Keira tried to shush her friend’s laughter. “Quiet. We can’t be seen tonight.”
“Pfft. Ha-ha, don’t worry about that. This town is full of old people. They’re all in bed by ten at the latest.”
“Keep it down!” Keira begged. She glanced back toward the florist. Beyond the shop was a mess of shadows. She could imagine a figure standing in the darkness, easily hidden, watching them. “Please! I was serious when I said we could go to jail for this.”
“Oh, that wasn’t a joke?” Zoe, still speaking too loudly for Keira’s comfort, hopped to her feet. “This sounds amazing. Where’re we going?”
Keira exhaled and took Zoe’s shoulders. She knew her request was going to sound crazy. She could only be grateful that Zoe was possibly the only human on earth who would listen to—and agree to—the plan without asking a million questions. “I want to get into the Crispin property. I want you to show me where Emma died. I can’t tell you why, but it’s important.”
“Oh heck yes.” As Keira had hoped, Zoe seemed not only accepting of the proposal, but enthusiastic about it. “I’ve never seen it myself, but I’ve researched enough to guess where the murderizing went down. Ah, this is so cool! I’ll get to see if he really planted a memorial tree.”
“Please, for all that’s holy, shh!”
As was her mode, Zoe set a blistering pace. Her footsteps were loud and echoed off the main street’s buildings, creating the disturbing impression that a dozen people were jogging alongside them. Keira stayed a few steps behind, constantly scanning their surroundings for signs of motion, and her nerves were frayed by the time they reached the town’s outskirts.
Even in the dim light, she could see Zoe’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright with excitement. She twirled midpace, flashing Keira a grin. “Y’know, for a while, I was worried you’d turn out to be a huge stick in the mud. But you’re actually really cool.”
“No, sorry, your first assessment is probably pretty accurate.” Even though they were leaving suburbia and the empty farmland was outpopulating the houses, Keira still kept her head low and her eyes moving. “I promise you this is very out of character. Let’s just pretend I’ve gone mad for the next couple of hours.”
Zoe snickered. “No, with superhero fighting moves like what you employed against Gavin earlier, I bet you used to be something cool like an assassin or a professional boxer or part of a government division that’s so secret that not even its own members know about it.”
Keira didn’t respond. She doubted any of Zoe’s guesses were accurate, but she couldn’t claim normalcy either. She’d reacted to Gavin’s attack too quickly and efficiently for her skills to have come from any sort of casual self-defense class. She looked at her fingers again. They seemed unnaturally pale in the moonlight. She squeezed them into fists, felt their power, then relaxed them again. These hands might have committed crimes. Might have hurt people. Possibly even killed.
The idea was too uncomfortable to contemplate. She raised her head to see they were nearing the copse of pine trees that surrounded the Crispin property.
Zoe nodded toward the woods. “There’s no wall at the back of the house, which is where we want to get to, but it means going through the forest. You up for it?”
“Yeah. I have a flashlight, but it’s probably better if we don’t turn it on until we’re—” The final words—off the road—died on her tongue. While she’d been distracted staring at her hands, a figure had appeared on the path behind them.
It was after midnight; there was zero chance the stranger’s presence was a coincidence. Keira froze, her mind spinning through possibilities: Drag Zoe into the forest and hide? Try to bluff her way out of the encounter? Run for a farmhouse? Prepare to fight?
Then recognition hit her. The figure was still too far away to see distinctly in the wan light, but the gait was familiar. Keira’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh…crap.”
“What?” Zoe, who had been digging her own flashlight out of her jacket pocket, looked up, and saw the figure. “Did you invite someone else?”
“No. But he came anyway.”
Mason’s long cloak swirled around his legs as he neared them. His expression seemed strangely impassive in the dark, but his sharp green eyes glittered despite the shadows cast by his brows.
Zoe clicked on her light as he neared them. Mason stopped at Keira’s side, put his hands in his pockets, and glanced between the pair. “Bit late to be touring the countryside, isn’t it?”
