Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell Read online

  Praise for Vickie McKeehan’s books

  “Powerful, moving story of a survivor. A must read!”

  The Bones of Others

  Skye Doggett

  “…well written, fast paced, exciting read…”

  The Bones of Others

  Paulette Mahurin, author of

  The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap

  “Strong, distinctive characters.

  I cannot wait to get my hands on the next book.”

  Just Evil

  Coffee Time Romance and More

  “Queen of suspense…”

  Just Evil

  Jill D. Hidy, author of The Old World Series

  “…an excellent storyteller…”

  Deeper Evil

  Toye Lawson Brown, author of When the Music Stops

  “A must read trilogy.”

  Ending Evil

  Rosalie A. Pope, author of Puppies For Sale $25.00

  “For an entertaining adventure and love story,

  I highly recommend.”

  Hidden Moon Bay

  Marilyn Holdsworth, author of Pegasus

  “…the Pelican Pointe Novels are not to be put down ’til the last page…”

  Dancing Tides

  Sheryl Dickson, reader

  “This is a wonderful series…”

  Starlight Dunes

  Steve Ashley, reader

  “Dark and edgy—romantic suspense with a pulse-pounding pace.”

  The Bones of Others

  David C. Cassidy, author of Velvet Rain

  “An outstanding book series…”

  The Bones Will Tell

  Brian J. Hodson, reader

  also by Vickie McKeehan

  The Evil Secrets Trilogy

  JUST EVIL - Book One

  DEEPER EVIL - Book Two

  ENDING EVIL - Book Three

  The Pelican Pointe Series

  PROMISE COVE

  HIDDEN MOON BAY

  DANCING TIDES

  LIGHTHOUSE REEF

  STARLIGHT DUNES

  LAST CHANCE HARBOR (Coming)

  Skye Cree Novels

  THE BONES OF OTHERS

  THE BONES WILL TELL

  THE BOX OF BONES

  Exclusively at Amazon in print and Kindle format

  The Box of Bones

  A Skye Cree Novel

  Published by Beachdevils Press

  Copyright © 2014 Vickie McKeehan

  All rights reserved.

  The Box of Bones

  A Skye Cree Novel

  Copyright © 2014 Vickie McKeehan

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-10: 0692207279

  ISBN-13: 978-0692207277

  Published by

  Printed in the USA

  Original cover artwork designed by Jess Johnson

  Visit Vickie at:

  http://www.vickiemckeehan.com

  http://vickiemckeehan.wordpress.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/VickieMcKeehan

  www.twitter.com/VickieMcKeehan

  The Box of Bones

  A Skye Cree Novel

  VICKIE McKEEHAN

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To Rich, for all things cop.

  To Jess, for graphics that really pop.

  To Kristi, for all the social media help.

  To Dana, for all the corrections and catches.

  As always, any mistakes belong to me.

  For my family and friends.

  It’s you guys who keep me going.

  “We serial killers are your sons,

  we are your husbands,

  we are everywhere.”

  Ted Bundy

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Box of Bones

  A Skye Cree Novel

  VICKIE McKEEHAN

  Prologue

  Twenty years earlier

  Fort Lewis, Washington

  “You made soup for dinner? What kind of an idiot woman thinks a man can make a meal outta soup?”

  Black-haired beauty, Trisha Danes, barely out of her teens, had only been married to the twenty-two-year-old army corporal for six months. But Trisha had already decided it had been the worst time of her life. How was she supposed to know that Milo got pissed off about everything before he’d slipped a twenty-dollar ring on her finger? That’s what she got for marrying somebody she’d only known a short two months.

  She trembled a little at the sound of Milo’s angry tone. Lately he always seemed to be mad about something. And tonight was no exception.

  In her best Carolina drawl, she tried to pacify him. “It’s…not…soup, honey. It’s stew. And dontcha know, it has lots of meat and veggies like potatoes and carrots and onions, just like you like,” Trisha went on to point out.

  “Well, whatever it is, you made it too damn watery that it looks like soup to me. I can see the bottom of the damn pan,” Milo grumbled.

  That was because she’d tried to stretch all the ingredients. But she didn’t say this to Milo. Instead she did her best to appease him again and offered, “Okay, okay, no need to get upset. How about I fix you a nice grilled cheese instead? You like those. You can eat it with the…soup.”

  “I’m not eating a damned sandwich. A man wants a real meal when he gets home from working a ten-hour shift not a bunch of cheese on toast.”

  Trisha sucked in a nervous breath. It might be different if Milo had an exhausting job loading trucks for the army from six in the morning until four in the afternoon. But he didn’t. What Milo did was sit on his ass at a desk inputting data into a computer all day, keeping track of shipments coming onto and going off the base. Not exactly grueling work in Trisha’s mind. But she didn’t dare mention that at the moment. She didn’t want to fight. And because of that she went to the refrigerator and dug out the carton of eggs. “How about I scramble you up some of these?”

