Haven

by Kay Hooper

  “It’s a good thing if we know who we’re looking for. I mean, aside from Jessie. Right now, we have no evidence against anyone, and no way of knowing what Jessie had discovered. If more Haven operatives show up, or Maggie’s able to persuade Bishop to throw out the rule book and bring his FBI unit in without an invitation, we’ve still got nothing.”

  “We have suspects,” she said.

  “On the thinnest of legal pretexts—if that.” Navarro shook his head. “I don’t like it, but we can’t just start accusing people, or even questioning them, without some good reason. Because if we don’t have a good reason, and find evidence later on…”

  “Jessie’s killer could go free.”

  “Maybe. It depends on what else he’s done. The point is, we risk a lot by not following rules of evidence. And if this killer is the serial we think he is, we want him dead or in a prison cell for the rest of his life, and we don’t want him killing anyone else along the way.”

  “I know you’re right,” Emma said. “But…it’s hard. Waiting. Wondering if we’ll ever find her.”

  “We’ll find her,” Navarro said. “I can promise you that.”

  JULY 6

  It took him a while to get away, but after so long at his job—his true job, his vocation—he had gotten very good at making people believe he was somewhere other than where he was.

  It was a skill that came in handy.

  He drove as far as he could, using an alternate car that wouldn’t attract attention, then parked it where it wouldn’t be seen and went the rest of the way on foot. It wasn’t exactly an easy hike, but it was near enough that it didn’t take him very long.

  He went directly around to the side and down into the cellar, moving through the dim space easily as one long familiar with it. He used his key to unlock the steel door and went inside, ignoring the familiar tools and implements and going to the other door, which he also unlocked. The tiny room was occupied only by the big lights he used—and a large chest freezer.

  Idly, he wondered if she had even guessed that he had tapped into Baron Hollow’s power supply. Probably not, since he used that electricity only to run the freezer. And the line was buried all the way to the junction where he’d tapped in.

  Shrugging off the musing, along with a lingering regret that he hadn’t had the time to really play with her as he’d wanted, he opened the freezer.

  She wasn’t very big, but she’d been in the freezer for a while, so she was almost locked into an awkward position. Awkward for him, at least. But that, too, was something he was accustomed to dealing with. He had brought a black, zippered body bag—amazing what you could buy off the Internet these days—and once he’d maneuvered her out of the freezer and into the roomy, handled bag, it was much easier for him.

  He took her to his garden, again feeling mild regret, this time because he really didn’t have the time to let her thaw out before he planted her. He had thought he would have time, and so had dug the hole to the appropriate size and shape the day before.

  Well, she’d fit anyway. Might not be too comfortable for her, but there was really nothing to be done about that. He didn’t have the luxury of time, not anymore.

  Because if he stopped what he was doing and listened, very, very intently, he could hear the warning whispers.

  They know.

  They’ll be looking for you.

  They’ll be looking for your flowers.

  So he shortened the usual ceremony, annoyed by the necessity, merely removing her from the black bag and placing her in the hole prepared for her. Naked.

  He always took their clothes. Not as trophies the way those profilers talked about, because he burned the clothes. It was just that he needed to enjoy his flowers in their purest form, naked as God had made them.

  He wished he’d had more time with this one.

  But, conscious of time ticking away, he got his shovel and began to plant his flower, burying the body of Jessie Rayburn.

  BREAKFAST IN THE dining room of Rayburn House was very subdued on that Monday morning, so much so that Hollis instinctively lowered her voice when she said, “Considering that the official verdict is that Jessie left town under her own steam Saturday, this place is…”

  “Depressing?” DeMarco offered. “I’d agree. And, since most of the guests here for the festival have checked out, pretty empty too.”

  “Yeah, but—” Hollis looked toward the doorway, and her eyes widened.

  Familiar with the expression, DeMarco waited until she very softly said, “Oh, shit,” before he asked a quiet question.

