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  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2022 by Tamara Berry

  Cover and internal design © 2022 by Sourcebooks

  Cover art by Monika Roe

  Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Berry, Tamara, author.

  Title: Buried in a good book / Tamara Berry.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Poisoned Pen Press, [2022] | Series: By

  the book mysteries ; book 1

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021042277 (print) | LCCN 2021042278 (ebook) |

  (paperback) | (epub)

  Classification: LCC PS3602.E7646 B87 2022 (print) | LCC PS3602.E7646

  (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042277

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042278

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  Chapter One

  “There are at least three dead bodies in there.”

  Tess Harrow stood in front of the log cabin, mentally calculating where each of the corpses would be found. The basement would have one of them. She could see damp seeping up from the underground barracks, the stonework crumbling from neglect. It would be a crime not to store a body there. The lean-to off to one side of the cabin, which was living up to its name and looked one strong breeze away from toppling over, was ideal for another. The chimney was large enough for someone small, and…

  “Four. Four dead bodies.”

  She nodded once and hefted her suitcase. There would be an additional corpse under the porch—she was sure of it. The rotted wood and craggy slats made the perfect cover for one final interment.

  “You are so weird,” muttered Gertrude. Tess’s teenaged daughter didn’t bother lifting her own suitcase, opting instead to drag it on the ground. The bump of the bag matched the slump of her shoulders. The prospect of sharing her home with a few corpses wasn’t doing much to improve a mood that had been questionable to begin with. “Please tell me we at least have Wi-Fi out here.”

  Tess took a deep breath, taking in the mingled scents of summery pine trees, rich soil, and clean air. “No Wi-Fi. No phone service. No electricity and no running water. This is going to be fantastic.”

  Gertrude stared at her from underneath the neon pink flash of her recently dyed hair. “That’s not true. You’re making it up to scare me.”

  “You’re more scared about the lack of Wi-Fi than the possibility of dead bodies? Who’s the weird one now?”

  Tess didn’t wait for an answer. She could hear her daughter cursing her life, her parentage, and her fate all in one mumbled breath. Which, to be honest, was the reaction she’d expected. She’d toyed with the idea of prepping Gertrude ahead of time—warning her that the next month was going to be one of rusticity and a return to basics—but she was no fool. Nothing turned a fourteen-year-old against her mother faster than the threat of prolonged one-on-one time.

  “What am I supposed to do for a whole month if I don’t have electricity?” Gertrude wailed.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it? How centuries of humans existed without power of any kind? They lit candles and cooked over open flames and survived just fine.”

  Gertrude turned on her. “No, they didn’t. They all died of dysentery.”

  “Ooh, good call. There are probably five bodies inside. I forgot about dysentery.”

  As promised by the estate agent, the key to the cabin was waiting for them underneath the doormat. In Seattle, this lackadaisical approach to security would have been a cause for alarm, but not here. They were so far north they could practically reach out and touch the Canadian border. Any robbers or murderers would have to battle the wilderness and the elements just to get to them. In Tess’s experience, any murderer willing to go that far would find a way inside regardless of locks on the doors.

  She was something of an expert on murderers and dead bodies, though she’d never seen either one of them firsthand. Her information was culled almost entirely from books, interviews, and the depths of her imagination. On the page, Tess Harrow, renowned thriller writer, lived an incredibly dark and twisted existence. In reality, she was behind on her deadline and needed a serious break from the real world. She had several notepads and a typewriter in her suitcase to prove it.

  “This is exactly what the doctor ordered,” she said, as much to herself as to her daughter. “A little peace, a little quiet, and—”

  BOOM!

  The porch rattled and shook underneath them, and Tess’s ears thrummed with the sound of the earth cracking in two. In her sudden fright, she dropped the key to the cabin. It clanked and rolled, not stopping until it fell through one of the larger porch slats.

  “What’s happening?” Gertrude cried, drawing close enough to clutch at Tess’s shirt. “Please tell me we’re not going to die out here. Ohmigod, we’re going to die out here. I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”
>
  The shaking stopped, and the sound ebbed away, leaving nothing but the twitter of birds and the rustling of leaves in the distance.

