Seeing Darkness

by Heather Graham

  Kylie looked at Rocky and Devin and smiled weakly. “Thank you. It does make me really uncomfortable to bump into the man.”

  “A pleasure,” Devin assured her. “He doesn’t know anything about us, or the cottage, so it will be a much better place to be. And you’ll have me and Rocky and Jon, and we do know what we’re doing. And what we’re up against.”

  “And you don’t think I’m crazy?” Kylie asked.

  They glanced at each other—a bit oddly, Kylie thought—but they both shook their heads.

  “Trust me. Not in the least,” Rocky said.

  “I’ll just need a few minutes to pack,” Kylie told them.

  She headed to her bedroom door, opened it, and paused, looking back into the suite to see if her friends had left anything obvious. They’d only come for the weekend; they hadn’t brought that much.

  As she stood there, she heard Devin speaking anxiously to her husband.

  “I’m still so worried about this. The poor woman must be freaked out by her experience already. What do we say when she meets my dead aunt? Do we tell her now? Jon should have talked to her and told her about this and—”

  “All our dead friends?” Rocky interrupted.

  Dead friends?

  Kylie froze, her nerves electrified with fear. What the hell was she getting into? These people were... Well, they’d seemed like the real deal. But they must be crazy.

  Panic seized her. She needed to get away from them. She needed people around her. Hundreds of them. Living people. Tourists.

  Rocky and Devin were by the window in the suite, their attention on one another.

  Kylie’s bag, with her wallet and everything essential, was already over her shoulder. She left her little overnight suitcase where it was and slipped over to the door of the suite and out. She eschewed the elevator and tore down the stairs as quickly as possible. She fled out the back door of the inn and raced down the first few blocks of Essex Street, veering off when she realized she was getting close to Jon’s office.

  Within minutes, she realized she had come to the Old Burying Point. A tour guide was giving a speech by the memorial; others were exploring the cemetery.

  She hurried into the cemetery and found one of the huge old trees that had grown through the tombstones. She leaned against it, gasping for breath. Wondering how in hell all of this had become so insane and terrifying.

  She saw a man coming toward her and her breath caught in her throat. Then she smiled. She had wanted people; normal people.

  And it was just Matt, their friendly evening bartender from the Cauldron.

  * * *

  Detective Ben Miller met Jon at the little makeshift office on Essex Street. Jon filled him in on the fact that Special Agent Craig Rockwell had joined them along with a consultant, his wife, Devin Lyle.

  Ben grinned and leaned across the desk. “I know all about Miss Lyle.”

  “You know her? I’d never met her—we weren’t in the same schools. Then, I didn’t know Rocky, either. I know they were involved in a case here together that went back to when they were both kids.”

  Ben nodded. “Sad state of affairs, that. But solved. And Devin did keep her Aunt Mina’s cottage. I’m glad. I just worked on the edges of that one. An old friend of your fellow agent had lead detective on the case.” He was quiet for a minute. “So, you think there’s something odd about this case.”

  “Odd...” Jon mused. “Yes. Four women we know of have been murdered in the same way, and if you look closer, there have been other such murders, years before, that weren’t solved. You have anything more? Forensics of any kind?”

  “Strange thing there,” Ben said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The gentleman in the accident last night—good work on your part, by the way.”

  “Thanks. What about him?” Jon asked carefully. “Jimmy Marino. I should have asked right away. Did he make it?”

  “Hanging on by a thread. Doctors won’t allow us near him right now.”

  Jon held his silence, letting Ben talk—and remembering every word that Obadiah Jones had said to him.

  “He was supposed to be coming down to the station today,” Ben said.

  “Oh?”

  “He’d called. The officer on the phones called me, said someone wanted to talk to me and only me. I did talk to him briefly. He said he wasn’t sure that what he had to say meant anything, but he wasn’t saying it over a phone line. He wanted to see me alone, and face-to-face.”

  “You think he might have known something about the murder of Annie Hampton?” Jon stared at his friend.

  “Well, he wanted to speak to me because he knew I was the local heading up the investigation. So, yeah, it’s an assumption, but a fair one, I think.”

  “Any possibility his heart attack might have been brought on?”

  “So far, tests at the hospital haven’t proven anything.” Ben made a face, leaning back. “They say it’s easier to run some tests at autopsy than it is to run them on a living man. Sad, eh? But I have asked that they try to determine if there was anything in his system that might have caused it.”

  “But that’s what it was?”

  “Acute myocardial infarction, yes.”

  “Interesting. I wonder if he talked to any of his friends about whatever he was going to say to you.”

  “And,” Ben said, “I wonder if those friends might be in danger. If the old man did know something and he spoke to anyone, that person might be in trouble,” Ben mused.

  “Mrs. Martinelli,” Jon said.

  “Who is Mrs. Martinelli?”

  “Just talk I heard on the street last night,” Jon said. It wasn’t really the truth, but it wasn’t that big a lie. “From what I heard, Jimmy was a widower—and he spent time with a widow. I don’t know her first name. Mrs. Martinelli. I’m willing to bet she’s tried to get into the hospital to see Jimmy, so we might find her that way. The family has been called? Jimmy has children living in Boston, I believe.”

