Her mom glared in his direction. Like most couples, her parents bickered, but there was a brittle distance between them that came from a pain they all kept buried deep inside. In her family, you didn’t discuss loss or grief or guilt. You pretended it didn’t exist. It was a legacy she’d taken into her own marriage.

  Unfortunately.

  “Is it wrong to want to spend time with my only child?” DeeDee snapped. “It’s not like she’s staying here.”

  Rachel ate another slice of bacon. “I told you, it’s more convenient to have my own space. I work crazy hours and grab sleep whenever I can. I would be constantly disrupting your routine.”

  DeeDee’s thin hands clenched into tight balls. “Perhaps we could use a few disruptions.”

  Realizing that her mother was never going to accept her insistence on staying at the motel, Rachel held her plate toward the older woman. “Is there more bacon?”

  DeeDee was instantly distracted as she jumped to her feet to take Rachel’s plate. “Of course.”

  Her father waited until his wife was busy at the stove before he sent Rachel a curious glance. “I know you’re not supposed to talk about the case, but the rumor around town is that the body found in the graveyard was Jude Henley.”

  Rachel nodded. The ID was official so there was no longer a need for secrecy. “It was.”

  “I don’t understand,” her mother said, reclaiming command of the conversation as she placed Rachel’s plate in front of her and took her seat. “Didn’t he die years ago?”

  “He had a grave, but he wasn’t dead.” Rachel narrowed her gaze, abruptly realizing her mother would have been close to the same age as Jude. They had to have gone to school together. “Did you know him?”

  “Not really. He was in the class below me, but we didn’t have the same friends.” The older woman wrinkled her nose. As if her memories of Jude weren’t pleasant. “I don’t think he even graduated.”

  Rachel shoved aside her plate, folding her arms on the table. “What did he do?”

  “Do?”

  “Did he have a job?”

  DeeDee tapped a manicured fingernail on the table, her brow furrowed as she tried to recall what she knew about the man. “I think he was arrested not long after he left high school. Petty theft or something.” She shrugged. “Once he got out he might have helped his brother at the funeral home.” She paused, as if struck by a sudden memory. “Oh. I think he worked as a handyman around town. I remember my father hired him to help paint the outside of our barn one year.” Rachel’s grandparents had owned a dairy farm before it had to be sold after her grandpa had died of a heart attack and her grandmother had gone into the nursing home. “Eventually I heard that he moved to Grange.”

  That tracked with what Jacob had told Zac.

  “What about girlfriends?” Rachel asked.

  “I do remember the girls at school talking about him in whispers.” A delicate shudder raced through DeeDee. “I suppose he was good-looking and a lot of girls like the bad boys. I thought he was a jerk.”

  Rachel agreed with her mother’s sour opinion about bad boys. Her years as a detective meant she’d seen the tragic results when women thought they could change a man.

  “What about after high school?” she asked. “Did he have a steady girlfriend around town?”

  “I . . .” DeeDee’s words trailed away, her gaze surprisingly moving toward her silent husband. “I remember now.”

  “You know something,” Rachel said.

  “Not me.” DeeDee nodded across the table. “Wilson.”

  Rachel swiveled in her seat, her brows raised in surprise. Her father had lived in Wausau until he married her mother and moved to Pike to start working at the local bank.

  “Dad?”

  He scowled, obviously unhappy to be a part of the current conversation. A man didn’t become a trusted manager of a bank without understanding the value of keeping his lips shut. “That was all malicious gossip.”

  “Tell me.”

  His jaw tightened and Rachel knew that it was only because he loved her that he forced himself to answer.

  “There were rumors that Evie Parson was having an affair with Henley.”

  It took a second for Rachel to place the name. “Wasn’t she married to your boss?”

  “Yes.” The word was clipped. “I believe that Jude did some handiwork around the house.”

  “Is that what they call it? Handiwork?” DeeDee drawled.

  Her father’s features tightened. He’d always been absurdly loyal to Russell Parson, the owner of the bank.

  “It was nothing more than ugly stories spread by people with too much time on their hands,” Wilson said in stiff tones.

  DeeDee snorted. “I know it’s not polite to speak ill of the dead, but I heard Evie had a breakdown after her husband threatened to divorce her. She went to a facility in Chicago to recover.”

  “That’s not true,” Wilson snapped. “She went to Green Bay to take care of her dying cousin.”

  “Well I heard she was seen in Chicago by Vonda Howell.”

  Sensing a brewing argument, Rachel hastily distracted her mother. “Any other rumors about Jude having affairs?”

  “Dozens.” She sniffed. “As I said, there are always women who like bad boys.”

  Her father ignored his wife, his gaze focused on Rachel. “I still don’t understand how Henley died twice.”

  “Me either.” Rachel heard the muffled sound of a phone ringing and she jumped out of her chair. “I have to answer that. It could be work.”

  “At this hour?” her mother complained.

  “I warned you my schedule was crazy.” Rachel scurried into the living room, grabbing the leather satchel she’d dropped next to the door. Pulling up the flap she dug out her phone and glanced down at the screen.

