Page 124 of Buried Too Deep

He snapped a photo of Ashley’s senior picture and quickly put the recent yearbooks away. He resettled in his chair, opening the old books. He’d planned to do this anyway, just to let the librarian believe his quest was a serious one.

Now he had another agenda. He wanted to find more Caulfields.

He checked the Cs in every one of the old books, perusing not only the senior photos but those belonging to the underclassmen as well. The years represented were too spotty. If he only checked the senior sections, he might miss out on whoever it was he was looking for.

He finally found a single Caulfield. Timothy Caulfield had attended Merrydale High back in the midsixties. That would make him in his early seventies by now.

Was he related to Ashley? How? A grandfather, perhaps?

It could be. His own grandfather was in his late sixties, and Sage was only two years older than Ashley.

He snapped a photo of Timothy Caulfield and closed the yearbook. He made a show of standing and stretching, noting that the librarian was following his every movement again. He flexed a little, just to give her a show.

If her mind was on his body, she wouldn’t be thinking about his face.

He put the yearbooks away and sauntered back out to the main room. “Thank you, ma’am. I put everything back the way I found it.”

“Thank you. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“No, ma’am, but thank you anyway.”

She tilted her head. “I noticed you taking a few photos. Why, if I might ask, if you didn’t find what you were looking for?”

Fucking librarians. Always asking questions. Luckily, he’d prepared for this.

“I found a name I recognized from one of my granddad’s stories. I figured I’d take the photo back to my grandmother and see if she recognized him.”

“Oh, okay.” This seemed to satisfy her.

He really hoped it did. He really didn’t want to kill another librarian.

He got back to his car, buzzing with anticipation. He had one more thing he needed to check. On his burner phone, he pulled up the background check service he used.

Ashley Caulfield, he typed.

Nothing. She might have been too young to have any online presence, although that she had no social media seemed odd. Sage couldn’t use himself as a comparison. He had dozens of pages on the internet dedicated solely to him.

He changed his search to Timothy Caulfield. He had a presence, thankfully.

And he owned a home not too far away. Had lived there for thirty years, which meant the man had been there twenty-three years ago.

Sage set a course for the Caulfield home, not certain of what he’d do once he got there. It wasn’t a long drive. Nothing in Merrydale seemed far away from anything else.

The GPS on his burner phone took him to a neighborhood off the beaten path, each of the lots at least five acres. Timothy Caulfield’s house sat a distance off the main road but was still visible.

Sage pulled over to the side of the road and opened his backpack. He had an old-fashioned paper map that he used to fool passersby into thinking he’d stopped to check his position.

No one had ever confronted him while he’d been parked, but there was always a first time for everything.

After unfolding the map—which would be useless if he was confronted, as it was a map of Gulfport, Mississippi—Sage took his binoculars from his backpack and used them to study the Caulfield home.

The house was a single-story ranch type with a green door. The lawn was well maintained and the flower beds had been freshly mulched.

His breath caught. There she was.

Ashley Caulfield ran around the corner of the house, from the backyard to the front. She was laughing, her face filled with joy. On her heels was a barking collie with a beautiful coat. Ashley held a ball high off the ground, and the dog was jumping for it.

She threw the ball hard and the dog gave chase. Ashley sat on an old tree stump, lifting her face to the sky.

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