by C. J. Parker
“Have they talked to you yet?” Frank jutted his chin toward the photographs.
“No, not yet. I’m listening though, just in case.”
“Be nice if they could tell us who did this.” Frank reached for the framed photograph on Derek’s desk. “Don’t you think it’s time to put this away? It’s been twenty years.”
Derek yanked the frame out of Frank’s hand and back to its proper place. Her picture was his reminder of why he became a cop. But hers was the one case he had never been able to solve--hers and the children’s. “When I find her killer, I’ll put her to rest.”
Frank circled the desk and slumped in his chair. His sandy blond hair fell into his bloodshot green eyes. “Mary wants me to invite you to dinner Saturday night. She invited Melita Potts. Why don’t you do her a favor and fuck her brains out? Make her a happy woman.”
Derek groaned inwardly. “Hell, no.”
“Give me one good reason.”
He cringed as an image of Melita’s red, frizzy hair and crooked-toothed grin flashed across his mind. “First, her voice could cut glass. Second, she licks her lips constantly. It drives me nuts.” He pointed his finger and skimmed it over the scene before them. “Third, show me one man in this squad that hasn’t had his turn in the sack with her. She’s a squad follower. A cop’s whore. No thanks. Make my excuses to Mary. Besides, I already have a date.”
Frank straightened in his chair, and his eyebrows rose sharply. “With who? Do I know her?”
Derek glanced at the photograph again. “You did.”
Frank let out a sigh. “Come on, man. Let Elizabeth go. It’s time to move on. You’re alive. She’s dead.”
Derek slammed his fist on the desk so hard every head in the office turned in their direction. “I know she’s fucking dead. I found her, remember?”
Frank held up his hands. “Okay. I give. Keep living with her ghost, but there are a lot of good women out there. Just remember this, buddy, you ain’t getting any prettier and the girls ain’t getting any younger.”
Derek had turned forty a week earlier but felt sixty. Time was running out, not so much for finding love, but for solving Lizzy’s case. The hours, the stress and the frustration of the job settled on him like layers of fat around his heart.
He’d spent most of his waking hours watching his own back, living by his own rules. The department feared his ways but respected his results. Shoot first and ask questions later, was his motto. Derek’s reputation on the streets kept the dark side always on the lookout for him. He didn’t let women get close—for their own protection. Women were targets when the bad guys got even. He slept alone, ate alone, drank alone, and preferred it that way.
He stood and jerked his jacket from his chair, drawing Frank’s attention away from a case file. “Where you going?”
“I have an appointment.” He paused at his friend’s side. “Tell Mary I’ll think about it, but not this Saturday and not with Snake Tongue Melita.”
The room erupted with laughter. “Don’t knock it until you try it, Bainbridge,” a detective yelled from across the room.
Derek didn’t look back or acknowledge the remark. His mind was on an anniversary and a dozen roses.
Chapter Five
Tabatha wrapped her arms around her waist, leaned against the kitchen table and waited. Her stomach clenched at what she saw. Cowering in the corner, her face hidden, Rhonda looked like a child concealing herself from the boogeyman.
Tabatha wondered in what form Rhonda’s fears took shape. Her bones pressed against the faded gray material of her sweatshirt, giving an impression of malnutrition. Copper-red hair hung limply around her shoulders, shrouding her face. Rhonda’s sobs broke the quiet of the room, adding more depth to her lament.
“I’m waiting, Rhonda. Are you going to talk, or are you taking a time out over there?”
Rhonda turned, huddling against a cabinet. She half sobbed, half sighed. “My mother was different.”
“Different in what way?”
Tabatha dropped to her haunches to be at eye level with Rhonda and study her tear-streaked face. Worry creased Rhonda’s brow, and frown lines made themselves at home at the corners of her mouth. It occurred to her that Rhonda wasn’t the child-bully who had made going to school torture for Tabatha, but a terrified full-grown woman.
“Like you,” Rhonda whispered.
