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and—”
    “Ian!” Janna gave him a look that could have stopped a freight train, but he just shrugged and looked unrepentant.
    “Stands to reason. Abandoned resort…an isolated place. A guy could ditch a lot of bodies out here, and no one would ever know.”
    “That’s enough .” She pointed toward the stairs. “If you’re bent on scaring a little girl, then you need to spend some time by yourself.”
    He grumbled something under his breath, but gave up his post at the windows and flopped onto one of the leather couches by the fireplace.
    Rylie burrowed into Janna’s arms. “Maybe Ian’s right. That man could be outside right now, waiting for us.”
    “You’re safe, sweetheart.” Janna lifted her gaze to the fireplace, where she could just barely see the top of Ian’s head. “And if anyone tries to tell you differently, you come to me. Okay?”
    But even as she reassured her daughter, Janna had her own doubts. There’d definitely been a trespasser on the property, two days in a row. And even from a distance the guy had seemed furtive. Nervous.
    Maybe he was just a random hiker, who had no idea of the mystery unfolding at the resort. Maybe there’d even been a different person, the second time. But what if he was after something here—or even knew something about the person who’d gone missing long ago?
    The coincidental timing made it seem possible, and that thought sent a chill down Janna’s spine.

     
    The early mist had burned away by midmorning, and by noon the sun blazed overhead. It was early evening before the crime lab team drove away and Michael came back to the lodge, his uniform mud stained and his face weary.
    Janna met him on the porch of the lodge with an ice-cold glass of tea. “You look exhausted,” she said.
    He gratefully accepted the glass and downed the icy liquid in several long swallows. “The others worked straight through because they’ve got another crime scene tomorrow. So I did, too.”
    “Any clues yet?”
    “Nothing definitive.” He glanced down at the damp, newly bathed dog at his feet. “The spring runoff was especially high this year, which is probably why Maggie was able to find most of the remains. If not for her, they might never have been found.”
    Janna glanced back toward the house and lowered her voice. “Most?”
    “It’s hard to say when the burial site was first disturbed. If it was early on, coyotes or wolves might’ve made off with some of it. We did a thorough search and the crime lab even brought in a dog, but we didn’t find a complete skeleton.”
    Feeling faint, Janna backed up to an Adirondack chair and sat down. “Was there enough to help you find out who it was?”
    “We recovered part of the skull—enough for dental records, so we’ve got a start. And…” He hesitated, clearly keeping some of the details to himself. “We found items in the vicinity that may help narrow down the approximate year of death.”
    “What happens next?”
    “I’ll search old records for missing persons. Newspaper archives.”
    “What about DNA?”
    Michael rubbed his jaw. “These days, DNA samples would be collected from a missing person’s home and kept indefinitely to help with identification. Toothbrushes. Strands of hair. But at the probable time of this death, that technology was still fairly new and there wasn’t a national database. Still, we can make a positive ID if there are any records on file—more likely, if the victim had a criminal past.”
    “Can you tell us what you find out?”
    Michael shook the ice in his glass, clearly debating what to say as he surveyed the mountain peaks. “In time.”
    “Can you at least tell me if it was a murder?”
    “Obviously, this was a burial, not just someone who keeled over in the woods.” He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes pensive. “But was it premeditated? The result of a fight or a moment of anger? Maybe the poor guy took a hard fall…or committed suicide and his buddy