The Bones in the Yard (Beyond the Veil Book 5)

THE BONES IN THE YARD BEYOND THE VEIL: BOOK FIVE HART’S STORY, PART TWO KM AVERY Copyright © 2022 by KM Avery 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, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental. CONTENTS Dear Readers Special Thanks Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Epilogue Follow Me! About the Author DEAR READERS The Bones in the Yard is the second book in Hart’s story and the fifth book in the Beyond the Veil series. The Dog in the Alley is the first book in Hart’s story. While they do go in order, each couple’s story is told by one main character and can be read on their own or in any order. Books 1-3 tell Ward’s story: The Ghost in the Hall, The Boy in the Locked Room, and The Skeleton Under the Stairs. Content warning: This book contains scenes and discussions of bigotry, hate, and (non-sexual) violence. SPECIAL THANKS For Kim and Sam, who are amazing badasses who nevertheless still make the time to read my silly books. 1 My name is Val—short for Valentine—Hart, and I’m a Private Investigator with Beyond the Veil, a company that specializes in the magical, the arcane, and the dead. The deader, the better, in fact, as far as the company’s owners are concerned. I’m the elf they tap when what’s missing either wasn’t ever alive or, fortunately or unfortunately, still is. It wasn’t all that long ago that I’d been the one calling them—I put in more than twenty years as a cop, a lot of it in homicide. I was used to dead people—the kind that smell funny and don’t move. My bosses, Ward and Doc, dealt with the ghostly, the spiritual, and the magical part of things. I might be an elf, but those two are something else. Specifically, a warlock-medium and an orc-witch. If it was dead, they could handle it. If it wasn’t, well, Ward was pretty much useless, and Doc wasn’t very interested. That’s where I come in. I can find your runaway teen, your missing husband, your sister who got involved with the wrong guy, or your brother who got himself sucked into a cult. But only if they’re still alive. I’ve tracked down objects, too—a stolen painting that disappeared with a step-son, some heirloom jewelry that ‘fell’ into grandma’s purse, and, once, a voodoo doll of the client that he really wanted the practitioner to stop doing unpleasant things to, which she was apparently doing in retaliation for him having cheated on her. I’d even handled a couple of run-of-the-mill cheating spouse cases, because when you list yourself as a PI, that’s what you get called for, even if you work for a supernatural investigation agency. I try not to bitch about it too much. But I miss the things that really matter. That was the thing about homicide—what I had done as a detective meant something. Finding little Timmy who had fucked off to his friend John’s house for the weekend without telling Mom and Dad just wasn’t as spiritually satisfying as exposing the leader of a murderous cult or the host of a centuries-old serial killer. Doc and Ward, and even Beck, the company’s extremely fashion-forward banisher, had the job satisfaction of helping people find their ancestry or getting closure or getting rid of a poltergeist or hostile spirit. And because Beck and Ward could talk to the dead, they got called in to the homicides, interviewed the victims, and worked toward justice. Even Doc was occasionally consulted for his arcane knowledge. Me? Not so much. I’m just an asshole in a pretty package. Yeah, okay, I expand the repertoire of the company. And, sure, Mommy and Daddy were more than happy to find out that little Timmy was just at his friend’s house because they’d told him he couldn’t have a fourth PlayStation after he’d stubbed out his weed in the slot of the last one. But it just wasn’t cutting it for me in the job satisfaction department. While I don’t miss the political and interpersonal bullshit that came with the force, I do miss doing something that feels like it fucking matters in the grand scheme of things. But when things were really serious, people tend to call the cops, not a pointy-eared PI who works with people who talk to ghosts. It was kinda pathetic that I kept hoping for an actual missing person that wasn’t just another little spoiled Timmy or already dead. If they were dead, Ward could find them easily, and the dead always knew where their bodies were buried. “Hart.” I looked up at Doc’s deep voice. The big orc was standing in the doorway to my office, looking down at a tablet. “Yeah, Doc?” He looked up at me over the top of his wire-rimmed reading glasses. “I need you to go with Ward out to Hampton Roads.” “Me?” Doc usually went with Ward to cases. Not that I was complaining, since it meant that I might get to do something more interesting than hunt down illicit affairs and ungrateful teenagers. Of course, it might just be a lost will or family heirloom, which was much less exciting, although at least it meant a change of pace. “I’ve got a donor meeting,” Doc said. That explained why he wasn’t