  “Damn it, woman! That’s breakfast food. I want you to fix me supper. What about that don’t you understand?”

  Now was probably not a good time to remind Milo that they still had another week to go till payday. He could eat a cheese sandwich, or the two scrambled eggs or the watery stew. Honestly though, Trisha was getting mighty tired of Milo’s temper flaring like a volcano over the least little thing like what he had for dinner. Trisha backed away from the fridge as Milo stormed over to the same appliance and yanked the d
oor open to see for himself what was inside.

  Trisha wasn’t taking any chances. She moved three feet away to the counter.

  “There’s nothing in here but some ketchup, mustard and mayo. We don’t even have a hotdog to throw on the stove. Where the hell is the food?”

  It wasn’t like she’d eaten it up herself. Beginning to shake now with fear that he might take it up a notch, which she’d seen him do lately, she did her best to remind him of their situation. “We have seven dollars in our checking account, Milo. It’s gotta last at least another six days before I can go to the PX. We’ve used up our allotment for food. Look, I’ve got a can of beans in the pantry I can throw in and add it to the stew. That’ll make it a lot thicker.”

  But when Milo slammed the ice-box door shut and wheeled around with fire in his eyes, Trisha knew she was in trouble. “Don’t you dare hit me again! I didn’t move three thousand miles all the way across the country to a place where all it does is rain all the damned time for you to use me as a punching bag every single time you get mad about something! I’m not putting up with you hitting me anymore, Milo.”

  “Oh yeah? Then leave. Get out of my face and my house. What good are you anyway? Can’t even fix a damn meal the right way,” he groused.

  But when she reached for the keys on the counter to the only vehicle they owned, Milo’s truck, he slapped her hand away. “You ain’t takin’ my pickup. You wanna get out of here? Fine, you walk. You leave with what’s on your back.”

  “That’s not right.”

  “Yeah, well neither is me coming home and finding a crappy meal on the stove.” With that, he shoved her through the back door. “Now get your ass out of my sight before I decide to smack you.”

  “Where am I supposed to go, Milo?”

  “Hey, you wanna leave? What the hell do I care where you go?” He pushed her onto the narrow porch and then slammed the door shut in her face.

  The minute she heard the lock turn on the other side, Trisha’s shoulders slumped. What was she supposed to do now? She took two steps and started pounding on the door. “At least give me my purse. Come on, Milo. I need my wallet! It has my ID in it.”

  When the door cracked open slightly, she had hope. But then Milo tossed her handbag over her head and it landed on the wet patch of dirt and weedy grass behind her.

  “There. Satisfied now? By the way, I took the checkbook out of it, too. I don’t want you writing hot paper all over town that I’ll have to cover. Now get out of my sight! You knock on this door again and I’ll bash your face in.”

  Knowing he would do it, Trisha backed down the steps and ran over to retrieve her pocketbook. She brushed off the tan faux leather grain hoping all the grime came off.

  It was beginning to get dark and already chilly for October. The sun dipped in the west over the tips of the evergreens as she made her way through the complex heading to the nearest pay phone, a good half mile away.

  She didn’t even have her jacket. Asshole Milo, she thought, as she tromped off in the direction of the PX. What she had ever seen in the piece of shit, she could only wonder now?

  It was time to call her stepmom, Brandy Sue Grainger, collect back in Charlotte. Trisha hoped the woman accepted the charges. After all, it had been her stepmother who had tried to warn her about marrying Milo. She wished now she’d listened to Brandy. Not only that, Trisha hoped she could talk Brandy Sue into sending her bus fare to get back home. If that didn’t happen, she’d have to hitchhike her way clear across the country. But first, she’d have to wait for Milo to go to work in the morning to go back to the apartment to get her clothes.

  As Trisha contemplated where she planned to sleep that night, a Jeep pulled alongside her with the windows rolled down. That seemed odd to Trisha because she’d been here two months and not a single soul had gone out of their way to be friendly to her.

  When the man behind the wheel brought the car to the side of the road and came to a stop, Trisha stopped walking.

  “You need a ride, honey? It’s awful cold out here and you don’t even have a coat on.”

  He seemed nice enough and wow was he ever cute, all that dark hair and all. Maybe her luck in the man department had turned.

  As she opened the passenger door and hopped into the front seat, Trisha had no way of knowing it was the last ride she would ever take.

  Chapter One

  Present day

  Seattle, Washington

  For a woman who’d never traveled farther south than the state of California, jetting to St. Kitts for her honeymoon in the middle of winter had been nothing short of heaven.

