“I did. It’s not Micah’s, as we already concluded. There were no matches in the databases.”
So someone had thrown up on him.
It wasn’t Cara. She would have told him about that. And no one else had come forward to report the body.
Of course, if a trespasser had spotted Micah, they may have been reluctant to admit they’d been on the premises. They could have gone over to investigate, puked, then hightailed it off the property.
But a killer who didn’t have the stomach for murder wouldn’t report a body, either.
Brad’s pulse picked up. “You may want to put a temporary hold on your manner of death ruling.”
“We’re tracking the same direction. Good luck figuring this one out.”
“Thanks.”
Brad ended the call, slid his cell into his pocket, and started the engine.
From the beginning, this death hadn’t felt as innocent as it seemed. The lack of blood in the boat, and the odd smear on the side. The location of the small skiff and the body. Now this.
Each new fact increased the possibility that foul play could have been involved.
He tapped his finger on the wheel.
The question was, why would anyone want to kill Micah?The man hadn’t appeared to have any friends—other than Natalie—let alone enemies.
Yet if murder was involved, someone had wanted him gone for a reason.
The challenge was to figure out who and why ... and to determine if all the other strange happenings on Natalie’s property could somehow be related.
A daunting task on this early October day.
Because if someone had taken Micah’s life, they’d left law enforcement very little to work with. And the case was getting colder by the day.
So unless he got a major break or the perpetrator made a serious mistake, it was possible justice would never be done.
He scowled as he put the car in gear and drove forward.
That didn’t sit well.
Neither did the fact that if, indeed, all the strange incidents on the Boyer property were somehow tied together, the danger there might still be present.
Meaning Cara could be in the thick of it.
She was an outsider, though. A temporary resident. She had no connection to the Boyer estate, no vested interest in the place. She wasn’t a threat to anyone.
But Micah hadn’t been, either, based on current intel.
A chill snaked through him as he drove through the early morning light, two things clear in his mind.
Collateral damage could happen if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And more and more, Natalie’s property was looking like a very wrong place to be.
MAYBE NATALIE HADN’T NOTICEDthe missing stamp yet.
Lydia checked her watch as she dusted the living room. She’d been here all morning, and the woman hadn’t said a word.
Then again, her boss and the professor had been locked away in the study working on that stupid journal. Hard to believe they paid people to dig into ancient history. Who cared what had happened in this godforsaken area a hundred years ago?
