The Girl and the Field of Bones (Emma Griffin FBI Mystery Book 10)

by A J Rivers

  “It's going to be all right,” I tell him. “Do you need anything? Can I get you peanuts?”

  “Nothing's going to be alright,” he snaps, his voice ragged. “Nothing feels right anymore. No home. No comfort. No peace. Not until this is fixed. Nothing is right until this is fixed.”

  His head drops back against the wall, and suddenly he slides down until he's sitting on the carpet. It's as if every drop of energy just drained out of him, and he can't even support his own body anymore. Dean reaches down and helps him carefully to his feet.

  “Bring him into my room,” I instruct him. “It's closer.”

  I'm already on my way down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “To find the pieces for him,” I say.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Three days. I can't believe I forgot.

  I didn't forget. I got so lost in myself. I didn't think about it. So tangled in finding the end to this spiral, I stopped paying attention.

  Three days. October 21st. The anniversary of the day, Andrew Eagan died.

  The day Xavier lost so much of his life as well.

  He's not going to lose any more of it.

  After he has been doing so much better, seeing him get so torn apart by his anxiety and agitation again cut deep. I hate seeing him that way. I hate watching his own mind torment him until he can't even bear to exist within himself.

  His world is collapsing around him. The reminder of his best friend's death looming over him is made worse by having to face the courts again and pray they understand he was not the one who killed Andrew. To face all of that with the last moments of Millie’s life fresh in his thoughts would be too much for anybody. I'm afraid it will destroy him.

  I don't even bother trying to approach Lilith's house cautiously. I'm done with that. Whatever game she's playing, she's done.

  I storm up onto her porch and pound on her door with my fist. I hear nothing inside the cabin. I pound again, but there's still no answer. No movement. The space inside the house is so small, if she was in there walking around, I would be able to hear her. The one time I come that it’s deathly urgent, and she's not home.

  I make my way back to my car in long, determined strides. I reach for the keys in my pocket, and my fingers tangle with something. Shaking my hand loose, I look down and see my earbuds on the ground at my feet, the rubber wire coiled around. I forgot I even stuffed them in my pocket. Scooping them up, I hold them in my palm and stare down at them.

  I have them because they make hearing phone calls easier.

  How can I not have thought of that? Getting in the car, I check my phone to see if I have any reception. Of course, I don't, so I race back to the hotel. Not even bothering to go inside, I sit in the parking lot and scroll through the various news articles and blogs about Lydia's death. Switching over to the videos tab, I find the clip of the surveillance video that was leaked to the media.

  The piece of video went viral, with tens of thousands of people making mocking comments and making fun of Lydia for looking crazy. I have to admit; I harbor a little bit of hate for every single person who made one of those comments. They sit there watching the video, so easily making fun of her while forgetting they're watching a dead woman.

  A dead woman talking to herself.

  Just like Xavier thought.

  I watch the video over and over, then look down at the buds still clamped in my hand.

  She's on the phone. She's not imagining things, as they say she is. She's not crazy. Her phone is in her pocket, and she's talking through an earpiece. The phone was found in her room, but not the earpiece. I bet a more careful search of the hotel will uncover it.

  But who was she talking to? Why was she acting so strangely? And why did she end up frozen to death in a freezer that wasn't even supposed to be on?

  Whoever was responsible for getting her in that freezer put her phone back in her room. Either the killer didn't want people to know she had it with her, or he wanted it to look as if she just left everything and walked away.

  I walk back into my room cautiously, not wanting to startle Xavier. But I find him lying on the bed, calm and almost subdued.

  "Are you okay?" I ask, sitting at the edge of the bed.

  "I slept for a little while," he tells me.

  "That's good." I look at his face and see a dark strand of hair stretched across one eye. "Can I move your hair?"

  He nods, and I brush it away gently.

  "I'm sorry," he says.

  "Xavier, you have no reason to be sorry," I say.

  "We're here for you," Dean says. "For who you are."

  He nods again. "I know. But I'm sorry for not telling you everything."

  My stomach twists. I don't want to hear more.

  "What do you need to tell us?" I ask.

  "I fell in love with Millie a long time ago. We were friends at first. We were just children. Then, I began to see her differently. She was more. She was everything. But getting to know her meant getting to know her brothers. They were nothing like her, but they molded her to listen to them. As we got older, I noticed more and more how much they had a hold on her. They could control her so easily. "

  "That's when you found out about The Order," I say.

  "Yes," he nods. "It wasn't something that happened quickly. It took years. But when Andrew got to know them separately from me and they tried to bring him in, I started to learn more."

  "He told you?" I ask.

  "Some. Bits and pieces. Enough," he says. "And he died for it."

  "They didn't choose him to kill because he told you about The Order," I say. "There had to be another reason. If they thought you were a risk, they would have just killed both of you like Lakyn."

  "I don't blame Millie for helping them," Xavier says. "She had no choice. I just hate that I can't prove any of it. I can't find that missing piece that would make it all fall together."

