Page 31 of You'll Be Sorry

Not random debris or tumbled-down fieldstones, but bones. A jumbled collection of gray-and-green-stained jutting ribs, smoothly rounded knobs, and, most telling, the empty eye sockets of a mud-caked human skull peering directly back up at them.

“Jesus. What…Who…How many?”

“I counted a single skull. And I didn’t touch anything. I swear.”

“But there could be more buried beneath,” she muttered, more to herself than to him.

“Maybe, but I don’t think that’s one of the Dixons. At least, not a member of the twentieth-century clan. I doubt that poor soul died in our lifetime. More like our grandparents’ grandparents’ generation.”

“You’re suddenly an expert on skeletons now?” Mandy’s tone was sharp, though they both knew her ire wasn’t directed at him.

“Not bones. But the well cover.” Theo shrugged. “Forget for a moment that it was totally overgrown, to the point that even thirty years ago, when this place was crawling with law enforcement and search dogs, no one discovered it. But the nails used to hammer together the boards—hand-forged with irregular shanks and square heads? I haven’t seen anything like that outside of visits to Sturbridge Village when I was a kid.”

Mandy blinked at the reference to the old colonial town and “living museum” in Sturbridge, Mass.

“You think this well was sealed up at the turn of the nineteenth century?”

“Why not? We know the homestead dates back to the mid-1700s. If this was the original well, no reason why it couldn’t have been boarded up two hundred years ago.” Theo shrugged. “Certainly, I didn’t see any sign of prior disturbance before I pried up the first plank.”

Mandy shook her head, trying to grasp the enormity of the situation. A previously lost historic well. Bearing human remains. That had managed not to be discovered three decades ago when half the state had scoured these grounds looking for signs of six other disappeared members of the Dixon clan. And yet a random stray had pinpointed it in a matter of hours.

She was waiting for the theme song fromThe X Filesto cue up at any moment.

“But wait, there’s more,” Raquel spoke up. She stood next to the dismantled cover, one hand tapping against her leg in agitation. Now she directed her flashlight at a hemlock plank that appeared to rest upside down. She homed in on what would’ve been the underside of the timber, revealing distinct gouge marks, as if someone had hacked at the dense wood with a sharp object, again and again.

As if they were trying to chop their way through the nailed-down boards, desperate for escape.

“I did not do that,” Theo exclaimed as all three of them exchanged unsettled glances.

Mandy didn’t doubt him. The marks were obviously as discolored and aged as the wood itself. Meaning…That poor, poor soul.

“WWMFD,” she sighed at last. What would my father do?

Then, having spent the afternoon reading through his case notes, she knew.

11

Raquel sat bundled up on the front porch, watching the dog watch the woods. All around them was chaos. Officers’ vehicles coming and going. State police. County sheriff. The fire department. Even someone named Mason from the local historical society, who apparently listened to police scanners as a hobby and had hightailed it to the house the second he heard.

The older gentleman, a tall, thin sort wearing a tweed jacket even in the middle of the night, had given Theo a thorough dressing-down. What in the world had he been thinking, disturbing what could potentially be a relevant colonial-era find? Why, the damage Theo might’ve done to the site—wait, did you say crockery? Sealed crockery?

Then Mason was bustling away, this time yelling for the sergeant in charge. Or someone like that.

Theo stayed for the show, having clearly taken a proprietary view of the discovery. Mandy remained in position to supervise because that’s what police chiefs did, even when a local historical society president and state major crimes detective took turns critiquing her efforts.

Raquel had retreated, officially exhausted and frozen to the core. Something about the skull, the way those empty eye sockets peered straight up, as if the person had gazed longingly for the sky until the very end…

She couldn’t take it anymore. Especially not without rememberingthe gouge marks hacked into the inside of the wooden cover. What that seemed to suggest…

Raquel had returned to the house, snagging a cashmere throw from the back of the sofa and wrapping it around her shoulders. Then she’d settled into one of the patio chairs to wait, fingers drumming restlessly.

Now she regarded the dog, who sat in what seemed to be its preferred position, stationed on the front left corner of the deck, gaze locked on the forest beyond.

Standing guard?

Holding vigil?

From time to time she saw him shiver. After the third shudder, she grabbed the dog bed Theo had purchased and carried it out for their new charge. But Mr. Man barely glanced at the offering. He had eyes only for the rustling trees.