When she spotted Harvey Fine standing on the sidewalk talking to Tootsie in an agitated manner, she grew suspicious. Fine was a businessman. Why yell at Tootsie?
She got up and walked over to where they were standing, heard Fine say, “You need to talk to your employee about butting out of something she can’t handle.”
Harley tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around, scowling when he saw her. “Did I hear my name come up in your conversation?” she asked with a smile that felt forced.
“Yeah. You two have been asking questions about my construction firm. Stop it.”
“Your construction firm?” For a moment she stared at him, then she put two and two together. “You mean Shadowlawn Construction.”
“Yeah. I’m part owner. Butt out of my business.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And I’m sure you do.”
Tootsie looked from one to the other. He sounded distressed when he said, “I’ve had occasion to research Shadowlawn Construction, not Harley. Perhaps you should talk to me instead.”
Fine jerked his head toward her. “She’s behind it. I want it to stop.”
Tootsie nodded. “Of course. Consider it done.”
The look Tootsie gave Harley said “Don’t argue” as plain as day, and she kept her thoughts to herself. But once Harvey Fine had stalked off, she knew that she wasn’t about to stop looking into his firm. It was the key to everything. She just had to figure out how.
“Don’t even go there, girlfriend,” said Tootsie before she could ask what else he knew that he wasn’t telling her. He put up both hands, palms out. “I knew it was a bad idea to get involved.”
“But you’ll tell me what you found out, right? It may solve a lot of problems if I know why he’s upset about you asking questions. Legitimate businesses don’t care. Fine was pretty pissed for some reason. Why?”
Tootsie sighed. “You’re right. Okay. Later, then. After the party’s over I’ll give you the information I found online.”
“That’ll be a big help. I have a feeling he’s involved big-time in all the trouble with Jordan. Meanwhile, watch your back. I’m thinking there’s a good reason someone was waiting at your house.”
Tootsie’s eyes got big. “He could have been waiting for me? But it couldn’t have been Harvey Fine. He’s been right here all evening.”
“I imagine there’s more than one person in the construction group. Remember what happened to Johnny Pomona.”
“Now I’m queasy,” said Tootsie. “Don’t go too far. Stay in sight of everyone. If we have a killer running around this party, I don’t want to give him any chances.”
“Don’t worry. I’m staying right here in the pavilion.”
It seemed an eternity before the party began to wind down. Harley stayed longer than she wanted, keeping an eye on Tootsie, feeling uneasy and irritated at the same time.
Clouds still scudded across the sky, the moon shifting behind them, bright one moment and hidden the next. She went to help Tootsie clean up. Her brother and his band members were unhooking their equipment, and Tootsie was directing his helpers. Huge garbage bags were quickly filled with paper napkins and discarded food. One of the guys helping gathered up dirty champagne flutes and wine glasses and carefully placed them in boxes.
“I can’t believe you were brave enough to use real glass,” said Harley as she added a wine glass to a box.
“I rented them along with the helpers. Here, girlfriend. A toast.” He held up an almost empty bottle of champagne and two flutes. He poured a small amount in each. “To surviving yet another Halloween party. Now tell me who you’re supposed to be.”
Harley clinked her glass against his, then drank the two sips of champagne before saying, “Do you ever look in a mirror? Auburn hair. Pink silk shirt. Rust trousers—you know you have three pairs of these?”
Tootsie put a hand on his hip, frowned, and made a slow circle all the way around her. Then he sniffed. “My trousers fit much better.”
“I’m sure they do. These came from Goodwill. Are we ready to leave?”
“As soon as the last of the rental linens and glassware are in the van. You’re still coming by the house, right? I’ll show you the Shadowlawn Construction print-out. You can show me where the guy attacked you. I called Steve, and he’s already checked it out. There was no evidence of a break-in. Whoever it was, he knew how to turn off the alarm.”
Harley nodded. “It was weird. And scary. Mostly scary. I hate to think about how it could have turned out. By the way, you could have warned me about your hillbillies, you know.”
“My hill—oh. My dueling skeletons. Aren’t they cool? I found them online. This is the first year I’ve had them. I’ve been dying for them to scare somebody.”
