by Tanya Holmes
I let that sink in. “Where’s Lilith’s grave anyway?”
“Same place as Dottie’s,” Valene said. “At Grace Brethren.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
New Memories
TRACE
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I strode down the flagstone path of Jane Younger’s three-story house. Shannon marched ahead. Icy air stung the back of my throat, but the anger kept me warm enough. The main thing on my mind was Mama’s grave and the heartless cowards who’d violated it. I gazed heavenward.
The sun had gone missing somewhere in the smoke-colored sky, and except for the occasional wind gust, the woodsy neighborhood was as quiet as a morgue.
Something wicked loomed on the horizon.
I caught up with Shannon in the driveway. Eyes narrowed, she pointed the alarm remote at her Volvo. The car chirped and the locks disengaged with a loud click.
After I opened her door, she slipped behind the wheel in brisk silence while I came around the passenger side and hopped in. She rammed the key into the ignition and floored the gas. The engine growled.
“I didn’t know Lilith was buried there too.” I snatched my seatbelt, channeling my anger. “It just makes me wonder.”
“About what?”
“Why they wrecked Mama’s grave.” Bile burned hot in my stomach. “Grace Brethren is the priciest cemetery in the area. Me coming back may have provoked the vandal into doing somethin’ he wanted to do all along. What if he was pissed that she had the balls to be buried in the same place—”
“As her son’s murder victim,” Shannon finished with grim finality. “Yes, I thought about that too.” Gripping the wheel so tight her knuckles paled, she stared straight ahead, then sank her forehead against the back of her hands. “I’m not sure I even want to know the truth now. It just keeps getting uglier.”
“Hey, c’mere.” I curled an arm around her so her head rested against my shoulder. God, she smelled good. That and the feel of her soft body next to mine nipped the edge off my anger. I kissed her temple. “Whatever happens, I’m here, okay?”
Nodding, she said, “I guess I need to speak with Uncle.”
“What? Now?”
“No, I’ll have to wait until he gets home next week.” One awkward pause later, she added, “He’s in LA…with Darien.”
Jealousy tore into me like a set of fangs, but I kept the venom from my voice. “You think Sears killed her?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Montgomery’s unspoken presence lingered when she pulled back and looked at me with nervous eyes. “Um, the…the grave desecration is too base for Uncle. If anything, he’d pay someone else to do it. That’s his MO. I just want to see his reaction when I tell him I know about Mother’s obsession.”
“What makes you think he’ll tell you anything?”
“He won’t,” she answered, her expression still wary. “It’s what he doesn’t say that matters.”
“What about your aunt? You gonna confront her?”
“No, she’ll just back him up. It’s what she always does. Anyway, I think I’ll call every flower shop in New Dyer. Calla lilies aren’t cheap. I also want to visit Cheltenham Manor.” Her eyes turned hopeful. “Will you go with me?”
I nodded, but inside a battle raged. Some hero I was. I’d had nightmares about that place for years, so just the thought of going back there again scared the piss out of me.
SHANNON
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“I hope this expedition is more fruitful than my calla lily idea,” I said when Trace and I arrived at Cheltenham Manor two days later. “A million flower shops in Temptation and New Dyer and no one’s ordered any since September.”
Trace was staring out of his window. He’d been pensive since I’d picked him up at the garage half an hour ago. “You try Main Street Flowers in Willow’s Corner?” he asked, distractedly.
“Yes, and Tori Mills was especially rude. She has the biggest mouth in West Virginia, yet she’s got the gall to lecture me about customer confidentiality?”
“Leave it to me. I’ll—” Slack-jawed, he stopped mid-word once the estate mounted above the treetops. Sheltered behind acres of evergreens and dogwoods, it looked like an old southern belle who’d lost her beauty—the sort who donned the same faded cotillion gown of her youth whenever company called.