  Her heart did a crazy zigzag, her breath stuck in her lungs. Zac. Once upon a time, she’d taken calls from her husband for granted. Now she felt frozen at the unexpectedness of his name popping up.

  Pressing the screen, she lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Sorry to call so early.” Zac’s familiar voice echoed through the speaker and curled through the pit of her stomach.

  She licked her lips. Why were they so dry? “No problem. What’s up?”

  “I’m at the old Henley Funeral Parlor.” There was an unmistakable tension in his voice. “Can you join me?”

  Rachel cleared her mind as she automatically shifted into cop mode. “I’ll be right there.” Ending the connection, she tossed her phone back into the satchel and pulled on her leather coat. Then, moving to stick her head into the kitchen, she sent her parents a tight smile. “Sorry, duty calls.”

  DeeDee rose to her feet, her expression pinched. “When will you be back?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “I have a pot roast for dinner.”

  Rachel swallowed her reflexive urge to refuse the incessant demand for her time and attention. Her mother couldn’t help herself, she silently conceded. DeeDee had lost her son; the grief made it impossible for her not to cling to her only remaining child.

  “I’ll try to make it,” Rachel promised. “But don’t wait dinner for me. I’ll eat whenever I can get here.”

  Spinning away before her mother could protest, Rachel hurried across the living room and out the front door. Once on the porch, she paused to take a deep breath, tilting back her head to feel the morning sun on her face. She loved her parents, but when she returned home it always felt as if she was being mired in the lingering sorrow that infected their lives.

  With a burst of eagerness to be away, she jogged down the steps and climbed into her SUV. Once driving down the narrow residential streets, however, she was forced to backtrack and circle blocks as she struggled to recall exactly where the funeral home was located. It wasn’t a place she’d noticed when she was young, and the few funerals she’d attended over the years had been held at their local church or in other towns. She’d never had a need to visit the place.

  At last she managed to turn onto the right street, her brows rising at the sight of the fire truck, along with a half dozen other vehicles, parked in the large lot.

  Pulling to a halt next to the curb, Rachel climbed out of her SUV to study the long brick building with a portico and a detached garage with five bays. At one time the expansive yard must have been charming, with large oak trees and a sunken garden. Now it looked neglected, with ugly patches of bare ground in spots, and other places overgrown with dead weeds.

  Just one of a dozen former businesses in Pike that were decaying into a pile of rubble.

  She was distracted from her dark thoughts as Zac appeared around the corner of the building, waving her to join him. With quick steps, she crossed the uneven lawn. As usual he was wearing his uniform with a heavy jacket and leather boots. His hair was covered by a baseball cap with Sheriff’s Department embroidered across the front and his weapon was holstered at his side. But she didn’t miss his unshaven jaw and the hint of shadows under his eyes.

  She was guessing he’d been called out of bed at some ungodly hour.

  Resisting the urge to wrap her arms around him and offer a comforting hug, she instead turned her attention toward the nearby funeral home.

  “Was there a fire?” she asked, catching the acrid stench of charred fabric from a side door that was propped open.

  “More smoke than fire,” Zac assured her, turning to lead her inside the building.

  They stepped into what appeared to be a storage area with long metal shelves and an opening that revealed narrow steps going down to a dark basement.

  “Do you think it’s connected to Jude Henley?” she asked in confusion.

  “The fire was a way to get our attention.” His expression was grim as he grabbed a pair of disposable shoe coverings and gloves off a nearby shelf. “You’ll need these.”

  Rachel efficiently slipped on the booties and gloves. She’d been to enough crime scenes to know what they meant.

  “There’s a victim.” It was a statement not a question.

  “Yes.” He headed down the steep stairs. “Careful, there’s no electricity at the moment. It should be back on as soon as the chief is sure it’s safe. Unfortunately, there’s no heat. The gas was turned off years ago.”

  They reached the bottom of the steps and entered a long, open basement with a low ceiling and cement walls with narrow windows at the top that allowed in enough light to see. A mixed blessing, she ruefully acknowledged, her gaze skimming around the embalming room.

  There were cabinets built into the walls along with a deep ceramic sink. The dusty countertops were stacked with strange machines that included long suction tubes and metal instruments. The floor was cement with a large drain in the center. And most unnerving, there was a rolling table loaded with bottles of foundation, pots of blush, mascara, lipstick, and powder.

  Rachel shivered, and not because of the cold. “A perfect setting for a horror show.”

  Zac sent her a curious glance. “Do you still watch those?”

  She shook her head. When they’d gone off to college they’d shared a cramped apartment near campus and struggled to scrape together enough money to pay the bills. Their weekends were spent cuddled on the couch watching old movies and eating popcorn.

  “Not so much now that I live alone.”

  “Me either.”

  They shared a rueful glance. It was one of many things they’d lost after they divorced. Their gazes remained locked together, the memories threatening to rise up and overwhelm her before she abruptly turned away. “There was something you wanted me to see?”

  Zac paused, as if he wanted to say something. Then, muttering beneath his breath, he headed toward the opening at the far side of the basement. “In here.”

  Rachel followed behind, wrinkling her nose at the sharp stench of smoke. It was worse as they passed by the sink. But as she stepped into the small space that looked like some sort of walk-in cooler with silver walls and ceiling, she was instantly distracted. In the middle of the narrow space was a dead woman lying on a steel gurney.