  Ben nodded solemnly. “Boys got here last night. I don’t know about Mrs. Martinelli. We can find out.”

  Jon’s phone rang and he glanced quickly at the caller ID. Rocky.

  “Problem?” Jon asked by way of greeting.

  “Yeah, and our fault, I believe. Your girl bolted. We’re on the street now, trying to figure out which way she went.”

  “Bolted?” Jon repeated, standing at once.

  Ben rose as well, eyes narrowing as he watched Jon.

  “We failed you and I’m sorry as hell, but I can’t just try to fix it—three of us are better now than two. It went bad right after you left,” Rocky explained. “We headed to the elevator and Michael Westerly was coming out of it with his wife and party. Smiling away. The politician in action. But it must have been exceptionally disturbing for Kylie. Then, we thought she was packing in the bedroom, and Devin and I were talking about her dead Aunt Mina, worrying about how she joins us whenever she feels like it. We have no idea if Kylie heard, but it might have been too much for her. Devin and I have split up—I’m on Essex, she’s headed toward the wharf—but I figured you might want to get out there, too.”

  “I’m out the door. Keep in close touch.” As he disconnected, Jon turned to Ben. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to find a friend who may be in danger.” He started toward the door, then winced and turned back. “Find Mrs. Martinelli. I think she might be in danger, too. She and Mr. Marino were seen together often enough.”

  He didn’t wait for Ben’s response; he was out the door and onto the street, starting toward the hotel. He willed himself to understand what Kylie might be thinking, feeling...and just where she might be running.

  She was all right; she might not know kickboxing, but she was smart, and she knew Salem and she would stay where there were people, where no one could get to her alone.
/>   Westerly...

  He was a politician. He’d left the hotel with his wife, in full view of dozens of people.

  She would be all right; Kylie would be all right. They just had to find her, and then he had to find a way to explain what he hadn’t yet been able to talk to her about. It might have made her run a hell of a lot faster and a hell of a lot sooner.

  But if anything happened to her...

  On Essex, he paused. She had to be close, but they needed all the help they could get. He hurried toward one of Obadiah’s haunts.

  The Old Burying Point.

  Nine

  “Kylie, you’re all alone! Where’s the posse?” Matt asked with a curious smile.

  “My friends had to head back. They have work tomorrow,” she told him.

  “And you?”

  “Not until next Monday.”

  “Ah, so you’re wandering by yourself?”

  “I like coming here to the Old Burying Point. Makes us think—and appreciate the fact the country moved on from these Puritan roots,” Kylie said. “I can never envision heading across a dangerous ocean to find freedom to worship, and then hanging Quakers if they dared to walk the same earth.”

  “They did hang Quakers,” Matt agreed. “Puritans were intolerant.” He shook his head. “Thank God for our Founding Fathers who guaranteed us freedom of religion in the Constitution. I’m grateful we can be what we want to be.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  He grinned. “I come here often enough. You know what? No matter how many times I take a tour, walk around on my own, visit the museums, there’s always something new I discover. Like that one grave—back over there, behind that tree and tomb, by the wall.”

  “Oh, what is it? I thought I’d seen everything here.”

  He smiled like a conspirator. “I don’t know if you read about it or not, but recently there was a letter found in someone’s attic. It was written in 1730 by a woman who survived the frenzy of the witch trials—she was just a kid when it all went down. Her mother was arrested. Anyway, I think I’ve found something fascinating. Come on, over here.”

  She pushed away from her tree. He set a hand on her shoulder, leading her toward the back wall. She felt a moment’s hesitation, but then figured she was with a friendly bartender she’d met before, and they were in a public place.

  “So, this woman,” he went on, “Elizabeth Simon, wrote about the terror she felt when her mother was arrested, how horrible it was to watch people hang. Townsfolk went to the hangings—you would in essence be watching the devil get his due. They were terrible—people were pushed off ladders to hang from branches, and if they didn’t die quickly from a broken neck, they strangled. Anyway, I digress. I found a broken stone I believe to have been her mother’s next to one that I’m certain must be hers.”

  “I’m sure that someone in the historical society would be able to tell you—”

  He brought his fingers to his lips. “Yes, as soon as I can get to them. But come on...kind of hide. There are people out and about and I want to keep this as my discovery.”

  She followed him behind another tree and one aboveground tomb.

  “There... Kneel down, you’ll see it better.”

  Kylie knelt on the ground by the wall, behind the tree and the tomb, scanning the earth for the broken tombstones. Matt was behind her, leaning low.

  And she saw he was reaching for a knife.

  * * *

  Jon didn’t have to look for Obadiah. The ghost was hurrying toward him as he left his office.

  “She’s in the cemetery,” Obadiah announced. He set a ghostly hand on Jon’s shoulder, trying to get him to move along as quickly as possible.

  “Who?”

  “Your lady friend. And she’s with that young barman, Matt something. I’ve been hanging out there, watching for Mrs. Martinelli after what I told you about Mr. Marino. And I’m a wicked suspicious old coot.”

