Devlin’s head came up and he stared at me across the tomb.
“The imagery is all the same—the feather, the winged effigy and now a butterfly. The soul in flight. But he isn’t just releasing their souls—he’s freeing them from their earthly shackles.” I glanced back down at the stone. “Hannah Fischer’s mother said that her daughter had a history of abusive relationships, starting with her father. She kept the identity of her latest boyfriend a secret because she knew her mother would try to save her. Do you remember the epitaph on the headstone of the grave where she was buried? ‘The midnight stars weep upon her silent grave. Dead but dreaming, this child we could not save.’”
Devlin eyed me silently.
“The remains that were excavated yesterday… Ethan said she’d been in a terrible accident before she died. Her injuries were so severe she probably had chronic pain and months if not years of physical therapy ahead of her. ‘How soon fades this gentle rose, Freed from earthly woes, She lies in eternal repose.’ Earthly woes. Physical pain. And now we have this one.”
The four of us stared down at the tomb. Devlin and I were on either side and the officers stood at each end.
I read the epitaph aloud. “‘A quiet life, a quiet death. Sleep now, Beloved. Our secret is safe.’”
“Damn, that’s creepy,” one of the officers muttered.
I drew a long breath, my gaze still on the symbol. “The lid will have to be lifted straight up off the tabs.”
“Don’t we need a court order for that sort of thing?” the other officer asked nervously.
“Box tombs were built to fool grave robbers. The body, at least the one first interred here, is buried deep in the ground. The remains won’t be disturbed by removing the lid.”
“I’ll take responsibility,” Devlin said, and I fancied I saw the flash of his silver medallion in the moonlight. “Let’s lift it up.”
The top was only a few inches up when the smell came rolling out. I stifled a gag and pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth. The officers groaned, from the weight of the cover and the putrid odor.
“A little higher,” Devlin instructed as he knelt and shined his light inside. He pressed the back of his other hand against his mouth and nose. “Jesus.”
As the lid slowly inched up the tabs, I caught sight of the pale face inside. It was Camille Ashby.
The swirl of police lights painted the darkness as Devlin walked me back to my car. He told me that he would have someone follow me home and make sure my house was watched all night. I thanked him and then we fell silent as we made our way to the road.
Once again, it appeared that the entire Charleston Police Department had descended on Oak Grove. We must have met at least half a dozen officers trudging through the tall weeds. As we emerged onto the road, the Charleston County coroner’s van pulled up to the curb and Regina Sparks got out. She walked right past us in the dark.
“What’s going to happen now?” There would have to be another search, which meant more graves and tombs would likely be defiled. I hated the thought of a mass desecration, but the sanctity of Oak Grove had been tainted a long time ago. Evil had lurked in this graveyard for years. “Why do I have the awful feeling this place will be torn apart before all is said and done?”
“We’ll do what we can to protect the graves,” Devlin said. “But my guess is we’re going to find more bodies.”
More bodies. More epitaphs. I was filled with the worst kind of dread.
Devlin stared down at me thoughtfully. “I don’t think you should come back out here tomorrow. Go home and get some rest. Put this behind you for a while.”
“Put it behind me? How would that even be possible? The killer is communicating through me. If he posts another epitaph to my blog, am I supposed to ignore it?”
“Of course not. I want you to call me. But call me. No one else.”
The glint of his eyes in the moonlight made me shiver. I couldn’t see the silver chain around his neck, but I knew it was there, along with the medallion. The symbol that protected him and set him above the law, at least in Charleston.
“This is a messy investigation,” he said. “A lot of politics, a lot of finger-pointing. And it’s only going to get worse with Camille’s murder. Her people have a lot of influence. They’ll want answers.”
“Good. Maybe this time there won’t be a cover-up.”
“It’s not that simple. I told you before the interest in this case goes all the way to the top. You don’t want to mess with these people. You don’t even want them to know your name.”
“Who are these people?”
“The power brokers. The wealthy and the privileged. The people who run things in this city.”
Does that include you? I wanted to ask.
My mouth went suddenly dry. “They wouldn’t try to implicate me, would they?”
“That won’t happen.” He sounded dead certain. “But I still think you need to lay low for a while. Get some distance from all this.”
I started to ask how I was supposed to distance myself when for all I knew that black sedan might be waiting for me around the next corner. But then I wondered if he was even still talking about the investigation. Maybe he meant I should get some distance…from him.
“If that’s what you want.”
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate all your help.” He reached around me to open my door.
Being so near him was doing something to me. I didn’t go weak like I did when he slept in my house. It was a different feeling. A more subtle exchange of energy. I moved closer, until I could smell his cologne and that powerful essence that was his alone.
Pheromones, Regina Sparks had called it. Whatever it was, I was completely captivated.
And I had just left Camille Ashby’s tomb. What did that say about me? About my control?
Devlin drew a breath. When he spoke, I thought he sounded a little strained and I wondered what that said about his control. “Go home, Amelia. Get some rest.”
