Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

“Well, here’s your chance, if only for a little while. Besides, you never know what other secrets are still hidden on that farm of yours.”

“Is this powwow invitation only, or can anyone sit in?” Lorna asked from the doorway of her dining room. Mitch, Regan, and T.J. were seated around the table, obviously in the midst of a discussion.

“Hey, it’s your table.” Mitch waved her in.

T.J. pulled out the chair next to his, and she draped the strap of her shoulder bag over it.

“Sorry I didn’t make it back last night,” Lorna said to Regan. “I had dinner with a friend, and by the time we were finished…”

“No apology necessary. I told you when you called that I didn’t mind, and I thought you should stay there. A five-hour drive after a night out would have been too much. And besides,” Regan smiled, “you needed a night out to have fun. Things have been too intense around here practically since the day you arrived. I didn’t mind staying here by myself. And I wasn’t really alone, you know.”

Lorna glanced sideways at Mitch, wondering if perhaps he’d kept Regan company while Lorna was in Woodboro. It was obvious there was something between them.

Regan caught the quick glimpse and sidestepped it. “Your Uncle Will.”

“I hope he behaved himself.”

“He was a perfect gentleman,” Regan assured her.

“Uncle Will is the ghost?” T.J. looked from one woman to the other.

Lorna nodded. “Right.”

“And you saw him?” he asked Regan.

She shook her head. “No. I only heard him.”

“What did you hear? What did it sound like?” Mitch asked.

“It sounded like someone was pounding first on the wall, then the window, in the back bedroom.”

“Are you sure someone wasn’t pounding on the windows?” Mitch rose, alarmed. “Jesus, Regan, they’ve been digging up bodies right and left around here. And you hear someone pounding at night and you think it’s a ghost? You think this is Great Adventure?”

“I know when someone is trying to break in, Mitch.” Regan’s eyes narrowed. “I can tell the difference.”

“Let’s go take a look.” Mitch pushed back his chair. “Which bedroom is it?”

“The last one at the end of the hall on the right,” Lorna told him, amused.

“You coming, PI?” Mitch called over his shoulder to T.J.

“Sure. Why not?” T.J. followed him out the door and up the steps.

“I don’t believe in ghosts, Regan,” Mitch called down from the second floor, his footsteps echoing overhead.

“You haven’t met my uncle Will,” Lorna called back.

There was the sound of a window banging closed several times. A few minutes later, the two men returned.

“There’s no sign of the window being jimmied, and the lock seems real secure,” Mitch told them. He turned to Regan and added, “Maybe you were dreaming.”

“Maybe you ought to sleep in Uncle Will’s room one night,” she smiled sweetly, “and we’ll see who’s dreaming.”

He smiled in return. “Anytime.”

“Okay, so we’ve established that Mitch is a nonbeliever and Regan and Lorna believe. Truthfully, I’m still on the fence,” T.J. announced. “Let’s move on, shall we?”

“Where were we?” Regan shuffled the notebook pages that lay on the table in front of her.

“We were talking about the responses we’ve gotten to our request for information on missing persons-specifically young men-over the past thirty years,” Mitch said.

“From this area?” Lorna asked.

“Right. Southern New Jersey, the entire state of Delaware because it’s small, northeastern Maryland, and southeastern Pennsylvania, from Harrisburg to Philadelphia, including the southernmost area from Lancaster straight on over to the Delaware River.” Mitch held up a sheet of paper. “Guess how many responses so far?”

“I have no idea.” Lorna shook her head. “Three?”

“Nine.”

“Nine!” she exclaimed.

“Which tells me what the police have found is only the tip of the iceberg.”

“But they wouldn’t necessarily all be buried on my property, right?”

“Not necessarily, but I think there’s a damned good chance there may be more out there. He’d have felt confident here, he’d met with success here. He’d never been discovered here.” Mitch turned to T.J. “Which in itself should tell us something about him, right?”

“It tells me he’s probably local. Probably grew up here, may still be living here.”

“Why would he still be here?” Lorna asked. “Wouldn’t he be afraid that the remains would be found and he’d be caught?”

“No one’s come close to catching him. For twenty-five years, no one even caught on that the crimes were committed. He’s obviously in his comfort zone. He’s killed here, he’s buried his prey here, and he’s gotten away with it for a very long time. And as Mitch just pointed out, he feels secure here. I don’t see him having ever left. It probably gives him great comfort to have his kills close by.”

“Well, if we assume you’re right, and he’s still living around here, what do you suppose he’s thinking now?” Lorna asked.

“That’s absolutely the question to be asking.” T.J. turned to her. “And it’s the one question no one else has asked.”

Lorna felt her cheeks tinge pink. Nancy Drew, indeed.

“I think if he hasn’t already begun to panic over the last few days, he’s going to start very soon. I think he was okay when Jason’s body was found. Okay, maybe a little tense, watch and wait, but in the end, the police blamed Billie for that. So I doubt he had much of a reaction other than maybe to feel the loss, that something has been taken from him. But it wouldn’t really have affected him, I don’t think, because he knew there were others, and he probably thought they were safe.”

“But then the others were found,” Regan pointed out. “Maybe not all of them, as Mitch noted, but enough to turn the national spotlight on the farm.”

T.J. nodded. “Right. I think every day this week, things have gotten more and more tense for him. We don’t know how many bodies were buried here, so we don’t know if he’s anticipating more discoveries-hoping, I’m certain, that no more are found. He’s already upset, I believe, that four have been taken from him. He wants them here, nearby, needs to know they’re there, under the ground, right where he left them. It has to be a torment for him to watch them exposed and removed.”

“So what do you think he’s going to do?” Lorna asked.

“I think he’s going to be looking for replacements,” T.J. told her.

The four fell silent for a moment, then Lorna asked, “So unless you find him, he’ll start killing again?”

“If he’s ever stopped-and we don’t know for certain that he has-yes, I expect him to look for victims here. Remember that he could well have been killing elsewhere, but I think he needs to keep his victims close to him.”

“That would involve a lot of travel on his part, though, wouldn’t it? As large an area you’ve already canvassed for victims, and found nine, wouldn’t he go beyond that to find future victims?” Regan asked.

“Possibly. Of course, there’s always the chance that he stopped. The last victim we identified was reported missing in 1995.”

“Ten years ago.” Lorna looked pensive. “That means he was actively killing and burying his victims here for at least fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years that we know of. As I said earlier, don’t be surprised if there are still some surprises out there,” Mitch told her.

“God, I hope not.” Lorna shivered. “I’ve had enough surprises for one week.”

“So, what’s our game plan for today?” Regan stacked her notes neatly in front of her.