Damn it. Keira clutched for some explanation that might make sense to him, but she came up empty. Unlike Zoe, the simple excuse of “I wanted to see where Emma died” wouldn’t fly with Mason, and he would think she’d gone insane if she started talking about ghosts. The best she could hope for was a diversion. “I could say the same to you. What’re you doing out here?”
“Following you,” he said simply.
She frowned. “Wait—were you in the car?”
“Yep. I was having trouble sleeping, so I thought I’d stand guard in case Gavin showed up. Imagine my surprise when I saw you coming down the driveway.” He tilted his head and raised one eyebrow. “Then imagine my escalating surprise when you seemed to vanish into thin air. I eventually walked into the town in search of you…and followed Chatterbox’s voice.”
“Oops.” Zoe gave an apologetic shrug.
Mason’s gaze didn’t leave Keira’s face. He seemed to be trying to read her, but his expression was still too restrained for her to know if he was disappointed by what he found.
She licked her lips. “I really appreciate you keeping an eye out for me, but you can go home. I have something I need to do with Zoe.”
“It’s going to be dangerous, isn’t it?” His tone was gentle, but she still felt knots squirming in her stomach.
“Not unless you consider Dane a threat, which I personally don’t,” Zoe unhelpfully supplied.
Both of Mason’s eyebrows rose. “Ah. You’re going to Crispin House, then. Am I allowed to know why?”
Keira grimaced. There was no way to play their outing off as a casual stroll any longer. “I want to see where Emma died.” There. Now he’ll try to talk us out of it or threaten to call the police or go through a spiel about how disappointed he is or…
But Mason didn’t speak for several long beats. His eyes roved over Keira’s face, their intensity sending prickles up her spine. Then, at last, the unreadable expression broke into a lopsided smile. “Can I come?”
“Huh?” She blinked at him. “Sorry, I mean…huh?”
He shrugged. “You don’t have to give me your reasons if you really don’t want to. But I suspect you have a good cause. And maybe I need a bit of an adventure after these last few months of doing nothing of significance. So yeah, to heck with it. I’m along for the ride.”
She glanced toward the trees surrounding Crispin House. “I won’t sugarcoat it: this is both risky and stupid. Are you sure you want to come?”
“If you’ll have me. Like I said, I couldn’t sleep. And”—he shot her a sheepish grin—“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit curious about the house.”
Keira could finally breathe again. She glanced at Zoe. Her companion shrugged, indicating the choice was hers, so Keira smiled. “Yeah. Definitely. Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Keira pulled out her flashlight but didn’t turn it on. They slipped into the forest, with Zoe leading the way, her light bobbing across the dead, spiky branches blocking their path. Keira followed closely, and Mason was just behind her. Zoe continued to stomp through the leaves with very little concern for how much noise she was making, but at least Mason seemed to know how to be subtle. He was larger and heavier but made far less noise than Zoe.
A dozen paces into the forest, it became impossible to see, and Keira was forced to use her flashlight. The woods were untamed and had no man-made paths.
The group slowed their pace as the flat ground became consumed by indents, protruding r
oots, and fallen trunks. The instability forced them to test almost every step before trusting their weight to it, and the stress was starting to fray Keira’s already-tired nerves.
Zoe led them straight for several minutes, then she took a sharp right. The disorienting, twisting path around the trees had thrown off Keira’s sense of direction, but she thought they were moving parallel to Crispin House.
At last Zoe turned right again, leading them back toward the house. The forest began to thin, and Keira clicked off her flashlight. Zoe kept hers on.
“I’ll point it at the ground; stop worrying,” she whispered when Keira nudged her shoulder. “It must be one in the morning by now. There’s no way Dane’s still awake.”
Keira grudgingly let it be.
As they neared the edge of the forest, something cold and wet hit Keira’s face. She wiped it off, but it was quickly followed by another drop. The rain had started. We’ll be wet before we get home. Hopefully, this won’t take long.
