Grave Lies: A Psychic Investigator Mystery (Mercury Mediums Book 1), page 18
Safer, Tabitha whispered. Someone’s coming. I’m scared.
Penny stepped between the trees. The snow wasn’t tamped down here. Her boots sank in and filled with icy wetness. She reached out for a tree trunk to keep from falling.
A scream rang out, then was cut short. A hand over a mouth. A whisper.
I’m sorry.
Penny gasped. That hadn’t come from Tabitha. There was someone else here.
I keep to the Path. I will not stray.
Wes? Is that you?
The voices were speaking over one another now, warring for Penny’s attention. She pushed her way through the trees, ignoring the cold bite of snow against her jeans, her socks.
After an endless blur of minutes, Penny emerged, panting, into the field. She saw the cabin, buried partway. Fresh snowflakes were drifting down, soft as feathers. Her breath condensed in front of her.
Something tickled against her neck. Penny whirled around, searching for the source. Was it just the wind? The snowfall?
Eyes. She was being watched.
But she didn’t know if that was her own thought or Tabitha’s. Or…the other one’s. The new voice that was high and terrified. Not Wes.
“Who are you?” she asked, though she feared finding out. She didn’t want it to be true. Not her, Penny thought, please.
She edged closer to the cabin. The wood was mottled, nearly black in spots from all the moisture. Penny thought of mold growing between the cracks of the boards, spreading until it consumed the structure.
Don’t take my baby.
Her fingertips brushed the shiny padlock.
Suddenly, a force threw her up against the door of the cabin, knocking the air from her chest. Unseen hands grabbed her and slammed her head into the wood. She fell to the ground, pulling herself into a fetal position.
No. No.
A vision filled her mind.
Tabitha struggled to stand. The man came at her again. He was broad, and his face was in shadow. She tried to run, but her belly made her slow. His fingers closed around her wrist, yanking her arm. He threw her back against the cabin.
You thought you could steal from me?
Someone else stood behind him. A woman with a monstrous face, nothing but cruel, greedy eyes. She was staring at Tabitha’s stomach.
The scene shifted with nauseating speed. They were inside a cavernous, dark space. Shadows everywhere. It smelled of sawdust and something musky—sweat. Fear.
They held Tabitha down. Cold metal cut into her belly.
Don’t take my baby.
Penny screamed, and snow filled her mouth.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zandra walked out of the police station, zipping her coat. The cold air tamped down her nausea.
Heather pushed outside after her. “Don’t overreact. Lena’s going to be fine.”
“You sure about that?”
Novak had been forced to call in a nurse to check on Lena, who hadn’t been responding. Zandra worried she’d caused some sort of damage. How was the chief supposed to explain what had happened if a lawsuit got filed and people asked questions? This was exactly why she preferred to stay away from law enforcement—because somewhere, her ability to read minds crossed over into the realm of coercion, even torture. And apparently, she didn’t know where that line was.
“I should never have gone into that interview room,” Zandra muttered. “That was a mistake.”
“Then Michael and I share in it. We asked you to go in there.”
“But I should’ve said…” No, she thought. I should’ve said no.
They both looked out over the parking lot. Heather crossed her arms. “I wish it had worked. Sucks that it didn’t.”
Was that the real problem? Maybe I’m just pissed that I failed. If she’d found a clue to Adelaide’s whereabouts inside Lena’s head, she probably wouldn’t be feeling so guilty right now.
If Adelaide was still outside somewhere, lost, it had been at least twelve hours. How long could someone stay out in the elements? If she’d sheltered somewhere, then why couldn’t anyone find her?
“I’m going to talk to the chief,” Heather said. “Figure out what to do next.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll head back to your place to check on Penny.”
“You need a ride?”
“I’ll get my own car.”
Zandra needed to regroup and figure out what the heck she was doing here. She’d lost focus and gotten too personally invested in this case after she’d warned Penny to avoid exactly that.
