Close to Home

by Lisa Jackson

  Somehow, the police had arrived.

  He only hoped they weren’t too late.

  Bellisario slammed on her brakes. What the hell was this? An accident? Cars at the side of the road, headlights on, doors open, one man leaning against the fender of a Honda. “Look, I gotta go,” she said into her headset. “Got a situation, but run Hardy Jones in. If that isn’t his ugly mug on the shot of Dana Rickert being abducted, I don’t know what is.”

  “Got it,” Mendoza said. “And while I’m at it, I’m gonna ask him about his association with our friend, Josh Dodds, now that we’ve got him in for his cache of illegal weapons. The FBI is leaning on him, and it looks like he might know more about these missing girls than we thought.”

  “Seriously?” The guy by the Honda was now running at her car, waving his arms.

  “That’s what he’s saying. But he wants a lawyer; wants to strike a deal. If Dodds is involved, we’ll have leverage, play one against the other.”

  “Where does Roger Anderson figure into this?”

  “That’s what I aim to find out.”

  “See if Jones and Dodds will roll on Anderson. He must be the guy in the security cam shot with Hardy. About the right size.” But something was off about it, something not quite right. There was something about the second man in the picture that didn’t fit. “Accident here. Send backup to the curve just before Rocky Point, about a mile south of The Elbow Room, close to the turnoff to Blue Peacock Manor. In this soup, we need traffic control at the least and probably more.”

  “You got it.”

  He hung up as Bellisario pulled onto the shoulder, parked, and drew her sidearm from its holster. “Stand back!” she ordered, opening her car door. “Hands over your head.” She didn’t like anyone running at her.

  The guy raised his hands over his head. “You have to help,” he said. “I’m Clint Walsh, and I’ve discovered my daughter’s car, but she’s not inside.” He stood in the middle of the road, and as Bellisario approached, she saw that his features were drawn, worry in his eyes. He looked familiar, but she didn’t know him.

  “What happened?”

  “I was driving to my neighbor’s house to see my daughter.”

  “She was visiting?”

  “She lives there,” he said. “My daughter is Jade McAdams, this is her car, and I found it just as you see it. Empty. Her purse, ID, and cell phone are inside. There’s blood on the pavement.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “We need to contact Sarah Stewart, her mother, see if Jade’s at the house and just left her car out here,” he said, but Bellisario, her weapon trained on him, knew he didn’t believe it for a second.

  “I think my daughter’s been kidnapped,” he added. “We have to find her. Now!”

  Jade was scared and pissed and couldn’t believe she was caught with these other girls, locked in a stall in a darkened, smelly barn so that, according to the Rosalie chick, these dirtbags could auction them off. For what? Prostitution, Rosalie had guessed, but Jade refused to think that would happen.

  If any one of them touched her, she’d kill them first.

  She rubbed her arms. The drafty barn wasn’t insulated, cold fog seemed to seep through the wooden walls, so old the knot holes had fallen away, allowing more frigid air inside.

  Rosalie had mentioned finding a weapon, and in the time that the lights had been turned on, Jade had seen something—a horseshoe, she thought—mounted over the inside of the door, high over her head but, she hoped, reachable.

  It wasn’t much, but damn it, it was something. And if she could bash the creep who’d hauled her in here over the head, she’d do it in a heartbeat. She’d watched a lot of crime shows, and she knew how to kill a person, in theory. Go for the throat, bite out the fucker’s Adam’s apple, shove his nose up into his brain with the flat of her hand, go for the eyes and the balls.

  She’d try them all.

  Rosalie’s plan was simple, to try and get the drop on whoever showed up next. Lure the guy into the stall, then escape and lock him in his own prison. After which, the freed prisoner would unlock all the other cages and the girls would either take the vehicle parked outside, or run through the woods to freedom.

  Simple.

  Neat.

  And it most likely wouldn’t work.

  She rubbed her cheek where the loser had slapped her. Twice. She bet, if she had a mirror and could see her face, she’d see a welt there.

  “I think I know where we are,” Jade ventured after listening to all their stories and piecing the information together.

