The Bones She Buried

Twenty-Eight

Mason Pratt sat in the back of an ambulance in his driveway, an ice pack pressed to the side of his head. The moment that Mettner and Josie arrived they had all emergency units turn off their lights; the attention that Beth Pratt’s murder and the arson of her home would bring was bad enough, they didn’t need the attack on Mason to become more grist for the neighborhood rumor mill. Mettner ducked into the back of the ambulance and sat on the vinyl bench next to the gurney that held Mason. Josie climbed in behind him.

“I was asleep,” Mason told them before they even had a chance to ask questions. “I thought I was dreaming at first.”

“What happened, exactly?” Josie asked. “What do you remember?”

“I sleep on my stomach. So I started to kind of wake up to this pressure on my upper back and then my head. When I got fully awake, I realized someone was on top of me, pushing my head into the pillow. I could barely breathe.”

Josie felt a tiny shiver. “Did he say anything?”

Mason brought the ice pack down, shook his head, and placed it back on the side of his skull with a wince. “No. He never said a word. As soon as I realized that it was real, that it was really happening, I started to fight. It felt like it took forever. He was really strong. Like, even for me. I used to wrestle in high school, but still this guy was everywhere at once. I managed to get him off me and then I rolled off the bed and hit my head on my nightstand.”

He brought the ice pack down again and turned his head, using his fingers to brush back some of his hair. Josie could already see a large purple lump rising from beneath his locks.

“You should get that looked at,” Mettner said. “Maybe get a head CT.”

Mason sighed. “Whatever. I just can’t believe this shit is happening. First Beth, and now this—and the police told me about her house.” Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. “Man, it doesn’t stop. I mean what the hell is going on?”

“We’re trying to figure that out,” Josie assured him.

Mettner said, “What happened after you rolled off the bed?”

“He was still there, like, standing over me. He went to bend down, like he was going to straddle me, and then we heard a knock on my front door. Not just a knock, but like a pounding. Real hard. It spooked him and he ran. I think he went out the back door. Next thing I know there’s police in my bedroom, and everyone’s shouting, and one officer goes running out the back after the guy.”

Josie and Mettner already knew from having spoken with their colleagues on patrol that they hadn’t apprehended Mason’s attacker. One of the uniformed officers had given chase but lost him in the maze of backyards behind Mason’s house. Another unit was still driving around the neighborhood looking for the guy—or anyone who seemed suspicious. But Josie had a feeling he was long gone. He would have had some precious time to get a head start before the Denton officer gave chase. If he’d been parked on an adjacent street, he could easily have hopped a few fences, gone through an alleyway and been back on the road in his vehicle before anyone even noticed.

“I’m so sorry you’re going through this,” Josie said. “I know this isn’t the best time, and I agree with Officer Mettner that you should get to the hospital, but we’d like to ask you a few more questions.”

“It’s fine,” he said, leaning back against the head of the gurney, his face sagging with exhaustion and pain.

“Did you get a look at this guy at all?” Mettner asked.

“No, I’m sorry. It was pitch black in my room. He had just woken me up. Then I hit my head. I was disorientated. He was just this big shadowy figure.”

“Can you think of anything at all distinguishing?” Josie said. “Or could you tell if he had a weapon?”

“No,” Mason replied. “Nothing distinguishing and no weapon that I could see.”

“Listen,” Mettner said. “We think whoever is doing all of this is looking for something. Or he thinks that you either know something or have something important, something incriminating.”

“Incriminating? Like what?”

“We don’t know,” Josie said. “Something that could possibly reveal what happened to your uncle. Maybe even what really happened to your dad.”

Mason’s eyes widened. “You think my dad was murdered?”

“We don’t know,” Josie admitted. “But whatever this person is after, they’re willing to kill for it—or to keep it hidden. We had been hoping to visit Beth’s house tomorrow morning and check out everything she had or might have had that belonged to her dad before he went missing. We were thinking she must have kept some of his things.”

“She did,” Mason said. “She thought he was dead, but she couldn’t bear to get rid of his stuff. You think this killer is looking for something that belonged to Uncle Drew?”

“That’s the only thing that makes sense at this point,” Josie said. “It may be something that doesn’t seem significant or important, but that’s just because we don’t have all the pieces that this killer does.”

“Or the pieces are scattered, and he doesn’t want us to put them together,” Mettner said.

“Right,” Josie agreed.

“In the morning, I can show you Uncle Drew’s possessions,” Mason said eagerly.

Josie and Mettner exchanged a skeptical look. Did he have a concussion, Josie wondered?

Mettner said, “Mason, there is nothing left of Beth’s house. We were just there. I don’t think they’ll be able to salvage anything.”

“I know,” he said. “But Beth didn’t keep her dad’s things at her house. There was too much, and it was too painful for her to have all that stuff around.”

“What are you saying?” Josie asked.

“I’m saying she rented a storage unit. And I have the spare key.”