  “What was that?” Gertrude demanded. She had yet to relinquish her hold on Tess’s flowy, peasant-style top. The fabric wasn’t going to provide much in the way of protection, but Tess didn’t dare point that out. Displays of vulnerability from her daughter were too rare—and too precious—to be squandered. “Mom, what is this place? You weren’t serious about the dead bodies, were you?”

  Tess leaned down to press a kiss on her daughter’s hairline. The pink dye job was so new that it was evident in patchy spots on her scalp. “Of course I wasn’t serious. My grandfather built this cabin with his own two hands. There’s supposed to be a deer trail out back and everything. They come right up to the veranda.”

  “Really? Deer?”

  “If we’re lucky, we might even get a moose or two. You’ve always wanted to see one of those.”

  Just like that, the moment was gone. The mention of such a childish treat, which would have once transported Gertrude to the moon and back again, now caused her daughter to release her hold and step back, her expression one of carefully cultivated ennui.

  “This place is the worst,” she said.

  Tess knew when to pick her battles and when to give ground, as the pink hair could attest to. “It’s not going to get any better here in the next few minutes,” she admitted as she pointed a finger straight down. “I dropped the key. You’re going to have to climb under there and get it.”

  This time, her daughter’s muttered animadversions on fate were replaced without outright cries of indignity and indecency.

  “I know, Gertie, but there’s no way I can fit under there to get it. I’m sure the dead body won’t mind a little company.”

  “Mo-om!”

  “Just kidding. But there is probably a spider or two, so make sure you pull up your hood before you crawl under.”

  Tess made a mental note of the look on Gertrude’s face as her daughter finally gave in and started to worm her way under the porch. A writer was always working, and there was so much emotion to capture in those flaring nostrils and tightly drawn lips. The next time one of her villains was preparing to bump someone off, Tess was going to make him look exactly like that.

  “Do you need a flashlight?” Tess asked. “I packed several. I’ll have to grab them from the car, but—”

  BOOM!

  The second crashing sound caused the trees to shake and birds to take flight. It also caused a similar pounding inside Tess’s chest. One random strange noise in the woods, and she was willing to chalk it up to a falling tree or a rolling rock or whatever else happened in isolated places like this. Two random strange noises in the woods, and she was rethinking her stance on that murderer.

  “Gertie, don’t move,” Tess said. Her daughter’s legs were sticking out from under the porch, but the rest of her body was safely obscured from view. “I’m going to go see what that was.”

  “Don’t leave me here, Mom.”

  “I’ll just be a sec.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, don’t—” she began, but it was a futile effort. An angsty, irritable teenager was still a teenager. Gertrude’s youthful movements were swift and agile, and she was out from under the porch in a matter of seconds. She was also incredibly filthy, and Tess was pretty sure she saw a spider skitter down the neckline of her daughter’s hoodie, but she wasn’t about to point it out. “Fine. But you’re holding my hand. I don’t know what makes a noise like that, but it can’t be anything good.”

  She was pleased to find Gertrude slipping her hand into her own without an argument—even more pleased when her daughter angled her body close.

  “I bet it’s Bigfoot,” Gertrude said, her voice a low whisper. They began working their way around the side of the cabin. The slatted logs looked like something out of a fairy tale, and the late afternoon light filtered through the canopy of trees, making it feel almost as though they were underwater. If they were going to die, at least it would be a scenic death. “Leo told me they have sightings here all the time.”

  “If Bigfoot made noises like that, they’d have captured him a long time ago,” Tess pointed out. “There’s nothing subtle about—”

  BOOM!

  Both Tess and Gertrude screamed and clutched each other. They were definitely drawing closer to whatever was causing that noise—it was louder and more rattling and, for reasons Tess couldn’t understand, accompanied by a sudden burst of five-second rain.

  “Maybe we should just get in the car and leave,” Gertrude said. Spatters of water had hit her cheeks, making it look as though she were crying. “There was a cute hotel back in that town. You could write from there.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.” Tess spoke with a resolve that was strengthened by the sight of those not-tears, which were the closest thing to the real deal her daughter had evinced in months. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for all this.”

  “Didn’t you once tell me that, statistically speaking, more women go missing from rural areas than in the city?”

  “I did, actually.”

  “And didn’t you also say that the recent opioid crisis has caused a rise in violent assaults?”