If Dari and the Mercury Group found out about this fiasco, it wasn’t going to do her any favors.
Zandra’s sedan moved slowly down the snowy road. She pulled into Heather’s property and parked.
Her knuckles rapped on the door. “Penny? It’s me. Can you let me in?”
There was no answer.
She went over to the front window and peered in. The living room and kitchen appeared to be empty. Maybe Penny was in the bathroom. But Zandra’s gut told her Penny wasn’t in the house. Dread hit her square in the chest.
Then Penny’s scream traveled through the air.
Zandra raced around the house and into the field. “Penny? Where are you?”
She found her partner on the ground beside the old cabin, flailing in the snow. There were foreign memories clouding her mind. Zandra pressed a hand to Penny’s bare skin. She saw dark images, heard frightened and angry shouts.
Don’t do this, please.
Stay still, and it’ll be over soon.
“Hey, listen to my voice. Look at me.”
Penny blinked, coming back to herself.
“It’s me. We’re at Davenport Ranch. You’re safe.”
“Z?”
She helped Penny stand.
“I heard you screaming. What are you doing out here by yourself?”
“Don’t baby me, okay? I knew what I was doing. I knew the risk. And I saw…” Penny’s hands went to her stomach. She stifled a moan. “It was Tabitha. I had to follow her, Z. She was opening up to me.” Penny brushed snow from her clothes, shivering.
Zandra felt the rest—what her partner wasn’t saying. “Tabitha manifested as a polt.”
“Wasn’t that bad. Her memories were worse.”
Zandra still felt sick from reading Lena. But she didn’t want Penny to have to bear this alone. “Show me?” She held out her hand.
Penny’s skin was freezing.
The scene played out again, coming into clearer focus. Zandra saw the man and woman coming for Tabitha.
“It was night,” Zandra murmured. “She was waiting for Wes, but they came instead.”
Penny breathed slowly, letting Zandra steady her until she could speak again.
“I think Wes was already dead by then. We assumed before that they were killed together. But Tabitha was by herself. She was right here.” Penny pointed at the ground where they were standing, right outside of the cabin. “Then they took her somewhere else. Indoors, but it was unfinished. Maybe under construction.”
“That matches what Gwendolyn Kwan told me.” The smell of sawdust.
“Could you see the man and woman’s faces?” Penny asked. “In Tabitha’s memory, they were obscured, as far as I could tell. She didn’t want to think about them.”
Zandra had gotten that same impression. The ghost was too traumatized to deal with all of it at once.
“I didn’t see them,” Penny continued. “But it could’ve been Lena and Reverend Berman.”
“I read Lena,” Zandra said. “I didn’t get anything about where Adelaide might be.” She didn’t want to tell her partner about the way she’d ripped Lena’s memories from her mind. “Lena did hate Tabitha, though. She was jealous that Reverend Berman paid Tabitha so much attention. And Lena was furious when she realized Tabitha was pregnant. She might’ve told the Reverend that Tabitha was also seeing Wes. That the two of them were planning to run away together.”
“That would fit. The man in Tabitha’s memory said something about stealing.” Penny inhaled sharply. “Could he have meant she was stealing his child? Tabitha was going to run away with his baby instead of leaving the child with the church. But all the Reverend’s children were supposed to be special. ‘Born into the light.’”
“Exactly,” said Zandra. “But afterward, they must’ve felt remorse. They posed the bodies in the cabin…and arranged for Reverend Berman to go into hiding, based on the fear that he’d be caught up in the murder investigation. When the bodies were eventually found, suspicion did fall on the church.”
“But why leave the bodies here? Why not hide them better? They had that underground bunker, after all. I guess we don’t know exactly when that was built, but they could’ve buried Tabitha and Wes on the church property somewhere, and they might never have been found.”
Zandra shrugged. “I don’t know. But not all murderers think ahead when they commit their crimes.“
Someone strong had bashed in the victims’ skulls with a rock. Had it been Reverend Berman?
