CHAPTER 7
Tracy parked at the end of the caravan of cars lining the gravel road leading to the never-built entrance to the Cascadia Resort. She pulled her hair into a ponytail, then sat on her rear bumper and exchanged her flats for hiking boots. Though the sky was clear and the temperature October crisp, she tied a Gore-Tex jacket around her waist, knowing that rain could come quickly and the temperature dropped when the sun dipped below the treetops.
After they’d gathered, Finlay Armstrong led them down a dirt trail, Calloway behind him, followed by Rosa and her team. Rosa carried a dig bag, which was the size of an overnight bag with multiple pockets on the outside for things like scrapers, brushes, and small hand tools. Stanley and Coles carried sawhorses, a screen, and white buckets. The needles of the ponderosa pines had begun to turn a familiar soft shade of gold, and those that had fallen created a natural ground covering and familiar scent. The leaves of the maple and alders also hinted at the impending fall. Farther along the path, they passed the “No Trespassing” signs Tracy and Sarah and their friends had thrown rocks at as they rode their bikes along the mountain trails to reach Cascade Lake.
Half an hour into their hike, they stepped from the path into an area that had been partially cleared. The last time Tracy had been to this site, single-wide construction trailers had served as Cascadia’s temporary sales offices.
“You wait here,” Calloway said.
Tracy held back as the rest of the group walked closer to where a deputy stood beside wooden stakes driven into the ground. Yellow-and-black crime-scene tape strung between the stakes created a crude rectangle, perhaps eight feet wide and ten feet long. In the lower right quadrant, Tracy saw what looked like a stick protruding from disturbed soil. Her chest tightened.
“We’ll set the second perimeter here,” Calloway said to Armstrong, keeping his voice soft and reverent. “Use the tree trunks.”
Armstrong grabbed the roll of crime-scene tape and began defining the second perimeter, which Tracy thought was overkill. No one else was coming. No one in Cedar Grove still cared, and the press would not find their way to this remote area of the North Cascades.
Armstrong approached where Tracy stood, looking almost apologetic. “I’m going to need you to step back, Detective,” he said.
She stepped back as Armstrong finished wrapping the yellow-and-black tape between the trees.
Rosa quickly went to work. After restaking the grave to increase its dimensions, she used string to divide the plot into smaller sections, then dropped to her knees by the section with the protruding foot and methodically began brushing away the dirt. She used hand trowels to scoop soil into one of the five-gallon buckets. Each bucket was labeled with a capital letter corresponding to a particular section of the dig site, A through D. Stanley periodically dumped the dirt onto the screen set between the two sawhorses and sifted it. Anna Coles took photographs. Any bones or bone fragments found would be given a lowercase letter. Everything else—bits of clothing, metal, buttons—would be numbered. Rosa worked methodically, without breaks. She’d want to complete the task before the fall light fell below the treetops.
Shortly after one thirty, Tracy sensed the first break in Rosa’s routine. The anthropologist stopped digging and sat back. She spoke to Stanley, who began handing her progressively smaller brushes from the dig bag as Rosa went back to whisking away dirt, though in a more and more concentrated area. After another half hour, Rosa stood. Whatever she’d unearthed, she now held in her gloved hand. She discussed the object with Roy Calloway, and then gave it to Stanley, who slipped the object inside a plastic evidence bag and labeled it with a black marker. After cataloguing it, Stanley handed the bag not to Rosa, but to Calloway, who seemed to be contemplating what Rosa had unearthed.
Then he turned and directed his gaze to Tracy.
She felt a surge of adrenaline. Sweat trickled from her armpits and rolled down her sides beneath her shirt.
As Calloway approached, her heart pounded. When he handed her the evidence bag she could not bring herself to look at it. She continued to study Calloway’s face until the sheriff could no longer meet her gaze and looked away.
Tracy looked down at what Kelly Rosa had unearthed, and her breath caught in her chest.