Buried Secrets (New Adult Dark Suspense Romance) (4 page)

She was about to protest—she hadn’t kissed him! But she had, hadn’t she? She’d been ready to do far more than that, just to avoid having to go out and face the impossible. But was that why she’d done it? Something about what Nick had said that night stuck with her.
I’ve seen the way he looks at you.
But she hadn’t. Not until they’d been on their knees in the funeral home closet, face to face, breath caught and bodies pressed close.

“I don’t know.” She lied, watching the path his finger took, trying to dissociate herself from her hand, to pretend it was someone else he was touching. It was driving her crazy, sending hot waves of electricity up her arm and straight down her spine. She could have pulled away, of course. But she didn’t. “Because I hate you.”

“I know.” He smiled, lifting her hand and pressing his lips to her reddened palm. Just the memory of his mouth on hers gave her goose bumps. She didn’t like how her body responded to his nearness, his attention. His breath warmed her skin, eyelashes brushing her fingers. He closed her hand into a fist, as if this would allow her to keep his kiss. Then he let her go, sliding his chair back and moving to get up.

Dusty stopped him with a question. “What did you tell the police?”

“The same thing I just told you.” He snorted lightly, sitting again. “Only about a hundred more times.”

She leaned forward, elbows on the table, looking at him speculatively. “Did they make you take a lie detector test?”

His smile was small and sad. “Is that the only thing that would make you believe me? If it is, I’ll go take one right now.”

“I don’t know.” She brushed her hair away from her face, leaning her chin on her palm—the same one his lips had brushed just moments before, still sticky from the licorice. The intimacy of the moment still held her in its spell, in spite of her racing mind. Her body didn’t seem to care about rational thought—it leaned toward him, as if seeking his warmth. “Something just doesn’t add up.”

“Do you really think I would do anything to hurt Nick?”

“No.” Dusty shook her he
ad slowly, finally admitting it out loud to him. He looked relieved, reaching for her hand again, but a knock on the door stopped him.

✝
Chapter Fou
r
✝

“Well hey there, Missy.” Sheriff Buck Thompson stepped into the kitchen. It was strange to see him
out of uniform. He was a big man, tall and wide, with a thick mustache just starting to go grey. He was formidable when he wore his sidearm, usually accompanied by sunglasses and a hat no matter what the weather. To Dusty, he looked older in just a suit, dark hair thinning around the sides of a widow’s peak.

I probably teethed on his badge,
she thought. Buck was a good friend of her father's and spent a great deal of casual time around their place. He’d taught her brother how to shoot his first gun. Her too. She noticed him holding yet another casserole and wondered if she should follow her instincts and ask him what leads they had.

Or is that bad etiquette?

“Hi, Sheriff. Thanks for coming.” Dusty gave him her polite, Julia-approved speech. “Can I get that for you?”

“Sure.” Buck gave up his casserole dish. Dusty set it on the counter in the space Shane had cleared—there was now officially no room on the table—seeing the wariness in Shane’s eyes. She couldn’t blame him, if Buck had been the one who questioned him about Nick’s death.

“I'm so sorry about your brother,” the sheriff said. “He was such a good boy. We're doing everything we can.”

Boy.
Everyone still thought of them as kids, she realized. Buck still referred to her as
missy
, for pete’s sake. She kept herself between Shane and the sheriff, keeping him out of Buck’s line of sight. Julia wouldn’t approve of raised voices or any sort of confrontation. Dusty’s outburst at the funeral home had been horrifying enough.

“Do you have any idea yet what might have happened?” Dusty threw funereal etiquette out the window. Besides, Julia wasn't listening.

“Not any more than the papers say.” He shook his head sadly. “Probably an animal. Bobcat, we figure. Horrible thing. Just horrible.”

“Bobcat my ass.” Shane stood, chair scraping across the tile. So much for trying to stop a confrontation, Dusty thought, seeing the flash of anger in his eyes.

“Someone at the funeral home said it might have been a cougar,” Dusty offered, feeling the tension between the two of them. It crackled in the air like heat lightning.

“Shane.” Buck Thompson gave a curt nod, his jaw rigid. He looked back down at Dusty, his gaze softening. “No, sweetheart, that’s not possible. There are no cougars left in Michigan.”

“Bullshit.” Shane gave a short laugh. “That’s what the DNR would like you to think.”

Dusty smirked. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources had been claiming for years there were no cougars in the state.

She looked back at Shane, interested. “You think it really was a cougar?”

“No.” Shane’s eyes never left the sheriff’s. “It wasn’t a bobcat either. But that’s what the papers will say. And that’s good for business, isn’t it, Sheriff?”

