Up in Flames (4 page)

He spent a few more seconds staring her down, then jumped to the ground and stalked off. Humming aloud and flexing her fingers, Sophie steered the big yellow beast toward the mulch pile.

The mulch went fast. By the time she was done, she was steering the loader and maneuvering the scoop at the same time in the precise, mechanical ballet she’d imagined.

The shrubs and trees took longer, and the work was harder, but she finished well before Zane was due back. Sitting in the idling loader, she considered turning it off and strolling to the office. Annie had seemed nice, and they could get to know each other. Or maybe there was work she could help out with, filing or something.

Or she could find something else to do. She swiveled her chair in a one-eighty. On the other end of the backhoe loader, the yellow steel arm was tucked up in its resting position, its sharp-toothed maw curled harmlessly inward. Sophie bit her lip. She’d been proficient with the scoop, even Zane would have to admit it. It was a simple matter of coordination and accuracy. She bet she could teach herself to operate the shovel.

Against his specific instructions.

That part was almost a bonus. Being the meek, obedient worker grated on her temper, especially after he’d implied she couldn’t handle Hooter and Cory. She wasn’t seventeen anymore, and he needed to recognize that.

That was the other part of it. He called her
Doctor
Larkin in a mocking tone, without the respect the title deserved. He didn’t take her achievements seriously. She’d had the same feeling when he’d left her alone with the loader, and being treated like a kid grated even more than trying to act meek. If he ever decided to let her use the shovel, she wanted to be at least as proficient as Cory.

But where to dig? She scanned the hard-packed dirt and granite outcroppings around the yard, and decided the only suitable place was the bare patch near the barn. Right where he’d told her not to drive the loader. But the ground was dry despite what Zane had said, and if she dug a hole there—just a small one—she could fill it in and smooth it over before Zane got back. He’d probably never notice.

Swinging around to face the steering wheel, she put the backhoe in gear and trundled over the grassy weeds to the end of the barn. Damn, the heavy treads left clear impressions, marking her path. But the bare patch of ground near the corner of the building beckoned; if she filled and smoothed over her hole carefully, Zane might never know she’d done more than drive over the weeds. How much could he yell?

She examined the knobs, looking for clues and finding none. Learning was going to have to be hit or miss.

It was harder than she’d expected. When she finally got the shovel poised to dig and the arm in position, she realized she’d missed an important step. The weight of the moving arm meant the body of the tractor needed to be stabilized. She’d seen backhoes operating with little struts to hold them in place, as if they’d reared onto their back legs for leverage. She had no idea how to find or deploy them. She probably wouldn’t be able to dig much of a hole before the motion threw the machine off balance.

So it would be a shallow hole. Working the levers, Sophie dropped the open mouth of the shovel into the dirt. The teeth sank in, disappearing as half the length of the shovel dug easily into the ground. A thrill of success tickled her insides as she scooped up the pile of dirt and dumped it to the side. And dug in again. Harder this time, hard enough to come up with an impressive amount of dirt. She laughed out loud and drove the shovel in again.

It came up trailing long, dark strips. Sophie leaned close to the windshield, squinting. They looked like fabric. Burlap, maybe? Zane must have covered over some old sacks he didn’t want to use, letting them rot in the ground. Carefully, she swung the shovel to the side and dumped the load of dirt and fabric.

Two strips clung to the shovel, pierced by the sharp teeth. Sighing, she let the tractor idle and climbed down to pull them off.

They came away easily, the rotted fabric ripping like paper. She looked at the piece she held. Not burlap. Whatever it was had been finer, like clothing. She bent to the piece she’d dropped, scraping away dirt, examining it carefully. At one end was the unmistakable slit of a buttonhole.

The material fell from her suddenly limp fingers.

It didn’t mean anything, it was just a scrap of old material. Maybe a torn shirt belonging to some workman who’d left it and it had been trampled into the ground. But the creepy sensation that skittered over her scalp and down her back wouldn’t let her walk away without knowing. If it was simply a discarded shirt, there wouldn’t be any other strange items in the dirt. She kicked gingerly at the pile she’d just dumped on the ground. Damp clods rolled aside, revealing nothing but more dirt.

Relief slid over her, soothing her spooked nerves. If she hadn’t been worried about getting caught digging, she probably wouldn’t have let her imagination triumph over logic and invent stupid reasons for a shirt to be buried next to the barn. Reasons she wouldn’t even put into words because they weren’t real. To prove it, she gave a hard kick at the remaining dirt.

Something jutted out from the pile. A stone probably, but lighter than she’d expect to find. Kind of dirt brown and creamy white. She squatted beside it.

Not a stone. The splintered end was unmistakably a bone. That meant the brown stuff clinging to it had to be rotting flesh.

She jumped to her feet, taking a quick step back. She caught the scent now, faint but stomach turning, like meat that had been in a hot garbage can for several days. But worse.

Possibilities spun in her mind. People buried their pet dogs when they died. Or cats. Wild animals died, their bones returning to the earth.

But none of them died with clothes on.

Her heart thudded against her ribs, her blood racing hot and scared. She pressed a hand to her mouth and took another step back, her gaze falling to the hole she’d dug. At the bottom, a gray object lay on the dirt. Unmistakably, a human arm.

