Page 30 of Bound By Truth (An Island Bound Novel)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS HARD to see her mailbox in the dark, even with her headlights directed at the row of boxes for the Snellings Beach population, all lined up along the roadside. Sierra counted three from the end and lifted the flap, then gingerly put her hand in to retrieve her mail. It’d be just her luck if a large huntsman had taken up residence in there again. But there were no hairy, arachnid legs running over her hand tonight, and she breathed out a sigh of relief as she withdrew the bunch of envelopes from inside.

There were three letters today, and Sierra flicked on the internal cab light of her car as she settled back in the driver’s seat.

Her breath froze in her throat as she rifled through them. The last one in the stack was the familiar bland white envelope with the sterile, black print on the front.

Another letter from her stalker.

Sierra bit her lip and stared at the letter. Then she threw it down on the passenger seat. She couldn’t deal with it right now. It’d been a shit of a day and she was exhausted. She had a pretty good idea what the letter would say, anyway. More of the same threats and diatribe.

Putting the car into gear, she turned down the road toward Snellings Beach. It was late, after ten P.M. already. But she’d decided she needed to come home tonight, even though Kylie had offered up her spare bedroom again if she wanted it. She needed to check on her cats, and the chickens. Kylie had been such a sweetheart about her staying last night, and they’d sat up chatting for over an hour after she arrived from Reed’s place. They’d cracked open a bottle of red and talked about the only news anyone on the island was discussing—the missing five-year-old girl. Of course, Sierra hadn’t mentioned where she’d had dinner, but she did tell Kylie she needed to get up early, as she’d offered to help Sergeant Coldwater with the news conference in the morning. Sierra was glad she’d stayed at her friend’s house last night. It’d helped ground her again, after that impetuous kiss with Reed. Bring her back down to reality. Got her mind off Reed and his lips. Hot, sensual lips, that had set her body aflame.

Even so, Sierra had been looking forward to seeing Reed this morning. Couldn’t stop the nervous butterflies bouncing around in her belly when he’d strode into the fire house, flashing her a knowing grin, with the dimple dancing. But the day had quickly descended into dark madness. Finding those bones had really rattled Sierra. And Blake turning up. That’d rattled her, as well. She’d made sure to try and avoid him all day, which’d been fairly easy, as he’d been too busy being overly-helpful to Reed, and the rest of the cops who’d showed up later. But Blake had cast her more than one curious glance when he thought she wasn’t looking. And sometimes, there was more than mere speculation in those glances, sometimes she thought she saw a hint of resentful spite.

She was feeling a tad guilty that she still hadn’t returned his phone calls, or his texts. But then she reminded herself she wasn’t about to start pandering to him if he was going to act like a sulky child. For some reason, she couldn’t completely rid herself of that little nagging voice in the back of her head that kept prodding at her. There was no way he could be responsible for the break-in at her house. It was stupid to even consider it. She’d tried to let him down easy, but he’d have to man-up and accept she wasn’t interested in him anymore. End of story.

Consciously moving her mind onto another topic, she remembered the look on Reed’s face when he’d confided to her that the bones belonged to a child. His regretful grimace and gray pallor told her he was just as shocked and saddened as she was. He said they’d been buried for at least a year, by the looks of it. But he could be wrong, they’d have to wait for the coroner to confirm before they could make it official. Sierra’s internal alarms started to jangle. Immediately, the documents spread out on her bed had jumped into her mind. Those two missing girls. Surely, they couldn’t be related. Could they? Those girls and these bones? Surely it was too much of a coincidence? Then why couldn’t Sierra rid herself of this terrible feeling of disquiet?

As Sierra turned into her driveway, she made a decision. Reed had told her they’d have to wait for DNA evidence to prove who the bones belonged to. But that could take weeks. Tonight, the media had started asking the hard questions after the discovery of the bones had been made public. Demanding to know if the police thought Jessica had been abducted and wasn’t just lost. The whole island community was becoming scared and outraged. Asking whether it could be one of their own who’d done this? Or was it some off-islander who’d come over on a day trip for a thrill-kill?

She decided to delve more deeply into this case, use her own contacts to find out more. Because if they were connected…Well, wouldn’t that open up a can of worms. And perhaps Sierra might be able to help find the killer.

Sierra glanced nervously at the front of her house as she drew up. Then let out a whoosh of air when the security light flashed on. she smiled as her two cats got up off the front door-mat and gave her that cat-stare that said Where the hell have you been? Even though Sam had fed Jon and Snow for her last night, they would’ve been most displeased at having to spend the night without her comfy bed to curl up on. At least everything seemed to be back to normal tonight at her house.

Sierra got out of her car and unlocked the front door. The cats rushed past her into the house, another good sign that all was well. She needed a glass of wine, some food, and a hot shower, in that order.

She’d spent most of the rest of the day with Reed, as he waited for the forensics officer to arrive. They roped off the area with police tape, and he’d got the names and addresses of everyone in the search team, as he wanted to interview them all later. Eventually, Don put in an appearance after lunch, chaperoning the man from the state coroner’s office, who’d come to retrieve the bones. Reed had finally taken Sam and Debbie back to the police station to get their official statements and dropped Sierra back in town around mid-afternoon, where she’d re-joined the search for missing Jessica. But the mood of the searchers was somber and restrained. Word had already got around about the discovery of human remains. And there was still absolutely no sign of the missing girl.

