“Walter, your wife…your wife passed some time ago.”
The man’s eyes shot up, but it wasn’t surprise that Cal saw in them, but frustration.
“I know,” he said curtly. “She died a year ago to the day. But I heard her. I was on my way to visit her grave—dressed in the same navy uniform that we were married in—when I heard her voice call to me.”
Cal checked his watch.
“You were coming here? Now? At midnight?”
Shelly elbowed him in the ribs, and he grunted. Walter Smith, however, was unfazed by the comment.
“Lorraine died almost exactly at midnight—in her sleep, God rest her soul.”
“Yeah, that God rest her soul bit? That’s something we need to talk about.”
Again, Shelly elbowed him in the ribs, this time hard enough for him to cry out. He turned to her.
“What?” he demanded angrily.
Shelly didn’t answer, but instead stepped between Cal and Walter.
“Was your wife buried over there?” she asked, hooking a finger at the plain ash-gray tombstone that bore the woman’s name.
Walter looked confused.
“Yes, that’s her tombstone. Why?”
“I mean, was she buried? As in, did you see her lowered into the ground?”
The man finally seemed to catch on to what she was asking.
He shook his head slowly.
“No, Lorraine was cremated—even brought her ashes with me. Was going to sprinkle a little bit on her grave every year until I pass. That way I never forget, you know?”
Shelly nodded.
“You brought the urn with you?”
Cal furrowed his brow.
What’s she getting at?
Walter nodded, and then looked back to the area from which he had rushed at Cal.
“Over there. But what does this have to do with Lorraine—with me hearing Lorraine’s voice?” He lowered his head. “Am I going mad?”
Shelly immediately took another step forward, and then indicated for Allan to head over to where Walter had said he had set down the urn and retrieve it.
“No, Walter, I don’t think you are going mad. I think that you really did hear your late wife.”
“But…how is that possible?”
Shelly moved right up next to Walter now, and gently laid her hand on his shoulder. Walter immediately slumped; his navy gear, which had been worn with such pride when he had first entered the cemetery, now hung off of his wiry frame like ill-fitting pajamas. It was as if he had used up all his energy coming here and then charging at Cal, and now that he was spent, his body had simply withered.
“It’s possible,” Shelly said just loud enough for Cal to hear. She looked over her shoulder at him, and he saw something in her eyes that he didn’t care for. Cal took a step forward, trying to intervene before she made a horrible mistake, but as usual, he was late to the party. “And you can see her again, Walter. You can see your wife one last time.”
***
“This is fucking insane, Shel. Like, seriously stupid. Worse than even Allan’s idea of coming out here in the first place.”
Shelly bit her lip.
“We have to try.”
“No, no we don’t. We don’t have to try anything. We could just leave all of this stuff behind us, live off the money that Sean gave us and do something else.”
It was Allan who piped up next.
“I can’t do that.”
Cal turned to him, trying hard to keep his voice low so that the man in the clearing couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“You can’t? You? I distinctly remember you whimpering like a little boy who lost his pacifier back at Seaforth—back when Sean brought us there and locked us in the closet. Do you remember that?”
Allan lowered his gaze.
“And this—” He gestured to the camera setup and Walter, who was now sitting in the center of the clearing. “—this seems a lot like that, doesn’t it? Like how Sean used us as bait to get Robert to come to Seaforth. You know that, right? This seems almost exactly like that.”
Shelly suddenly tossed the urn at him, and Cal swore as he juggled the slick black vase. After nearly dropping it, he somehow managed to grab it with both hands.
“Shelly! What the fuck!” he huffed, sweat breaking out on his brow. “What’s wrong with you?”
Shelly ignored the question and just stared at him for a moment. Cal stared back. She was dressed in ultra-tight leather pants, and was sporting a black spring jacket over top a very low-cut black V-neck, revealing the tops of her breasts. It was an outfit he had seen her wear before—Shelly had a minimalist wardrobe, if there ever was one—but it seemed different now; the pants seemed tighter in the thighs, and he had some serious doubts that she would have been able to do up the jacket had it been a cooler night. In fact, all of her clothes seemed to be tighter, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he should actively encourage her to join him in his workouts; it seemed that every pound he lost, she gained some of it.
It was her drinking; her drinking had kicked into high gear ever since Robert had abandoned them.
“What?” he said at last, unable to hold her gaze for any longer.
“You feel that?”
Cal gripped the urn tightly in both hands.
“Yes, of course I feel it. It feels like—”
Shelly reached out and snatched it from him before he could react. Extra weight or not, she could still be quick when she needed to.
“When my parents died, they were cremated. I held both of their urns.” Her voice hitched almost imperceptibly, and Cal’s expression softened.
He had had no idea that Shelly’s parents were dead. In fact, other than the stuff that he had read online—about her living in Montreal prior to joining them in the Harlop Estate, and being a source of knowledge when it came to the quiddity—he realized in that moment that he knew very little about Shelly.
In fact, he knew little about Shelly, about Sean, or about Allan. He looked at the young man next, but couldn’t get a read on him; Allan was staring at Walter, who at some point during their argument had wrapped his arms over his knees like a child.
