Inherit the Bones

Chapter Thirty-eight

We left Mrs. Kirshbaum and Canyon in the bedroom and let ourselves out. I felt dirty, like I’d watched something obscene. And in a way, I had. What kind of a woman-what kind of a mother-would hide a thing like that? For thirty years?

Finn took the car keys from my hand. “I’ll drive.”

We got in the car but then sat there, too numb to leave. I rubbed my belly and leaned my head back against the headrest.

Finn said, “There’s no way Nicky Bellington knew all of this, right? I mean, how could he? Mrs. Kirshbaum just called us. Nick’s been dead almost two weeks.”

He leaned his head back, too, and then turned and stared at me. “Right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, Finn.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out. My head was pounding. I opened the glove compartment, hoping for a bag of trail mix, a chocolate bar, anything. I found a dusty old bag of peanuts and I tore into it.

“I give up, this whole thing; the kids, Nicky, the circus, all of it. I don’t care anymore. I just want Brody back from Alaska, and to deliver this baby, and to forget this whole miserable thing ever happened.”

I chewed a few more of the peanuts and sucked the salty grease from my fingertips.

Finn glanced over at me. “You don’t mean that. You’re just upset.”

I threw the empty wrapper at my feet and nodded. “Damn right I’m upset. I’m furious. We should arrest that woman for conspiracy, for aiding and fucking abetting. If she had gone to the police that day with Canyon’s story, maybe she could have saved those boys.”

“You heard her, she was scared. Would you have gone to the cops, if they’d done that to you?”

I was silent. Finn started the car and pulled away from the curb.

Finn continued. “Gemma, I need you to be here, okay? Wherever you are right now, come back. We need to get to the station and get all this written up. We need to figure out how this plays into Nicky’s murder. We’ve got a motive for the McKenzie murders-the Woodsman thought they could identify him. And we know the Woodsman had a partner. Jesus, it changes everything. We’ve got to talk to Chief Chavez.”

My cell buzzed against my hip and I checked the caller ID. “Speak of the devil-”

I answered and listened to the chief for a few minutes without speaking. He finished, and I said, “We’ll be there in ten,” and hung up.

I leaned to the left and looked at the dashboard. Finn was doing thirty-six in a thirty zone.

“What?”

“Annika Bellington’s missing.”

“Ah, hell,” he said. He hit the lights and sirens and accelerated the car until we were streaking through the town in a haze of blue and red lights and shrill, ear-piercing sirens.

A dead son. A missing daughter. I didn’t know what Terry and Ellen Bellington’s breaking point was but I had a feeling we were approaching it.