The Restorer tgqs-1

by Amanda Stevens

  A blizzard of cotton fluff swirled in the air as an icy gust swept back my hair. It was getting closer. So close I could feel a preternatural dampness against my skin, but still I couldn’t move.

  Then my heart jerked, sending a spurt of adrenaline through my bloodstream. I spun around to the path and ran.

  I heard nothing behind me. No pounding footsteps. No snapping twigs. But I knew it was back there, knew that I couldn’t outpace it for long, that…thing, that dark entity.

  Still, I kept going.

  A moment later, I emerged from the weeds and saw Devlin. He was alone and coming toward me, and I reacted purely on instinct. I ran straight into his arms. I had some momentum going, but he caught me with ease and without noticeable reluctance.

  He was so warm, so strong, so…human. And he felt so good. I didn’t move away as I should have, but sank even deeper into the embrace. “What’s wrong?”

  Too breathless to speak, I could only shiver.

  His arms tightened around me and now I felt a bit of that protectiveness I’d sensed in him earlier. He lent me the comfort of his chest for a moment longer before he stepped back and held me at arm’s length, searching my face.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Fear and shock made me speak without thinking. “I saw something at the edge of the woods.”

  “What was it? An animal?”

  “No…a shadow.” An entity. A ghost. One of the Others.

  He stared down at me, perplexed but trying to make sense of my babbling. “You saw someone’s shadow?” Not someone. Something.

  “I didn’t get a good look at it. When it came after me, I just turned and ran.”

  His hands gripped my arms. “Came after you? Someone chased you?”

  “Yes. At least…yes.”

  “But you didn’t see a face.”

  “No. I didn’t see a face.”

  His gaze swept the woods behind me. “It was probably just some kid from the university trying to scare you. I’ll go have a look.”

  “Devlin?”

  I’m not even sure what I meant to say to him, but the words fled as I glanced over his shoulder where a luminous shimmer had appeared.

  A moment later, his ghosts floated through the veil into the falling twilight.

  Devlin found nothing in the woods. I wasn’t surprised. The thing I’d glimpsed at the tree line didn’t have enough substance to leave even a footprint, but somehow it had force. I’d never felt anything like it.

  But at the moment, I had something else to worry about. We were standing by my car and Devlin’s ghosts were with him. The chill of their presence consumed me. It was all I could do not to shiver and give myself away.

  The child remained at his side, cheek resting against his leg, but the woman had glided forward this time. Her boldness alarmed me. The icy fire of her eyes frightened me. I didn’t look at her full on, of course, but I could still see her. She had been a beautiful woman. Exotic and sultry. Even in death, her essence was powerful. Palpable.

  Devlin peered down at me. “Are you sure you’re all right?” He touched my arm and a bolt of lightning shot through me. The air all around us became electric and my every nerve ending tingled from the charge.

  Drawn by the surge of energy, the woman drifted to my side. She placed her hand on my arm, mimicking Devlin. The heat of the day still lingered on my skin, and she slid her fingers up my arm, savoring the warmth, as she floated around me. I could feel her hands in my hair, her breath in my ear. Her lips against my neck. Her touch was like the coldest of whispers, and it came to me that she wasn’t just drawn to my warmth. She was taunting me.

  She stood behind me, Devlin in front of me. A more chilling ménage à trois I couldn’t imagine. It took every ounce of my strength to ignore those ghostly caresses. Devlin had said something to me, but I didn’t hear a word of it.

  I stared at him now, making him the focus of my concentration. His expression never changed. He was completely unaware of the dynamics that played out all around us.

  “I almost forgot to tell you,” I said, my voice only slightly breathless. “I saw someone earlier. A private detective named Tom Gerrity.”

  Everything shifted. The ghost’s hands stilled in my hair as Devlin’s expression grew rigid. She drifted back to his side, and then she and the child melted into the background, as if his sudden tension had repelled them.

  “What did he want?” His words came out cold and clipped. I had to suppress another shudder.

