careful. The seaweed sat close to the far edge of the ocean. A single freak wave and it would be pulled back in—and so would Anahera if she got too close. The seaweed fronds gleamed wet and dark, splayed out across the sand like fleshy fingers. The closer Anahera got to the hunk, the less she felt like exploring it, but she couldn’t stop her feet from moving forward. There was something about the shape of it, the way it curved. And the color. Not just green.
Pink.
Orange.
Anahera didn’t realize she was running until she’d reached the seaweed that wasn’t wrapped around anything as prosaic as wood or a whale bone. Her breath painful in her throat, she began to drag the seaweed as far as she could up the sand. She had to make sure it didn’t get sucked back out to sea.
A massive wave crashed ashore, licking dangerously at her feet. Anahera braced her legs, somehow just managing to keep hold of the seaweed and its chilling cargo. Then she pulled, pulled, pulled.
Collapsing on dry sand well clear of the water, her knees sinking into the fine grit of it, she forced herself to look at the seaweed again… forced herself to acknowledge that it wasn’t seaweed she’d hauled up the beach but a body. A body that was discolored and so badly damaged as to be unrecognizable, but that wore an orange top and black leggings with pink side stripes.
Miriama’s shoes were gone, but she still wore her socks.
For some reason, that single detail was enough to crush Anahera’s lungs and drive a scream from her body.
49
Will had barely finished organizing for a forensic team to come out to Golden Cove for the skeletal remains when he got the call from Anahera.
“I found her,” she said in a toneless voice. “The sea brought her back in.”
Will shuddered, bracing his palm against a tree trunk, the bleached bones of the skeleton in his line of sight. He’d done nothing to disturb the scene, but he’d ventured back to the car to grab his camera, then taken as many high-resolution images as he could, well aware that when it came to the actual investigation, he’d be relegated to the bench.
As far as his superiors were concerned, he was a burned-out cop with his best years behind him. No one would trust him to be in charge of a case like this. Will wasn’t about to let that stop him. Not having access to the bones shouldn’t matter as long as he could access the report to do with the probable height, age, and ethnicity of the victim in life.
He didn’t think the forensic team would find any other physical clues.
Whoever had left the bones, whoever had arranged the bones, had done it with clinical care.
It was a taunt, that skeleton. And since Will was the only cop in town, the person raking up old horrors, it was difficult to believe the taunt wasn’t aimed at him. But that was no longer important. “Are you sure?” he asked Anahera.
“Yes.” Her voice almost swept away by the wind, she added, “I’m watching over her. When can you get here?”
Will stared at the skeleton. He couldn’t leave it, not until another officer got to Golden Cove. The chance of someone disturbing the site was too great. “I need you to keep on watching over her,” he said, his hand fisting by his side. “I’ve got someone else here who I can’t leave.”
“Just tell me this—is it someone I know?”
The news would be out soon enough and Anahera wasn’t a woman who spilled secrets. “Skeletal remains,” he told her. “I can’t risk anyone moving the bones.”
“Skeletal…” Another harsh wind, ripping away her words.
But Will had heard the last word she’d said: hiker. It was the same thing he’d thought the instant he’d seen the bones. It could well be one of the three women who’d disappeared fifteen years ago and never been found.
He called the district commander again.
It took an excruciating two hours for the first forensic team to arrive. Will had spoken with Anahera several times, both of them caught in their separate hells and unable to move. He’d considered sending someone else out there—there wouldn’t be a crime scene to contaminate, not if Miriama had come out of the sea—but Anahera had said no.
“Miri shouldn’t be seen like this,” she’d said. “She deserves for us to take care of her.”
As he’d expected, the forensic crew was accompanied by two detectives. “Will.” The