The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,13

robbery, passing bad checks, that sort of thing. Always at the wrong place at the wrong time and up to no good. “We’ll round him up and have a chat.”

“You got his address?”

“Cabin on Settler’s Road?”

“That’s the one. Want me to check him out?” she offered, and Reed remembered she was a go-getter. Single, a little sassy and extremely gung ho.

“Nah, we’re about done here anyway. Thanks.” He hung up and was about to explain when Morrisette said, “I heard. Bronco Cravens again.” She shook her head. “No surprise there. Just can’t keep his nose clean.” Her eyes narrowed and she followed the path of a bee flitting through the tangle of weeds. “Wonder what he was doing here?” She scrabbled in the pocket of her blouse, her fingers coming up empty. “Man, I could use a smoke,” Morrisette admitted, scowling. “But if I did, man, oh, man, you can bet Priscilla would smell it on me and I’d never hear the end of it. Got a nose like a goddamned bloodhound and she’s death on smoking. At least for now. And as far as cigarettes go.” Morrisette’s eyes slid away. “Can’t say about anything else. Kids these days are into weed a lot younger than when I was in school. She’s a good kid, but you just never know.”

Priscilla was a handful, Reed thought. Morrisette’s son, Toby, was a few years younger than his sister and to hear Morrisette tell it, already thinking he was an adult and “the man of the family.” His mother disagreed. “In his dreams,” she’d confided not long ago.

“Come on, let’s get to it,” she added. “You go south, I’ll head north. Let’s just get a feel for this place and hope we don’t find any more bodies.” Reed eyed the woods, tall and gloomy, and wondered if the whole damned estate was a dumping ground for corpses and if there was a serial killer on the loose. The victims discovered in the basement had been there for years, possibly decades, but what if there were more? Fresh ones?

Reed didn’t like the turn of his thoughts. And there was Bronco. Why was he on the property? What was the connection?

As to the victims—yes, girls, he decided, his stomach churning at the thought. They’d been hidden in that hole in the wall a long time.

Who the hell were they?

CHAPTER 4

Nikki eased off the gas as she reached the gates of the Beaumont estate, then sped past. Before she was spotted. Of course the entrance was closed off, police vehicles blocking access except for the authorized vehicles from the department or the medical examiner or forensic team. And, she noted, Reed’s Jeep was wedged between two sheriff’s department SUVs. Deputies had been posted to prevent the public and the press from getting too close to the crime scene and keeping neighbors, the general public and lookie-loos from catching a glimpse of what was going on. Well, too bad. Fortunately, she knew this area like the back of her hand and so she rolled on past the main entrance. Around two curves she found a turnout where the road was wider, a spot that fishermen used to park their cars before they hiked to the river.

She pulled in and parked, locked the car and started jogging along a familiar path through the forest. She came to a fork near a blackened stump and turned without hesitation to the right, doubling back toward the Beaumont estate. She’d come here as a kid along with her brothers and sister. Andrew, the oldest, leading the way, Kyle dogging at his heels, Lily and Nikki lagging behind as they’d followed the old deer trails through the sun-dappled forest. It had been long ago—so long—and now . . . she closed her mind to the past, didn’t want to think of her shattered family. Andrew had died so long ago and his death had sent the family into a tailspin, Kyle rebelling and becoming distant, Lily set upon her own introspective path of bad decisions, and Nikki’s own innocence destroyed. Her parents, never loving to begin with, had never been the same.

But she wouldn’t go there. Not now. Not when she had to concentrate.

She kept running.

Twilight was fast approaching, the gloom settling under the canopy of branches overhead, the smell of the river thick in her nostrils. Roots and rocks made the ground uneven, and spider webs and limbs brushed her bare arms as she caught glimpses of the river through the