Grave Lies: A Psychic Investigator Mystery (Mercury Mediums Book 1), page 16
When he was a teenager, he’d been allowed to take on odd jobs for the ranchers around town. He’d been strong, hard-working, and good at talking to people, too. He’d started making friends, learning about the world outside the Path. Donovan secretly dreamed of going off to college and getting a job in a fancy building, like in the TV shows that he sometimes watched at his friends’ houses.
And at home, he’d begun to notice things that made him uncomfortable. Contradictions in the things his mother said. Like the fact that all the Reverend’s children were supposed to be equal, yet Lena gave him extra freedom. To his siblings, it had seemed like favoritism. They’d teased him for it. But Donovan had felt like his mother didn’t actually care what he did. Like he didn’t matter to her.
He hadn’t understood why a boy could take on jobs among outsiders, but a girl could not. Was it that the outside world was easier for men to resist? That couldn’t be true because so many of their men had been “tempted” away. Like Wayne Krauss, who worked at the bistro and had been a sympathetic ear.
The more Donovan spoke to nonbelievers around Coldwater, the more he suspected that men weren’t nearly as much use on the Path as women. Yet he still hadn’t understood. Finally, as years passed and he hoped to have a girlfriend himself, Donovan got the message.
When the Reverend finally returned to the flock on the chosen day, he’d want women to welcome him. Extra men would only get in the way.
Donovan had started to question everything—his place on the Path, his upbringing, his family. And the more Donovan had paid attention, the more he’d noticed.
His mother had made trips outside late at night, venturing to the “abandoned” cabins that were locked up and off limits.
Why?
Slowly, the answer had come to him. He hadn’t told anyone for the shame. But he’d been disgusted by the depth of his mother’s lies.
It still hadn’t been easy to leave. Donovan’s siblings, especially, mourned his decision. But his mother had simply shrugged, as if his leaving made more sense than staying. And instead of striking his name and cutting off contact, his mother had continued to treat him with the same old fondness mixed with disregard.
The day he’d moved out, he’d almost told Lena, I know your secret. But he couldn’t find the nerve.
There were other things he suspected but didn’t know for sure. He’d chosen not to believe the very worst of the rumors in Coldwater about the church.
Maybe that had been a mistake.
Even though he’d left, he still loved his family more than anything, too much to leave them behind completely. He valued many of the teachings of the Path. But if he’d made a cleaner break, if he’d firmly chosen freedom instead of living halfway between—if he’d told the terrible, shameful truth, wherever it might lead—would Adelaide be safe now?
The thought was unbearable. It pounded in his head and made his eyes burn.
Suddenly, a woman shouted, “I found something!”
Donovan’s chest tightened. They all went running.
It was one of the other mothers. She held up a sopping wet glove and a boot. Her eyes were wild with terror. “These are Adelaide’s.”
Donovan felt like he’d swallowed a mouthful of snow.
Around him, the women began to whisper. “Did you see how Lena took Adelaide outside yesterday? She’d been out the night before. She was talking back.”
“I know, I heard some of what they were saying. I heard them say, ‘Stacey.’ Remember her?” The speaker, one of his sisters, sent a guilty glance in his direction. “They were talking about Donovan, too. And something about…the Reverend.”
A hush fell.
He wondered how many of the others knew the truth, even if they didn’t speak of it openly.
Was this all just a sham? Did any of them truly believe in the Path anymore?
Adelaide did, he thought. You should’ve protected her from this.
The ball of ice around Donovan’s heart kept getting bigger. Heavier. He turned around and went back to the house.
He found his mother at the sewing machine, furiously stitching. The needle was coming down so fast, it blurred.
“This is your fault,” he said.
The machine stopped. “What are you talking about?”
“We just found Adelaide’s hat and glove. She’s out there somewhere, injured. Maybe dead. She figured out the truth, didn’t she?“
“What truth?” Lena stood up sharply. Her tone, her glare, the tension in her body—all of it warned him: Don’t say another word.
“She found out, and you drove her away. This is your fault.” Had Adelaide threatened to tell his mother’s secrets? “What did you do?” he demanded, grabbing his mother’s arm.
Then a new, even darker thought twisted through his insides.
“Or was it…?”
His mother’s eyes flared wide. “Donovan. No.”
He spun, pushing past the women who’d gathered to eavesdrop in the living room. He charged back outside. The glare from the snow was blinding.
“No!” his mother screamed. “Don’t!”
He raced into the trees, following the worn trail to the abandoned cabins, though he couldn’t see it beneath the snow. He knew where the path was. Lena did, too.
“Donovan, no!”
He broke through the trees, emerging into a snow-filled clearing. He couldn’t tell if anyone had been in or out. The fresh snowfall in the last several hours could’ve hidden the evidence.
He ran up to one of the cabins. It had a corrugated metal roof and cinderblock walls. Boarded-over windows, like the rest of the ramshackle structures in this clearing. But only this one had a shiny steel lock.
He banged and yanked on the door.
His mother tackled him from behind. “Stop! Are you mad?”
He threw her off. “Open this door. Where’s the key?”
