Page 74 of Skin and Bones

I didn’t know Deputy Reynolds’ mother. Had never met her, and had no idea if she was dead or alive. But it was the only thing I could think of to say. And it must have hit, because he looked like he was on the verge of apologizing just before he pulled the cruiser down a graveled road and parked to the side of a boathouse that had seen better days. It looked like it was held together with splinters and stubborn seagrass. And then I realized with a horrifying jolt that we weren’t far from where Elizabeth’s body had been found all those years ago.

He got out of the car and then opened my door. “Out,” he ordered.

It was then I realized his service weapon was in his hand. The metal glinted dully in the moonlight, and my heart thundered so loudly in my chest I was surprised it didn’t set off car alarms.

The night air hit me with a wall of sensations—briny seawater, rotting wood, the distant drone of a motorboat somewhere out in the darkness. Waves lapped gently against the pilings, a peaceful sound that felt obscene against the backdrop of danger.

I stumbled slightly as he guided me into the boathouse, my low heels not designed for navigating weathered dock planks. The structure smelled of mildew and salt water, decades of humidity trapped in the wooden beams. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, casting sickly yellow light over what appeared to be an abandoned fishing operation—nets hung like ghostly curtains along one wall, and ancient tackle boxes were stacked haphazardly in a corner.

“Go,” he said, and I felt his gun against the middle of my back.

How had things gone so wrong so quickly? This was not how I’d imagined the end of my life. Who was going to remember me? I owned a tea shop and entertained myself with jigsaw puzzles and by buying clothes for my overweight dog. I’d never done anything earth shattering or exciting. I hadn’t travelled except for the few places Patrick had taken me. How pathetic was my life? I was going to die here and I was so isolated and boring that no one would give two flips.

“Are you deaf or something?” he asked. “I said go.”

Reynolds pushed me into a wooden chair that creaked ominously beneath my weight, and then he produced zip ties from his pocket and secured my wrists to the chair arms. The plastic bit into my skin, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

“Are you crying?” he asked, looking slightly alarmed.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m just having a bit of an existential crisis.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” he said. “I guess I should’ve gone to college.”

“Maybe you would’ve learned not to kidnap people if you had!” I yelled, sounding slightly hysterical.

“Get a grip lady.”

“Let me guess,” I said, not bothering to hide my disgust. “I sound like your ex-wife.”

“Geez,” he said, rubbing the top of his head. He paced the small space, his boots leaving imprints in the dust that covered the floorboards. He seemed agitated, glancing repeatedly at his watch.

“You might as well tell me what you had to do with Elizabeth Calvert’s death,” I said. “Did you kill her?”

“No,” he said, looking much too offended considering my current condition. “I’ve never killed anyone.”

“Good to know,” I said dryly.

“What are the chances?” he asked, almost to himself. “What are the chances the new sheriff would come into town and immediately start going through the cold case files? Took me off guard, otherwise I would’ve made them disappear. But he took them and locked them away. And then all of a sudden I find out he’s deputized you and a group of people old enough to be on the ark. What sense does that make?”

“Considering you’re worried enough to kidnap me,” I said, “It makes a lot of sense to me.”

“I don’t remember you being such a smart-mouth,” he said.

“I think it’s a newly acquired skill.”

“Lucky me,” he said. “Thirty years.” He paced some more. “Thirty years of keeping my mouth shut, of looking the other way. I hadn’t been on the job long back when it happened—and I had a baby on the way and a mortgage I could barely afford.”

My mind flashed to the family photos I’d seen on his desk at the station—grown children now, grandkids. A life built on the foundation of a terrible secret.

“So yeah,” he said. “I went on the take. I don’t regret it either. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. And I was providing for my family. I was a good cop.”

I decided it was prudent I keep my mouth shut at this point.

“But someone found out what I was doing, and that’s when things went sideways,” he continued. “Now I belong to someone else, and I haven’t been free since.”

“That’s why you helped whoever killed Elizabeth?” I asked.

“It wasn’t me that killed her,” he said. “I swear. But yeah. I didn’t have a choice.”