He’d marry Kristy, and the two of them would raise Bonnie, and a couple more kids, if they were lucky, and it would all be as perfect as a black-and-white sitcom from the 1950s.
Yeah, right. Kristy’s father had killed a man, and hidden the body in a horse’s grave. Let the secret eat him up from the inside.
And Jake? Well, he’d been a card-carrying son of a bitch, no two ways about it. Before he kicked the bucket himself, he’d put three good women in their graves—Logan’s mother, Dylan’s, and then Tyler’s.
Still had a hammer in his hand and a coffin nail between his lips at two out of three weddings.
“Not bad, old man,” Dylan said.
He pictured Briana’s face, so full of love and hope. Those freckle-faced boys of hers, they clearly loved Logan, too, though they still had a relationship with their birth father, who worked at an auto shop in town.
He thought of Bonnie, and then, inevitably, Kristy.
And was half-surprised to find himself driving along the cemetery road. He got out of the truck, in the glare of his headlights, to open the old gate—really just some weathered poles, wired together—lay it aside.
He drove on through, letting the gate lie.
Since there was nothing but footpaths once he got inside the cemetery, he parked the truck and walked to Jake’s grave. Stood there, with just the moon, intermittently disappearing behind ragged clouds, to see by.
There were pockmarks in the ground, and the headstone was chipped. Dylan frowned, squatted to run his hand over the raw places on the marker.
“Bullet holes,” Logan observed, stepping out of the darkness.
“Jesus,” Dylan said. “You damn near gave me a heart attack.”
Logan flipped on the flashlight he was carrying—had he been trying to sneak up on him?
“Sorry,” Logan replied lightly.
“How did you know I was out here?” Dylan asked, a little annoyed at being caught visiting a grave in the middle of the night, like some—well—grieving person.
“Saw your headlights,” Logan said. “I figured it had to be you.”
“Could have been Tyler,” Dylan answered, still crouched on the ground next to Jake’s splintered headstone.
“He’s long gone. Won’t be back until he takes a notion to punch one of us out again.”
The subject of Tyler was a sore one with Dylan. He’d been counting on tossing back a beer or two with his little brother, talking about everything but old times.
“He tries that with me,” Dylan snapped, “I’ll kick his ass.”
Logan merely smiled at that. He looked weird in the glow of his flashlight, like a character in The Blair Witch Project, or Jake, when they were kids and he’d crept up on their “campsite” in the backyard, pretending to be a raving maniac, out for blood.
Not that he’d had to pretend all that hard. Being a maniac came easy to him.
“You said these were bullet holes?” Dylan asked.
Logan, dropping to his haunches, nodded. “Seems there are folks out there who still want to kill the old bastard, regardless of the fact that he’s been dead for five years.”
Having said this, Logan drew in a breath. It wasn’t quite a gasp, but Dylan heard it as one.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re entitled to your opinion. I didn’t make up any songs about Dad being a hero, either.”
They were both silent for a moment. Dylan was thinking of Tyler, and the way he’d fought so hard to believe Jake was a good man, the kind of father he’d needed and never had.
Something sour gathered in Dylan’s mouth, and he spat.
“Bonnie all right?” he asked.
“Sleeping like a baby,” Logan reported. “Briana’s an old hand at taking care of kids, Dylan. Nothing’s going to happen to Bonnie.”
“Isn’t it?” Dylan asked. The sour taste had been replaced by a coating of rust, evidently. His voice scraped against his throat.
Logan stood. Dylan did, too.
“Mind telling me what that’s supposed to mean?” Logan asked quietly, folding his arms.
Whatever his own misgivings might be, Dylan didn’t want to throw cold water all over Logan’s hopes for a future with Briana and the boys and the kids they expected to have together.
“Nothing,” Dylan said.
Logan made a sound in his throat, a sort of contemptuous burst of breath. “Spare me the bullshit, Dylan,” he rasped. “You’re out here in the dark, wondering whether to cry or spit on the grave. I’ve been there. What’s gotten under your hide?”
