Ashes and Bone (3 page)

Six minutes later,
the sound of the wind and thunder had faded into the distance, ebbing away as the storm moved south. Jaymee peeked around the stairs and saw weak light streaming from beneath the door.

“Be careful,” Dani said. “I’m texting Cage to let him know we’re all right. Watch out for glass.”

Jaymee slowly opened the door. Battered-looking daylight streamed in the kitchen window. Cautiously, the two women crept through the lower level. In the living room, Jaymee saw a broken window and an overturned chair, the fabric torn. Outside, the oak had lost another limb, and the rosebushes were stripped of their leaves. Dialing Nick’s number again, she hurried upstairs, terrified of what she’d find.

She saw the window in the master bedroom had shattered, the shards all over the floor. Any other time, Jaymee would mourn the loss of the original window. The four-poster bed was pushed against the bureau, both antiques. Most of the items Jaymee had on top of the dresser lay on the floor, some in pieces. She barely registered the damage. Nick still wasn’t answering his phone.

“I can fix that,” Dani said, pointing to the gouge on the bureau and the marks the bed had left on the floor. She glanced at Jaymee. “Cage texted back. They’re okay at the station but already getting calls. He said to keep trying Nick.”

The other bedroom on that side of the house, the one she’d readied for guests, was in a similar condition as the master. Jaymee barely heard Dani’s promises that she could salvage everything.

Jayme kept hitting redial. Every unanswered ring pulsed in her head.

“Nick’s phone is going to voicemail,” Jaymee said. “It’s not even ringing anymore.”

“Let’s go. If my truck’s not in a tree, I’ll drive.”

They hurried outside with Mutt slinking along at their heels. Dani’s small Chevy pickup looked undamaged, except for the oak branch now lying in the bed. Jaymee noticed limbs down all over the yard and the planters on the porch scattered, but she didn’t even care at this point. All she could think of was Nick.

Mutt clambered into the backseat, and Dani headed down Magnolia’s drive, the truck easily rolling over the downed limbs. Jaymee gazed up at the house’s roof and took a moment to thank God it was still intact.

Neither woman spoke as Dani drove through town. The storm hadn’t produced rain, making the air thick with dust and dirt and smelling of ripe earth, but damage was evident. Homeowners were already outside, checking on neighbors and picking up the pieces. Jaymee stared out the window, crushing panic working its way through her weary body. She couldn’t muster the emotion to feel sorry for any of the destruction she saw. All she could think about was Nick. She kept calling, his voicemail kept answering. “Hi, this is Nick. Sorry I missed your call, but I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
That damned message will be forever ingrained in my head.

Tears stung Jaymee’s eyes at the sight of Annabelle’s Bed and Breakfast. Nick had stayed in the restored Victorian when he and Jaymee fell in love, and now the house’s majestic tower was demolished, its remains scattered around the yard, the original pieces lost forever.

Please let him be all right.

She scrubbed at the dripping tears. Other houses had roof damage, electrical wires were down, one light pole snapped cleanly in half.

How could a tiny car survive that sort of power?

Hands numb and shaking, Jaymee dialed Nick’s number again.

He still didn’t answer.

Usually Highway 84, the main route from Roselea to Jackson, teemed with traffic. But today it was eerily quiet, with only the occasional passing car. No one wanted to drive south toward the storm.

Ahead, a car sat motionless. Recognition and then terror struck Jaymee’s brain and worked its way out of her mouth in a scream.

Nick’s car sat on the southbound side of the road, skid marks showing its progression across the pavement. A massive dent in its center, the driver’s side door hung open a couple of inches at an odd angle, like something had tried to rip it away.

Jaymee fell out of the truck before Dani fully stopped. Now that the roar of the storm had passed, the stillness of the air pierced her eardrums. No birds chirped in the nearby patch of woods. Even the normally relentless mockingbirds were silent. The slap of her shoes on the smooth, faded pavement and her own panting breaths were the only sounds Jaymee heard. Darting across the road took only seconds, but it seemed longer, enough for the worst to take root in her mind and blossom into a nightmare.

She skidded to a halt at the twisted driver’s door. Catching her breath, she looked inside. Then around to the other side of the car, on the shoulder near the trees. Acid bubbling in her stomach, she dropped to her knees and checked beneath the vehicle.

