by Jana DeLeon
“No, it’s too heavy. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. The facing probably won’t break hitting the dirt floor, and if it does, I don’t really care.”
Justine couldn’t exactly argue with his logic. Her feet would be in a lot more danger than the facing or the ground. She bit her lower lip as the facing inched out of the granite wall. What would she find inside? She didn’t really expect finding the emeralds to be this easy. Surely, the estate attorney, Wheeler, had known of the graveyard and thought to look here already, which probably explained the scratches on the vault facing. But with any luck, there might be more clues contained inside. Something that put her on the right path.
“It’s coming loose,” Brian said as the facing broke free of the granite wall and fell to the ground.
Justine stepped over the facing and shined the spotlight inside the vault. The ornate gold trimmings on Marilyn Borque’s casket created a glare, and she directed the spotlight to one of the walls inside the vault.
“It doesn’t look like anything’s in here but the casket.” She looked over at Brian. “I know I said we’re not opening it, but do you think we could pull it out a little? I’d like to look at the scrollwork on the edges.”
Brian nodded and grabbed one side of the casket while she wrapped her fingers around the top and bottom of the other side. “Okay,” she said, “pull.”
They slowly inched the casket out of the vault until a good three feet of it was exposed. Afraid it might drop if they moved it any farther, Justine motioned to Brian to stop and she began to study the gold scrollwork on the sides of the casket.
“Fancy,” Brian said. “I figured given the situation, the family would have just thrown her in a pine box.”
“If it had been left up to Franklin’s family, they probably would have. But remember, Marilyn came from money herself. Her dad traded her in marriage to seal a business deal with Franklin’s father. Given that Franklin killed his only daughter, I imagine the Borques were willing to do whatever he asked.”
“And you think that the family would have hidden something in or on the casket?”
Justine lifted the spotlight and shined it directly on a piece of scrolling at the corner of the casket. “Not the family. One of the passages in the journal said that Sissy’s cousin was going to have the emeralds bound in metal before they hid them. She would only have trusted a family member to do such a thing, which means there was a metal worker close by. He may have also done the scrolling for this casket.”
“Makes sense. Do you see anything?”
“Maybe.” Justine ran her finger over a section of the scrolling, then tilted her head to the side. She could feel her heart beat a bit faster when she recognized the lion worked sideways into the scrolling. A quick inspection of the other side revealed no sign of the lion, although no one would ever have noticed the scrolling was different unless they’d been inspecting every inch. The work was absolutely incredible.
“Hold this a minute,” she said and passed the spotlight to Brian.
Brian stepped near her and shined the spotlight at the end of the casket where she’d been working. “What is it?”
“The lion. Worked into the scrolling on this end.” She pressed her fingers into the lion scrolling, searching for something that moved, but found nothing. She studied the scrolling again and realized that the section with the lion sat a tiny bit higher than the scrolling beneath it. Placing her fingers on both sides of the lion, she pushed the entire piece of scrolling down about an inch.
A drawer at the bottom of the casket popped open.
“Are the emeralds there?” Brian asked as he inched past the end of the casket for a better look at the drawer.
“No,” Justine said as she pulled a small stack of yellow paper out of the drawer, feeling her pulse increase when she realized what she held. “It’s the missing pages from the journals.”
“Missing pages?”
“Yeah. I noticed yesterday that some of the pages had been torn out of the journals.”
“You think they will tell you where the emeralds are hidden?”
“That’s what I’m hoping.” And what happened to Marilyn’s child. Justine tried to control her excitement. It may still mean nothing. Just because she hadn’t found a vault for Marilyn’s child didn’t mean he had survived. If Franklin had killed the child, he probably would have insisted he be buried with the servants.
“I need to grab my backpack,” she said, and stepped out of the crypt to retrieve her pack, which lay next to the opening. She pulled a plastic container from the main pocket and placed the pages inside.
“You came prepared, I see,” Brian commented, pointing at her container.
“When you work with old documents all the time, you learn to carry the right storage containers.” She closed the container and slipped it back in her backpack. As she zipped her pack, thunder boomed overhead, making her jump.
Brian hurried out of the crypt and they both stared up at the swirling sky. “I should have known better,” Brian said. “We need to get back to the house before the bottom drops out.”
“The casket?” Justine asked.
Brian stepped back inside the crypt. “Let’s just slide it back into place. We can deal with the vault facing later.”
Justine stepped in behind him and closed the drawer at the bottom of the casket. The lion in the etching slid automatically back into place. She nodded to Brian and they slowly pushed the casket back into the slot. When they lacked about an inch of getting the casket inside the vault, it seemed to hang.
“Hold on a second,” Brian said and stooped to look underneath the casket. “There’s a screw that’s sticking out of the bottom just a bit. It’s catching on the wall. We’ll have to lift it a little to get it over.”
Justine changed her grip on the casket to get a better hold on it for lifting, but Brian didn’t rise from the floor. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“The wall right below the vault. It looks strange.”
“Strange how?” She heard an audible click.