I loved the sound of my name on his lips. That drawl did things to me, too. I wanted him to say it again, in a whisper this time, right against my ear.
I closed my eyes and let myself fantasize about that and more.
“Call me if you need me,” he said. I felt his breath in my hair and a little thrill went through me. I looked up into his face and his eyes took me in. “Good night…Amelia.”
Not a whisper and not in my ear, but pretty darn close.
I let out a sigh. “Good night.”
It wasn’t until I was well away from the cemetery that I realized something. Where were his ghosts?
THIRTY-THREE
Was it possible they were gone?
I thought about it all the way home. I’d never known anyone else who was haunted—though I had seen plenty of strangers trailed by ghosts—so I had no idea if anyone was ever released. Papa had always said that once an entity latched onto someone, that person’s life would never again be their own. But it seemed to me that a ghost could move on, perhaps to another host or even to another realm.
If Devlin’s guilt had kept Mariama’s and Shani’s ghosts tied to him, what would happen if that guilt started to fade? What would happen if he moved on?
I remembered what Essie had told me. Someday soon Devlin would have to make a choice between the living and the dead. What if he had already made that choice?
Then again, maybe all of this was just wishful thinking.
I tried to put it out of my mind, told myself I wouldn’t dwell on it. Camille Ashby had been murdered and her killer had sent me to that tomb. For whatever reason, he’d decided to communicate through me, and the idea that I was a madman’s conduit was very unsettling.
Devlin had made it clear that he no longer wanted me involved in the case, but the killer might have other ideas. I was brooding about all that when the doorbell rang a little while later. I glanced out the side window, shocked to see Devlin on my front porch. I’d assumed he would be busy at the
cemetery for hours.
I led him back to my office because I didn’t know what else to do with him. Like me, he’d showered and changed since our parting at Oak Grove, no doubt trying to scrub away the putrid odor particular to human decay that lingered in the nostrils. As he followed me through the darkened house, I could smell nothing but the fresh mint of his soap and the spicier notes of his cologne. I drew it in on a sigh.
We took our usual places—I plopped down behind my desk and he sat on the chaise. I could tell something was on his mind, but he seemed in no hurry to speak. Since I’d developed an aversion to long silences in his company and could think of no other topic, I asked about Camille. “Could you tell much about her wounds?”
“She was stabbed, but the wounds were different from the others. It was a fast kill. No ligature marks, either. From the cuts on her hands, it looks like she put up a good fight.”
“Why didn’t he string her up like the others?”
“Maybe he was interrupted or ran out of time,” Devlin said. “Or maybe he’s toying with us. He establishes a pattern and then deliberately breaks it. Afton Delacourt was murdered fifteen years ago. We uncover remains in a grave that have been there five to ten years. And now two murders within days of each other.”
“And the skeleton in the chamber that was shackled at the wrists,” I said.
“Right.” Devlin ran a hand through his hair. “This guy is really starting to piss me off.”
I shared his frustration. “I wonder when he got to Camille. The last time I saw her was in the archives room at Emerson.”
“The best way to calculate time of death is to find the person who last saw her alive. It may have been you.” He looked exhausted in the lamplight. “Camille had been dead at least twenty-four hours when we found her. We’ll have a better estimate after the autopsy.”
“I remember something about that day we saw her at Oak Grove. She received a text message and left abruptly. Maybe it was from the killer. If you can find her phone, you could trace that message back to the sender.”
“We don’t even need the phone. We can check the records.”
“Of course you would have already thought of that,” I murmured.
“What I didn’t think of was the significance of those epitaphs. The symbols, yes. Once you explained the soul-in-flight imagery, it seemed pretty obvious. But he handpicked those inscriptions for each of his victims. That was all you.”
“I’m not sure where that gets us, though.”
“It’s helpful. Those epitaphs and symbols are both important elements to figuring out his motivation.”
“Does he have a motive? That device we found in the chamber and the way he tortured those women…” I trailed off on a shudder. “It seems to me he kills for pleasure.”
“I don’t think he’s strictly a thrill killer, but he undoubtedly derives a certain amount of pleasure from taking lives. Considering the symbolism and epitaphs, I think it more likely that he’s devised a persona for himself as a liberator or an angel of mercy in order to neutralize actions that he knows are wrong.”
“Aren’t mercy-killers usually women?”
“Usually, but not always. And it doesn’t explain the way Camille was killed.”
“Did you know that she was a lesbian?”
He shrugged. “I’ve heard that rumor for years, but never thought much about it one way or the other.”
“According to Temple, Camille never came out because her sexual orientation would have caused a lot of problems for her, both at Emerson and with her family.”
He gave me a pensive frown. “What’s your point? You think a female lover killed her?”
“That epitaph just seems so personal. ‘A quiet life, a quiet death. Rest now, beloved. Our secret is safe.’”
We had our moments. Wasn’t that what Temple had told me about her fling with Camille?
“But the inscription wasn’t written for Camille,” Devlin reminded me. “That tomb is over a hundred and fifty years old. Not to say the killer didn’t somehow find out about her personal life. He could have chosen the epitaph for its dual meaning. Maybe he considered Camille’s death liberation from the burden of her secret.”
