LITMIR.BIZ

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the newsletter, but I couldn’t really say for sure, since I never read the thing. For all I knew, Mitch and I were in violation of several obscure HOA regulations.

      Coleman said, “I’ve made a special exception for Gerald because Jodi lived here.”

      I looked at the blurry photograph again before I put it in the trash bag. “Really?”

      “You didn’t know that?” He yanked the ties on the trash bag closed, then held it against the bulge of his potbelly. His gaze flickered to my house again and I had the feeling he was about to say more, but stopped himself.

      “How long has she been missing?” I asked.

      He put the trash bag in his trunk and walked around to the driver’s door. “Let’s see, it was right about the first of the year, so that would be around ten months. Keep an eye out for those illegal flyers,” he called before he shut his door and drove away.

      Rex pulled on the leash. I turned and followed the street’s blacktop, which extended a few feet. Then the road switched to a gravel track that had been an entrance for the construction crews during the building of the first phase of Magnolia Estates. It would eventually be paved and lined with homes, but now between building phases the road was quiet and used mostly as a jogging and walking path.

      I let Rex off the leash and he hurtled down the path. The missing woman, Jodi, had lived in Magnolia Estates. How weird was that? I’d seen her picture around town, but knowing that she lived here, drove the same streets, might have even walked this same path gave me a strange, eerie feeling. I picked up my pace.

      A few scraggly rays of sun angled through the dense growth of trees, bushes, and vines. The path was the only swath of openness. The thick foliage made me feel like I was miles from civilization, but I reminded myself that the path curved around the far side of the pond, then ran parallel to our street, creating a perfect walking loop.

      I looked up. Directly overhead, a strip of sky was still light blue with one tiny paisley-shaped cloud tinged pink. I took a deep breath and drank in the beauty of the blush-colored cloud.

      I noticed Rex hadn’t trotted back to me in a while. I called him, but the gloomy path was empty. I jogged to the bend in the path and called again. I saw a flicker of dark movement up on the left. I hurried over. “Rex, come down.” He was nosing around the small cemetery plot that was set back off the path at a slightly higher elevation.

      “Rex,” I said in my firmest voice, and his head swung toward me. “Come.”

      Reluctantly, he trotted to me and I clipped the leash back on him. I glanced back up at the cemetery, thinking that it was slightly odd that the place didn’t creep me out. I’d walked past it for weeks without seeing it since it was higher than the path and the black wrought-iron that had once enclosed the rectangle of land now tilted at a crazy angle and trailed a skirt of kudzu that camouflaged it.

      I had noticed it one day when I spotted a pale yellow stone marker, an obelisk, poking through the curtain of leaves and bushes. I’d taken a few steps up the embankment and stopped there to study the worn markers. No poison ivy for me, thank you. It hadn’t made me feel the least bit scared, only a little sad to see the graves so abandoned.

      Rex pulled on the leash, ready to move on, but I paused, frowning. “Now, that’s not right,” I said. In the fading light, I saw a white Halloween mask, a skull. It sat under a bush outside the kudzu-draped fence, contrasting sharply against the dirt and dark leaves.

      “Kids,” I muttered as I climbed two steps up the embankment and angled my foot to kick the mask clear of the greenery. It looked like the Halloween pranks were starting early this year.

      I hesitated and leaned down. It looked so realistic.

      Correction. Not realistic. Real.

      Chapter Two

      Even though I’ve watched those TV forensic shows and seen bones and human remains in all their grisliness recreated on the small screen, nothing had prepared me for the real thing. I think that was what freaked me out the most. I knew the skull was real. I didn’t have to touch it or move it to understand that. I just knew.

      I stepped back and slipped. My arm splatted down into the soft mud. Thankfully, I didn’t land on the skull, since I’d stepped back, but I didn’t want to be on eye-level with it either. I righted myself, holding my left arm away from my body.

      All I could think of was the bleary picture of the missing woman. I swallowed and looked at the skull. Was that Jodi? My heartbeat ramped up.

      I wanted to sprint away, but my jerky movements made my feet skid again. I hadn’t noticed on my quick climb up the embankment that the earth was still soaked from the rain, but now, as I took a few deep breaths to calm down, my feet shifted slightly in the sludgy earth. My heart hammered like it did when I actually got around to doing my kickboxing video.

      My gaze followed the trail of mud that had cascaded down from the cemetery. Rex’s paw prints dotted the mud slide. At the top, I could see a piece of the kudzu-covered wrought-iron fence that had surrounded the plot of land, broken away and dangling. A few kudzu vines threaded through the piece of fence and were stretched taut, which had kept it from slipping down with the rest of the mud.

      The back corner of the cemetery plot had sheared away, leaving a casket exposed. Its sides had collapsed, creating a gaping darkness under the lid that had tumbled sideways and was wedged in the earth, half covering the other pieces of the casket.

      I thought I saw another skull-like shape.

      Surely not. In the fading light it was hard to make out the details in the mix of dark mud and shadows, but it did look like another one, another skull. I squinted, then forced myself to take one more step up the embankment. As much as I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing, I had to admit that even to my untrained eye, it was another skull. It was half buried in the mud near the splayed casket, but the curved dome of the skull and the empty eye sockets were impossible to mistake.

      I stayed as clear of the mud slide as I could and picked my way directly up the rise of land and circled around to the back of the cemetery. I didn’t realize that Rex had been trotting along beside me until he rubbed against my leg. I transferred the leash to my muddy left hand and rubbed his head as I studied the cemetery. The rest of it was intact and undamaged. Well, undamaged was probably not a good word choice. The rest of the cemetery looked the same as it always did, abandoned and disheveled. There were no more exposed graves. I looked back at the two skulls and got that ice-cube-down-the-spine feeling. One of them could be her. I stood on the rise, considering what I should do. Call 911 was the obvious answer, but I didn’t have my phone with me.

      I looked up and down the path. I couldn’t see back around the bend, the direction I’d come, but I could see several feet down the path in the direction I’d been walking. Not a soul in sight. It was late. The color was draining from the sky, leaving it icy blue. The cloud was now tangerine and the darkness around the trees was thicker. I doubted anyone else would walk this path again until tomorrow morning. I did my best to shake the uneasy feeling.

      I carefully sidestepped down the embankment, going out of my way to avoid going too near the washed-out portion of earth. I went slower on the way down. I didn’t want to get any muddier than I already was. Once back on the path, I thought about cutting through the trees. It would be the quickest way since I was past the pond. The path mirrored our street, and our house was directly above the curve in the road. I could cut through and go in our back gate.

      Rex trotted off in the direction we’d originally been headed, and after a few seconds I followed him. The woods were too dark and I wasn’t feeling that brave, especially after seeing two skulls. I stuck to the path and jogged home.

      The garage door clattered and began to rise as I walked up the driveway. With a lithe movement, Mitch ducked under the door when it was halfway up. He was carrying a garbage bag in one hand and didn’t see me right away.

      “Mitch,” I called as Rex bounded up the driveway.

      He

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