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  TRUTH IN THE BONES

  A Skye Cree Novel

  Published by Beachdevils Press

  Copyright © 2017 Vickie McKeehan

  All rights reserved.

  Truth in the Bones

  A Skye Cree Novel

  Copyright © 2017 Vickie McKeehan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without written permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, locales, 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, businesses or companies, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-10: 1547103868

  ISBN-13: 978-1547103867

  Published by

  Beachdevils Press

  Printed in the USA

  Titles Available at Amazon

  Cover design by Vanessa Mendozzi

  Wolf designed by Jess Johnson

  Visit the author online at:

  www.vickiemckeehan.com

  www.facebook.com/VickieMcKeehan

  http://vickiemckeehan.wordpress.com/

  www.twitter.com/VickieMcKeehan

  For WML,

  Logic. Reason. Light.

  Your adventurous Spirit.

  All those things.

  But mostly, for the kind and generous heart.

  Once you eliminate the impossible,

  whatever remains, no matter how improbable,

  must be the truth.

  ~ SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Truth in the Bones

  by

  VICKIE McKEEHAN

  Prologue

  Saturday, August 4, 2012

  10:40 p.m.

  Brunswick, Georgia

  He’d picked the Sanderson family because they fit his idea of a successful American household, grinding out their daily existence wrapped in greed and affluence and surrounded by all things prosperous. Wealthy people got noticed when they died a violent death.

  It was just that simple.

  The big house along Riverside Drive, where the homes tended to sell around the seven-figure mark, would make an excellent backdrop. He could see it now—the attractive news reporter standing in front of the McMansion, speculating about how the lawyer Mommy and the corporate Daddy had met their sad fates. She’d mention on-air how the couple had three popular teenage children, and then reveal that only two would be found inside the house along with their parents. All had been murdered.

  The youngest, Allie, at thirteen, was a little awkward and on the chunky side. She wore glasses and could’ve used a little more makeup to cover the blemishes that had begun to pop out on her forehead.

  At fifteen, the middle child, Sara, was prettier than her younger sister. But Sara came with a lot more attitude. This girl didn’t like to be told what to do and bumped heads often with the adults in her life. From teachers to parents Sara rebelled in some way every day.

  But it was the oldest, a boy of seventeen named Tyler—who had a long history of therapy going back to his early years—who would take the blame.

  If everything played right, Tyler’s counseling would no doubt come into play when the cops couldn’t locate him. If all went according to plan, the authorities would zoom in on the one family member who couldn’t be found. It was unfortunate that tonight’s incident would fall squarely on poor Tyler’s shoulders. But it couldn’t be helped. He needed someone to take the blame. Logic required it. The town of Brunswick would need a scapegoat, and angry teenage Tyler fit the bill.

  Shame really, when it was the mother in dire need of emotional help. A spoiled woman from a wealthy family, Marilyn Sanderson had spent a small fortune sitting in on her fair share of psychiatric sessions over the years. From what he could determine the shrinks hadn’t done Marilyn much good. The lawyer seemed addicted to therapy.

  Not that he judged the mommy too harshly. He simply thought Tyler was the most likely person to take the fall. And foisting off blame was the key to getting away with the crime. It was a heady power, an adrenaline rush of military making. To be able to direct his swath of destruction onto someone else and come out of it completely unscathed showed manipulation of the system in the highest order.

  The true soldier was successful because he obliterated his target, leaving behind no clues that he’d ever been there. If he could furnish investigators with a reasonable alternative, one where they might point the finger at someone else, so much the better. To him, a member of the family was nothing short of sheer genius. He was so certain that it would work he’d planned the murders down to the finite details.

  When it was over, he’d go back to his life in another city and enjoy what he’d built for himself over the years.

  He’d had a smart and beautiful wife once, but she now belonged to someone else. He’d returned her back to her maker. Almighty God had accepted her ashes. He believed in the idea that we began and ended as dust. He’d made sure Maitlin had gone full circle.

  As much as he had cared for her, he couldn’t really say what he’d felt resembled love. But Maitlin had certainly been the closest thing he’d ever come close to caring about. But since she’d wronged him, he couldn’t let her infidelity stand. Her betrayal had meant she hadn’t really loved him at all. She hadn’t been faithful or true. She’d ruined their family. Or rather the family she should’ve given him. Maybe that explained one reason he wanted to obliterate everything and everyone around him.