“So glad I could be of service.”
“Darling, I can always count on you. Help me check the grounds, will you? I promised the park superintendent I would leave it as pristine as I found it.”
Harley helped get the last of the stuff loaded and the pavilion cleared of dangling skeletons and pumpkin lights. Kitschy yet effective. Eric and his band loaded up their equipment in the white panel van, sliding it in next to Tootsie’s decorations. They did a last minute check of the perimeter, picked up a few overlooked paper napkins, made sure the fire was out in the fireplace, and checked the bathrooms. Everything was clean.
“See you at my house in a few,” said Tootsie, then looked with a sigh at the white van. “My carriage awaits. I may not survive the trip.”
“You can always ride with me,” Harley offered. “I have an extra helmet.”
“Please, girlfriend. I’d rather take my chances in this bucket of bolts. At least it has a roof.”
“Chicken.”
“Sticks and stones . . . yes, I’m coming. Do be patient.”
She laughed as Tootsie climbed up into the passenger seat, hitching up his gown to keep from tripping over it. He gave her a pained glance, then shut the door.
The van lights illuminated the street as she walked to her bike and unlocked it. Her helmet was locked in place too, secured by a small chain. When she put it on and straddled her bike, the van lights flashed briefly and moved slowly down the street. She flicked on the bike’s lights, hit the ignition button, and it turned over, sounding smooth. She pushed back the kickstand and got about ten feet before the engine coughed and died. She tried again. Same result. She looked up just as the van disappeared around the corner.
Harley put down the kickstand, took off her helmet, and got out her flashlight. She opened the gas tank, turned on the ignition, and listened. The fuel pump was on, but no fuel was getting to the carburetor. It could be as simple as a crack or hole in the fuel line or clogged injector units, but she wasn’t in the right place with the right tools and parts to fix it.
This just wasn’t her night. Nothing had gone right. She tucked the helmet under her arm, then reached for the cell phone in her pants pocket. Nothing. Instead of being in the pocket where she’d put it earlier, she found only a bit of lint. Dammit! It must have fallen out while she was helping clean up. No telling where it had landed. She briefly debated on what to do. The closest house was two blocks away. Fuzzy vapor lights gave off only the faintest glow, illuminating very small areas. She could walk to the nearest house and ask to use their phone. Or she could look for hers. There didn’t seem to be many other choices.
She locked her helmet back on her bike and put the bike key deep into her pocket so it wouldn’t fall out. That’d be all she needed. Armed with a flashlight and a jumbo crop of goose bumps, she went back to the pavilion to search for her phone. It was really spooky with no one else there. The wind had picked up, and tree branches clacked together. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. Mist settled softly around her, and it muffled everything. She shivered. This was crazy. She should leave. What was one more cell phone? It wasn’t like she hadn’t lost or destroyed her share of them.
; Just as she turned to go back to her bike, she heard the unmistakable ring tones of “California” by Phantom Planet. Aha! Now if it would just keep ringing until she could find it, she’d be all right. She stood indecisively for a few moments, straining to catch the direction of the ring tones. She followed the sound until it stopped. Frustrated, she stood next to the cemetery fence. It had been close by. She was sure of it. But where?
It began to ring again, and Harley slowly turned, realizing that it came from within the cemetery fence. She hadn’t gone into the cemetery, not even to take down the fake spider webs. Someone else had done that. So how had it gotten in there? Could someone have picked it up, thinking it was their phone, and lost it? Possibly. So now what?
There didn’t seem to be much choice. Her bike wouldn’t start, everyone had gone, and unless she wanted to walk a half mile in the dark, the cell phone was her best bet. It was a really small cemetery, less than a dozen graves, some marked with only a broken concrete post. A gate was at the front, and she walked slowly around, lifted the latch, and pushed it open. It creaked loudly, like a door in a haunted house or every horror movie she’d ever seen.
“Enough with the creepy sound effects,” she muttered to herself. The soft mist lay in trailers across the ground, drifting with the wind, curling around gravestones. Her heart began beating so loud she thought it was going to jump out of her chest. She swallowed a lump in her throat and kept walking. Then the phone quit ringing, and she stopped. It was the damn fog that altered her perception. Maybe the phone wasn’t even in there.