My heart pounded when the Volvo coasted to a stop on the gravelly square. I loosened my death grip on the steering wheel and gaped at the heap of ivy and moss-covered brick. There’d been a few caretakers over the years, but the place eventually fell into disrepair. Without a word, Trace climbed out, came around and opened my door. How could he be so fearless when I was anything but? I wasn’t ready. I needed time—to prepare, to think. Just a few more minutes to—
Trace extended a hand. “Come on,” he said, as if reading my mind. “Twelve years is time enough.”
There was an intimacy between us, a strengthening of trust, and I knew right then that I’d be okay as long as he was nearby. I took his hand and followed his lead up the path to the carriage house. The sound of our footsteps filled the hush. Bushes guarded the walkway on either side. Willow branches dripped from above. Dead weeds sprouted through the cobblestone cracks beneath us. It was just as I remembered, but then again, it was not. Scents I hadn’t smelled in ages came trickling back, but they’d changed somehow.
I’d expected to feel something more than…numbness. Yes, numbness. This place had given me many nightmares over the years, but now? It was just an old estate with untended land—an imposter who’d been unmasked.
Relief made me breathe a little easier, yet when we reached the path’s end, I felt as steady as a paper doll in the wind. There it was, Mother’s death house, looking just as dark and ominous as before.
Trace gripped my shoulders, ducking down so we were eye level. “No going back now. All right?”
I swallowed, gave an uneasy nod, my mind screaming just the opposite. But after he laced our hands together again, strength leached from him to me, and I was comforted.
As we ventured around the side of a cottage-style guesthouse, I concentrated on nothing else but the rock-steady hand holding mine.
Trace let my hand go to trot to the center of the driveway and the feeling lingered. His energy level seemed to increase with each step. “I got here about ten or so.” He looked around. “I snuck through there.” He pointed at some boxwoods, strode ten feet and pointed again. “Here’s where I found the spade.”
I watched him in awe. Watched how everything he’d had bottled up, spilled out. He was reliving it all, but instead of crushing him, this visit appeared to free him somehow.
His gaze darted in one direction after another as he spoke. “I grabbed it thinking the gardener had dropped it by mistake.”
I came up next to him. “It was clean?”
He nodded, clasped my hand and led me over a bowed bridge overlooking a small, man-made pond. The carriage house lay just beyond it. Once there, I gave him the keys and after he’d fiddled with the lock, the brass-studded door thundered open like a giant who’d been startled awake from a long nap.
I stared into the musty darkness as the doorknob thumped the wall. I didn’t move when he ventured inside, opening shades and blinds, testing doors. The sun, muted as it was, meshed with the light spilling from a hole in the roof.
A sense of detachment settled over me as I crept past the threshold and ambled around, taking it all in. A splintered wooden table. A stack of water-damaged oil paintings. Rusty tools strewn across the floor. Spider webs and mounds of dust. I could hardly contain my relief, it was so acute.
There was nothing to fear, nothing at all, nothing until….
I stepped on that floorboard.
The familiar squeak hit me like a sledgehammer. Age and time had given the sound strength. Intensity. Everything blurred, and tears filled my eyes, falling with blinding speed. Now I remembered the sight of Mother lying in a pool of blood, h
er dead eyes staring up at nothing. Now I remembered how I’d felt—the realization that I was an orphan. No father, no mother, a child’s worst nightmare. I gasped when my back smacked a wall. It felt like I was teetering on a ledge, and I was terrified of falling.
Trace immediately snatched me into his sheltering arms.
“The s-squeak,” I sobbed. “It squeaked when I f-fell to m-my knees—b-by Mother’s b-body. F-first sound. It s-squeaked.”
“Hey…hey. Breathe, Shannon. Breathe.”
“This is why I…couldn’t…come here. On my own. Too afraid.” I keened. “I’m a coward.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Y-yes, I am. The w-worst kind. That’s why I never went…to her grave. That’s why I never came back here. I was s-scared. Deep down I suspected something wasn’t right in my head…with all…all the memories. So I avoided anything that would…challenge what I believed—M-mother, oh, Mother.”
