by Debra Webb
A shudder went through her and she braced against it. The unsub had said Alyssa’s fate would be sealed. That possibility made Vivian feel ill. Just let us find her. As much as she had loved this cemetery as a kid, something about being here under these circumstances amplified the desperation and her awareness of time passing so swiftly.
Holcomb nodded. “Yes, sir. Resealing all the tombs is part of the master preservation plan. This cemetery’s on the National Historic Registry, you know. Every last one of the tombs had to be resealed to ensure the remains are protected. They started the process a couple months ago.”
McBride’s posture changed, signaling that he had just experienced the same epiphany as she. The sealing of the tombs couldn’t be coincidence.
“Does the process require opening the tombs?” McBride pressed for specificity.
“No, sir.” Holcomb touched the ledge where the top rested against the walls of the casket-sized tomb. “There’s a couple ways of doing it, but these folks didn’t want ’em opened. So the sealing is done right around this ledge with the lids sitting in place. That way there’s no risk to the remains. Air isn’t kind to ’em, you know? And there’s always the fear that some no-account will steal something. Even some of the ones in the business of restoring can’t be trusted. I had to be right with ’em as they done each one.”
“So,” McBride restated, “they’ve all been done? No chance one was skipped?”
Jesus, he was thinking the same thing Vivian was. Her body literally vibrated with the need to pry open every damned one of the tombs. But the timing was off. Holcomb had said the process had started two months ago, well before Alyssa went missing. That would eliminate the possibility of her being sealed up inside one of them.
Holcomb pushed his cap up his forehead and scratched the bald spot there. “There’s—”
A burst of frantic barking had Vivian moving out of the mausoleum since she was closest to the door. The shouting that abruptly accompanied the barking sent adrenaline blazing through her veins.
Her cell phone shook in its holster. She reached for it, her gaze searching the grounds, attempting to locate the activity generating the cacophony. “Grace.” Pratt was on the line; needed them at his location ASAP. One of the dogs had latched on to something. “We’re on our way.”
Vivian looked to McBride as she put her phone away. “Pratt may have found something.”
“The girl?”
“Don’t know.” Her pulse was tripping with the knowledge that the handlers had been provided with the pajamas Alyssa had slept in the night before she disappeared, which meant the animals could be on to her scent.
As they started across the cemetery, McBride called back to the caretaker, “Double-check your records on the sealing of the tombs. We’ll get back to that.”
Holcomb looked a little flustered or perplexed but Vivian didn’t have time to analyze his problem since McBride had taken hold of her arm and was tugging her along with him. She had to practically run to keep up with his long strides.
He jerked his head toward the street. “Looks like word’s out that we’re here.”
Vivian glanced in that direction. The news vans and reporters had gathered in force. Birmingham PD was keeping them outside the cemetery gate, but that wouldn’t stop their intruding zoom lenses. She understood that the media was part of this business but she didn’t have to like it. The call letters of one station in particular, WKRT, caught her eye, which meant that Nadine Goodman was on the scene already. There wasn’t an agent or a cop in Birmingham who liked the lady. She had earned her reputation of cutthroat reporting by stepping on and over anyone necessary.
She and McBride pushed through the crowd of cops when they reached Pratt’s location.
“In here,” Pratt said. He gestured to the open mausoleum.
“Was it unlocked when you got here?” McBride assessed the rusty iron door that stood partially open.
Pratt nodded. “The dog nudged the door open a little farther but it was already unlocked and ajar. The handler had to restrain the animal.”
The dog had settled down but he was still visibly agitated.
“We’ll check it out,” McBride told him. “You and the handler stay put but get the rest of these folks back to the search. It’s getting dark fast.”
Vivian looked up at the sky; he was right about that. She reached into her jacket pocket and passed McBride a pair of gloves. When she’d tugged her own into place, she unholstered her weapon and followed him into the mausoleum.