Tabatha’s heart thumped wildly, each breath a struggle. Like me? No one is like me she wanted to shout. “Stop talking in code. Like me how?”
“Psychic abilities.” Rhonda slowly raised her gaze to meet Tabatha’s.
“She knew about you. They do, too.”
Tabatha gritted her teeth. “They who?”
Rhonda lowered her face into her hands. “They told her they needed people with her gift. But they killed her. Now they want something she had, and I don’t know what or where it is. They’re going to kill Shane if I don’t give it to them.”
Tabatha sat hard on the floor. “They who?” She hated repeating herself and knew her voice held a hint of impatience.
“They call themselves Guardians Against Paranormal Sinners, but the few who know, call them the Guardians. My mother tried to tell me about them before she was killed, but I wouldn’t listen. The police won’t help me.
They ruled her death a suicide.” She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I think they’re afraid of the Guardians. When I mentioned their name, the look of fear that crossed the cop’s face said it all. He made the sign of the cross and told me to never mention them again.”
“These people have talked to you?”
“The Guardians?” Rhonda shook her head. “No. They broke into my house, ransacked every drawer, every closet.”
“Do they have Shane?”
Rhonda ran her arm over her eyes, wiping away her tears. “No. He’s with my mom.”
Befuddlement swiped over her brain in a jumble of conversations. Her Mom? “Wait. I’m confused again. I thought your mom was dead.”
“Mom is the woman who adopted me. My birth mother is who I need you to raise.”
“Okay. But what makes you think they’ll hurt Shane or you?”
Reaching into her front pocket, Rhonda removed a folded piece of paper and handed it to Tabatha. “They left this for me.”
Tabatha unfolded the gray, water marked stationary and read:
Your mother didn’t play by the rules.
If you want to live, if you want your son to live, you’ll give it to us.
You have three days.
Cold fingers of fear wrapped around Tabatha’s throat.
“That was two days ago. I have one day left. You gotta help me, Tabatha. Please.” She leaned her head against the cabinets and dropped her hands palms up, as if she were losing hope.
Tabatha sat back against the table leg. What did it mean that “they” knew about her? There wasn’t a question of if she would be pulled into Rhonda’s problem, but when. “And you say they know about me?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
Rhonda shrugged. “Mother said your name was on a list. That’s all I know.” Gripping her hands into tight fists, Rhonda brought them to her eyes, pressing so hard the skin whitened around them. Her voice quivered, her body shook uncontrollably. “I know you hate me, Tabatha. But I need to know what it is. Shane is all I have.”
Tabatha had no doubt Rhonda believed what she’d said. Tabatha had never seen such terror in anyone’s eyes before.
“Please, I’m begging for my son’s life. Please.”
Tabatha ran her fingers through her hair and released a long-held breath. Numbness settled over her. Which was the greater evil here? Raise a dead mother to reap information that may save two lives? Or refuse and leave Rhonda to her own problems?
They know about you. The words sent a cold chill down her spine. “God, forgive me.” She knew what she had to do.
~
Derek sat on a concrete ben
ch beside Elizabeth’s sarcophagus style grave. Pulling a small whiskbroom from his jacket pocket, he proceeded to clean dirt from the carved letters of her name. Had she not been killed just moments before their wedding, they would have been married twenty years today.
His throat was tight and dry. His head throbbed. “Elizabeth Ann
Morrie,” he whispered. Many times in the beginning, he’d crossed out her last name and written in Bainbridge. But the rains would come, washing it away and she would become a Morrie again.
“Happy anniversary, Lizzie. I brought your favorite—pink roses.”
A smile lifted his lips in remembrance of Elizabeth’s excitement over her wedding dress. When he allowed the memory of her to return, he still heard her laughter, saw the sparkle in her dark brown eyes, and smelled the scent of her perfume. His chance at happiness died with her. He’d accepted his lot to be alone.
“I still haven’t found him, Lizzie. But I’m not giving up. I’ll give you justice.” He tried to chuckle but choked on a sob instead. “Frank says I need to let you go, find someone else. What do you think?”