  The brain doctors had said to work through it, work through the feeling of rage. That was their answer for everything. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d found the solution to his problem. He only knew when the dull everyday desire to kill increased twofold instead of going away. As soon as he’d gone back to his way of doing things—those same things he’d done in the Army—he’d been able to clearly focus on everything else. He let his feeling guide him, let his anger tell him exactly what to do. He knew, of course, this could never compare to what he’d experienced in service to his country. Nothing compared to the harsh brutality of committing to his day to day training with one purpose in mind. Being the best in his unit. Becoming the one his superiors called on to set up the kill zone. Taking out the target with precision. And surviving to go on to the next mission.

  It was pure adrenaline and he needed it like he needed his next breath of air. This was who he was. He’d accepted it, relished it, and nothing could change the way it made him feel.

  And tonight, everything would be perfect again, just like before, maybe not permanently perfect, but enough that it would make him feel as good as the old days again.

  Sweating now even two hours after the sun had gone down, he still had a few clicks to go before he reached the Sanderson place. Wearing black from head to toe on this hot, steamy night along the coast seemed crazy to the casual observer. But the mission demanded a certain protocol that couldn’t be ignored. Besides, the Georgia heat was nothing like Afghanistan’s dusty desert conditions where sand swirled into every crevice, clinging to every exposed patch of skin.

  He crept along the causeway and headed toward the banks of the Back River. Scaling a fence as if he’d been a pole vaulter in high school, he bounded over the barrier with one purpose.

  Armed with a seven-inch stainless steel blade tucked in his boot, he’d brought along a Taser and Mace just in case. But he didn’t intend to use the last two items unless he was forced into it. No seventeen-year-old would think to immobilize his own parents and sisters with an electroshock weapon or utilize an irritant akin to tear gas in an attack. Nor would the teenager likely be able to secure either item without sending up red flags. The cops would surely look for a paper trail of those kinds of purchases. Since he couldn’t very well whip up those out of thin air, it would fall to the .38 Smith & Wesson Master he had strapped to his waist to suppress any resistance.

  He’d already done his recon inside the Sanderson estate. Twice now, he’d discovered the family didn’t own a pet, not even a fish. It was a rather sterile living environment, one that he fully understood from childhood.

  On his first foray into the Sanderson way of life, he’d scoured the master bedroom and discovered a cache of prescription drugs in both nightstands. He figured at least one of the adults, if not both, would be out cold from the sleeping aid Ambien. Score one for his side.

  He moved past the manicured lawn, through the dozen or so trees that tried to hide the house, and circled around to the back.

  The temperature still hadn’t budged off the eighty-five-degree mark when he entered the laundry room through a window he’d jimmied open on Wednesday night while the family attended an event at their local church.

  He’d been in the house when it was quiet and empty of its occupants. But now with everyone at home and asleep in their beds it was showtime. The dark rooms downstairs took on another kind of vibe. Eerie. Not unlike a Hitchcock thriller of old, shot in black and white.

  As he walked across the stone tile floor into the kitchen, the five-bedroom, five-bath luxury manor offered up its moody, quiet persona in streaks of shadowy moonlight. If he’d been the idealistic sort, the eerie vibe might’ve called to mind images of Heathcliff strutting along the English moors.

  While he might’ve had plenty in common with Brontë’s brooding character, he was neither a romantic nor a lover of made-up, illusory stories. History told him smarmy fiction was for suckers.

  When he reached the staircase, he took the steps two at a time, barely able to contain his excitement. Once he got to the landing, he could feel the anticipation of the kill swelling in his veins.

  The town of Brunswick would never be the same again after tonight. He’d be infamous. Neighbors would talk about the murders for years to come. They’d wonder what had possessed teenager Tyler Sanderson, an awkward boy who had the rest of his life in front of him, to go off the deep end and slaughter his loving parents and his younger sisters.

  But only he would know the real story of how it all played out, only the cold-blooded executioner would be able to relive this night for his own purpose, his own thrill.

  He knew, standing outside the first bedroom, that this one would have to last until his next road trip. He’d already decided where to strike next.

  Forced to level his breathing, he didn’t dare get ahead of himself. It was time to rock and roll.

  Just as he planned, the parents were easy—executed in their beds with barely a whimper. The sisters were almost as compliant. Although Sara did wake up and try to scream. But that was to be expected from the feisty one in the family.