She grimaced at the pungent odor. Blood...decomp. The deeper they moved inside, the more the foul smell worsened. This mausoleum was larger than the last. Two tombs stood on raised stone platforms. The floor was clean, as if someone had swept it. The cobwebs and dust on the walls and every other surface indicated the floor shouldn’t have been so clean. Their unsub wasn’t leaving anything to chance, not even his shoeprints in the dust.
“He’s been here,” McBride muttered.
With no immediate threat visible, she re-holstered her weapon. “Looks that way.” As convinced as she had been that this was too easy...that there had to be a mistake, looking around now she admitted that McBride was right...he had been here.
“Oh God.” She pointed to the corner on her right. She had to lean slightly in that direction to see it, but there was no mistaking what it was. “A burlap bag,” she said aloud. Pain snarled deep in her chest. “Possibly bloodstained.”
McBride eased between the two tombs, headed for that corner. She took care to follow his exact path to avoid disturbing any evidence that might be invisible to the naked eye on the cleanly swept floor.
“Should we get a forensics team in here first?” All the rules of procedure she had learned were suddenly missing from her readily accessible gray matter. Dear God, she couldn’t bear the thought of what that bag might contain. Damn it! Why did it have to turn out this way?
McBride looked from her to the bag. “If the kid’s already dead, we need to know it now.” He shook his head slowly, his face grim. “I hate these bastards.”
She couldn’t agree more.
As he crouched down to inspect the bloody bag, images of what might be inside flared in vivid color before her retinas. Vivian told herself to move. To get over there and do what she could to assist him...but she couldn’t prompt her body into action. Something she couldn’t brand as fear but couldn’t rule out as exactly that had paralyzed her.
And then, as if some mental door had suddenly swung open, the memories came.
Flashes of darkness...whispered words seared through her brain. And she was suddenly back there...in the dark...with him whispering in her ear...her every instinct warning that she was going to die.
A gasp drew dank, dusty air into her lungs.
“Agent Grace?”
McBride was staring at her.
Vivian blinked, wrestled for composure. “I’m...” She licked her lips, forced her legs to move. “I’m okay.” She crouched down next to him. “Let’s get it over with.”
Focus, damn it! Analyze the details. Do your job! “The bag isn’t large enough to hold a six-year-old girl unless...” She gulped back the bile rising in her throat. More of those flashes from the past bombarded her senses. Body parts...missing pieces...half-eaten flesh.
“Unless she’s been dismembered,” McBride finished for her, his expression questioning. “Not enough blood for that, Grace. Excluding the possibility,” he qualified, his tone cool and analytical, “the dismembering took place at a different location.”
Don’t look at the past! Pay attention. This wasn’t easy on McBride either. As collected as he sounded, he reached for the tie of the bag and his hands shook.
Details, Grace. Look at the details. Twine. Carefully knotted. A minute-plus was required for him to get the knots undone. Every second aged her a decade. Had the rage inside her building toward an eruption. Please don’t let this be that little girl. Please. Please. Please.
W
hen the bag was open, she leaned forward just as he did. Peered inside. Shit! She jerked back. Her butt slammed onto the floor.
“Is that...?” She dragged in a bumpy gulp of air, looked to McBride for confirmation.
“Rats,” he muttered as he stared into the bag. “A whole bag full of rats.”
Not the child...not the child.
Thank God.
Grabbing back her courage, she levered up from the floor.
“Hold this,” he ordered.
Easy for him to say. Her hands shaking, her legs a little rubbery, Vivian crouched next to him once more and held the bag open. He used the Maglite to get a better look.
Why the hell would this creep kill all those rats? As much as she disliked the rodents, torturing any living creature was just sick.
“What do we have here?” McBride lifted a rat from the pile. What appeared to be a toe tag hung from its hind leg.
Vivian shuddered, felt her traitorous stomach do another of those warning flip-flops.
“UAB Medical Research Center,” McBride read off. His profile hardened. “Andrew Quinn.”
