CHAPTER 51
GRACE
I hung up my phone and looked over at Ryder and shook my head.
“What did he say?” he asked.
“He’s going to Green’s house. Said he got a phone call to head over there. He sounded a little weird, though,” I said. “A little off. I told him to stall. We can’t just let him go through with this.”
“No, of course not,” Ryder said. “Fury won’t kill anyone. Knowing him, he’ll talk Green down and everything will settle down. At least the Sheriff let him out of jail.”
“This fucking town,” I said, shaking my head. We’d gotten back to the B&B moments before Fury called us from out front. He said he was in a hurry, filled me in, and then roared away on his bike.
“Green sure is a back-stabbing asshole,” Ryder said. We were standing in our room, but the door was open. I’d thought Dottie was downstairs but a squeak of the floor in the hallway told me I was wrong.
I walked to the door and looked out. Dottie stood there, a bottle of wine in her hand.
“I only get drunk on the night of the ball,” she said, slurring adorably.
“Okay, Dottie,” I said. “Are you alright? Is there anything I can help you with?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But I heard you talking about that asshole.”
“Oh. Green?”
“Yep,” she said, swaying in her nightgown and bringing the bottle of wine to her lips. “That’s the one.”
I remembered the image of her caught by the surveillance cameras and figured now was probably the best time of all to get her to talk.
“Why don’t you come in and sit by the fire for a spell?” I asked. “It’s toasty in here.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, walking past me and plopping down on one of the easy chairs that flanked the fireplace in our room. Ryder raised an eyebrow and sat on the edge of the bed with a half-smile. I sat across from Dottie and smiled gently.
“We saw you on the surveillance cameras we installed, Dottie” I said, bluntly.
She looked slightly surprised but she only nodded and shrugged.
“I figured as much,” she said. “Soon as I realized the doors were locked, I figured there must be cameras, too.”
“What were you doing there, Dottie?” I asked, gently.
“Bodhi Green’s a fuckwad.”
My eyes widened in pleasure at her eloquence. I nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“My sister, Touttle, was devastated when her son died. My nephew Bryce meant the world to her. And Bodhi was supposed to be his best friend. He barely looked for him! He convinced his dad that looking on their property for him wasn’t necessary. No searchers necessary, they’d said. Bullshit! You know what I think happened?”
“What, Dottie?”
“I think Bodhi killed him. I don’t know why. But he’s never been the same since Bryce’s death and not in a normal way. He should have been the one out searching more than anyone else in town and he just sat in his room, let all those weeks go by without lifting a goddamned finger. I think he knew he wouldn’t be found. I think he knew Bryce didn’t just disappear out of thin air! And I think those other boys helped him somehow. Will and Ross and Conner, they follow him around like a bunch of puppy dogs afterwards, and he used to treat them like crap. They’d give the skin off their backs for Green and he’s never done anything to deserve their loyalty. Just doesn’t make sense.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re breaking in to their homes and business,” I said.
“I was looking for something. Anything. Hell, I don’t know what,” she shrugged, taking another big swig off the bottle. “I don’t know what I expected to find. It’s not like there’s going to be a signed confession or something, right? So, I didn’t find much. A bunch of crap, to be honest. Just business stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with Bryce’s disappearance.”
“So you don’t have any proof of your suspicions?”
“Well, I did find this one thing,” she said. “But I don’t know if it has something to do with it or not.”
“What is it?” Ryder asked.
She paused, looking at us for a moment before jumping up.
“I’ll show ya,” she said, padding out of the room. Ryder and I looked at each other for a moment in silence, each of us wondering what exactly we’d fallen into.
Dottie walked back into the room, a shopping bag in her hand.
“What’s that?”
“Like I said,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s important, but it might be something.”
She put the bag on the floor, slowly leaning down and pulling out a large piece of plastic covering a long, metal tool.
“Is that a crowbar?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said. “It was stuffed way in the back of Green’s closet. I’m pretty sure it’s covered in dried blood.”
I looked closer, and sure enough, it was caked in dark red blood.
“I think you’re right,” I said.
“And there’s one more thing,” she said.
“What?”
“I think I know where the body is buried.”
Ryder and I looked at her with our mouths open.
We’d come to Greenville looking for skeletons and it appeared that a big pile of bones just landed at our feet.