Buried Secrets: PAVAD: FBI Case File #0005 (PAVAD: FBI Case Files) Read online

  Buried Secrets

  PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0005

  Calle J. Brookes

  BURIED SECRETS “PAVAD: FBI CASE FILES #0005”

  Copyright © 2020 by Calle J. Brookes

  9781948328678

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact:

  www.callejbrookes.com

  Book and Cover design by C.J. Brookes

  First Edition: MAY2020

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Epilogue

  Masterson County Book 1

  Finley Creek Book 1

  Also by Calle J. Brookes

  Prologue

  Travis Worthington-Deane was a rancher to his bones and a businessman at heart. The run-down Beise Ranch in Masterson County, Wyoming, eighteen miles away from his business partner Phillip’s place, would be perfect to run the specialty cattle operation he had in mind. He would have preferred the ranch be in his native Texas, but he and Phillip Tyler worked well together—and shared the same vision for the herd of cattle they were developing and testing.

  It would make them very rich men, if the ten-year experiment paid off.

  Or, at least, it would make it easier for the two ranchers. Travis was already reasonably wealthy, but that didn’t matter to him. What mattered was the family he loved so much.

  He hoped that family would grow by a couple kids or so in the next ten years, too.

  His new wife was on board with that—and they had had an awful lot of fun practicing the art of baby making since their wedding. A smile flirted at his lips—they’d succeeded, but hadn’t shared with the rest of the family just yet. Not yet. It was their secret for a while longer—it was just too new to share.

  He turned to her as Phil opened the door to the small, dilapidated barn. “You sure you want to go in there, darlin’? It’s dark and spooky. Boogeyman may get you.”

  Since the terror she’d gone through when they’d first met, Lacy was still a bit frightened of the dark. She was getting better, thanks to therapy sessions at a women’s center near the hospital where she worked. But it was still a long process to healing. For all of them.

  “I think I’ll be able to manage it. Do you think the dog came in here? He didn’t look very big.”

  “She. She had teats, darlin’. She’s a momma dog.”

  “Well, we need to find her. She looked ragged and abandoned.”

  And his Lacy wasn’t about to leave the dog behind now. Travis smiled to himself. “We’ll look for her inside.”

  “This place has been empty since the twins were in third or fourth grade, I think. The Beises had one around the same age,” Phil said. He had a gaggle of kids, all of them redheaded, that he was absolutely devoted to. “About fourteen, fifteen years ago. It’s not a large property, but it’s ideal for a small herd. We’ll need to find someone to watch over the day-to-day.”

  “You have any ideas?”

  “I have a nephew who is looking for a place to stay. Wounded overseas, came home to write books and help his sister with the town bookstore. She writes, as well.”

  Phil’s family stretched from one corner of the county to the other. They were everywhere. He had a nephew, niece, son, daughter, or son-in-law for just about every need. “He grew up on a ranch with his brothers and sister. He knows what he’s doing. Willing to do it for a roof over his head, as long as we pay the utilities until he’s settled again. Decides what he wants to do with the rest of his life.”

  Travis greatly approved of the barter system. And helping family when he could. But he wanted to talk to this nephew first. It was just good business sense, in his opinion. “Definitely something we can consider.”

  Soft growling sounded when Travis stepped inside the barn. Lots of it. He shifted, putting his body in front of his wife’s. “Stay back, honey. I don’t know what’s in here.”

  “Quit being overprotective and let me see.” Small, feminine hands landed on his back, just above his jeans.

  Phil carried a pistol at his hip. He pulled it quietly. Travis pulled his phone free and shined the light toward the rear of the old barn.

  Eyes stared back at him—at least six pairs. “Lacy, get out of here. Go wait in Phil’s truck.”

  “Like I’m leaving you behind?”

  No. His Lacy wouldn’t do that. Travis directed the light at the nearest set of eyes.

  “Puppies.” The tension left him, and he shifted the light again, counting. “Six.”

  “What?” Lacy asked.

  “She’s had a litter of puppies in here.” Travis turned and took a step back toward the open door. He shoved it the rest of the way open, illuminating the interior a bit more.

