Dying Breath

by Heather Graham

  Officer Strickland laughed. “Leave it to the Feds to send us on a fishing expedition,” she said, but she was smiling and she added, “I hope to hell that we can find the victim. I really want to be able to help in any way possible with this Undertaker business.”

  “Thanks. I hope so, too,” Griffin said.

  Beck gave instructions to his people. They planned out their search grid. The divers went into the water.

  Griffin, Jackson and Vickie waited on the shoreline.

  The sun went behind a cloud.

  Vultures flew overhead.

  Things do die in the woods, Vickie told herself.

  The divers had gone down in pairs. Strickland and McClaren came up first, dripping and shaking their heads.

  “It’s okay. We’re going in again,” Strickland said. “This is no small pond.”

  The second set of divers came up; they all regrouped and went in again.

  Vickie stared out at the water. In various areas algae was thick. Lilies grew; branches stuck up out of the higher ridges in the middle of the pond.

  She looked up at the sky again. It seemed as if there were more buzzards than there should have been. As if they knew...

  As if they were waiting to feast on the dead.

  The divers came up again, went down again and came up again.

  Beck spoke with Jackson and Griffin. “I don’t think this is going to do it. They may have to drag the pond, or bring in a bigger group. I mean, if we knew something—sorry, someone—was down there, they’d drain it even, but for that kind of work and crew and expense... I think someone is going to need more certainty that there’s something here.”

  Vickie was feeling beaten—and cold. The summer sun was going down, and a chill seemed to be setting into her. She stared out at the water, listening.

  And then she was certain she felt someone touch her shoulder.

  She turned.

  It was her dream “angel.” Dylan’s Darlene. She’d been wearing white jeans and a white, flowing-sleeve blouse when she’d died. Her hair was a golden blond and her dark brown eyes were filled with sorrow. “Please... I’m there...” she said.

  She faded. But as she did, she pointed out into the middle of pond.

  Vickie had noted a branch there earlier that seemed to stick out from the mucky earth at the bottom.

  She left the divers and Jackson and Griffin talking and headed to the water’s edge.

  And then she walked in.

  “Vickie! What the hell are you doing?” she heard Griffin shout.

  She quickly reached the point where it was deep enough to dive into the water. It was icy. She hoped that her heart wouldn’t stop beating out of sheer shock. But she reminded herself that she’d grown up here, in this climate. She could handle cold water.

  She headed for the branch sticking out of the water like a skeletal arm with a few lonely green leaves attached.

  It was dark and murky beneath the water.

  She crashed into something. It wasn’t cardboard or plastic. It was wood that was halfway stuck into the earth, hidden by the branch.

  She emerged.

  Griffin was already in the water, his face stony and incredulous and angry, swimming hard for her.

  “I’ve found her! I believe I’ve found her,” she shouted.

  She ignored him when he reached her. She plunged down again, feeling the slime that had formed over the wooden box. She tried to dislodge it, and, of course, couldn’t. Not on her own.

  By then everyone was in the water. And then the box was unstuck with a loss-of-suction sound that seemed to boom through the surrounding forest. The divers had the box.

  They dragged it back to shore.

  They didn’t have to open the lid; it popped open as it was dragged up.

  And she was there.

  Sodden, a horrible ashen color, hands bruised and bloody, clothing torn, once glorious hair a sodden mass of clumped tangles.

  Standing on shore, shivering so hard her teeth literally chattered, Vickie felt a horrible sense of loss and sadness.

  Yes, they’d found Darlene.

  She should be glad.

  And she was.

  Glad, and...

  Very, very, afraid.

  10

  “You don’t do things like that. You just don’t do things like that!”

  Vickie was seated in the back of a state vehicle, a blanket around her shoulders, cup of hot coffee in her hands.

  Griffin was wearing a blanket around his shoulders, still drenched, but apparently oblivious to the cold. He was angry—with her.

  “I do what I choose to do!” she snapped back.

  He wagged a finger at her. “And that will get you killed. What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “I found her!”

  Another officer was coming to speak with him and he turned away and walked hard to meet him. No one else had heard the exchange, she was certain, but when Jackson Crow walked toward her with another blanket to add to the one she was wearing, she was expecting much of the same.

  Instead, he looked at her apologetically.

  “Ignore him,” he suggested. “You just scared the hell out of him.”

  “You seem to be all right with what I did,” she said softly.

  He sat on the edge of the vehicle’s seat with her. “We’ve all had our crazy moments of certainty when we’ve done something rash,” he said. “He’ll calm down. He’ll even apologize. If I didn’t believe he would, I’d have to be a gentleman and call him out,” he added, giving her a rueful smile. “Griffin is just...invested.”

  He made her laugh. “Invested?”

  “My dear Miss Preston! You have amazing sight and abilities—surely, you can’t be that blind when it comes to Special Agent Pryce?”

  She looked at him blankly. And then she flushed.

  “He saved my life, of course.”

  “Get past that,” Jackson said.

  “Well, I am past it. We’re both past it. And I...”

