Page 72 of Love Me Fearless

“Ouch,” I say.

“Maybe my aim will get better by the time I finish this,” he says, and takes a sip of his beer.

I line up my next throw but it goes wide. My second rings the stake for three points.

Zach walks to his side of the sand pit. “We were able to get a forensic team down into that mine shaft. The bones belong to a female, likely in her early twenties.”

I sip my beer, letting this information settle inside me. “Any idea how long they’ve been down there?”

“Five to seven years,” Zach replies. He tosses his horseshoes—a one-pointer and a leaner, worth two. As we walk to my side, Zach glances at me, his face tense. “We’re doing some cross-referencing with missing persons reports from that time, but there’s something kind of alarming.”

My skin at the back of my neck pulls tight.

“It’s the same cause of death as Marin.”

The wound hidden in Marin’s hair flashes into my thoughts. I pick up my horseshoes, but I forget what I’m supposed to do with them. “How much the same?”

He grips his waist with his free hand and gazes up at the sky. “Enough that we’re looking into it.”

This is likely more than he should tell me, so I silence my next question. But if he’s saying the two deaths could be related, then… “Damn.”

“Yeah.”

I lean back against the railing. “When I was down there, Icouldn’t shake this heaviness, like those bones had a story to tell, and it wasn’t a happy one.”

“Based on how she died, I’d say that’s probably true.”

“Are any of your suspects in Marin’s murder connected to whoever died in that mine?”

“Troy would have been in middle school. Same with the camp counselor ex-boyfriend. Not completely impossible, but just thinking out loud, they wouldn’t be my first choice.”

Elk Flats and Finn River are only forty-five minutes apart, but within the same county, so maybe the distance isn’t significant.

I drain my beer. “Any luck tracing the online creep? Or finding Marin’s phone?”

“No. But we’re getting some help.”

“From?” I pick up my horseshoes but my first toss hits the backboard and tumbles into the grass.

“A close family friend of mine is a federal agent. He put me in touch with someone in Behavioral Sciences. Special Agent Luke Ballard.”

“Seriously?”

Zach’s eyes widen in surprise. “Know him?”

“Hell yeah, I know him.”

“He was special ops?”

“Yep. Until he got injured.” I knew he’d gone to work for the feds, but not that he was working cases as a behavioral scientist. Because of his history with PTSD, he would never be able to work as a cop, but with his psych degree and his passion for justice, profiling is a perfect fit for him.

“We’re talking tomorrow.”

“Wow.” I toss my horseshoe but it lobs into the darkness. Luke was my first friend in PJ training, thanks to both of us coming from small towns, though Pickett Falls is dominated by lakes instead of mountains like Finn River. Luke could make anyone laugh, even in the scariest, most intense moments, is the best athlete I’ve ever known, with more grit and determination than a pack of hungrywolves. I would have never believed he’d be the guy who got hit with PTSD.

“If he takes the case, would he visit?” I ask. It’s been several years—shit, five?—since we’ve talked.

“Never had a case like this, so I’m not sure.”

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