  There was the momma dog, right in the center of her little family. Five little bodies growled at them—or at each other as they played.

  He heard Lacy’s sweet sigh, and he knew…little softie. She wasn’t about to leave those puppies behind. No doubt some of those puppies would end up relocated to Finley Creek soon. He hoped his brothers were prepared for the gifts Lacy would give them both.

  She’d be talking Phil into taking at least one or t
wo home to his younger boys, no question.

  “I suppose Horace does need a wife, too.”

  Their own beagle, who adored Lacy, was currently having a three-day sleepover with Travis’s brother, the governor of Texas. “We can’t leave them here. They’ll starve.”

  “There’re some cereal bars in the truck,” Phil said softly. “Phoebe made them this morning. I don’t think the pups are old enough for solid foods yet. But the mother—”

  “She needs help.” Lacy stepped closer quietly. She cooed tenderly, patiently. Until the momma stepped toward her. Lacy looked at Travis. “The cereal bars?”

  Travis knew what she wanted. He fetched like the good husband he was.

  Fifteen minutes later, Lacy was cuddling the momma and giving her a cursory inspection, while getting licked in return. Travis and Phil had been relegated to puppy catchers. Phil had a small kennel in the back of his truck that he’d used to ferry his daughter Phoebe’s goats to the vet—his son-in-law Matt—a few days earlier. It came in handy.

  Travis was chasing the last of the furry little boogers around when his foot tangled in an old bundle of rags—and he went crashing to the ground.

  He couldn’t help himself.

  Travis screamed like his niece Katie whenever she saw a spider.

  Phil and Lacy came running. The momma dog barked her fool head off, her puppies mimicking her immediately.

  “What in the hell, Deane?”

  “Keep Lacy back!” Travis yelled at the older man, who immediately blocked Lacy from seeing the grisly sight Travis knew he would never forget.

  A human skull stared back at him, a macabre grin on its face.

  Travis fought the urge to vomit.

  He looked at Phil. “You’d best call the sheriff. We just found a body, and I don’t think it put itself here.”

  Phil’s curse echoed in the barn around them.

  Travis stood and went to his wife. He knew she’d seen human remains before—she was an ER doctor, after all—but this was a sight he didn’t want her to see in her nightmares. She already had enough nightmares of her own.

  1

  Officer Jim Hollace with the Wyoming State Police listened to the call out as it went over the radio, reporting a body found. And he knew.

  That address still haunted him. Still came into his nightmares. He drove by there almost every day he worked, just to see. To remember.

  He’d done some stupid things fourteen years ago. Shit that hadn’t left him alone since. In his job, he’d seen the worst of humanity. Beer and bourbon did very little to block it out. He’d tried. Lost two wives and three kids because of it.

  That address, that woman, had always haunted him. Probably always would.

  He circled the block—he was assigned the region just next to the Masterson region. He’d tried to stay away from Masterson and the ranch where he’d lived for a few years, but, sometimes, it just pulled him back.

  Sometimes, he went out there and just sat, drinking away the memories.

  Jim snorted. The memories never went away. Far from it.

  Like her ghost was keeping him there or something.

  Which was stupid.

  He hadn’t done anything but try to protect his family. Luther’s kids were his cousins, too. Step, but still family. He had to remember that.

  He’d tried to make up for what had happened. He’d sobered up a bit then, dropped the drugs. He hadn’t touched a single drug since those days. He was proud of that.

  Jim had been lucky to have never gotten busted with anything other than a beer or two. The Wyoming State Police had been able to brush underage drinking off. Jim had had the connections, thanks to his cousin Luther’s friendship with the then-sheriff of Masterson, to make certain nothing stayed on Jim’s record. He’d gotten a good job with the Wyoming State Police, and he knew it. He’d done his best.

  He’d done his best.

  That was all he could say.

  But Masterson still haunted him. Damned town probably always would.

  They’d just found one of the ghosts he’d longed to forget.

  He had to get home. Get himself something to drink. Something to help him forget.

