Page 27 of Her Frozen Heart

“Okay.” He pointed to the northeast. “When I got here this morning, Miller and his friend with the K9 were just coming off the lake. As soon as the dog got out of the boat, he hit on something and was off. It was sad and awesome to watch.”

“Dogs are amazing,” Nikki agreed. “They can find decades-old bodies with no organic material left on them.”

“The easiest way to get to the site is to walk along the road you just came in on—”

“Is that the route the dog took?” Nikki asked.

Rory shook his head. “No, he beelined through the woods, kind of skirted around the boggy area, and back to the high ground. That’s where he lay down and Miller used the ground-penetrating radar.”

“Then that’s the route I want to take,” she said. “It’s likely the one the killer took, and I want to have some idea of what it would take to walk through there, carrying Kesha’s weight.” She said the words matter-of-factly, the same way she would have if she’d been talking to Liam or Miller. Rory’s expression made it clear he hadn’t thought about that aspect. Nikki felt like a jerk for putting the visual in his head.

She followed Rory off the trail and into the deep thicket of trees, her mind racing with everything that needed to be done. The ground would have to be thawed before the medical examiner and forensic anthropologist could do anything, which meant it could be days before Nikki could officially link Kesha’s murder to the bodies in the woods. The large patch of wooded area to the northeast of the lake was easy enough to trudge through, but Nikki’s focus was on the boggy area Rory had talked about. She’d studied the satellite images of the reserve, and the wetland was situated right in the middle of it. Getting through wouldn’t be so bad in the winter, as long as everything had been frozen. Nikki pointed to the red tape tied around a couple of trees. “Any idea what those are for?”

Rory pointed to the long, curved line of frozen cattails. “That’s the edge of the slough. Lacey do okay leaving?”

Nikki nodded. “Better than me. I think if Miller hadn’t texted right before Tyler’s parents showed up, I would have been a bigger mess.”

“Did you put the phone in Lacey’s backpack?” When Nikki had gone back to work after Tyler’s murder, she’d given Lacey a cell phone so she could text her mom whenever she wanted to make sure she was okay. Lacey believed the phone couldn’t connect to the internet, but it was enabled. Nikki just hadn’t installed any apps and made sure the phone had parental controls enabled.

“GPS is on, and so is Life360,” Nikki said. “She knows to charge it overnight and put it back in her backpack. As long as she does that, we’ll be able to know where she’s at most of the time.”

“Should have just put a regular tracker on her,” Rory said. “Like in a watch or something.”

Nikki laughed. “She’d definitely forget that. Her backpack has snacks. She never forgets those.”

“True.” They walked a little way in silence. Nikki watched a hawk circle the trees, eyeing nests to raid. “How far in do we need to go?” she finally asked.

Rory veered to the left. “Not much longer. It’s maybe five minutes from the parking lot to the clearing where the dog caught the scent.”

A few minutes later, the frozen weeds and trees thinned, and Nikki could see Miller’s tall form standing next to Liam on a small, uneven tract of land. Calling it a clearing was definitely a stretch, Nikki thought. It couldn’t be any larger than the average bedroom and a couple of dead tree stumps meant a root system to deal with.

“Nikki.” Liam skirted around the perimeter tape and headed towards them. “Glad you made it.”

Nikki scowled at Liam’s pale face. Circles rimmed his eyes, and his breathing appeared labored from the short walk over to them.

“I told you to take it easy,” Nikki said.

“I am,” Liam retorted. “Before I forget, the background check on Danny Stanton came back. He had a DUI a few years ago, and he’s been busted a couple of times for fighting, but he’s kept a low profile since. No red flags.”

“What about other missing women in the area?” She fell into step next to him.

“Several, but most of them have a history of running away or falling off the grid. I’m going to work on separating those and narrowing down the list.”

Stomach turning, Nikki moved closer to the site, stepping over the crime scene tape. What looked like a heavy, black blanket, covered the marked-off site. She’d read about ground-thawing blankets, but this was the first time she’d seen one used. “How long does the Powerblanket take to thaw the ground?”

“Twelve to twenty-four inches in twenty-four hours,” Miller said. “I talked to Blanchard. She said there’s no point in coming out until they can dig. We need to keep an eye on the soil for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Is there a chance the dog hit on something else?” Nikki asked. “What about Kesha’s hands and feet?”

“Haven’t found them yet,” Miller said. “We cleared as much snow as we could before using the ground penetrating radar so the heating blanket could work faster and didn’t see any sign of them. But if he came here first, intending to dig, and then had to readjust because the ground was frozen, he might have dumped them somewhere else. The dog didn’t hit on anything else in the lake.” Miller looked down at the ground, the ear flaps on his winter hat moving in the gusty wind. “I confirmed with the ground penetrating radar. From the looks of it, there are at least six bodies—or things shaped an awful lot like bodies. Maybe more, depending on how deep it goes.”

“Six?” Nikki echoed. “Laid side by side?”

Miller nodded and lifted up a corner of the Powerblanket. “After the snow and ice started to melt, we saw these marks. I think he tried to dig recently and gave up pretty quickly. I think that’s why he went to the lake this time. I brought part of the bag Kesha’s body was in with me this afternoon, and after we came off the lake without finding anything more, let the dog sniff it. He set out like a house on fire and led us here. He either caught her scent and followed the path the killer took to the lake when he couldn’t break through the ground here, or he was following the bag’s natural scent. I can’t tell for certain with the GPR, but it looks like the bodies are contained in something.”

“Like a body bag?” Nikki asked, thinking of Kesha.

“Possibly,” Miller said. “The frozen ground and snow made getting back here easier than it would be any other time of the year. The water table’s high, and it’s very much like a slough. That’s why it’s prime duck hunting area.”

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