  "What about Lilith Duprey?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “What does she have to do with The Order? She's a woman. There are no women in The Order. There never have been. Not in any of the chapters. So, why does she have so many connections to them? Could it have something to do with her husband? What do we know about his death?”

  “No one was ever arrested for it,” Xavier says. “Off in the wind. Random act of violence.”

  “So, it wasn't an initiation,” I say. “If it was, someone would have been arrested and convicted.”

  “Right,” he says. “But he was found in his bathroom. He wasn't disposed of somewhere. It doesn’t fit the puzzle. A different puzzle, but not this one. He could have been linked to The Order. But he wasn't a part of the Harlan social circle or political sphere. All of that stayed in their original town. How would he be affiliated with the chapter here?”

  “I talked to my father about that,” I say. “He told me each of the chapters governs itself individually and operates independently of the rest. But they are still a part of the overarching Order of Prometheus. Which means, sometimes there is interaction between the chapters. Large events. Gatherings. It's possible he was a part of a different chapter that associated with the one here. Maybe after his death they worried about Lilith and wanted to make sure she was alright, so they decided to take care of her.”

  "Does that truly sound like The Order to you? Do wolves take care of sheep?" he asks.

  "No," I admit. "And if even if there was going to be anyone taking care of her, I suppose it would make sense for it to be his chapter, rather than a different one, even if it was in her area."

  "Yeah," Xavier says. "I don't think it's like a national museum exchange program."

  "Speaking of Michael Duprey, I have to go back to the Garden View. Would you want to come with me?"

  "Why are you going back there?" he asks.

  "I need to test a theory," I tell him. "Do you want to come?"

  “No,” he says. “Thanks, but if it's all the
same to you, I think I'll stay here and get some rest.”

  “Sure,” I nod. “Rest well.”

  I look at Dean, and he follows me out into the hallway.

  "I'll keep a close eye on him," he promises.

  "Please do. He's getting more agitated the closer we get to the anniversary of Andrew's death, and he needs to feel safe right now."

  "He needs to have someone prove he didn't do anything wrong and find out why Millie had to die," Dean says almost aggressively. “Emma, we’ve got to make this right.

  "I'm doing everything I can," I say. “I promise.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Five days after death…

  She would never have wanted anyone to see her that way. Of course, no one ever would.

  It was all done alone, hidden beneath fabric and dirt. Far from where she was supposed to be. Even farther from where they would believe she had gone.

  Nearly a week has passed now.

  It would be nothing but days tumbling by after this. They caught up quickly for the dead. And yet, went by so slowly.

  Tears were being shed for her. But how many of them were real? And which ones were crying for themselves?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The police have long since left the hotel. They'll be back. They'll check in a few times just to keep up appearances, so it won't look as if they've just thrown Lydia away. Even though they have. But for now, I'm glad they're not here. It makes it easier for me to walk in and cross through the lobby without being noticed.

  I don't want anybody with me while I'm doing this. I need to be able to see it myself. Not influenced by anyone or anything else but my own senses.

  I take out my phone and record where I'm going. Trying to do it by memory, I follow the same path Lydia did, looking at the same things she did. I'm trying to get her perspective. Exactly what she was seeing. Just as importantly, I want to see where she wasn’t seen. The footage doesn't show everything. There are sections of the hotel that aren't covered, places where she must have walked.

  Not just the abandoned area where she was found, but other places she must have passed through without being detected. If she could do that, so could someone else. I walk along every hallway, every dip, and curve where she walked and turned and talked. When I've done all of that, I head down the hallway toward the abandoned section of the hotel.

  I would expect there to be a new lock on the door, but instead, it's just blocked by caution tape.

  There are no security cameras in this area. No one knows I'm here. And I move through the door quickly enough that no one finds out. The feeling is just as eerie down here as it was the first time. Shining the flashlight of my phone down the hallway, I take note of everything I see until I get to the kitchen.

  It doesn't make sense that she would have just walked into a freezer without any kind of reaction. That she would have accidentally frozen herself rather than trying to fight her way out. Unless she was incapacitated when she went in, but then somebody would have had to have noticed her being carried. And there would have been some indication from the body: a wound, poison. Something.

  I walk up to the freezer and examine the area around it. I'm just about to walk out of the kitchen when I notice something strange about the edge of the freezer. It's built into the wall, but the edge furthest from me seems to protrude by just a fraction of an inch. I push past several stacked chairs and an old dishwashing table to get to the other side of the freezer. When I do, I discover the built-in freezer isn't the only feature on the wall. A small alcove is built-in beside it. There’s a door. And I can see right through the window to the parking lot outside.

  My heart jumps. I can't believe I didn't notice this before. It was hidden behind everything shoved into the corner, but here it is. A door likely used years ago for deliveries and vendors. It would have been easy to come right through here and to the freezer and bypass the rest of the kitchen, along with the other areas of the hotel.

  And easy to get right back out again.