Vivian tilted her head to read the name written on the toe tag. “Isn’t that your old supervisor?”
McBride heaved a mighty breath. “The one and only.”
“Wait.” She leaned closer, nudged one corner of the tag with a gloved finger. “There’s something written on the back.”
No more rats.
A muscle flexed in McBride’s jaw. He carefully placed the tagged rat back in the bag. “We’ve got a whole tribe of rats in here, but nothing human as far as I can tell.” His eyes locked with hers. “He’s playing with us, Grace. He knew we’d use the K-9s. He must have had the bag in contact with the girl at some point to lock in her scent.”
Vivian couldn’t see a connection. And if there was no connection, why the hell was this bastard wasting the time he had given them? The theory that this was some kind of revenge McBride had plotted for being terminated by the Bureau kept rearing its ugly head.
“What would any of this have to do with Alyssa Byrne?” she asked, trying not to sound openly suspicious. She was determined to give him the benefit of the doubt until he no longer deserved it...or until they found the child.
“Nothing,” McBride admitted, “this is about me.” He studied the way the bag sat against the wall. Picked up the twine and considered how it had been tied. “Whatever his game, this whack-job wants to draw out the anticipation. He probably gets off on the risk of playing in the shadow of authority.” He turned his face to hers. “And you know what? He’s not afraid of us or of getting caught. Not the least bit.”
She hoped he wasn’t right about that last part. Fear was what kept most people in line—and what made most criminals screw up. They needed for this nutcase to screw up—fast.
“What now?” Vivian wanted to scream in frustration. If the child wasn’t at this cemetery...where did that leave them? Time was running out and they had nothing. Her stomach roiled. The putrid smell was getting to her. She kept seeing flashes of the old movie Willard, the images twisting with the pictures she had seen of Alyssa Byrne...and with mental snapshots from the past she had thought was behind her once and for all.
McBride tossed the twine aside and stood. She rose, her legs liquid. This wasn’t the time to allow the past to catch up with her and throw her off balance. She’d completely overreacted to this scene. That kind of behavior did nothing but work against her determination to be the best agent possible.
With one last look around the mausoleum, McBride said, “We’ll need to find out if those rats came from the research center listed on the toe tag.” He considered the bag a moment longer. “Were they stolen before or after being euthanized? Maybe we’ll get lucky and our guy got in a hurry and left some DNA behind.”
Vivian nodded. Wished she hadn’t. The movement had her gag reflex kicking in. “I need some air.” She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Outside she gasped for a breath that didn’t reek of rotting rodents.
McBride came out behind her, peeled off the gloves. “If you need to puke don’t hold back on my account,” he encouraged. “Just find a spot away from the crime scene.”
And here she’d begun to think the man had feelings. “I’m good,” she snapped.
McBride quickly surveyed the cemetery before turning his next question on Pratt. “Where’s our caretaker?”
Pratt pointed to the memorial building. “He’s waiting inside with Schaffer.”
“I want to know why the lock was missing and no one had noticed.” McBride shifted his attention back to the mausoleum and then to her. “How long will it take forensics to get here?”
“Aldridge made the call en route.” Vivian took another deep cleansing breath, wiped a loose strand of hair from her face. “They should be here soon.”
“I don’t want anyone going back in there until the techs have gone over it from top to bottom.”
“That’s the way we do things, McBride.” She shot him an irritated look. “Believe it or not, we’ve done this before.” Technically, she hadn’t, but Aldridge and Davis and the others had—plenty of times.
“I’ll be waiting here for the techs,” Pratt assured him.
McBride didn’t bother with a comeback to her smart-aleck remark, which was just as well. She wasn’t in the mood. She led the way to the memorial building. The search of the grounds continued but nightfall would significantly hinder their efforts. If Alyssa wasn’t at this cemetery, what were the chances they would narrow down her location before time ran out?
Not good. And that just wasn’t acceptable.
