Their Resting Place: A completely unputdownable mystery and suspense thriller (Detective Casey White Book 8) Read online

  THEIR RESTING PLACE

  A COMPLETELY UNPUTDOWNABLE MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE THRILLER

  DETECTIVE CASEY WHITE SERIES

  BOOK 8

  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

  Their Resting Place

  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)

  Taken Before Dawn (Available in the UK and the US)

  CONTENTS

  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

  Epilogue

  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

  The Memory Bones

  The Lighthouse Girls

  Taken Before Dawn

  *

  This book is dedicated to my friends and family.

  With much love, thank you for your support.

  ONE

  Charlie Robson didn’t want to die today. She’d gone into the sunflower field when she’d heard her name called by someone. But it hadn’t been by anyone she knew. It had turned out to be a nightmare. She ducked below the blooms now, her fingers clutching her phone, her muscles quaking as a cry became stuck in her throat. She stared at an arrow, the tip of it burrowed in the ground, the end brightly colored with green and orange neon fins. Its shaft was as black as coal, a dark blur when it had skinned her leg a moment ago. She touched the wound, fingers trembling, her blood horribly bright. Charlie swallowed a scream and searched desperately for a phone signal. No bars.

  “This was a trap,” she said, her heart beating wildly, terror clouding her head. How could she have thought the invitation was anything but sinister? With a gut-wrenching revelation, Charlie understood what it had really meant. “He’s hunting me.”

  She should never have come alone. She should have thrown it away instead. Crumpled the note and tossed it in the trash. Wasn’t it from the girls? The team? A get-together to talk about him? It wasn’t. The writing was though, her name on the front, the folded paper sitting alone in her mailbox. There was no postage or return address. It wasn’t junk mail or one of those fliers. Someone had been to where she lived and had placed it there for her. Charlie slipped the letter from her pocket, seeing it as she’d first seen it earlier that day. She read it again. Read the word, guilty, the writing done in cursive with tall looping letters.

  Panic felt like a wildfire, kindled to burn through and all-consuming. To survive, Charlie had to escape. Her screen showed no bars. To escape, she’d have to get to her car. Footsteps approaching. Heart shuddering. Heavy soled shoes stomped the ground, crunching the stalks with movement across the field. Beads of sweat teemed on her face with a sting. She crouched further and shuffled to a new spot behind heavily seeded blooms that were large enough to eclipse the sun. They were big enough to keep a secret, to keep her alive. A cold gust. A pending storm. The giant stalks swayed gently and spoke in delicate voices that hid her breathing. She peered up enough to see her car parked nearby. Stay hidden, and she’d stay alive.

  The wound in her leg pulsed, dressing her leg red from the knee to her ankle. Cautiously, she held her phone to the sky, thinking that’d help. No signal bars. Charlie startled with the arrival of a bird. Flower petals circled a bed of seed, a chickadee swiftly flying from one to the next. The bird gave her a curious look, wings flitting as it took off abruptly. The footsteps were closer. Charlie teetered softly on her toes, squatting until she was nearly on the ground. She didn’t dare lose her balance, grabbing a slender stalk to prop herself, the weight enough to break the stem and give up the secret of her hiding place. She sipped at the air as plump raindrops began to fall and join the tears on her face. She had to move again, chance a sound to get to her car.

  Thirty feet, she thought, lifting enough to see the rusted yellow Mazda. It had been a gift from her cousin to help her get back and forth from classes. Emanuel was always good to her, watching out for her since his parents were lost in the accident. He was a cop and would be the first person she’d call for help. She eyed the phone’s screen, a single bar blinking, a signal coming and going. Charlie’s heart swelled as she swayed like the sunflowers, easing north and then south, honing onto a solid bar. A bar! She anchored herself, planting her bare knees into the field, the phone’s cell service holding on to one bar. Emanuel.

  The hair on the back of her neck rose like the bristly flower stems still in her grip, before an arrow struck sharply. She froze in the moment, her phone’s screen shattering in an explosion. A red ribbon opened in her palm, splaying from her wrist to her fingers. Her phone tumbled onto the ground, pixels dancing violently as the battery wheezed out the last of its life. The punctured screen died then, turning black, an arrow stuck at the center of it. Pain rifled up her arm, but she ignored it and jumped into a run, the muscles in her legs telling her that they’d been sitting squat for too long. She ran lopsided, falling onto her side, panting frantically. She climbed over the sunflowers, their stems breaking with a snap, and was up again and running straight. Blood dripped from her fingertips, her view blurring. She didn’t dare look back, staying in a straight run to where she’d seen her car.