  “Where?” Mary-Alice asked, and Jade’s stomach turned. Of all the people she hated to be caught with, it was supercilious, self-righteous Mary-A. She’s a victim too, Your ally, It ground Jade’s guts to think so. But, fine.

  “I think we’re on our property.”

  “ ‘Our’ property?” Dana said.

  “My mom’s or my family’s.” She remembered looking over the maps and plot plans that Mom had scattered over the table when Jade’s uncles had come over. At the time, Jade had only been concerned with leaving the damned Blue Peacock or having Cody visit her, and she’d been looking for spots where she could sneak off and meet him. “If I’m right, this place is an old stable that’s near a bunkhouse on the east end of the property. The house isn’t that far away. It’s west, along the river.”

  “Isn’t that all kind of, I don’t know, convenient?” Mary-Alice wasn’t buying it. “To be on the same land as the Blue Pigeon or whatever you call it.”

  Jade didn’t bother correcting her. Who cared? Rosalie was right. Whether she liked it or not, Mary-Alice was on their side. Strength in numbers, Remember: the more of you there are, the better the odds of getting free, “It seems like a coincidence, but maybe it’s not. Maybe these guys are connected to Blue Peacock Manor.”

  “How?” Mary-Alice again.

  “I don’t know.” She thought about her family tree, how recently it had changed. If the long-dead girl Helen could be believed, then Angelique had borne a child with her stepson, who had eventually killed her. But there was also that business with Theresa and Roger, two people who were related to Jade on her mother’s side, but who weren’t Stewarts. And what about herself? The girl who’d had an unnamed biological father for most of her life? “Look, I’m telling you, that I think this is my mom’s place, and if we get out of here—”

  “When we get out of here,” Rosalie corrected.

  “When we get out of here, we need to go west to the house. It’s the closest place.”

  “Then that’s the plan,” Rosalie said. “It’s dark, and we split up, run in the direction the river flows.”

  “How—how will we know?” Candice asked.

  “You need to run so that your right shoulder is facing the river, then you’ll be heading west, toward the house,” Jade said, and didn’t add that the place was supposed to be haunted. Whether the spirits in the house were real or all in her mother’s and Gracie’s imagination, they still had to be a hell of a lot better to deal with than the flesh-and-blood lowlifes willing to sell them to the highest bidder.

  Would the door really open? Hardly daring to breathe, Sarah twisted the long key.

  It didn’t move.

  She tried again.

  Nothing.

  No latch clicking, no locks tumbling, just sheer, utter silence.

  “Doesn’t look good,” she confided to her daughter.

  Gracie was deflated. “If it isn’t for this, what’s it for?”

  Good question, Sarah thought, as she knew of no other places on the property that were old enough to require this key to open them. She’d looked through every room in the house, including the basement and attic. There were no other obvious locked rooms.

  It didn’t make sense. Well, really, nothing did. Not when ghosts chase you out of your own home, for crying out loud,

  “Where’s the dog?”

  “Around.” Gracie swiveled her head and whistled, but Xena didn’t come boundi
ng from the shadows.

  “Hold this.” After handing the flashlight to her daughter, Sarah tried the key once more, putting a little more pressure on the shaft and—

  Click!

  The key suddenly turned in her hand as if greased. She held her breath. With a bit of a shove, the door creaked as it swung inward.

  Her heart thudded with dread. Showtime, she thought, as the fog moved in closer, seeming to encase the tomb where Angelique Le Duc was to have been laid to rest, had her life and death gone according to plan.

  But whose ever did?

  She took her flashlight back and shined its skinny little beam inside and down a short flight of stone steps leading deeper into the darkened vault.

  “Stay here,” she told Gracie again. “I mean, right here.” She pointed to the ground in front of the tomb. “And keep Xena with you.”

  “Mom, I’ll be okay. Just because you’re freaked out and—”

  “The dog. Right here. Right now. With you.” Sarah brooked no argument, and Gracie got the hint.

  “Fine.” She whistled softly, and a few seconds later the big, blond dog appeared, springing from the darkness to sit, her whole back end wiggling. “Stay.” Xena whined, but Gracie was firm. “Lie down.” Xena didn’t. The dog’s response to commands was limited, but Sarah was as satisfied that Grace was safe with her mutt.

