The Memory Bones: An absolutely unputdownable mystery thriller (Detective Casey White Book 5) Read online

  THE MEMORY BONES

  AN ABSOLUTELY UNPUTDOWNABLE MYSTERY THRILLER

  B.R. SPANGLER

  BOOKS BY B.R. SPANGLER

  Detective Casey White Series

  Where Lost Girls Go

  The Innocent Girls

  Saltwater Graves

  The Crying House

  The Memory Bones

  The Lighthouse Girls

  Taken Before Dawn

  The Outer Banks Crime Thriller Series

  Deadly Tide

  The Affair with Murder Psychological Thriller Series

  1. Killing Katie

  2. Painful Truths

  3. Grave Mistakes

  A Cozy Mystery

  An Order of Coffee and Tears

  Caustic, a Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller Series

  1. Fallen

  2. Endure

  3. Deceit

  4. Reveal

  A Paranormal Supernatural Thriller

  Superman’s Cape

  AVAILABLE IN AUDIO

  Detective Casey White Series

  Where Lost Girls Go (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Innocent Girls (Available in the UK and the US)

  Saltwater Graves (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Crying House (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Memory Bones (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Lighthouse Girls (Available in the UK and the US)

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  The Lighthouse Girls

  Hear More from B.R. Spangler

  Books by B.R. Spangler

  A Letter from B.R. Spangler

  Where Lost Girls Go

  The Innocent Girls

  Saltwater Graves

  The Crying House

  Taken Before Dawn

  Acknowledgements

  *

  PROLOGUE

  THREE YEARS EARLIER

  Birds were singing as they flitted about the branches, their early morning chorus filling Janice Stephen’s ears while she walked to her death. She brushed away a misty web from her arm and cried out when she felt the gun barrel slam hard against her head. A soundless gasp followed, her eyelids clapping shut. Janice waited for the bullet to come next.

  It didn’t.

  He was tall and had to kneel to lower himself close to her face, his excited panting hot and stinking sour. The gun rattled in his grasp. Was it a reconsideration? Was he having second thoughts?

  There was frustration in his eyes for a brief moment before he shoved the gun hard enough to rock her head sideways, the tip of it cutting her scalp. She dared to look into his masked face, tattered holes in the black knitted material for his eyes and mouth. She shuddered at the sight, the mask making him look like a scarecrow. A scarecrow who had a gun, who’d abducted her and dragged her to his truck.

  The other one was shorter and wearing a mask too. Unlike the tall one, there was fear blazing from his hazel eyes, and his hands were shaking. She dared a look at him too as he stood quiet and tried to remain still.

  Like Janice, he was doing as he was told, taking orders from the taller one.

  She thought she knew the shorter one. His voice had seemed familiar. She decided to try pleading again.

  “What do you want with me?” she begged.

  The taller one motioned to her clothes as he stood over her. “Strip!”

  Hesitant, Janice did as was demanded, shoes and socks first, spreading her toes, pushing them into the cool soil. The other one held his hands out to collect each article. Gooseflesh rose on her arms and chest as cold air brushed over her bare skin, her shirt being the first to be surrendered. Her pants were next. She lowered each pant leg with hands that she couldn’t stop from shaking. Unfurling the new pair of pink scrubs from her feet, she clung to a sinking hope that she might wear them again.

  The taste of bile rose from the back of her throat, stinging her tongue. The men saw her nausea coming and stepped back, twigs crunching. They had brought her to a place thick with trees bordering marshy wetlands. After she’d vomited, she gazed beyond the tree line, searching for a glimpse of life, the motions of an early morning jogger perhaps. But the disappointment was fierce. She lowered her head, seeing they were completely alone.

  The taller of the two stomped his shoes, his demeanor becoming more anxious. He waved his gun at her bra and underpants. She stared down at her pale skin with bashful fright. He wanted the last of her clothing. He wanted her naked.

  “Okay,” she said, trembling, slipping her panties down, the silky touch of them falling onto her toes. Her bra was next, one of the clasps sticking. When he tensed again, she jerked it free. “It was stuck.”

  Pointing to a place off the trail, he growled. “Now walk!”

  “Please!” she said, tears welling as she begged. When she didn’t move, he shoved the tip of the gun against her forehead. “Please let me go. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Do what he said!” she heard the other one plead. Her arms and legs trembled violently, the tears cold on her face. Terror was driving her heart through her chest hard enough to hurt.

  “That way.” The gunman pushed the gun into her back, moving her off the trail, taking her into the swamp. Tall sawgrass blades parted as she walked through, the cattails snapping, her feet sinking into the marshy ground. When they reached an opening, the first of the day’s light became bright for a moment, until a harsh strike came from behind. Janice tumbled over, her bare chest and elbows scraping against the coarse grass, a white streak blowing up behind her eyelids.

