Free These Unquiet Bones by Dean Harrison Page A

The older man stared at him, his green eyes ablaze with a cop’s self-righteous judgment and disapproval.
    Hank had seen it a dozen times. His Uncle Keith used to give him similar looks whenever he got in trouble as a youth, which was often.
    “She lied to me about some party she went to last night,” Hank said before a lecture commenced. “I lost my temper.”
    “Where you drunk?”
    Hank sipped his drink. “Was on my way to it.”
    MacCallum sighed. “Making all the wrong moves, pal. You know what I’m talking about.”
    Feeling bile boil in his stomach, Hank slammed his glass down on the counter and jabbed a finger at MacCallum. “Don’t fuckin’ start. She’s my daughter. You mind your own fuckin’ business!”
    McCallum kept his calm. “When she was born, you and Ellen asked me to be her godfather. I’m just trying to play the part. You can’t protect her forever. All I’m saying.”
    “Watch me.”
    The two men sat in silence. Eddie reappeared to take drink orders from a few new patrons.
    MacCallum leaned in toward Hank. “I checked on that thing you asked me about yesterday. Got nothing. Think you’re wrong about this one. You’re just being your old paranoid self.”
    “I don’t think I am. You’ve seen them girls. Do I have to spell it out for you?”
    “Afraid you’ll have to.”
    “They all look like her, too much so to be a coincidence. I mean damn. If it ain’t him, it’s a copycat, and you know what that means.”
    “Hank, right now we don’t have evidence to suggest there’s foul play, or that these disappearances are connected. Besides, kids go missing all the time. Most of the time they turn back up.”
    “That’s bull and you know it.”
    Joe took his first sip of club soda. “Big stubborn bastard. Tell you what, though, you made one a hell of a detective. Still don’t know why you had to quit. Nobody believed you had a thing to do with Ellen’s death.”
    Eddie freshened Hank’s glass. “Some did.” He thought about Patrick Keene, he thought about his ex-father-in-law. “Some still do.”
    “Who, Barrett? You still bothered about him?”
    “He called yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t home. Amy was.”
    Pool balls clacked. Someone shouted an explicative and slammed their pool stick on the floor in frustration.
    MacCallum glanced over his shoulder, caught the offender’s eye with a warning glance, and turned back to Hank. “You worry yourself ragged. So what? Couldn’t he’ve been calling to wish her a happy birthday?”
    Hank swallowed down a long drink of whiskey, put the glass down and took one last drag before snuffing out the cigarette butt in the ashtray. “After the shit he tried to pull. I don’t even want him calling to tell her he’s dying.”
    “That’s harsh.”
    “So is tryin’ to take my only daughter away from me after my wife died. Like I hadn’t lost enough.” Hank felt his temper flare. Rage rattled his bones.
    “Just calm down. No way that was ever gonna happen anyhow.”
    Hank took a deep breath and collected himself. “I loved Ellen. You know that.”
    MacCallum nodded somberly. “Yeah. I do.”
    Hank gazed back into the mirror, and into the haunted eyes of his haggard reflection, into the bloodied battlefield of the restless dead.
    For a moment, he saw Ellen’s reflection standing back in the smoky gloom watching him. But when he blinked, she was gone.
    Hank ignored the shiver scuttling down his back. He really needed to lay off the sauce, but knew that probably wasn’t going to happen.
    “Gotta get to the shop.” He polished off the rest of his drink. “Thanks for looking in on that other thing. Let me know if anything comes up.”
    “Sure thing,” MacCallum muttered. “You paranoid sumbitch.”
    “It ain’t paranoia,” he patted MacCallum on the back. “It’s instinct.”
     
     

Chapter 20
    Amy ventured back up the driveway one step at a time.
    Looking at the house, she eyed the plastic skeleton hanging in the