  Her lungs burning, Charlie reached an opening, her shoes clopping over lifeless sunflowers. An arrow whizzed by her head, the wind it carried touching her cheek with a cold kiss. “Please,” she begged, a stifled scream rattling her teeth. But there was no mercy. Not when being hunted. Another arrow f
ound her when her gaze landed on her car. She was less than fifty yards from it as the arrowhead bit into the back of her thigh.

  She tumbled forward, chin striking the ground, chest crashing, her shoes flying into the air in an awkward somersault. Dizzied and confused, she’d fallen at the edge of an opening that didn’t make sense, that wasn’t supposed to exist. There was no time to understand it though, fire raging in her legs, an arrow grotesquely jutting from her flesh. A seedy bloom turned to her as if it was going to speak, as if it was going to warn her. She was in a crop circle, the sunflowers trampled to the ground in a perfect circular pattern. She clutched her chest when she recognized it for what it was. A kill zone. Her hunter had driven her to the spot in the open to finish what he’d started. The next arrow dug even deeper than the last, entering from behind, piercing her lower back. She clutched her middle where it stuck, where it protruded through her shirt, the metal tip dripping.

  “Dark blood,” she mumbled errantly, her body turning cold from the shock as she recalled the instructor calling it deoxygenated. It was venous blood; she’d learned that in her training to be an ER nurse. Her words wandered crazily with instructions as she crawled toward her car. “Care should be taken, or bleeding could be substantial.”

  Footsteps approaching at a steady pace. Charlie labored forward on her knees and elbows, her crawl turning clumsy when a fresh arrow plunged through her ribs. It was like glass being driven into her soul, the arrow stealing her air, collapsing a lung while she slipped back into the cover of the sunflowers. She stared aimlessly, finding the sunflower blooms above. The giant beauties peacefully danced with the wind of the oncoming storm while she slowly began to die. Gray clouds lumbered overhead, turning the day’s twilight into a green seance. The sunflowers were good at keeping secrets, but he’d found her. There was no hiding.

  “The body will experience cold and extreme pain,” she rambled in short breaths, her instructor telling them about shock following a major accident. There was a cry deep inside her. The kind that turned her insides loose and made her sick. But the damage was done. She chewed on her upper lip, tasting the blood as it rose into her mouth. A chill rushed over her skin, adrenaline washing through her. A splash of color. A female cardinal landed on a sunflower and turned a beady eye on her, a witness to the last moments of her life. “Cold, clammy skin. Rapid pulse—”

  A tune. Humming. The killer was at her feet. Charlie lifted her head to see them, finding a face hidden in silhouette instead. Charlie gasped when the shadows lifted.

  “You?” she asked in disbelief, her voice gurgling. She spat the metal taste on her tongue. “Why?”

  There was no answer, the view of her killer drifting with her focus. She almost thought she heard more footsteps. Or did they move? Someone new? Her killer loaded a new arrow, the bow hoisted shoulder-high into position, its string drawn taut and then released with a cracking whoosh. Charlie’s eyelids peeled open with a start, her chest seeming to cave inward, the cardinal’s wings flitting as it darted to another flower.

  The killer was like a statue, watching her writhe. She tried to look away and not give her murderer the satisfaction. Emanuel might find her. Hadn’t she seen a signal bar on her phone? Did the text message reach him? There was a cell tower near here someplace. Charlie’s last thoughts were of the girl she’d seen in the news, a name from her past, the one who was killed in a sunflower field like this. Charlie would be number two today.

  TWO

  Five Years Earlier

  The bow creaked as Charlie pulled the line into position. She firmed her foot against the soft ground, the field damp from the days of rain that had fallen. It was their first practice in almost a week and the strain crawling into her shoulder said that she’d be sore later. The pain in her fingertips confirmed it. A gust of wind carried a chill and the smell of autumn, strong enough to make the line sing and her hair fly around her head. Some of her team took to wrapping themselves in their jackets, but Charlie let the gooseflesh rise as she narrowed her focus. She sipped at the air, concentrating on the target, the meet with their rivals in less than a week.

  “Now,” she said with a whisper, letting go, the arrow flying straight and piercing the target with a thwack.

  “Missed again, Charlie,” Patti chided with a sly grin. Their team was good. One of the best in the state. And of them, Patti was a big reason why. But Charlie was sure she could beat her. She knew she could.

