Grave Consequences

by Lena Gregory

  “I’ve been trying to reach Andy since he disappeared.” She frowned and shook her head, staring into the distance. “Though I can feel in my gut he’s gone, I’m not able to reach him. We did not leave things on good terms, and according to his will, his young girlfriend will inherit everything once his fate has been determined. I won’t contest it, so I have nothing to gain by investigating his death, and yet, I’ve searched far and wide for someone who can help me find the closure I need. Despite his philandering, I never did stop loving him.”

  Cass could understand that. She shook off any misgivings. “So, you’d like me to try to contact him? Out here? Now?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “That’s exactly what I want.”

  As long as Simone helped her create the filter, it didn’t matter who she tried to reach first. If she was able to contact Simone’s husband, great. In the meantime, she’d be learning everything she could, and by the time she was done helping Simone, hopefully she’d understand what she needed to do to find Fred’s killer and hear whatever message was trying to reach her about Stephanie and Tank. “Okay. Tell me what to do.”

  “Walk with me.” She started down the walkway toward the jetty. “We won’t go far, and we’ll head back as soon as the rain starts.”

  Cass nodded and followed her onto the rocks. She stopped on the same flat rock Bee had insisted Kitty had waited for Thomas on all those years ago.

  “Close your eyes.” Simone stood just next to her, and still she had to raise her voice. “Have you ever tried meditation?”

  “I’ve tried, but I’m not very good at it.” Cass had a hard time unwinding and staying still, making meditation difficult.

  “That’s okay. Just close your eyes.”

  With one last look around to be sure they were alone, Cass took a leap of faith and closed her eyes.

  “Listen to the wind, let it flow through you.” Simone’s voice came from right against her ear, as well as from inside her head. “Feel the electricity, the power, sizzling across your skin. Embrace it.”

  A howl echoed in her head. Goose bumps made a mad dash up her arms.

  “Now, open yourself up and use that power, the rush of the wind, to mask some of the voices.”

  Cass opened her mind.

  Like a dam bursting, her shield collapsed and the voices gushed through.

  Instead of concentrating on the voices, she listened to the whistle of the wind, the hum of the voices when they merged together as one, crashing like the sea against the shore. She concentrated on the steady hum. Little by little, the wind whipped the voices away, swallowing their sound, masking them with its own. “What’s your ex’s name?”

  “Andrew,” Simone answered with no hesitation.

  Cass concentrated, opening her mind. Blood trickled from her nose.

  “. . . lighthouse . . . waiting . . . pain . . .”

  Two distinct voices. Even with Simone helping her shield.

  “. . . betrayed . . . friend . . . waiting . . .”

  Both male.

  “. . . now . . . betrayed . . . why now . . .”

  One a familiar cadence, a local. Fred? Not Thomas or Samuel certainly. At least she didn’t think so.

  “. . . push . . . not me . . . betrayed . . .”

  She grasped the other voice, the accent thick, similar to Simone’s.

  “I think I have him, Simone.” How had that happened? Had Simone actually been the one to summon him? Cass had never been that powerful before. “Are you . . . enhancing my abilities?”

  “Some.”

  “Andrew?” Cass asked out loud.

  “Betrayed . . .”

  She squeezed her eyes closed tighter against the rush of the wind. “Who betrayed you?”

  Simone gasped.

  “She killed me.”

  Pain slammed through Cass’s head as something struck her from behind. As she started to fall, the world went black.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Cass faded in and out of consciousness. Thunder crashed. Lightning sizzled across the sky. Darkness enveloped her.

  “Cass?” a familiar voice asked.

  Black swirled around her. Pain slammed through her head and her stomach lurched. She tried to force her eyes open, but blackness encroached, tunneling her vision until she succumbed.

  Motion. The rocking pulled her from unconsciousness, but her head was too heavy. She couldn’t lift it from . . . someone’s chest? Arms cradled her against a hard . . .

  Noooo! Panic clutched her throat, strangling her. Then, merciful blackness.

