She tossed her stuff down on her desk. “Aw. Screw you very much.”
Her response surprised Brian. Normally she never took out her mood on him. He tried to lighten the tense atmosphere with, “I would have thought you would be in much better spirits after your date with Prince Charming last night. What’s the matter? He doesn’t put out on the first date?”
Only his plan backfired, and she grew more hostile. “Do you have a point, Brian?”
His feathers ruffled he immediately backed off. “I was just making conversation. I obviously mistook you for my friend Addie who has a sense of humor.”
Duncan charged in, his tie askew, his glasses down his nose and his mood definitely sour. “I hate to break up your little lovers spat but I thought maybe the two of you would like to get some work done.”
By the time Brian and Adele got to the cemetery twenty minutes later, there was a large press presence already there, standing around a disturbed grave site.
“Who would desecrate the grave of a murdered child?” Brian wondered aloud.
Adele offered a helpless shrug as they approached the horrific scene, where Marisol Maldonado lay sprawled on the upturned soil, her body racked with sobs. In the background was the strange gypsy woman from the funeral. Her eyes bore holes into Adele’s face. The stare was so powerful it stopped Adele in her tracks. Brian stopped a few steps ahead.
“What’s wrong?”
She tore her eyes from the gypsy. “Nothing. It’s just… cemeteries give me the creeps. Let’s just do this and get out of here.”
Michael was not surprised when she called him to join her that afternoon for lunch. He’d heard about the grave site and he knew that she would be hot on the case. He also knew she’d be an emotional wreck. Death was not her thing, and this case had her mired in it. Seeing her pale face, however, was a bit of a shock. He had to fight back the urge again to insist she let someone else handle it. He knew that suggestion would fall on deaf ears.
She gave him a kiss on the cheek, not unlike any of the thousands of other kisses on the cheek she’d given him over the years. And not unlike any of those thousands of kisses, this one set his body alive with the touch of her soft lips on his skin. He’d done many hours on his knees, confessing over the carnal thoughts he enjoyed at her expense. If she knew that, she never let on.
It was much safer, and much easier, for her to live in blissful ignorance. He was a walking, talking security blanket and he knew it. At 5’10, he was hardly threatening. He didn’t smolder with intense alpha male sexuality, but was more approachable with warm eyes the color of milk chocolate and an easy smile that never knew a stranger. Quite a few of his female parishioners had fallen for his wholesome, boy-next-door appeal over the years, but he’d never been tempted to sway from his vows. Adele was his truest temptation, and she was as far away as the moon. It was both safe and extraordinarily frustrating. But he knew it was worth any price he had to pay to be with her, and he knew that there was no one closer. She belonged solely to him. And he liked it that way. It made living without her in his arms as his lover that much easier to bear.
They settled down to their lunch and he was somewhat relieved that she at least had a healthy appetite. She wolfed down most of her burger and fries before sniping some of his onion rings as well. “How many of the seven deadlies are you up to by now?” he pondered aloud. “They’re going to make me give up my collar.”
“Those who don’t have sex, eat,” she teased. “Which makes me highly suspicious that you’re not as big as a house, Father.”
How he hated when she called him that. He was extraordinarily proud of the work he’d been able to do in the ministry, but the last thing he wanted her to consider him was an unattainable priest. He wanted to scream at her that he wasn’t just some untouchable religious statue that couldn’t come to life and hold her like she needed to be held, or tell her that despite what she thought someone did love her and always would.
But as usual he stifled all the longing down deep below his collar and covered it with humor. “That’s why we wear black. To hide those love handles. It’s very trimming, you know.” She just shook her head and stuffed another onion ring in her mouth and grinned with bulging chipmunk cheeks. He couldn’t help but laugh. “You know if you really loved me you’d save me from obesity and just marry me already.”
She swallowed her food, ripped the end off of her straw wrapper and blew it at him. “You’re a nut,” she concluded. “Now finish your lunch before I do.”
He covered the plate with both hands. They both giggled. They’d always been able to make each other laugh. They were the best of friends. Both knew that would never change. There was a lot of security in that, being totally accepted for what they were, good or bad, and being loved anyway. They just fit, they always had.
She looked so happy he didn’t want to ruin her mood with his news, but he knew if he didn’t tell her she’d find out through someone else. And it was just better it come from him. “St. Mary's called today.” Her face suddenly fell. She knew what he was going to say even before he said it. “Someone wants Adam. It looks like the real deal this time.”
She nodded. She’d been expecting it. “And Dani?”
He shook his head, which caused her to heave an exasperated sigh as she threw her napkin onto her plate and leaned back against the booth with her arms crossed. “You know the drill. They want babies, not ten-year-olds…. especially ones that require her level of care.”
“Funny,” Adele snorted. “That was exactly why I wanted her. Only pill popping schizophrenics don’t usually get a vote. Who knew?” He didn’t know what to say. He understood her frustration and couldn’t understand why the courts couldn’t see who Adele was beyond some stupid stack of papers. She was so much more than her problems. If only she believed that as much as he did. “But I guess it’s for the best. I’m not exactly in any shape to be any body’s mother right now.”