The only person Cal knew was Robert, but given the way things had gone…well, he wasn’t so sure about that anymore, either.
“Anyway,” Shelly continued, her voice hardening. “The urn is too light.”
“What do you mean, too light?”
She lowered her voice and moved even closer.
“It’s too light—meaning, not all of her is in there.”
Cal finally caught her drift.
“What a minute, you think—you think—” He shook his head. “No, no way.”
Shelly turned to Allan.
“Allan, what do you think?”
“It’s possible,” he admitted with a shrug. “I mean, if they didn’t cremate all of her body, then maybe her quiddity can still be trapped here. Can’t say for certain, but it’s possible.” Allan didn’t take his eyes off Walter as he spoke. “He said he heard her, and given what we’ve seen…”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Cal swore. “So, what, we just sit here and wait for the poor bastard’s dead wife to visit? Then we try your crazy camera trick to trap her?”
“Robert’s not coming back, Cal; we can’t rely on him with his fucking superpowers, or whatever he did at Seaforth, to keep the quiddity at bay. We need to try this—to try something. Just in case.”
Cal had to fight the urge to pull out his hair.
“Just in case? Jesus, are you listening to yourself right now?” Despite his admonition, Cal was acutely aware of the irony of his words.
Before Walter had rushed at him and he was certain that he was going to be transported to the Marrow, Cal had used the same twisted logic to convince himself to come to the cemetery in the first place.
But now that he heard the idea verbalized, it sounded absurd.
Shelly pressed her lips together tightly. Clearly, she
felt differently.
“It’s not up to you, anyway—Allan and I are doing this. Feel free to leave at any time.”
With that, she spun on her heels, and started walking toward Walter, holding the urn out in front of her.
For a moment, Cal just stared, incredulous.
Then he snapped out of it.
“Wait!” he said finally. “Shelly, just wait!”
Chapter 8
Michael took much more persuading than Jonah, which had set them back longer than Carson had hoped or even expected. It was partly because he had never met the man before—unlike Jonah, with whom he had crossed paths several times before being incarcerated—and partly because the man was naturally suspicious. A good thing, Carson supposed, given their business. Jonah, on the other hand…
Carson had persisted because Michael was important—important because he had something that neither he nor Jonah had: money, and lots of it. And no matter how much Carson loathed the pursuit of the all-mighty dollar, he was a practical man.
Money would come in handy; money could be used to buy people off, money could be used to buy weapons, money could be used to buy a fucking drink.
So despite the setback, Carson couldn’t help but allow the smile that tickled the inside of his cheeks to grew. And sitting in the front seat of Michael’s luxury Mercedes, why shouldn’t he smile?
“Where we off to next, Carson?” Jonah asked from the backseat. “When are we going to get some action?”
Carson didn’t answer at first. He was suddenly put off by the little man, mostly because his excited demeanor reminded him of Buddy. And that type of attitude had made Buddy sloppy, and it was what got him arrested.
And then executed.
Carson thought back to his and Buddy’s first kill together, how they had set up a tent just outside the city in Green Mountain National Forest. They had chosen September, because temperatures were dropping and yet it wasn’t cold enough to deter all visitors. Still, it took longer than he had expected to identify their victim, which was perhaps why he had so much patience today.
The same couldn’t be said about Buddy.
Hunkered in the thin forest just off a worn hiking path, it was nearly two hours before the first person—a man with his dog—finally walked by.
Of course, Buddy wanted to pounce, to just leap out of the trees and grab the man. But Carson wanted to wait. And when the man’s dog took a big shit, and the dutiful parkgoer leaned down to pick it up with a bag, his jacket pulled up a bit, revealing a blue tattoo on his wrist.
“Now?” Buddy whispered.
Carson put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, holding him back. The tattoo on the man’s wrist had been Army insignia. Carson was young back then, young and stupid, but he knew enough not to mess with military men.
“No, not him,” he told his friend. “Let him go.”
Buddy’s round face soured.
“Why not?”
Carson shook his head.
“He’s military.”
Buddy was incredulous. And bloodthirsty. Man, Buddy was the most bloodthirsty individual Carson had ever come across, even compared to him and his other inmates at Seaforth.
Bloodthirsty to the point of being careless. And look where that got him.
“Military? So? There are two of us—we can take him.”
Back then, Buddy had been more muscle than fat—something that changed dramatically over the years—and at a hefty six feet, Carson didn’t doubt his friend’s words.
“I know, but not him.”
“Why the fuck not?”
Buddy also had a temper, which was liable to bubble over at any moment. And that moment was close, Carson could just feel it.
“Because if we fuck with him, then we are fucking with all of his Army brat friends. You want that? You want to be hunted for the rest of our lives, always looking over our shoulders for men in fatigues? That sound like fun to you?”
A couple of discharged soldiers with PTSD were frequent visitors to his step-parents’ crack den. Even these drug-addled men showed an almost supernatural persistence. If they took out an Army brat with their first kill together, there was no stopping his comrades’ thirst for revenge.
It was a clichéd thing to say, but it seemed to work. Buddy’s expression softened.
