Page 72 of Long Gone

He walked over to me and picked it up, tossing it behind us.

“Good job,” he said. “You just found his head.”

Sure enough, we’d revealed a skull, complete with short blond hair. The skull was mostly decomposed with a few pieces of flesh still attached. The stench of decay was overwhelming.

I took several steps back and vomited about ten feet from the reeking hole.

“What the hell are we doing?” I asked when I stood upright.

“Giving Hugo Burton’s family closure.”

I wanted to repeat the argument that we should call Detective Jones, but we both knew we were past the point of no return. But we could still walk away, and they couldn’t prove we’d been the ones to dig him up. We were both wearing gloves so we weren’t leaving fingerprints behind.

I squinted up at him. “Why are you doing this? And don’t give me that bullshit excuse that you’re after someone who did something bad.”

He held his hands out at his sides. “Just trying to help you out.”

“Don’t insult me with such a blatant lie.”

His face reddened. “What the fuck do you think I’d doing out here then?”

“Helping yourself,” I countered. “It’s pretty fucking obvious you’re after something of your own, and it hurts your investigation if the sheriff takes over.”

“I never denied I had an interest. You have to admit that you need this case too.”

“I was hired to find him.” I flung a hand toward the grave. “And I did. That’s the end of my job.”

His cheeks flushed with anger. “You’re thinking too small. If you want to kick off your P.I. career, you have to find out who murdered him. And you can’t do that if you involve the sheriff’s department.” He pointed to the grave. “This is a huge step into solving it. Do you really want to give up?”

“Withholding information about a crime from law enforcement isn’t exactly going to endear me to them, and it might get me arrested.”

“You’re going to tell them. Just not yet.”

“Right…” I said sarcastically, but I couldn’t ignore the part of me screaming that he was right. I wanted to wait too. Even though I knew it was wrong.

I needed to continue with this case, and not just to pad my résumé or bolster my self-confidence. I felt alive when I was investigating. It gave me purpose. My personal life might be shit, but when I was investigating, I was helping someone. I was a worthwhile member of society. I had a reason for still existing while my sister was buried in the Jackson Creek cemetery.

“Give it a week,” he said. “Then you can call the sheriff’s department and claim you found it like this. What’s the difference?”

“You know damn good and well there’s a difference,” I countered without any heat in the words.

“I also know you hate your fucking job and you’d much rather be investigating than killing your soul working in your daddy’s law firm.” He moved another foot closer. “This benefits us both.”

God, I hated that part of me agreed with everything he was saying. And I couldn’t dismiss that while Detective Matthew Jones had been friendlier than expected, I didn’t trust him to have my best interests in mind. Maybe it was paranoia after what had happened to me in Little Rock, but I couldn’t help wondering if he was giving me just enough rope to hang myself.

“I can’t hold onto this for a week,” I finally said.

“Then how about this? You take it day by day,” he said. “And if you feel like the time has come to turn this in, then you let me know first.”

“So you can talk me out of it?”

“So I’ll have plenty of notice.”

I wanted to ask him why he needed notice, but I knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer. I was going to have to trust him, and I hated it.

We settled into a rhythm, digging up the rest of the concrete. I pried up a piece and he hauled away the chunk until we had the body completely exposed. I started to feel wet drops on my face. It had begun to drizzle. Great.

This was about to get a whole lot messier.

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