Dressed for work, I finally went out to the back garden to have a look around. Nothing hung from the oak tree, thankfully, and I smelled only the gardenias and the faintest hint of bleach that clung to my skin. The sun was up now, spangling down through the trees and turning the dewdrops to diamonds. A green anole sunned on a flagstone. A fragrant breeze tinkled the wind chime. The sky was cloudless and already a soothing robin’s egg blue.
It was a glorious day in my beloved Charleston.
I wondered what horrors awaited me in Woodbine Cemetery.
Twenty-Two
The first thing I saw when I pulled up to the cemetery entrance was a sleek black car. I thought at first it was Devlin’s, but then I realized the vehicle was longer and wider, a luxury sedan like the one that had stopped in front of my house two nights ago. I recognized the man leaning against the front fender as the one who had come up my porch steps.
I killed the engine and got out, taking my time to gather my belongings from the back of my vehicle. I had no wish to talk to Jonathan Devlin or his associate. I was still reeling from the night’s events and the morning’s discoveries and I had things to do, personal missions to carry out.
Removing a plastic zip bag from the back of my vehicle, I carefully stored it in my backpack. Inside was the mangled teddy bear that Angus had dug up in my backyard. A cemetery rule had been broken—take nothing, leave nothing behind—and before I tended to anything else, the offering had to be returned to the stone crib.
After that, I intended to find out if Prosper Lamb actually lived in the tumbledown house across the street from the cemetery and if he had been responsible for the record that had been playing in the outbuilding last evening. I wanted to know if he could identify the female visitor to the cemetery and the anonymous donor who had arranged for the restoration. One way or another, I meant to get those answers.
On top of all that, a full day’s work awaited me, and I was already getting a late start. So, no, I didn’t have time for a lengthy conversation with Jonathan Devlin about the entity that had invaded his home or his imagination. I had problems enough of my own.
I slammed the back door as a way of signaling I meant business. Strapping on my backpack, I headed for the entrance with only a nod and a passing glance in the driver’s direction.
He was dressed in a sports coat, slacks and loafers, but his innocuous attire and nonchalant demeanor didn’t fool me. I hadn’t missed the covert way he’d watched me as I climbed out of the vehicle or the subtle scrutiny of our surroundings. He stood with arms folded, feet crossed, head slightly bowed, but I could tell he was on full alert.
He hadn’t moved or spoken during the whole time I’d been busy with my preparations. Now as I started toward the entrance, he straightened from the car and took a step toward me.
I tried not to let him see my wariness as I gazed up at him. He was even taller than Devlin, and the lines of his sport coat did nothing to disguise the bulk of his muscles. Despite his size, he moved quickly and gracefully—like a trained fighter—and I had no doubt he was armed. Unlike Prosper Lamb, however, this man valued discretion.
“Miss Gray?”
I slid my hand in my pocket so that the pepper spray was within easy reach. “Yes?”
“My name is Knox. I work for Jonathan Devlin.”
“What’s that to me?” I started to move away, but he took another step toward me, stopping short of catching my arm.
“He’d like a word, if you don’t mind.”
I shot a glance at the car. I could see nothing through the tinted windows, but I imagined Jonathan Devlin inside, watching our every move.
“I’m sorry, but I do mind. I’m already late for work so...” I tried to move around him, but this time he stepped directly in front of me, blocking my path.
“Mr. Devlin is a strong-willed man,” he said almost apologetically. “He always gets what he wants, so why not save us all a lot of time and trouble and hear him out? Then you can get on with your day.”
I glanced back at the car with a frown. “Fine.”
Dropping my backpack to the ground, I followed the driver around to the side of the vehicle, and when he opened the door, I bent and glanced inside. The sight of Jonathan Devlin huddled in the corner gave me pause. It was hard to believe I’d ever been intimidated by this thin, frail man. He seemed to have withered since our last meeting. And yet I would do well to remember who he was—not just the patriarch of an old and powerful family, but in all likelihood a member, perhaps even the leader, of the deadly Congé.
He was as well-dressed as always in a dark three-piece suit, his gray hair perfectly combed and his pocket square precisely folded. Beyond the surface, however, were the telltale signs of distress. His complexion was ashen and his eyes seemed overly bright, almost feverish. His hands trembled and his breathing seemed labored. Jonathan Devlin was not a well man and no amount of careful grooming could disguise his fragility and his almost tangible fear.
Once I was settled inside, the driver closed the door and I sat for a moment, taking in my immediate surroundings. Like Devlin’s car, the sedan was luxurious, perhaps even borderline indulgent. It smelled of rich leather, old money and a hint of the basil and lime I’d noted from our previous meeting. The buttery seat seemed to engulf me and for a moment I had a bout of claustrophobia that set my pulse to racing.
I drew in a deep, calming breath, scolding myself for giving in to an old weakness. A chink in my armor was the very thing Jonathan Devlin would take note of and use against me.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” he said, and I thought that even his voice sounded weaker.