“Let’s just wait for an easier target, shall we?”
Buddy agreed.
They didn’t have to wait long for the second passerby. Less than ten minutes later, a woman in her mid-forties sporting a bright yellow vest and a black headband over her ears jogged by.
She was their first, and Carson would never forget her.
“Carson? Where to next? Can we get some now?”
Carson scowled at having been drawn out of his reverie.
“No, not yet. Keep your dick in your pants, Jonah. There will be more action than you know what to deal with.”
“But I want it now,” Jonah whined. He was like a child wrapped up in a fat man’s body.
“Jonah, shut the fuck up.”
Michael spoke up next.
“You need to tell me where I’m driving to, and you need to also tell me what the hell your master plan is.”
Carson almost chuckled out loud. These two couldn’t possibly comprehend his ‘master plan.’ They were but pawns, and a king never told his disciples all of his secrets. Still, it was clear that with Michael the same promises of spilling blood that he had made to Jonah were insufficient. The man was a killer, the video proved as much, but he was a cautious killer. A calculated one, one that avoided risks. And, as a consequence, one that avoided prison as well.
“There is one more person we need to get, then we can sit down and have a chat.”
“One more?” Jonah asked from the backseat, his voice increasing in pitch.
“One more,” Carson confirmed. “A woman.”
Carson caught a glimpse of the sneer that crossed Jonah’s face in the rearview mirror.
No, not that kind, Jonah. This isn’t the type of girl you want to try something with.
***
Carson found Bella exactly where he’d known she would be: at their favorite bar, sipping her favorite drink. A Bloody Mary, go figure.
With Michael and Jonah waiting in the car, he entered the bar and approached her from behind. Even though he hadn’t seen Bella in nearly a decade, he knew it was her despite only seeing the back of her head and her shoulders. And that was even considering that she was wearing a gray turtleneck sweater. He knew it was her not just because he recognized her straight, black hair that fell to just below her shoulders, or that rose tattoo in the webbing of her right hand that gripped the Bloody Mary, but he knew because of the way she sat. Even though she was on a barstool, her back was perfectly straight, her posture the envy of all but the most prestigious of finishing schools.
This was Bella alright, and God how he’d missed her.
Instead of giving himself away, Carson elected to silently slide in beside her instead.
As expected, she didn’t even bother raising her head to look at him.
The barkeep, an older man with deep grooves around his nose and mouth and perfectly shellacked white hair, came over to him.
His voice was a perfect match for his appearance.
“What can I get ya?”
Carson smiled. It had been a really, really long time since he had seen Bella, and it had been even longer since he had had a drink. But while Bella was always partial to her Bloody Marys, he was more of a bourbon guy.
“A double of Bulleit. Neat,” he replied simply.
The ring on Bella’s second finger, a simple, silver band that Carson had given her long ago, suddenly stopped tapping against the side of her glass.
Then, almost in slow motion, Bella turned to face him.
“Oh, hi, Bella, fancy finding you here,” he said with a grin.
Bella’s dark brown eyes bulged and the glass slipped from her hand.
“Carson? Cars
on?”
Chapter 9
When Shelly got this way, there was nothing anyone—not Cal, not Allan, and not even Robert—could say to change her mind. So Cal reluctantly agreed to help her with the “plan.”
Despite what he had said about wanting to leave this world, to run from this dangerous game that they were playing, deep down, he was relieved that they had decided to remain ensconced in it, at least for the time being. He didn’t kid himself; after what he had seen at Seaforth and the Seventh Ward, he knew that there was a chance—a big chance—that he was risking death, or worse. But all of this was like a drug to him. The adrenaline he felt, and to a lesser degree the vindication for the scorn that had been thrown at him for even mentioning some of his ‘conspiracy theories,’ was something that he longed for.
There was also his best friend dying in his arms—there was always that. Robert might have been the one to go to the Marrow, might have walked on the shores and returned to talk about it when nobody else had, but Cal had seen it. He had fucking seen it, and he wanted to see it again. Only he wanted to do so on his own terms. And he wanted to come back—yeah, he really wanted to return to this world.
He leaned in close and whispered in Walter’s ear.
“No matter what, you can’t touch her. Remember that, Walter. No matter what.”
The man looked up at him with sad, yet surprisingly clear eyes. Cal hadn’t asked his age, but he pegged the man in his early eighties. For as old as he was, he seemed of particularly sound mind, which helped ease some of the guilt that built inside him.
“No matter what,” Cal repeated, before gently placing a hand on his shoulder and stepping back.
“C’mon, Cal, we need to get started.”
Cal held the man’s gaze a little longer, making sure that the importance of his words sunk in. It was Walter who eventually broke the stare, pretending to have to adjust the urn between his hands.
As per the plan, if you could call it such, Cal retreated to his camera. And then, once behind the lens, they were like they had been before Walter had arrived: Cal, Shelly, and Allan behind their cameras, all focused on the area upon which they triangulated. Only this time, there was a man sitting in the center. A sad, sad man who only wanted to desperately see his wife again.
Scarsdale Crematorium (The Haunted Book 4) Page 4