  Cold fingers pressed against her throat.

  Don’t touch me! she screamed in her mind, but couldn’t force the sound from her mouth.

  She squeezed her eyes closed tighter, willing the world to stop spinning.

  Her cheek scraped across something hard and scratchy. It tore at her face. Cold seeped through her, all the way to her bones. Tears spilled out from beneath her closed lids. She gave up, falling back into the blissful well of oblivion.

  Light penetrated the haze of pain.

  “Cass!” A strong voice, insistent. She tried to ignore it, to crawl back into the cover of the darkness. The voice was unrelenting, growing firmer each time it called to her from within her own mind. “Cass. Open your eyes.”

  No! She wanted to shake her head but couldn’t seem to coordinate the thought with the action.

  “Come on, now.” The voice changed from demanding to pleading, the accent familiar.

  Cass tried harder.

  “Wake up! Now.”

  “Simone?” She forced her eyes open a slit. Pain hammered through her head, but she wouldn’t give in. Blurry images shimmered through the tears pooled in her eyes.

  She forced her hand into her pocket and fumbled her phone out. Who had she called last? Couldn’t remember. Hard to make her fingers work. Why were her hands so cold? She opened the home screen, hit the phone icon, and redialed the last number she’d called.

  She struggled to get the phone to her ear. Where had her attacker gone? Simone? Had Simone been the one to hit her?

  Thunder crashed and the sky opened up.

  Cass welcomed the cool rain. It helped to clear her head.

  “Hey, beautiful. Just wrapping things up here—”

  Bee? What was he doing here? Hadn’t he gone into Dreamweaver Designs to work? Confused, Cass forgot for a moment she’d dialed his number.

  “Cass?”

  “Bee. Help. Lighthouse.”

  He’d come. Bee always came when she needed him. He’d call Luke or Tank, but he’d make it to her before they could if he was still at the shop working on his gowns.

  Cass got the phone back into her pocket. She didn’t want to warn whomever had hit her—Simone?—that she’d called for help if they returned.

  The rain continued to pour down on her, clearing her senses. She’d been moved. No longer on the jetty but the beach. She had to get out of there. Had to get up first. She rolled onto her side and struggled to sit. The sand shifted beneath her hand, sending her sprawling.

  She could do this. All she had to do was make it to the parking lot. She could lock herself in the car until Bee got there. No way she could drive. Not even just down the road to Mystical Musings.

  She finally managed to push herself up to sit, then pulled her knees up and lowered her head to rest on them. Closed her eyes. Just for a moment.

  “Cass. What happened?” Bee fell to his knees beside her. “Cass, talk to me. Ah, man, you’re bleeding.”

  “Have to get out of here. Simone.” She shouldn’t have called him. Shouldn’t have put him in danger. Should have tried to scroll through for Luke’s number. Or Tank’s.

  “Is she here?” He stood and looked around, then leaned back over her. “There’s no one here, Cass.”

  “She was right beside me. Except . . .” She’d heard Simone calling to her. Insisting she wake up. But she wasn’t here. She was certain the call came from within her head. “I thi
nk she might be dead.”

  Had whoever had hit her killed Simone? Was she lying on the jetty somewhere? Helpless? Stuffed beneath one of the massive boulders as Piper had been?

  Her memory of the seconds right before the attack came crashing back, and the air burst from her lungs. “We have to get out of here.”

  “I don’t think we should move you, Cass. I called Luke. Help is on the way.”

  “No. Have to go. Now.” Cass struggled to get to her feet. She had to get Bee out of there. “I was doing a reading of sorts, trying to contact Simone’s husband, see if we could locate him.”

  “You came out here in the dark, in the middle of a storm, to meet up with her? Alone?”

  Well, when you put it like that.

  “It doesn’t matter right now. I think she might have killed him and hit me over the head and left me for dead.”

  Bee helped her to stand, then let her lean against him. “Are you sensing a pattern here, Cass?”

  “What?” She squinted against the headache and tried to clear the fog from her brain.