“Strange in that a piece of it moves.”
As Brian rose from the floor, Justine watched in amazement as the back wall of the crypt slid open. She gasped and Brian turned around, following her gaze. Brian stepped up to the opening and looked inside.
“There’s a stone stairwell in here.”
Justine stepped behind him and peeked into the dark space. It was a good three feet wide and contained a set of stone stairs that pitched straight down into inky blackness. Justine reached behind her and grabbed the spotlight and passed it to Brian.
“Can you see anything?” she asked, as he shined the light down the stairwell.
“About fifteen feet down is the bottom. Looks like the walls and floor are also made of stone.”
“I don’t get it. I’ve never heard of a cellar in a crypt.”
Brian shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a cellar. I can’t make it out completely, but it looks like there’s a tunnel at the end of the stairs to the right.”
“Do you think it could run all the way to the main house?”
As Brian looked back at Justine a huge roll of thunder boomed overhead. “Anything’s possible, but there’s no time to check it out now. That storm moved in early. We’ve got to get out of here before we’re trapped at laMalediction.”
“What about the casket?”
“It’s far enough in that it’s not going anywhere.” Brian pressed the lever below the casket and the door at the back of the crypt slid back into place. He gathered his tools and stuffed them inside his duffel bag, then rolled the grave marker out of the way of the main crypt door. Justine tripped the lever as soon as the doorway was clear, then slung her backpack over her shoulder and hurried out of the graveyard with Brian.
She couldn’t wait to review the journal pages, but hoped they made it out of laMalediction before the storm hit. If there was a tunnel in the crypt that led to laMalediction, they were sitting du
cks until they closed the entry point into the house.
Chapter Twelve
Justine stood at the living-room window of the rental house and peered outside, watching the rain pour from the sky. They’d barely made it back to the rental before the bottom dropped out of the sky. For the past fifteen minutes, rain had fallen in sheets so thick you couldn’t see more than a foot or so beyond the window, and it showed no sign of slowing.
Brian hadn’t said another word about her sneaking out of the house. In fact, he hadn’t spoken at all on the drive from the estate, and he’d headed straight for the shower when they arrived at the rental. She knew he was probably worried about the tunnel and what it might mean if there was an entrance to laMalediction that he and John had not located. That fancy security system on the doors and windows wouldn’t keep anyone out if they had a way in from below. Brian and John had boarded up the basement entry to the tunnels, but the tunnel in the graveyard might provide hidden access into the house that didn’t connect through the basement.
Justine let the drape fall back across the window and stepped over to the dining table. The power was on for now, but she didn’t figure it would last much longer in the storm. At least her laptop was fully charged and she had a lantern that would provide her light all night, if her research occupied that much time. The container with the missing diary pages sat on the dining table, and Justine had started to hunker down and read the documents several times now, but every time she started to slide into the dining chair, she’d felt compelled to peek out the living-room window.
Someone was watching.
She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. Nothing was visible in the storm, and with all the drapes drawn, no one could see inside the rental house, but Justine knew he was out there. Watching. Waiting.
What did he want from her? It seemed it was her very presence in Cypriere that he resented. So why was she such a threat? Was he hoping to find the emeralds before she did? And how many people were aware of the story or her real reason for being there? The story of the emeralds may not have been in the newspapers, but some of the locals probably knew the tales.
The attorney, Wheeler, had probably heard about the emeralds from the previous estate attorney or from the old caretaker, Aubrey. Aubrey had lived on the estate since he was a little boy, and retired after being held hostage by Wheeler when Olivia occupied the house. But if Wheeler had left no indication of a partner, Justine could only assume someone else was working alone.
Regardless, it was clear that someone wanted her out of Cypriere. The notes and attack had been directed at her. Even slashing the tires on Brian’s Jeep could still have been done just to prevent her from getting to laMalediction. That made sense, of course, because if she wasn’t in residence, Brian wouldn’t need to be, either. By forcing Justine to leave, the intruder got an empty estate. But Justine felt as if there was more to it than that.
Based on the notes he’d left, the intruder knew Justine’s real past. Did he also know what she was searching for—proof that she was a descendant of Marilyn Borque? If so, that might better explain things. If the intruder suspected she was a descendant of Marilyn Borque, he might think she had inside information, or intuition, that would allow Justine to locate the emeralds before he could.
Justine flopped into the dining chair and opened the plastic container. What she needed to do was stop guessing what was going on and do her job. She pulled the stack of diary entries out and placed them in front of her. The first entry she recognized as Marilyn’s handwriting.
April 28, 1863
Sissy took my child to her cousin late last night, when the master couldn’t see her go. She’ll be back before morning. I don’t think Franklin will look for my child. I think he just wants him out of his sight. Wants any reminder of my lover wiped away. Sissy’s cousin will take the child to her family in New Orleans who will care for him. I’ve given him his father’s name, Dubois. I will light a candle for his safe passage and pray to the Gods that his life is full and happy, the way his father would have wanted.