“Shhh.” He tenderly lifted my hair from my face. “Hey. I wouldn’t even be here if not for all your pushing and badgering. You’re the brave one,” he whispered kissing me as I sobbed. “And I admire the hell out of you.” He hugged me close. “Go on now. Cry all you want. I’m not going anywhere.”
My knees gave and I sank to the floor, taking him with me. Twelve years of grief flooded my heart. Years of pain denied. The child I’d vanquished was back, had never left, and now that little girl wanted her due.
Trace cradled me in his lap and murmured words of comfort. Once more, he told me how much he admired and respected me, and that I wasn’t alone. He swept my hair aside, kissed a tear away, and sipped at the next one. Each healing touch stirred something hidden, until I responded in kind, and in a flash, the mood shifted. He dragged his lips over my eyes, and lower still, to kiss the tip of my nose, all the while whispering assurances. How could desire come alive here, in this crypt of death? But it had, and want him, I did.
Feelings we’d tried to bury clawed to the surface. Breaths tangled, and lips fused in an untamed rhapsody. This wasn’t the childish lip banging I’d given him years ago—in this very room—when I’d surprised him while he was sleeping. This kiss was deep, dark, and carnal.
His fingertips drifted over my face, imprisoning me while his hungry mouth moved over mine. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was wild and seasoned with tears and pain. He fisted my hair, ate at my lips, ripped his mouth away on a gasp, then came back. And I was right there with him, matching his passion.
But our kisses ended all too soon when Trace drew back. We stared in bemused silence, battling for breath, neither of us comprehending what had just happened. Outside, the building groaned against the gentle lash of the wind. Inside, tension vibrated like a plucked wire.
I swept my gaze over him as his Adam’s apple dipped and climbed. His lips were as swollen as mine felt. That I’d lost control with him again, in here of all places, confused me even more. What the hell was I doing?
Gasping for air, Trace knelt before me, his eyes searching my face. “Listen up, ‘cause I don’t want you to miss a word of this.” He pressed his forehead to mine and stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. “Doc says that the best way to kill a monster is to embrace it, and then create new memories. In your case, the monster’s right here, and we’ve just stared it down.”
He brushed my lips with his once more. “As for creating new memories, if the monster rears up again—what I’m about to tell you…I want it to be the first thing that comes to your mind.” He ran the fingers of one hand along my shoulder, trailing them up and down my arm. “Remember when you woke me with a kiss in this room? And how I gave you some song and dance about you being too good for me? Well, just the memory of your lips made me ache. All day. It got so bad I had to do something about it.”
He swallowed, looked away, then focused back on me. “So I did. Right here in this room…and many times after it.” At my stunned stare, he stroked my cheek tenderly and said, “Yeah, Shannon. I finished myself off, on just the memory of that kiss.”
My heart was thumping so hard I could feel it in my throat. I should’ve been disturbed by his confession, but I wasn’t. If anything, his shocking words aroused and excited me.
Trace slipped a bloodstained handkerchief from his pocket. The one I’d given him. He brushed it along my neck, raised it to his nose, and closed his eyes to sniff long and deep. Then he smiled down at my widened eyes.
“It lost most of your scent since the limo ride,” he said, “but there was still enough for me to finish what we’d started that night at my house.”
My mouth fell open in shock, but he smiled again. “I didn’t just take a shower while you were waiting. I went to my room, pulled this thing from a drawer, and dealt with the hard-on you left me with. I buried my nose in this hanky and pretended my other hand was yours.” I swallowed as he tucked the hanky away, then cupped my cheek. “So the next time this room comes to mind, I want you to remember me and what I just told you.”
My cell phone screamed at my hip. I jumped. Breathless, I snatched the gadget from my pocket.
My voice came out husky…uneven. “Th-this is Shannon Bradford.”
“Hi. It’s Bev O’Dell.”