  “Every time you ask someone else for help instead of me, it backfires on you.”

  “Seriously, Bee?” She was starting to regret having called him.

  “Just sayin’, honey.”

  “Bee?” A voice from behind them made Cass’s blood run cold.

  “Levi?” Bee turned. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here. We need help. Cass is hurt.”

  Levi took off his cap, scratched his head, and put his cap back on. “Sorry, Bee, but I can’t do that.”

  “What?” Bee looked from him to Cass. “Why not?”

  By the time his gaze retuned to Levi, the other man held a gun pointed right at Cass, his hand steady, his grip firm and sure. “Start walking, toward the lighthouse. And don’t try to run. It makes no difference if I put a bullet in your back, no one’s ever going to find the bodies anyway.”

  “Levi?” Bee braced.

  Cass held a gentle hand against his arm to keep him from charging. “Levi, please. Bee has nothing to do with this. Why don’t you just let him go, and I’ll do whatever you ask?”

  “You’re going to do whatever I ask anyway, now start walking.” He lifted the gun a bit.

  Keeping her hands out to the sides where Levi could easily see them, Cass turned and slowly started toward the lighthouse. “Come on, Bee.”

  He didn’t move, and Cass paused and held her breath, willing him to turn and walk with her. They wouldn’t have to stall him for long. Luke should be there any minute.

  “What are you doing?” Bee finally turned and started to walk with her, the wind and rain covering the sound of his voice. “I can take him.”

  She had full confidence Bee could take Levi under normal circumstances, and even in the current situation if Levi wasn’t standing too far away for Bee to reach him before he could pull the trigger. But Levi’s grasp on the gun didn’t waver for an instant, and there was no hesitation in his eyes. She had a strong feeling this wasn’t the first time he’d held someone at gunpoint.

  She tried to open her mind, search for help. Nothing. The voices that had harassed her so relentlessly seemed to have fled in the face of danger. Thanks, guys. But what of the voice that had called to her? Woken her? Certainly saved her life by calling so insistently and giving her the time to call Bee before Levi returned. A female voice, the accent thick. Cass raised her voice to be heard over the storm. “Where’s Simone?”

  “Don’t matter none.”

  Accomplice or victim?

  They’d almost reached the lighthouse. But what to do? Go inside with him, or force him to kill them out there? Once they were inside, Luke would be walking in blind.

  Cass staggered and reached out to steady herself against the doorjamb.

  “Don’t even try it.” He stopped before moving into striking distance and redirected the gun to aim it a Bee. “If I didn’t need you two for something, you’d already be dead. Open the door. Now.”

  Not willing to take a chance with Bee’s life, Cass did as he said. Rainwater ran in rivulets down her face from her soaking wet hair. She wiped them away and shoved her hair back as she entered the cool, damp space.

  Simone stood at the opposite end of the circular room.

  Francesca Harding stood at her back, gun aimed at her.

  Bee moved in behind Cass and slid against the wall, halfway between Francesca and Levi.

  Cass moved past Bee and stood against the wall beside him but closer to Francesca. If they were going to have any chance at all of fighting their way out of there, Bee’s path to Levi needed to be unimpeded. Cass could take care of Francesca. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t.” Francesca sneered and aimed a deadly glare at Bee. “You thought it was so funny when Piper humiliated me in the diner, drew attention to me I didn’t need. Well, you’re not laughing now, are you?”

  Bee kept perfectly still, hands held up in front of him. “Hon, I wasn’t laughing at you. And I’m sorry if it seemed that way. Actually, I was cheering you on. It was nice to see someone stand up to that bully for a change.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s not laughing anymore either.” Francesca aimed her glare at Levi. “But she’s not dead, either, like she was supposed to be.”

  Bee shifted a fraction of an inch toward Levi.

  Francesca frowned.

  Cass stood up straighter, putting herself between Francesca and Bee, trying to block her clear view of Bee in case he tried to move again.