Her gaze landed on McBride. He had to figure this out. He was all they had. She was counting on him.
Inside the memorial building Schaffer immediately brought them up to speed. “Holcomb double-checked the records. All tombs have been resealed except for the two in one mausoleum.”
Anticipation nudged Vivian’s faltering hope. “Which one?”
“The Wellborne mausoleum.” Holcomb indicated a place on the cemetery map that hung on the wall. “It’s the largest one. Sits next to Potter’s Field.”
McBride restrained Vivian with a hand on her arm when she would have headed for the door. “Why hasn’t that one been resealed yet?”
“The family put up a fuss. There was a big write-up in the newspaper about three weeks back. They finally reached an agreement just last week. The final two are scheduled to be resealed tomorrow.”
Another adrenaline surge blasted Vivian. The impression of a smile claimed McBride’s mouth.
“What time tomorrow?” he asked.
Holcomb checked the calendar on the desk. “Eleven a.m. sharp.”
A knowing look passed between Vivian and McBride.
“Take us there,” McBride ordered the caretaker.
“It’s not far,” Holcomb assured. “It was the first mausoleum built on Oak Hill.”
Vivian knew the one. “Follow me,” she said to McBride, moving toward the door. This time he was ready to go.
She put in a call to Aldridge to inform the others as they rushed toward Potter’s Field.
The Wellborne mausoleum didn’t look nearly so grand as the others. Big and plain, its walls cracked and crumbling. She remembered she had never liked that one as a child, too creepy. It sat alone on the edge of the line that marked off the stretch of ground where paupers had been buried. The few forlorn headstones in that section leaned with the fatigue of time and the elements. The story had made her feel sad for the indigent and unknown folks buried away from the wealthier magnates who had made Birmingham a steel city during the late eighteen-hundreds.
The handlers and K-9s joined the progression toward the mausoleum but the animals showed no reaction. Half a dozen yards from the entrance McBride stopped.
“No one goes past this point until I’ve had a look.”
Vivian wanted to argue but she didn’t. Schaffer provided the necessary gloves sinc
e Vivian had already used those in her pocket and her purse was back in the Edge.
Still no reaction from the K-9s. And yet, she felt charged. Psyched. This had to be it...Alyssa had to be here.
McBride tugged on the gloves and started forward. When Vivian didn’t follow he glanced back. “You coming?”
Surprised that he hadn’t included her in his edict, she quickly pulled on her gloves and hustled to catch up to him.
The door was closed, the lock secured.
“Holcomb!” McBride motioned for the caretaker to join them.
The man hurried forward with the ring of keys.
McBride held up a hand for him to stop a few feet away. “Toss me your keys.”
Holcomb readily obliged. “Won’t do you no good though.” He pointed to the door. “That’s not one of our locks.”
“Damn it,” McBride growled. “Somebody get me a bolt cutter!”
Agent Schaffer double-timed it back to the memorial building with the caretaker. Minutes ticked by, each second exploding in Vivian’s chest like a blast of supercharged adrenaline.
Even McBride looked rattled now. Did he need more aspirin or maybe coffee? He’d probably tell her what he really needed was a good stiff drink. If he found Alyssa Byrne before it was too late, she would take McBride out and buy him anything to drink he wanted.
By the time the bolt cutters were in McBride’s hand, Vivian felt certain her heart would rupture. He snapped the lock and tossed the tool aside.
Holding her breath, she watched him push the door inward then stop.
“I need shoe covers,” he said to no one in particular.
Agent Davis rushed forward to provide the necessary protective measures.
Fully prepared now, Vivian followed McBride into the mausoleum, her hand on the butt of her weapon. The first thing that grabbed her attention was the smell. Unlike before, no blood or decomp. This odor was unmistakable. Skunk. Her stomach seized. She covered her nose with the back of her hand and wished she had some salve to help block the odor.
Like the other mausoleum the floor had been swept clean, and the two tombs sat atop their platforms seemingly undisturbed.