“He’s not here.”

“What?” Panting, Dani reached her side, phone pressed against her ear. “Cage is sending an ambulance.” She looked into the car and then at Jaymee. “Where is he?”

Jaymee peered into the backseat. She saw Nick’s suitcase.

“He’s not in the car, Cage,” Dani said. “No, there’s no blood that I can see. The air bag deployed. His suitcase is here though, and I can see the keys still in the ignition.”

Jaymee reached for the twisted door, but Dani caught her arm. “Cage said not to touch anything. He’s on his way.”

J
aymee shook her
head. Nothing made sense. The airbag hung limply; Nick had to be in some amount of pain from the airbag if not injured. If he’d walked away, he’d have likely gone into town, which meant they would have seen him on the highway. Maybe a Good Samaritan had picked him up.

She called the hospital, hoping to hear Nick had been admitted and his cellphone gone missing. A brisk-sounding nurse answered.

“I’m looking for my boyfriend.” Jaymee blurted out the words. “He was in a wreck outside of town coming from Jackson. His name is Nick Samuels.”

“I can’t give out that information.”

A shot of pain pierced Jaymee’s head. She gritted her teeth. “I know you’re not supposed to, but please make an exception. I’m desperate.”

“You aren’t next of kin. It’s against privacy laws. I’m sorry.”

Jaymee ended the call before she laid into the woman who was just doing her job. “Where is he?” She paced around the car, repeatedly calling Nick. “His phone is still going straight to voicemail.”

A sick worry snaked its way through her. The wind had been strong enough to break tree limbs and snap a light pole in half. What if it had simply carried Nick away?

“But shouldn’t there be some sort of blood?” Jaymee spoke to the car, as if it might answer.

Dani stood at the edge of the road staring into the barren rice field. “I don’t see any signs of footprints this way,” she said. “But you can tell the wind came through here—see the path?”

Cutting through the field was a broad trail, as if someone had come through with a massively wide rake. The path headed towards town. Jaymee walked to the other side of the tree-lined road that led into a large, swampy area. “I don’t see anything here either. But the grass is lying down. And I’m not a tracker.”

“Maybe he got a ride,” Dani said. “Got out of the car relatively uninjured, and someone picked him up.”

“Then why hasn’t he
called
? And why wouldn’t he take his stuff?” Jaymee finally spit out the words. “What if the wind carried him away?”

“Let’s be rational,” Dani said. “The wind didn’t use the door handle. He did.”

“But he wrecked,” Jaymee said. “The air bag deploys, he’s stunned. Maybe his ribs are hurt. He opens the car, thinking to get help or even take shelter in the ditch. And then the wind…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Her throat burned.

Dani stared into the field. Her hands tangled in her light hair, pulling it away from her face as she turned in a circle. Her slow speech bugged Jaymee. It meant her friend was just as uncertain as she was, and that wasn’t Dani. She made snap decisions and stuck to them. Right now, she was obviously off kilter, and her confusion only made Jaymee feel more helpless.

“God, I just don’t know,” Dani said. “I can’t even tell which direction it could have taken him.”

“It doesn’t matter if it did.” An unbearable hollowness—a gaping void Jaymee would never be able to fill—replaced her panic. “He’s dead.”

“Nick’s a smart guy. If he were in the eye of the storm, no matter how stunned he was, I don’t think he would have gotten out of that car. I mean, either way, he’s in trouble. But getting out in that wind would be really stupid when there’s no other shelter around. He got out after the storm.”

“Then where is he?” Jaymee’s shrill voice hurt her own ears. “And where the hell is Cage?”

Flashing cherry lights answered that question. Cage pulled up in an Adams County Cruiser with Captain Gina Barnes riding shotgun. A detective now, he’d cut his shaggy hair and had a clean-shaven face. Any other day, Jaymee would call him Keystone and watch him steam. Dani rushed toward him, throwing her arms around his tall frame. He kissed the top of her head. A tremor of pain rippled through Jaymee.
Where is Nick?

Gina approached her, grim faced. Short and strong with an imposing presence and downplayed features, she always struck Jaymee as the type of woman who never smiled unless she was around friends. “You didn’t touch anything, did you?”