  “He asked me to give you a message.”

  “What message?”

  Quickly, I told him everything I could recall of my conversation with the P.I. Devlin said nothing, but I could tell the very mention of Gerrity’s name had upset him.

  “He said he needed a go-between because he’s persona non grata with the police department,” I said. “What did he do?”

  A muscle worked in Devlin’s jaw. “He used to be a cop. A case went bad and another cop died because of him.”

  I had a feeling there was a lot more to the story, but I wouldn’t hear it from Devlin. Which was just as well. It was time the night ended for us. I needed to get away from him and his ghosts. Away from Oak Grove and that thing that had come out of the woods. A lot had happened and I wanted to be home, safe and sound, in my own little sanctuary to try and make sense of it.

  But as I drove away, I found myself missing Devlin’s touch. Cold and bereft, I summoned Papa’s rules and chanted them to myself.

  Twelve

  Temple and I had agreed to meet at Rapture that night, a fusion cuisine restaurant housed in a beautiful old building on Meeting Street that had once been a rectory. Whether the building or the ground beneath was hallowed, I had no idea, but it was one of the few places in Charleston—despite its many churches—where I felt safe and at peace. And I needed that tonight more than ever.

  After leaving the cemetery, I’d gone home to shower and change, and had tried not to think about that thing that had come out of the woods. Or of Devlin and his ghosts. I wanted to believe my imagination had played some role in the events of the day, but hours later, I was still shaken.

  Even as a child, I’d never experienced the kind of terror I’d felt on the path. My father had instilled in me a fear of ghosts, but he had also given me a way to protect myself from them. Now I wasn’t so sure those rules would be enough. Whatever had surfaced from the woods was like nothing I had seen before.

  They are colder, stronger, hungrier than any presence you can imagine.

  Papa’s warning made me shudder with dread and I wondered how it all tied together—Devlin’s ghosts, the reappearance of the old man’s entity and now that shadow creature. And at the center of it all, my burgeoning attraction for a haunted man. It should have been a simple matter to keep my distance from Devlin, but even when we were apart, I felt his pull.

  Finding a parking place a few blocks from the restaurant, I hurried along the still-bustling streets, keeping watch over my shoulder. It wasn’t just otherworldly dangers I had to worry about tonight. As long as a killer was on the loose, I wasn’t about to let down my guard.

  The breeze died away and my hair bristled a warning as the barometric pressure dropped, trapping the city in a heavy, waiting stillness. That eerie calm before the storm.

  Temple was waiting in the bar area when I arrived and I was nonplussed to discover she’d invited Ethan Shaw to join us. Not that I minded his company. He’d inherited enough of his father’s charm and charisma to be an interesting dinner companion. But where Rupert had the fading looks of an aging film star, Ethan was more the boy-next-door type.

  Once we were seated, I quickly discovered that he and Temple knew one another from their undergraduate studies at Emerson. I was dying to find out more about Afton Delacourt’s murder and the rumors that involved the Order of the Coffin and the Claw, but since Rupert had apparently been implicated in the slaying, I thought it best to wait until Temple and I were alone. After debri
efing them on the Oak Grove discovery, I quietly sipped my Cabernet Sauvignon and let the two of them catch up.

  My chair was situated so that I had a view of the garden through the arched window by our table. Just beyond the fountain, a ghost hovered in deep shadow.

  From what I could see, he’d been a young man when he died—high school age, I assumed, because he wore a maroon letterman’s jacket with a gold W on the breast and sleeve. He had a beefy build with a thick neck and broad, bullish features.

  He stood with feet apart, arms in an aggressive, simian position away from his body. Ghosts of the young, particularly those of children, always touched me, but this one was different. There was something about him—apart from being dead—that I found extremely unpleasant. Frightful even. No matter what they’d done in life, the aura that surrounded most ghosts was misty and ethereal, but I saw no grace or beauty in this manifestation. He was surrounded by darkness, contorted by hostility and wrath, and I didn’t like looking at him.

