Page 50 of Won't Back Down

Two things I can smell. Salt and wet earth.

One thing I can taste. Sour in my mouth. I hadn’t been sick. Yet. But it had been a near thing.

Sawyer hunkered down before me. “Holding up?”

“I wanna go home,” I whispered. Not that I could quite face the lengthy hike back, but anything was better than staying here. Because I knew where we were. We’d come at it from a different direction than I had all those years ago, but this was only a hundred yards or so from where I’d drowned. I hadn’t come here in all the years I’d been back on island, and I was barely keeping it together now. The edge of a migraine pressed at my brain, and every instinct I had shouted at me to run.

Sawyer pivoted to sit beside me on the sand, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Soon. Cory will need to ask us some questions, I expect.”

I leaned into him, wishing for all the world that we’d just gone back the way we’d come.

A few minutes later, Cory made his way over to us. As he’d been only a year ahead of me in school, I couldn't think of him as Officer Teague, despite the uniform. He’d always had something of a baby face, which he’d attempted to offset with a goatee. But I still saw the kid who’d been challenged to eat glue sticks in second grade. He looked about as sick now, his skin pale and drawn beneath the reddish beard.

“Hey there, Willa. I just need to ask you a few questions. You up to that?”

“If it means I can get out of here sooner rather than later.”

“I’ll make it quick as I can.” He pulled out his phone to record the conversation. “This is Officer Cory Teague speaking with Willa Sutter and Sawyer Malone. Can you walk me through how you came to find the… the remains? Where you were. What you were doing out here. How you stumbled upon them.”

Focusing on Sawyer’s solid presence and Roy’s bulk beside me, I took him through it.

“Did you notice any identifiable features or clothing on the remains? Anything that stood out?”

I arched a brow. “Did I notice any identifiable features on the skull I basically fell on? You mean besides the hole that looks like a gunshot wound to the forehead? No. If the—” I swallowed. “If the rest of the skeleton is there, I didn’t see. Maybe it’s buried beneath the sand.”

Cory gulped, and I wondered if he was about to be sick again. I wouldn’t blame him.

“Did either of you touch or move the remains at all before calling it in?”

“No.”

“Did you notice any other debris, items, or potential evidence around the scene?”

I’d been too busy having a panic attack to notice anything.

Sawyer squeezed me. “No. Nothing. We removed ourselves from the immediate vicinity as soon as we realized what we’d found.”

“Do either of you have any idea how long the remains might have been out there? Were they weathered or more recent?”

Did I look like a forensic expert?

“No clue. It’s not… fresh,” Sawyer said. “In all likelihood, the storm uncovered them.”

“Do y’all frequent that area often? Had you noticed any sign of a disturbance on the ground before today?”

“I haven’t been to this part of the property in twelve years.” I’d done everything in my power to avoid exactly this. Well, not exactly this. I’d never imagined there was a body out here. But I’d given this area a wide berth, attempting to stave off the terror coming near it always incited.

“Did you take any photos or video at the scene before I arrived? I’ll need copies of anything you captured.”

“No.”

“Okay. That’s all I’ve got for now. Chief Carson will probably have some additional questions for you later. Can you think of anything else to add?”

“Is it Gwen?” I knew there was no possible way he could know the answer to that. But I had to ask because the question had been beating against my brain since I’d all but fallen onto the remains.

Cory took a deep breath. “I don’t know. According to protocol, the remains will be removed to the medical examiner’s office in Elizabeth City on the mainland. Any detailed exam will take time, but they’ll probably be able to determine the basics about gender, relative age, and potential race of the deceased. I’m not sure how fast we’ll be able to get the remains there, under the circumstances.”

Pretty fast, I was willing to bet. Hatterwick had an incredibly low crime rate, at least for anything serious. I suspected Miles would be putting a lot of pressure on Chief Carson to do whatever was possible to expedite things, both from the perspective of being able to reassure the public and because this could possibly provide some closure to a years old mystery.

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