Dying Breath

by Heather Graham

  “How did you do it all?” she asked.

  “Dad was a great teacher. Hit ’em, and hit ’em hard, first. Then they don’t scream. And, while it lasted, Susan was good. Cheryl. Susan-Cheryl-June,” he said laughing. “But you see, I hit her more than hard. I gave some damned good whacks to those friends of yours, too. They never saw me coming. They’ll have no idea what happened. Well, of course, they didn’t know me to begin with. Hey, it will be pretty cool if they keep thinking your old pal Hank is the culprit! God! Was it fun watching them. And now, wow. They won’t have you. You were the one who kept solving the puzzles. You know, they all came from stuff you taught us—stuff we learned on your excursions. Figured if anyone was going to get the clues, it would be you. But alas...oh, alas! Now they have to find Vickie—without Vickie’s help!”

  Earth; she could smell the earth all around her.

  “One might have thought you had divine help.” Hardy laughed softly. “If I believed in divine help.”

  “Better watch out!” Vickie said. “There is divine help. Darlene Dutton. She’s the first girl you killed. She’s still walking the earth. She helped me find Gail Holbrook last night. I do have divine help.”

  “Oh, Miss Preston. I’m trying to be respectful, but really—blow it out your ass! Whoops—don’t! Save all the air you have, wherever it might be.”

  “And the FBI agents, Hardy. They found Angelina Gianni because the ghost of her mother came to help.”

  Air...she would run out of air. She was in a box, and he was burying her. They’d been in a cemetery, but...

  There had been commotion everywhere by the cemetery. He couldn’t be calmly burying her there. How had he gotten her out of the graveyard?

  And had he killed the woman named Susan whom she had known as Cheryl?

  What about Roxanne, and Hank?

  What about breathing...?

  She did need to quit talking. But what the hell could she do? Could she scratch and claw her way out of the dirt—wherever this dirt might be?

  She felt the ground shifting again.

  He was rising. She heard the weird sound of him throwing dirt on the coffin again.

  Then he spoke once more.

  “Don’t worry, baby. We’ll see how good your FBI guy is. The papers will have received the clue about you. And, I won’t be worried, though I really doubt he’ll get it. I’ll be gone—got all the fake papers I need. I’ll be on an island somewhere, soaking up the sun and some good tequila. And I’ll find me a new Susan/Cheryl/June. I’ll write! Oh, wait. No. I’ll send flowers now and then.”

  Laughing, he rose. Vickie could barely move.

  She had to! she told herself.

  Had to move, had to fight, now. He couldn’t have sealed the box well. He wouldn’t have had the time.

  Use her strength and her air carefully, very carefully. Think about the situation, how to twist, get her limbs in position...

  How to live.

  * * *

  Griffin, along with Jackson, Barnes and a horde of officers, went over the cemetery, foot by foot.

  A witness remembered a man supporting a woman out of the cemetery to a car.

  Another remembered it as well. The woman had been crying or hurt, but the man had seemed to have it all in control.

  The car was a Buick, one man said.

  No, a Chrysler.

  No, a Ford.

  It was blue; it was black. No, it was a deep green.

  With every minute that passed, Griffin fought to keep from growing frantic.

  Then they received the call from the newspaper. The clue was in.

  Remember last night!

  The Puritans, raw, the physician in chains.

  The teacher is taught, poor lady, distraught.

  What will you find?

  Just the remains.

  “What the hell?” Barnes said, disgusted.

  Griffin stood there, tense, torn and thinking. “The physician,” he said. “We thought that the long riddle referred to Zabdiel Boylston last night. But...pustules...the road, the place. Puritan—he used Cotton Mather last night. Tonight, Zabdiel Boylston. He drove away. Drove somewhere. With all this going on.”

  “She’s not here—not in the ground here,” Jackson said.

  Griffin felt something. A light touch on his arm.

  He turned; it was the ghost of Darlene Dutton. She began to fade almost immediately.

  But Dylan was there.

  “She saw them leave. She knows who it is—it’s Hardy. Hardy, one of the other so-called kids in the group,” Dylan told him. “She heard him muttering to Vickie, as if she could hear him. Talking to her, even though she was out cold. He was heading for Brookline.”

  “Brookline,” Griffin said aloud. “She’s going to be somewhere near the grave of Zabdiel Boylston.”

  * * *

  “Stop that! I’m running out of time!” Hardy told her. She could hear his voice again, even though there was more dirt between them now.

  But she had gotten her arms and hands wedged up in front of her chest.

  And her wooden coffin hadn’t been sealed.

  She was able to push at the wood.

  But he was still there; still shoving dirt on her.

