Page 65 of Property of Prime
“What the hell does this mean?”I muttered.
Lost approached again.“Doc’s on his way.”
I nodded.“Good.”
I crouched again and stared at the skeleton.
What story did these bones tell?
The killer had moved on from leaving fresh bodies to digging up old ones.Why?Was he taunting us?Leaving clues?Warning us?Or was this connected to the past somehow?The part Shay was just starting to remember?
It didn’t look like some animal had dug the grave up.There was no dirt on the bones.No roots tangled in the limbs.No weathering matched the environment.
This wasn’t an accident.
This skeleton had been placed here perfectly.Intentionally waiting for us.
Lost blew out a breath.“Feels like he’s toying with us.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly.“Feels like that to me, too.”
The wind shifted again.
The bones stayed still, silent and patient.
Like they were waiting for the next move in a game none of us had agreed to play.
And every part of me knew the killer had just escalated.
Chapter Sixteen
Shay
Bernice’s cabin had started to feel like a second home in a weird, unsettling, maybe-I’m-emotionally-unstable kind of way.
Pearl and I sat cross-legged on the floor again, surrounded by more boxes than I could count.Receipts, photos, newspaper clippings, half-finished to-do lists from fifteen years ago, and things that made absolutely zero sense, like a receipt foronepeanut butter cup and a pair of shoelaces.
Pearl had tried explaining it earlier.“Bernice saved everything because she thought everything mattered.”
Honestly… it fit.
Anchor was sitting against the far wall, with his arms folded, and his eyes drifting between us and the door like he expected danger to burst in at any second.His presence didn’t feel ominous, more like a guard dog who was very aware his entire pack was in danger.
I tried to focus on the papers in front of me.Tried to pretend every muscle in my body wasn’t buzzing with leftover warmth from last night with Prime.Tried not to think about the way he held me this morning before heading out on patrol.
But every few minutes, my mind drifted right back to him.
To easy.To quiet.To safe.
I was halfway through flattening out an old photograph when Anchor’s phone rang.He didn’t even look at the screen, just answered and lifted it to his ear.
“Yeah.”
His entire posture changed in a heartbeat.He straightened and everything about him tightened.
That wasn’t good.
Pearl froze mid-page turn.