Voices a few tombs away caught his attention. One held so much pleading he was compelled to lean forward to look around the tomb behind him. He noticed the tall blond alongside a skinny little redhead. His heart picked up its pace. The blond’s stride was confident, her face devoid of emotion, but it was her hair that intrigued him. The thick, long strands glowed mystically white in the dusk of sunset. Derek ran his gaze from her head to her booted toes. Slender, elegant in her movements, she was the model of perfection. Something pulled at him. He’d not felt this in so long, he had a hard time placing the emotions. Guilt ripped across his heart. He had to take care of Elizabeth first. He had no time or space in his heart for this woman.
He stood, before stepping behind the taller tomb, wanting to keep her in sight without her noticing him.
They stopped at a crypt about fifty feet away. The blond dropped to her knees and began to lay out an array of tools. The sight of a chicken in a cage drew his brows up in surprise. “What are these girls up to, Lizzie?”
The blond muttered a chant as she formed a groove around the grave with a long-bladed knife. She stopped where she began and pulled a vial from her bag and walked the circumference once again, this time filling in the groove with the vial’s white contents. When the woman assembled four symbols facing north, east, south and west, he drew in a sharp breath. The symbols she drew weren’t like the ones found on the children, but too similar for Derek’s comfort.
The blond faced the other girl. “Are you sure you want to do this?” “I have to know, Tabatha.”
Derek whispered Tabatha’s name, letting it roll over his tongue. The word tasted sweet and alluring. He ducked behind the crypt when she turned toward him. After a few moments passed, he leaned around the crypt far enough to see the girls again.
Tabatha paused, her eyes roaming over the cemetery before she removed the chicken from the crate. “Do not step out of this circle until I tell you it’s safe, Rhonda. Do you hear me?” She released the latch on the chicken’s cage.
Rhonda nodded, but said nothing.
The chicken squawked and flapped its wings in a futile fight for freedom. With a swift slice of a dagger, its head dropped away. Derek watched Tabatha’s face. No emotion. No show of sympathy for the chicken. Cold.
Rhonda moved to the edge of the protective circle to escape the spray of blood splattering the crypt and Tabatha’s clothing. Once again Tabatha traveled the circle letting the blood of the chicken form a second line inside the first. She strode to the crypt and placed her bloody hand on the entrance. “Live. I command you to live, Dorothy McShayne.”
The earth rumbled under his feet and a blast of thunder sounded from a cloudless sky. He fought to keep his balance, reaching out to balance himself on the nearby tomb, but yanked his hand away when he swore he’d heard something moving about inside it.
Tabatha retreated a few steps. The mortar binding the door to the crypt rained to the ground as though being chipped away from within. The grinding sound of stone against stone filled the silence and the door slid open. A hand reached out, touching the edge, then a second hand. A fall of long red hair appeared, then her head lifted slowly to reveal the woman’s face. She slid forward, her body levitating from the crypt’s gaping mouth until she stood before them.
“Holy Mother of God. What in—” Cold surrounded Derek with whispers of unknown origin. The sensation of death-chilled breath brushed his cheek. The air became thick and heavy with the scent of decay. He scrambled backward, tripped on an uneven section of concrete and landed hard on his backside. “Get away,” he muttered batting at the sensation of another’s nearness.
Tabatha swung around, arms spread outward from her sides. “Unclean sprits, I did not summon you. Go. Return to where you came. The living are not yours to taunt.” Her gaze grew hard and angry. “Leave here!”
The day’s heat returned and the air cleared. Silence once again ruled Derek’s world. He sagged against the tomb behind him and breathed deeply. Silence hung like a thick curtain of indecision before Tabatha finally said, “Dorothy, my name is Tabatha Gray.”
Dorothy tilted her head to one side then the other. “I know who you are. All of the dead know you.”
Tabatha visibly shuddered. “Who killed you?”