  “This will do.”

  Dazed, the pain inside her head peeled away her fears and turned her body cold as primal instincts took over. Breathe, she told herself. Footsteps circled around her as she sensed them staring. She looked up, seeing the shorter of them scared while the other was wild-eyed. “Please,” she begged. Without word or warning, the gunman yanked the knitted mask from the other, jerking it hard enough to pull it off his head and reveal his face. Janice went wide-eyed.

  She did know him. She had known him for some time.

  A strange sense of relief came at the sight of his face, but with it, so many questions.

  “You?”

  His voice belted shrilly. “Why did you do that!? Now she’s seen my face!”

  Slowly, the taller one removed his mask too, his grim smirk telling Janice the truth of what was to come. He saw her resignation and told her, “Don’t lose your hope just yet. How about we play a game?”

  “Come on! Let’s get this over with,” the other pleaded, beginning to pace, his fa
ce shiny with sweat.

  “Tell me why?” Janice asked him directly, her head clearing.

  “I’m so sorry, Janice,” he answered, blubbering.

  “Tell me why!” she yelled, smacking her hand against the ground, making him jump. “Now!”

  “Because you saw too much,” he answered, sniveling. “Janice, you saw too much.”

  “Saw what? What did I see?”

  The taller one let out a laugh and clapped his hand onto her shoulder. He turned serious then, kneeling close enough she could smell his breath again. “Do you want to live?”

  “Fuck you!” Janice answered, knowing it was too late.

  “I’m being serious with you,” he added, his brow raised. From behind him, he revealed a bundle of rope, a white nylon like a clothesline. “I’ll let you pick. You can have a bullet to the head. It’d be quick and simple. Or, I tie you up and we walk away.”

  “Walk away?” Janice asked, wondering what the catch was. She didn’t wait for his answer, speaking quickly, “The rope. I’ll take the rope.”

  “Awesome,” he said with a loud clap. He went to work immediately, her front pinned against the sodden ground, the plants scraping and pinching her belly and chest. She cried out when he wrenched her legs up and tied the ropes around her ankles. He took hold of her arms, twisting them behind her, the sharp touch of nylon cinched around her wrists. “Hanging in there, Janice?”

  “This isn’t right,” the other one complained. “You said this would be quick and simple.”

  “It will,” he answered, grunting while he worked the ropes, forming a noose that he placed around her neck.

  “This is the game?” Janice asked, breathless, unsure of what to think.

  “It is,” he answered, his hands large, fingers fanned across her hands and feet, keeping hold of them, the rope slack. “And when I let go, we’ll walk away.”

  “She’ll get away!” The other one shouted, trudging back and forth, flattening the plants in his path. “This is too risky.”

  “You’re next if you don’t shut the fuck up!”

  Still holding her hands and feet, the nylon around her neck warming with the heat of her skin, he asked in a soft voice, “Janice, are you ready?”

  “And you’re just going to walk away?” she asked, heart skipping wildly with hope. But another glance at him, she saw evil. He wasn’t going to stay true to his word. Tears stinging again, her voice a rasp, “You’ll let me live?”

  He lowered himself, his expression emptying when his gaze met hers. “Cross my heart and all that nonsense.” He checked the rope once more, saying, “Now take a deep breath.”

  She breathed in the dirt she faced, gagging at it while he held her arms and legs firmly behind her. Roots and stones jutted into her gut. She braced for him to let her go, to begin his game. But before she could fill her lungs again, his hand went free. The muscles in her legs relaxed, and her arms fell, the weight of both jerking the rope around her neck.

  He let out a giddy laugh when the rope snapped tight as though she’d just been hung from a tree limb. Janice braced against the strangling force, blood and air cut off from her brain. Her nose against the ground, her gaze went to the killer’s feet as they moved into position to watch her die.

  “Oh this is cruel,” she heard. There was regret in the other one’s voice, but it wouldn’t help her. “Just kill her already.”

  Janice strained to look up, trying to ease the rope’s tension. “Wait!” the taller one said. “A promise is a promise.”

  She found a short breath. And then another. But her strength was disappearing, the noose tightening as she moved to fight the restraints. Her heartbeat pulsed like a bomb in her head. Janice shifted her arms and legs, fires forming in the shadows of her mind that turned bright and shot into a sky until she could no longer see. Desperate and nearing a blackout, Janice stretched until her fingers brushed an ankle, close enough to snag hold of the nylon wrapped around it. In this game, she only needed to add slack, to grab hold of the rope and not let go. She held on to it by a fingertip, the immense pressures around her neck lifting enough to steal another breath. This was the way to get out of the trap. She only needed to hold the weight of her legs and arms like he’d done. Otherwise, the noose on her neck would tighten. It’d strangle her. Muscles quaking, could she do it? Was she too late?

