Amanda Stevens - The Restorer

“He’s just a number right now,” Ethan said. “No name, no face, but we actually know quite a bit about him.”

“Him?”

“The shape of the hip bone tells us the remains are those of a male.”

The other victims were female. The pattern had changed yet again. If there was a pattern. “Does Devlin know?” Ethan nodded.

“What did he say?”

“You know John. He doesn’t give a lot away.”

I thought it odd that even here, Devlin’s presence was with us.

Ethan walked around the table as we talked, but I stood in one place, not wanting to jostle my stomach, though there wasn’t much smell in here and the bones looked scrubbed and disinfected. Still, we were dealing with human remains.

“The skull indicates that he was Caucasoid. Around five-ten, stocky build. He was young—between eighteen and twenty-five. His bones were still growing.” Ethan traced a finger along the collarbone. “The raised ridges indicate a young adult. You can feel them if you like.”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll take your word for it.”

He flashed a grin. “Some of the teeth are still in their sockets, but in poor condition. We can’t identify him that way.”

“How long was he in that chamber?”

“Going by the lack of articulation and the gnawing—”

“The what?”

“Rats,” he said. “Over time, they can do a lot of damage. I’ve noted tooth marks on the ribs, pelvis, carpals and meta-carpal bases…” He gestured toward the skeleton. “There’s also a hole in the skull, probably made by rodents or insects, and a good amount of bone and cartilage rot. He had to have been down there at least a decade.”

“That long?”

“Maybe longer.”

I went over the kills in my head. Afton Delacourt was murdered fifteen years ago, this unknown male at least ten years ago, Jane Rice nine years ago, and Hannah Fischer and Camille Ashby mere weeks ago. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the timeline. No continuity to the killer’s victims or methods, although such a large gap might indicate he’d been out of commission for whatever reason until recently. It might also mean all the bodies had yet to be discovered.

“Do you think more bodies will turn up?”

“John seems to think so.”

“How do we find them?” I murmured. “A combination of electrical resistivity and terrain conductivity? Ground penetrating radar? It would take forever to check every grave.”

“I imagine the simplest way is to find the killer,” Ethan said.

My gaze dropped to the skeleton. “He must have family, friends. Someone who’s been missing him all this time.”

“One would think.”

I studied the remains, a tightness in my chest. He’d been left in that chamber to be forgotten. “You said last night you’d identified some interesting characteristics.”

“Yes. I can’t tell you who he is, but I can tell you how he died. The breastbone is punctured and cuts in the ribs indicate wounds to both sides of the front chest and two more in the upper back. Seven major wounds altogether. And more could have penetrated the soft tissue without touching bone. It was a vicious kill.” He noticed my grimace and said, “Let’s move on to something a little less gruesome.”

I nodded.

He opened a black plastic bag and displayed the contents. “Interestingly enough, the clothing that was found with the remains may be our best hope of identification.”

“Really? I only saw bits of fabric. Hardly anything.”

“On the body, yes, but some other items were found nearby. Shoes, belt and, more important, a leather letterman jacket. The rats didn’t leave us much—”

“Wait a minute.” The room started to spin. I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. “Did you say a letterman jacket?”

“Maroon with a gold letter, possibly a V or W.” He glanced at me in concern, then closed the bag. “Come on, let’s get you out of here. You’ve gone as white as that sheet.”

It was a gold W, in fact. I knew because I’d seen that jacket on a ghost lurking in the garden at Rapture and again last night as he’d leered at me through the shackle that dangled from his wrist.

A simple Google search led me to the library at Westbury High School, located north of the Crosstown, in an area that had languished for years but was now on the upswing. A pretty librarian named Emery Snow showed me to a room where all the yearbooks were stored.

“They go all the way back to 1975,” she said, running a finger along the maroon-and-gold volumes. “That’s when Westbury opened.”

Since Ethan estimated the skeleton had been in the chamber for at least ten years, I used that as my reference point and worked back. It was a tedious task. After a few books, all those bright, shiny smiles melded together. I started to wonder if I would even recognize the face of that ghost.

And then I found him.

His name was Clayton Masterson and I experienced the blackest mood as I stared down at his picture. His mouth curled in that same sneer I’d seen last night, his eyes gleamed with the same cunning cruelty. Shivering, I glanced over my shoulder to see if someone—some thing —had crept up behind me.

No one was there, thank goodness. I could hear Emery humming behind the desk. I took comfort at her nearness, her normalcy.

I glanced back down at the photo and tried to muster up something akin to pity. As a young man, he’d been viciously murdered, his body hidden away all these years. I should feel something. But I did not. I could see only hate in his eyes, an emotion that seemed to ooze from his very soul. Little wonder that he’d met a violent end.

Suppressing a shudder, I carried the yearbook out to Emery’s desk. Since it was summer, the library was mostly empty and eerily silent. I resisted the urge to glance over my shoulder yet again as I spread the pages open before her.

“Did you find who you were looking for?” she asked. I’d told her very little about my search, only that I was trying to locate a former Westbury student who had disappeared over ten years ago.

“I think so. Now I’m wondering if anyone might still be around who was here when he attended.”

“I graduated from Westbury. So depending on the year…” She turned the yearbook over and glanced at the front. “I was a freshman. The student body was pretty small back then so it’s possible I can help you. I have to say, though, that I don’t remember hearing anything about a missing student.”

I pointed to Clayton Masterson’s photograph. “Do you remember him?”

She seemed to recoil exactly the same way that I had. “Vaguely. He was a few years ahead of me, but I seem to recall some scandal. My aunt mentioned something once. An arrest maybe. He and his mother lived in her neighborhood.”

“Do you think your aunt would be willing to talk to me?”

Emery smiled. “Oh, Tula will talk to just about anyone. The trick is getting her to shut up.”

Tula Mackey waited for me on the front porch of her tiny Craftsman-style cottage on Huger. As her niece predicted, the woman started talking the minute I walked up and didn’t stop to draw a breath as she led me into the house and down a small hallway to a sunny, yellow kitchen, where she offered me sweet tea and cookies. I accepted the tea because it was rather warm in her house and holding the glass gave me something to do with my hands.

Finally, she sat down across from me at the dinette, her eyes bird-bright and avid as she watched me sip the tea. “Emery says you’re looking for that Masterson boy.”

“I’m not looking for him so much as I’m trying to find out what happened to him,” I explained. “I can’t say much more than that, but anything you can tell me about him would be a big help.”