Eight Classic Nora Roberts Romantic Suspense Novels

by Nora Roberts

  And where the hell was the dirt? There were no piles of it around the hole. That meant it had been carted away. What in God’s name would anyone want with a couple of wheelbarrow loads of dirt from an old grave?

  The owl hooted again, then spread his wings and glided over the churchyard. Cam shuddered as the shadow passed over his back.

  The next morning being Saturday, Cam drove into town and parked outside of Martha’s, a diner and long-standing gathering place in Emmitsboro. It had become his habit, since returning to his hometown as sheriff, to while away a Saturday morning there, over pancakes and coffee.

  Work rarely interfered with the ritual. Most Saturdays he could linger from eight to ten with a second or third cup of coffee. He could chat with the waitresses and the regulars, listen to Loretta Lynn or Randy Travis on the tinny jukebox in the corner, scan the headlines on the Herald Mail, and dig into the sports section. There was the comforting scent of sausage and bacon frying, the clatter of dishes, the murmuring drone of old men at the counter talking baseball and brooding over the economy.

  Life moved slow and calm in Emmitsboro, Maryland. That’s why he had come back.

  The town had grown some since his youth. With a population of nearly two thousand, counting the outlying farms and mountain homes, they had added on to the elementary school and five years before had converted from septic tanks to a sewage treatment plant. Such things were still big news in Emmitsboro, where the park off the square at Main and Poplar flew the flag from sunup to sunset daily.

  It was a quiet, tidy little town that had been settled in 1782 by Samuel Q. Emmit. Tucked in a valley, it was ringed by sedate mountains and rolling farmland. On three of its four sides, it was flanked by fields of hay and alfalfa and corn. On the fourth was Dopper’s Woods, so named because it adjoined the Dopper farm. The woods were deep, more than two hundred acres. On a crisp November day in 1958, Jerome Dopper’s oldest son, Junior, had skipped school and headed into those woods with his 30-30 over his shoulder, hoping for a six-point buck.

  They’d found him the next morning near the slippery banks of the creek. Most of his head was missing. It looked as though Junior had been careless with the safety, had slid on the slick carpet and blown himself, instead of that buck, to kingdom come.

  Since then, kids had enjoyed scaring themselves over campfires with stories of Junior Dopper’s ghost, headless and shambling, hunting forever in Dopper’s Woods.

  The Antietam Creek cut through the Doppers’ south pasture, slashed through the woods, where Junior had taken that final slide, and meandered into town. After a good rain, it bubbled noisily under the stone bridge on Gopher Hole Lane.

  A half mile out of town it widened, cutting a rough circle out of rock and trees. There the water moved slow and easy and let the sunlight dance on it through the shelter of leaves in the summer. A man could find himself a comfortable rock and sink a line, and if he wasn’t too drunk or stupid, take home trout for supper.

  Beyond the fishing hole, the land started its jagged upward climb. There was a limestone quarry on the second ridge where Cam had worked for two sweaty, backbreaking summers. On hot nights kids would ride up there, mostly high on beer or pot, and dive off the rocks into the deep, still water below. In seventy-eight, after three kids had drowned, the quarry was fenced off and posted. Kids still dived into the quarry on hot summer nights. They just climbed the fence first.

  Emmitsboro was too far from the interstate for much traffic, and being a two-hour drive from D.C., it had never qualified as one of the city’s bedroom communities. The changes that took place were few and far between, which suited the residents just fine.

  It boasted a hardware store, four churches, an American Legion post, and a clutch of antique shops. There was a market that had been run by the same family for four generations and a service station that had changed hands more times than Cam could count. A branch of the county library stood at the square and was open two afternoons a week and Saturday mornings. They had their own sheriff, two deputies, a mayor, and a town council.

  In the summer the trees were leafy, and if you strolled in the shade, you smelled fresh-cut grass rather than exhaust. People took pride in their homes, and flower and kitchen gardens were in evidence in even the tiniest yards.

  Come autumn, the surrounding mountains went wild with color, and the scent of woodsmoke and wet leaves filtered along the streets.

  In the winter it was a postcard, a scene from It’s a Wonderful Life, with snow banking the stone walls and Christmas lights burning for weeks.