She didn’t have to tell him. He knew it from the moment he laid eyes on her. “I thought the new meds were working.”
She shook her head. Michael never recalled a time she looked so defeated. “They were. But now they’re not. Same old story. The nightmares are back. Only they’re different this time.”
“Were you finally able to open a door?”
Again she shook her head. “No, it wasn’t that. There was someone there. And it wasn’t anyone I knew. In fact, it was that lady from the Maldonado funeral.”
His brown knit. “What lady?”
“The older one. She looks like a gypsy. Kind of creepy. And she doesn’t like me one bit.”
He nodded. “You must mean Isabel, their spiritual adviser.”
“Their what?”
“Their psychic.”
Adele couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No,” Michael was matter-of-fact. “She’s an old family friend they believe has psychic powers. She reads their palms, reads the tarot and her crystal ball, concocts magical herbal remedies and even helps people resolve their past life issues.”
She just grinned. What a bunch of malarkey. But what amused her more is how the devout priest could process such information. “And what do you have to say about all that?”
He shrugged. If his faith depended on what others believed, he’d be a sorry priest indeed. “To each their own. We all have to decide what we can believe in. If you’re curious you should call her yourself.”
“Sure. What’s the 900 number?
He just laughed as he threw an onion ring at her. She popped it into her mouth with another smile.
The rest of the day sped away from Adele as she prepped her story on the grave desecration. She meant to call Dani at the children’s home because she knew how distraught the young girl would be at the prospect of being separated from her brother. Adam was the only biological family she had left. Now that he was going to be adopted, Dani truly was on her own.
It reminded Adele of the ord
eal she went through trying to adopt Dani. The pain had been unbearable as the courts reminded her once again she was not good enough for love. Nothing was worse than having her inner dialog confirmed. Michael had tried to get her to continue the fight, to show them she was more than just a bunch of words on a piece of paper. But for Adele the wounds had cut much too deep. For her own sanity and for Dani’s best interests, she had to drop the fight. Dani didn’t deserve continually having her hopes raised and dashed on a very thin “Maybe.”
That final courtroom appearance Adele and Dani made a pact. They would always be there for each other no matter what. Life may get in the way to delay it, but Adele had always come through. She knew that Dani would understand if she had to call her the next day.
At least she was alive, Adele thought to herself. She couldn’t even try to put herself in Marisol Maldonado's shoes. Losing a child so violently was bad enough. To have the grave upturned and the body stolen was incomprehensible.
Adele picked up a photo of Lily Maldonado as she sat at her desk in the warm orange hue of the setting sun. It was a school photo, the one released for the obituary. She couldn’t have been too much younger than Dani. She looked playful and mischievous and everything a young girl should be. But she wasn’t anymore, and Adele still didn’t know why.
The loose ends drove her crazy. She wanted to tie this story up, put the monster in jail where he belonged, and finally find justice for all the fractured families left behind. She dug through the folder for photos of the other victims. A toddler boy. A preschooler. Another child, probably a couple of years younger than Lily.
Adele’s brow knit together. Why hadn’t she noticed this before? She put the photos in order of their age rather than their attacks and could plainly see that the killer was graduating in age in approximate two year intervals.
Adele emptied her folder on her desk. She dug through all the information to get exact dates and ages. Ryan Kentner, aged 2 years old. Maggie Hemphill, aged 4 years old. Douglas Stevensen, aged 6 years old. Lily Maldonado, aged 8 years old. She immediately phoned the Darlington Police Department.
“I’d like to speak to Roman Piccoli,” she said. “It’s important.”
“He’s not in the office at the moment,” the voice replied. “We can page him for you.”
“Yes, do that. Let me give you my cell number.”
Once she hung up she tucked all the information neatly back in the folder and headed out.
Fortunately there was only one major cemetery in the small town, it made the next task much easier. She couldn’t say why she needed to see all the graves, but somehow it felt very important that she did, starting with the empty one.
Adele stared at Lily’s grave, which was still partitioned off by yellow police tape. She drew as close as she dared to an open grave, kneeling down to inspect the hole.
All the dirt was scattered, which seemed odd to her. If someone had dug this grave up with a shovel, surely it would have been a lot neater. There would be mounds of spare dirt on either side, and the hole itself would look smoother, rather than so ragged and haphazard. This looked like the grave exploded outward.
What was even stranger, it became evident that a lot of the dirt was missing. The grave looked empty, as did the ground around it. She glanced up and around, trying to remember if the winds had been high in the last day. As she walked through the darkening cemetery she couldn’t see any extra dirt spread anywhere. Perhaps they cleaned it up a bit, she thought to herself.
There was also the matter of Marisol lying across the side of the grave. Maybe the dirt was simply knocked back in. Adele cautiously leaned over to peer into the darkened grave.
She pulled her mini flashlight from her purse and shined it into the hole. It was empty, no coffin, no extra dirt, nothing. It looked just as it would have looked after being prepared for the burial. Empty. Waiting.