I immediately looked to Trace who’d since gotten to his feet. He drew away as I shoved up. “Um, I have to take this,” I said, still stunned and trembling from his words. He nodded as I slipped outside and whispered, “How did you get this number?”
“Your office. I said I was a client.”
I paced the bridge, hugging myself against the cold wind slapping me in every direction. “What do you want?”
“I needed to say I’m sorry. For Patrick. For my silence.” Beverly sighed. “You can’t forgive me, can you?”
I licked my kiss-swollen lips, still tasting Trace. “It’s not for me to judge.”
“Cholly said Tracemore’s with you.” She paused. “Can you talk to my brother for me? Tell him I’m sorry? I’ve left messages, but he won’t return my calls.”
I glanced in the picture window. Trace had disappeared down a hallway. “I can’t make him do anything.”
“Please. I’m desperate.”
I propped my palm on my forehead as my mind raced. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I’m not askin’, I’m beggin’.”
I weighed my options. Finding none, I went back in as Trace reemerged. “Hold on,” I said to Beverly. After a hasty prayer, I slowly offered him the phone. “It’s for you.”
He was rummaging through a dusty box. “Huh?”
“It’s your sister.”
His back stiffened. He drew up in silence, dug his hands into his pockets and wandered to the picture window in the front where he stood, gazing outside. “Take a message.”
A lump welled in my throat. “But, Trace—”
“Take. A damn. Message.”
I blinked at his brittle tone and searched for words. “Ah, he…he can’t talk right now, Beverly. I’m sorry.”
“You mean he won’t,” came the sad reply.
I didn’t answer, just fixed my eyes on his rigid shoulders. When the line went dead, I shoved the phone back into my pocket. It was hard not to take his rude admonition personally. “She’s your sister for God’s sake.”
He was still staring outside. “I need time.”
“Then why couldn’t you have said that?”
“Leave it alone, Shannon.”
Minutes went by without either of us speaking. Our reckless moment and the aftermath of Beverly’s call, lingered. This was going nowhere fast, so I flipped the channel in my brain. “How was Mother lying when you found her?”
He angled around and met my gaze. The wall that had separated us before was back. I could see it in his face.
He stared up at the ceiling as if to pull a memory down. “On her side, with her head resting against her shoulder,” he said in monotone. “There was a blood trail from her to that door over there.” He hitched his chin at the short hallw
ay that led to a loft and the rear exit. “It happened in the garden.”
A chill slivered through me. “She must have crawled inside while the killer fled. Ours were the only footprints.”
I tried to imagine things as they were. The cement floor in the next room. The workbench. The tools hanging on the walls.
“I saw you from that hallway.” I nodded toward the rear. “You were kneeling beside her and when I made a noise, you looked up. So I ducked. Then….” I rubbed my temples, fighting to capture a fuzzy image. “Did you give her mouth-to-mouth?”
His brow lifted. “That damn sure wasn’t in your testimony.”
“Because I just remembered it.” I kneaded the bridge of my nose. “My God, what else have I forgotten?” What else, indeed. But how desperate was I to find out? I took a shuddery breath. “Can you get me an appointment?”
“With who?”
I fortified my resolve and looked him square in the eyes. “Your psychiatrist. I’m ready to try hypnosis.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Woman On Fire
SHANNON
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Harrison Bradford’s younger brother lurked in the study doorway beneath a row of recessed ceiling lights. “What are you doing in here, gumdrop?”
I gripped the armrests of the club chair as he closed the doors behind him. Though I’d rehearsed what I’d planned to say to Uncle Sears a million times, it hadn’t stopped the automatic clenching in my stomach.
“We need to talk,” I said with false calm.
“I already told you I had nothing to do with blacklisting that vile man.”
“This isn’t about Trace.”
“Well, it’s obviously about something just as unpleasant, given that sour face of yours.” Light and shadow rippled over Uncle’s tall, rawboned frame as he approached me. Despite the paunch clotting his middle, he had the grace of a panther and the stride of a man in control of himself and those around him.