  From a cop’s point of view, it was a cakewalk. The occasional vandalism—kids soaping windows or breaking them—traffic violations, the weekly drunk-and-disorderly or domestic dispute. In the years he had been back, Cam had dealt with one assault-and-battery, some petty theft, a half dozen malicious mischiefs, occasional bar fights, and a handful of DWI’s.

  Not even enough to fill one good night of work in Washington, D.C., where he’d been a cop for more than seven years.

  When he’d made the decision to resign in D.C. and return to Emmitsboro, his associates had told him he’d be back in six months, screaming with boredom. He had a reputation for being a real street cop, by turns icy and explosive, accustomed, even acclimated, to facing down junkies and dealers.

  And he’d liked it, liked the feeling of walking on the edge, cruising the streets, sweeping up bits and pieces of human garbage. He’d made detective, an ambition he’d held secret inside him since the day he joined the force. And he’d stayed on the streets because he felt at home there, because he felt right.

  But then, one dripping summer afternoon, he and his partner had chased a twenty-year-old petty dealer and his screaming hostage into a crumbling building in South East.

  Everything had changed.

  “Cameron?” A hand on Cam’s shoulder broke him out of his reverie. He looked up at Emmitsboro’s mayor.

  “Mr. Atherton.”

  “Mind if I join you?” With a quick smile, James Atherton settled his long, thin body into the vinyl seat opposite Cam. He was a man of angles, with a bony, slightly melancholy face and pale blue eyes—an Ichabod Crane of a man—white, freckled skin, sandy hair, long neck, long limbs.

  There was a ballpoint pen and a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses in the pocket of his sports coat. He always wore sports coats and shiny black, laced shoes. Cam couldn’t recall seeing Atherton in tennis shoes, or jeans or shorts. He was fifty-two and looked like what he was, a high school science teacher and public servant. He had been mayor of Emmitsboro, hardly a full-time job, since Cam was a teenager. It was an arrangement that suited Atherton and the town perfectly.

  “Coffee?” Cam asked and automatically signaled for the waitress, though she was already heading their way, pot in hand.

  “Thank you, Alice,” Atherton said as she poured.

  “Get you some breakfast, Mayor?”

  “No, I had mine already.” But he eyed the plastic cake plate on the counter. “Those doughnuts fresh?”

  “Just this morning.”

  He gave a little sigh as he added cream and two whopping spoons of sugar to his coffee. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any of those apple-filled-with the cinnamon on top?”

  “Got one with your name on it.” Alice gave him a wink and walked off to fetch the doughnut.

  “No willpower,” Atherton said as he took his first delicate sip of coffee. “Between you, me, and the gatepost, it frustrates the wife that I can eat like a horse and never put on weight.”

  “How is Mrs. Atherton?”

  “Min’s just fine. Got a bake sale going this morning over at the middle school. Trying to raise money for new band uniforms.” After Alice set his doughnut in front of him, Atherton picked up a knife and fork. His napkin was spread neatly over his lap.

  Cam had to smile. No slurping up sticky apple chunks for the mayor. Atherton’s neatness was as dependable as a sunrise.

  “Heard you had an unusual distur
bance last night.”

  “A nasty one.” Cam could still see the dark, gaping grave. He picked up his cooling coffee. “We took pictures last night and roped off the site. I drove by early this morning. The ground was hard and dry. No footprints. The place was neat as a pin.”

  “Kids, perhaps, playing an early Halloween prank?”

  “My first thought,” Cam admitted. “But it doesn’t feel right. Kids aren’t usually so tidy.”

  “It’s unfortunate and upsetting.” Atherton ate his doughnut in small bites, chewing and swallowing before speaking. “In a town like ours, we don’t expect this kind of nonsense. The fact that it was an old grave and there are no relatives around to be affected helps, of course.” Atherton set down his fork, dusted his fingers on his napkin, then picked up his cup. “In a few days, the talk will die down, and people will forget. But I wouldn’t like to see such an incident repeated.” He smiled then, just as he did when a slow student managed to cop an A. “I know you’ll handle it all with discretion, Cameron. Just let me know if I can help in any way.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  After taking out his wallet, Atherton drew two crisp, uncreased singles out, then tucked the corners under the empty plate. “I’ll be on my way, then. I have to put in an appearance at the bake sale.”

