The older part of the cemetery was hillier, with a less-tended maze of taller stones. A wind had come up, the Santa Anas, whispering dryly in the dark through the trees.
Underneath was another crackling that set Roarke’s nerves on edge.
He stopped, very aware of the familiar weight of his weapon, back on his hip. He scanned the shadows around him, under the trees, beside the standing headstones . . .
He could see no one.
Birds. Squirrels. The wind. Could be anything.
After a moment, he turned and kept walking.
He found Laura’s headstone first, in a grove circled by oak trees, and stood at the base of the grave, looking at the inscription on the stone:
With her Father in Heaven
He stifled his distaste for the platitude. “Why?” he asked aloud, gently. “What happened to you?”
The night was silent. No answer from the dead girl.
It was something.
Something Laura knew. Something she feared. Something so terrible she couldn’t live with it.
He turned away, to go in search of the other girl, who rested just a stone’s throw from her classmate.
Dead within a week of each other, carrying their shared secret to their graves.
He walked the circular paths of the apparently deserted cemetery, looking for Ivy’s headstone. His suspects, speculations and suspicions swirled in his brain, and he felt increasingly uneasy, not entirely alone.
As he approached the spot the manager had marked on the map, he found his steps slowing, his mind already reluctant to turn to thoughts of Ivy and what she had suffered. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach . . . An image flashed in his head: the vision he’d had in the desert of the girl writhing in the bonfire.
He stopped at the foot of the grave, as his own terror of burning rose up, threatened to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes, felt the cool of the night air on his face, breathed in to center himself.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Ivy. And then, before he could stop himself: “I’ll find him.”
He opened his eyes, focused on the headstone, the inscription under Ivy’s name on the simple marble marker.
A single candle can both defy and define the darkness
The thought was intriguing, provocative, even. It occurred to him that Mother Doctor may have chosen the text.
What do I want on my tombstone?
The question came out of nowhere, startling and ominous. An image of his own name on a marble stone loomed in his head . . .
The sick feeling was roiling in his stomach, but it was no longer about Ivy. Now the feeling was unmistakable.
He was not alone.
CARA
Chapter Forty-Two
After the service, people walk out of the church, out into the cemetery, through the gravestones.
The day is bleak; a bruised sky that smells like rain, and chilly fog drifting through the old oaks at the cemetery. But Cara can feel the subdued excitement in the students beside her, the thrill of real-life horror.
She finds a thick old tree to stand beside, half-hidden, and watches the crowd, the other students, standing nervously among the graves.
Chris Devlin hangs back near a clump of trees with his jock friends. Even from a distance she can smell the pot smoke on their clothes, oozing from their pores.
Chris is looking at her. She turns away from him to survey the cluster of men in suits. Vice-Principal Lethbridge stands with them, and beside him is the big man with the pale crew-cut hair who was in the early morning Palmers meeting. Franzen.
Martell and Devlin and the jocks seem like a junior version of them. Packs.
Laura’s parents, an ordinary couple, are surrounded by the men in suits, staring with blank faces down into the open wound of the grave.
Everyone casts long shadows, even though there is no sun.
The minister says more words over the coffin, then men in dark suits lower the box with Laura inside it into the ground, and people step forward to throw dirt into the hole.
Cara hears the thud of dirt raining down on the wooden lid of the casket, feels the earth pressing down on her own chest.
Her family is deep in the ground, too, in a desert cemetery in Blythe. Everyone but her. She was not allowed to go to the funeral. This is her first. Now, being here, she doesn’t know why she was kept away. It’s everything that comes before that is frightening.
She stays while all the others move away through the gravestones. Stays behind a tree and watches as a small earth-digger rolls over the hill it has been hiding behind. It stops beside the grave and shovels scoops of earth into the gaping hole of the grave.
In an amazingly short time, the hole is filled, and the earth digger rolls away.
The sound of the motor fades away, and the grove is quiet again, just the dull whisper of wind. Cara moves out from behind her tree, approaches slowly, stares down at the grave, the jagged edges of turf awkwardly covering it, the insipid inscription on the headstone.
The grave is as silent as Laura was in life.
Cara pictures the girl, lying mute and still, her head on a satin pillow. Six feet beneath Cara, in the ground.
“You could’ve talked,” Cara says. “You could have told me.”
Her legs feel shaky. She sits on the grave, leans her back against the headstone, closes her eyes, trying to feel the other girl, any remnant of her.
You left me. You left me.
Is it better for you now? Is it peaceful?
No. It’s just dead.
Why should It be alive and you dead?
“You lost,” she says aloud. “You let It win.”
She has not cried in years, except in her sleep. Sometimes she wakes with her face wet, her chest and throat aching. She feels the same way now, only her eyes are dry.
Then there is another feeling. Shock. Dread.
As a shadow looms up in front of her, towering above the grave, looking down at her, featureless against the gray of the sky.
ROARKE
Chapter Forty-Three
Roarke put his hand to his holster, turned in the middle of the graves, called out harshly. “Who’s there?”