Tom Hubbard had once again been in charge of her search group. This time she’d managed to get him alone for a few minutes at the end of the day. He hadn’t said much, had let her do all the talking. But he looked even more haggard and under pressure than before. Sierra felt sorry for him and she’d disregarded her silly anxiety from the day before about the candies he was offering around. She almost regretted mentioning them to Reed last night. But she knew that sometimes even the smallest clue could be important, no matter how much she thought it was of no consequence.

Evan had been nowhere to be seen this afternoon. He must’ve joined another search group. She doubted he’d given up, not after his fervent speech yesterday about how desperate he was to help find the little girl. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was almost thankful. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly why she was glad not to have run into Evan today. Perhaps it had something to do with how he’d seemed a little too zealous yesterday. It’d spooked Sierra for some unknown reason.

Even though the day had been hard to get through, and even though the sight of that small, helpless hand sticking out of the soil would probably never leave her, a small part of Sierra had enjoyed working with Reed. Enjoyed being by his side. She’d liked watching him at work. He was calm and unruffled. Had an aura around him that made everyone want to trust him. And, holy hell, didn’t he look good in that police uniform. Strong and tall, masculine and rugged. And now that she knew what those lips tasted like, what a killer body he had under that uniform, she had to stop herself reaching out to touch him on more than one occasion. The hot flash of desire that shot through her at the sight of his biceps bulging as he shifted some heavy debris away from the crime scene had been inappropriate and ill-timed, but she couldn’t stop it.

She shook her head to rid it of images of Reed Kapua. First thing tomorrow morning, Sierra was going to start making some more phone calls. There’d been two contacts who’d been either unwilling or unable to take her calls earlier in the week. Sierra was going to call in a favor from Jen. Perhaps her friend might be able to lend some of her editorial weight behind a second request to speak to these men. One of them was the first officer on the scene when the original girl was taken. He was still on the force, but had moved to another unit in Adelaide. And the next was the detective in charge of the second case. She had some questions she wanted to ask about what sort of evidence had been found at the scenes of both missing kids.

Which meant she really needed to get to bed sooner rather than later. Sierra always left her fireplace set and ready to light, so all she needed to do was strike a match to the tinder and then close the door. The house would soon heat up. She pulled a tin of baked beans out of the cupboard and tipped them into a saucepan to heat, and popped some bread in the toaster. Not a gourmet meal by any means, but hot and filling. While she waited for the beans to heat, she grabbed the flashlight she always kept under the kitchen windowsill and went out to check on her chickens. Even though it was late and they would all be asleep, with their heads tucked under their wings, she wanted to make sure they had food for the morning, and that Sam had secured the door to the chicken run properly when he’d closed it up last night.

She switched on the rear veranda light and followed the beam of her flashlight down the gravel pathway to the chicken run. All was quiet and serene, as she flashed her light through the doorway into their little roosting house. One of them—probably Cindi—gave a few low clucks at being disturbed, but the rest of them continued to slumber on peacefully. Sierra opened the metal box next to the chicken run and filled a plastic container with grain, scattering it over the dirt floor of the open area of the run. The girls had laid two eggs for her, which she would add to her baked-bean dinner. Happy that all was good in the world of her bantams, she went back into the house.

The beans were bubbling on the stove, and the smell of warm toast filled the kitchen. Quickly adding the eggs to a small frying pan, she put two more logs of wood on the fire, and then poured herself a glass of red wine. By that time, her simple meal was ready, and she took it to the dining table to eat. The laptop she’d borrowed from Sam and Debbie sat on the table, reminding her she needed to follow up with the insurance company to see if they’d paid out on her claim yet. When they did, she’d have to go to Adelaide for the day to buy herself a new computer.

She may as well check her emails while she ate, to see if anything new had come in from Jen. Spooning beans into her mouth with one hand, she fired up the old computer and waited. And waited. It was amazing how quickly she’d gotten used to her lightning-fast Mac laptop, and now she became impatient if something took more than a few seconds to load. It was only a few years ago that she’d owned one of these clunkers. The world had become so impatient now, expecting everything to happen instantaneously, including herself.

Finally, her emails loaded and she began scrolling, sifting through the mostly junk mail.

Oh, shit.

There was an email from the stalker.

Which was unusual. He seemed to prefer the old-fashioned letter in the mailbox method. But he had sent her a few emails over the years. She knew it was the same person, his prose was unmistakable.

Should she open it? The white envelope was sitting on the hallway table, unopened. This was highly unusual. He’d never sent her an email and a letter at the same time. And this was the third contact in a week. Up till now, she hadn’t heard from him in over six months. Had even dared to hope he’d gotten tired of harassing her and stopped sending his vile hate mail. Was he upping the ante for some reason?

Sierra clicked on the email and took a sip of her wine as she read the words on her screen. She’d expected to see more of the same old verbal haranguing she was used to, and it was definitely there, but there was also something different about this one.

If you knew what’s good for you, you’d stop trying to resurrect your journalism career. I know what you’re up to. It’s all about vilifying more innocent police officers, who are just trying to do their jobs, isn’t it?

---