“Sir?” Robbie asked doubtfully.
“I know this sounds terrible, but I don’t want you to seem smart. If you act sharp, if this seems like an important investigation, someone is going to connect Dillon Archer to the recent murders and the city will go wild. If they think you’re just some cute little airhead I sent out on an unimportant errand, they might not pay too much attention.” Robbie remained silent and Eric knew she was insulted. “Believe me, if you were some cute little airhead, I wouldn’t be sending you on this particular assignment. You’re smart, but you can act giggly and not too bright.”
“Thank you, sir. I guess.”
Eric finally laughed. “This is coming out all wrong, Robbie. I’ve never been a master of words. What I’m trying to say is that I trust you implicitly. I know you’re the person for this job because it calls for special skills, which you have. It’s important, Robbie.” He paused. “It concerns the murders of Tonya Archer and Buddy Pruitt and the attempt on Marissa Gray’s life in the car wreck. Perhaps other people are involved, but right now I’m most concerned about Marissa.”
Robbie’s voice immediately warmed: “I understand, sir.” I understand you’re probably still in love with her, the undertone said. “And if any of those people are mentioned in connection with the picture, I’ll just look blank.”
“Great. Concentrate on the less ostentatious places. I can’t see Dillon marching nonchalantly through the Larke Inn lobby.”
“I understand, sir. Thank you for trusting me with this assignment. I’ll do the very best I can.”
“I know you will, Robbie. And practice that giggle.”
“I’m on my way to find my volumizing mascara and neon green eye shadow as we speak.” Robbie giggled mindlessly and said in a slow, drawling voice, “Night night, Mr. Chief Deputy.”
She hung up. Eric stared at the phone for a moment and then broke out laughing.
2
Marissa put her arm through his as they walked into the candle lit dining room of the Larke Inn. With pleasure, Eric saw several people turn their heads to glance at the beautiful blonde on his arm. He gave the name Montgomery to the maître d’, who escorted them to a table by the windows overlooking the waterfall—a table with a centerpiece of two white roses and two apricot-colored roses. Marissa noticed them immediately and murmured, “Ah,” in delight. Eric pulled out her chair, looked away for an instant, and pulled out the chair a fraction more just as she started to sit down. She emitted a, “Whoop!” as she missed falling in the floor by no more than two inches. People looked, Eric turned crimson, launched into frantic apologies, and Marissa had begun giggling.
And giggling.
And giggling.
And…Eric opened his eyes. Dammit, he thought. He wasn’t hearing Marissa giggling. He was hearing his phone ringing.
He picked up the handset and barked, “Montgomery here.” He listened for almost five minutes and said, “I’ll be right there.” He replaced the phone, groaned, ran a hand over his eyes, and made a difficult decision.
It was two thirty-three in the morning when he called Marissa.
The phone rang. Marissa, wide-awake, looked at the caller ID that read: Eric Montgomery, picked up the handset, and muttered a sleepy, “’Lo.”
“Marissa, it’s Eric.”
“Who?” Marissa asked, still sizzling over the “friendship” kiss.
“Eric Montgomery. Eric. Are you awake?”
“Oh well, I guess I am now.” She hadn’t slept at all, but she tried to sound half-drowsy, half-peeved: “What is it?”
“Marissa, this is serious. No one has been murdered, but we have a situation that involves you. I don’t have time to explain, but I need for you to dress in something for outside wear. Your surveillance deputy, Randall Crane, is parked outside your house. He’ll bring you and Catherine.”
“Bring us where? What’s happened?”
“I just told you I don’t have time to explain. Randall will—”
“Pick us up. I got it,” Marissa snapped.
Marissa hung on to the phone, her heart fluttering, perspiration popping out along her hairline. Eric sounded shaken. It took a lot to shake Eric. Fright had flooded through Marissa and she’d immediately become contentious. She always reacted the same way when she was frightened. Eric would have expected it, she thought.
