The Lost Bones (Widow's Island #8)(7)

“Phillip asked me to interview Kori Causey’s parents. They live here on Widow’s.”

She’s excited to be involved.

Cate had assured him many times that she didn’t miss her job at the FBI, but this mystery had made her come alive the same way she had last spring, when she’d been pulled into another old case. He knew she needed the intellectual stimulation. Baking and organizing the bookstore didn’t challenge her the way her job used to.

But she had been right to leave the job behind. The on-the-job anxiety had been crippling.

“It’s an interview. I’m just giving them a hand,” she told him earnestly. “The Astons won’t talk to anyone else.”

“Wait . . . you said they live here?”

The mandible.

She nodded, understanding in her gaze. “I know—could they be the ones who delivered the package? I talked with Phillip about that too.”

The waiter appeared at their table. Cate ordered salmon, Henry ordered the thai pizza, and they agreed on onion rings for an appetizer.

After the waiter left, Henry turned back to Cate. “Could the grandparents be involved?”

“Who knows? It will certainly make for an interesting interview tomorrow morning.”

“I assume they were investigated seven years ago.”

“Yes. At that time, they lived on Orcas Island and were hours away when the abduction took place.”

“When Kori said the abduction took place,” Henry corrected.

Cate grimaced.

“Sorry,” Henry said, knowing he’d overstepped. “You spent years on this case, and I’m jumping in with questions and scenarios you’ve already examined multiple times.”

“Exactly. I believe Kori’s story, and the evidence backed her up. Her parents were definitely on the island when Jade and Rich vanished.”

“Did her parents know what kind of man Rich Causey was when their daughter married him?”

Cate looked thoughtful. “From what I remember, they originally liked that he was so much older than her. They thought he would take care of her.”

“I don’t think marrying a caretaker should be a life goal.”

Cate grinned. “It’s some women’s—and men’s—goal.” Her expression grew serious. “Rich Causey was a piece of work. He lived off the grid to stay under the government’s radar.”

“To avoid paying taxes?”

“Of course, and other things. I can’t describe what a mess his tax and income background was, but anyway, he treated Kori like she was a possession, not a person. When deputies finally decided to search the property for Jade, Kori had to warn them about Rich’s workshop. The little building a hundred yards from their home was booby-trapped, and Kori didn’t know how to dismantle it. She said Rich had done it to keep both her and strangers out of his things. They had to call in a bomb squad before anyone could enter.”

“I assume there was nothing helpful in there?”

“Unless you count twenty-two guns as helpful. There was also a huge stack of National Geographic magazines from the nineties and enough rusted motor parts to partially build a dozen engines.”

“Sounds useful. How did he get Jade away from Kori that day?”

“Guess.”

“Locked her in a closet?” Henry suggested the classic movie situation.

“Yes.” Cate leaned closer, her gaze holding his. “He’d done it several times before, but that day he’d told her she was a horrible mother and that he’d take Jade away before he ever let Kori take her to the doctor.”

“How would she get to the doctor if she couldn’t drive?”

“She was going to carry Jade to a neighbor’s home a mile away and beg for a ride.”

Henry couldn’t speak.

That poor woman.

Cate continued. “Rich put Kori in the closet and wedged a chair under the handle. She heard him go outside, but she didn’t know if he’d actually left the property or whether or not he’d taken Jade with him. So Kori sat and waited in the closet for a while, worried Rich would physically hurt her if she came out—”

“Kori could get out?”

“She could. I’ll explain in a second. Part of her didn’t believe that Rich would actually take the girl away; she hoped Jade was still sleeping. She was torn between checking on her daughter and avoiding Rich’s wrath.”

“How’d she get out?”

“The closet didn’t have an actual lock. Just the chair was keeping it closed. After Rich had locked her in there a few times, she’d hidden one of his gun-cleaning rods inside in case she truly needed to get out.”

Henry pictured one of the long thin rods. “She pried the door open with it?”

“No, she slid it under the door and shoved the legs of the chair away.”

“I thought this girl was naive. That’s pretty smart, thinking ahead to store something like that in the closet.”

“She was used to a cycle of abuse. At times she had to think ahead to survive. Rich was such a horrible person. He would take the phone from their landline with him when he left the home.”

“What an asshole.”

“That’s describing him mildly. Once she got out and saw her daughter was gone, she ran that mile to her neighbor’s house to report that Jade was missing.”