Lena was a strong woman with a formidable will. Had she been the same as a teenager?
“I’m close to getting through to Tabitha,” Penny said. “I just need a little more detail.”
“But if she’s being violent, we need to wait.” Even if Tabitha had withdrawn for the moment, she could lash out again. Zandra was getting worried for her partner.
“Yeah, but why is she so upset? Earlier, I thought it was the presence of the search party or the fact that Adelaide was missing and in trouble. But I swear there’s something else.” She looked up, remembering the rest. “Z, I felt a different presence. Another ghost. I think that’s what’s got Tabitha all riled up.”
“What new ghost? Penny, what are you saying?”
But she felt her partner’s anxiety. She knew what Penny suspected, but saying it aloud would be different—final.
Zandra pulled Tabitha’s handkerchief from her pocket. She’d been carrying it around all day. She rubbed the fabric between her fingers, thinking of the reverent way Adelaide had been holding it.
Paranormal energy surged from the cabin, whirling snow around them. They ducked their heads.
Then Penny grabbed Zandra’s shoulders. “It’s her.”
Zandra saw the vision as it took over Penny’s mind. Adelaide screaming as a hand clamped over her mouth. How she’d been dragged into the bushes, pushed facedown in the snow. The agony of fingers digging into the soft skin of her neck, cutting off her air supply. She’d kicked and fought, but the attacker had held her down.
The woman’s thoughts had been wild as she’d struggled to take a breath. A tunnel had closed around her, the world drifting away, leaving her behind.
The whirlwind passed as quickly as it had begun.
Penny was trembling, cowering near the ground. “Z, Heather’s keys. We need Heather’s keys.”
“I don’t have them. I went back to the motel for my car. Heather’s still at the station.”
“But she’s in there. She’s in there.”
Penny launched herself at the door to the cabin, yanking at the padlock. It held tight. She hammered with her fist against the wood.
She was trying to break down the door.
Zandra ran back to the house, kicking up snow as she went. The back door was unlocked, as Penny had left it. She searched Heather’s closets for something she could use to pry open the door.
A toolbox sat at the bottom of the pantry. There was a hammer, but Zandra wasn’t sure she’d be strong enough to break the lock. She needed more of a lever.
She spotted a crowbar among the cobwebs inside the sink cabinet.
Back outside, the wind swept ice crystals into her face. Penny was still tugging on the padlock.
“Stand back,” Zandra said.
The tip of the crowbar fit into the gap at the side of the door. Zandra pulled back hard on the bar, and the metal pieces connecting the lock plate to the doorframe snapped. She dropped the tool.
Penny rushed forward. She was pulling on the door, but the snow held it closed. Together, they dug out space around the bottom.
The door opened partway. Hands shaking, Zandra got out her phone, switched on the flashlight, and held it to the gap. The cramped room inside the cabin appeared.
“No,” Penny moaned. “Oh, God. Adelaide.”
A woman in a blue coat lay curled up on the dirt floor. Her eyes stared back at them, lifeless.
Chapter Thirty
From her kitchen window, Heather watched Chief Novak give instructions to his team. Bright artificial light cast odd shadows over his face.
They’d brought in a snowblower to clear the fields, and the forensics experts from the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation—DCI—had arrived. Several hours had passed, but Heather was still surprised when she glanced at a clock and found it was after ten at night.
DCI officials had already walked past the window with Adelaide’s body on a stretcher. Heather wanted to go out there and help. She’d attended hundreds of crime scenes over the years and read the reports on far more. But Chief Novak had politely asked her to make sure that Penny and Zandra stayed inside and out of the way, which conveniently kept Heather out of the way, too.
Somehow, her head wasn’t aching right now, but she’d never felt so ill.
Adelaide was dead. And she hadn’t simply taken shelter inside that old cabin and succumbed to the cold. She’d been locked in there from the outside.