Fifteen minutes later, Marissa and Catherine climbed into the patrol car. “Deputy Crane, what’s happened?” Marissa asked as soon as they settled in the backseat. “Eric said no one has been murdered. Is someone injured? Why does he want both of us to come? I don’t understand.”
Catherine laid a calming hand on Marissa’s thigh. “Please stop firing questions at the poor man. You’re not giving him a chance to answer anything even if Eric wanted him to, which I don’t believe Eric does.” She leaned forward. “We appreciate the ride.”
“You’re welcome, although I wish it was under better circumstances.”
He looked as if he could have bitten his tongue when Marissa fired out, “What are the circumstances? We’re just supposed to go somewhere in the middle of the night because there’s some kind of bad situation Eric can’t explain and we don’t know what we’re in for or—” Marissa abruptly stopped talking, then asked in disbelief, “Are you turning into the cemetery?”
“Uh, yes, ma’am.”
Marissa looked around in astonishment. Then she saw halogen lights shining on the area near a large weeping willow. As they drew closer, she noticed two patrol cars, a white truck that must hold a generator, crime scene tape, and—
The ruin of her mother’s grave.
Chapter 14
1
Marissa and Catherine sat like statues in the back of the patrol car, their faces expressionless and their eyes unblinking. Catherine reached over and clenched Marissa’s gloved left hand. “They don’t want us to go over…there, do they?”
“They can’t make us. Eric won’t let them,” Marissa murmured in a daze.
But apparently he would. He walked over to the car and opened the door. The sisters drew closer together like little girls, huddling, drawing strength from each other, hiding from the horror. “Marissa, Catherine, you don’t know how sorry I am to do this, but I have to ask you to look at something.”
“Something?” Marissa felt sudden fury. “Why don’t you just say ‘your mother’s grave’? I think we’re past using euphemisms.”
His voice remained mild: “I hated to ask you to come, but I felt you should. We have a Romeo and Juliet whose parents don’t want them to see each other, so they made a brilliant plan to meet secretly in the cemetery. They were walking around quoting poetry to each other, at least according to them, when Juliet almost fell in an unexpected hole. Romeo pulled her back. Their first impulse was to run, of course, but they thought they saw someone—large and wearing a cape lurking around. They were certain this person or ‘being’ was waiting to kill them if they tried to leave the cemetery. So they called nine-one-one on a cell phone.”
“And where did the cloaked ‘being’ go?” Marissa asked sharply.
“Vanished while they clung to each other shuddering. We haven’t called their parents yet—the kids say they’ll be furious and we didn’t need four other people out here shouting. Enough is going on.”
“That’s an understatement,” Marissa said bitterly. Then her lower lip started to quiver.
“Did the person dig all the way down to my mother’s casket?” Catherine asked in a tremulous voice. “Did they break open her casket?”
Eric answered firmly and professionally, “Catherine, your mother’s casket is in a vault and whoever disturbed the grave didn’t even dig down to the vault. He only went down about two feet, maybe on purpose, maybe because the ground is so cold it’s hard as a rock.” He looked at both women. “I know this is hard on you, but it will be harder when people begin to gather, and even at this hour they will. Four or five already have. I wanted you to see this for yourselves, not hear
about it tomorrow when local citizens have created a scene even worse than it is. Let’s do this, ladies, the sooner the better.”
Although Eric’s voice wasn’t harsh, he made it clear he wanted no further delays. He stood back and motioned for them to get out of the car. Marissa led the way, trying to look strong when she felt as if everything in her was quaking. She wished she could prevent Catherine from having to endure this ordeal, but Eric had been adamant about her coming along.
Two deputies and several people who appeared as no more than blurs stepped away when Marissa and Catherine neared the grave. The icy night lay silent and deep, making Marissa feel as if she were floating through a void without atmosphere, without a hint of other human presence. One of the cemetery lights shone harshly into the desecrated grave. Marissa walked as close to the hole as possible and kneeled.