Presence hovered in the silence. He unsnapped the Glock’s holster, hand hovering beside the weapon. “I’m law enforcement and I’m armed. Show yourself.”
A figure eased out of the shadows of the tree, hands half-raised. Roarke strained to see through the night . . . and recognized Chris Devlin.
What the hell?
Roarke moved closer, lowering his weapon, but he felt the rush of anger as the adrenaline hit his veins. “Want to explain why you’re following me?”
Devlin looked flustered. “I was leaving work and I saw your car turn right in front of me . . .”
Right. Sure.
Devlin finished quickly. “And okay, I wanted to know. You’re obviously . . .”
He stopped. Roarke waited, pointedly. Obviously what?
“You’re looking into all this. Laura. Ivy Barnes.”
“And what’s your interest?”
Devlin looked around at the graves. “I lived it. Yeah, I was a kid. But come on. You think there’s not a lot of us who wanted to know what happened?” His face was drawn. “You don’t know what it was like. Living with this shit going down, all at once—and so much of it no one ever talked about. Those girls. It was like a bad dream. I feel like I spent my whole life under some kind of cloud.”
That rang true. It was a whole lot of hell for one school.
Devlin opened his hands. “Ever since . . . all this stuff about Cara coming out. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Roarke got that, too. The pull of the mystery. “So you followed me,” he said implacably.
“I wanted to know more, that’s all.” Devlin paused, then met Roarke’s eyes. “Maybe like you do.”
Roarke felt a rush of anger at his words, but he knew that it was true. “Maybe we can exchange information, the
n.” He glanced down at the grave. “So you know about Ivy Barnes.”
The look Devlin gave him was haunted. “I didn’t know her. But that’s not the kind of thing you forget.”
“Did you go to her funeral?”
Devlin frowned. “No. I don’t think I knew about it.”
In a small town, he hadn’t heard about it? That meant it was kept quiet.
“Did you go to Laura Huell’s funeral?”
Devlin glanced back toward the grove encircling Laura’s grave. “Yeah.”
“You said before you didn’t know her, either.”
“A bunch of us went. A lot of the school.”
“Just another excuse to get out of class?”
Devlin looked angry, defensive. “There was some of that. But it wasn’t all that. And my dad knew her. She played the piano—”
“At the Wayfarers Club,” Roarke finished, and felt a prickling. Wayfarers. “Did you know Mel Franzen?”
“Sure. He was the Palmers liaison at the school.”
“The junior Wayfarers Club.”
“Right.”
“Was he at Laura Huell’s funeral?”
Devlin raised his hands. “I don’t know, man. It was sixteen years ago.”
“Was Cara there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, she was there.”
He was sure of that, at least. And there was that same tone of voice again. The way he’d spoken about Cara before. Loss. Longing. And anger, too.
Roarke came to a sudden decision. “You want to know what happened? So do I. Are you willing to help me?”
Devlin looked startled. “Of course.”
“Come on, then.”
He started back through the headstones, toward Laura’s grave. After a moment, Devlin followed. Above them, the old iron streetlamps showered hazy yellow light through the mist.
And Roarke could tell the moment Devlin understood where they were going; he felt the younger man tense beside him.
Roarke led Devlin through a row of trees . . . slowed and stopped in the clearing beside Laura’s grave. Devlin glanced around the oak grove, the old, twisted shadowy trees, then looked at Roarke, waiting.
“I want you to close your eyes and picture yourself there, at the funeral.”
Devlin stared back at him. “What is this? You going to hypnotize me?”
“Nothing like that. It’s called cognitive interviewing. It’s a technique for getting more detailed reports from witnesses. You can remember more about this than you think.”
As he spoke, Roarke was watching Devlin closely. Even if Devlin didn’t agree, if he resisted too hard, it would say something. Devlin seemed to understand that, too, because he shrugged defensively. “Go on, then.”
“Eyes closed,” Roarke said, and after a moment, Devlin did it. Roarke shifted on his feet to get a clearer look at Devlin’s face in the lamplight. “You’re going to imagine yourself back on the day of the funeral.” Wind stirred the oak leaves above them as he gave the younger man a beat to think about it. Then he asked, “What time of day was it?”
It was a moment before Devlin answered. “Morning. Pretty early morning.”
“How do you know?”
Devlin frowned, then his face cleared. “I was barely awake.”
“Did you drive over here?”
“Martell picked me up.”
“Who’s Martell?”
“My buddy. Kyle Martell. We went way back. Kindergarten. Sports. You know.”
“Good,” Roarke said. “That’s good.” Devlin was cooperative, seemingly not resisting him at all, and he felt the thrill of the hunt . . . the feeling of stalking elusive prey, drawing the information out.
“What’s the weather like?”
“It’s cold. Wind. Fog. Lots of clouds.” Devlin’s shoulders jerked in an involuntary shiver. Good. Accessing sense memory, now.
“Do you go to church first, or the cemetery?”
“Church. Her parents were into church.”
“So you’re outside the church. Who else is there?”
“Lots of people. Church people. Lots of kids from school.” Roarke waited, and then Devlin said, “Bunch of guys from Wayfarers.”