  “Enough!” Levi leaned over, yanked a large rubber mat off the floor and threw it aside, and pulled open a trap door. “Let’s go. One at a time. Bee first.”

  Bee stood his ground. “What is that?”

  “Don’t worry. You ain’t dying yet.” He waved the gun toward the opening.

  “No.” Bee planted his feet firmly, angling his body in front of Cass. “I’m not going down there, at least not until I know what’s down there and what you want from us.”

  Levi contemplated him for a moment. “Fine. It’s a tunnel. It leads to the lighthouse on Gardiners Island.”

  A chill ripped through Cass. If they went down there and walked beneath the bay to Gardiners Island, which was not that far away, Luke would never find them, even knowing where they were last. Levi was right. They’d never be found. “Why are we going to Gardiners Island?”

  “We’re not. Yet. First, we’re going to see if either of you”—he waved the gun back and forth between Cass and Simone—“can contact good ole cheating Fred and see if he can tell us where the treasure is. And then, Bee here’s gonna tell me how to find that treasure. Because I read through those transcribed pages and dug where I thought I’d find it, but it wasn’t there.”

  Bee shifted again and held up a finger. “So, it wasn’t you that removed the pages?”

  Levi’s eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”

  “The pages from the journal.”

  “Cass?”

  Her gaze shot to Simone, whose lips never moved, though her voice rang out clear enough in Cass’s head.

  Simone’s brow furrowed in concentration, sweat trickling down the sides of her face. She shook her head once, and Cass turned away.

  “. . . Cass and I found the journal.”

  She shifted her attention back to Bee.

  “You couldn’t have. I only had a few seconds before the cops came traipsin’ in, and I couldn’t get caught with it on me, so I dumped it where no one could find it.” Levi mopped the sweat from his brow.

  “Yeah, right.” Bee mocked. “In the secret stairway that goes from the museum to the room you pushed Fred out of.”

  “Harrumph. Fred. If he’d have just cooperated instead of being so greedy, none of this would have happened. We were supposed to share the treasure, a fifty-fifty split, until he decided to cut me out.” He grinned at Francesca. “Lucky for me he had a penchant for beautiful young women.”

  “So, Fred wasn’t going after Fran
cesca, she was going after him.” And had riled Quincy up for nothing.

  “Then what were you doing with Quince?” Bee asked Francesca, seeming legitimately interested. Who could blame him? If they ever got out of this, he’d have gossip enough to power the rumor mill for weeks. Maybe even all summer.

  “Oh, please,” Francesca said. “Quince was a convenient cover. Who’d ever think I was fooling around with that old coot when I had myself the most eligible stud on the island?”

  “So you didn’t care about him at all?” Bee pressed a hand against his chest and shifted another fraction of an inch closer to Fred. “That’s just cold.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Enough already. Bee, you’re here to see if you can find the treasure based on what was written in the journal. Cass and Simone, you two are here to see if you can get Fred, or Kitty, or Thomas, or even good old Samuel—I don’t much care who—to reveal the location of the treasure.”

  Levi once again gestured toward the tunnel. “And then we’re all taking a trip over to Gardiners Island to see if we can find the remainder of that treasure. I’ve heard the stories about treasure being buried there too.”

  Bee held up a finger. “That would be impossible.”

  He grinned, pure evil. “Nothing’s impossible.”

  “I beg to differ.” Propping his hand on his hip, he took another opportunity to take a step closer to Levi. To the side, though, so as not to make it obvious. “If you know the story of the treasure on Gardiners Island, you also know the Gardiners had to hand it over to the court, except for one diamond Jonathan Gardiner was rumored to have passed on to his daughter, Elizabeth.”

  “Do you seriously think that’s all the treasure buried there?” Levi laughed. “You really are naïve, aren’t you?”

  Bee sighed.

  “Now.” Levi waved the gun. “All three of you are going down into that hole.”

  “Get ready.”

  Cass shifted her gaze to Levi to avoid her automatic instinct to look at Simone.

  “And you say I’m naïve,” Bee muttered as he moved past Levi.