“California” began to play again, and this time she saw the faint glow of the screen in the distance. It wasn’t just her imagination. There was the phone. Relief flooded her, and she headed toward the light only a few yards distant. It lay atop a knobby tree root and stopped ringing just as she got there, but that was okay as long as she had the phone.
When she bent to pick it up, a motion caught her attention, and she glanced up. She froze in place. It had to be a joke. Right? This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It had to be a joke. A loop of gauzy spider web flapped at her, tendrils streaming like long fingers.
Harley shivered. Fuzzy light from the full moon flirted behind clouds. She didn’t want to believe her eyes, but the evidence lay right before her: a familiar hat and a corpse, feet sticking up out of the ground, the head still under a mound of dirt. A weathered-looking headstone poked up behind it, leaning drunkenly; thick spider webs strung from the top of it to the bony hands of a plastic skeleton propped up against a nearby oak. It was only forgotten Halloween decorations. The grinning head tilted to one side, and a black rubber spider as big as a dinner plate dangled from a tree limb. It swayed in the wind and cast eerie shadows over the cemetery. Fog hovered above the damp ground.
It was a scene straight out of a horror movie. Cemetery Man. I Sell the Dead. Grave Encounters 2. And the classic, Pet Sematary.
It was a joke, right? But what if it wasn’t? What if—no, it had to be a joke. A prank. Someone was trying to punk her. Probably Eric to get even with her for the ferret thing. That’s all it was. A joke. And yet . . . it looked so real.
Harley shook her head. This was ridiculous. Why be afraid when it was just a prank? She took two bold steps forward. Okay. She’d play the game, and then she’d get even. Still, her heartbeat escalated, and her mouth went dry, and she had to force her knees to bend as she knelt on the damp earth. Her fingers skimmed the turned clods of black dirt. Clumps stuck to her fingertips, and she carefully brushed them away. Slowly, the face emerged. Her stomach dropped. It wasn’t a joke.
“Holy hell!” Harley yelped and tried to stand up and leap backward at the same time. She didn’t make it. Her feet slipped in the slick mud. Her arms pinwheeled, but it didn’t save her. She landed on the ground with a splat and sprawled on her back. Fear and disbelief clogged her throat and made her heart beat so hard her ribs ached. The urge to run like hell was overpowering. She kicked at the ground to wriggle as far away from the corpse as she could get. Panic set in when she got tangled in clingy filaments of the fake spider web. It clung to her like Silly String. The more she batted at it, the more entangled she became. Finally, with a mighty yank, she freed her hands of most of the web.
Maybe it was the yank that put her off balance. Maybe not. It felt like she was pushed. Her cell phone flew out of her hand and into the air, and she went backward, tried to catch herself, but her hands skidded in the slick mud, and she slid from the mound and down into a deep hole. She landed with her shoulders at the bottom, her head tilted to one side, and her legs wedged up against the wall over her head. A little dazed from the fall, she blinked a few times, squinted up at a fuzzy patch of light about five feet above her head.
As she lay there looking up at the small, rough rectangle of dim light, it dawned on Harley that she’d fallen into an open grave. Nightmare. Why hadn’t she paid attention to that little voice inside that had told her to stay home tonight? Or to Diva? But no. Now here she was in a grave. And no one around. This was not good.
She wriggled around and tried to move, but her body only wedged tighter into the soft dirt. Spider web threads still clung to her face and snagged on her hands as she sank deeper into the mud and muck at the bottom. This wasn’t doing it. She’d end up here for the entire night if she didn’t figure a way out—and she had to get out. Whoever had left that body might come back. Now she was certain she’d been pushed. A sense of urgency prodded her to desperation. She clawed frantically at the dirt, succeeding only in freeing clods that fell on her head and tasted awful. She shuddered, then tried again.