  “Save your air, you idiot. Hey, I gave him a good clue. And if you happen to push through, it’s going to be all over for you. I have a knife, too. I’m not my father’s child for nothing, Miss Preston. He told me how to cut and hurt—and how to cut and kill.”

  She paused for a minute.

  “Yep, give them time. I gave them a good clue. I play a game fair, Miss Preston. But if you’re not good, I won’t have to abide by the rules. Should have hit you harder. I did want to give you a chance to wake up, though.”

  She held still, listening, waiting.

  And she realized that it was becoming harder and harder to breathe.

  Dirt was falling on her from cracks in the wood. If he kept going she was going to be smothered by the weight atop her and the earth filling the coffin.

  And her head was still pounding, a horrible, sharp pain that managed to throb as well...

  Wait? Pray?

  Asphyxiate in the earth...

  Or die in a sea of blood.

  * * *

  Griffin was ahead of the others, out of the car as if he was the fictional Flash. He’d used the time riding in the car to study the cemetery map.

  He knew right where to find the grave of Zabdiel Boylston.

  Of course, the killers had used a natural degradation of the earth to bury Barbara Marshall.

  In an old cemetery, that could be anywhere. And now the light had waned.

  He leaped over old slate stones and monuments, running hard. And then he saw a light; just a pinprick.

  It was Hardy. He was still there, standing over the grave. He was using a flashlight.

  Griffin’s heart was thundering.

  He ran and dodged the old stones and the trees with their branches as gnarled as old bones.

  And then, he almost stopped.

  There was a sudden explosion of earth and a splintering of wood. Like some kind of an avenging angel, Vickie was bursting out of the earth, out of the ground that would have been her grave.

  And Hardy was screaming—furious. Kicking at her. And raising his hand. Griffin saw in the pinprick glow of the flashlight the man was holding a knife. And Vickie wouldn’t have the power to fight in any way, to stop him.

  Griffin nearly flew over the last graves.

  He tackled Hardy a split second before the knife could fall on Vickie as she slipped backward, trying to crawl out of the grave.

  He rolled with Hardy, slammed a fist against the hand holding the knife.

&nbs
p; The young man let it go.

  He stared into Griffin’s face, laughing.

  He felt the ghosts of Dylan and Darlene Dutton coming up behind him.

  He resisted the temptation to kill.

  But he slammed his fist against the laughing jaw of Hardy Richardson.

  Jackson ran to the scene, followed by Barnes and more police officers. EMTs rushed forward with them as well.

  He left Hardy Richardson lying on the ground; they would take over.

  He rushed to Vickie’s side.

  She was covered in dirt. There was blood on her forehead. But when he lifted her into his arms, she smiled at him.

  “What took you?” she asked.

  “I’m just not as good without you,” he told her.

  And she smiled.

  Epilogue

  Boston, Massachusetts

  One week later

  “Hold steady, remember there is a little kickback,” Griffin said.

  Vickie gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Her concentration was completely on the task at hand. She held his Glock with both hands.

  Aimed as instructed.

  Fired.

  Damn good.

  “Hey, you could be a crack shot,” he told her.

  She smiled and told him. “I’m going to be. Hey, I’m heading to Virginia with an FBI agent. I’m going to be the best!”

  “Okay, well, that’s good for today. We’re due at your parents’ for dinner.”

  Vickie laughed delightedly. “You can be stoic—incredibly strong. Dare I rhyme and say heroic? And yet, my mother makes you tremble!”

  He smiled, took the Glock and slid it into the holster at the small of his back, then drew her into his arms, protective glasses and ear muffs and everything.

  “You love your parents. I want them to like me. Trust me, my mom can be scary as well. You’ll get to be on the other end soon enough.”

  They left the range and headed to her parents’ condo. They were only in the city a few more days and Vickie, Griffin knew, was trying to see them as often as possible.

  To his surprise, Lucy and Philip greeted them at the door without looking at Vickie with searching, concerned eyes. They naturally asked how they were doing, but they’d stopped treating Vickie as if she was incredibly fragile.

  “Dinner is ready,” her mom said. “Vickie, get the glasses, please. Griffin, there’s a big pitcher of tea in the fridge...oh! I guess your tea is better than our tea.”

  “It’s pretty much the same, Mrs. Preston,” he said.

  “Virginia! You know, Phil, we are retired, and we may have to move,” Lucy said.

  “Oh, my God! Dad out of Boston,” Vickie said.

  “Virginia is a great state—and Massachusetts and Virginia were both incredibly important in the founding of the country. Bostonians went to Virginians for help, you know. I should be just fine if we moved. And you’ll be on the border of DC. Not a bad place at all.”

