CHAPTER 1
Officer Chuck “Skid” Skidmore was no stranger to mistakes. He’d made a few in his time. More than a few if he wanted to be honest about it. Some had cost him. From others he’d emerged unscathed, but walked away a wiser man. Most of his mistakes were of the innocent variety. A lapse of judgment. Poor planning. Or maybe he simply hadn’t tried hard enough to do the right thing.
Tonight, as he stood on the span of the covered bridge and watched fellow police officer Mona Kurtz pull up behind his cruiser, he figured the one he was about to make was as far removed from innocence as he could imagine. For the life of him he didn’t have the self-discipline to stop.
It was half past two A.M. and snowing like the dickens. He’d been on duty since midnight and hadn’t taken a single call. Boredom and lust were a bad combination for a man who’d been obsessing over a woman—a coworker—for almost six months now.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Mona said as she slammed her car door and started toward him.
“I was just thinking the same thing.” He held his ground, leaning against his cruiser, arms crossed, and for an instant he simply enjoyed the sight of her. Long legs. Hair a little wild. Her coat was open; she was still wearing her police uniform and he could just make out the outline of her figure.
“You off?” he asked.
“Free as a bird.”
Without invitation or hesitation, she went to him, fell against him. The contact was like a bomb going off in his chest. His arms encircled her. She smelled of coconut and mint. He breathed in deep and it only made him want more. He didn’t intend to kiss her, but the next thing he knew his mouth was on hers.
Then she was flush against him. Her arms flung around his neck. Breasts against his chest. Pelvis grinding into his.
“You know this is not smart, right?” he murmured.
“Totally aware,” she panted.
He started to say something about their careers and good judgment, but she took his mouth again. Heart raging, he spun her around, pressed her against the car door. Hands beneath her shirt, fingers seeking the closure of her bra. Blood rushing from his head to just south of his belt.
“Back seat,” he ground out, reaching for the door handle.
“Hurry.”
He fumbled the handle, got his fingers under it, opened the door. He was so focused on getting her into the back seat, he almost didn’t hear the scream.
Mona went still in his arms, turned her head to break the kiss. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah.” Skid straightened, gave himself a hard mental shake. “Sounded like a scream.”
Not just a scream, he thought, but the kind of sound that made the hair on your neck stand on end.
“Who’s screaming their head off in the woods at this time of night?” she whispered.
He eased away from her and looked around, his cop’s instincts slowly returning. Only then did he catch the smell of smoke. “Something burning.”
Mona looked around as if to get her bearings. “I smell it.”
“We need to check.”
“Yep.”
Tugging the mini Maglite from his belt, Skid set the beam on the woods. Sure enough, fingers of white smoke hovered among the trees.
“Wind’s out of the north,” he murmured.
“Skid, there’s no farm in that direction,” she said.
“Too damn cold for anyone to be camping.” Tilting his head, he spoke into his lapel. “Ten-seven-three,” he said, letting his dispatcher know there was smoke in the area.
Margaret’s voice cracked over his radio. “What’s the twenty on that?”
“Dogleg Road,” he said. “By the bridge over Little Paint Creek.”
“Do you want me to get the fire department out there?”
“Let me take a quick look-see before we get anyone out of bed.”
“Roger that.”
They crossed the road, traversed the ditch, and climbed over a beat-up wire fence. Darkness closed over them as they entered the woods. The smoke was thicker there. Woodsmoke laced with something vaguely unpleasant. Skid listened as they wound through fifty yards of new-growth forest, pockets of raspberry bramble and winter-dead weeds, but the only sound came from their boots crunching on leaves left over from fall.
“Fire.” Mona pointed. “Two o’clock. Through those trees.”
“I see it,” he said. “Eyes open.”
“Yep.”
They broke into a jog. Staying as quiet as possible, not quite succeeding at being totally silent. All the while, Skid kept his hand over his sidearm.
“Painters Mill Police Department!” he called out as they neared. “Identify yourself!”
No response.