She stepped through a final row of trees and found herself in the fabled Crispin garden. With the moon blocked by heavy, roiling clouds, Zoe’s LED flashlight provided the only light. Its refracted beam brought a grisly maze of overgrown plants, collapsed stone seats, and upturned monuments into stark relief.
Zoe whistled, and Keira clamped a hand over her friend’s mouth. “Please. Be. Quiet.”
“But it’s so cool!” Zoe spoke through Keira’s fingers, breathing moist air onto her palm, and Keira pulled it away with a grimace.
Mason appeared at her side and bent low so she could hear his whisper. “I don’t know how true they are, but I’ve heard rumors that Dane suffers from insomnia and takes long walks during the night. You might want to make this quick.”
She nodded and turned back to Zoe. “Where was Emma killed?”
“Hmm.” Zoe raised her flashlight to scan the property, and Keira had to stop herself from forcing the beam back down to the ground. Too much light or motion could stir the house’s occupant, but on the other hand, Zoe couldn’t lead her to the cold crime scene if she was blind.
Keira tried to regulate her breathing and tell herself the chances of being caught were relatively low, but she could already feel her limbs preparing her to flee. She flexed her hands to stop the nervous energy from overflowing into irrational actions.
“I saw the photos put in as evidence,” Zoe whispered. “And I thought I could guess the scene of death based on them, but wow, a lot’s changed in forty years. Can you believe this used to be a luxury property? They had a dedicated gardener to trim the hedges and stuff. Now it’s like some postapocalyptic-scape, just with plants instead of collapsed buildings.”
The metaphor was awkward, but Keira couldn’t argue with it. As the flashlight skimmed over the yard, she saw sprawling shrubs as big as a car, flowers that had spread outside their garden beds, a stone statue of a Grecian woman with both arms lying crumbled at her feet, and a dry water fountain with decades’ worth of leaves in its basin.
“It was near the house…” Zoe chewed on her thumbnail as she muttered to herself. “There was some sort of stone structure near it. Like a wall or something. And a garden bed just beside her body.”
More drops hit Keira’s exposed skin. She squinted against the thin rain as she looked up at Crispin House. Bleak, decaying, and sad, the mansion towered above them. Lightning crackled in the distance, silhouetting the building for a fraction of a second, and Keira shivered as the thunder shook the air. “Do we need to get closer to the house?”
“Yeah.” Zoe’s smile was brave, but a hint of uncertainty glinted in her eyes. “The left side, I think.”
They moved forward as a unit. Although the garden was severely overgrown, it seemed to be frequently visited. Dirt tracks threaded between the plants and around the trees, showing where a lifetime of pacing had worn down the grass. It was all too easy to imagine Dane, alone, possibly deranged, spending his days in the wild plot.
“I think…” Zoe stopped twenty paces away from the building. She looked from the protruding wing of the house to a line of stones showing where a garden’s border had once existed, then to a young elm growing ahead of them. “I think this is it.”
Keira’s breath was quick and shallow. She tucked her flashlight back into her pocket and stepped forward.
In the mill, touching the chair Frank Crispin had stood on had shown her his death. She hoped the experience hadn’t been an abnormality and that it wasn’t tied to a physical residue such as a fingerprint that could be erased by exposure to the elements. If she was right, standing where Emma had died should show her the girl’s demise—and the killer’s identity.
“This must be it.” Wonder was audible in Zoe’s voice. She’d apparently forgotten her anxiety as she approached the tree. “They really did plant a memorial. That’s so cool.”
It’s twisted. Keira’s heart fluttered like a panicked bird as she reached toward the tree.
“Keira?” Mason’s whisper was sharp as it cut through the cold air. “I think I saw something.”
No, not yet. Not when I’m so close—
Her fingertips touched the bark. Something subtle hummed through the tree, like faint static, and prickled her skin. Show me. She closed her eyes and inhaled. I want to see.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer surrounded by black shadows and a shaking flashlight beam. Instead, the day was overcast and crisp. Something yellow shifted behind Keira, and she turned to see a woman poised just a couple of paces away.