  “Jessie?”

  Hollis nodded. “Dammit, I was hoping she really had left on her own. Or, if she hadn’t, that at least one of us could pick up something to help find her before the bastard killed her.”

  “It’s certainly not for lack of trying,” her partner pointed out. “And at least we can do something now. If you want to take on Chief Maitland, that is.”

  Hollis smiled grimly. “Let’s go.”

  DAN MAITLAND WASN’T happy to be called to the office; it was supposed to be his Monday off. But he came, because Melissa had sounded baffled and uncertain as to what to do, and when he got there he realized why.

  The two paranormal researchers were in his office.

  “Gordon is still working in the Rayburn family archives,” Hollis Templeton said earnestly by way of a greeting, “or he’d be here too. He’s very excited.”

  “Why?” Maitland asked as he sat down.

  “The spirit.”

  Maitland sighed. “I suppose your cameras or recorders caught something you believe is definitive?” That was usually the case, though all Maitland had ever seen or heard were smudges or reflected light on video and indistinguishable sounds on audio.

  That was the “genuine” stuff produced by “serious” researchers.

  The faked stuff was a lot more entertaining—and a lot more obviously fake.

  “Not quite,” Reese DeMarco murmured.

  “I saw her,” Hollis said. “Less than an hour ago. We didn’t have any of the cameras on, but I saw her.”

  Playing along, Maitland said, “I don’t suppose you know who she was?”

  “Oh, yes, because there were some pictures stuck in the old family Bible. And I asked Penny, to be sure. Besides, the sisters really do look a lot alike. Though night and day. It was Jessie Rayburn.”

  The chief had been about to try a sip of the hot, undoubtedly foul coffee their ancient coffeemaker produced, but instead slowly set the cup down on his blotter.

  I should have stopped off for a decent cup of coffee. Dammit.

  “Jessie Rayburn isn’t dead,” he said.

  Hollis blinked. “But I saw her. I could see through her. And then she started to come toward me, and after just a couple of steps, she faded away. That happens pretty often with a new spirit; they don’t yet know how to focus and gather energy to come all the way through.”

  Maitland resisted the impulse to ask the attractive brunette if she’d had a psych evaluation recently. Instead, he said kindly, “I verified that Jessie Rayburn left town safely, Miss Templeton, so—”

  Her mouth firmed, and the blue eyes took on an unexpectedly steely sheen. “Chief Maitland, I don’t imagine things. And I am a bona fide, certified medium.”

  He wondered fleetingly how one became certified as a medium. Was there a test? Was there some kind of stamp, like in a passport or from the USFDA?

  Government approved. Accept no substitutes.

  “I know what I saw, and what I saw was real. Whatever your report says, whatever your investigation discovered, however many witnesses you can find who saw Jessie Rayburn drive out of town, I’m telling you that she’s dead.”

  Maitland dragged his mind back from the brink of frivolous thoughts and focused on the researcher’s very serious face. “Then maybe she had a car accident on her way back to New Mexico, or—”

  “She was murdered.”

  “Did the ghost ha
ve a knife sticking out of her?” He had wondered that, actually, whether ghosts—assuming they existed at all—were doomed to wander among the living looking as they had looked at the moment of death.

  In which case, he supposed car accident and burn victims could account for many a “monster” in a child’s closet at night.

  “I’m quite serious, Chief. No, Jessie Rayburn did not have a knife sticking out of her, but she was murdered.”

  “She told you that?”

  “I felt it.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Templeton, but I need a little more evidence before I can declare there’s been a crime.” He took care this time to keep the condescension out of his voice.

  She raised her chin a notch. “I understand from Penny that a missing-persons report was filed by Miss Rayburn’s employers when she hadn’t arrived back in New Mexico by this morning. That her sister filed a missing-persons report. That nobody has seen or heard from her since sometime in the afternoon of the festival. Since she left Baron Hollow. I would think those things together would be enough for you to investigate further.”

