Page 34 of The Grave Between Us
“Seduction comes in many forms. I seduced them into letting their guard down. Seduced them into thinking they’d made a friend.”
“Or on a lake? You said you met someone on a kayak?”
“It’s amazing how quickly you can be invited on board someone else’s boat for a beer after a few minutes of friendly conversation. Once you’re there, well…”
Cole nodded as if he understood and downed another gulp of milky coffee. “The reason I ask about the kayak,” he said, setting his coffee cup down and spinning it slowly, “is because I wanted to ask you about Shane DeGrassi.”
Ian stilled. Cole had seen him descend into himself a handful of times, always when Cole was brushing up against Ian’s core, the Ian that existed beneath a black moon and a midnight sky.
“There’s a lake in Stanislaus National Forest, in the southern Sierra Nevadas. Near Strawberry. It’s in a steep canyon, and there’s a lot of places you can go on the water where you could be hidden from view.” Cole slid an aerial photo of the lake and its boat ramp from where he’d tucked it at the back of his yellow legal pad. He spun the photo toward Ian, next to the crayon portrait. “Shane DeGrassi went out trout fishing on his small boat one Wednesday afternoon, and he’s never been seen since.”
Thirteen years earlier. It had been a long, long time since anyone had taken a look at Shane DeGrassi’s case.
“Shane’s boat was found here, two days later.” Cole pointed to the narrow end of the lake, where it climbed and transitioned into the upper fork of a river burrowing through the high Sierras. “Tangled in the overgrowth from the bank. His outboard motor was tilted up, and it looked like the boat had drifted, matching up with the wind and water currents from the days before. When the sheriff’s deputies boarded, they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Everything seemed to be in place. Clean, even. Like he’d raised the motor and rinsed it off. But why would he do that, in the middle of the lake, in the middle of his day out fishing?”
Cole held Ian’s stare. Ian hadn’t moved. Hadn’t blinked. “Shane had a cooler with him, and it looked like he had finished four out his six beers. Maybe Shane was a little drunk and fell overboard. Maybe he hit his head when he did. Maybe that’s how his DNA ended up on his outboard motor and the propellers. But I’m not so certain. Because his DNA was deep in the blades, nestled in the screws. Something, I’ve been told, that would only happen if there was sustained, prolonged, intense contact between propeller and man. As if Shane had accidently stuck his hand in the motor and turned it on.” He paused. “But it wasn’t just blood in the screws. We’ve been going over Shane’s case at Quantico, and we took another look at the evidence. The sheriff’s department never closed their investigation. Turns out, they had his motor in their evidence warehouse, even after all these years. We had them send it to us. You know what we found? Human tissue. Specifically, scalp and hair fragments.”
Ian could have been carved from granite.
“How does a lone man end up with his head against the propellers of his raised outboard engine? I’m not sure that’s possible. We’ve tried to diagram it out. We’ve run some computer simulations of a drunk man falling overboard. Can’t seem to make it work. The only way it does,” Cole said, fixing his eyes on Ian’s unblinking gaze, “is if Shane was pinned down on the transom and someone forced his head into the blades.”
Ian said nothing.
“I don’t think a man who fell overboard would be getting back into his boat to clean it, either,” Cole said, shaking his head. “But someone did. Someone wiped down the transom, the gunwale, and the motor. We couldn’t even find Shane’s fingerprints on his outboard or the back half of his boat, even though there were eyewitness statements that put Shane on the lake and in his boat the afternoon he went missing. But the hull was bleached, right near the motor.”
Silence.
“That’s strange, isn’t it? That Shane would bleach one section of his boat while he was still on the lake? Unless he wasn’t the one to do it.” He paused. “I’m guessing you used Clorox wipes. After you got his body off the boat.”
Cole’s heart pounded. He spread his hand, laying it flat on his notepad, trying to force it to still. He used his pencil like a wand, tapping the photo of the lake. “Sound travels strangely up in the mountains. Someone could be screaming at one end of the lake and no one would ever know it. Most everyone believed Shane DeGrassi fell overboard. Four beers, all alone on his boat. The sheriff’s department didn’t find the scalp or hair back then, so…” Cole shrugged.
Ian smiled. His gaze dropped, drifting from Cole to the aerial photo and then to Cole’s portrait.
“Search and rescue combed the lake. Sent divers, searched the waters. They never found Shane. Now, I would think that, if someone did subject Shane to that kind of torture, they wouldn’t necessarily want his body to be recovered, like it could be if he was left in the water. Even a body that’s been weighted down can be brought back up. And at that elevation, and with those kinds of temperatures? Bodies are preserved as if they were in the morgue. The lakes are colder than morgue refrigerators, in fact, which halts the decomp process. And the pressure at the depths of those lakes will prevent animal activity. I’m sure someone savvy about the wilderness would know all this.”
“Did you?” Ian’s gaze slashed back to Cole.
“No. I had to do my research.” He waited. Ian didn’t seem interested in saying more. “Someone who wanted what they’d done to Shane DeGrassi to stay hidden wouldn’t have dumped him in the lake. I think they would have taken him into the woods—not too far, right around here.” He dragged the tip of his pencil around the horseshoe end of the lake, deep in the thick forest on the mountain slope. “I think Shane’s still out there. In the ground.”
Ian leaned back. His handcuff chain dragged off the side of the table, pooling between his knees as he laced his hands together. He reached for his crotch, squeezing his groin, and shifted.
Cole looked. Sure enough, Ian had another erection, like he’d had when he spoke about Nelson Miller. Even in memory, his kills excited him. Cole reciting what Ian had done excited him, too. “I imagine there would have been pretty intense screams. For someone who enjoys other people’s pain and terror, Shane’s death must have been an indescribable experience. One unlikely to be forgotten.”
“I’m always on your mind, aren’t I, Cole?” Ian asked. His voice was smooth as a river’s run. “What I’ve done. What I’ve left behind for you to find. You can’t stop thinking about me, ever.”
“Tell me where Shane is.”
Ian shook his head.
There was a word Cole would never say in an interrogation. Not for any reason. He’d never say it to a predator’s face.Please: the victim’s lament.Please, please, please. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t hurt me.
Please tell me what you did.No, he wouldn’t say please, wouldn’t put himself in the same position as Ian’s victims. He wouldn’t give Ian that satisfaction.
“You took Shane. And you know why his DNA—his blood and his scalp fragments—are deep inside the threads of the propellers on that outboard motor.”
“As you said earlier, such an experience would be unforgettable. Something like that would be kept near and dear, don’t you think? Something cherished, not to be given away.”
It was almost a confession, but not enough. And it wasn’t enough to bring Shane home. Cole sighed.
