Danica Winters - Hidden Truth

“Are you feeling better?” he asked, looking at her like she was a bird with a broken wing.

She nodded. “I don’t know what that was about. I’m sorry.”

“That was about a dead man,” he said, shock flecking his voice. “It’s not something one sees every day. I would have been more worried if you hadn’t reacted that way. Shock can be more dangerous than most flesh wounds.”

Crap… She couldn’t give herself away. Of course he would think she was a newbie to this kind of thing. She had to remember the role she had been sent here to play. A role that required that she be seen little and heard even less. What a joke for her superiors to play…they knew just as well as she did that silence wasn’t her strong suit. She wasn’t the kind of woman who was going to let anyone push her around, tell her what to do or require that she “let the men do the real work.”

Her skin prickled at just the thought of the last time she had heard someone mansplain to her.

Trevor touched her arm. “Sabrina, you with me?”

“Huh? Yeah.” She looked at him and forced a smile.

“Why don’t you go and sit down,” he said, pointing toward his motorcycle. “Or I guess you can lean.” He gave her a guilty smile, realizing what an absurd idea that was.

“I’m fine. Do you think you should call the police?” She motioned toward the shack with her chin.

She would rather not have any local officers running around the place and mucking up her investigation or compromising her position.

Yet they couldn’t hide a dead body…

Or could they?

If they swept this under the rug, it would give her more access to Trevor and his family without the threat of outside interference. It would definitely speed things up for her. If the police started poking around, the Martins would clam up and go even deeper into hiding.

And really, who would care about one mountain man who had turned up dead? He was totally off the grid, and as far as the government was concerned he was a nonentity. In fact, the only thing that his brothers, and folks like him, were known for were extremist ideals and a penchant for causing trouble.

Yet she couldn’t be the one to bring up the idea of hiding the very dead Cussler brother.

Trevor stared in the direction of the shack. “We should call somebody…”

The way he spoke made her wonder if he was thinking along the same lines as her. No doubt, he didn’t want anyone poking around, either.

“But?” she asked, prodding him on.

“I bet his family would go bonkers if we brought law enforcement out here. And the last thing this ranch needs is more craziness from the locals.” He frowned. “We are just trying to fit in here. We don’t want to draw unnecessary scrutiny from our new neighbors.”

“Well, if you think that the Cusslers would appreciate us not—”

“Yes, I’m sure they would want to keep this a family issue.” Trevor sounded sold on the idea.

She wanted to point out the possibility that the other members of the Cussler clan may be lying dead somewhere out in the timber as well. Otherwise wouldn’t they have already buried their brother’s body?

Yet she didn’t want to press the issue. Not if it meant there was a possibility he would change his mind and call the police. Not that he would. She had the definite feeling he wanted to sweep this man’s death under the rug just as much as she did.

“I’m going to go back in and take a look around,” he said.

“Why?” she asked, before thinking.

He looked at her as though he was trying to decide how much he should open up to her. “If we’re not going to call someone out here, we need to make sure that this isn’t the work of some serial killer or something. You know what I mean?”

“You think he was murdered?” she asked, trying to play up the innocent and naive angle.

“My hope is that this is nothing more than a suicide. I just need to make sure.”

She doubted that was really why he was going back in. He was probably looking for something more, something that would guarantee they wouldn’t find themselves in deeper trouble if any of this ever came to light.

“You wait here. I’ll be right back.”

She grimaced. He hadn’t really just tried to tell her what to do, had he? If he thought she was some kind of chattel that he could just order around, he had another think coming.

“Okay.” She sighed as she tried to calmly remind herself he wasn’t bossing her around out of some need for control; rather, it was his need to protect. “But be careful in there. If I know one thing about these kind of recluses, it’s that they have a reputation for hating outsiders. They may have set up some kind of booby trap.”

He stared at her like he was trying to figure her out. The look made her uncomfortable. “Got it, but I promise you have nothing to worry about when it comes to my safety. I have experience with this kind of thing.”

His alleged role in peacekeeping and his family’s Blackwater-type company was known, but she was surprised he was admitting any of it to her. Maybe her investigation wouldn’t be as difficult as she had thought. Hell, if things went her way she could have all the answers she needed in a matter of days.

Then again, things would have to go her way, and life hadn’t been playing nicely with her lately.

Trevor slipped back to the shack, holding up his phone as a flashlight as he made his way back inside.

She moved quietly after him. Maybe she could see something that he would miss, something that would prove the brother’s death was nothing more than a suicide so they could put this all to rest.

As she walked toward the shack, she stopped. No. She couldn’t pry. She couldn’t get any more involved with this. If she went in there and did find something, there was a high probability that she would slip up and say something that would give away her background. He couldn’t know anything about her position in the FBI.

She walked around to the back of the shack to where an old push lawn mower sat. There, on the ground beside it, was a puddle of dried blood. Pine needles had collected at the edges, making the pool look like some kind of macabre artwork.

She opened her mouth to call out to Trevor, but stopped. No. She couldn’t tell him.

From the state of the body in the house, there was little possibility this blood belonged to the dead man. If someone had shot him out here and moved him, there would have been drag marks or some indication that the body had been staged. Though she hadn’t spent long in the room with the dead man, she had noticed the blood leaking out of the wound at his temple. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the trail as it twisted down his ravaged features and leaked onto his dirty collar, staining it a ruddy brown. He couldn’t have been moved postmortem. No, the blood pattern didn’t match.

Which meant this blood had to belong to another person. And based on the volume of it on the ground, they were possibly dealing with more than a single death.

Crap .

She stared at the dried blood. Kneeling down, she scooped up a handful of the sharp, dried pine needles that were scattered around. What she was about to do could end up going all kinds of ass-backwards, but it had to be done for her, for her investigation and for her chance at getting her future back. There was nothing she wanted more than to rise in the ranks, and sometimes that meant that sacrifices had to be made.

She threw the needles atop the blood and stepped onto them. She kicked away at the dried blood, earth and needles until there was nothing.

It felt wrong to destroy evidence, but at the same time a sensation of freedom filled her. It was refreshing to break the rules and to make her own in name of the greater good.