Whispering Graves (Banshee Book 2)

by Sara Clancy

  “I can explain everything, I promise,” Nicole begged on the verge of tears. “But we need to get out of here. It’s not safe.”

  “Get away from the jeep, Nicole.”

  “Mom, please! He’s going into shock.”

  Constable Rider’s dark eyes flicked between Benton and her daughter for an excruciating moment before she finally holstered her forgotten gun and rushed forward to grab Benton’s arm.

  “We’re taking my car.”

  “Thank you,” Nicole rushed to say, but the words were lost under her mother’s angry gaze.

  “The second he’s checked in, you and I are having a very long conversation.”

  Chapter 6

  It had taken two members of the hospital staff to pry Benton away from Nicole. She hadn’t wanted to let him go, not when he was left so vulnerable. The drive into town had been torture. With every passing second, his pain had only gotten worse until he could barely move any limb without screaming. He had clung to her the entire time. Each breath he took carried a strained whimper and was released with an agonized moan. Nicole could only watch helplessly as he writhed in increasing anguish. The muscles of his neck strained against his skin as he attempted to keep his screams contained. There had been nothing she could do to help him. The closer they got to town, the more it seemed that her attempts to soothe him only made things worse. Finally, the nurses had managed to pry the fingers on Benton’s good hand off of Nicole’s jacket, and he was led down the hallway. She wasn’t allowed to follow.

  Her staring contest with the now empty hallway was cut short when her mother grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around.

  During the car ride, Nicole had resolved to tell Dorothy everything. The option to be discrete was well and truly gone. She was scared and in deep over her head. She couldn’t even trust her judgment. They needed help. So when Dorothy had started with a seemingly endless stream of questions, Nicole hadn’t even thought about selecting her words with care.

  Everything that she had kept inside for so long, exploded out in an untamed current of raw information. From her first encounter with the demonic force that had latched onto Victor, to discovering the meaning of the symbol over Oliver’s grave, to resolving to destroy the creature that had slaughtered everyone who now filled the basement. She hadn’t meant to be so honest about Benton, about what he was and all of the possible implications, but it had rambled out with everything else and there was no taking it back.

  By the time she got to the end of the story, where Benton had been kidnapped and Nicole had resolved to save him, she knew her mother had stopped listening. But the confession of stealing a firearm from the RCMP lockup, directed her from disinterested frustration to barely contained rage. Dorothy grabbed Nicole’s arm, dragged her down the hallway to the nearest empty room, and hurled her inside.

  “You better be lying to me right now,” Dorothy hissed.

  “Mom …”

  “No. You listen to me! What you’re talking about is a crime. You’re confessing a crime to a member of the law enforcement. Do you understand that? I’d have to arrest you.”

  Nicole stuttered, “You … you wouldn’t do that.”

  “This is not on me!” Dorothy snapped as she jabbed a finger towards Nicole. “You abused my position to break into a police station. This is all on you.”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  Dorothy threw her hands wide. “Call the police! Tell me what was happening!”

  “You never would have believed me. I was on my own and terrified and I did what I had to do.” Squaring her shoulders, Nicole met her mother’s furious glare and refused to back down. “Benton is alive today because of what I did.”

  “Stop it!”

  “Mom–” Nicole pleaded, only to be cut off.

  “Monsters don’t exist, Nicole. You should have outgrown these childish notions years ago. And that Bertrand boy,” Dorothy continued on in a rush. “He’s injured right now and probably scarred for life.”

  “So am I,” Nicole shot back.

  “There are bodies down there. This isn’t the time for foolishness.”

  Raking her hands through her hair, Nicole was a second away from screaming when a thought occurred to her.

  “The dash cam,” she said.

  Her mother only furrowed her brow. “What?”

  “Your police cruiser is fitted with a dash cam, right? It would have recorded everything.”

  Dorothy huffed. “It wouldn’t have had a view into the basement, Nicole.”

  “But it would have recorded Benton’s scream.”

  Her mother’s voice lost all its hot temper as she asked, “What?”

  “You heard it. You asked about it,” Nicole insisted. She watched as the anger seemed to escape from her mother’s features and she knew that she finally had something not easily denied. She had proof. “You remember it, don’t you?”

  “I heard something.”

  Nicole rushed forward a step. “That was Benton. It wasn’t exactly how he sounded the first time, but it was him. You heard a banshee wail.”

  “I don’t know what I heard. It could have been anything.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Nicole said. “Let’s go listen to it right now and you tell me what else it could have been.”

  Dorothy shook her head and Nicole felt her advantage slipping away.

  “Mom, none of this matters.”

  “Yes, it damn well does,” Dorothy shot back.

  “Not right now,” Nicole said. “I know what killed Kimberly.”

  “What killed her?” her mother said with a hint of warning.

  “I haven’t figured out what it is by name but–”

  “Stop,” Dorothy demanded as she lifted her hand. After a long pause, she shook her head and motioned her daughter to the door. “Get in the car. I’m taking you home.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Don’t argue,” Dorothy spat back. “I don’t know what is going on with you and Benton, but it’s clear that this relationship is sick and is getting dangerous for that poor boy. You’re going home and you’re not contacting him again.”