  “Is she going to get it?!” the other asked, stammering nervously.

  The killer raised his hand, rearing up as though he was going to strike. “Shut up and wait for it!”

  When the muscles in her arms shook uncontrollably, her grip began to slip. Janice tried with everything she had to hold the rope, to slide another finger into the loops cinched around her ankles.

  But she couldn’t keep hold. Her strength waning, the noose collapsed a final time. The men turned their backs then. Their game was over.

  Janice Stephen died in the quiet noise of the marshland. The fireflies shone as though the stars in the sky had magically descended.

  And she died never knowing why. Never knowing what she had seen too much of.

  ONE

  We left the safety of a Buxton Woods hiking trail and entered into an open grove of oak and pine with long purple flowers someone on my team called pickerelweed. It was a summer day, cloudless and warm. Cobwebs were strung across the bushes and sparkled with dew as the sun burned off a morning haze. My team was responding to a call to travel south on Hatteras Island, a caller describing what they believed was a body, naked and exposed to the elements.

  As the designated lead, I was the one who’d rallied the team for this morning’s drive to the southern part of the Outer Banks. We’d piled into a few cars, coffee sloshing in our cups, and headed to the jut of wetland that shouldered the Atlantic Ocean. It was a short distance from the tranquil beaches most come to the Outer Banks to see. But we weren’t here for a walk on the white sands. We were here to find a body.

  The team was quiet as we passed a row of trees that glistened with sap; a steady and soft snap of branches was our background noise, along with leaves rustling, frogs croaking, and birds singing to the rising sun. The coordinates on my phone were only an estimate and had been based on the caller’s location. Perpendicular to the trail, was what he’d said. I checked over my shoulder, making sure we stayed straight, seeing hikers on the trail stop to watch with curious gazes, their voices a distant chatter.

  We made it fifty yards and then the ground changed, becoming wet and mushy, a marshland. I looked at my team’s faces, gauging their remaining confidence for us to continue. I questioned it too. We’d traveled well beyond the established terrain which had been touched by civilization. This was raw nature.

  The air was humid and salty, and the cattails and sawgrass grew more crowded. The sting of sweat teemed on the back of my neck and on my upper lip. We passed pools of bubbling waters the shade of black tea. I spread my arms for balance, the others doing the same, our boots getting stuck in the murky soft loam. There were gnats darting in and out of our faces, and dragonflies hovering above flowering plants. The sight of the insects had me thinking of the flies that might have found the body, if that’s what it was. Depending on their species, they could be used to establish a timeline.

  When the breeze shifted, it came with an odor I knew. I could smell it in my mouth and nostrils and feel it on my skin. It was death.

  “We’re close,” our medical examiner, Dr. Swales, said. She stopped dead and tilted her head, her frizzy gray hair leaning with it. She wrinkled her nose and sniffed the air as her thick glasses fogged. She found the direction like a well-trained dog, and pointed, giving me a hard look. “You smell that?”

  “I do,” I answered, continuing forward, leading us to the body. I noted the location, pinning the coordinates on my phone. “Not exactly a hundred yards, but close enough.”

  “Let’s see what we have.” Dr. Swales came to my side and squeezed my hand with her tiny fingers. I gripped her fingers in mine when the earth
swallowed one of her boots whole, the ground covered with bright green moss and too soft to trust.

  “Lift,” I told her as Detective Emanuel Wilson, all six foot six of him, took hold of her other hand. I froze then, a gust parting tall grass aside like a curtain blowing through an open window. Beyond it, I caught the first glimpse of pale gray skin, the body naked and face down. It was possibly a man, his body without bloat which meant death had occurred within the last three days. “Guys, over there.”

  “I got you,” Emanuel said, the doctor’s size like a twelve-year-old compared to him. She held out her arms as he hoisted her effortlessly, the muck releasing her boot with a muddy burp.

  “My handsome knight coming to my rescue,” Swales kidded, but her face turned grim when she saw the body over the swaying grass.

  I turned toward the team, wrinkling my nose at the growing stench. “We’ve arrived.”

  We circled around the body, carefully noting the ground and any disruptions. Nichelle Wilkinson, our team’s IT lead, held a camera in hand and started taking picture after picture. She’d caught the crime-scene bug on a recent case and was training for her certification. I pointed out what might have been a path from the hiking trail, its coming from the northern side of the open grove. The path before the marshes was evidence of someone having been here. From the looks of the body, we knew immediately there had to have been at least one other person involved.