  “One more,” Charlie told her, gripping the insides of her shoes, fists with her toes, her cousin Emanuel would joke. It was part of her setup, her form, and she did it without thinking. She pulled back until the bow creaked again and the line sang, straining to gain another inch and give the arrow some speed. “Just one more.”

  “Miss, miss, miss,” Patti teased loud enough for some of the girls to hear. It stole Charlie’s concentration, a frown forming. Patti’s freckled face was bright in the dim light. She held her bow like a dance partner and pranced and sang, “Charlie Charlie, you can’t win. You’ll miss the target because you st—”

  “Knock it off!” Jessie yelled. “Patti, do you really think that helps?”

  Patti looked at them wide-eyed as though she’d done nothing wrong. “Sure, it does. The other team is going to razz us.”

  “No, they won’t. And you know it,” Jessie scolded. She approached, standing behind, hands on Charlie’s hips, encouraging her form. Jessie’s blonde hair flowed over her shoulders as she bumped Charlie’s elbow and said, “Don’t let your arm drop. Not even a little. It’s why that last shot went high.”

  “Like this?” Charlie asked, her gaze drifting to Jessie. She was taller than Charlie, stronger too. And pretty, Charlie thought with a flutter of butterflies. She smiled nervously as Jessie looked over her form again.

  “That’s tight.” Jessie returned the smile, pupils growing. “You want to draw the string to the same spot every time. Never deviate. Train your muscles to do it without thinking.”

  “Okay,” Charlie said, her insides warming with the help. She peered at the target, inhaling deep, and then holding her breath, the bowstring tight near her face. She exhaled and released, the arrow flying straight and fast with a whoosh. It struck the target, missing the center by a few inches. “That’s better!”

  “It is,” Jessie said with a wide smile. She rocked her head to Patti who’d gone quiet while fidgeting with the neon-colored feathers on the end of an arrow. “Better give her a few shots too.”

  “Right.” Charlie stepped out, blades of glass rising where her feet had been planted.

  Patti took the position and went into form, her body firm and in perfect placement like something from the cover of the Archery Today magazine. She looked over at Charlie and gave her a wink before releasing the bowline.

  “Bang,” she said and blew a kiss, the arrow striking perfectly center, donning a smile filled with smugness. “That’s how you do it.”

  “Come on, Patti,” Jessie said, shaking her head. “Knock it off.”

  “What?!” Patti answered. “I’m trying to help.”

  “You can help by fetching some arrows,” Jessie said, the team having already spent their arrows in the first fifteen minutes of practice. Their practice field was next to the high school, a wall of hay bales making up a berm behind five targets. There were arrows sticking out of the hay, some sitting at odd angles, giving wonder to how it was possible. The better shooters stayed on target, their arrows grouping around the yellow center, striking the red and the baby-blue ribbons.

  Charlie wished Patti would have missed. Just once. Feeling low, she stepped up to offer, “I’ll get them.”

  “I can help,” said another girl, Bernadette Pare. She entered the target field, Charlie joining. Short like her, Bernadette’s rust-colored hair was pinned back today, her face free of makeup. There were circles beneath her eyes that carried a worrisome look. Bernadette gave her a nod, saying, “You start there?”

  “Okay. Thanks,” Charlie an
swered.

  “Anyone come up with a name?” Jessie asked the team. A new name had been in question since the team had come together for the fall semester. When no answer was given now, Jessie raised her voice, “Come on, guys. We need a team name for the yearbook pictures.”

  For the first time in days, sunlight broke through the gray clouds, turning their practice field a bright green, the hay bales golden, the colorful targets glowing. A few girls instinctively turned toward the sun and tucked their hair behind their ears. Charlie did the same, the rays warm on her skin, helping to rid the cold dampness. She closed her eyelids, the sunlight bleeding through them enough to see red. “Doesn’t that feel amazing!?” she asked Bernadette. No answer.

  “I got an idea!” a voice shouted. “How about, the sunshine girls?”

  “Nahh,” a voice answered immediately. “That’s already been used before.”

  Charlie opened her eyelids to see half the girls facing the sun, their heads tilted to drink it in. To her they looked like the spring flowers in her mama’s garden. “What about the sunflower girls?”

  Silence. Patti was first to lower her chin and look at her. Charlie braced for an insult but got none as Patti nodded with a smile. She turned to see what Charlie was seeing and answered, “Yeah, we’re the sunflower girls.”