Page 43 of Still See You Everywhere

I can relate. I nearly did so myself.

Then I’m moving. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I need to get the stones off of her. I need to see her. To tell her I understand, that it’s okay now. Even when it hurts, I promise to remember her. I promise to bring her home again.

“Frankie, stop it. Frankie!”

Ronin grabs both of my arms, trying to pull me away from the grave. I fight back.

“She shouldn’t be here. Abandoned. Alone. Why do they do that? All those terrible people. They see something beautiful and they crush it.”

“I know.” His tone is soothing.

“You don’t! She is someone’s daughter, sister, mother. She didn’t deserve—”

“We don’t even know that the remains are female.”

“Of course they are. They always are!”

I twist out of his grip. Ronin snaps his hand around my wrist, rooting me in place.

“Frankie.” He stares at me intently, lets the moment suspend. I’m breathing hard. He is, too. “You are correct,” he states softly. “Whatever this is, whatever we’ve found, it shouldn’t have happened.”

The rage drains out of me. I find the emptiness worse.

“We can’t help her. We need to contact the police. Which means returning to base camp. But first, we must secure what we’ve found, in order to aid their investigation.”

“Do you know her? Recognize the flowery top?”

“No.”

“He brought her from elsewhere.”

“First rule of science, Frankie.” Ronin lets go of my wrist, eases back. “Stick to facts. We don’t know who this is, or what happened, or even when it happened.”

“This isn’t a historic artifact.”

“Given the sequins, most likely not.”

I remain ragged. And then. And then…

“Fine. Let’s do this.” I step back and take a final deep, steadying breath. There is only one way forward, and that is through. I prepare to once more get to work.

CHAPTER 13

WE RETURN TO BASE CAMP in total silence. Ronin focuses on driving, while I let my mind drift over everything and nothing at all. The sky has darkened, the wind picking up and starting to toss around the tops of the palm trees. Vaughn had mentioned an incoming storm. Based on the clouds alone, it doesn’t seem to be waiting till this afternoon. When we pass close enough to open water, I can see a dark line out over the ocean. A wall of rain, I realize, heading straight for us. Do tropical storms include thunder and lightning? Because speaking of PTSD triggers I’ve carried with me since Wyoming…

I try to organize my thinking. The body, a female in a red sequined, flowered top. Is it possible that it’s Lea and I’ve already found her? Except the note she may have written her sister arrived just recently. Also, Vaughn clearly knew Lea and was expecting her to appear on Pomaikai in a matter of hours. That seemed to imply she was still in the land of the living.

So, an earlier MacManus victim? If the guy was a predator, nothing like using his own private atoll as a burial ground. Then again, the minute he decided to develop it, he also knew the entire island would be subject to intense scrutiny. Surely he didn’t expect something as basic as a grave to go unnoticed by a trained archaeologist. The location wasn’t even hidden, being within eyesight of the beach.

Of all the traits I’ve heard to describe MacManus, stupid isn’t one of them.

Meaning a previous human trafficker? I never asked who owned the island before him, which brings up Vaughn’s mention of the recovered drug-smuggling sub. An island this remote could be a logical layover for all sorts of evildoing. The current base camp and forward crew are recent developments, given MacManus’s plans for the atoll. And perhaps a terrible inconvenience for other, less luxury-resort-minded folks?

Forget outraged environmentalists, drug dealers really didn’t take kindly to loss of habitat.

Now I have too many angles to consider, as well as too many terrors to contemplate. For better or worse, most of the missing persons cases I investigate turn out to be domestic matters. The number of times I’ve known within five minutes that the vanished young wife or disappeared small child never left the surrounding area. Meaning my job is really just a matter of asking the right questions while listening for the wrong answers.

The things people do to the ones they love are tragic enough. Contemplating criminal enterprises, including sophisticated drug-running or human trafficking operations…

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