“Watch yourself, son.” Buck drew himself up to his full, towering height. He was a good half a foot taller than Shane’s six-feet. Both of them loomed over Dusty. “When’s your big brother due for parole again?”

Shane didn’t answer, but it was his jaw that tightened now.

“Listen, sweetheart, we’re doing our best.” Buck turned his attention to her, sounding both harried and defensive. She noticed his hair going gray at the temples too, but she remembered when it had once been thick and jet-black.

“Your best,” Dusty breathed. She looked back at Shane, incredulous. She didn’t know what he saw on her face, but it made him come fast around the table, stepping up behind her as she turned on the sheriff, eyes blazing, hands clenched into tight fists.
“Your best!?”

She felt Shane’s hand on her shoulder, heard him murmur, “Easy,” but she wasn’t listening. The anger that had been simmering since that early morning phone call came to a full boil as she turned her rage onto Larkspur’s town sheriff, a man she’d known and loved her whole life. Her chest burned, throat aching with the bitterness of her words, and if Shane hadn’t grabbed her around the waist as she started forward, pinning her arms to her sides, she felt as if she probably could have torn the man apart with her bare hands.

“Your best!” she hissed. Shane’s arms around her reminded her of the people in the next room, of Julia’s presence and her insistence on calm and order and proper behavior. Even though she struggled against his hold, she was, in some ways, grateful for it. “Are you kidding me? Joe Wilson last month! My brother this month! So where’s this so-called bobcat?”

“Dusty, listen.” Buck took a deep breath, but he didn’t get to finish.

“Fuck you!” she snapped. “I’m done listening! I don’t want to hear any more talk. I want action! You and Deputy Dawg need to get off your fat asses and swear off trips to Dunkin Donuts in Millsberg until you catch who—or what—killed my brother!”

“Hey.” Buck straightened, eyes hardening. “I know it’s hard to accept. But you have to trust me on this. Your brother was killed by an animal.”

“So why did you bring Shane in for questioning?”

Shane’s hold tightened on her, and she felt his sudden intake of breath. It was inaudible but his chest expanded quickly against her back.

“Just information.” Buck Thompson looked over her shoulder at Shane who was still gripping her tightly in the circle of his arms. “Isn’t that right, Shane?”

Shane didn’t respond.

“I want to know.” Dusty cried. “I deserve to know!”

The sheriff nodded. “This stuff takes time. I’ve done everything I can do. We’ve got evidence being processed over at the lab and I’ve called in more help from the Millsberg force for the night watch out at the cemetery.”

“If you’ve had a watch out there, how did my brother manage to get into the cemetery without you noticing?” Dusty’s voice shook with anger.

“We…” Buck cleared his throat. “We actually just started it.”

“Joe’s death wasn’t enough?” Dusty snarled. “You had to wait for Nick to die before you decided a few guys with guns actually paying attention might be a good idea?”

“Well, Joe wasn’t actually
in
the cemetery,” Buck reminded her. “We thought it was an isolated incident.”

“So now my brother’s dead,” she said flatly. “Thanks, Sheriff. Good call.”

“I’m sorry.” He blinked at her. “There’s really nothing more we can do, except watch and wait.”

“Yeah, you did such a bang-up job of watching the first time.” She stared at him, jaw clenching and unclenching. “So what’s your evidence?”

Buck shook his head. “I can’t discuss that.”

“What? Are you kidding me?” Dusty wanted to scream at him. Instead, she took a deep breath and said, as calmly as she could manage, “I want to know. How do you know it was an animal that killed my brother?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t think I should be the one to tell you…” Buck glanced toward the family room where the sound of voices floated toward them.

“Tell me what?”

“Dusty.” Shane murmured low in her ear. “Just… drop it.”

“I will not!” She struggled in his arms again, frustrated at his grip. “How do you know? How?”

“Sweetheart…” Buck looked pained. “Your parents came and identified the body—what was left of it. Your brother, he…”

She twisted in Shane’s arms, but he refused to let go. “He what?”

“Dusty, stop,” Shane begged her, voice cracking. “Please don’t.”

“No! I want to know! Tell me! What?”

“Jesus.” Buck breathed, passing a hand over his eyes. “Let’s just say there’s a reason the casket was closed. Okay?”

Dusty blinked at him. Her father had informed her they were having a closed casket, had told her the circumstances surrounding her brother’s death, but the look on the sheriff’s face told her it was far worse than she had even imagined.

Buck swallowed, his gaze skipping away from hers. “No human being could have… could have done that. In twenty years, I swear, I’ve never seen…”

“Enough!” Shane demanded.