Just being there in the graveyard as the shadows fell was doing a serious number on her nerves She could hear faint whispers on the wind, but she tried to push that from her mind as she knelt down on her knees, leaned over right on the edge of the grave and peered farther into the grave.
Before she knew what was happening the ground gave way under her she tumbled headlong into the open grave, landing with a grunt on her back.
She took a moment to catch her breath, the dirt pungent in her nose. She glanced up at the darkening sky, framed by the rectangular hole in which she was now trapped. She closed her eyes for a moment to rid herself of the disturbing image. When she opened them again she was in an old wooden coffin.
It wasn’t her first hallucination – but it was certainly one of her more terrifying ones. Instantly she couldn’t breathe or find a voice to call out for help. She began scratching at the lid to get out, her nails so long they chipped the wood and splintered around her as she clawed through the top.
Still deep in her hallucination, Adele screamed as she scrambled to her feet, knocking away imagined dirt and debris. She almost came out of her skin as a hand grasped her arm and yanked her from the grave. She whirled around to face the grounds keeper.
“What are you doing here, miss?” he growled.
“I’m – I’m a reporter. Adele Lumas.” He looked unconvinced. “Action News,” she trailed off.
“We’re going to lock the gate,” he repeated. He had no tolerance for her foolishness. “Unless you want to spend the night with the dead, you best come now.”
She shuddered at the thought. “Right behind you.”
He simply smirked and then stalked off. The wind began to stir the nearby trees. She didn’t even look that direction as she chased after the grounds keeper.
The creeps followed her all the way to her block. The wind had picked up, and she could have sworn she heard voices in the shrill noise.
She was no stranger to hearing voices, but this time it was rattling her decidedly rattled nerves. She kept trying to talk herself down. Her imagination was running wild after the scare she got at the cemetery. That was all. She was going to walk home as uneventfully as she ever walked home in the past.
Instinctively she reached in her purse for pills, but then remembered that she was out. She also remembered how she threw the newest prescription at Dr. Ashcroft. She blushed, instantly embarrassed. She made a mental note to call him in the morning and apologize. She’d had her fits before, but never to the point of refusing her meds. Dr. Ashcroft had long warned it could be dangerous instantly dropping the meds since she'd been on them for so long. Adele, too, was scared at how much her condition would worsen without the pills that kept her somewhat functional.
And obviously it wasn’t good. The voices seemed to surround her as she raced along the street. If she listened hard enough she might have made out what they were saying, but to be quite honest, Adele just didn’t really want to know. Instead she chose to flee from them.
About a block from her home she realized a second pair of footsteps followed her own. This time she was sure they were real and not imagined. Her hand slipped into her bag and grasped the bottle of pepper spray she kept there. She sped up, as did the person following. She was practically running as she hit the landing of her apartment and she spun around with pepper spray cocked and ready to go.
“Whoa, truce.” It was Nicholas, and he wore an apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t,” she denied quickly. He arched a brow and gestured to her pepper spray. She relented with a smile. “You can never be too careful,” she added, throwing his words back at him. She put away her weapon. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t suppose you’ll buy it if I say I was in the neighborhood?” he offered.
She shook her head. Glancing off behind him she asked, “Did you ditch the ghoul patrol?”
His amazing smile broke wide across his face. “It’s just me tonight. If that’s okay.”
Her eyes got lost once more in the dark recesses of his own. It was so much more inviting
than fending off the shadows all by herself. “You know what?” she said. “It’s more than okay. Come on in.”
He followed her into her tidy, if small, apartment. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked.
“That would be great.”
Instead of sitting on the sofa, he lingered in the doorway of her kitchen and watched her prepare their tea. She felt self-conscious under his probing stare, as if he were soaking her up with his eyes alone.
“You’re quite intimidating, you know,” she said when she finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“I am?” he asked softly.
She nodded without turning to face him. “You have this penetrating thing you do with your eyes. I watched how all my colleagues nearly buckled under the weight of that stare.”
“And yet you remained completely unaffected.”
She couldn’t resist grinning at the comment. She could tell he knew exactly how affected she was. “What can I say? I’m an Ice Princess.”
She brought him his cup. “Thank you, your highness,” he teased with a smile. He was potent, there was no question about that. But at that particular moment he was far from threatening. Adele was beginning to realize just how comfortable she could be around him. It was a totally new experience for her. All she could do was stare at him and soak him in too.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered in a husky voice as he watched her put the cup of coffee to her full lips.
“You’re dangerous,” she whispered back.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised as he set the cup on the counter.
“Maybe I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you,” she offered as she did likewise.
“I’ll take the risk,” he murmured and drew her into his arms.
She became breathless as she realized how well the form of her body fit the contour of his. It felt so familiar that without thinking her hands slid up his muscular torso. She had never before felt so warm... so safe. Her fingertips came alive as her hands spread across his chest, and when she realized he was not going to, she bent in for a kiss. It was the most brazen thing she had ever done.
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