The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,94

home skittered through her brain.

“You’re being an idiot,” she said, and saw her worried eyes in her reflection in the rearview mirror. “Get over yourself.”

Traffic thinned as she eased out of the city and into farmland, where she spotted cattle grazing in lush fields, a tractor pulling a trailer toward a red barn, a few hazy clouds in a blue, blue sky. She told herself to calm down, to not let little things get to her, let the warmth of a lazy Georgia day settle over her. As she slowed to turn onto Settler’s Road, another vehicle, a delivery van, caught up to her and rather than slow, moved into the oncoming lane as she turned. Behind the van, a gray pickup with tinted windows, too, gave her wide berth and sped past.

Odd, she thought, but really not. Everyone was in a hurry.

As was she.

She hit the gas as the road wound along the banks of the river and using her GPS located the lane where several NO TRESPASSING signs had been posted.

“Too bad.” She ignored the warnings, her Honda bouncing a little on the rutted lane where little gravel had been spread. She drove through a thick stand of pine and maple trees that gave way to a small clearing and Bronco Cravens’s weathered cabin. A beat-up Ford Ranger was parked near a dilapidated garage.

He was home!

Good!

She pulled in behind the pickup and parked.

Bronco wouldn’t be thrilled to see her. She knew that. Obviously, he was avoiding her, not wanting to discuss his reasons for being at the Beaumont estate, but it was now or never.

Grabbing her phone and iPad, hoping Bronco would open up to her, she slid out of her Honda and headed to the front door.

It was open.

The screen door was unlatched and moving slightly in the slight breeze, the front door open wide.

She knocked and peered inside, where a television was tuned to the news, a lamp burning, nothing stirring, no noise from within. “Bronco?” she called through the screen. “Bronco?” She stepped inside and felt a little uneasy. “Hey, it’s Nikki Gillette. We met years ago. I’m a reporter for the Sentinel.” She stepped through the living room, noting the empty dog bed, sagging couch, full ashtray and a couple of empty beer bottles left on the coffee table. A rifle, too, had been left on the kitchen floor. Odd. Or was it? What did she really know about Bronco Cravens?

Not nearly enough.

“Bronco?” she yelled again, a little louder, her nerves beginning to tighten, the smell of stale smoke hanging in the air.

She sensed he wasn’t inside, that the house seemed devoid of life. Silent. Almost eerily so. Walking through his home seemed wrong.

“In for a penny . . .” she said under her breath as she stepped into the kitchen, where more empties littered the counter by the remains of a microwave meal near the sink, a fly buzzing near it. A dog’s water dish was half-full on the dirty floor near the open back door.

Maybe he just stepped outside for a second.

She heard the crunch of tires on gravel and glanced through a grimy kitchen window but couldn’t see the drive. It could be that Bronco and his dog had gone with a friend somewhere. And here she was basically trespassing inside his house. Locked door or no locked door, it would be hard to explain what she was doing poking around.

The engine died and a car door slammed.

Just one.

She started back to the living room, then thought better of it. Maybe she should just step onto the back porch and act as if she hadn’t been in the house and—

She saw the blood.

Thick red stains on the weed-choked grass and . . . Oh, God!

Her eyes landed on a body lying facedown in the backyard. A dark red stain had spread over the back of his T-shirt.

“No!” she screamed, racing outside, flying off the porch, whipping out her phone and already dialing 911. “No, no, no!” She slid on the bloody grass as she reached the man and knew before she tried to find a pulse.

Her stomach heaved and she had to fight the urge to throw up. She wanted to turn him over. To look at his face, but she knew better than to mess with the crime scene, so she stepped away as the operator answered, and said, “This is Nikki Gillette and I want to report a murder.” Her voice was strained, her insides shaking. “It’s Bronco—Bruno Cravens.