After several minutes of struggle, Harley managed to worm around enough to relieve the pressure on her twisted neck. It was cramped in the hole. Her feet still stuck up in the air, shoved up against raw earth, and her knees were practically under her chin. If she could just get her feet under her, she could stand and pull herself upright, then out of this dank, dark hole. Dammit, what were the odds of falling into an open grave? About par with an actual Elvis sighting, she figured. Yet here she was on her back in an open grave the size of a postage stamp and unable to get out.
A shadow above her head caught her attention, and she tilted back to squint up at the ragged opening. Nothing but hazy moonlight shimmered at first, but then she caught an unmistakable glimpse of movement. Rescue!
“Hey!” she shouted, “Hey! I’m down here and can’t get out!”
There was no reply, no concerned face peering into the hole. After a moment the light disappeared behind a huge shadow, and then a load of dirt crashed down on her.
Stunned, she scraped it off her face with her free hand and opened her mouth to loudly protest, but another load of dirt dumped into the hole. Harley spit dirt from her mouth, gagging a little. Damn them! What the hell? Suddenly she knew that whoever was up there knew she was down here—and intended to keep her here. Buried alive.
Chapter 13
HARLEY SLIPPED in and out of consciousness. The cold mud enveloped her, and she no longer felt her extremities. The thick blanket of dirt covered her, but thankfully didn’t cover her face so she could still breathe. She’d stopped shivering a while ago. Now she just waited for the inevitable. It was possible she might survive the night, but not very likely. She knew and accepted that.
Whoever had thrown dirt in on top of her had stopped midway through for some reason, but she didn’t much believe it was kindness. When she’d threatened, then pleaded for rescue, he laughed. He’d already killed once, and she figured he didn’t mind another corpse in the graveyard. If not for a phone call, maybe he would have filled the grave with the rest of the dirt. When it rang he’d walked off, but she heard him talking. Maybe it was the acoustics in the hole, but she couldn’t catch his words or identify his voice. When he returned he seemed in a hurry but shoveled in more dirt before disappearing.
Despite acceptance of her fate, Harley couldn’t help a tiny sliver of hope. It may not be too late. Tootsie was expect
ing her. He’d come looking for her, see her bike, and know she was still here. He’d find her. She knew he’d find her. But she didn’t know if it would be in time.
Her thoughts shifted to the corpse in the shallow grave. Felicia Cleveland’s eyes had still been half-open, her face twisted. It shocked Harley it was her instead of Jordan. Why would she be killed? That wouldn’t put money in anyone’s pockets. It was supposed to be Jordan. His partner had been killed. He’d had several attempts on his life. So why kill Felicia? None of it made much sense.
A clod of dirt shifted and fell on her when she tried to move her right arm, and she went very still. All she needed was for the muddy heap to bury her completely.
The sky overhead began to pale. She blinked dirt from her lashes. She’d been here all night. Maybe in daylight someone would find her. Surely someone would see the pile of dirt, would look for both of them, would find Felicia. Jordan would look for his wife, Tootsie and Morgan would look for her. She just had to be patient. That was all. Just stay alive until they could find her.
Piece of cake.
When it was light overhead, Harley thought she heard someone prowling above. Caught between fear it was the killer and hope it was rescue, she didn’t know whether to call out or not. What if the killer had returned to finish the job? Move the bodies? Make sure they were both dead?
So she lay quietly, waiting, listening, afraid to hope. In a few minutes the sound subsided, and she heard nothing but the chatter of birds and squirrels. In the distance a low rumble promised more rain. The sky looked a light gray, sunlight thready through the clouds. The wind must have picked up; branches clacked loudly together. Harley eyed the wall of dirt and mud. If it rained hard enough, it might all come crashing down on her.
The weight on her chest was already heavy. Any more mud, and she might not be able to breathe. Maybe this was how it was all going to end for her. Buried in someone else’s grave, alone, cold, and afraid. Yes. She was afraid. Not so much of dying, but of the slow death promised by suffocation. She thought of her mother and the warnings of a grave too soon, the darkness beyond . . . Diva believed in reincarnation. She said the soul had many chances to learn what it meant to be as perfect as humanly possible. Harley had laughed and said it was the ultimate recycling project. Now she wished she’d listened to her more closely. The spiritual side of life just wasn’t something she’d thought about too much since their days moving from California commune to commune.
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