Page 66 of The Grave Between Us
The anthropologist frowned. “You wanted him to be burned?”
“If he had, it would be something we could have tried to trace,” Michael snapped. “We could have searched every area hardware store, grocery store, and gas station until we found him on camera buying Drano, or lye, or bleach. If we got that, we could maybe find his car. If we found his car, we could try and track him back to wherever he’s holed up.”
Minus the attitude, that was something Noah would have said, would have done. Michael had always been one of the best FBI agents Cole had ever met. Noah, too. Cole focused too much on behavior, onwhyinstead ofhow. Noah could track down the how of an investigation like the best investigators Cole had ever seen.
Why change from using Drano to not? “He’s probably not doing it anymore for exactly that reason,” Cole said softly. “No one cared that he was buying Drano before.”
Before. Before eight years ago, before he was caught, before he escaped. Ian was a very careful fugitive.
“Can you check his mouth, too?” Cole asked. “Can you see if there’s anything inside?”
“What are we looking for?”
“Just check, please.”
The anthropologist carefully worked his gloved finger into Kerrigan’s blue lips, checking his jaw muscles. “He’s cold and slack. Rigor has passed.”
“Then he died more than thirty-six hours ago. Sometime on Sunday,” Michael said.
The anthropologist worked Kerrigan’s jaw, using two fingers to gently separate his teeth. He shined a flashlight into the mouth. Frowned. “Can I get the camera down here?” He motioned for the photographer to crouch over the grave, wide of the edges, and angle his camera so he could get a shot inside Kerrigan’s mouth. Finally, the anthropologist reached two fingers in and pulled what looked like sky-blue paper from behind Kerrigan’s teeth.
He held it out, balancing it in his palm.
A paper crane, the same color as the one the little boy had been playing with in the barn. The same one Cole had held in his hands. The same one he’d given back to the kid as the father bellowed at Cole, as Ian watched, hidden in the corner of the bar.
“Damn it,” Michael breathed. He took the crane from the anthropologist’s hand and bagged it. “It’s his signature.”
Cole nodded.
There’s nothing quite as intimate between two people as a grave.
“I’m taking this back to the office. I want to get it sent to Quantico today. Are you coming?” Michael turned away to head back to the parking lot, already done with the grave and Brett Kerrigan. Moving on to the next item on his to-do list, the next step in his great “capture Ian” plan. But where did they go from here? What could they do next, when they were always one step behind, always playing catch-up to Ian’s graves and his victims? For once, thanks to Noah, they’d been on his trail, but even so, they were too late. Brett Kerrigan’s grave might be fresh, but it was still a grave.
“No, I’m going to stay,” Cole said. “I need to be here.”
He watched every layer of dirt come out of Kerrigan’s grave, watched his body be exhumed from the earth. He texted Noah, despondent, despairing about where to go from there. Noah tried to talk him through it, reminding him they had an active crime scene now. A fresh body dump, which meant there were forensic possibilities. Tire treads, shoe imprints, DNA. They had Ian tied to a place, which meant they had another location to search from. They’d find him, Noah promised.
And then Cole’s cell phone rang. The number was restricted. Noah, he thought, calling to try to cheer him up. The office number always came up restricted. He swiped and answered, turning away from the grave. “Hello?”
“Hello, Cole.”
Every muscle in Cole’s body froze. Even his heart stopped and his lungs stilled, his mind stalling for an endless moment as his vision went blurry. The horizon, a fuzzy squiggle of forest and fog and farm, turned neon-intense as the world went white. Every cell in his body seemed to detonate at once, a burn that seared through him like a nuclear blast. “Ian,” he breathed.
“It was incredibly easy to get your number. Your receptionist should be fired. All I had to do was pretend to be calling from Quantico, pretend I’d had my call dropped a few times trying to connect to you. She gave me your direct line before I even asked.”
Kathy was one of the nicest women Cole knew, always looking out for the much-younger agents in the office. She kept photos of Katie and Brianna at her desk and never missed any of the agents’ birthdays. “Where are you, Ian?”
“Are you having fun at the grave I left you? Are you thinking of me? I thought of you as I was burying him.”
Cole spun in a circle, searching the woods. He tried to peer through the trees. There was a small hill in front of him, and he ran up it, boots crunching over the dead leaves and wet earth.He’s in the park! He’s watching!He slipped and nearly fell to his knees on the thick ground cover.
“It’s wonderful to see you again, Cole. I’m not as close as I was all those years ago, but I’m still close enough to see your face. Catch a whiff of you as I passed by. You don’t look like you’ve aged a day. You’re as breathtaking as ever. I can still draw you perfectly. I have. I’ll show you sometime. I’ve kept you so close to me.”
Cole stumbled down the hill, racing back to the grave site. He waved his hands, trying to signal to the commander. Everyone was staring at him, frowning. He covered the mic, hissed, “It’s him! He’s here in the park! He’s watching us!”
It was like he’d kicked an anthill. The search commander grabbed his radio and called for all units to sweep the park, for a cordon to be set up on the highways, for all cooperating units from adjoining state and municipal agencies to descend on the park. He used the emergency band on the police radio, broadcasting in the clear, as far and wide as he could transmit.
“Where are you, Ian?” Cole asked again. His voice was shaking. “I want to see you. Tell me where you are.”
