Riptide by Catherine Coulter Page B

thanks. Bye.”
    He carefully laid the phone back into the cradle. “It isn’t Ann McBride, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    â€œNo, of course it’s not Tyler’s missing wife. I never thought it was. I’ve known him since I was eighteen. I’ve never met a more decent man. Really.” But she was nearlyshaking with relief, and he saw it. However, it was his turn to let it go.
    But then she said, “I couldn’t have stood it if Tyler had been a monster instead of a really nice guy. I guess I would have just hung it up.”
    â€œYeah, your boyfriend is off the hook. The skeleton was buried inside that wall for at least ten years, possibly more. She was probably in her late teens when she was killed by a hard blow right in the face, the forehead actually. Whoever did it was really pissed, enraged, totally out of control. Jarvis said it was a vicious blow, killed her instantly.”
    â€œIt looks like Jacob Marley really might have killed her, then.”
    He shrugged. “Who knows? It’s not our problem, thank God.”
    â€œIt’s certainly mine, since she tumbled out of the wall onto my basement floor. I can’t believe anyone would kill a teenager for wandering across his yard, and with such viciousness.”
    A second later the phone rang. It was Bernie Bradstreet, owner of The Riptide Independent, wanting to know what she could tell him. “I know the sheriff wants to keep a lid on this, but—”
    She told him everything, omitting only what Adam Carruthers had just found out from the medical examiner’s office. She didn’t think the sheriff would like to be cut out of that particular loop. Then Bernie Bradstreet asked her to dinner, with his wife, he hastened to add when she didn’t say anything. She put him off. When she hung up the phone, Adam said, “Newspaper? You handled it well. Now you need to call the sheriff. Don’t tell him you already know the answers, just encourage him to call the medical examiner’s office. Jarvis told me they’re not ready to release the information yet, but if the sheriff calls, he might be able to pry it out of them. Oh, yeah, when the sheriff comes, tell him I’m your cousin from Baltimore here to visit. Okay?”
    â€œCousins? We don’t look anything alike.”
    He gave her a crooked grin.“Thank heaven for that.”
    Â 
    S heriff Gaffney didn’t like the news from Augusta. He liked tidy conclusions, puzzles where all the pieces finally locked cleanly into place, not this: an old skeleton, identity unknown, that had been bricked inside Jacob Marley’s basement wall after her gruesome murder. He didn’t really want Ann McBride to be dead, but it would have made things so much cleaner, so nice and straightforward. He glanced at Tyler McBride. The guy looked calm, but relieved? He just couldn’t tell. Tyler had always managed to keep what he was feeling close to his vest. He was good at poker, nobody liked to play against him. Funny thing, though, the sheriff would have sworn that Tyler had killed his wife. He still kept his eye on Tyler, hoping to see him do something strange, like visit an unmarked grave or something. Well, he’d been wrong before. He guessed maybe he was wrong again. He hated it, it wasn’t pleasant, but sometimes it happened, even to a man like him.
    Sheriff Gaffney looked over at Ms. Powell’s cousin, a big, tough-looking guy who looked like he could take care of himself. His body was hard and in good shape, but he seemed like a man who could be patient, as if he was used to waiting in the shadows, like a predator stalking its prey. Gaffney shook his head. He had to stop reading those suspense novels he liked so much.
    He looked over at Becca Powell, a nice young woman who wasn’t, thank God, so pale now, or on the verge of hysteria. Hopefully her cousin would keep her that way. After finding that