An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online

“It was really, really awful.”
    â€œDo you want to tell me about it?”
    â€œIt’s almost too bad to talk about, Tolliver. They were tortured with knives and beatings and all sorts of stuff. They were raped. They were killed slowly. It took a while. I got the impression that there was more than one person there.”
    Tolliver looked sick.
    â€œI’m sorry for Twyla, then,” he said. “This will be worse than just finding him as a skeleton with a broken leg at the bottom of a steep slope.”
    â€œIt’s going to get even worse before it gets better.” We’d found plenty of accidental deaths—particularly in the mountains. Most people didn’t understand that the terrain could kill you, or perhaps they became complacent in a familiar environment. Hunters, especially, grew so used to carrying guns outdoors that they grew lax about the basic safety rules. They carried their rifles carelessly. They let their cell phone batteries die out. They didn’t tell anyone where they were going to hunt. They didn’t carry any first aid equipment. They didn’t have a hunting buddy. They forgot to wear orange.
    But these deaths were far from accidental.
    â€œYes, it’ll be a lot worse,” I said again. “And there’ll be someone to blame. Someone around here did this.”
    Tolliver stared at me for a minute. “Right,” he said finally. “No one but someone local would bury the bodies there. All together.”
    â€œYeah, no one from out of town would make a trip back to that site to bury a body eight times.” That seemed like a reasonable assumption to me.
    â€œWere they killed there? Do you know?”
    â€œI didn’t read all of them,” I said. “The first one, the first grave—yeah, he died in the old house, or in the shed. Without looking inside, I can’t be sure which.”
    â€œHe took them in there, did everything?”
    I puzzled through the rush of impressions I’d gotten. “Yeah, I think so,” I said doubtfully. There was something about the feeling of the deaths, something a little off.
    â€œDefinitely someone local,” my brother said.
    â€œIn a small community like this, how is that possible?” I asked.
    â€œYou mean, how could a man conceal from other people the fact that he wanted to torture and kill boys?”
    I nodded. “And how come the people around here haven’t been up in arms about the fact that so many boys are missing?”
    â€œI guess, if no bodies are found, it’s a little easier to explain away,” Tolliver said.
    And then we sat, thinking dark but separate thoughts, pretending from time to time to read, until the early darkness fell. Then Sheriff Rockwell knocked on our door. Tolliver ushered her in. Her dark green uniform pants were covered with stains, and her heavy jacket was smudged, too. “Me and the SBI guys, we’ve been digging,” she said. “You were right. All our boys are there, and even a couple extra.”

Five
    SHE sat in one of the two chairs. Tolliver and I sat on the side of his bed facing her. She was already holding a cup of steaming coffee from McDonald’s, so I didn’t offer her hot chocolate. She didn’t bring up our departure from Twyla’s. She looked exhausted but wired up.
    She said, “We’re going to get a lot of attention in the next few days. The TV stations are already calling the office. They’ll be sending crews. The State Bureau of Investigation has taken charge, but they’re letting me stay in it. They want me to liaise with you two, since I brought you in. The supervising agent, Pell Klavin, and Special Agent Max Stuart will want to talk to you.
    â€œYou know what I wish?” she said, when we didn’t speak. “I wish I could write you your check, and you could just leave town. This thing is going to focus attention on Doraville…. Well, I