Emma looked cold in her sundress. Color filled her cheeks as she yelled. Standing opposite was a balding, heavyset man in an expensive but old-fashioned suit. George. His hands were stretched wide as he bellowed at her. The argument was vicious, but neither voice was audible to Keira.
She blinked. Emma slapped George. The older man stumbled backward, hit the ground hard, and grimaced. The pained squint morphed into fury as he extended his hand, and the ring-wrapped fingers fastened over one of the stones bordering the garden.
Another blink, and Emma was fighting desperately, mouth open in a scream, as the stone was brought down over her temple. She crumpled to the ground and raised a hand to the blood dripping through her flaxen hair. Her eyes widened as George threw himself toward her.
Keira didn’t want to see any more. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to block out the sights, but they flashed across the backs of her eyelids. The stone came down again and again and again, crushing the skull, sending bone fragments flying. Emma’s struggles failed after the third blow, but George didn’t stop. He kept beating until her head was pulp.
When George pulled back, sucking in ragged gasps, his face was wet with blood and sweat, and clumps of hair clung to the stone in his hand. He stared at it, appearing stunned at the sight, and dropped it to the ground. He turned his gaze to the body at his feet. Then, very slowly, he rotated to look at the garden. The ground had been recently turned; a shovel still protruded from the dark earth.
Keira inhaled sharply as the vision faded. She stumbled backward, and warm arms enveloped her.
“Deep breaths,” Mason urged. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Just…just surprised,” she managed.
“We need to leave. Quickly. Can you walk?”
Not trusting her voice, she nodded emphatically. Her legs felt like they were made of paper, but she knew their muscles would carry her.
Mason kept his arm around her as he drew her down the path leading toward the woods. “Zoe,” he hissed. “Turn the flashlight off.”
“I can’t see without it!” she whispered back.
Something cold was running down Keira’s face. Blood, her mind, still full of the images of Emma’s death, suggested. She touched a finger to the substance and realized the clouds had begun to release their burden in earnest.
“Turn it off.” Mason’s voice was tight and urgent. “We’re not alone.”
With a click, the light disappeared. Being blind in the overgrow
n garden made her sick with fear, and Keira reached for her other senses. Mason’s arm across her shoulders felt firm, warm, and good. She reached up to hold his hand, and he tightened his fingers around hers. It was enough to quiet some of the panic dancing through her mind, and she tried to feel out their surroundings by sound and touch alone.
The most persistent noise was the low, droning drum of rain hitting the ground, the plants, and the house. Interspersed through it was her companions’ breathing. Mason’s was deep but quick; Zoe gasped in short, ragged breaths. And then Keira could sense the texture beneath her feet. She could feel the ground turning from compacted dirt to spongy grass and weeds. She snagged Zoe’s sleeve with her spare hand and redirected both of her friends back to the path.
The audio was her best clue, so she focused on the different cadences of the falling rain. It was harder behind them, where it pinged off the slate roof. Ahead was softer, where it hit and ran through a forest of trees.
We’re not far from the woods.
Then there was another sound. It was so faint that Keira almost didn’t pick it out from among the rainfall, but it was unmistakable: crunching gravel just ahead.
She pulled her companions to a halt, released her hold on Zoe, and reached into her back pocket. Mason’s fingers tightened over hers in a silent question. She couldn’t answer. Instead, she raised her flashlight and turned it on.
Dane Crispin’s eyes shone like an animal’s in the light.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Keira parted her lips, but her mouth was too dry to speak. Dane Crispin stood in their path, twenty feet away, his thin face appearing bleached white in her flashlight beam, his eyes glittering from behind the curtain of wet hair. Then he shifted. Something long and metallic rose into the light’s circle.
The Whispering Dead: Gravekeeper Book 1 Page 17