“I won’t tell you!” His mother had sprawled into the snow. “You’ve left the light. You’ve joined forces with the darkness, with persecution. I want you out of here, off this property.”
“I’ll go to the police.”
Slowly, she stood, coated in a thick layer of white. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Oh, but I do. You think I haven’t known, all this time?”
Lena backed away by a few feet, regarding him cautiously. “I can explain.”
“Can you? Then explain. Tell me why you’ve lied to me almost my entire life.” No wonder she’d been so easy about him leaving. He’d made one fewer person to hide the truth from.
“Where could he go that they wouldn’t find him?” Her tone had switched to begging.
Donovan felt a tear slip down his cheek. “How many people did you try to erase from our lives, as if they were at fault? All to save him from his sins.”
“Don’t speak to me about sins. You don’t know.”
He spun around wildly. “Can he hear us right now? Is he listening?”
Lena’s face twisted with anguish.
Donovan felt sick with all the lies he’d been fed. He felt them rising up with the bile in his stomach. They wouldn’t stay down anymore. “What about those murders next door at Donovan Ranch all those years ago? What does he know about that? What do you know?” He was crying openly now. “What did you do to Adelaide? What did you do to my sister?”
Lena wouldn’t answer. She stood there, covered in snow, lifeless as a sculpture carved from ice.
Donovan spun around and kicked the door with the flat of his boot. The entire structure vibrated, wood creaking and metal shrieking. He’d kick the place in if he had to. He wouldn’t tolerate the lies for another minute. Not a second.
“Donovan!” his mother cried.
He turned around in time to see her running at him, arm raising. She was holding something dark and misshapen in her hand. An old piece of leftover stone. A remnant of their past.
It came down on his head, followed by a starburst of pain.
Chapter Twenty-Six
They were back at Davenport Ranch, combing through the fields again. They had a dozen people now, moving systematically in a long line. The snow was infuriating. Zandra had never hated the stuff so much.
And Penny kept getting violent images from Tabitha’s ghost. Zandra felt it every time her partner flinched. She kept hoping Penny would receive some revelation from the spirits here, something that would help instead of just plaguing their efforts. Penny kept at it, both searching for Adelaide and listening to Tabitha’s rage-filled cries.
Zandra went over to her, steadying Penny with a touch. “Sure you don’t want to take a break?”
Penny nodded. “I keep getting the same images and voices. But Tabitha’s gaining more energy. It’s not just from you and me. It’s everyone here. All the fear and uncertainty.”
Mediums could cross the barrier between the living and dead more easily than others could. But ghosts could use the medium’s energy, too, gathering strength. It was a reality mediums used to their advantage, yet had to constantly keep in mind lest the haunting worsen. With enough fury and enough fuel, Tabitha could turn into a poltergeist.
“You think she might escalate? Lash out?”
Penny hesitated. “Yesterday, I’d have said there was no way. But with the surge I’m feeling now? It’s possible.”
Zandra cursed to herself. She didn’t know what to do. Tell the chief these people had to leave? But that could hinder the search for Adelaide.
A few minutes later, they heard shouting. Heather was racing toward them. Zandra’s heart rocketed into her throat. Her hand flew to her pocket, where she still had Tabitha’s tie-dyed handkerchief, ready to return to Adelaide the moment she saw the woman.
Please don’t say they found her body. Please.
“Chief just got a call. Something’s going on next door at the church. That’s all I know. Police are responding. I was going to head over there, but thought I should let you know.”
“Should we keep up with the search?” Zandra asked.
In other words, did they find her?
“I don’t know yet. I’ll keep you posted.” Heather turned around and went back toward the house.
But it seemed like every other member of their search party had abandoned them to go next door.
Penny and Zandra took advantage of the brief lull to go back inside and get warm. Plus, Zandra wanted her partner to have a break from the constant stream of ghostly memories. She could tell Penny was getting exhausted. Hopefully, Tabitha would relax with the fields empty again.
They stripped off their sodden outer layers, and Penny sank onto Heather’s couch. “The waiting is awful. Feels like we should be doing something, but I don’t know yet how I’m going to get through to Tabitha. Every time I get near her, she’s more resistant instead of calmer.”
Zandra checked her phone. Hours had slipped by without her noticing. Another day almost gone.
And another storm was on its way tomorrow.
“I need to tell you what happened yesterday at the Mercury office.” Zandra recounted what their handler had said. That changes were coming, and they were expected in Denver by Friday afternoon. Tomorrow.
“I don’t see how we’ll be finished here,” Penny said.
“Neither do I. We’d have to leave today if we want to have any chance of getting there. The next storm’s supposed to dump even more snow than the last.”
Penny rested her head in her hands, sighing. “We can’t leave now. There’s just no way, Z. It isn’t right. With Adelaide missing, the ghosts more active than ever—”
“So we won’t go. We’ll stay here until we’ve wrapped up this case.”
Penny looked up. “But what’ll Dari do if we disobey her? Would Mercury bench us? Fire us?”
Zandra couldn’t imagine that happening. “We’ll get through it.” Mercury had valued Zandra enough to give her this special assignment. They’d wanted Penny to work for them, too. Talents like theirs weren’t easy to come by. Even if Dari was angry, her superiors within the Mercury Group would have to understand.