  Nicole crossed her arms over her chest. “I have a shift tonight. I can’t just not go. People will start to talk and as so as they do that they’ll start suspecting something’s up.”

  “Something is up,” Dorothy said, her voice both infuriated and slightly mocking. “You’re facing some serious charges.”

  Nicole toyed with her fingers, wringing them together as she watched her mother carefully.

  “Are you going to do that?”

  In the longest moment of her life, she could only watch as her mother shifted between parental love, to the obligations of duty, and back again.

  “I haven’t decided. It is possible that you are merely delirious after ingesting some kind of drug. Not to mention the shock you must have had. I’ll need to investigate further. For now, get in the car and I’ll give you a lift to the museum.”

  ***

  The passing hours felt like purgatory. While her mother had allowed her to retrieve her stuff from school, under strict orders that she wasn’t to talk to anyone, her phone had remained completely silent. The dwindling strum of tourists offered an ever-decreasing source of distraction, as she worked the gift shop, located on the middle floor of the museum, giving her the perfect view of one of her favorite exhibits. It was a buffalo herd stampeding across the far side of the room, their massive bodies forever frozen within a singular moment as they passed a real sized teepee and headed for the drop off of the makeshift cliff. Their taxidermy was extraordinary and the greatest care was taken in even the finest details. The exhibit even smelt of grass and sun warmed dirt. In a singular charge, the frozen buffalo displayed the moment the herd would have toppled over the edge of the Jump, with some suspended in the air as they tumbled down to the bottom floor.

  More than one exhibit was fitted with motion sensors. They were each tripped by anyone who ventured too
close. Over the hours, she had heard a thousand thunderstorms from the first floor, traditional songs repeated hundreds of times from the third, and more phantom hooves crushing the earth than she could count. Each time, she found herself sure that she must have missed her ringtone, and reached into Kimberly’s purse to check her phone.

  Nicole was aware of the annoyed looks she was getting each time she began digging into the small purse, especially when she was supposed to be setting up the display for the newest shipment of gold necklaces. But time went by and still no one had called her on it. They hadn’t even asked her to put her bag away. News spread fast in small towns. By now, everyone must have known she had witnessed Kimberly’s death, and with Benton in the hospital, it seemed that everyone was willing to let her get away with a lot tonight. The lingering guilt Nicole felt for exploiting the situation wasn’t enough to make her willfully give up her only line of communication with Benton. She promised herself that she’d make it up to them later, as she once again stopped what she was doing to check the screen.

  By the time the sun had set and the museum was closing, Benton still hadn’t called. The radio silence prickled at her nerves and crammed questions into her mind. What if they had knocked him out? a voice whispered in the back of her head. What if the burn had only gotten worse? Unable to get her laptop and do some actual research, she could only wildly speculate over what had actually injured him, and what was going to happen next. What if he didn’t tell them the truth? she wondered. Was there a lie I was supposed to tell? Why hadn’t we prepared for this?

  “Nicole?”

  “Huh?” She snapped her head up from the book she was supposed to be shelving to meet the annoyed gazes of her coworkers.

  “Museum’s closed,” one of them said, as she waved her hand out in a loose gesture to the rest of the museum.

  Nicole glanced over her shoulder to see that even the overhead lights had been turned off already. Beyond the gift shop, the only sources of light was the small runway lights that lined the staircases and the few spotlights that were aimed at the exhibits. It hit home just how slack she had been. They were always gone, long before the cleaning staff mopped the floors. She still had to restock, vacuum, and do a final check around the exhibit for any missed trash.

  “Why don’t you guys go on ahead,” Nicole suggested.

  They glanced at each other for a moment. It was clear that they were all eager to leave, but no one wanted to be the first one to agree.

  “I insist,” Nicole said with a forced smile. “No reason for us all to stay because of me. And someone will be by to pick me up soon.”

  Since they all had families to get back to, it didn’t take much more prompting than that, and soon she was left alone to finish shelving the kids’ books. The rough sound of the cutter slicing through the tape of the final box punctuated the stillness that had settled around her. Cardinally, she filled the empty shelf, while her mind stormed and raged. That done, she insured that the jewelry cabinet was locked and stowed the key away in the now empty cash register.

  She jumped as her mild ringtone burst to life. Her fingers fumbled over the latch of her bag, delaying her enough that she didn’t bother to check the caller ID before she answered.

  “Nicole?” Benton’s voice whispered down the line.

  Relief weakened her knees and she sagged against the counter.

  “I’ve been going out of my mind,” Nicole gushed in way of greeting. “Are you okay? What happened? Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

  “I’m on painkillers, Nic,” Benton groaned. “I can hardly remember why I called you right now, so can we do one question at a time?”

  “Right. Sorry. Are you okay?”

  “I think so. My hand’s bandaged up so I can’t see it. But they did say that I won’t need a skin graft, so, you know. Score,” he pulled the last word out like he had forgotten how it ended.

  “Are they keeping you in?”

