Bone Deep

No, she would swear Hugh wasn’t unhappy enough to run away. He had to be dead, not to have ever come home.

But then, where was his body?

Her trowel, dipped in the potting mix, seemed to grind on something.

Kat froze.

No. It couldn’t be. The bone had been in the compost, not the potting mix.

Nonetheless, her breath came fast as she adjusted the angle of the trowel and scooped whatever it was up. She turned the trowelful over on top of the garden cart full of potting mix.

Another bone lay, half-exposed. Another…what had they called it? Phalange?

No, no, no.

Heart lurching, she stared at it.

Then, in a frenzy of fear, she set it on the table and began scrabbling in the potting mix with her gloved hands, flinging soil aside, not caring that she scattered it over the floor. Within seconds, she found yet another bone, smaller. Only when she reached the wooden bottom of the cart did she stop, panting, realizing that now she had a whole finger.

The creak of the door brought her spinning around, a gasp escaping her. The heavy door bounced slightly, as it always did when the spring pulled it shut, but nobody was there.

CHAPTER THREE

“PROBABLY SOMEBODY STARTED to open the door and then noticed the Employees Only sign.” As close to hysteria as she’d ever been, Kat perched on the old kitchen stool in the greenhouse, her arms wrapped herself. Despite the warmth in here, she shivered. “Or the wind. I noticed how breezy it was earlier.”

Grant didn’t bother commenting. He didn’t need to. The damp breeze couldn’t have stirred the heavy door.

Her teeth wanted to chatter. She clamped them shut until she regained control, then said, “Or one of my employees was looking for me but got distracted.”

He watched her stolidly. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, which bothered her more than she should have let it.

Today he wasn’t in uniform. Wearing jeans, running shoes and a flannel shirt under a quilted vest, he leaned a hip against one of the potting tables, the same small spiral notebook he’d used yesterday flipped open. Kat couldn’t see that he was making many notes, even though he held a pencil in one hand.

As always, his presence produced a flood of conflicting emotions in her. As scared as she’d been, his big, powerful body was a comfort, as was his very intensity and intelligence. She felt safe because he was here.

She was also unnerved, physically conscious of him in a way she didn’t want to be, reminded that he’d evoked the same, unwelcome response in her when Hugh had still been around.

“You’re afraid someone was watching you,” Grant said.

This shudder shook her whole body. She tightened her arms around herself, as if she could keep from disintegrating.

“Yes.” Her voice came out rusty, shaking. “Or—” and this was the more appalling fear “—someone was in here already and I heard the door when he was slipping out. I’d never have seen him if he was sitting under one of the tables.”

“Waiting for you to find the bones.”

“Yes.”

He’d come the minute she called. Thank God she’d had her cell phone with her. She’d been so terrified, she hated to think what she’d have looked like if anyone had seen her burst out of here. As it was, she’d also called the front desk, and Joan had come tearing in to the greenhouse. She’d stayed protectively at Kat’s side, and now glared at Grant as if he were at fault for upsetting Kat.

“We’ll find out if an employee started to open the door,” he said. “That’s easy. If it was a customer…we may never know.”

Kat gave a stiff nod.

For the first time, his tone softened. “I think it’s unlikely someone was waiting in here. Think about it. If you’d been a little busier, you might never have come to this greenhouse today at all.”

That was logical. More logical than she’d been, in her fear. Of course no one had crouched in here waiting all day. She was letting paranoia get the best of her. Some of the tension leached from her body. “That’s true.”

“But you told me you were heading back to this greenhouse,” Joan said unexpectedly. “Remember? We were out front. Somebody might have heard you. There were several customers in there, and I didn’t look to see if anyone was behind us.”

Grant’s eyes narrowed. “Did you come straight here after you told Ms. Stover your intentions?”

Kat shook her head. “I stopped by my office. It was maybe…ten minutes before I got here.”

His gaze, intense to the point of being fierce, pinpointed first Kat and then Joan. “You’ll make me a list of anyone you’ve seen at the nursery today. And a separate one of anyone here yesterday.”

“So you think someone was in here?” she whispered.

“Not while you were. But it’s pretty clear these bones were planted.”

She couldn’t help looking at them, lying on the splintery worktable, hard to connect with a real-life human being, and yet…gruesome. She wanted to wipe the bits of compost from the bones. Like yesterday, she was unpleasantly reminded of the dark, dank soil from a grave.

“They might have all been there yesterday.”

“They might.” His jaw flexed. “I wish like hell I’d poked through this potting mix, too. But I’ll tell you what. I’m betting they were added today.”

“Why?” Joan asked.

“If this was meant to be one surprise, why not plant all three together? Why separate them this way?”

Kat thought about his point, and didn’t like the implications. “To…up the ante.” She wished her voice didn’t sound so thin.

“And to give you two scares, not just one.”

“Does this person…um, have more bones?”

He shut his small spiral notebook and shoved it in a breast pocket. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Kat swallowed. “Is there any way to check those bones for DNA?”

“I don’t know.” When he’d disappeared, the police had taken hair from Hugh’s comb, so they’d have it as a reference if needed. “The thing is, even if we can, it often takes months. I can’t demand a rush job. This is upsetting for you, but it’s not as if we have a serial killer operating here. On the scale of crimes, this is about a one.”

Months? she thought, aghast. And then she took in his dismissive one. Her spine stiffened. “If those are Hugh’s bones, and somebody kept them, then the chances are he was murdered. That’s a one, in your opinion?”

“Only in terms of urgency.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what.” Mad now, she slid from the stool and faced him with her chin thrust out. “I’m feeling a little urgent here. Whether those are Hugh’s bones or not, this feels a lot like a threat to me. I’m taking it seriously, even if you aren’t!”

“Oh, I’m taking it seriously.” His eyes still glittered with what she suddenly realized was major tem per. “Can you sit down and make me those lists right away? In the meantime, I’m going to go talk to anyone who is working today, find out if they were back here and if they saw anyone else nearby. We’ll get lists of names from them, too.”