Dylan let out a long sigh. “Maybe I didn’t do Bonnie any big favor, being her father,” he said. “Now she’s going to grow up as a Creed.”
CHAPTER TEN
SLEEP, KRISTY SOON DISCOVERED, was out of the question.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Dylan—reliving every kiss, every caress, every throaty man-sound he’d made in their most intimate moments. She actually considered taking a cold shower, but just imagining icy water pounding against her love-warmed skin, still pulsing with the echo of earlier responses, gave her goose bumps.
“I might as well do something constructive,” she told Winston, who had curled up at the foot of the bed, perchance to dream. She got up, rummaged through a drawer, found sweatpants and a T-shirt reserved for painting and pulled them on.
Winston rose to all fours, stretched luxuriously and meowed.
There was still wallpaper to scrape in the little room in back of the kitchen, and door frames to paint—but somehow, the prospect was about as appealing as watching the wood dry, and television sounded even worse.
When no better ideas came to mind, Kristy padded down the back stairs to brew tea, Winston following, and double-checked that the lock was turned and the chain was on.
The phone rang, startling her, and Kristy reached for the receiver automatically. Who could be calling her at this time of night, besides Dylan? Speculation ran wild: maybe Bonnie was sick. Maybe he wanted to come back.
But the voice on the other end of the line belonged to Floyd Book. “I was driving by on patrol,” he said, “and I saw your lights go on. Everything okay?”
Kristy’s stomach curdled. “F-Fine,” she lied. “Everything is fine.” She forced a cheerful, I-don’t-really-think-you’re-a-murderer note into her voice. “Since when do you, the big honcho, have to work the night shift? Don’t your deputies take turns keeping the mean streets of Stillwater Springs safe for democracy between sunset and dawn?”
Floyd chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Right now, one of them is on vacation. The other is on sick leave—he says it’s flu, but I think he doesn’t have the stomach for exhuming bodies. Passed out cold when he saw the girl.”
A shudder went through Kristy, and she closed her eyes against images of crumbling flesh, disintegrating hair and old bones. It didn’t help.
She thought of reporting Freida’s breakin, but since she didn’t plan to press charges and didn’t want to give Floyd an excuse to stop by, she stuck with her original decision. “Has the girl’s family been notified?”
“Yes,” Floyd said, and there was a ring of sorrow in his voice. “There was no point in their viewing the body, but they identified the ring she was wearing. As soon as the forensics report is in, the remains will be released for a proper burial. I guess that’ll bring the Clarkstons some closure, but the bottom line is, they’ve still lost their daughter for good, and nothing is going to change that.” He sighed heavily. “That damn election can’t come too soon to suit me—but there was a time when I sweated out the vote-counting myself. Thought I’d die of disappointment, back when I ran against old Warren Holter fresh out of the army, if I didn’t win.”
Kristy wanted, suddenly and fiercely, to blurt out the question pounding in the back of her mind.
Did you kill that girl?
She bit down hard on her lower lip to forestall the urge. Since there was still a chance that Floyd Book hadn’t figured out what she suspected, it was safe
r to keep her mouth shut.
“I won’t keep you,” he said, when she was silent. “Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any trouble at your place.”
“Thanks,” Kristy said. Her palm was moist, where she gripped the telephone receiver, and her fingers ached because she was holding it so tightly. “But I’m okay, really.”
“If the reporters get after you too much, you call me,” Floyd told her.
They said their goodbyes, and rang off.
Dylan had been right earlier, Kristy thought, once she’d replaced the receiver. She was letting her thriller-stoked imagination run away from her. Sheriff Floyd Book hadn’t killed Ellie Clarkston. It was crazy to think he was capable of a heinous crime like that—he’d devoted his entire career to upholding the law.
Except, of course, when it came to the secret of Madison Ranch.
Even less likely to sleep than before, if that was possible, Kristy went into her small study, off the living room, and logged onto her PC.
First, she ran a search on Ellie Clarkston and her disappearance.