  “I had no idea you were so interested in crime statistics, Gertie.”

  “It’s literally all you ever talk about. Crimes and murders and whether or not a person can bite through duct tape.” Gertrude slipped her hand out of Tess’s and pointed. “I bet you wouldn’t be able to bite through duct tape if that man was the one doing the taping.”

  Tess glanced sharply up, following the line of her daughter’s finger. Sure enough, it led through the trees to a clearing several yards in the distance. In the back of her mind, she registered the crystal-blue pond that glimmered behind him, sun-dazzled and bobbing with indistinguishable gray globs. The front of her mind was taken up with more immediate concerns—namely that the man was running full-speed at them.

  “Get down!” he yelled.

  Tess barely had time to register the order before yet another boom assailed their ears. Without stopping to think, Tess threw herself on top of her daughter, the pair of them crashing to the packed dirt of the forest floor. Tess barely felt the thud of her knee against a rock as she covered her daughter’s head and waited for the danger to pass.

  In this instance, danger came mostly as a shower of water and an irate man’s voice assailing them from above.

  “Lady, are you all right?”

  No, she was not all right. She was curled up around a girl who was much more fragile than either of them wanted the world to know. Her knee was throbbing in a way that couldn’t be good for it. And, to top everything off, she’d just managed to turn her head and look up at the man when something very wet, very slippery, and very foul-smelling thwapped against her face.

  “Is that…an arm?” she asked, horrified.

  Her daughter noticed the limb at the exact same moment. She sprang up and started flailing around. “Ew. Get it off, get it off, get it off!”

  Although the fall didn’t seem to have slowed Gertrude down, Tess could feel her own joints protesting the sudden movement as she got to her feet. Still, she endured it. She’d have endured much worse if it meant putting distance between herself and that waterlogged, fleshy lump of an arm. It had once belonged to a human, that much she could tell. But the fingers were missing, and it wasn’t fresh.

  “Putrefaction,” she said, the words automatic. “Water slows the process, but we’re looking at between three and four days.”

  She had no idea how her audience received this information. Before any of them could make an observation about human arms, strange men, or the fact that Tess’s knee was seriously starting to swell, it began to rain fish.

  Big fish, lit
tle fish, slimy silver lumps—the moment the first one landed, Gertrude started to scream. And Tess, despite her determination to remain calm, did the same. These days, she wasn’t an easy woman to scare, but nothing in her years of research into the ways and means of murder had prepared her for dead fish and body parts falling from the sky.

  Chapter Two

  “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to go over that one more time.”

  The sheriff of the town of Winthrop was a slow man—not of intellect but of speech and action. It had taken him three hours to get out to the cabin and one more to decide that the presence of several decaying body parts warranted a thorough investigation and a team of his deputies.

  In that same amount of time, Tess had calmed her daughter down, unpacked most of their belongings, made the beds, and plotted an entire novel based on the day’s events. It helped that the estate agent must have seen fit to give the place a thorough cleaning before they arrived.

  She’d expected it to be in disarray, but the cabin had a fresh lemon scent despite the fact that it had sat empty for the better part of the last year. She’d have to remember to tip them for that.

  “I don’t see why you need to hear it again,” Tess said. “I told you already. The person you want to talk to is the man who was throwing dynamite into the pond. Blast fishing, I think he called it.”

  “Ah, yes.” The sheriff, who’d introduced himself as Victor Boyd, ran a hand along his jaw. Tess could hear the scratch of his rough hand against his five o’clock shadow from the other side of the table. “The mysterious stranger.”

  “He wasn’t mysterious. He was five foot ten and of medium build, probably around a hundred and eighty pounds. His hair was red but not the orange kind—it was more of a deep auburn. His eyes were blue, and he had a full beard. I’d put his feet at about a size eleven, but I could be a little off. He wore a red buffalo-check shirt and khaki dungarees with a Carhartt label.”

  Sheriff Boyd blinked. “That’s awfully specific for a man you say disappeared right away.”

  Tess bit back a sigh and tried to find a more comfortable position on her rustic, wood-hewn chair. Any pleasure she might have found in sitting at the dining table her grandfather had built was lost under the throbbing of her knee. Despite its propped state and one of the ice packs from their cooler, the pain wasn’t abating.