  Skye Cree didn’t jet-set. She didn’t consider herself a fan of the glitzy or the privileged. She wasn’t particularly materialistic or fashionable. But when it came to touching down on the lush island surrounded by sparkling blue water, she’d been captivated by all the trappings that went with a luxurious resort hotel. She’d even taken advantage of the spa where some guy named Javier had given her a massage that made her feel like she could float on air.

  After all, even the most dogged hunter needed to get away, needed to take a break from chasing down scum once in a while. Maybe that’s why she’d reveled in the trip. And not for the obvious reasons a new bride might have who itched to get the man she loved all to herself for two weeks in a tropical setting. That was a bonus. The fact that she’d rarely gone anywhere in her life before meeting Josh Ander left her wanting to see places she’d only dreamed or read about.

  So she’d taken advantage of every minute there. She’d used her camera like a pro, filling up the disc with no less than two hundred pictures. The trip had yielded plenty of things to check out, to explore, new things to experience. But like any other newlywed couple she and Josh had rarely left their hotel room, opting instead to spend their nights languishing in bed, their days not that much different.

  When they had ventured out, they’d acted like typical tourists. They’d sipped on fruity exotic drinks made with pineapple and mango and rum and topped with those little paper umbrellas. They’d danced to the sounds of acoustic guitars and ukuleles and drummers keeping the beat with their steelpans.

  They hadn’t wanted any of it to end, not the twenty-four-hour room service or the brilliant sunrises and sunsets that came with it.

  They’d flown out of SeaTac with a cold wind breathing down their backs. Eight hours later they’d landed among bright green rolling hills, warm crystal blue water slapping at white sand, sand that glistened like slivers of diamonds were lining the shores. With temperatures reaching the high eighties every day, their fourteen glorious days in the Caribbean flew by. The tranquil time had flown by way too fast.

  She supposed there were rules to getting back into the swing of things. But end it had. And now, here she was back dealing with Seattle’s winter.

  Temps had fallen overnight to a chilly record low of twenty-seven degrees. A light drizzle spit down from above as she blew into the lobby of the gleaming Breslin Building.

  Taking a deep breath, she prepared to step back into her role at the Artemis Foundation, the Foundation that located missing children.

  When the polished steel doors opened to the elevator, she dashed into the car and punched the button for three. As it began its upward motion, she had to admit she’d missed her little office on the third floor. Okay, truth be told, she couldn’t wait to get back into the swing of things.

  She’d gotten a late start though. She’d lingered over her toast and jam and her second cup of coffee too long while her husband of sixteen days had headed out the door for work.

  She knew Josh had a brutal software schedule to keep. With his job as the CEO at Ander All Games he was often behind at work. Even before their wedding, he’d struggled to keep up. In fact, since his transformation he often had to play catch-up. She worried he didn’t get enough sleep. There never seemed to be enough hours in the day or night, especially that time after midnight when they searched Seattle’s streets. They’d negotia
ted the hours, times they’d set aside for themselves and compromised on everything else. Teamwork he called it.

  But it didn’t matter if they’d reached an agreement. Skye still felt responsible for the crazy workload he had. It was a waste of time to talk herself out of it. Wasn’t it her fault? All of it.

  Native American blood coursing through her veins might make her susceptible to its folklore but it was her Nez Perce spirit guide, a silver wolf named Kiya that made her a believer. If not for Kiya, she would never have escaped from Ronnie Whitfield at the age of twelve.

  That was long before she and Josh wound up in the woods outside Whitfield’s cabin. Long before Kiya had saved Josh. That day, her mystical wolf, her protector, her guardian, had come through again by merging life forces with Josh’s to save them both.

  Such drastic measures had come at a steep price and changed Josh forever. But they would never have been there in the first place if not for her obsession, her stubborn refusal to stop looking for the man she felt had gotten away with a slap on the wrist. Her fixation on Whitfield had almost gotten both of them killed.

  She had to take responsibility for that.

  Unlocking the door to the office suite, Skye stepped inside as the silver wolf nipped at her heels. These days, Kiya went everywhere with her—too many crazies out there not to. It had taken the wolf months to regain strength, to adjust to the cells from Josh so that she could fully make use of the human traits she’d acquired in the merge.

  As the wolf prowled the suite, checking out every corner, Skye had to concede Josh acted much the same way at times. Amused at her own wit, she understood the analogy. Even though Josh didn’t actually walk around on all fours, he did prowl and pace. Often. Plus his persistent, stubborn ways could get annoying at times. Since taking on Kiya’s qualities, his dogged pursuit was one of the qualities she most admired, while at the same time, accepting blame for that, too. He certainly wasn’t the same man she’d met that night in a dark alleyway.