Page 33 of Cold Case Murder Mystery

No one had been able to agree if the shape was a head. If the strands were hair, if the ear was indeed a human ear. They’d pored over the rest of the photos, searching for anything that might confirm what Brooke thought she saw.

No consensus could be made. Dahlia discussed some photo scanning and editing options to enhance the photos so the Hudsons were going to work on that angle. After all, if the pictures were that old, they might be dealing with a cold case—the Hudson Sibling Solutions specialty.

So, once they’d agreed on how to handle the photographs, Thomas had driven her to the cave. She’d jumped into work immediately, trying to focus on the place in the photograph. It was hard to pinpoint with the changes to the cave over time and from what little she had to go on.

Brooke wanted to dig with wild abandon. To see if she could find a skull right there. But she reminded herself to breathe, to take her time, to fall back on her training.

Finding answers relied on her ability to pay attention to every tiny detail. She couldn’t rush just because they’d maybe discovered something.

So, hours went by, of careful, meticulous, slow-moving digging. She couldn’t be haphazard. That wasn’t her job. Her job was to unearth every last detail. Document them for study.

When she first came across a flash of bone in the cave fill, she nearly cried with relief. Her back muscles screamed, her eyes were gritty, and her hands were cramping. She was both somehow sweating from exertion and shivering from the cold air in the cave.

But she’d found something. So she focused her brainpower on the steps to carefully, correctly unearth whatever it was.

More time passed. She forgot Thomas was even there, and he never suggested they break for lunch, like he usually did. He just waited in silence and out of the way so she wouldn’t concern herself with him or breaks.

Slowly, she uncovered what she’d hoped she’d find. A skull. In almost the exact place she might have seen a head in that picture. And just like in the photograph, the skull was buried with the jawbone down, top of the head up. There’d been some damage to the upper part of the skull. It just had to connect. It had to be the same. Skulls weren’t buried like this.

She took a slow breath, reminding herself to remain calm. Reminding herself she was uncovering a mystery, not putting herself in danger.

“Thomas? Can you take some pictures?”

He walked over with his Bent County camera strapped around his neck. He looked at what she’d uncovered. He didn’t outwardly react, but she knew he was feeling that same ticking clock she felt.

They were close to some kind of break in the case. So close. And if she could push through everything, they might have one.

“Just take as many photos as you can. I’m going to keep uncovering the skull.”

So, that’s what she set out to do. If she could remove the skull intact, with photo evidence of how it had been buried... She didn’t know, but it was something.

Brooke lost track of anything but unearthing the skull, and once she could remove it from the cave floor and debris, she discovered exactly what she was afraid she might.

There was nothing directly underneath the skull. No bones from the neck or even shoulder that should be within the area she was excavating.

Just like the photograph.

“If that picture included a decapitated head, and this skull is that head, this death occurred before Jen Rogers,” Thomas said, his voice devoid of any emotion, though she knew he felt something about that information whether he spoke it aloud or not.

Brooke looked up at Thomas and said what she’d been worried was true for a while.

“I think we’re dealing with more than one killer.”

Chapter Eleven

Zeke had thrown himself into his project after Brooke had taken off with Hart. He’d thought about figuring outwhythe detective had stopped by to pick her up, but it was none of his business.

Maybe putting together a makeshift lab on his ranch wasn’t either, particularly with the stalking threat no longer an issue.

But even if he believed that Royal had done jail time formaybea justified crime, the man was a potential threat. There were stillthreatsaround Brooke and what she was doing. Zeke couldn’t just accept that she wasn’t insomedanger.

And he didn’t think she’d accepted that, even if she’d pretended to. Because her things were still in his house. She hadn’t told him to jump off a cliff... yet.

Worse, he couldn’t even blame her. He owed her an apology, and that burned. He shouldn’t have kissed her. He shouldn’t havetouchedher. And he could not for the life of him figure out why his usual iron-tight control had deserted him when it came to her.

He studied his work on the makeshift lab. Only some of the equipment Granger had set him up with had been delivered, but the barn was sparkling clean and what he’d managed to get in terms of tables and whatnot had been set up.

He glanced at his watch and ignored the fact it was later than usual and Brooke hadn’t returned yet.

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