  “For a man who speaks with the dead, he’s pretty blind, too. Or the two of you are afraid. Maybe you believe you have to fight against some kind of survivors’ bonding. You don’t. We’re all different. That is one of the reasons we come together. But people are specially drawn to one another, too. If you take a college graduating class of healthy men and women, all young, all beautiful, they’ll bond—but each as an individual is also drawn to certain others as individuals. Now, we’re all older than college graduating classes, but like them, we do share this strange bond. There’s still the individual thing of a man being drawn to a woman and vice-versa. That’s life, and a beautiful part of life. I say, in the midst of all this, go for it. But then, I’m a very happy man. I have a wife who understands me and often sees and understands the dead better than I do myself. She’s beautiful and I adore her—and we’re both hopelessly devoted to our work as well. Excuse me, I’m being summoned. We’ve got an ambulance for...our young lady,” he added sadly. “Who was she, I wonder?”

  “Darlene—I haven’t managed to see her long enough to find out more,” Vickie said.

  “They’re working on it. I’m sure we’ll have some answers by the time we get back into Boston.”

  Jackson rose and headed for the ambulance pulling up.

  Darlene—still in the sodden box—was loaded into the back of the vehicle. Forensic teams would see what they could discover before her final resting place was further compromised. She would be brought to the morgue in Boston and receive her autopsy there, as had the other women they had not saved. The police were already combing through missing-persons cases across the country, seeking her identity. By tomorrow, they’d also have dental records and DNA.

  Finally, she was ta
ken away. Paperwork was filled out, though there would be more.

  Jackson and Griffin returned for Vickie, Griffin not speaking, Jackson apologizing and assuring her he’d get heat going so that they could all dry out.

  Apparently, he was going to drive back. Griffin didn’t even want to be in the front of the car with her.

  Griffin’s phone rang and he answered it. He listened to someone, and then, to her surprise, he handed the phone to her.

  “For you,” he said.

  She realized with a sinking heart her phone had been in her pocket, drenched now. It was clearly not working.

  And she had forgotten to call her mother.

  “Mom!” she greeted Lucy.

  “You promised to call and let us know you were okay,” Lucy said. “We tried to reach you—tried and tried. I called Roxanne, the Ballantine house, Grown Ups...everyone I could think of!”

  “I’m sorry, truly sorry!”

  “You’re with Griffin Pryce and his people again. Oh, darling, this is all so dangerous. Where are you, what are you doing?”

  “I’m fine, I wasn’t involved with anything dangerous.” Seriously, the pond had been cold—not dangerous. “Riddles and history, Mom. It’s what I’m good at.”

  “You must come by tomorrow,” Lucy said. “Oh, God, I can’t say that, can I? I mean, you’re an adult, you’re a good adult... But I’m your mother! And I’m worried sick.”

  “I’ll be by tomorrow, I promise. It’s no problem. I promise!”

  “Let me speak with Griffin again.”

  “What?”

  “Please, darling, let me speak with Griffin again.”

  Vickie handed the phone back. “My mother is still on the line,” she said. “Um, she wants to speak with you.”

  He took the phone. “Yes, Mrs. Preston?”

  He listened for a long moment. Then he said, “Yes, ma’am. Certainly. As you wish.”

  Vickie looked forward for a moment in silence. Her mother had probably just read him the riot act about him using her in the investigation.

  He’d probably just agreed she shouldn’t be involved.

  “Don’t forget, we have an appointment to see Bertram Aldridge at the prison tomorrow,” Jackson said.

  “I think,” Vickie replied, “Special Agent Pryce might have just agreed that I not be part of any more appointments.”

  “No, that’s not what I agreed to,” Griffin said.

  She turned slightly in the seat to look at him.

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “I told her that certainly, Jackson and I would see that you arrived at their place for dinner tomorrow night, and we would be happy to join you.”

  * * *

  The day had been long. When they reached Vickie’s apartment, Griffin took her to the door; he seemed extremely hard, cold and distant. He went through the usual—having her stay by the door, walking through the apartment and then giving her an all clear. He barely said good-night.

  Then he was gone.

  Vickie showered and changed and decided to try the rice remedy on her phone.

  Dylan didn’t show up. She supposed he was still home, and, perhaps, seeing the information on the news that a young woman named Darlene Dutton, most probably the first victim of the Undertakers—the media was using the plural now—had been found that day. Everything Vickie saw in the news was true—only specifics about her clothing, the box and the method of her death were left out. But then, to the best of her knowledge, there wouldn’t be an autopsy until the next morning.

  There had been no missing-persons report filed on Darlene; she had aged out of the child-care system in New Jersey and made her way to Boston, according to authorities. Her last foster parent, according to the news, said she’d been waiting to leave the state—where she’d been tossed about from home to home since she’d been orphaned at the age of seven—forever. She’d hoped to find work in Boston as a childcare worker or waitress. The city had fascinated her since she’d been a child.

  Vickie thought about the poor girl; she was so glad that they had found her. Although they hadn’t saved her life, it still mattered.