Heather remembered removing the padlock to let Penny in. But had she secured the lock afterward? She must not have. She’d left it hanging open.
She just hadn’t been paying attention. Too distracted by her excitement over having some new activity in the case, no matter how far-fetched.
That was before they’d gone to the church property. Before they’d mentioned the name Tabitha in front of Adelaide.
If only she could go back. Retrieve those words, keep herself from going next door. Tell herself to put the padlock back onto the cabin door.
There were so many other moments in which she might’ve stopped this from happening. She must’ve said something to the wrong person.
Or how about never coming back to this horrible town at all?
Since the first moment Heather had set foot onto her grandmother’s ranch, death had found her. Her grandma’s death, the bride and groom. Her father…Adelaide… Would Heather be next, or would she have to watch someone else get swept under beneath the pull of this horrible place?
She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Chief Novak approaching the back door. He opened it and stepped inside, brushing snow from his shoulders and sleeves.
“We’re wrapping up. You’ve been interviewed?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Penny and Zandra?”
“Yes.” A couple of Novak’s officers had come inside to question them. The two Mercury agents were sitting out on the front porch right now. “They’re saying—”
Novak held up a hand. “I know what they’re saying. I heard. Ghosts led them to her body?”
The chief pulled off his beanie, leaving his hair disheveled. She felt the urge to smooth it down, but that was foolish. If there was ever a moment that Michael Novak might’ve welcomed her touch, it certainly wasn’t now.
“My officers say they keep hearing knocking out there. Fingers running down their necks. The cabin door keeps slamming. It’s freaking everybody out.”
“It’s the—”
“I know what it is. But what am I supposed to put in my official report about all this? I’m already down Krauss, and I can’t afford having anybody else lose their nerve.”
“What’s going on with Krauss?” After the officer’s outburst at the station, Novak hadn’t explained. Even now, he seemed reticent to do so.
“Sam has some ties to the church,” the chief muttered. “His mother and uncle were members. I’ve always known of course, and I made a judgment call to allow him to continue duty. Which I probably shouldn’t have done. And after what happened at the station? I guess there’s no way this will stay quiet. My decision to allow a couple of psychics to get involved, even let one of them question a witness? I’ve been informed that Lena came back around, and she seems to be all right. But she could make a complaint. Who’s to say anyone will believe her, but Lord only knows what everyone else at the station might’ve seen or heard.” He swore under his breath.
Heather straightened up, trying to portray confidence. “This is on me.” She was still a professional, no matter how much of a mess she’d made of all this.“If there are questions, I’ll answer them. My career is over, anyway. Not like my reputation matters.”
He squeezed his eyes closed. “This is my town, my department. I need to get back to the station. Donovan’s still there. I’ll have to break the news.”
“Could Adelaide have still been alive when she was locked in the cabin? Or…”
He shook his head. “From all appearances, she was gone. It was just a convenient place to hide her. Like the bride and groom, I suppose.” Novak blew a breath out between his lips. “There was one time, a year or two ago, that Mrs. Cafferty forgot her wallet at the market. My boys saw Adelaide pay for the woman’s groceries and help her outside to load them into her car. Whoever did this…I’m going to find them.”
“Is Lena still a suspect?”
“Far as I’m concerned, everyone is. I’m starting all over with this.” He glanced around, checking that no one else was in the room. “DCI said she died sometime last night. Looks like she was strangled. Bruising on the neck. No other immediate evidence of injuries. Nothing to suggest any further beating or other type of assault. She was spared that much, at least.”
Heather reached for the counter to brace herself. She felt lightheaded.
“Thank goodness DCI was able to get here so soon.” He closed his eyes and rubbed them. “I’ve never run a murder investigation. There’ve been machinery accidents, car wrecks where body parts got splattered over the asphalt. But this…I didn’t know how much worse it would be. Someone from my town, someone I knew.”