  Abducting Tyler, wrapping his mouth with duct tape and securing his hands, proved to be fast and efficient. He dealt with the boy’s curiosity by jamming a pillowcase over his head so he didn’t have to look at the boy’s face.

  Maybe next time he’d wear a mask. That way, there was no risk of getting ID’d.

  When it was all done, he marched Tyler downstairs and through the kitchen. Grabbing the car keys off a peg labeled, what else, but car keys, he led the teen out to the garage.

  He slid open the side door of the family’s minivan and stuffed Tyler down on the back floorboard, whispering a warning into the scared kid’s ear, “Don’t try anything stupid. This’ll all be over before you know it.”

  The boy’s response was muffled by the tape.

  He didn’t care what Tyler had to say anyway. He focused on leaving the scene as he got behind the wheel of the stylish late model soccer mom transport.

  Using the keys he’d confiscated, he started the engine and hit the remote for the garage door opener. Without turning on any headlights, he backed out of the driveway and glanced at his watch. 12:45 a.m. Ahead of schedule, he mused.

  Glancing around at the other houses in this Fancy Bluff neighborhood, he decided everyone had gone to bed. There were no lights visible in any of the other homes, no nosy snoops to have to deal with peering out of their windows.

  Before he slipped out of the area, he stopped near the causeway to retrieve the thrift store Schwinn bicycle he’d picked up after arriving in town via Greyhound. From the bus station, he’d checked into one of the area motels before setting out on his quest to find a target. It had taken him less than a week to settle on Jim and Marilyn Sanderson.

  But now, his goal was to scoop up the bicycle and get out of town. He’d already made sure the spot where he parked held no surveillance cameras to capture an image on video. No need to rush, he decided as he took his time loading up his rudimentary transportation through the rear door of the minivan.

  Twenty minutes later, he was on a backroad heading north toward Tyler’s final resting place.

  Tyler had another hour and a half to live before they would reach the bottomlands of the swampy woods that would be the teen’s grave. He’d use the boggy marsh to make the car disappear, too.

  Quietly, with no one the wiser, he’d wipe out any trace that he’d ever been anywhere near Georgia. With any luck, investigators would scratch their heads for decades and ponder over how a sulky, immature, seventeen-year-old boy could’ve pulled off such a perfect crime and gotten away with it—disappearing into the night without a trace.

  Perhaps detectives would sit around a conference table and contemplate how the teen could have started his new life without taking more than an overnight bag with him. They’d ask themselves where Tyler had gone. Was it a tropical beach somewhere in Mexico? Or had the boy ended up heading nor
th, living out his years in the cold weather clime of Canada?

  In the end, he believed Tyler would go down in southern folklore, going the way of the phantom killer, ending up in storybook fashion for the ages. Rack it up to one more unsolved cold case, one more crime that had little hope of seeing the light of day.

  As the sun came up over the sand hills, he cut Tyler’s throat with the knife and buried the body along the quiet banks of the Tugaloo River. He took out the mountain bike from the back of the van before rolling the vehicle into a watery grave perhaps twenty feet deep.

  He set out on the bike, pedaling through the backwoods trail to the campsite where he’d left his rented, unremarkable midsize car.

  By noon, he was sitting in the Charlotte Douglas Airport waiting to catch a flight back home. He’d tell anyone who asked about his successful business trip. They’d believe it because they wanted to. He’d lay claim to an exhaustion that would take him days to recover. It would all have to last him until next time when he could do the same thing all over again.

  He looked around the airport at the faces of the people near him. They buzzed on and on about grabbing their favorite lattes and something to eat on the plane while waiting for their boarding call. He could tell they were all anxious to scurry back home, wherever it happened to be. Anxious to get somewhere other than where they were right this minute.

  Everything was so routine, so normal.

  The fools had no idea the kind of evil that sat a few feet away. They had no idea how long evil could wait, how patient it could be, how calculating and cold.

  Smiling to himself, he sat there with that knowledge, puffing up his chest. How could people be so unaware? Didn’t they know that sometimes out of the darkest corner when they were least expecting it, evil could reach out within an arm’s length and pull them into its web. And no matter what they did to prevent it, evil had the ability to stretch out its long tentacles to search and lay claim to the weakest and the strongest alike.