“I never thought about it. It never occurred to me that it might be missing.” She gazed off into the field. “Maybe it’s buried out there someplace, turned over into the field by the tractor when the field was plowed.”

“Or maybe,” he said as he got behind the wheel and started the car, “it wasn’t a stranger she ran into that night.”

9

Mosquitoes. The bane of summer.

Lorna swatted at the air around her head and pulled the covers up a little higher. Why do they always seem to know when you’re having the best dream?

She hunched under the covers, but the buzzing persisted. It was another long minute before she realized there was no mosquito in her room. Someone was buzzing the doorbell.

She got out of bed and went to the side window. Looking toward the front of the house, she saw a black-and-white police car, engine on and the lights silently whirling. She threw up the sash and called out, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

She pulled on her clothes and slipped her feet into rubber flip-flops and went downstairs, grumbling to herself. It was eight A.M., and she hadn’t had coffee. She hadn’t slept well, what with Uncle Will prowling around, though thankfully he’d settled into his old room at the end of the hall by two this morning and hadn’t been heard from since. And then there was the matter of T. J. Dawson and what to do about him. She’d spent all day Sunday and well into the night wrestling with herself over the issue.

Hire him? Not hire him?

Hire him? Not hire him?

Part of her wanted to hire him, just to have him around, just to be able to spend a little more time with him. Not a good enough reason to spend a considerable amount of money. She couldn’t remember the last man she’d met who’d interested her as much as he did, though.

Actually, she could, but he’d turned out to be a dud, she reminded herself.

She unlocked the front door and opened it to find Chief Walker, looking annoyed.

“I’m sorry, Chief, but I didn’t sleep well last night so I overslept and-”

“Sorry to wake you.” It was obvious to Lorna he wasn’t the least bit sorry. “But we have a problem.”

“Chief, I told Brad I didn’t call the FBI, I only-”

“Not that problem,” he cut her off again. “The construction crew seems to have hit gold again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They found another one.”

“Another…” It took a minute for it to sink in. “Another body?”

“Well, bones. Definitely human bones.”

“Please tell me it’s not a small child,” she whispered.

“It’s not a small child. A bone from one leg is missing, but I’d say the person was five-seven, five-eight, in that range.” He paused. “It wasn’t Melinda Eagan, that much I’m sure of. I just wanted to give you a heads-up, is all, let you know what’s happening. You’re going to be seeing a lot more activity out there this time, once the press gets ahold of this.”

“I appreciate it, Chief.”

“The ME is on his way, same routine as before.” He stared at her for a minute, then said, “Any idea what the hell went on back there, Lorna?”

She shook her head. “I’m as mystified as you are. More so, because that was Palmer land, we owned it at the time Jason and this other person were buried there.”

“I guess it would be too much to hope that at some point over the years, you noticed something funny going on out in your fields.”

“Never. I’m sorry. Finding Jason’s body was one thing, finding another one so soon after…” She shook her head. How could this be happening on her family farm?

“Might give your brother and sister a call, see if they remember anything. If you think of something, even a little thing-like maybe some homeless person you used to see hanging around a lot, anything like that-you give me a call.”

“Will do,” she said, thinking he’d like nothing better than to be able to pin this on some nameless stranger. “Chief, how will this affect the case against Billie Eagan?”

He visibly prickled. “You sound like a reporter. Won’t affect it at all. Why should it?”

“It’s one thing to think that she killed her son in a fit of anger, which appears to be your theory. It’s another altogether to think she killed some stranger.”

“Now, we don’t know that it’s a stranger we found, do we? Let’s not put the horse before the cart.” He turned and walked to his car. “We’ll get back to you if we need you.”

Lorna watched from the doorway while the police car made a circle in the drive. The chief looked straight ahead, not bothering to wave on his way past, though surely he knew she was still standing there. Guess he’s still pretty pissed off.

She closed the door and went back upstairs to look for her keys, debating whether to change her clothes before running out to the mini-mart for her morning coffee. Deciding against changing, she grabbed her handbag from the floor next to the bed, where she’d dropped it the night before. Troubled by the latest finding, she set out, distracted, on her morning errand.

Lorna had just walked into the Quik Stop when she heard someone calling her name. She looked around but didn’t see anyone she recognized. She was pouring her coffee when she felt someone a step or two too close to her.

Then someone whispered in her ear, “That cup’s on the house.”

“Fritz!” She laughed, looking over her shoulder.

“Lorna, put that cup down so I can give you a real welcome-home hug.”

She set the cup on the counter and put her arms around him.

“It’s so good to see you,” she told him. “I stopped to see Mrs. Hammond just the other day, and she told me you and Mike bought this place. I come here every morning and this is the first time I’ve seen either of you.”

“Mrs. Hammond said you were stopping in for coffee every day, so I thought I’d start watching for you. I’m in the office for the first few hours of each day, and Mike comes in around four.”

“I’m late this morning. I’m usually here by seven.”

Another customer reached past her for a cup, and Lorna picked up her coffee and stepped aside.

“I heard you were right in the middle of this thing with Mrs. Eagan,” Fritz said, guiding her out of the way of a woman searching for the right color sweetener packet. “I can’t believe they found Jason after all these years. And right out there, on your farm.”

“That section isn’t ours anymore, but yeah, it’s crazy. And this morning, it got even crazier.” She told Fritz about Chief Walker’s early-morning visit.

“Holy shit, another body?”

Two customers at the pastry counter turned around to stare.

“That was exactly my reaction when he told me.” She lowered her voice. “I can’t believe someone brought bodies onto our farm to bury them, but that’s apparently what happened.”

“Any idea who this latest person was, how he or she died?”

“Nothing so far. The ME hadn’t even arrived yet. I guess it will be awhile before they know anything. And they’re not likely to tell me. I’m persona non grata around the police station right now.”

“I heard about that, too.”

“You did?” She frowned. “What exactly did you hear?”

“I heard that you bailed out Mrs. Eagan-which I can understand you doing. She was a friend of your mother’s, and you and Melinda were friends, right?”

Lorna nodded. “What else did you hear?”

“I heard you pulled some strings and had the FBI brought into the case.”

She shook her head. “Not true. First of all, I have no strings to pull. Second, I did not call the FBI. What I did was talk to a PI about the possibility of him looking into the case. It’s important to me to know the truth. If Mrs. Eagan killed one or both of her children, I want to know. If she suckered my mother into believing she was innocent so that she could use her and their friendship, I want to know that as well.”