Roarke’s pulse spiked, but he let it go for the moment. He’d circle back to it, when Devlin was deeper into the memory. He kept his voice calm. “You go straight in, or smoke a little something before?”
A conflicted look crossed Devlin’s face and he hesitated, then admitted it. “A joint in the car.”
“So you get stoned in the car. Then you go in to the chapel. Where are you sitting?”
“In the back.”
“What are you seeing?”
Devlin’s face was intent in concentration. “Coffin on a stand. Big blown-up school picture of Laura in front. A lot of people crying. Preacher talking, pretending like he knew her. But that’s not right, is it? I don’t think anyone knew her, really.”
He was doing well, much better than Roarke had expected. But Roarke was impatient to get to the cemetery. The funeral service was one thing. Setting the stage, taking the subject step-by-step through the memory was crucial setup, but what he really wanted to know were the faces at the graveside. Who was there at the interment, the actual lowering of the body into the ground. If the rapist—or rapists—had been anywhere, it would likely have been there.
“Do other people speak? Her parents?”
Devlin shook his head. “Not her parents. Fucking Lethbridge, though.”
Principal Lethbridge. Who would have been the vice-principal at the time.
“Course he had to get up there and drone on.”
There was a petulant tone in Devlin’s voice. He sounded like a teenager, regressing slightly. Another good sign he was going deeper into the memory.
“What is he saying?”
Devlin shrugged. The gesture looked young, childish. “Who cares, right? The guy’s a total tool.”
“Do other family members speak? Aunts, uncles, grandparents?”
“No one like that. Some kids do.”
“Who?”
“I dunno. Choir geeks, I think.”
“Not you or your friend Martell, though.”
“That would be stupid. We didn’t know her.” He raised his voice. “Nobody knew her.”
He was fully into the memory now, accessing emotion, and Roarke knew he could move on.
“So it’s after the funeral now. You walk out there to the gravesite?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe another joint in the car, first?”
Another hesitation. “Yeah.”
“What’s the weather like now?”
“Rain. It’s about to rain.” Around them the breeze picked up, murmuring through the trees above them.
“What do you smell?”
“That wet in the wind. And perfume. Lots of flowery shit.” Devlin made a face, and Roarke could almost smell it himself, the damp and the too-sweet perfume.
“Where are you standing?”
“Under this clump of trees. A ways back.”
“Who else is with you?”
“Martell. Guys from the team.”
“Who else do you see?”
“The cheerleaders all in a bunch, crying. Other kids from school.”
“How about adults? Look at the people at the grave. Who do you see?”
“The minister. Her parents. My mom and dad. A bunch of guys from Wayfarers.”
“Do you see Franzen?”
Devlin’s brow furrowed in the misty dark. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s there.”
Roarke felt a jolt of adrenaline. I knew it.
“Where is Cara?”
“She’s off by herself, sort of behind a tree. Jeans and turtleneck.” His face tightened in concentration. “Always a turtleneck.”
It was that very thing that had set Roarke off on Cara’s trail, three months ago. She wore it to cover the scar on her neck, where the Reaper had slashed her.
“Is she looking at the grave, o
r someone else?”
Devlin frowned. His face was focused and still, and Roarke found himself holding his breath.
Cara. Tell me something. What were you looking at? Who were you looking at?
“The Wayfarer guys. She’s looking at the Wayfarer guys.”
Wayfarers again. It’s back to them.
Roarke kept his voice level. “Any one of them in particular?”
Devlin shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Why were so many Wayfarers at the funeral, do you think?” Roarke asked.
Devlin grimaced. “They were into everything. Community fathers. That kind of shit.”
“Did you also see a Latino man in a suit, early thirties, well built? Most likely on his own?”
Devlin frowned, eyes still closed. “No. No, I don’t remember anyone like that.”
So Ortiz wasn’t there? Or Devlin just didn’t notice him?
Roarke was just trying to process that, when they were hit by the strong beam of a Maglite. “Hey. You there.”
Devlin’s body jerked and his eyes flew open. Roarke stiffened. A man in uniform stepped forward, shining strong light in their eyes. Roarke and Devlin lifted their hands automatically.
“Cemetery’s closed. You’re not supposed to be here.”
Roarke felt a wave of anger at the interruption, but knew the guard was just doing his job. “Sorry. We lost track of time. We’re leaving now.”
The guard stood watching them as they walked away, winding their way back through the dark graves, headed for the gates.
Devlin was quiet beside Roarke as they walked in the drifting mist; he seemed drained, even agitated. An intense cognitive interviewing session often had that effect. And the subject matter had been deep—maybe not exactly traumatic, but definitely not light, either.
Inside, Roarke was tired, but focused. It’s Wayfarers. Maybe Franzen. But whatever it is, it has something to do with that club. The ring, the palm frond, the presence at the funeral. It has to be.
Through the gates ahead he could see there were only their two cars in the dark cemetery parking lot, parked some distance away from each other. As they passed through the gates, Devlin stopped abruptly.
Bitter Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 4) Page 20