  Drawing a steadying breath, she held the flashlight in a death grip and started down the stairs.

  Her throat tight, the muscles in her neck so tense they ached, every horror film she’d ever watched running through her brain, she followed the flashlight’s pale beam ever downward. This is certifiable, Sarah, As crazy as anything you’ve ever done, Shattering mirrors, being terrorized by a miniature statue, and now exploring a tomb in the dark,

  She reached the final step. The air was thin and dry, and the scent of dust and an odor she didn’t want to name hit her nostrils.

  Eerily quiet, the tomb was larger than she expected, seemingly separate from the rest of the world.

  “Gracie?” she called over her shoulder, her voice echoing.

  “Right here, Mom.”

  Good.

  Slowly, nerves as tight as bowstrings, she swept the weakening beam across the floor. Heart racing, ready to bolt, she tried to convince herself there was no one in the vault, no one but her and her own pounding pulse.

  She was wrong.

  A skeleton lay stretched upon a slab—a woman, she guessed, from its small size and the rotting nightgown and dark clumps of hair. “Oh, dear God.” The corpse had been here a while—teeth long and visible, hollow eye sockets, bony hands devoid of flesh folded over her empty chest.

  Sarah felt woozy, as if she might faint.

  After all these years, the mystery was solved. Sarah was certain she’d found her sister.

  But Theresa wasn’t alone.

  CHAPTER 36

  “Dear God,” Sarah said, her heart nearly stopping, her skin suddenly clammy, the sturdy walls of the shadowy vault seeming to draw in on her. Hands quivering, she shined her flashlight to a corner of the tomb, where the yellowish beam slid over the body of another person, a man, she guessed, as she backed up a step. Dressed in clothing from another era, in shirt and pants that were disintegrating, he was propped into a corner, his ghoulish face devoid of flesh, the bones white, his mouth set into what appeared to be a grotesque grin. Several teeth were missing, and above the empty eye socket was a huge gash where his skull had cracked, a deep fissure in the bone that had splintered away from the gaping hole.

  This man had been murdered long ago, his skull bashed in by something hard and sharp and . . .

  She swallowed, her heart pounding in her ears. Gooseflesh raised on her skin. This man had to be Maxim Stewart, the first owner of this property, the cuckolded husband of Angelique Le Duc. “Father in heaven,” Sarah whispered, thinking of Helen’s account of the night that Maxim, Angelique, and George went missing. In a vision of stunning clarity, Sarah saw a bloody axe, wielded high over Angelique’s head as they struggled on the widow’s walk.

  Was Maxim already dead, his body hidden in the vault meant for his wife? Had his own son murdered him in a jealous rage over the woman in their fatal threesome? Had George, after sealing his dead or dying father in the vault, carried his bloody weapon of death across the fields to the house, taking the very trail that Sarah herself had used again and again when she’d met Clint on the sly, and just now as she’d jogged here to enter this tomb?

  On the floor, visible beneath what was left of the man, was a dark stain where, she surmised his blood had pooled as he’d bled out, his heart still pumping after he’d been locked here.

  She imagined the night of terror so many years ago, and then she took another look at Theresa, if that’s who she really was. How had she died? Had she died in here, resting as if she were in a coffin, her hands folded meekly over her chest?

  Sarah stared at the remains of what once had been a vibrant body.

  Someone knew Theresa was here.

  Someone had carried her into this vault and locked the door behind her, then hid the key in the little Madonna statue.

  Who? Why?

  Outside, Gracie stood on one foot and then the other. It pissed her off that Mom wouldn’t let her go into the vault. After all, it was her idea to explore the cemetery, and she could deal with ghosts better than her mother.

  If anything proved it, Sarah’s reaction to seeing the ghost of Angelique Le Duc in Theresa’s room tonight did.