  “Miss Templeton—”

  “And then there’s the body found up in the mountains last week.”

  “What’s that got to do with—”

  “Exactly, Chief.”

  He found himself speechless for one of the few times in his life, and looked at the woman’s silent partner to see a faint gleam of sympathy in eyes occupying an otherwise expressionless face.

  “People go missing up here all the time,” Hollis said. “At least that’s what we hear, what people in town are saying. The average seems to be one or two every year, and that’s just the ones people know about. The wilderness just swallows them up, like that poor woman up on the mountain was swallowed up and forgotten, until somebody stumbles over the remains. If somebody stumbles over the remains.

  “But Jessie Rayburn was from a local family; she was born here. Her sister and cousin are prominent citizens in Baron Hollow. And I doubt very seriously that she hiked up into the mountains and got herself lost, especially since you have witnesses who claim to have seen her drive herself out of town.”

  “Miss Templeton—”

  “We haven’t spoken to Miss Emma Rayburn yet, but I’m sure that when we do, she’ll be interested in what I saw.”

  Maitland wondered, but all he said was, “So what is it you want me to do, Miss Templeton? However inadequately you believe it was done, there was an investigation into Jessie’s movements that last day, and there are reputable witnesses who stated that they saw her driving herself out of town toward the highway.”

  “Away from downtown?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “I mean, did any of your witnesses see her actually drive onto the highway and head west? Or are your witnesses people who were downtown at the festival and saw the back of her car heading in that general direction? Because it’s—what?—a good five miles to the highway from downtown?”

  “About that,” he said slowly.

  “I don’t suppose anybody bothered to check along those five miles? Knock on doors, check side roads, look for any signs that she didn’t actually make it to the highway?”

  Speaking up for the first time, her partner said mildly, “If you don’t have anything else pressing, Chief, would it hurt to send a few of your people to canvass along the route out of town? Because, I can tell you from experience, she isn’t going to give up.”

  “WAY TO UNDERMINE my credibility,” she complained when they stood outside the police station a few moments later.

  “I didn’t undermine you. He’s sending officers out, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah. Maybe they’ll even find something.”

  “More important,” he said, “we can spread the word that he’s looking into Jessie’s disappearance again. If I know small towns—and I do—he’ll have more volunteer searchers than he knows what to do with in nothing flat. And however motivated the officers are, the locals are really curious about Jessie, and they’ll look for her. Hard.”

  “I suppose.” She frowned, then said thoughtfully, “You know, it’s a bit refreshing to be a private citizen and try to bully the police without worrying about stepping over jurisdictional lines.”

  “Yeah, I could see you were having fun.” He took her arm as they began to walk in the general direction of Rayburn House. “But that whole ‘bona fide, certified medium’ thing was a little over-the-top.”

  “You think?”

  “He was wondering if there was a test. And a stamp of approval, like in a passport or the USFDA thing on a side of beef.”

  She winced. “Oh. Not the effect I wanted.”

  “I was pretty sure it wasn’t.”

  “But maybe there should be a special ID card.”

  “You have one of those,” he reminded her.

  “Yes, but I can’t show my credentials here. Not yet, anyway. And when I can, when we can…”

  “Chief Maitland is not going to be pleased with us. At all. Yes. I know.”

  MAKING A STAB at normalcy, Emma had gone to the park that morning, both to exercise her dog and to breathe fresh air and try not to think too much. And with what she suspected was genuine sensitivity, Navarro, who had been pretty much stuck to her side during all her waking hours since early Sunday morning, had not offered to come along.

  She missed him not being with her, which was a disconcerting realization. Even Lizzie was noticeably subdued, for once not interested in chasing her Frisbee. But they walked around the park, Emma trying not to think much, wondering when the numbness would begin to wear off.