  Cam watched him stroll out, exchange waves with a few pedestrians, and walk down Main.

  He spent the rest of the day with paperwork and routine patrols. But before sundown, he drove out to the cemetery again. For nearly thirty minutes, he stayed there, brooding down at the small, empty grave.

  Carly Jamison was fifteen and mad at the world. Her parents were the first focus of her disgust. They didn’t understand what it was like to be young. They were so dull, living in their stupid house in stupid Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Good old Marge and Fred, she thought with a snort as she shifted her backpack and walked backward, thumb stuck out jauntily, on the verge of Route 15 South.

  Why don’t you wear pretty clothes like your sister? Why don’t you study and get good grades like your sister? Why can’t you keep your room clean like your sister?

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  She hated her sister, too, picture-perfect Jennifer with her holier-than-thou attitude and preppy clothes. Jennifer the A student who was going to freaking Harvard on a freaking scholarship to study freaking medicine.

  As her red Converse high tops scrunched over gravel, she imagined a doll with pale blond hair that fell into perfect curves around a perfect heart-shaped face. The baby blue eyes stared blankly, and there was a superior smile on the full, lovely mouth.

  Hi, I’m Jennifer, the doll would say when you pulled the string. I’m perfect. I do whatever I’m told and do it just right.

  Then Carly imagined dropping the doll off a high building and watching its perfect face smash onto the concrete.

  Shit, she didn’t want to be like Jennifer. Digging in the pocket of her girdle-tight jeans, she hooked a crumpled pack of cigarettes. One Marlboro left, she thought in disgust. Well, she had a hundred and fifty dollars, and there was bound to be a store somewhere along the route.

  She lit the cigarette with a red disposable Bic—red was her signature color—stuffed the lighter back in her pocket, and carelessly tossed the empty pack aside. She cursed halfheartedly at the cars that rumbled past her. Her luck at hitching rides had been pretty good so far, and since the day was cloudless and pleasantly cool, she didn’t mind the walk.

  She would hitch all the way to Florida, to Fort Lauderdale, where her asshole parents had refused to let her go to enjoy spring break. She was too young. She was always either too young or too old, depending on her parents’ mood, to do whatever the hell it was she wanted.

  Christ, they don’t know anything, she thought, tossing her head so her spiky cap of scarlet hair ruffled around her face. The three earrings she wore in her left ear danced in mad circles.

  She wore a denim jacket nearly covered with patches and pins, and a red T-shirt with a Bon Jovi decal splashed across her chest. Her tight jeans were slashed liberally at the knees. A dozen slim bracelets jangled on one arm. Two Swatch watches adorned the other.

  She was five-four and a hundred and ten pounds. Carly was proud of her body, which had only really begun to blossom the year before. She liked to show it off in tight clothes that scandalized and enraged her parents. But it gave her pleasure. Particularly since Jennifer was thin and flat-chested. Carly considered it a major triumph that she had beat her sister at something, even if it was only bust size.

  They thought she was sexually active, with Justin Marks, in particular, and watched her like ghouls. Just waiting for her to pop up and say, hey, I’m pregnant. Sexually active, she thought and snorted. That was the term they liked to use to show they were up-to-date.

  Well, she hadn’t let Justin do it to her yet—not that he didn’t want to. She just wasn’t ready for the big one. Maybe once she got to Florida, she’d change her mind.

  Turning to walk forward for a while, she adjusted her prescription sunglasses. She hated the fact that she was nearsighted and lately had refused to wear corrective lenses unless they were tinted. Since she had lost two pairs of contacts, her parents had nixed the idea of buying her more.

  So, she’d get her own, Carly thought. She’d get a job in Florida, and she wouldn’t ever go back to pissy PA. She’d get some of those Durasoft ones that would turn her dumb hazel eyes into a perfect sky blue.