  I have a feeling. It's one of those unexplainable things, something you can't really define, but you know to follow it. Sam always says he sees that exact feeling on my face and instantly knows I have to do something. Right now, that feeling leads me to reach out and test the door.

  It should be locked. This area of the hotel has been closed down for so many years; it should have been secured the last time the staff used it.

  Of course, the last person who used it wasn't the hotel staff.

  And that's why it opens now. It doesn't swing open smoothly. There's resistance. But I'm able to push it open and step right outside into the staff parking area. There’s a small loading dock, where deliveries of groceries and catered food used to come for the elaborate events held just inside. Like the rest of this section of the hotel, the loading dock is sleeping. Nothing has happened here in so long.

  Nothing but an earbud being crushed into the cement.

  I want to reach down and pick it up. But I stop myself. Instead, I take a picture of it, send it to myself just to be sure, then look around more carefully. Walking backward across the lot, I scan the back wall of the building. I catch sight of the emergency exit at the end of the hallway. The door the hotel staff assumed Lydia walked through to escape her bill.

  She walked through it. But it was to escape a lock. The staff and the police had the lingering question of how Lydia got through the locked door to the abandoned section of the hotel, to begin with. But she didn't. She walked out of the emergency door and came around here. Something happened to her right here. Enough to knock her earbud out and crush it.

  Now the question isn't how she got down to the abandoned area, but why? And who was waiting for her at this door?

  I take a few more pictures, then slip back into the hotel using the emergency exit rather than going back to the kitchen. I've nearly made it back through the lobby when I hear a voice that makes my skin crawl.

  “What are you doing here?” Rachel Duprey asks me angrily.

  “I don't think that's any concern of yours,” I say.

  She tosses her head and lets out a sarcastic laugh. “No concern of mine? You're slithering around here like that woman, trying to find more ways to make a lousy buck off my father's ruined reputation.”

  “I'm an FBI agent, not a tabloid reporter,” I tell her. “I’m investigating the scene of a crime.”

  “What crime?” Rachel asks. “You're not talking about Lydia Walsh? She gets drunk and wanders off into an area of the hotel she's not supposed to be in, and somehow that's a crime? Who committed it? The bartender who served her?”

  “She didn't get in that freezer by herself,” I snap. “Just like Lindsey Granger didn't walk away from here by herself.”

  I shouldn’t have said that part, but I couldn’t resist.

  “That's enough,” Rachel snaps. “I'm done with this. I'm done with you and every other slimy person who delights in making my father seem like a bad man and continuing to degrade him even a decade after his death. I came here to warn the hotel not to sensationalize my father anymore. And I'm going to extend the same warning to you. Don't cross me again.”

  “You do realize a threat against a federal agent is against the law,” I tell her thinly. “And unless you want to find yourself with a charge of obstruction of justice on top of that, I suggest you leave. Now.”

  She draws in a breath and rolls her shoulders back. Without another word, she spins around and stomps away on sensible nude-color heels that are far too loud against the polished floor of the lobby.

  For the next two days, I wait. Eric is researching for me, trying to find anything he can about Lindsey Granger. I've asked him for one very specific phrase, and I hope he can come through. It would be a bit of a miracle, but I can always hope.

  That hope is starting to slip away, just a touch on the third morning, right before my phone rings.

  “Check your email,” Eric says.

  “You got it?” I
ask.

  “Got it,” he says. “Turns out there were some conscientious police and FBI at the time. Or pack rats. Whichever way you want to look at it.”

  “I'm just going to go with, ‘You are amazing!’” I tell him. “Thank you so much.”

  “See you for Thanksgiving?” he asks.

  “Hopefully sooner than that,” I say. “Tell Bellamy hi.”

  I open my email and pull up the old surveillance footage Eric was able to unearth. It's grainy, not a smooth, ongoing recording. But it's enough. I watch Lindsey Granger walk through the hotel, following almost the same path as Lydia the day she died, and as I did the other day. She is more fluid, more confident. She doesn't dip into the side hallways or talk to anybody. She walks through the hallways to the section of the hotel now abandoned but then alive with events and parties.

  And was never seen again.

  According to reports, there were some sightings of her in the years to come. The most prevalent information showed she had done exactly as Rachel told me. Left with her tail between her legs and started a new life. That became the accepted idea among those who had vilified Michael Duprey. And he went on to do big things.

  After, of course, moving to a quiet little place in Salt Valley with his wife to get out of the limelight and enjoy a simpler life. Only to be struck down in a brutal, random act of violence that cut short his promising, glowing life.

  I don't believe that for an instant.

  Chapter Forty

  “Emma,” Sam says, rushing into the room.

  “Hey, babe,” I smile, feeling more optimistic than I have in a while. “What are you doing here? I didn't think you were coming back until later.”

  I go to give him a kiss, but I see the look on his face and stop.

  “What's wrong?”

  “Have you talked to Dean?” he asks.

  “No, what's wrong?”

  The door opens, and Dean rushes in.