Page 64 of Long Gone

“Or some other proof, but sure, the body would be good.”

I propped a hand on my hip. “I get that you’re trying to take down a bad man, but somehow I don’t think you’re after Hugo’s killer because you want justice for him. So why are you so interested helping me find him?”

“Maybe I’m a vigilante crime fighter.”

“And maybe I should start calling you Batman.”

“No way I’d ever be stupid enough to wear a cape,” he said with a smirk.

“So you do joke, Malcolm.”

“I never joke, Harper.”

It wasn’t lost on me that he called me by my first name, so I considered that exchange as a win.

Chapter 15

He headed back toward my car and the utility shed, then came to a stop at the edge as we looked over the undeveloped land to the west.

“It looks like there was a bare-bones road here once,” I said, pointing to the ruts in the ground. “Do you see any roads on the map?”

He pulled it out and opened it between us. “A road was supposed to go all the way to the county road, but it obviously never got paved.”

I studied it longer than I had the first time he’d pulled it out. Hugo had hired a graphic artist to come up with the layout of both neighborhoods, titled Phase One and Phase Two. The lower-priced homes were Phase Two, which helped explain the complete lack of paved roads over here. On the map, a main road tying into this one meandered through the acreage until it hit the county road. Multiple side streets broke off from it. Then something caught my eye.

“Phase Two was supposed to have a pool?”

“You can’t be having the poor people swimming with the rich at the clubhouse,” Malcolm said sarcastically.

“Seems like the rich would have had their own personal pools.”

“Maybe so, but I bet the clubhouse and the tennis courts weren’t going to be accessible to the poor people either.”

“You realize the demographic for Phase Two wasn’t poor people. From what I’ve seen, they expected homes to start at three hundred thousand.”

“Still poor compared to the rich people.”

Maybe.

He drew in a breath and looked out over the acreage in front of us.

He studied the land through the windshield. “The land in the lower section of Phase Two would have been soggy from the rain and is lower than where we are now. Seems like the killer only needed a shovel and the soft land would have made the job easier.”

“Agreed, but there’s one problem with the whole burying Hugo’s body theory. If the killer was an investor, he likely wasn’t used to physical labor. At least not grave digging. It’s hard work.”

“You dug many graves, Detective?”

“I’m a woman of mystery,” I said in a playful tone. “You’ll just have to wonder.”

Mild surprise filled Malcolm’s eyes as a tempered horror washed through me. I was letting my guard down with him, and I couldn’t afford to do that, not to mention that part of me had been buried since last fall. Malcolm was not the person to let my guard down with. I could barely trust him with my life. There was no way I could trust him with my heart.

I cleared my throat and spoke in a more businesslike tone. “I say we drive across what was supposed to be the main road to the proposed entrance for Phase Two and stop if we see something. On the way back, we can check out the low-lying land and see if anything sticks out.”

“Works for me.”

He drove onto the unpaved road and started forward at a slow pace, not that I blamed him. Sure, he was driving a Jeep, but the tall weeds could be hiding a giant rut. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the upper corner of the screen.

“Making a call?” Malcolm asked.

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