The corpse held a steady lifeless gaze on her. “John Phelps.” “Why?”
“The Guardians discovered I was taping their conversations, copying their death list and keeping a record of those they murdered.”
“Where are these things now?”
“Under Rhonda’s bedroom floor, seventh board from the closet.” Tabatha nodded once then drew a deep breath. “How did the Guardians get my name?”
“Someone told them who you were, what your powers are and when you were returning home.”
“Do you know who that person was?”
“No.”
Who the hell are the Guardians? What things? Who was murdered? Derek shifted to a more comfortable position as Tabatha turned to the other girl and asked, “Rhonda, is there anything else you need to know?”
“Why did you give me up, Mother? Didn’t you want me?”
Dorothy didn’t answer, instead, her stare remained trained intently on Tabatha.
“Why did you give Rhody up for adoption, Dorothy?”
“Rhody?”
“I’m Rhonda. I’ve not been called Rhody since grade school.” Tabatha massaged her temples with her fingertips. “Why did you give Rhonda up for adoption?”
“I wanted her to be safe and have a good life. A life better than I could give her.”
Tabatha nodded. “Enough. Return to your resting place, Dorothy McShayne. Rise again only when God calls your name.”
Derek fought for air. His throat grew tighter with each tortured breath. He couldn’t be seeing this. It wasn’t possible. Dorothy lifted into the air and settled into her crypt. The concrete stone levitated upward, blocked the opening, and its seal reformed.
Tabatha drew a deep breath. “It is finished.”
As if with permission from her words, the silence that had encompassed the cemetery moments before was broken with sounds of crickets and distant voices. It was then Derek realized the sun had set, shrouding them in darkness. Tabatha collected her tools and replaced the dead chicken in its cage. Rhonda stood in front of her mother’s tomb and sobbed quietly.
Tabatha’s undisturbed composure vexed Derek. She’d done something impossible but behaved as if it were an everyday occurrence. Maybe for her, it was.
“Wait,” Rhonda wailed. “You have to bring her back. I want to ask her something else.”
Tabatha glanced up from zipping her bag closed to stare at Rhonda. “Once I tell them to rise only when God calls them, I can’t evoke them again. No one can.”
“I just wanted to ask if she ever regretted leaving me.”
Tabatha stopped but didn’t turn. “Rh
onda, your mother did what she thought was right for you. Was your life so bad?” Tabatha didn’t wait for an answer but walked away, leaving Rhonda to either follow or stay. Rhonda finally rose and followed, her sobs trailing them.
Derek stayed back the distance of six or seven crypts. His mind raced with possibilities. He could at last find out who took Elizabeth from him. His forward movement stopped abruptly as visions of the dead children appeared one by one, as if reminding him there were more pressing problems than finding Elizabeth’s murderer. He needed to think. He had to talk to Tabatha. He took a step forward but froze. A short distance away a cobra coiled itself and stared at him as though daring him to move.
Derek shouted a profanity and jumped back, landing hard against a crypt. When he looked again, the snake had vanished. He searched frantically to find where it had gone, but saw only a coiled vine reacting to a breeze. “Get a grip, Bainbridge.” He drew a shaky breath and ran toward the cemetery gates.
When he reached the groundskeeper at the gate, the old man doffed his hat and smiled. “Didn’t know you were here.”
Derek gave a curt nod before racing past him. In the dimness of the overhead lights he couldn’t be sure of the Pontiac Grand AM’s color, but he knew it was the car the girls had gotten into. He could partially see the New York vanity license plate. Mud blotted out the last few letters, but the visible letters read DOC.
He grunted. Doctor of what? Tomfoolery? “Doctor indeed.”
Chapter Six
Before driving away, Tabatha took one last look in her rearview mirror. A man stood outside the cemetery’s gates, broad-shouldered, a stance of domination. His shadow-cast face conveyed a strange combination of hope, panic and anger. She nibbled on her lower lip. Out of state license. He’d have a hard time tracing her.