  He snorted. “I’ve shown up with injuries that are unaccounted for, twice in two days. There are some theories floating about that I’m hurting myself. Or that someone’s hurting me,” he seemed to get confused for a moment before he picked up the conversation again. “Aspen is talking with my parents right now. They don’t look happy. He looks tired.”

  “Has my mom spoken with you?”

  “Yep,” he chirped. “Quick question; what the hell, Nicole? You told her everything?”

  “We need her help.”

  “Huh, that sounds like something a very wise person said a month ago.”

  A soft smile tugged at her lips. Of course, even while drugged, Benton was ready to point out that he might have been right.

  “Yeah, well,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry I told her about you. After I told her, she wasn’t ready to listen to me about the horseman.”

  “I tried explaining, too.”

  “How did that go?” she asked quickly.

  “Not good,” Benton said. “She was a lot more focused on the criminal stuff.”

  “I don’t suppose she gave you any hint if she’s going to follow through on laying charges.”

  “Not really. She’s kind of hard to read.”

  Her stomach dropped and she suddenly had a great need to move. With no real destination in mind, she began to wander out into the exhibit.

  “Nic,” Benton moaned again. She could hear him squirming deeper into his bed. “My hand hurts. Stop worrying so loudly. It’ll be okay.”

  “Thanks,” she smiled.

  “Worst case scenario, just blame me for everything,” Benton said.

  “What?” Her steps faltered as her stomach lurched. “Benton, did you miss the part about criminal charges?”

  “Nope,” he said with a lax sigh. “But better me than you, right?”

  “Let’s keep it as plan B.”

  She walked across the small streaks of water left behind by the recent mopping. Her mindless path brought her in the field of sensors. Brilliant floodlights clicked on, reminiscent of the noon day sun. Hidden containers sprayed the scents of grass on earth into the air as the recorded sounds of the rampaging herd boomed throughout the empty building.

  “What’s that?” Benton asked suddenly, the frantic question followed quickly by the sound of rustling fabric.

  “Just a recording,” Nicole dismissed.

  “Recording?”

  “Of one of the museum exhibits. I'm just finishing up my shift.”

  The speaker of her mobile crackled slightly with his jaw-cracking yawn, “Don’t you work at a diner? I remember a diner …”

  “I was filling in at the diner as a favor for Trish. My actual job is at the museum,” Nicole explained quickly, eager to lure him back to a more important topic.

  “Do I know Trish? I don’t know a Trish.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, her breath halting as Benton began to mutter ‘Trish’ repeatedly like he just couldn’t wrap his head around the word. The hospital staff had definitely given him something for the pain.

  “I introduced you. Twice. Never mind that, what’s going on over there? You need to keep me up to date.”

  “No one’s keeping me up to date,” Benton muttered.

  “When we were in the cave, something grabbed me. It was the horseman, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Benton said. “I’m guessing by that question that you still didn’t see it.”

  “Everything was so dark.”

  Benton snorted again, his words turning into a soft mumble. “For you. My eyes are still aching. Well, that’s not true. I’m actually pretty buzzed at the moment.”

  Nicole rolled her eyes. “You are?”

  “Yeah,” he giggled, the sound loose around the edges. “Burn victims get the good stuff.”

  Nicole smiled as she switched the mobile phone to her left hand, leaving her right to hold the cool railing as she headed up the stairs. It only took a few steps for guilt to come creeping back in. After all that had happened an
d with everything that was waiting in the future, it just didn’t feel right to smile right now.

  The exhibit on the third floor depicted just how important the Buffalo Jump was. Not just for survival but for the overall sense of community, for the different tribes that called the plains home. Unfortunately, there wasn’t adequate space to properly display the sheer size and scope of the gatherings that would take place. So instead, they had settled for one depiction of a typical campsite with a detailed mural describing the rest of the scene.

  The exhibit was completely interactive and allowed guests to enter into the real sized teepee set up against one wall. This, of course, meant that a few odd items were often found scattered about the place. Most commonly, there were just things that could have slipped from someone’s pocket as they sat down to explore or take a photo of a kid’s shoe. It fell to whoever was closing to search the place thoroughly.

  “What do you think that fire was about?” Benton asked with a sudden rise of interest. “I’ve been thinking about it, but all I came up with is that it was an elaborate prank. Or it has something to do with that symbol you kept yapping about. But that just brings up a whole lot more questions.”

  “Do you see fire with any of the other symbols?” Nicole asked.

  “Nope. They just looked like paint to me.”

  “So,” Nicole said as she reached the top of the staircase. The recording abruptly turned off, leaving only her footsteps to break the silence. She shivered as a chill swept across the back of her neck. Whirling around, she searched the shadows in an attempt to pinpoint the person she was sure was watching her. All she was met with was the long sweep of the three-floor staircase, and the trail of lights weakening the shadows into a soft gray.

  Swallowing hard, she forced herself to pick up her lost line of thought. “Either those symbols are wrong or this one is designed to do something different.”

  “Huh?” Benton mumbled as if just startled awake. “Um. Yeah. Maybe. Hidden purpose. That makes more sense than what I was thinking.”

  Nicole took a step away from the stairs and felt her stomach twist into a tight knot. The sensation of being watched settled again onto her shoulders.