  “Oh, dear Lord,” Vickie told Griffin, “they are going to move.”

  “If it makes them happy, hey...”

  Lucy sat down and Griffin saw that she was trembling slightly. “Virginia is fine. But Vickie—they have a division of Grown Ups there? Are you sure you want to go that route again?”

  “Yes, Mom. Susan/Cheryl/June wasn’t a kid at all. And the son of someone like Bertram Aldridge...not sure he ever had a chance. There are kids who will have a chance. If people give them a chance. I love working with them, Mom. I love my kids here—and I’m taking a group of them to the aquarium before we leave, just as I had planned.”

  “She’s really stubborn,” Philip warned Griffin.

  “That awful boy! Was he really seventeen?”

  “No one really knows. He was born under a different name—they’re still trying to sift through all the records,” Griffin said. He paused. “The one thing they have fathomed is that his mother was Priscilla Hampton. She was one of Bertram Aldridge’s first victims. Aldridge taught Hardy that women were meant to serve—and that, when they failed to do so, they needed to be put down.”

  “And Susan/Cheryl/June was a petty crook from the time she was in grade school,” Vickie added. “She was the one with the right connections to get falsified papers so she could get into the school system here—as a teen—and get into the Grown Ups program.”

  “Well, she’s gone,” Lucy murmured.

  “Yes,” Griffin agreed.

  “But Hank and Roxanne are both out of the hospital—and doing great!” Vickie said.

  As the meal went on, Griffin was glad to see Lucy and Phil Preston really seemed to be okay with their daughter leaving town.

  He also believed they’d soon be relocating themselves.

  They left at about nine and returned to Vickie’s apartment. She spun in his arms and said, “You’re wonderful! You’re so good to them!”

  “I have an ulterior motive,” he told her. “I’m running after their daughter.”

  “I think you’ve caught her,” Vickie whispered. And she kissed him. Like usual—maybe even more desperately, passionately and urgently since that night in Brookline—they doffed their clothing bit by bit, a little frantically as well, as they made their way to the bedroom.

  They lay together as the night went on, and Griffin talked more about the Krewe of Hunters and the great people Vickie would meet. They were involved with a theater in the area, too—long story, but she would love it!—and in truth, Northern Virginia was a great place to live.

  He wasn’t sure when he fell asleep. But he woke when he heard Vickie stirring.

  He heard a whisper from the parlor; he fought the temptation to reach for his gun. He recognized the sound of the whisper.

  It was Dylan, softly calling for Vickie.

  She rose and grabbed a robe. He swung his legs over the bed, sliding into a pair of jeans, and he followed her out to the parlor.

  Dylan was there with Darlene Dutton.

  “Hey,” Vickie said. She frowned. “Is this...did you come to say goodbye?”

  “Leave you?” Dylan teased. “No. In fact...”

  “In fact?” Vickie asked.

  “We’re here because you can’t leave. Not right away, anyway.”

  “What? Why? What’s happened?” Griffin asked.

  Dylan looked at Darlene. It was evident that he didn’t want to say what he had to say.

  “Your new friend...” Darlene began.

  “What new friend?”

  “The college guy. Alex Maple.”

  Griffin felt Vickie tense and he slipped his arm around her.

  “What about him?” he asked.

  “He was attacked outside his house tonight. He was left for dead.”

  “But he’s not!” Darlene said quickly.

  “He’s going to need you, though. Because he was left with a letter on his body. A letter of warning. Vickie, you’re going to have to see this letter.”

  Vickie looked at Griffin.

  “Of course,” he said softly.

  “Come now!” Dylan urged.

  “Is it even seven in the morning?” Vickie asked.

  “Does that even matter?”

  Griffin’s phone began to ring.

  It was Detective Barnes.

  He listened as the detective urged him to stay awhile at least, there was something going down, something very bad for Boston.

  “We’ll be right there,” he promised.

  Vickie reached for his hand.

  “We’ll be with you!” Dylan promised.

  They headed back into the bedroom to get dressed.

  “There is one thing to all this,” Griffin told her.

  “What’s that?”


  “It seems you’ll now be haunted forever by two ghosts, and not just one.”

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Let’s just be happy for them, huh?”

  She was dressed, that quickly. She started out of the room again.

  “Vickie,” he said, and she turned back, looking at him expectantly.

  “I love you,” he told her.

  She grinned. “About time!”

  “Really? What about you?”

  “I’ve said it a dozen times.”

  “You have not! Not even once.”

  And so she said it, and said it again and again.

  And then he stopped her.

  “We do have to get to work,” he reminded her.

  She grinned, and they headed on out.