She saw objects, but at first her jumbled thoughts could make no sense of them. Catherine stooped down beside her and gripped her gloved hand. “Marissa,” she said softly, “I know it’s cold, but I’m here with you. Neither of us has to be here alone.”
At first everything seemed blurry. As much as it hurt, though, Marissa drew knife-sharp air into her lungs, held it for a moment, and then the objects took form. With a sense of unreality, she saw a dainty, puffy-sleeved satin and organza dress spread carefully on the cold dirt and a tiny matching cap placed slightly above the dress. The dress collar bore a small, gracefully embroidered pink M.
On the narrow bodice, in the location of the heart, spread a pool of red liquid pierced by an ice pick driven in to the hilt.
The world spun for a moment and Marissa gratefully felt Catherine’s arms close tightly around her. Marissa blinked, regained her balance, and said to Eric in a thin, high voice, “It’s my christening dress.”
2
Eric paused and then asked, “Are you sure it’s your dress?”
“Yes. My mother embroidered the M. She embroidered a C on Catherine’s.”
“The two of you didn’t wear the same dress.”
“No. My parents believed we should each have our own dresses.”
“Did your parents give you the dresses to keep when you became adults? Did you have yours when you were in Chicago, Marissa?”
“No. I had a small apartment then—I didn’t have room for keepsakes.”
“And I live in a small apartment now,” Catherine said. “Mom said someday we’d both have houses with room for all the things she’d saved from our childhoods, but for now she had plenty of space for them at home.”
Eric frowned. “So this dress has always been in the Gray home, Marissa.”
“Yes. Packed away with Catherine’s, I suppose. We don’t get out our christening dresses and look at them every time we visit.”
“You never loaned your christening dress to anyone else?”
“No,” Marissa snapped. “That would have hurt my mother’s feelings. And besides…I just wouldn’t want anyone else—even a sweet baby—to wear it. There you have it—I’m a selfish bitch.”
“Oh, you are not,” Catherine soothed. “You’re the most generous—”
Eric spoke quietly but firmly: “Ladies, I hate to interrupt this beautiful moment, but let’s not forget someone wanted to put Marissa’s christening dress on your mother’s grave and stick an ice pick through it.” Marissa flinched. “Have there been any signs that someone broke into your house?”
“Of course not!” Marissa flared. “Don’t you think we would have noticed?”
“Have you checked every window lock? Every door lock for traces that somebody skillfully picked one? Do you know who has keys to your house?”
“No one except Marissa and me,” Catherine said, for the first time sounding stern. Marissa thought her sister might have had enough of Eric’s unsympathetic tone. “Do you think we go around passing out keys to our home?”
“No, but I think your parents might have given a key to a neighbor in case they locked themselves out. That would be more likely after your father died and your mother lived there alone. She wouldn’t have a husband to call and let her in if her keys fell out of her purse and she didn’t notice or her purse was stolen or…” Eric huffed. “There are a dozen ways a perfectly competent person can lose keys. Whether there are lost keys, keys given to someone else, keys simply vaporized into space, we’re getting your locks changed tomorrow. I should have done it a couple of days ago so something like—” he gestured at the grave—“this couldn’t have happened.”
For a moment, everyone present simply stared at him, wondering what to expect next. Marissa didn’t give him a chance to speak, though. “There’s a photograph lying beside my dress. I can’t see clearly—my eyes are watery from the cold. May I pick it up? I’m wearing gloves.”
Eric nodded. Marissa leaned forward and retrieved a four-by-six-inch color close-up. “We must have been on the Annemarie,” she said absently. She guessed herself to be sixteen in the picture. She wore the white bikini her father had thought too daring but she loved against the fabulous tan she’d gotten that summer. Her hair had been longer than now, almost touching her waist. Her eyes had looked dazzling as Dillon Archer—tan, muscular, and handsome—wrapped his right arm tightly, possessively, around her shoulders and gazed at her with…affection? No, Marissa thought. Love.
On the back of the photograph was written: M.G. & D.A.—Together Forever.
