The Buried (The Apostles) Read Online Free PDF

Lia Grant.
    “Keep breathing, Lia. Keep breathing.”
    Her car started on the second crank. Just past the myrtles, she spotted a bright yellow truck with a grading blade and a tractor with a ditch digging arm. Construction equipment, AKA dream builders. Thanks to Lia, Grace had forgotten construction on her new home began today. But the dream would have to wait, because right now, Lia Grant could be living a nightmare. Emphasis on living . Lia said the box wasn’t air tight, and Grace envisioned streams of air snaking through the seams and keeping her alive.
    As she sped around a corner, she slammed on her brakes to avoid hitting a sheriff’s department SUV parked in the middle of the road. Her ribs contracted, squeezing her heart. Lia. Something must have happened.
    Grace jammed the car in park and dove out the door. No deputy. No construction workers. She followed a trail of fresh footprints along a patch of camellia bushes and spotted a man in a hard hat leaning against a ditch digger. She tapped his shoulder.
    The construction worker jumped, letting out a breathy curse. “Whoa there, Miss Courtemanche! You scared the snot out of me.”
    “What’s going on? Why is the sheriff’s department here?”
    “Delbert over on the back hoe found something. Has everyone a little spooked.”
    “Lia Grant? Did he find Lia Grant?”
    “That little gal who’s missing? Nah. Don’t think it’s her. Least I hope not.”
    Her chest tightened. “You don’t think? What’s going on?”
    “Delbert was digging stumps and found some old bones in one of the sand hills.”
    Grace’s ribcage let go of her heart. “Of course you’re going to find bones around here. Lamar Giroux’s hounds spent sixty years burying them.”
    “Not these kind of bones, least I hope not.” He led her through the camellia patch to a shallow ditch where a half dozen construction workers and a sheriff’s deputy stood in silence.
    “What kind of bo…” Her voice trailed away as she studied the land where her new tennis court was scheduled to be built. Poking up from No Man’s Land, the section between the baseline and service line, was a human skull.

Chapter Four
    E xcuse me, Agent Hatcher, but your son is ready for you.”
    Hatch’s fingers froze midway through the inch-thick folder the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department had gathered on thirteen-year-old Alex Milanos, his son .
    “Normally we don’t keep children overnight,” the clerk continued. “Not for something like this, but his grandmother didn’t know what to do.”
    And I do? Hatch ran a hand through his hair.
    He’d docked No Regrets at the Cypress Point Marina in Apalachicola Bay early this morning and hitched a ride to the sheriff’s station where he now sat in a small conference room wondering how the hell a thirteen-year-old kid could have amassed an inch-thick rap sheet. And not just any kid. His kid, one he didn’t know existed until twenty-four hours ago. He ran his other hand through the other side of his hair. He was still getting his head wrapped around the idea of being a father, and here he was expected to act like one. Was he supposed to give the boy fatherly wisdom? Tough love? A boot in the ass? The floor shifted beneath his feet.
    “Alex is in one of the holding rooms, Agent Hatcher. You can talk to him there.”
    He was supposed to talk with this boy. That he could do. He thumbed through the mountain of papers. Alex was his son, but he was also a kid in a crisis situation, and in those cases, Hatch had plenty of miles on his dock shoes.
    Hatch took a final look at Alex’s file. Truancy. Underage driving. Curfew violations. The latest infraction: The boy and two unknown accomplices broke into Buddy’s Shrimp Shack and lifted forty bucks from the register. As they tried to escape, the manager nabbed Alex. The other two got away. The kicker was that the manager agreed not to press charges if Alex would ID his fellow delinquents. The kid refused. On top of