She gasped, covering her mouth to stifle a scream. Then covered her nose, too, as she gagged on the smell.

Spinning, she ran for the office.

Zane kept trying to look past the police officer, but the man stood between him and the office window, blocking his view. Cars and vans—county, state, and local—kept driving past the office, into the equipment yard. There had to be twenty people back there by now. Everyone knew what was going on except him. Even Sophie, standing just outside the yard near the gate, could see what was happening back there.

“
Mister
Thorson.”

Zane yanked his attention back to the cop and narrowed one eye at the sarcastic inflection. Slight, but there, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. It was a reminder of the town’s opinion of the Thorsons, especially among the B-Pass police.

“Have you had any problems with people breaking into the yard or the storage barn at night?”

“No, nothing.”

“Any prowlers? Anyone suspicious hanging around?”

“No.”

The cop held him with a carefully neutral stare. “Heard from Emmett lately?”

Zane stiffened at his younger brother’s name, and put a tight hold on the anger that threatened to erupt. The cop would just love that. “Not in the past seven years.”

They had a brief, silent staring contest that ended in a draw. “Are those gates locked every night?”

“Yes.” As he made a note of it, Zane caught another glimpse of Sophie, outside. She just stood there, removed but watching, as if she was waiting for someone. Maybe they weren’t done questioning her. He was dying to question her himself.

“Is there another way inside the chain-link fence?”

His attention flicked back to the cop. “No, just the front gate.”

“Is it possible you ever forget to lock it?”

“No, I always double-check.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

The cop’s eyebrow rose slightly, a questioning look to make sure Zane wanted to stick with that answer, before bending his head to write it down. The reason hit like a fist to his stomach. Shit, he’d just told him there was no way anyone could have sneaked into the yard after hours. He saw the next question coming, and worked at looking unconcerned.

“And who has a key for the lock?”

“Just me. There’s a spare in my desk so Annie can open the yard if I can’t get here for some reason.” He might as well save him the follow-up. “She’s never had to use it.”

“How about other employees?”

“They know Annie has a key. I have no idea if they know where she keeps it.”

“Is it still there?”

Curious himself, he walked around the desk and pulled out the top drawer. “Yes.” He dangled the key, then put it back.

That required a full minute of writing. He watched with a growing sense of trepidation, knowing the cops in B-Pass were predisposed to doubt the innocence of a Thorson. That they had good reason didn’t matter; it put his back up and made him uncooperative, and they knew it. He’d kept his answers restrained and brief, as civil as possible, but damn it, it still gave them plenty of leads to check.

“Are you ever here late at night, Mr. Thorson?”

“Sometimes.”

“Anytime in the past month?”

“Yes, summer’s my busiest time.”

“And would you leave the gates unlocked if you were working late, say in the pole barn?”

He clenched his jaw, reluctant to say it. “Possibly.” Which they both knew meant probably not.

More writing. “I saw floodlights on the barn. Are they motion sensitive?”

“Yes.”

He tapped his pencil on the notepad as he thought, then flipped to a new page. “Are you the one who told Ms. Larkin to work with the backhoe today?”

Sophie. A tiny electric shock ran through him, every nerve coming alert. Sounding neutral was suddenly a challenge. Irritated, resentful, and pissed off, but never neutral, not about Sophie. “Yes.”

“Did you tell her to dig near the back corner of the barn?”

“No.” Shit, here it came. He could feel his guts tighten with anxiety, anticipating the questions that would make him look even more suspicious. He’d specifically told her to stay off the field next to the barn. Hell, he’d told her not to dig at all. He might as well have said,
Don’t dig up that dead body by the back corner of the barn.

“Where did you tell her to dig?”

He hesitated for the first time, and the officer seemed to notice. But the question wasn’t what he’d expected. This cop must not have been the one who talked to Sophie if he didn’t know she’d been told not to dig at all.

He answered carefully, “I didn’t specify.”

Judging by the way his eyebrows flew up, the cop found that amazing. “You left her to do a job and didn’t give her any guidance?”

“She was still learning to use the backhoe, and I didn’t think she’d use the shovel arm yet.” Although why the hell he hadn’t, he’d never know. He’d told her not to, which should have been a big fucking clue that she would. Her mission was to be a major pain in the ass, and like everything else she did, she was good at it.

The cop tapped his pencil on his notepad, thinking, then abruptly slipped both pencil and pad into a pocket. “Thank you, Mr. Thorson. Someone will be taking a DNA swab from you, so stick around. I’ll be in touch with you later.”

Yeah, later this afternoon, as soon as they compared notes and found out he’d told Sophie to stay away from the exact area where she’d dug up the body, making him look guilty as hell.

He had a sudden thought as the cop reached the door, and called out, “Did they ID the body?”

The guy eyed him for several seconds, as if deciding whether to release this bit of information. “Not yet. The coroner said it’s a woman, but identifying her could take some time.”

Meaning she was no longer recognizable. They’d need dental records. His stomach clenched at the unwanted image in his mind, and he wondered how much Sophie had seen.

“When was she, uh, buried?” It sounded better than murdered. Less judgmental.

More assessing looks, as if Zane had some guilty reason for asking. “We don’t know yet. But don’t worry, we will.”