“We’ll work it out with them. It’ll be fine,” Zandra reassured her.
Finally, Zandra’s phone rang. It was Heather.
“Hey, I’ve got you on speaker,” Zandra said. “What’s happening?”
“They’ve taken Lena into custody. And Reverend Berman.”
Penny stood up. “The Reverend? Did I hear that right?”
“That’s the same thing I asked,” Heather replied. “And yeah, it’s true. Zandra, I was hoping you could come here to help out. No offense to you, Penny, but this is probably more in your partner’s wheelhouse.”
Zandra closed her eyes. “What do you want me to do?”
“We still haven’t found Adelaide. You have to figure out what they did with her.”
Zandra followed Heather into the Coldwater Police Department. Penny had decided to stay behind at Heather’s place and rest until they could try to connect with Tabitha’s ghost again.
The station was buzzing with activity. Residents of the church and search party volunteers were standing in the hallways, keeping wary distances from each other. A couple of officers glanced over at Zandra and Heather, whispering. One was Sam Krauss.
The auras of everyone in the space blurred together into a haze of anger and confusion.
The officer on reception duty got up. “This way.” She led them to a door and opened it. “Chief said for you to wait in here.”
They stepped inside a closet-sized space with an internal window, which overlooked an interview room.
A gaunt man in his sixties or seventies sat at the interview table.
“That’s him?” Zandra asked. “Reverend Berman?”
Heather nodded, eyes on the window. “That’s him.”
The man was so pale Zandra could see blue veins under his skin. His white hair was thin, uneven, like it had fallen out in clumps. From what Zandra understood, the Reverend had left his flock sometime in the ’80s. Had he been hiding underground on their property for forty years? It was hard to fathom.
If Reverend Berman had been living in near isolation for forty years, there was no telling what impact that had had on his mind.
His eyes lifted to the window. It was one-way glass, yet Zandra still had the feeling that he could see her. And I see you, she thought.
“Could Adelaide have known about him?” Heather asked.
“If she did, it was on a subconscious level. I didn’t pick up on anything this big when she met with us.”
“But this is all related to Tabitha and Wes. Has to be. What if Adelaide found out the truth about how her mother died? And Berman had something to do with it?”
Zandra felt the woman’s headache building, like tendrils of a vine reaching out and grasping for purchase.
“That’s a big leap.” But Zandra had been thinking it, too.
She could only get the faintest aura from Berman through the barrier. If the chief let her into the interview room, she could probably get more.
Heather had already described what had happened at the church property. One of the members, a woman Zandra hadn’t met, had called the police, reporting a disturbance. Within minutes, the chief himself responded, since he’d been right next door.
He’d found Donovan with a bloody gash on his head, claiming that his mother had tried to kill him. Donovan had also reported that his father, Reverend Berman, was hiding inside some kind of underground bunker beneath a cabin. And sure enough, when Chief Novak had gone inside the cabin, he’d found Lena and the Reverend praying together.
Apparently, one of the other residents had found some items of clothing that belonged to Adelaide out in the snow. Donovan had accused his mother of silencing Adelaide to keep the woman from telling the church’s deepest secrets.
“Someone’s still searching for Adelaide at the church compound, right?” Zandra asked. If there was one underground bunker, there could be more.
“They’re tearing the place apart now. The county sheriff’s sent deputies to help add bodies to this. Chief’s still waiting on the search and rescue dogs. I don’t know what the problem is there. You’re the best chance we’ve got of finding her. And the truth.”
“Reading minds isn’t like checking out a library book and opening it to a certain page.”
Heather’s eyes flicked over. Her gaze was hard. “Get what you can, that’s all I’m saying. Whatever power you’ve got in that brain of yours, don’t hold back.”
Through the window, they saw Chief Novak open the door and walk inside the interview room. “Mr. Berman.” Novak’s voice came through a speaker. “Can I offer you a beverage? Something to eat?”
“I’m fine.” The man spoke softly. “Where’s Lena?”
“She’s in another room.” Novak took a seat, folding his hands in his lap. He asked some preliminary questions, then said, “I’ll be honest with you, Reverend. This is a difficult situation for me. There are outstanding warrants for your arrest, but they’re decades old. Between you and me, I don’t know if they’re even still valid. But here’s my real concern—there’s a woman missing right now. A woman who, I believe, is your daughter?”
Berman barely looked up. “I have sons and daughters. Seen the pictures. The pictures on the walls of my prison.”
“Your prison?”
“What else would you call it? They caged me to keep me quiet.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
He didn’t respond.
Zandra leaned toward the glass, trying to get a better read on the man’s energy. Nothing he’d said struck her as a lie, but there was a listlessness about him. She would’ve thought the leader of a group like the Church of Universal Ascension would possess a certain charisma.
Yet she sensed strength within him. A will to survive.
“Have you seen pictures of Adelaide?” the chief asked. “Do you know her?”
Berman blinked. “I don’t recognize your claim to authority. I want to speak to Lena.”
Chief Novak’s hands flexed. He was getting impatient. “Reverend Berman, did you see Adelaide last night?”