  Casually, I picked up my wineglass and turned away from the window, wondering if he had a host somewhere inside the restaurant.

  Temple had deftly maneuvered the conversation around to her favorite subject—her work. She looked lovely tonight in a white cotton tunic and jeans. The beaded neckline gave the simple shirt a bohemian flair that suited her.

  “Two years and I still haven’t found a suitable replacement for Amelia,” she lamented to Ethan. “She was my detail person. A real pain-in-the-ass stickler. We moved a cemetery once and everything had to be replicated right down to the placement of each seashell. Drove me crazy back then, but now I only wish I had two of her.”

  “Flatterer,” I accused.

  “No, it’s true. You just don’t find that kind of work ethic these days.”

  “I guess I was raised right.”

  “I guess you were.” She smiled.

  “Dad told me you were awarded the Oak Grove contract. Congratulations.” Ethan saluted me with his wineglass.

  “Thank you, but how did Dr. Shaw know about the contract? I understood the whole operation was to be kept under wraps until the unveiling.”

  “He sits on the committee that gave final approval.”

  “I see. Well, I appreciate his faith in me, but unless I can make significant progress fairly quickly, I’m not sure how much longer my services will be needed.”

  “The delays aren’t your fault,” he said. “The committee will understand that.”

  “The committee, maybe. I’m not so sure about Dr. Ashby.”

  “Camille Ashby?” Temple gave a derisive snort.

  I stared across the table. “How do you know Dr. Ashby?”

  “Camille was at Emerson with us,” Ethan explained.

  “She and I were roommates for a time.” Delicately, Temple blotted her ruby lips on her napkin. “We were quite close until she tried to kill me.”

  “She…what?” I stared at her in amazement.

  “It’s true.” She shrugged, as though an accusation of attempted murder was an everyday occurrence. “I woke up one night to find her standing over me with a pair of scissors. It was pretty apparent she didn’t have arts and crafts on her mind.”

  “That’s crazy. Why would she try to kill you?” I’d never known Temple to exaggerate, let alone outright fabricate, but this accusation was a little far-fetched. I couldn’t imagine anyone less likely to attack another person with a pair of scissors than Camille Ashby, if for no other reason than abhorrence for the mess it would make.

  “I’m afraid it’s one of those unseemly little tales,” Temple said, her eyes glittering in the candlelight. “Shall I tell it?”

  “By all means,” Ethan said and shot me a grin.

  “Well. It happened during our junior year,” she began with a flourish. “We’d had some classes together the year before so we were already acquainted, but then outside circumstances conspired to throw us into the same arena. We found we had a lot in common—both into freedom of expression and experimentation, socially as well as sexually.”

  “I like this story already,” Ethan said, with some enthusiasm.

  “To cut to the chase, Camille wasn’t as liberated as she led me to believe. She was competitive, jealous and quite the vindictive little bitch. She took our fling seriously—”

  “Wait, back up. Fling, you say?” Ethan gave her a pained look. “Why must you gloss over the most interesting details?”

  “You have an imagination, use it,” Temple advised. “Anyway, when Camille caught me with a guy one night, things got ugly. She smashed my computer, ripped up all my clothes. Told the most vicious lies about me. I tried to salvage our friendship, but after the incident with the scissors, I got the hell out. I haven’t seen her in years, but with her issues, I can’t imagine she’s changed much.”

  “She’s still wound pretty tightly,” Ethan agreed.

  Temple picked up her glass. “It has to be exhausting spending most of your life pretending to be something you’re not. Given enough time, secrets have a way of becoming terrible burdens.”

  I thought of my father’s secrets, my secrets, and felt a momentary depression.

  “Why would she have to keep her sexual orientation a secret?” I asked rather naively. “I can’t imagine anyone caring about her personal life.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Pollyanna. Emerson may be a liberal arts college, but the board and much of the alumni are still very conservative. And her family’s even worse, especially her father. The old man’s head would probably explode if she came out. Not that that would be a bad thing,” Temple added, her voice tainted with venom.