  The news report finished in the same vein as it had since the killings had begun: residents were again begged to take extreme care in all that they did.

  There was a knock at Vickie’s door and her pulse quickened. The knock was too hard for the arrival at her door to be Dylan.

  Griffin.

  Despite the fact that a policeman watched outside, she checked through the peephole on her door.

  Not Griffin.

  Roxanne.

  She let her friend in.

  “Same cop I met before!” Roxanne said, smiling. “Thankfully, or I might have been up against the wall, being frisked. Hmm. Depending on the cop...hey, that might not be so bad. Don’t look at me like that! I’m joking. Although, maybe I’m not. Finding a good cop might not be such a bad thing.”

  “I’m not looking at you in any way. I think you’re just not always careful,” Vickie told her.

  “That’s because you are, and you trust your instincts.”

  “Hmm,” said Vickie, thinking about how trusting her instincts had just had her plunging into an icy pond to retrieve a dead body. “Anyway,” she added lightly, “I think I actually can introduce you to a plethora of cops!”

  They settled onto the sofa, and Vickie begged Roxanne to distract her with conversation that had nothing to do with the Undertakers.

  Roxanne obliged. “So what really happened with Jared? From what I could tell, I think at heart he’s a decent person. He’s just trying too hard, you know? His art really is everything to him.”

  “He’s good and I wish him well, and I just hope he stops feeling he has to be smashed or stoned to create real works of art,” Vickie said. “He’s a good guy—we’re just done, and he needs to move on and take care of himself. He’s clever and charming—and he needs to find his own way, or whatever. I truly wish him well.”

  “You don’t think that he’d follow you up here, do you?” Roxanne asked.

  “No. He likes New York art galleries. Why?”

  “He’s called your mom a few times.”

  “Oh? She never said anything.”

  “She doesn’t want you to know.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Vickie said. “He can call her all he likes, and I hope she’s good to him. I’ve been honest with him. We were never going anywhere. We were really okay—just not forever, if that makes sense.”

  “Hey, speaking of your past, I saw your other main man the other day. Hank Fremont.”

  “Yeah? How’s he doing?”

  “He looked good. Well, he always looked good. He told me he’s working as an assistant manager for a food produce company. I ran into him at Pasta Fagioli, Mario Caro’s family’s place.”

  “I was just there with my Grown Ups group.”

  “Mario’s a good guy. Anyway, Hank was there showing him a catalogue about their new organic line. We all talked for a while. It was nice. Hank, naturally, asked about you. The cops have been tight-lipped, but all that stuff about way-back-when has been dredged up in the news over and over, so, of course, he knows you’re in Boston.”

  “I’m glad it sounds as if he’s doing well.”

  “Oh, yeah. He told me he met the right girl; she keeps him on the straight and narrow.”

  “That’s great!”

  “We talked about having dinner—a ‘for old-times-sake’ dinner.”

  “Somewhere along the line, maybe.”

  “Okay, well, I’m off. It’s late.”

  “You came over just to tell me it’s late?” Vickie asked.

  “I was worried—you weren’t answering your phone.”

  “
Oh, I got it wet. I’m trying to dry it out now.”

  “Ahha! So you were there.”

  “Where?”

  “At the pond. You did help them find that body!” Roxanne said triumphantly. “You always had something going for you—weird instinct! But...oh! So you were with Special Agent Pryce again. Cool. I can see which way that’s going. Hey, the man has a future. He isn’t into alcohol or drugs to get his ‘mojo’ going. He’s tall, dark and handsome. Studly, even. Where is he?”

  “Okay, I was at the pond. Now I’m home. And he’s wherever he goes, probably still working, or maybe sleeping.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m leaving. And you’re an idiot.”

  “Good night. I love you, Roxanne—you’re a great friend.”

  Roxanne gave her a huge hug. “Call me when the rice has worked, call me tomorrow—on something. Can’t help but be worried. Okay? Oh, you probably have to call your mom every day, too. Sorry—just add me in, all right?”

  “I will, I will. Good night.”

  When Roxanne was gone, Vickie locked the door and started to head back to her computer. She should have been working, looking at all her materials on Cotton and Increase Mather. Since she really thought Cotton Mather had to have been an A-one self-righteous ass as a Puritan minister, she wondered briefly why she’d been determined to write about his part in the events surrounding the witchcraft trials and those others who had been persecuted.

  “To show he was an A-one ass?” she murmured aloud. She sat, and then just stared. She didn’t care about her work research at the moment. She wondered if she’d see the ghost of Darlene Dutton again—she hoped the young woman would find peace.

  And then again, of course, she had to wonder how it all connected, the past with Bertram Aldridge, the Pine house and the killer couple who had sent Darlene to her watery grave.

  And why the hell, how the hell, was she involved?

  She didn’t have long to contemplate; she heard a commotion out on the street.

  There was a cop out there, watching over her.

  She’d thrown on sweats after taking her very long hot shower—decent enough, she decided. Stepping out into the hallway she hurried to the front door.