Along with newspaper articles, there were a surprising number of private references to the case online, even after all this time. Everything from video clips of the parents, John and Barbara, pleading with the public for any scrap of information that would help them find their daughter, to weird amateur sites offering theories as far-fetched as alien abduction, governmental conspiracies and human sacrifice. There were blogs, too, devoted to probing the psyche of your average, run-of-the-mill serial killer, many with a tone a little too admiring for Kristy’s taste, message boards for “fans” of poor Ellie and other young women like her. And worse, for their killers.
Kristy’s blood ran cold, looking at all that stuff. It creeped her out to think there were people out there with nothing better to do than post the gleefully macabre dredges of their sick minds on the Web.
She clicked her way out of the cyber-landfill.
Surfing the Net was clearly no cure for insomnia, but she was still too antsy to read or watch TV, and except for a midnight run to Wal-Mart or bellying up to the bar for a tall one over at Skivvie’s, which would certainly delight the gossips, there weren’t a lot of choices.
She could shower, dress and go to the library to catch up on work, except that there wasn’t any work to catch up on, because she was ultragood at her job, and besides, the dark of night seemed threatening, even oppressive.
If Sheriff Book hadn’t killed the Clarkston girl, then someone else had. Perhaps it had been a stranger, passing through—but what if the killer was a local? What if it was a person she spoke to all the time, in the grocery store, the post office, the library?
That idea was even scarier than the evil-stranger scenario.
She blinked when an instant message showed up in the lower right-hand corner of her monitor, as startling, in its own way, as Sheriff Book’s unexpected phone call had been.
Hi, began the message. Why’d you rush off? The screen name, charmingly, was Gravesitter.
Who the hell was Gravesitter?
Common sense and curiosity squared off on the field of Kristy’s mind, and curiosity won, as it usually did in any matter not related to her job. Who’s asking? Kristy typed in response.
Saw your name when you stopped by our message board a few minutes ago, came the immediate and blithe answer, written e.e. cummings–style and full of misspellings. And neatly skirting her question. You should have stuck around. We’re not a bad bunch.
No, Kristy thought grimly, you just sit hunched over a computer in some gloomy basement room, knee-deep in dirty laundry and fast-food wrappers and greasy pizza boxes, chatting about the redeeming qualities of serial killers.
Stopped in by accident, Kristy typed. Not my kind of thing.
Too good for us?
She bristled. Well, yes, as a matter of fact, she thought. Not being a monster and a ghoul, I guess I am. How had this guy—or woman—been able to send her an instant message, or any other kind? She certainly hadn’t registered for any of the message boards she’d visited.
But, then, there were computer geeks everywhere—even in small Montana towns three miles from nowhere. A few patrons, mostly junior high kids, used the donated PCs at the library, and while she’d never tried to pick up their cyber-trail after they logged off and skulked away, she would now, and at the first opportunity, too.
The instant-message window came up again, with a chiming sound. Kristy? Are you still there?
Kristy? Are you still there?
How had this person known her name? It wasn’t in her e-mail address.
WHO ARE YOU? Kristy demanded, punching the keys hard as she typed the demand.
Just a friend, came the response. By the way, it’s good to know you’re sleeping with Dylan Creed again. Some of us thought you were frigid.
Furious—and scared—Kristy logged off immediately—and then wished she hadn’t. Now, there would be no way to trace the messages back to their source—or would there? How many Gravesitters could there be, out there crawling around the Web like spiders stalking flies?
Kristy logged back on. Ran a search.
Thousands. That’s how many Gravesitters there were. Thousands upon thousands.
Kristy pushed back from the desk, got to her feet and paced, Winston matching her step for step.
Just a friend—by the way, it’s good to know you’re sleeping with Dylan Creed again—some of us thought you were frigid.
A local, obviously.
Freida? Sheriff Book? Julie Danvers?
Or just some high school kid, messing with her head?
It was time to stop playing Nancy Drew, she decided. Make herself a second cup of herbal tea—the first had grown cold—soak in a hot bath, relax.
Relax. Yeah, right.
After the Freida incident.
After Dylan’s lovemaking had turned her soul inside out.
After Gravesitter’s chummy little instant messages.
