“Of course not, sir.” Only six months into her FBI career and still on probation, Jodie couldn’t afford to get a reputation for balking at assignments. Not when she’d worked so hard to get where she was.
“Good. Go home. Pack your things and head out.”
“Now?” That was a million years too soon.
“Yes. Good luck, agent.” His curt nod was a dismissal Jodie couldn’t ignore, and she stepped blindly out the office door. The die had been cast. The decision made. There was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She was going back to Loomis whether she liked it or not.
And she didn’t like it.
She didn’t like it at all.
ONE
Loomis, Louisiana
Early March
Even with the windows of her car rolled up, Jodie could smell the bayou. Heavy moist air with a bite of decay to it. Not as bad as it got in the heat of the summer but bad enough to make her nose wrinkle. Or maybe it was disgust that was doing that. There were plenty of places she’d imagined the FBI might send her, but back to Loomis wasn’t one of them. Here she was, returning to the one place she’d been determined never to visit again.
She turned onto a narrow dirt driveway that wound uphill and away from the bayou, braking lightly as she neared a neglected farmhouse that stood in the center of an overgrown clearing near the swamp. Abandoned decades ago, it had been vacant for more years than Jodie had been alive. A tunnel dug beneath the house led to a room that had once served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Later it had served other, less altruistic purposes—as a storage place for moonshine during prohibition, a drug den for hippies in the sixties. Eventually, the town council voted to have the tunnel and the house boarded up.
What the missing woman, Leah Farley, had been doing there, Jodie didn’t know. She planned to find out, though. And quickly. The sooner she helped Sam Pierce solve the case, the sooner she could wipe the Loomis dirt off her feet and get back to her life.
Rain drizzled from the sky as Jodie climbed out of her car and started across the yard. Despite her misgivings about being back in Loomis, anticipation hummed through her. Working for the FBI had been her dream for as long as she could remember. Solving cases, putting bad guys behind bars, was what she was meant to do. Even if she had to do it in Loomis.
“Agent Gilmore, glad you could make it to the party.” A tall, dark-haired man she recognized stepped out onto the porch, and Jodie smiled a greeting as she picked her way up dry-rotted porch stairs.
“It’s good to be included, Agent Pierce.”
“How about I call you Jodie and you call me Sam? It’ll make things easier.” He smiled, and Jodie could see why so many women in the New Orleans office had set their sights on the handsome agent. Recently, rumors had been circulating that he’d gotten engaged to a child psychologist in Loomis. True or not, it wasn’t any of Jodie’s concern. She didn’t waste time on men and relationships. Not anymore.
“Whatever you say, Sam. Did you find anything in the house?”
“We did.”
“Leah Farley?”
“No. And no evidence that she’s been inside.”
“So what did you find?” Curious, Jodie followed Sam into the musty foyer, her mind racing with possibilities. Ransom note. Clothing. Forensic evidence. Any of those could help bring the case to a successful end.
“We found two bodies.”
“Two bodies?” She glanced around the dust-covered foyer, half expecting to see the remains lying nearby.
“Skeletons, to be more accurate. They’re in a hidden room down in the basement. They’ve been there for a while. Decades probably.”
“Did they have identification?”
“Not that we could see, but the sheriff agreed not to let anyone touch the remains yet. I’ve got a man coming in from New Orleans to do that. A forensic anthropologist.”
“When will he get here?”
“Shouldn’t be long. I called him an hour ago.”
“Do you mind if I take a look at the scene while we wait?” Now that she was in Loomis, Jodie wanted out of it. Waiting for someone to come along and help make that happen didn’t work for her.
“Sure. It’s this way.”
Half-rotted boards creaked beneath her feet as Jodie followed Sam into the basement. The sound shivered along her spine, reminding her of all the stories she’d heard about the house when she was a kid, stories about spooks and haunts and things that went bump in the night. Jodie had always known them for what they were—a perfect way to keep kids from exploring a house that might not be structurally sound. Still, she had to admit the place was creepy, its shadowy corners concealing more than they revealed.
“Careful on these stairs, Jodie. Some of them are completely rotted through.” Sam led her into a basement lit by electric torches and gestured to a hole in the far wall. “There’s the tunnel. There were boards covering it, but it looked like they’d been taken down and replaced quickly. We’ve already got them tagged as evidence.”
Several uniformed officers were standing in the room, none of them familiar to Jodie. She had to admit she was relieved. Eventually she’d have to face people from her past, but she’d rather it be later than sooner.
She crossed the room and surveyed the opening. Five feet high. Maybe three feet wide. “It would be a tight squeeze for someone carrying a body.”
“But not so tight it would be impossible. Especially not if the body was being dragged. After so long, there isn’t evidence to indicate that’s what happened, but we can’t say it didn’t, either. Hopefully Cahill will shed some light on things.”
“Cahill?”
“The forensic anthropologist I told you about. He’ll recreate the scene based on what he finds, then work to identify our victims. Come on in, but watch your head.” He stooped down and walked into the tunnel.
Jodie borrowed a flashlight one of the officers offered and followed. “Our victims? Isn’t the case a local matter?”
“It should be, but since we were in here following up on the Leah Farley case, the sheriff asked if we’d be willing to help with victim identification. I agreed.”
“Who’s the sheriff around here now?” She hoped not the same one who’d been sheriff when Jodie was growing up.
“Bradford Reed.”
Of course it was the same sheriff. Otherwise things, would have been a little too comfortable. “I remember him.”
“Good. The Leah Farley case may be connected to the murders that have occurred in town. Getting along with the local PD is imperative.”
Then you shouldn’t have called me in to help.
Jodie didn’t say what she was thinking. There was no way she wanted to explain her teenage years. The subtle rebellions that had, more often than not, gotten her in trouble.
The scent of damp earth filled her nose, and cool, moist air settled on her skin as she stepped into a cavernous room. Her flashlight beam bobbed across a dirt floor littered with years of debris. Cloth. Plastic. A few old bottles. Near the far wall, a pile of rotted clothes lay amidst the other rubble. Even without getting closer, Jodie could make out the subtle shapes of the bones beneath. Two skulls lay side by side in the dirt, smooth and dingy yellow.
She moved closer, doing her best to stay detached and unaffected as she surveyed the remains. Stale air, ripe with the remnant of something putrid and old, filled her lungs. She ignored it, crouching down to get a better look. A fleshless skull stared up at