  Jim drove his patrol car just a little too fast on the county roads until he got there.

  2

  Sheriff Joel Masterson looked at the body as the state forensics team worked diligently to uncover it. It was his county, but it being a murder—because no one wrapped themselves up in a pink and orange quilt and buried themselves in Luther Beise’s barn by accident—made him glad he’d made the decision over the phone to have the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation called in as soon as possible. Joel knew what he was capable of, and he knew what resources his little squad actually had. He could handle the case—but it would pull resources from areas that he didn’t want to stretch right now.

  They were always stretched thin—in both manpower and monetary resources. It was just the way it was for his office. He’d known that going in. He had six deputies, now.

  It was just bad luck that the one DCI agent sent into help was the one Joel wanted nowhere near Masterson County.

  There had always been a bit of political jockeying about jurisdiction on the big cases since he’d been elected, but he was working on fixing the chasm that the previous sheriff had created.

  Seemed like all Joel did any more was clean up the previous sheriff’s messes. Those messes just kept coming to the surface when he least expected it. Joel damned Clive Gunderson for nothing less than the four hundredth time.

  His thoughts darkened further when he thought of his wife’s younger sister—his brother Nate’s wife—and how she’d almost died at Clive’s hands.

  It would take a long, long time to forget that.

  He looked at Clive Gunderson’s stepson and fought the snarl.

  Too many memories Joel wanted to forget. His sister-in-law’s blood all over the side of the road, for one thing. The terror on Nate’s face was another. He’d never had a real problem with Clint before, but just the sight of him hurt now.

  It was the first time their paths had crossed since Clive Gunderson had nearly killed Perci. Hard to forget Clint had been there that day, too.

  “There’s a letter in her pocket,” the state crime scene tech said. “It still has a date on it.”

  The tech read it aloud quickly. Fourteen years. The letter was dated fourteen years ago. If it had been in the ground that long, it was a miracle it had survived intact. Considering what had been…decomposing…around it. “The date and name are about all that’s legible. For now. We’ll have someone process it. See if they can figure out what it says, and if it’s significant.”

  Joel’s stomach turned. He no doubt knew the victim in some way. In a county this small, it was hard not to know just about everyone in some way or another.

  Clint walked over to him. “Luther Beise was an associate of Clive’s. A cousin on his mother’s side. They were good friends.”

  “I remember. I was in college at the time, but my brothers kept me informed of what went on around here.” Luther Beise had had a reputation as an isolationist around Masterson. The family’s sudden disappearance had just fueled those stories. Rumors had ranged the entire gamut—from alien abductions to a mass homicide carried out by Luther himself. With bodies everywhere on the ranch. Teenagers sometimes went hunting for those bodies of the Beises’.

  Clint had been on sight twenty minutes before Joel had been able to get there.

  “I’ve been going over Clive’s files. When this address came over the wire, I asked for the case. Clive tried to find the Beise family for a few years. Then he abruptly stopped looking, and the file stopped. I don’t want my name attached to it, not alone, but I want to follow this trail where it leads. It…might tie into others I’m investigating. If you work the case with me, people won’t object as much.”

  No surprise. Clive Gunderson had probably not wanted to put in the work at the time the Beise family
had left.

  Or he had been too busy harassing people like he had the Tylers.

  There was no way Joel wanted to partner up with Clint. No doubt that was what was about to happen, though. “So what’s got you spooked about this?”

  “Clive named names that are still…relevant. A case I’m working on is bigger than a single dead woman. It’s complicated. I don’t need eyes in my direction now.” Gunderson’s voice dropped. “I…am trying to untangle everything Clive did. But if something happens to me, I want…a friend…with the FBI to know what’s going on. She was friends with the elder Beise sister. I’ve already called her department and spoken with her superiors. She’ll be pulled to work with us—if we request it down the road.”

  “You’re expecting something to happen to you?” Joel sent a look Clint’s way.

  The guy was serious.

  The man was probably as bat-shit crazy as his father and brother had been. Joel couldn’t overlook that possibility.