  Wondering if it was grief for Jessie she was holding at bay, or grief for what she herself had lost that summer. Innocence, certainly. Trust. A soul-deep feeling of safety in the haven that was supposed to be her home. That had been damaged even though she hadn’t consciously remembered it, hence her need every summer to escape, to become someone else.

  She wondered, now, how the brutal attack that night had shaped Jessie’s life. That she had taken on the burden of her sister’s memories and pain was remarkable, and yet Emma wasn’t surprised by it. Jessie, despite her sometimes flaky outward appearance and actions growing up, had possessed a bone-deep sense of responsibility for her baby sister, probably because she had practically raised her.

  Emma was fairly certain it hadn’t been a conscious thing, just Jessie’s instinct. She had gotten medical help for her sister in such a way that no one in Baron Hollow would know anything about it, and then hidden her sister away at home while she healed, employing amazing creativity and ingenuity to hide Emma’s injuries from even the housekeeper. Until Emma had healed. Until the injuries were only scars easily covered by makeup, and bones had knit, and bruises had faded.

  Had she begun then to take on the burden of pain and shame and guilt herself? When it had become obvious that for Emma that night was a blank, had Jessie, consciously or not, accepted the burden of what had happened because she blamed herself?

  Was that why she had run away? To take it all with her, far away, and leave Emma here, outwardly healed, inwardly with an emotional and psychological block so solid that she didn’t even consciously remember that night or even her own injuries?

  Had Jessie “run away” in order to leave Emma her safe haven?

  Maybe. Probably. But to do that, she had to have believed—at seventeen—that Emma’s ordeal had been an isolated incident, boys too drunk to know what they were doing, getting carried away. Boys who would be horrified enough to not only keep the secret for themselves but also never do such a horrible thing again to another girl.

  Easy enough for a teenager to be convinced of that. But, grown and working with people who investigated horrible crimes, those buried memories must have begun eating at Jessie. With training had come the uneasy awareness that maybe Emma wasn’t quite as safe in her “haven” as Jessie had supposed. And maybe those drunken boys had not stopped doing horrible things.<
br />
  Maybe that’s what had driven Jessie back to Baron Hollow. Because she knew too much, now, to trust the drunken cruelty had not been pure evil instead.

  And she had found her answer.

  By the time Emma and Lizzie reached the walkway to Rayburn House, she could see a crowd gathering up the street in front of the police station. She paused for a moment, considering, then said, “Come on, girl,” and went with her dog into the inn.

  Penny emerged from behind the registration desk almost immediately, saying, “That must have been some workout; it’s nearly lunchtime.” The words were casual, but she looked worried.

  “Peace and quiet after the festival. It was nice,” Emma said, totally on automatic. “What’s up?”

  “Listen, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this—in fact, I’m pretty sure Hollis wanted to tell you in her own unique way, but they took some of their equipment and went out to join the search, so—”

  “Penny. What is it?”

  “It’s Jessie. Dan’s reopened the investigation.”

  “Why?” Emma remained calm.

  “Because…I’m so sorry, Emma—if it’s true, and heaven only knows if she’s right or a nut—but Hollis says she saw Jessie here this morning. Or, rather, saw Jessie’s spirit.”

  “I see.” Emma wondered if she appeared cold and unfeeling, when all she felt was numb.

  Jessie saved me. She let me have a normal life. And paid with her own.

  “She seemed really sure,” Penny said unhappily. “And she must have convinced Dan, because he’s got some of his officers checking out the roads between here and the highway, and volunteers have been showing up for the last half hour to help.”

  Navarro came out of one of the common rooms, glanced between the two women, then said to Emma, “I think she’s a genuine medium. Which means she probably saw what she says she did.”

  “And Jessie’s dead,” Emma said. “She’s really dead.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Nellie hadn’t been able to catch up with Emma during the festival, and given Jessie’s abrupt disappearance sometime that day and the fact that Emma and the writer seemed to be working on some kind of relationship, she had felt a bit hesitant to ask all the questions she wanted to ask.