  Earlier when I’d seen Camille and Devlin together at the cemetery, I’d been quick to jump to the wrong conclusion about a romantic relationship, and it wasn’t to my credit now that mostly what I felt was relief.

  I thought of his hand on my arm, the ghost’s taunting caresses, and shivered. The episode at the cemetery had upset me in so many ways for so many reasons. Devlin could not have been more off-limits to me if he had been a ghost himself. And yet I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  The table fell silent as our first course arrived—she-crab soup for Ethan and Temple, beet and arugula salad for me. When the waiter stepped away, I saw the ghost again.

  His frozen gaze locked with mine, giving me a terrible chill. But unlike my behavior with Devlin, I was in perfect control…until I heard the shatter of glass.

  For a terrifying moment, I thought he’d caused the window to break. Then I realized the sound had come from our table. Temple’s glass had cracked and smashed against her soup bowl. I stared in shock at the crimson dripping between her fingers.

  “Temple, your hand!”

  “No, it’s okay. Just wine. See?” She dabbed it with her napkin. “I don’t know what happened. The glass just…disintegrated.”

  Ethan had jumped up from his seat and rushed around to her chair. “Are you sure? Let me take a look.”

  “I’m not cut,” she insisted, pushing back her chair. “I’ll just go clean myself up. You two eat.”

  Before she’d stood, the waitstaff had arrived to mop up the spill and sweep away the broken glass, all done so discreetly that only those seated nearby were aware of anything amiss.

  Another glass was brought to the table, more wine was poured, and I chanced another glance out the window. It had started to mist. I watched the candles sputter out on the tables and wondered where the ghost had gone.

  A man from a nearby table rose and approached Ethan. I assumed he was a colleague so I paid little attention to their conversation until I heard my name. I looked up with a start.

  “Sorry. I was a million miles away.”

  “I was just wondering if you’d met Daniel,” Ethan said. “He’s one of South Carolina’s most distinguished historians.”

  “Dependant on whom you ask, of course.” His smile was a little wistful, a little self-deprecating. “Daniel Meakin.”

  “Amelia Gray
.”

  “If there’s anything you need to know about Charleston, Daniel is your man,” Ethan said.

  “I’ll remember that.”

  He turned to Meakin. “Amelia is something of a historian herself. She’s a cemetery restorer.”

  “Ah. Now, there’s an intriguing profession.” Meakin stood with his right hand clasped over his left, a self-conscious gesture that made him look as though he was trying to control some nervous tic. “I love graveyards. We can learn so much from the dead.”

  Exactly what Devlin had said earlier, but in an entirely different context.

  “You’ll be happy to hear that Amelia has been hired by the committee to restore Oak Grove.” Ethan gave me a contrite glance. “Sorry. I’m letting the cat out of the bag, but in light of what’s happened, I don’t think it matters anymore.”

  A shadow flitted across Meakin’s birdlike features. “Dreadful business. I can’t fathom…”

  “Yes, terrible,” Ethan agreed. They exchanged a glance.

  “Had you been working long in the cemetery when they found the body?” Meakin asked.

  “A few days. I’d just started photographing.”

  He shook his head. “Such a shame. I certainly hope you’ll be able to resume the restoration once things get back to normal. Whatever that means,” he added with an ironic smile. “Oak Grove has been a thorn in Emerson’s side for years. I can’t imagine why it’s been allowed to linger for so long in such a dismal state. A matter of funding, I suppose.”

  “It’s not unusual. Cemetery upkeep is expensive and there are other priorities. Once the gates are locked on abandoned graveyards, people tend to forget they exist.”

  “But now you’re here to bring it all back to life.” He beamed down at me, his small, white teeth gleaming in the candlelight. “Oak Grove is actually two separate cemeteries, you know. The older area especially has a number of important historical features, including at least a couple of markers carved by the Bighams,” he said, naming a famous family of stonecutters.