Below the Bones (Widow's Island #5) - Kendra Elliot Page 0,3

pencil thin with spiderlike limbs. His kneecaps protruded and looked as if a mild blow would knock them off. How he managed to lift a kayak was a mystery.

If Henry were Luke, he wouldn’t challenge Bruce Taylor. The deputy was young and muscular.

“Beat it, Luke,” Tessa told him. “Or I’ll tell everyone here what I caught you doing behind the ice creamery.”

Luke flushed. Even his tattoos on his skull reddened. He turned and left without a word.

Cate snorted as Luke vanished into the woods. “What’d he do?”

Tessa wrinkled her nose. “It was last summer. One of the insanely hot days. He was using ice cream like suntan lotion on his chest and shoulders and legs.” She raised a brow. “He was just about to start on body parts that don’t need suntan lotion when I found him.”

Henry couldn’t speak. “In public?”

“Not really. His kayak shop isn’t that far from the creamery if you take the alley behind the buildings. No one else was around.”

“That’s creepy,” added Cate.

“He’s harmless,” said Tessa. “Other than being rather odd, he’s never done a thing.”

“Will he spread the word about what’s going on up here?” Henry asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Tessa. “He’s not a gossip.”

“Unlike everyone else on the island,” said Cate. She was studying the ground, walking away from the current grave.

Henry agreed. There were few secrets on Widow’s.

Cate halted. “I think we’ve got another depression. And it makes an almost perfect line if the first depression is another body.” She paused. “That’s how we found them before. Six graves in a line. This is looking more and more like Jeff Lamb’s work.”

Tessa sighed and pulled out her phone. “Anyone got a signal?”

No one did.

“Radio works,” said Bruce.

“I need to make a call, so we’re done for now. Bruce, I’d like you to stay here to keep an eye on things. Hopefully no one else will come by,” Tessa told him. “I need to talk to the FBI before we dig any more.”

Henry squatted to see the depression Cate had spotted. She was right. He looked up and met her gaze, then caught her mix of emotions. Dread. Sorrow. And interest.

She wants back in the game.

3

“What do you think, Cate?”

Cate paused, her phone against her ear. She had called Phillip, her former supervisor at the FBI, after she’d returned home from the excavation. Phillip had held a different position in the Seattle office when she’d worked on the case of the murdered women.

“I think it’s too big of a coincidence,” she said slowly. “I’m positive there are two other graves nearby. All three line up neatly. The locket. The photo. That’s too many similarities.”

“I’ve been reviewing the case since your county sheriff’s office called. There’s no hint in the notes that Jeff Lamb buried victims on an island . . . or killed more women than we found.”

“I know. But he wasn’t one to volunteer information. He was incredibly cocky even after we arrested him. During our interviews I always had to fight off the feeling that he was the teacher and I was an inept student. He always asserted that it was pure luck that we’d caught him.”

“So it’s possible these bodies are more of his.”

“It’s possible.”

“What about a copycat?”

“That’s possible too,” she admitted. “It has to be one or the other. We kept tabs on everything that was said by the media. The lockets were never mentioned, but that doesn’t mean the word didn’t get out another way.”

“You know Les Mallin passed away a year ago, right?” Phillip asked.

“Yes.” Les had been the lead investigator on the Lamb murders. A quiet and hardworking agent, he’d taught Cate many things during the case, and she had wept bitterly at the loss of her friend.

“That makes you the person with the most experience on Jeff Lamb.”

“It’s a moot point. I’m not with the FBI—and anyone can read the files to catch up.” Her pulse quickened. The thought of delving back into the Lamb murder case nauseated her.

And excited her. “I’m a business owner and baker now.”

“Bullshit. You bored out of your mind yet?”

“I appreciate the lack of stress.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Before finding the burial location, Cate would have staunchly defended her statement. But she couldn’t deny the appeal of the mental stimulation surrounding the mysterious grave. Something inside her had woken that morning. Something she’d suppressed.

“I’m sending Mike Scarn to the island to handle the investigation,” Phillip told her.

Cate was silent.

Phillip continued. “He knows the Lamb case pretty well, and he’s available.”

Mike did