And with the looming prospect of a media circus, centered around the drifter her dad had killed, in her defense and maybe his own and her mother’s, as well, and the finding of Ellie Clarkston’s body. Not to mention her doubts about Sheriff Book, a man who’d been like an uncle to her, if not a second father.
She tried the herbal tea anyway, and the hot bath, too.
And when the sun rose the next morning, Kristy was on hand to greet it.
*
AS IT TURNED OUT, filing the custody papers was sort of anticlimactic, as far as Dylan was concerned. Once it was done, bright and early the morning after he and Kristy had made love, there was nothing to do but wait for the slow wheels of justice to grind into motion.
Dylan had met Logan in front of the tiny courthouse in Stillwater Springs at 9:00 a.m. sharp, when the place opened, wearing his best jeans, polished boots and a freshly purchased white shirt with the folds still in it, only to find his big brother sporting a snazzy lawyer suit, dress shoes buffed to an intimidating shine and a tie.
Logan had read his expression, grinned and slapped his shoulder. “Relax, cowboy,” he’d said. “There’s no need to dress up.”
This is dressed up, Dylan had thought, panicked. What if the judge thought he was a slob, and couldn’t provide an orderly environment for Bonnie?
Except, they didn’t see the judge. They didn’t see anybody but Fred Brill, the bored and balding clerk who’d worked the front desk at the courthouse since Reagan’s first term in office, if not longer. Logan saw that the documents were stamped and shuttled into the system, such as it was, and that was it.
“Now what?” Dylan demanded, as they walked outside again, onto the tree-shaded sidewalk.
“Now, we wait,” Logan answered.
“Why’d you put on a suit, if you knew we didn’t have to go before a judge?” Dylan asked, resettling his hat.
“Sometimes,” Logan said, “I just like to look like a lawyer.” He indicated the Marigold Café, just down the street, with a nod
of his head. “Let’s get some breakfast.”
Since practically every parking space on Main Street was filled, an unusual phenomenon in Stillwater Springs at any time of day, they left their separate trucks in the courthouse parking lot and walked to the Marigold. There were vans bearing the logos of several national networks, and the closer Dylan got to the front door of the restaurant, the less of an appetite he had.
“They’re here to get the story on Kristy’s dad,” he mused, worried.
“Yeah.” Logan nodded. “And the Clarkston girl. Damn. Who’d do a thing like that?” It was a rhetorical question, with no answer expected, so Dylan didn’t offer one.
He took hold of the door handle and pulled. He’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, because things had ended badly with Kristy the night before, after all that brain-bending sex, and because he kept imagining Sharlene and the current boyfriend zeroing in to grab Bonnie. The thought of a pack of newshounds baying at Kristy’s heels did nothing to improve his mood.
The café buzzed with chatter. Dylan and Logan got the last two seats in the place and ordered coffee. When it came, Dylan took a sip and almost spat it out—the stuff tasted like battery acid.
Logan didn’t seem to notice. He sipped away, scanning the crowd, taking people’s measure, in that way he had. “I imagine Kristy’s expecting a blitz, but it wouldn’t hurt to warn her, just the same.”
Dylan was up for an excuse to talk to Kristy. He felt bad about the way he’d acted last night, but the truth was, it scared the hell out of him, the things she made him feel. As teenagers, they’d had cosmic sex and thought they loved each other. Now, Dylan realized neither one of them had had a clue.
Love was a desperate thing, fierce and ferocious, capable of consuming a man like invisible fire.
Logan watched him intently. “Are you all right?” he asked, and he sounded as if Dylan’s answer would really matter to him.
“No.” Dylan sighed, rubbing his unshaven chin with one hand. The roughness matched his state of mind—sandpaper against bare and tender hide. “I don’t think I am.”
“Bonnie?”
“Partly,” Dylan admitted. “I’m scared shitless, Logan. I can’t let Sharlene raise her, but I don’t know jack about bringing up a kid—especially a girl kid.” He paused, at once holding back the question and forcing it past his throat. “What if I’m like Dad?”
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 45