  It wasn’t fair, she thought, wrapping her arms around herself. She noticed that Xena was going a little nuts, whining and pointing, ears and tail raised, as if she wanted to chase after a possum or raccoon or, worse, maybe a skunk. Gracie was in no mood to get sprayed, and it was kind of freaking her out, the way Xena stared into the darkness, her skin quivering anxiously, her high-pitched whimpers creeping through the night.

  “Hush!” Gracie ordered. Then, “Okay. Fine. Show me.” Using the flashlight app on her phone, she lit the area around her feet and walked a little farther into the darkness, away from the tomb. She only hoped that whatever had caught the dog’s attention wasn’t a predator ready to leap out at them. Cougars and coyotes lived in the surrounding woods. Gracie felt a little tremor of fear but ignored it. Graveyards didn’t scare her; cemeteries didn’t freak her out.

  But still . . . she didn’t like the way Xena was going mad, shooting forward in the dark, being swallowed by the fog, her bark sharp and piercing. Don’t let every creepy ghost story you ever heard get the better of you,

  Where the hell had the dog gone?

  Walking carefully, she shined the light over the uneven ground, where long grass and molehills were visible. This is ridiculous, There’s nothing out here, But she was nervous as she moved past a small headstone covered in vines, the ancient grave of a long-buried child.

  Gracie’s heart twisted a bit as she looked around. All these dead people. Related to her, buried beneath her feet.

  Where was the dog?

  She turned in the direction of the barking, but didn’t see Xena in the fog and twilight. “Come on, girl,” she said, trying to ignore the weird feeling that prickled her spine as she shined her light on the ground, illuminating the uneven turf of long grass and weeds, molehills and ferns. “What is it?” she said as the dog stopped barking suddenly. “Xena—?”

  A low growl sounded.

  Her dog?

  Or?

  Unnerved, Gracie turned, searching the mist, the flashlight’s beam providing weak illumination. She was still near enough to the tomb to call her mother if there was any problem and—

  Another growl came just as the light caught a glimmer, a glint of something metallic. A watch? Out here? She leaned forward, and her insides turned to ice. The watch was strapped to the wrist of an unmoving hand, big fingers spread wide.

  What!

  Heart galloping, she ran the light up the attached arm, over a shoulder, and across a jacketed c
hest stained dark. “Oh, God,” she said, stumbling backward, as the beam crept up the man’s neck to land full on the bluish, very dead, face of Evan Tolliver.

  Oh, God, oh, God, oh God,

  Terror riddled her body, and she willed her legs to move when she heard a deep, warning growl and turned to spy Xena, the fur on the back of the dog’s neck raised, her head low, her eyes focused not on the dead man, but on Gracie herself. No, that wasn’t quite right. Xena was looking past her, as if she saw something over Gracie’s shoulder, as if—

  In a heartbeat, big hands grabbed her and yanked her from her feet.

  She screamed!

  “Don’t!” a deep male voice warned, his breath hot and foul against her ear. “Don’t make a sound.” Arms as strong as steel bands surrounded her, hauling her, kicking and shrieking, away from the dead body.

  “Shh!” he warned. “I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

  Like hell! She kicked him hard. Her heel slammed into his shin, but he only sucked in his breath through his teeth.

  In her peripheral vision she saw Xena, bunching to spring.

  The dog launched just as Gracie screamed again at the top of her lungs.

  As the back of Sarah’s foot hit the lowest step, a bloodcurdling shriek echoed through the tomb, reverberating in its terror.

  Gracie!

  Sarah ran up the uneven steps, yelling back, “Gracie!”

  Thud!

  The door to the vault was slammed shut.

  No!

  Sarah threw herself against the old wooden panels, screaming, pushing hard, trying to get out, to reach her child.

  The damned door wouldn’t budge.

  She dropped her flashlight, tried again, shouting and shoving, pounding on the rough wood with her fists. “Gracie!” she yelled. “Grace!”

  The door didn’t budge.

  She tried again, throwing all her weight against the door just as she heard the familiar and final sound of a lock being turned.

  “I’m telling you, Jade’s my daughter,” Clint insisted, frustrated and worried sick, feeling the seconds of his life ticking by. “Maybe she’s at the house. Got rear-ended and walked home.”