Ruby knelt again when we came to the spot where Dale had seen the strange figure. “Someone has definitely been here. I can’t really tell much else.” She picked up what appeared to be a cigarette butt. “Was the man smoking a cigarette, Dale?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay.” She put the butt in a zippered plastic bag anyway and began raking her fingers through the soft dirt. “I’m afraid I’m not finding—” She pulled something from the ground. “Well, what do you know?”
“What?” I asked.
“A cufflink. A gold cufflink.” She held it up.
“Why would a guy in a hoodie have a cufflink?” I asked.
“Good question. We don’t know for sure that it’s his, but why would anyone hanging around a schoolyard be carrying a cufflink?” She examined it. “It’s engraved with initials. CM.”
CM. Oh, God. “Colin Morse?”
“That’s the only CM I know who has anything to do with any of this.”
“But Colin…” I shook my head. “It’s a plant. It’s got to be.”
“That’s my first instinct as well. You ever thought about becoming a cop, Marj?”
I chuckled. “The cooking cop? No, not for me.”
“There are a lot of people with the initials CM,” Ruby said. “Not a lot of people hanging around schoolyards with gold cufflinks, though. So yeah, probably a plant.” She placed the trinket in another zippered bag and sifted through the dirt again.
“This reminds me of something,” I said. “When Mills and Johnson were searching Jade’s room after that rose got left in there, they found one of Colin’s business cards shoved under the wall-to-wall carpeting. Obviously a plant.”
“If this belongs to Colin, someone out there wants him involved in this. But why?”
“I guess that’s what we have to find out. I can ask Colin if this is his, if you want.”
“I want to keep it, but you can certainly ask him if he’s lost an initialed cufflink. That would help.”
“Will do.”
Ruby searched the ground for a few more minutes.
“I don’t see anything else,” I said.
Dale turned to me. “I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Bryce
Nothing like sneaking out with the boss on your second day of work. Joe and I arrived at my father’s cabin complete with shovels…and armed.
He followed me to the bedroom we used to share, the place where Marj and I had found my mother’s jewels along with the firearms and file folders.
“There could be more,” I said. “We’ll have to pull up all the floorboards.”
“Why would he put this stuff in the room we used to sleep in?” Joe asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to hide them in a place only he goes into?”
“Like his room?” I nodded. “I had that same thought, which probably means…” The remaining words clogged my throat.
“…what’s in his room is worse,” Joe finished for me.
I nodded. “Yup.”