“No. But his stuff is there. He wouldn’t go off and leave it, and he wouldn’t ignore my calls. I think he wrecked, tried to get out, and the wind…”

Gina walked along the road following the skid marks. “We’ll try to get a group of volunteers to search, but eighty-mile-an-hour winds probably wouldn’t blow someone away. He’d have to be facing it head on or from the back for a significant amount of time, and even then, I’m not sure it could pick him up and carry him any real distance. But I won’t completely write off the possibility.”

Jaymee tried to respond, but her mouth refused to work. She held up her hands, shook her head. Dani stood next to her, slipping an arm around her shoulders.

“I need you two to move aside while we look at the vehicle.” Cage stepped past them to examine the door. Kneeling, he ran a hand along the hinges and then the casing, before trying to pull it open enough to get a better look inside.

“What do you think?” Gina crossed her arms with an expectant look on her face. She’d already come to her own conclusion, Jaymee realized, and wanted to see if Cage agreed.

“I don’t think he got out during the storm,” Cage said. “Look at the way the hinges are. If he’d opened it in that wind, the door would have been caught up immediately.” Cage swept his long arm back for emphasis. “At the very least, the wind would have bent the frame significantly, if not ripped the door clean off.”

“What are you saying?” A spark of hope flickered in Jaymee’s head.

“I think the damage from the door is because of the wreck. Somebody hit the driver’s door, dented it in, and then Nick struggled to get it open.”

Cage studied the skid marks for a moment and then went back to the door, nose nearly against the dent. “There’s paint marks here, Gina.”

“I figured.” She pointed to the black streaks across the pavement. “We’ll have to get a specialist out here to tell us for sure, but I’m thinking there are two sets of marks. One car may have been going significantly faster than the other, the second vehicle traveling in the opposite direction.”

“Could be the storm blew someone into him,” Cage said. “Slams the door, car slide and come to a stop. Door’s damaged, stuck.” He toed the gravel on the shoulder. “And with the force of the wind, trace evidence might be gone.”

He snapped on a pair of latex gloves. The sterile sound echoed across the empty fields and made gooseflesh break out on Jaymee’s arms. Cage took hold of the side of the door, wedging his hands in the gap between it and the car, and pulled. The metal groaned and squealed, but the door opened easily.

“Look there,” Gina said.

A footprint on the inside of the door. “He kicked it open.” The flame of hope Jaymee felt just a moment before snuffed out. “Which means he did—”

“No,” Cage said. “If he’d kicked this door open during the storm, the wind would have pulled it back, like I said. I think he sat here until the storm was over and then got out. And whoever hit him obviously had to back up. Assuming they waited and didn’t just run.”

“Then where is he?” Jaymee had about a sliver of control left. Her legs felt pulled down into an inescapable well of grief ready to consume her. “He wasn’t walking on the side of the road. He’s not answering his phone. If he weren’t hurt, he would let me know he was all right.”

“What did he say when he called earlier?” Gina asked.

Thinking about the conversation stung. “That he was working on a story. He wasn’t supposed to visit this weekend, but he needed to talk to me about it, he said. In person.”

“Did he give you any idea what it was about?” Gina asked.

“No.”

Jaymee struggled to watch over Cage’s shoulder as the Captain went around to the passenger side. She opened the door and peered inside. “I’d like to know where our other party is. I sent a deputy to the Roselea hospital and called in a favor with the Fayette police. No one reported a wreck in this area. What do you see, Investigator Foster?”

“Spilt coffee,” Cage said. “Still wet. No sign of blood, but…”

“Go on.”

“See the airbag? It looks almost like it’s been wiped off.” He pointed to the center console. “And same thing here.” He put his nose to the material. “Smells like some kind of wipe.”

“Who cleans up their mess after they wreck?” Dani asked.

Another scenario brewed in Jaymee’s head. But the idea made little sense. Still, her brain latched onto the seed of thought and began to cultivate it.

“Jay, you said he was coming down here about a story?” Cage asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Did you take his laptop bag out of the car?”

“No. I didn’t touch anything.”

“It’s not here,” Gina said. “Suitcase is, but not the laptop bag.”

“Well, that is what Nick would take with him.” Bitterness laced Jaymee’s tone, and she burned with shame.