I clasped my hands in my lap and tried not to stare at him. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time. There’s a lot to be done in the cemetery today and I’m getting a late start as it is.”
“Woodbine has been badly neglected for years. Surely a few more minutes won’t matter.” He paused, giving me a long scrutiny, and I once again had a mental image of how he must see me—a woman just shy of thirty, attractive but far from beautiful with all the scrapes and scars and sunburned skin that came with a rugged profession.
I had on my work attire of boots, brown cargoes and denim jacket, and my hair was pulled back in the usual ponytail. The style undoubtedly highlighted the strain in my face and the dark circles underneath my eyes from lack of sleep. I was no Claire Bellefontaine and I wondered if the same thought had crossed Jonathan Devlin’s mind.
He said almost kindly, “Are you all right? You don’t look well this morning.”
“I had a bad night.”
“I worried something might have happened when you didn’t show up in the park this morning.”
I glanced at him in disbelief. “You were worried?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“You barely know me.”
“I think we’ve established that’s not quite true.”
I shrugged, but I was far from complacent. “So you came looking for me here. Why?”
“The incidents have escalated since last we spoke. The ghost, the poltergeist, the entity...whatever one wishes to call the energy in my home has grown bolder and far more dangerous. The situation has become quite dire. I’m not a man given to dramatics or overreaction, but it’s no exaggeration to say that you are my last and only hope.”
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on me first thing in the morning,” I muttered.
He made a helpless gesture with his hand. “Desperate men, Miss Gray...”
It would have been easy to write him off as delusional. The glittering eyes, the trembling hands, the pulse that throbbed at his temple...all signs of a deeply troubled man. But I believed Jonathan Devlin to be sane and in control of his faculties. I also believed him to be haunted and highly manipulative.
“What happen
ed?” I asked with reluctance.
“I was nearly killed last night, murdered in cold blood by a ghost.”
The stark statement sent a chill shuddering through me, but before I could react, he put a handkerchief to his mouth, suddenly overcome by a coughing fit. The attack was so severe I worried that he was on the verge of collapse.
“Should I call for Knox?” I asked anxiously.
He waved off my concern and fumbled in his pocket for an inhaler. Once he’d pumped medicine into his lungs, he let his head fall back against the seat and drew in air.
“Mr. Devlin—”
“I’m fine,” he rasped. “Please, just give me a moment.”
I nodded, wishing to be anywhere but inside that car. It was not my place. Jonathan Devlin wasn’t my family. We were barely acquainted. Devlin should be at his grandfather’s side, not I. But here I sat.
After a moment, he put away the inhaler and straightened, still dabbing at his mouth with the handkerchief. “My apologies.”
“None necessary. But perhaps we should do this at another time.”
“Without your help, there may not be another time. Please,” he said. “Just hear me out.”
I nodded with an inward sigh. “Go on.”
He turned to stare out the window as he gave himself another moment to recover. “I was alone in the house. My grandson had gone out before dinner. The housekeeper had retired to her quarters in the carriage house and my assistant had gone home for the night. I had reading to do, so I went up to bed early. But the quiet unnerved me. I couldn’t concentrate. Neither could I sleep. I lay awake for a very long time just listening to the tick of the grandfather clock on the landing. I felt uneasy...oppressed, as if something wasn’t right. I suppose one could say I experienced a premonition, but outwardly nothing seemed amiss in the house. At some point I got up and took a sleeping pill. The next thing I knew, a sound awakened me.”
Except for the sleeping pill, he might have been describing my night. “What time was this?”
“Just past midnight. I have a habit of looking at the clock as soon as I awaken. I assumed Jack had come home and perhaps had gone into the study for a nightcap. I thought I might join him. I wasn’t afraid. Not then. I put on my robe and slippers and went out to the landing to call down to him. He didn’t answer but I could hear someone walking about. I tried to pinpoint where the sound came from and I even started down the stairs to investigate. Then I paused only a few steps down, frozen again by that terrifying premonition. That’s when I knew. My grandson hadn’t come back and my housekeeper was still in her quarters, undoubtedly fast asleep. I was alone in the house, but not truly alone.”
He was visibly shaken, the hand resting on the seat between us trembling. I said softly, “Are you sure you want to do this now?”
“Yes, yes, you must hear everything. It’s a relief to be able to get it all out. Even if nothing else comes of our meeting...if you still won’t agree to help me...at least someone will know...”
He certainly wasn’t above playing on my sympathies. “Go on, then. But take your time.”
He nodded absently. “The house grew cold. You know the cold I mean.” He turned, his gaze burning into mine. “The kind of chill that settles in the bones and seeps down into one’s soul.”
The frost of the dead, I thought.
“I couldn’t seem to move. It was as if my muscles had atrophied and I remained suspended on the stairs more terrified than I’d ever been in my life. Because I knew, you see. I knew. I’d glimpsed her before, felt her before, but in that moment, I realized without a single doubt who she was and why she had come back.” As he spoke, he seemed to sink deeper into the leather seat, as if he were fading away right before my eyes. It was a strange effect and I blinked to bring him back into focus.