Justine’s spirits dropped when she finished the passage. She was happy Marilyn’s child had made it safely away from laMalediction, but in researching her lineage, she had not come across a single Dubois. Could she have been wrong all this time? When Justine’s mother had told her the stories when she was a child, she’d described things so well—the house isolated in the swamp with secret tunnels, the mean husband who became obsessed with cursed emeralds and the ghost that continued to haunt the estate, bound to the grounds until the curse was lifted by a descendant of the Borques.
Her mother had been healthy when she’d told Justine that story. Of that, she was certain. The first time Justine had ever seen her mother break from reality, she was only eight years old, but even then it was clear to her that something was wrong. But the mother who’d told her the story about the bad man and the emeralds wasn’t the sick mother. She knew what sick looked like.
When Olivia had first come to her with the story, almost apologetic at what she considered a bizarre request, Justine had worked to not appear overeager. How many cursed emeralds could there possibly be hidden away in the swamp? This was Justine’s golden opportunity to fit the missing pieces of her mother’s medical history into place. If Justine could prove that Marilyn Borque and her descendants weren’t mentally ill, then Justine might let down the wall she’d carefully erected around herself. Might allow herself to form a relationship that went deeper than acquaintance level, without the fear that something bad might happen to anyone close to her.
Someone like Brian.
She clamped her mind down on that thought before it could even fully develop. Even if she was free to form relationships, the last place she’d start was with a cop. And not just any cop, but the nephew of the man who’d arrested her mother. The man who’d hauled her mother away, screaming and scratching, and held her in a cell without calling for medical care.
The man who’d beaten her during the arrest and almost killed her with his neglect.
“Find anything?” Brian’s voice sounded from the living room.
He stood at the edge of the tiny dining area, drying his short hair with a towel. He wore a pair of sweatpants and his T-shirt was slung over his shoulder. Muscles rippled across his abdomen, chest and arms, and his tanned skin looked as if it wasn’t quite dry.
“Justine?” His voice broke into her lustful thoughts and she diverted her gaze upward to his face, embarrassed to realize that she’d been so busy admiring his body that she hadn’t answered the question.
“Sorry,” she said and dropped her gaze down to the table, but not before she caught a hint of a smile from Brian. Great. He’d noticed her major faux pas. “I just got started, but the first page indicates that the child was sent to live with some of Sissy’s family in New Orleans.”
“That’s good,” Brian said. “I was sorta worried…”
“Me, too,” she said, her appreciation for Brian rising a bit more for his concern over a child from long ago. “I was afraid I might find something I didn’t want to in that graveyard.”
“Knowing what we do about Franklin Borque, it definitely crossed my mind more than once. Any mention of Marilyn’s lover?”
Justine felt the heat rise up her face just a tiny bit at the word lover, but she didn’t miss a beat this time in replying. “Nothing yet. It’s weird.”
Brian slid into a chair across the table from her. “What is?”
“Well, a journal is the most logical place to find a woman’s musings on her lover, but aside from the couple we’re already aware of, Marilyn doesn’t mention him much at all.”
“Maybe you’ll find something in the missing pages.”
Justine shook her head. “I don’t think so. In the diary that covered the span when Marilyn sent for her lover until the time Franklin returned home, I only saw a couple of places where pages could be missing.”
Brian frowned. “So why wouldn’t she talk abou
t him? It sounded like he was her great love. He traveled to see her despite the remote location and her being married to a powerful man. He fathered a child with her, but then didn’t stick around to see him born, or to raise him?”
“Exactly my point. It doesn’t make sense. If Marilyn had sent the child to live with his father, that would have made sense, but it’s almost as if he vanished from her life.”
“Maybe he did. Maybe he died.”
Justine stared at him. Her first inclination was to argue, but she knew that was her romantic side thinking, not her practical one. Her practical side had known when she first read the diaries that something was amiss. She just hadn’t wanted to face that possibility until she knew for sure.
She sighed and Brian gave her a sympathetic look. “You already thought of that, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I was just hoping it wasn’t the case. I mean, the woman already had so much tragedy in her life. It’s just sad.”
Brian nodded. “And she can’t even get any rest in death with us and whoever else disturbing her vault.”
“Do you think it was Wheeler who opened the vault?”
“Possibly. He was desperate to find the emeralds and I imagine he knew enough of the old lore to think along some of the same lines you have.”
“I don’t get it though. I mean, I assumed he wanted the emeralds to sell them. The newspapers reported how he’d embezzled millions from his clients over the years and the house of cards was about to tumble, but without the history attached to the stones, I don’t think they’d be worth millions of dollars. A collector might pay it with the story attached, but then Wheeler would have had to out himself.”
Brian shifted his gaze from Justine to the floor and frowned.
“What?” Justine asked. “You know something. What is it you’re not telling me?”
Brian looked back up and stared at her for a couple of seconds, his indecision clear. “If I tell you the rest of the story, you have to promise it will not leave this house. Given all the things that have happened, I don’t think it’s fair for you not to have all the facts about the situation with Wheeler. You may even change your mind about staying.”