  “Damn,” she breathed.

  Chapter 6

  Zac watched Rachel’s reaction as she cautiously approached the corpse. He’d already recovered from his initial shock, although it was still disturbing to see the dead woman arranged on the gurney. Not just because she looked so heart-wrenchingly young. Or because she’d been stripped naked. It was the splotches of black and blue that marred her pale skin. The contusions covered her from her breasts down to her hips. And there were weird bumps where her rib cage should have been. As if the bones had been snapped and twisted by a violent beating. Her lips had been split open, as if someone had punched her in the face. And there were flecks of blood on her inner thigh that suggested she’d been brutalized before she died.

  On the floor beside the gurney was a slender crowbar that he assumed was used in the attack and in the far corner was a pile of clothes that had no doubt been ripped off the poor victim.

  He clenched his hands into tight fists as anger blasted through him. His shock and horror was already being replaced with a gut-deep fury as he gazed at the body. The last few minutes of the woman’s life had been one of pain, terror, and humiliation. No one deserved that. No one. And while he didn’t know who was responsible for doing this—yet—when he eventually tracked down the animal, he intended to see that he was locked away for an eternity.

  “Do you recognize her?” Rachel asked, her voice soft as if afraid of disturbing the dead.

  Zac gave a curt nod. “Paige Carr,” he said. He’d known who she was the minute he’d seen her on the gurney. She was younger than him, but he’d been friends with her family forever. “She was Paige Trent before she married Joe Carr.”

  Rachel’s lips parted in surprise. “Lori’s little sister?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Without warning, the fluorescent bulbs overhead flickered on and they both blinked as the light reflected off the polished steel walls. When his eyes finally adjusted, Zac grimaced. The sight of the battered, broken woman was even more gruesome in the garish glow. It also made the space feel twice as cramped.

  Barely aware he was moving, Zac backed out of the cooler. A second later, Rachel had joined him. Her face was pale, but there was an unmistakable resolve in the stubborn angle of her jaw. She was a trained professional. He could sense that her thoughts were already turning to capturing the killer.

  “There has to be a reason Paige was left in this particular spot.” She confirmed his suspicion, her brows pulling together as she glanced around the empty morgue. “Was she connected to the Henleys?”

  Zac considered the question before he shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Could you tell if someone used a key to enter the building or if they had to break in?”

  “The firemen were in a hurry when they arrived so they broke the door down to get in,” he told Rachel. “There’s no way to determine if someone had used a key or jimmied the lock.”

  His jaw tightened. The firemen had just been doing their job, but they’d not only destroyed the door, they’d trampled through the crime scene, obliterating any potential footprints and spraying foam that might contaminate any potential DNA.

  Rachel sent him a wry smile, easily sensing his annoyance. “No one lives on the property?”

  “Not since Jacob went into the nursing home.”

  She returned her attention to the bleak room, a visible shiver racing through her slender body.

  “It’s freezing down here,” she murmured. “If there hadn’t been a fire the body could very well have remained here until spring without anyone finding it.”

  Zac nodded. That had been his first thought. The building was abandoned, the air in the basement was close to freezing, and the body had been shoved into a cooler with no windows where someone passing by might have caught sight of her. If the killer wanted to keep Paige hidden, he’d chosen the perfect spot. That meant there could be only one reason for the fire.

  “Like I said, someone wanted our attention,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He’d thought about that too. “Same reason they left Jude’s body on his grave.”

  “How can you be sure that whoever did this wasn’t intending to burn down the place to get rid of any evidence?”

  Zac didn’t miss the fact that she didn’t question his assumption that whoever killed poor Paige was also responsible for putting a bullet in Jude’s head. She didn’t believe in coincidences either.

  He moved to stand next to the deep sink that was coated with ash. The firemen had removed the wastebasket from the building to make sure there were no lingering embers, but Zac had insisted it be kept as evidence.

  “The trash can was placed in here.” He pointed up. “Just below the window that was cracked open to release the smoke.” He paused to let her study the small window above their heads that had been wedged open before revealing what else he’d learned from the fire chief. “Plus, whoever did it started the fire and then covered it with damp cloths to be sure it would smolder before dying out. Lots of smoke, but no flames.”

  Her lips parted, but before she could ask her next question there was the sound of heavy footsteps stomping down the stairs. They both turned to watch two uniformed EMTs enter the basement carrying a stretcher. He recognized both of them. Britt O’Neill, who was several years older with reddish hair and a ruddy face, and Hans Cole who was younger and twice as wide as Britt with muscles that came from hours in the gym. Zac’s deputies, Lindsay and Anthony, followed close behind them.

  It was Britt who spoke. “Can we take the body?”

  Zac nodded toward the walk-in cooler. “The medical examiner is expecting you.”

  The two medics maneuvered the stretcher into the small space and Zac motioned toward his deputies to follow. It would be cramped, but he wanted to make sure he had an official observing anyone entering or leaving the location. The crime scene had already been tainted by the fire department. He wasn’t going to have anyone else bungling around destroying evidence.