do you really want to see her that way?”
The image of Jenny as she’d been, dark hair gleaming, her wide, slow smile lighting up her face, was in Lauren’s mind.
I’ll pick you up—
“We don’t know that it’s her,” Paul was saying, voice thick. “It could be any of the missing girls.”
No. It was the weeping willow tree. The tree Walker had wanted them to find. They’d do a DNA test, but in her heart, Lauren already knew.
She stared up into Anthony’s eyes. His face had locked into a stark mask, but his green eyes shone with emotion. He bent his head toward her. “Don’t do this to yourself,” he whispered. “Remember the way she was, remember—”
“I have to see her.” Didn’t he understand? It wasn’t over. Couldn’t be over, until she saw her sister again.
Anthony shook his head. Pain flashed in his eyes.
The men were clearing the area to bring the body from the earth, the earth that didn’t want to let her go.
Lauren stepped closer and heard one of the men swear.
“Sonofabitch. Her hands are severed.”
Lauren’s body trembled. Anthony was there—always there—to steady her.
“Don’t, Lauren,” he said again.
It was her sister. She had to see.
She took another step.
Dirt. Roots, twisting through the dirt. And…bones. Bones darkened by the soil. An old red shirt, the edge of blue jeans…
A skull that stared up at her.
Something broke inside of Lauren.
She broke.
Anthony’s arms closed around her, and he held her tight.
He wanted to f**king kill. Anthony barely held his rage in check as he watched Lauren make her way to the ME’s office. She’d gone to meet with the mayor in a closed-door meeting—just her, the mayor, and the chief of police—a few moments before, and he sure as hell hoped she’d ripped the dick a new one. They had their evidence now, and there was no way the mayor could shove the body under the rug.