Page 21 of Skin and Bones

I looked at my phone one more time, hoping to hear the phone ring again, but it stayed silent.

“It’s probably nothing,” I told him, not entirely convinced myself. “Dead zone. Or maybe his battery died.”

I slid into the car and opened the garage door, and then I turned the key, listening to the purr of the engine as it came to life.

Chowder woofed softly and I looked over at him, so dapper in his bow tie. “You’re right. Maybe he went back to sleep. He probably doesn’t get enough rest. I’m sure being sheriff is a stressful job.”

But the unease from the phone call didn’t leave me.

The early morning was still dark, streetlights casting pools of light on the empty roads as I drove the short distance to The Perfect Steep. I parked behind the shop, unlocked the back door, and went through my normal opening routine on autopilot—turning on ovens, measuring loose tea leaves, and setting out supplies for the day’s scones. My mind was still on Elizabeth’s diary and Dash’s strange call.

I’d just pulled the first batch of lemon scones from the oven when Walt knocked on the glass window of the back door, his Navy veteran cap perched precisely on his silver hair.

“You’re early even by Walt-standard time,” I said as I let him in. “Is everything all right?”

“Not here,” he said quietly, glancing around despite the empty kitchen. “Too exposed.”

I set down my oven mitts and led him into the small office at the back of the shop, closing the door behind us.

“Something’s happened,” Walt said once we were alone. “There was a break-in at the sheriff’s office last night. Evidence room ransacked.”

My stomach dropped. “How do you know this?”

Walt tapped the police scanner clipped to his belt. “Never leave home without it. Been monitoring police frequencies since ’89. Heard the call come in about twenty minutes ago. Officers discovered the break-in when they arrived for the morning shift.”

“So it happened sometime overnight?” I asked, trying to piece together the timeline.

Walt nodded. “Between when the night shift left and the morning shift arrived. Sheriff Beckett is down almost a dozen officers since Milton’s arrest. Three more were arrested with him and several resigned, so Sheriff Beckett is working short staffed. They’ve been closing the sheriff’s office for a couple of hours each night because there aren’t enough officers to fill the gap. The break-in happened then.”

I opened my bag and carefully unwrapped the leather-bound journal. “Sheriff Beckett brought me this last night. Elizabeth Calvert’s diary. He found it hidden in the evidence room and didn’t trust leaving it there.”

Walt’s eyes widened as he stared at the diary. “I was wondering what he was doing at your house so late. Deidre called me to let me know you weren’t being harmed.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Good grief.”

“You’re a young woman who lives alone,” he said. “It was good of Mrs. Pembroke to call and let us know. Eye-witness accounts are very important.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you drive by my house?”

“You should get blinds for your kitchen windows,” he said. “I could see the two of you plain as day.”

I gasped. “You have to look over my fence to see in my kitchen windows!”

He nodded solemnly. “If I can do it, that means anyone can.”

“Good grief,” I muttered again. Walt was eighty years old. He could have broken a hip. That was the problem hanging out with senior citizens—none of them realized they were as old as they were.

He patted me on the shoulder like he was afraid I was going into hysterics. “That was wise of the sheriff to bring you the diary,” Walt said. “He’s got good instincts. That’s something that can’t be taught.”

I let out a slow breath. There was no reason to be aggravated with Walt or any of them. The people of Grimm Island were who they were—a bunch of stubborn, know-it-all busybodies—and there was nothing that would change them save the Rapture.

“Sheriff Beckett said the diary was hidden in a false panel in a filing cabinet in the evidence room.” I ran my fingers over the worn cover. “Someone must have discovered it was missing.”

“That was fast work,” Walt said. “And now the mayor knows about it, and word on the street is he’s furious. I heard Mayor Cromwell called an emergency council meeting with Sheriff Beckett.”

I remembered the abrupt end to our phone call earlier. “Sheriff Beckett tried calling me this morning, but the call cut off. I thought it was just a bad connection, but now…”

“Now we have to wonder what happened,” Walt finished, his eyes sharp with concern.

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