Chapter 17

THREE YEARS LATER

TIFFANY

I was thinking about what happened that summer when I heard on the news that a body had been dug up on the vacant lot where they planned to put in the new shopping mall. I don't know why because I had never told anyone about what had happened with me and the two men who had come into my life just to fuck me and then disappeared without a trace.

I had never heard or seen Carlton or Glenn after that fateful interlude that we shared. My body trembled just in the memory of what we had shared, the three of us inside my parents' house. I'd covered my tracks and my parents never had any reason to believe I was anyone but their angelic and devoting daughter.

Fooling my dad was the toughest part of it, considering he made a living rooting out deception and false trails when he hadn't been engaging in that behavior himself. I had learned so much about my father including his weaknesses since then.

I had learned not to trust anyone not even my friends ... to be just like him. But I still hung out with my core group and Shelia still teased me about my needing to get some loving ... if she only knew. Anyway, we were at the pizza parlor kicking back with some meat lovers and pitchers of root beer when the news flashed on the screen.

That skanky news reporter with the dark roots and the boob job smiled as she delivered the very grim news about the unearthing of a skeletal body wrapped up in a tarp from a makeshift grave. Construction workers had dug it up while breaking ground for the mall.

Not much could be determined from it, and she reported this as two men carried a black bag with the remains inside of it right past the camera. A crowd of curious onlookers had gathered around hoping to catch a glimpse of what had been left of a person, without a name or a back story.

I don't know why I thought of the two men I'd fucked during that summer but they'd flashed in front of me and the memories flowed back.

"I wonder who it is," Shelia said, "just when you thought you'd seen everything."

Life had been eventful in our small town while I'd been home in between semesters at college. Thankfully, next year would be my last and then I swore I'd never come back here. I'd go find a job and a place to live in some other city without looking back.

The news lady blathered on more about how DNA tests and dental records would be cross matched from the database of missing persons to determine the identity of the skeleton. That'd take some weeks, she reminded everyone.

I picked up my pizza slice. Whatever this person turned out to be, it had nothing to do with my life which was complicated enough. After all the bitch would be coming back too in a week though I'd stay as far away from her as possible.

I hadn't spoken to her in two years and I intended to keep it that way.

SOMEWHERE NOT SO FAR AWAY

The day had finally arrived, the one that I'd seen coming but had hoped would be in the distant future. Someone had dug up the body of who'd been buried on the vacant land on the dead of night three years ago.

Promises of using DNA to ID the body fell flat because I knew how complicated that could turn out to be. In order for DNA to have any use at all, it'd have to match that stored in another database and that wouldn't be the case here.

The police could spend their few detectives in their pathetic department to try and find me ... or us but they'd never get far enough ahead or close enough to learn the truth. Because even if they ever figured out the identity of the body they'd just unearthed from an unmarked grave, that would only be the beginning of a long and difficult road into figuring out why it ended up there.

Still I had to make some arrangements of what to do in case that day ever arrived. So I picked up my cell phone and made the call.