Beneath the Bones by Tim Waggoner Read Free Book Online

been a good friend, and while the sheriff hadn’t pressed the issue, Dale strongly suspected Stan knew he’d lied. While they’d remained friends, there had been a distance between them after that, one that had persisted until Stan killed himself. But in order to bring Joanne home, Dale had been forced to make a deal, and part of the bargain was his silence.
    At the time, he’d believed he had no choice. Now he wasn’t so sure. But despite his regrets, whenever he looked at Joanne, he knew he’d made the right decision. She’d grown into a fine woman, and she’d served the people of Cross County well as sheriff. As good as Stan Manchester had been at the job, Joanne was better. And though Dale knew he could take no credit for Joanne’s accomplishments, he couldn’t help feeling an almost fatherly pride in her.
    But Joanne had paid a price for her freedom as well. She had no memory of what had occurred to her during the six days she was missing, though Dale suspected some of the details found their way into her dreams from time to time. For twenty years she’d lived with the gap in her memory and the uncertainly of what might have happened — or worse, been
done
to her during that missing time. But as difficult as living with that mystery might be for Joanne, Dale knew it was in reality a blessing, though of course he could never tell her that.
    Joanne had paid a second price, as well — her Feelings. She’d never experienced them before her disappearance, and even now they came upon her rarely, only when some sort of danger threatened. The more intense the Feeling, the greater the danger. Like the time three years ago, when two blocks of Rhine’s historical district were wiped out by an arsonist who turned out to be an autistic child. Or last summer, when an entire Cincinnati family who’d come to the area for a Memorial Day picnic on the shore of Lake Hush was drowned, fifty feet from water’s edge, lungs filled with water, clothes bone-dry. From what Joanne had said, and
not
said, on the phone, the Feeling she’d experienced at the murder scene tonight had been a real doozy, stronger than either of those other times.
    Whatever was coming, however bad it would get, Dale would help her. He always had. He just hoped that, whatever price they might have to pay this time, it wouldn’t be too steep. He wasn’t sure either of them could afford it.
    • • •
    The less than imaginatively named Cross County Administration Building was located just a couple blocks over from Dale’s place. The mayor’s office was there, along with the sheriff and fire departments, and the township trustees had a meeting room there as well. But eight miles northeast of town, on the other side of Mare’s Nest Woods, with a view of the western edge of Lake Hush, lay the true county seat. Sanctity.
    Well over two hundred years old, the building resembled a castle constructed entirely of dark gray stone. Decade upon decade of ivy growth covered much of the structure, making it seem as if Sanctity, instead of being built one brick at a time, had instead emerged fully formed from the earth, ivy vines thrusting it upward from the hidden, dark depths where it had been born. And maybe they had.
    The mansion grounds were silent and still. No birds sang, no raccoons or deer moved cautiously across the grass, and even the night breeze made no noise as it moved through the forest and across the ebon waters of the lake. All was quiet … exactly the way Althea Cross desired it. And whatever Althea desired, Althea got — or else.
    While Joanne sat drinking water in her kitchen and Dale sat on his couch looking at old news clippings, Marshall Cross — freshly showered, shaved, and wearing an obscenely expensive Italian suit — stood in the hallway outside Althea’s room. Regardless of the hour, no one appeared before the matriarch of the Cross family in anything other than formal dress, not even her children and grandchildren. Marshall was