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been here?” Lieutenant Lang continued.
    “Hard to determine at this point. Years, probably at least a decade.”
    “Anything unusual found with the body, like a phone?” Grace asked. If that was the case, they could be looking at a serial offender. A shiver rocked her spine at the thought of madness multiplied.
    He shook his head. “Nothing yet, but we still have a lot more dirt to move.”
    “Any religious symbols or markings?” Lieutenant Lang studied the surrounding area, which consisted mostly of camellia bushes and a few sycamores. “It’s possible Grace’s crew stumbled on the Giroux family cemetery.”
    “Not likely,” Grace said, even though she would prefer her crew had discovered a family’s burial plot, a place where the dead rested peacefully amid flowers, shade trees, and prayers of the living. “Lamar Giroux lived here for more than sixty years. No wife, no kids.”
    “But we did find this.” Another forensic tech held up what looked like a small black pebble. “Bullet slug. Discovered it lodged in the back of the skull.”
    Lieutenant Lang raised her weary face to the sky and let out a tired laugh. “You’re doing wonders for my job security, Grace. Got any other buried bodies I need to know about?”
    Grace was about to laugh—because with all she’d been slammed with in the past twenty-four hours, she needed to laugh—when she sucked in a gasp. “The bones.”
    With a tight knot in her stomach, she led the lieutenant from the construction site, past the black gum and myrtles, and to her shack, the one with the sagging front porch and a dented metal garbage can. She lifted the lid with one hand and pointed to Allegheny Blue with the other. “He’s been digging them up and dragging them home for months now.”
    The lieutenant took a step back. “What kind of place is this?”
    This was the land coveted by developers and half the town, the earth she’d paid for with every dollar she could scrape together, the place where she wanted to put down roots. Her home.
    “You should probably head into town for a few days,” Lieutenant Lang said. “Until we find out what’s going on here.”
    Were there other human skeletons on the property, literally under her feet? Did any of this have to do with Lia Grant? The idea shook her to the bone. The brutal reality was Grace had nowhere to go. Her parents and grandparents were long gone, and she had no brothers or sisters. She had colleagues at work and tennis partners at the club, but not the kind she could phone and ask to crash in their spare bedrooms. She spent most nights with case files and her computer, which led to limited romantic entanglements. And she had no money to rent a hotel room.
    She settled the lid on the garbage can with barely a clank. “I’ll be fine, Lieutenant, right here.” For now she had no choice but to stay on her land amid the garden of bones.
    *  *  *
    As Hatch and Alex walked out of the sheriff’s station, the boy was quiet, but his gait, the set of his face, spoke volumes. Correction. Only three words.
    Fuck you, world!
    Hatch knew that hateful glare, the swagger, the attitude, and the words. Hell, he’d shouted them on a regular basis when he’d been Alex’s age, and his old man had answered with the back of his hand. A ghost of pain rammed his jaw.
    But Hatch would never raise his hand to his child, any child. He had other resources. “You want to stop and get some lunch before we go to the cemetery.”
    Alex kicked at an empty soda can that went flying across the parking lot, nearly missing a small blue Ford pulling into a space near the front door. “I want you to go to hell.”
    Hatch jammed his hand into his pocket and took out the keys to the SUV he’d sweet-talked out of the front desk clerk. Welcome to a whole new generation of father-son dysfunction. “Fine, we’ll meet with Black Jack and—”
    A woman in matched pearls the color of frosted ocean swells stepped out of the blue car, and