He heard the crack and pop of the fire moments before they entered the clearing. It looked like some type of bonfire. Wood piled high and burning profusely. Flames leaping fifteen feet into the air. Not a soul in sight.
“Police department!” Twenty feet away, Mona entered the clearing. “Show yourself! Now!”
The only response came from the crackling of the fire.
“Looks like whoever was here flew the coop,” Mona muttered.
Skid took in the details of the scene, felt a slow rise of uneasiness. He’d assumed they’d stumbled upon an impromptu party of some type. Young people sitting around a bonfire, drinking beer or smoking dope and freezing their butts off. But there was something off about the scene. No beer bottles. No trash. No place to sit. Not too many footprints.
“What the hell is this?” he muttered.
“Skid.”
Something in Mona’s voice caught his attention. She stood a few feet from the fire. Hand up to shield her face from the heat. Her head cocked in confusion.
“What is that?” she whispered.
A post jutted from the center of the blaze. Eight or nine feet tall and thick as a telephone pole. Something hanging on it. A shape that was oddly human.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
“Is that…”
“Go get your fire extinguisher,” he said. “Hurry! I’m going to see if I can get him out of there.”
Spinning, Mona sprinted toward their vehicles.
Skid started toward the fire, but the heat drove him back. Unable to take his eyes off the humanlike thing secured to the post, he hit his lapel mike. He knew his ten codes just fine, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out which to use for this. “I got a fire out here! A burn victim. Ten-fifty-two,” he said, using the code for an ambulance.
“Roger that.” A concerned pause and then, “Are you in a structure?”
“Negative. Just … the woods. Call the chief, Margaret,” he said. “I think we got a homicide here.”
CHAPTER 2
The rattle of my cell phone pulls me from a dead sleep. Rolling, I slap my hand down on it, bring it to my face and squint at the display. DISPATCH. 2:47 A.M. I answer with a curt utterance of my name.
“Burkholder.”
“Sorry to wake you, Chief,” comes my graveyard-shift dispatcher’s voice. “I just took a call from Skid. Says he’s got a fire and body out on Dogleg Road.”
A quick punch of dread sends me bolt upright. My feet hit the floor. “A structure?” I ask, rising and going to the closet for my clothes. “House? Barn?”
“He’s in the woods,” she tells me. “Out by the covered bridge.”
My befuddled brain tries to make sense of it as I yank a uniform shirt off a hanger. “A vehicle accident?”
“He didn’t say. Sounded kind of shook up to be honest with you.”
“Tell him I’m on my way,” I tell her.
I’m vaguely aware of my husband, John Tomasetti, sitting up, rubbing his hands over his face. “Everything all right, Chief?”
“Not sure.” I tug my trousers from a dresser drawer and step into them. “There’s a fire in the woods off of Dogleg Road. Skid says there’s a body.”
“Odd combination.” He picks up his cell, checks the time. “You want some company?”
Tomasetti is an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and a former detective with the Cleveland Division of Police. We’ve worked together on a dozen cases over the last few years. Not only do we make a good investigative team, but we’ve gotten pretty good at the whole husband and wife thing, too.
I grab my equipment belt off the chair and buckle up. “Don’t you have to be in Columbus at seven?”
“Unfortunately.” Groaning, he gets to his feet, rounds the foot of the bed, and puts his arms around me. “I’d rather hang out with you.”
“Dead body might be a third wheel.”
“Easy to ditch.”
We’ve been married for two months now. A change I still can’t quite reconcile. A joy I’m almost afraid to feel. Maybe because for the first time in my life, I’m unabashedly happy and I like the way it fits.
He kisses me.
I kiss him back, pull away an instant before I start to free-fall. “Tomasetti, has anyone ever told you that you have a macabre sense of humor?”
“I get that a lot.”
Pulling away, I open the night table drawer, snatch up my .38, and holster it.
“Be careful out there, will you, Chief?” he says.
“See you at dinner,” I tell him.
I brush my mouth across his and then I’m out the door.
Copyright © 2024 by Linda Castillo
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