Hold Me Close (Ryker Falls #5) - Wendy Vella Page 0,31

we’ll lift the body out and carry it down.”

The process was slow, but eventually they got everything ready and were soon heading to where the others waited. They all then began the long, silent journey down carrying the body.

Arriving at the ranger station, Fin signaled the men to carry the body to the small building on the side where they kept supplies, opening it with his keys. They placed it inside, and he locked it.

“Now I need you boys to keep this to yourself for now. I’ll call Chief Blake, and then he’ll do what he can to get an ID on whoever this is as soon as he can.”

“My money’s on Simon Linbar,” Lint said. “Been missing about two years now.”

“Speculating is not helping,” Fin said. “Now you head off, and thanks for your efforts today.”

“Hell of a thing,” Joe said. “Want us to stick around?”

“No point. Besides, I’ll be getting that body out again soon.” The color that had only just found its way back into Joe’s face started to drain away again.

Luke grabbed his brother’s arm as he stumbled. “You always had a weak stomach.”

There was only him in the station on Saturday, so Fin made coffee, then headed to his office, where Chief Blake found him writing a report on everything that had happened and eating a stale donut he’d found in his desk.

“Do you think it’s the femur’s owner?”

“Yeah. I looked at the legs, and there was one missing, but then the body was in a bad way, so I’d need that confirmed. My guess is an animal dug up the grave and took the leg.”

“Glad you found it and not me,” Chief Blake said, going to Fin’s coffeepot and pouring himself a cup. He then sat across the desk. “Who the hell would have murdered someone and buried them on Phil, and why?”

“It wasn’t somewhere a day hiker would find it, and off the trail. My guess is that whoever buried that body believed it was buried for good,” Fin said.

“So it’s likely murder,” Chief Blake said. “Unless someone wanted to be buried up there and a relative promised they’d see it done.”

“I doubt they’d have put them in a shallow grave, and this is not the Wild West, Chief. We embalm and put our dead in coffins if we don’t cremate them.”

“I know it, but I have to look at all sides. Plus, there is plenty of crazy in this town.”

“Amen.”

Chief Blake drank his coffee and talked while Fin finished typing up the report.

He got up when he heard noises outside his door. Mrs. Linbar was there at the reception desk, looking pale and desperate when he arrived

“Is it him?” she said. “You have to tell me if it’s him, my son. You have to know by now, Findlay.”

Letitia Linbar and her husband owned a large house on two sites in the residential part of town. They had money, and while nothing like Mrs. Howard and her belief she was better than just about anyone, they were fairly vocal on their own importance. Until the day their youngest son had disappeared, the town had tolerated them, and maybe whispered a few things behind hands about them. After that, they were left alone to live the hell they’d been plunged into.

“Now, Mrs. Linbar, we can’t know that yet,” Fin said.

He wasn’t sure how she knew he’d brought a body down the mountain, but when he found out who had given her that information, there would be hell to pay. She had run out of the house in her slippers, white and fluffy, and black trousers and a white shirt. No, sweater or hat, no gloves.

Shrugging out of his jacket, he wrapped it around her shivering shoulders.

“There’s a process to finding out who Fin brought down, Letitia,” Chief Blake said. “If it’s Simon, we’ll let you know immediately when the identity is given to us.”

Her face seemed to collapse. Fin grabbed her hands as she stumbled back. He lowered her to a waiting room chair.

“I just want to know where he is,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry.” He crouched before her. “And I know those words don’t help, but I truly am for how you’ve suffered… are still suffering.”

Behind him, he heard the low rumble of Chief Blake talking on the phone.

“H-he just disappeared. One day he was there, and the next not,” she whispered. “It’s been torture not knowing what happened.” Her eyes told him how she’d suffered. “I need to know where he is, Fin.