“You seem convinced the killer is male,” I said.
“Like I said before, most predatory killers are. Just because he’s convinced himself the kills are justified doesn’t mean he’s not tracking his victims.”
Shadowy images crept through my head. “So how do we figure out who his next target is?”
“We try to connect the kills. The greater the time lapse between murders, the harder it is to find a connection, so the logical place to start is with the two most recent victims— Camille and Hannah Fischer.”
I toyed with a paper clip, not certain I wanted to give voice to a terrible suspicion. “Do you think Camille could have been somewhere in those tunnels when we were down there?” I lifted my gaze to his. “We never found out where those flies went.”
I could tell by the look on his face that he’d thought the same thing. “We had personnel all over that cemetery and in those tunnels in less than an hour. There’s no way he could have gotten her out of there and into that tomb without someone spotting him.”
“Unless there’s another way out that hasn’t been found yet. An opening in another mausoleum, maybe. He could have waited until everyone was gone and then brought her up. The guards at the gate wouldn’t have seen him if he was already inside the walls.”
“Even if he’d managed to get the body up to the surface alone, he would have needed help with the lid of that tomb.”
“Wouldn’t he have needed help regardless of when he put her in there?”
“Not necessarily. He seems to have some knowledge of pulleys. With a reasonable amount of time, he could have accomplished it with a rope and a tree branch.”
“But that chair we found in the chamber…”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “That chair.”
The implication of two killers—one a voyeur—was a little too much to take in. I stood abruptly. “I’ll make some tea.” As if a little chamomile or Darjeeling could soothe away the monstrous images our conversation had evoked.
I took my time putting the kettle on, getting cups down and steeping the tea bags. I was still in a quandary as to why Devlin had come here tonight after insisting I needed to distance myself from the investigation and possibly from him. Just when I’d managed to convince myself that he might be right…there he was at my door. How many of my father’s rules had I broken by simply letting him into my house?
Did I dare hope it had something to do with the absence of his ghosts?
When I finally carried the tea out to my office, I almost expected to find him asleep on the chaise. Instead, he stood at the windows, staring out into the night. He seemed so lost in thought, I didn’t want to break his concentration, so I set the tea on my desk and slipped up silently beside him.
The veil of wispy clouds covering the moon gradually peeled away to reveal the luster of a white garden. A moonlight garden, it was called. I’d been utterly enchanted when I discovered it by accident one night. By day, it lay hidden within the larger, more colorful plantings, but by the glow of the moon, the silvery foliage intensified. Once upon a time—before Devlin, before the murders—I would sit out there alone for hours, eyes closed, drinking in the mingled perfumes of flowers with names as romantic as the garden itself: bleeding hearts, forget-me-nots, moonflowers, thyme and white oleander.
It was the perfect setting for Devlin’s ghosts, but the garden was empty tonight. Not so much as a shadow stirred.
Devlin looked exhausted and drained, but when he turned to face me, I saw a spark of what I thought might be longing in his eyes.
“Why did you come here tonight?” I asked softly. “Earlier, you said I need to distance myself from the investigation.”
“And I meant it.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I can
’t stay away.”
It hit me then, for the first time, that I wasn’t alone in this. Devlin felt my pull as surely as I felt his.
The knowledge that he found me alluring should have given my confidence a boost, but instead it made me feel more vulnerable. What would he expect from me? I was not an exotic temptress. I was just a cemetery restorer with callused hands and the ability to see ghosts.
He reached up and trailed his knuckles down the side of my face. “You really have no idea, do you?”
I closed my eyes briefly, savoring the warmth of his skin against mine. “I have a lot of ideas. Maybe even some that might surprise you.”
“I’m intrigued,” he said and I could see the shadow of a smile in the lamplight. His hand moved to my hair, curling a loose tendril around one finger. “Do you always wear your hair up?”
I grew a little breathless at the question. It was so unexpected—so intimate. “I like it out of my way when I’m working.”
“You aren’t working now.”
Mariama had had long, glorious hair. I pictured the way the dark curls swayed against her back in my dream and I shivered. Was that why Devlin wanted me to take down my hair? To compare us?
I had to stop thinking that way, reading too much into his every word. He’d come here tonight of his own free will. To see me. Not his dead wife’s ghost.
“I like it up,” I said. “and it is my hair.”
“Yes, it is. And in this light, it shimmers like pure gold,” he said. “It smells good, too.”
“How can you smell it from there?”
“Exactly.”
He took my hand and pulled me gently to him. I didn’t resist even for a moment, but closed my eyes and tilted my face toward his.
I felt him shudder. Then he bent his head to meet mine and our lips touched. A surge of energy plowed through me. I staggered against him and he drew me close. My arms draped around his neck as he deepened the kiss, and it went on and on, like nothing I’d ever experienced. I could feel an electric charge flowing between us. It rose and fell like the tides of an ocean, heightening my senses even as it weakened my resistance.
The Restorer Page 24