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He seemed edgy—not as if he was going to deliver bad news, but that whatever he’d seen had spooked him.
“I was conducting a preliminary survey, and ... well, look.” He held up a tablet, showing me footage from a drone. The video was clear as the drone circled the area, and I saw the total damage of the landslide, the scar black against the green of the wild meadows that had once been on either side of the boulders and the stream. Then he paused at one specific spot and zoomed in as best he could. The clarity diminished, and instead, the screen displayed a grainy image of what appeared to be luggage scattered at the base of the central hole. Among them was something else that made my blood run cold—holy shit, it looked like bones.
“We found these just beyond the ridge,” the engineer explained. “It’s likely nothing, y’know. We’ve seen this before from animal remains, but there are the suitcases. We didn’t want to disturb anything until you got here.”
I studied the footage, my mind racing. I’d seen bones unearthed in excavations on properties, some from a slip in the graveyard when I was no older than five. I recalled seeing them yellowed, not the white I’d imagined, and I wondered about the last things the animals or humanshad seen. My mum called it my creative side, and my dad patted me on the back and said I’d make an excellent sheriff one day.
Sheriff won out. I was as creative as a brick wall.
“Probably animal,” I said.
“Sure.” He nodded as if he was happy to go along with that assessment, or maybe he was convincing himself of it, as I was. “I instructed my team not to go any closer without your go-ahead.”
“How many are on your team?”
“Three. Will and Anna are waiting at the scene with the property owner, Mr. Lennox.”
I took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the situation settle on my shoulders. Micah was up there already—what did he know about what the engineers found? “All right. Show me exactly where this is.”
I called it in to Solomon, my voice steady despite the churn of thoughts in my head. Lewis was off duty—Wyatt was my only remaining deputy. “Dispatch, I need you to get Wyatt up here to join me at the Lennox Ranch and ensure he brings all our evidence bags and gloves. Hell, tell him to bring the whole kit from the list.”
“I got it, Sheriff,” Solomon replied with curiosity in his tone, but now wasn’t the time to explain.
I grabbed the roll of caution tape from my SUV and headed up with Doctor Reese to the site. As I approached, I saw Micah to one side, finishing a call. He crossed his arms over his chest, staring into the distance with a troubled expression. It must be unsettling to have people crawling all over the property. Though in the light of day, while the damage was extensive, it was far from the mainranch house and not in any direction that would affect the town.
I acknowledged Micah with a nod. “Hey, Micah. How are you holding up?”
He shrugged, still staring into the distance. “Could be better.”
I gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and after the engineer assured me the ground there was safe, I crouched as close to the edge as I could.
Twenty feet down, I could see two cases. They looked old, with no wheels, possibly leather, and half-rotted. One of them had muddy contents escaping from it. I glanced back at the barn uphill, listing precariously. It had tape around it, marking it as a condemned building, with half missing. In the center was the distinct shape of the well, destroyed and sagging as if the entire thing had sunk into the ground.
I scanned back to the hole and the direction of the landslip. Could everything have come from the well? It seemed possible. The floodwaters might have dislodged them, sending them tumbling down the hill.
“Dr. Reese,” I called out, not taking my eyes off the scene below, “is there any chance these cases could have come from that well?”
He stepped closer, peering down at me. “It’s entirely possible, Sheriff. Given the direction of the slide, they could have been dislodged from there.”
“And the bones?”
He shrugged as if he didn’t want to commit to anything. “Animal, maybe?”
I guessed that was a question for Micah and his familyover whether, in the past, animals who’d passed were pitched into the well or could have stumbled in. I doubted the first, and the well wall had been built a good five feet above the floor of an old barn.
I nodded. “All right, I’ll need to secure this area and start figuring out how to retrieve those cases and what else is down there. Can your team get me down there?”
Dr. Reese was horrified. “We’re not insured for that,” he said. “You’ll need to call in specialists.”
I gestured at the rope and pulley system. “You can’t use that?”
“Health and Safety, Sheriff. Can’t use them for anything other than geophysical retrieval and assessment.” He tilted his chin.
At last, Micah tore his gaze from the distance, but his expression was pinched, and he was pale as he checked his phone. The tension left him, and I glanced at where he was staring. Wyatt turned up with extra tape, but it wasn’t my deputy he was staring at—it was Connor, who’d arrived with him.
As I secured the tape around the area, I was drawn to Connor. He was focused on Micah and led him away so they could talk privately. My suspicious side was out and proud—why would Connor be here and talking about something with Micah? His shoulders were back, but he was loose, ready to leap into action at any moment. There was an air of danger and tension radiating from him. He’d slipped into soldier mode—no, sailor mode, given he’d been a SEAL.
Connor glanced back at the surroundings with an intensity that made it clear he was assessing everypossible threat, every potential piece of evidence. His muscles were coiled, as if he were ready to spring, and it was like watching a predator in its element. The storm might have passed, but standing there, Connor looked like he was preparing for a battle that could break out any second.