“Oh God.” Dusty felt her knees give out, but Shane was right there, holding her up. She turned in his arms, and he let her fists flail, beating at his chest until he could get a good grip again, trapping her arms between them as she sobbed.

“No. No. Nooooo!” Dusty wailed, burying her face against his t-shirt, her cries muffled.

No wonder her father had been walking around like a dead man for the past three days.

He had seen Nick, had “identified the body.”

What was left of it.

“I’m sorry,” Buck murmured. She felt his hand on her shoulder, but barely. She couldn’t feel anything but the stabbing pain in her heart, like someone had twisted a butcher knife in her chest and left it there.

“Just go!” Shane’s voice rumbled, a low growl against her ear.

She didn’t know if Buck followed his direction and didn’t care. She was wrapped in the cocoon of Shane’s arms. He sat with her on his lap, rocking, murmuring something, but the words didn’t matter. They weren’t coming through. Her head filled with a raw, primal scream, like the rising wail of a siren, over and over. It drowned out everything else.

It wasn’t until Julia appeared in the doorway, eyes wide, that Dusty realized the screaming wasn’t in her head. It was coming out of her, from somewhere deep in her belly, a keening wail.

“Shane Curtis, what did you do?” Julia stood with her hands on her hips, aghast. “Go! Leave! Go home!”

He sighed, Dusty heard him, felt his breath against her cheek. She tried to protest but the words wouldn’t come. She could barely catch her breath. There was a whispered, “I’m sorry,” before his lips brushed her cheek and he eased her into the chair. She pitched forward, arms on the table, pushing pies and casserole dishes to the edge. She buried her face, wanting to hide from everything, everyone.

The door opened behind her and then closed softly, and still she couldn’t move. The kitchen was silent except for Dusty’s hitching breath. When she finally looked up, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she saw Julia filling up a tray with stuffed mushrooms. Her stepmother’s mouth was small, eyes averted, but she must have sensed Dusty looking at her, because she began to speak.

“You should get yourself together and go in and say hello now. There are a few of Nick’s friends and Suzanne is here. I’m sure they could use someone more their age to talk to.” Julia’s voice dropped a little. “I imagine we won’t be seeing much of Shane Curtis anymore, do you?”

Get rid of a son, get rid of his friends—is that the way it works?

“Why don't you come pass these out? I could use the help.” Julia turned to face her and frowned. “You really don't look well. Are you all right?”

She stared at her stepmother, incredulous.

Yeah, I’m great. We buried my brother about two hours ago, you’re having a party and passing out hors d’oevres and you want me to play hostess. I’m just fan-fucking-tastic.

“I'm okay.” Dusty swallowed past something stuck in her throat, voice still hoarse from crying. There was no acknowledgement of her pain, none at all. “I'll be there in a minute. This dress is a little uncomfortable. I'm going to change first.”

“Okay.” Julia picked the tray up. “Don't be too long.”

“I won't.”

Dusty took the Twizzlers with her and climbed the stairs, her whole body aching. She turned right when she came to the top, as she always did, in the direction of her room—and Nick's. She realized she would have to pass it and was suddenly, inexplicably afraid. She walked slowly, breathing shallow, looking neither left nor right, focusing only on the door to her room at the end of the hall.

His door was open. Of course. He kept his door open all the time and he would have left it open when he went out that night. She sped up when she reached his door, passing quickly, almost as if she thought she would be burned by the light spilling from his room into the hallway.

She sighed when she reached her own room, closing the door behind her, tossing the Twizzlers on her dresser. Her room was just as she had left it before the funeral, bed unmade, clothes tried on and discarded still scattered around the room. She peeled off the black dress and threw it on the floor too.

Hunting through her drawers, she pulled out a University of Michigan sweatshirt, blue with gold letters. She dug through, looking for sweat pants, but realized they were all down the laundry chute with the rest of the week's dirty clothes. She opened her closet and her drawers, but found that even her yoga pants were dirty.

She sighed, sitting on the bed and pulling the sweatshirt over her head. Julia had been so busy making funeral arrangements for Nick, accepting condolences, and making sure Dusty wore and said the right things, the laundry had been neglected. But she knew where she could find something to wear.

What’s the big deal? Just go get a pair of his sweats.

She didn’t want to go back down the hall to his room, but if she didn’t, Julia would come looking for her, and that would be worse. The only thing she could think of to do was to borrow a pair of Nick's sweats. They would be big but that was okay. She borrowed his clothes all the time. The thought of wearing something of his was a sad sort of comfort.