  Jon was running, weaving his way through tourists crowding the street by the Peabody Essex Museum and hurrying past Charter Street. He sprinted to the cemetery with Obadiah on his tail and leaped over a piece of the wall at the memorial.

  At first, he didn’t see Kylie. He ran through the tombstones, pausing occasionally to scan the area. There were trees, but not big groves of them, and he searched quickly.

  And then he saw them.

  Matt was bending down beside Kylie—and he had a knife in his hand.

  Jon cursed and raced for him. He tackled him from the back, shoving him to the side and away from Kylie.

  Stunned, she crawled away from them backward on the ground, staring at them both.

  “What the hell?” Matt shouted.

  Jon wrenched the knife from Matt’s hand and pinned him to the ground. “Not another!” he snapped.

  “What?” Matt protested.

  “You’ve got a knife!”

  “I was going to cut away some weeds!” Matt exclaimed.

  Obadiah, who had caught up, yelled, “Who the hell brings a knife to a historic cemetery?”

  Matt, of course, didn’t hear a word.

  “Matt Hudson,” Jon said. “Traveler. Did you travel to a few cities where a few other women might have happened to die, stabbed to death?” Jon knew he had to get control of himself; he had no proof, no evidence whatsoever against this man—just that he was here, he’d had a knife, he’d been behind Kylie...

  And with his traveling, he might have been in Virginia, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

  “Hey, come on, up! Both of you!” a voice boomed. Ben Miller was beside them.

  Ben Miller was a damned good friend, and a really good cop. Jon figured Ben had been heading to Jon’s office and seen him running, realized something was wrong, and followed.

  Ben stood over them, demanding as an officer of the law to know what was going on.

  Jon stood, dragging Matt up with him.

  “I swear, this was innocent,” Matt said.

  Kylie was still on the ground, propped up on her elbows, staring at them with confusion and alarm.

  “He had a knife out over your back,” Jon said.

  “I did, but—” Matt began.

  “You’re under arrest,” Ben told him.

  “For what?” Matt cried.

  “Assault,” Ben said.

  “I wasn’t assaulting her, I swear. I was going to cut the weeds away from the grave. If anything, this guy assaulted me,” Matt protested.

  “All right, then. Let’s get down to the station and straighten it all out,” Ben said. “It might all be up to Miss Connelly here.”

  “I have to be at work in a few hours,” Matt protested. “Ask her. Just ask her. Kylie, I was telling you about the grave, right?”

  Jon reached a hand down to her. She stared at him for a moment, and then accepted it. Once she was on her feet, he felt her resist his hold and he let go instantly.

  She said to Ben, “He was telling me about this grave. I came here with him to see it. I—I don’t know what went on behind my back.”

  Ben looked at Jon.

  “We’ll go to the station,” Jon said. “Long enough to compare some travel dates.”

  “Not going to cuff you, sir,” Ben said. “As long as you walk right along with me, you hear?”

  “Where the hell would I bolt to?” Matt demanded angrily. He turned to stare at Jon, venom in his eyes. “I wanted to show her a lousy grave!”

  Kylie followed Ben and Matt.

  Jon kept a small distance behind them, calling Rocky to let him know what was going on.

  “This has already turned into one wicked mess,” Rocky said. “We’ll head back to the hotel and get Kylie’s things. Sorry, my friend. Truly sorry. Then again, do you think you just might have stopped a killer?”

  “He claims he’s total
ly innocent, and he just had a knife to cut away the weeds on a grave.”

  “Don’t they all claim they’re innocent?” Rocky asked.

  “But he’s not who Kylie saw.”

  “He had Kylie, and he had a knife,” Rocky said. “And...”

  “And?”

  “Maybe you should find out if the man knows Michael Westerly. Maybe he’s the man’s biggest supporter.”

  Maybe... He’d had a knife. He’d had Kylie.

  That was enough for a trip to the station, at the very least.

  * * *

  Kylie sat in the reception area at the police station, not sure at all what she was feeling.

  Matt could just be a good guy, a great bartender, a fun pirate, and an amateur actor. His story was true—he’d been telling her about the grave. And weeds did grow over the stones in the cemetery quicker than caretakers could keep up.

  She sat alone at first; both Jon and Detective Ben Miller were in an interrogation room with Matt Hudson. She’d been told not to leave. And while the officers working the desks were all polite, she had a feeling she’d be stopped quickly if she tried to move.

  Where was she going to go anyway?

  She should call Corrine and tell her to drive back from however far she had gotten, Kylie was going home, back to New York City, a place that now seemed bizarrely tame and quiet.

  But that wouldn’t change anything. Not her fear.

  And yet these people who were supposedly her saviors were talking about dead people. Dead people, who were their friends and even lived with them. She didn’t know what to make of it, but she couldn’t accept it.

  She was staring down at her lap and didn’t see Devin Lyle until she took the seat next to her. Startled, Kylie looked up. Rocky was there, too, hovering a distance away.

  Devin’s eyes were filled with sorrow and worry as she sat. “Kylie, I am so, so sorry. You might have been hurt and it was all my fault.”

  “And they might be questioning an innocent man who was just sharing an exciting discovery,” Kylie said.

  Devin nodded, not denying that it was true.