He rallied and his voice grew sharper. “I tried to convince myself otherwise, of course. One does. Even under extraordinary duress, the mind tries to reason and cope. The cold was only a draft, I told myself. Someone had left a window open in the house and a sea breeze had whipped through. My muscles were stiff from sleep and the night air. I knew better, of course, but I didn’t want to face the impossible reality of a ghost. Of her ghost.”
“She was fully manifested?”
My terminology seemed to perplex him. “She had form but no substance. I could see through her. Is that what you mean?”
“Did she appear to you as she had in life? Could you make out her features, her clothing?”
“For the first time, I saw her clearly. She stood at the end of the hallway staring straight at me. Even then, I tried to convince myself I was seeing things. She was a mirage created by failing eyesight or even the product of a mental breakdown. I was dreaming, hallucinating...anything but the truth.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes as if trying to erase the ghost’s image from his mind.
“One moment she was in the hallway and in the next instant, she hovered above me on the landing. Her arms were outstretched as if she were reaching out to me and I thought for a moment... Then I saw her eyes and I knew what she had come to do.” He trailed away on a deep shudder. “I felt a force, almost like a storm gale. A wind so strong that it blew me back and I lost my footing. If I hadn’t managed to hang on to the bannister, I would have tumbled down those stairs. The fall would have killed or maimed me and I have no doubt that was her intention.”
“Why you?” Now it was my gaze that burned into his. “Who was she to you and why would her ghost want to harm you?”
I saw a flash of the old Jonathan Devlin, an imperious, secretive man who’d never felt compelled to answer to anyone, least of all someone like me. “Our history doesn’t matter.”
Of course it mattered. How else could one appease a vengeful ghost? But I didn’t press the point because I wasn’t certain I wanted to know the truth. Not here, not now. The cemetery was empty and isolated and I was in a precarious position, especially with his driver so nearby. Jonathan Devlin might well be a haunted man, but I still didn’t trust him. I had a feeling the less I knew about his past, the better for my well-being.
How quickly things had changed, I thought. In the space of a night, I had reverted from the fearless warrior who’d aptly defended herself against an unknown assailant to someone who wished to keep her head buried in the sand.
When Devlin had grabbed me from behind at the outbuilding the evening before, I’d fought him with a ferocity that had surprised both of us and I had taken no small amount of pride in my instincts. But hubris was always going to bite me. Just when I thought my evolution had made me invincible, evil had come calling, reminding me that in the scheme of things, I was still puny and human and in need of my cemetery walls.
“Have you told John about any of this?”
He lifted a brow. “Do you really think my grandson would believe me?”
After our time together in Kroll Cemetery and after everything he’d learned about his family and their history with the Congé, yes, I had no doubt Devlin’s mind had been opened to the supernatural. “You shouldn’t be alone from now on.”
“There’s nothing Jack can do. You’re the only one who can save me.”
“You’re still laboring under a misconception about my abilities, it seems.”
“I assure you I am not. I know what happened at Kroll Cemetery.”
I stared at him in shock, wondering for one dizzying moment if he had read my mind. “What do you know about Kroll Cemetery?”
“I told you before, there is very little about you that I haven’t uncovered. Kroll Cemetery was a very haunted place before you arrived.”
“If there were ghosts in Kroll Cemetery, they moved on because a killer was exposed. It had nothing to do with me.” Which wasn’t entirely true.
“I didn’t kill her,” he said quickly.
It took me a mom
ent to realize what he meant. Then I said quickly, “I never meant to imply—”
“If a crime was committed, mine was of silence.”
I drew a quick breath, trying to calm my thudding heart. “If a crime was committed, all the more reason to bring John into it. He was a cop not so long ago. He can help you.”
Something changed in Jonathan Devlin’s demeanor then. He still looked old and sick and feeble, but slyness had crept into his eyes, perhaps even a hint of triumph that reminded me yet again he was not a man I wished to cross. “You still think highly of my grandson, don’t you, Miss Gray?”
“He’s a good investigator.”
“Oh, I think your admiration goes beyond the professional.” He gave me a shrewd assessment. “Be honest. You’re still in love with him.”
Somehow the game had changed without my knowing. The elder Devlin had seized control. He’d sensed my vulnerability and was now trying to press his advantage. “My feelings don’t matter,” I said with ice in my voice. “This isn’t about me.”
“You’re wrong, young lady. You have no idea just how wrong you are. You are connected to everything that’s happened in ways you can’t begin to imagine.”
I took a moment to absorb that. “What do you mean?”
He gave me a chilling smile. “You have so many questions. About my grandson, about me. About Woodbine Cemetery. How badly do you want those answers, I wonder?”
My heart flailed and I felt a surge of panic. Outwardly, I remained collected, but I knew without doubt that I was in the presence of a very dangerous and cunning man.
He leaned in. “Come to my house this evening and I’ll tell you whatever you wish to know.”
The Awakening Page 18