Chapter 15
1
“Good lord, Marissa, we’ve looked at every door and window in this house and I can’t see any sign that someone even tried to get in here, much less accomplished it.” Catherine and Marissa sprawled on the comfortable furniture of the family room, each drinking strong coffee. “I guess we were stupid to conduct a search as soon as we got home. Now it’s dawn, we’re exhausted, and Eric is going to send experts over here to go over the whole place.”
“Both of us were too horrified to get any sleep last night anyway, even with surveillance. Besides, if someone had gotten in and took the dress, I wanted to be able to say we found out how.” Marissa paused. “I know we’re getting new locks, but you don’t suppose they’re going to put in new windows in the middle of winter, do you?”
“God forbid,” Catherine groaned, then burst out, “Why did it take us so long to remember where the hell Mom stored our christening dresses?”
“I have a feeling my christening dress has been in hell the last few days,” Marissa said grimly.
“I don’t like to think about where it’s been lately. I’d rather think of it wrapped in tissue paper and lying in a labeled box in the cedar-lined storage closet with mine. Should I feel inferior because someone only wanted yours?”
“If you felt inferior because yours wasn’t stolen, I’ll be very worried about you, and I have enough on my mind,” Marissa murmured dolefully.
“No reason for worry. I think I’m taking everything very well, considering my reputation as the scaredy-cat sister.” Catherine stood and headed for the kitchen. “I’m going to take some fresh coffee out to Deputy Crane, who’s been sitting in front of the house most of the night for nothing.”
“You sound almost disappointed that he was here for nothing.”
Catherine stopped walking and frowned. After a moment, she said, “Maybe I am. At least if someone had tried to break in, the cop would have caught him and this nightmare would be over.”
Marissa smiled regretfully. “I have a weird feeling that even if the person who defiled Mom’s grave is the killer, the nightmare still won’t be over for a long time.”
“Marissa, you didn’t need to come in at the regular time this morning,” Pete Hagarty said when she arrived at the Gazette office. “You could have called and said you’d be in at noon. I know all about what happened last night.”
“Of course you do. You’re a first-rate newsman,” Marissa answered. “Catherine and I were awake all night, though. If I’d stayed at home even an extra couple of hours, I wouldn’t have slept.”
&nb
sp; Pete leaned close to her, smelling strongly of Old Spice. “Is it true your christening gown lay in the grave with an ice pick stuck in it?”
“Yes. Catherine’s christening gown is still at our house.”
“You have no signs of a burglary?”
“No.”
“How about the photograph? I heard there was a photograph with the dress.”
Marissa thought of the picture. Yes, Pete, she almost said. It was a photograph of Dillon Archer holding me possessively, both of us looking radiantly happy. Eric wasn’t in the picture. Why? At sixteen, I already had a mad crush on Eric. Maybe he didn’t feel the same about me.
Then she caught herself. Had she forgotten she was a news-woman? She was spilling information the police probably didn’t want released. “It was an old photograph of me on Dad’s boat. It seemed everyone was taking pictures on those boat rides, though. There must be a hundred of them.”
They just weren’t enlarged, pristine, and titled “Together Forever.”
All day Marissa worked on obituaries and small, unimportant stories. She even wrote a couple of fillers. She knew an article about the grave desecration would appear in the evening paper, but she didn’t know who was writing it and she knew she wouldn’t be reading it tonight.
At one o’clock, Eric called to let her know he’d ordered new locks for her house, which would be installed during the afternoon, and that a basement window latch showed signs of tampering. “No footprints in the dirt, though, and no fingerprints.”
“We went over everything. I can’t believe we missed it,” Marissa said.
“The latch wasn’t broken and you could only see the damage from outside. Also, it should make you feel better to know the red liquid on the dress wasn’t blood,” Eric told her. “It was red food coloring and water. We also didn’t find any prints on the ice pick. We might find something just under the hilt edge, but I doubt it.” He sounded tired and disappointed. “I heard you and Catherine stayed up all night.”
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