  She wondered if they were looking for her yet. Probably not. What did they care anyway? They had Jennifer the Great. Her eyes watered, and she blinked back tears furiously. It didn’t matter. The hell with all of them.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  They would think she was in school being bored shitless with U.S. history. Who the fuck cared what old farts signed the Declaration of Independence? Today, she was signing her own. She’d never have to sit in a classroom again or listen to lectures on cleaning her room or turning down her music or not wearing so much makeup.

  What’s wrong with you, Carly? her mother would always ask. Why do you act this way? I don’t understand you.

  Damn straight she didn’t understand. No one did.

  Carly turned around, sticking her thumb out again. But she wasn’t feeling so cheerful. She’d been on the road four hours, and her defiance was rapidly turning to self-pity. As a tractor-trailer zoomed by, kicking dust in her face, she briefly considered moving across the asphalt and heading north, and home again.

  The hell with that, she thought, straightening her slumping shoulders. She wasn’t going back. Let them come looking for her. She wanted so badly for them to come looking for her.

  With a little sigh, she moved off the gravel onto the grassy slope, toward some shade, where she sat down. There was a rusty barbed-wire fence behind which cows lolled lazily. In her pack with her bikini, her Levi’s wallet, hot pink shorts, and extra T-shirt was a duo of Hostess cupcakes. She ate both, licking the chocolate and filling from her fingers as she watched the cows graze.

  She wished she’d thought to stick a couple of cans of Coke in the pack. As soon as she found some little hick town, she would buy some, and more Marlboros. Glancing at her watches, she saw that it was just past noon. The school cafeteria would be crowded and noisy now. She wondered what the other kids would think when they found out she’d hitched all the way to Florida. Man, they’d be green. It was probably the coolest thing she’d ever done. They’d really pay attention then. Everyone would pay attention.

  She dozed awhile and woke cramped and groggy. After swinging on her pack, she tromped back to the edge of the road and cocked her thumb.

  Christ, she was dying of thirst. Crumbs from the cupcakes seemed to be lodged like pebbles in her throat. And she wanted another smoke. Her spirits lifted a bit when she hiked past a sign.

  EMMITSBORO 8 MILES

  Sounded like Hicksboro, but as long as they sold Coke Classic and Marlboros, it was fine by her.

  She was delighte
d when, in less than ten minutes, a pickup slowed and pulled over. Earrings and bracelets jangling, she trotted to the passenger door. The guy inside looked like a farmer. He had big hands with thick fingers and wore a baseball-style cap with some feed-and-grain store advertised over the bill. The truck smelled pleasantly of hay and animals.

  “Thanks, mister.” She hopped into the cab of the truck. “Where you heading?”

  “South,” she told him. “Florida.”

  “Long trip.” His gaze skimmed her backpack before he pulled out on the road again. “Yeah.” She shrugged. “Well.”

  “Going to visit relatives?”

  “No. Just going.” She shot him a defiant look, but he smiled.

  “Yeah, I know how that is. I can take you as far as Seventy, but I got to make a stop first.”

  “Hey, that’s cool.” Pleased with herself, Carly settled back.

  Deep in the woods, deep into the night, the cold, clear note of a bell sounded. As the moon rode high in a black sky, the circle of thirteen chanted. They sang a song of death.

  The altar writhed and strained. Her vision was blurred because they’d taken away her glasses and given her some kind of injection when they’d tied her up. Her mind seemed to be floating up and down. But deep inside it, there was an ice-cold fear.

  She knew she was naked, that her arms and legs were spread wide and tied down. But she didn’t know where she was, and her groggy mind couldn’t pin down how she had gotten there.

  The man in the truck, she thought, straining. He’d picked her up. He’d been a farmer. Hadn’t he? They’d stopped by his farm. She was almost sure of that. Then he’d turned on her. She’d fought him, but he’d been strong, awfully strong. Then he’d hit her with something.

  The rest was all a blur. Being tied up in a dark place. How long had she been there? An hour, a day? Men coming, talking in whispers. Then the prick of a needle in her arm.

  She was outside again. She could see the moon and the stars. She could smell smoke. It rolled in her head, as did the silver ring of the bell. And the chanting. She couldn’t make out the words, foreign maybe. They didn’t make sense.