Grave Lies: A Psychic Investigator Mystery (Mercury Mediums Book 1), page 19
She didn’t mention how many murder investigations she’d handled. Novak didn’t ask for her help, nor did she expect him to.
They walked toward the door. He was turning over his beanie in his hands, as if he wasn’t sure what else to say.
“I’ll talk to you later?” she asked.
He gave her a halfhearted smile, like he was grateful she’d come up with something. “Y’all stay safe.” Which wasn’t a yes to her question.
Novak walked out onto the front porch, giving Penny and Zandra a stiff nod. As soon as he’d driven off, the two of them stood and followed Heather inside.
“You’re welcome to stay the night,” Heather said. “Sofa has a pullout. I’m pretty tired.” She wasn’t going to sleep, but staring at the ceiling and contemplating her mistakes sounded about right.
“Don’t you think we should talk?” Zandra asked. “I get that Novak was avoiding me, which I completely understand. But we need to share what we’ve found.”
“Aside from Adelaide’s body?” Heather kicked at a stool. It tipped over and crashed onto the tile. “While we were tormenting Lena back at the station, Adelaide was lying dead. On my property.”
“I know how awful you feel. Believe me. And I’m so sorry that things got out of hand at the station.”
“There’s no point being sorry. There’s no point to any of this.”
Zandra was returning her glare with calm compassion, which only infuriated Heather all the more. Penny was staring at the ground, looking even younger than twenty-four right now.
“Are you going to tell me who killed Adelaide?” Heather asked Zandra. “Because if not, then I don’t care what you’ve got to say.”
“We’ve made some progress with Tabitha. That’s why you brought us here in the first place.”
Heather didn’t want to talk about the bride and groom. Her investigation into their deaths seemed like another lifetime ago. “What about Adelaide? Is her ghost out there now, too?” She’d asked the question in a monotone. She didn’t even want to know the answer. But at the same time, she had to.
“Yes.” Penny’s eyes didn’t move from Grandma Davenport’s ancient throw rug. “I felt Adelaide’s presence. That’s how I knew where she was. And when we opened the cabin, I saw her in there, sitting in the corner.”
Heather sank down onto the kitchen floor. Her limbs didn’t want to function anymore.
“Adelaide’s death could’ve been connected to her mother’s,” Zandra said. “A man and a woman killed Tabitha forty years ago. We couldn’t see their faces clearly, but they accused her of stealing something. They wanted her child. Think about it. It could’ve been Lena and Reverend Berman.”
What Zandra was saying did make some logical sense, but Heather didn’t want to hear about what might’ve happened back then. She’d lived so much of her life in the past. Haunted by the bride and groom, unable to let go of her family’s traumas. After meeting Zandra and Penny—Penny, especially—Heather had started to wonder if she could find some other meaning in the time she had left. She’d been a fool.
“You’re the one who said you couldn’t help me solve their murders. You were right. I never should’ve asked for your help, much less accepted it.”
“I understand that—” Zandra began.
“No, you don’t understand.”
Heather had been digging up the past without any regard for the consequences. It was one thing to do so as an FBI agent. But this meddling with people’s minds, with ghosts and the supernatural—it had bigger consequences than she’d been ready for.
Heather wasn’t superstitious. She wasn’t even particularly religious. But there had to be a reason so many people in this world believed you shouldn’t mess with forces like these.
Maybe some truths stayed buried because they were too ugly to see the light of day.
Heather’s cell rang. Reluctantly, she looked at it, hoping she might see Chief Novak’s name. She finally wanted to talk to the guy, and now he probably didn’t care to see her again.
The number wasn’t one she recognized.
“Hello?” There was static. “Hello?”
“Heather Davenport?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Stacey Myers. I got your name from Terri Daily? I was a friend of Tabitha’s?”
Heather got up from the floor. “Oh. Stacey. Of course.” What was she supposed to say to this woman? Heather could barely remember why they’d wanted to speak to her…
It was because this woman had known Adelaide. She’d told Adelaide that Tabitha was her mother.
“Ms. Myers, thank you for getting in touch. But—”
“Terri said that Tabitha was murdered? Is that true?”
Heather sat at the kitchen table, facing away from Penny and Zandra. “It is. I’m sorry. Tabitha died almost forty years ago now. I was…um, the case remains unsolved.”
“I was afraid something like that could’ve happened when I found out Tabby never went home to Nebraska. But I still can’t believe it. It’s just awful. What did you want to ask me about?”
Heather rubbed her forehead. She had to get it together. She was still technically a law enforcement officer, wasn’t she?
Even though all she wanted to do right now was fall apart.
Her thumb punched a button on the screen.
“Stacey, you’re on speaker. I wanted to ask if you knew the name Wes Crenshaw.”
“I don’t think so. Unless that was the boy Tabitha was seeing?” She murmured to herself. “Wait, that was his name, wasn’t it? Wes. Yes, I think that’s right.”
“Was he a member of the church?”
“Oh, no. She was pretty secretive about him. It was against the rules, seeing somebody on the outside. And Reverend Berman…he was possessive of us. If you know what I mean.”
Zandra and Penny came over to sit at the table, listening along with her.
“Was Tabitha seeing the Reverend intimately?”
“We all were.” Stacey spoke matter-of-factly.
“When do you remember last seeing Tabitha?”
“1980. Summer. Tabby was pregnant. So was I. But unlike the rest of us, she swore she hadn’t…she hadn’t actually slept with Reverend Berman. Not all the way. And obviously, he would know that. She was really worried about getting in trouble.” Stacey blew out a heavy breath. “Tabby was in love with this Wes and wanted to run away with him. She and I were best friends, so she told me about what she was planning. She just had to lie low for a while longer until she and Wes had enough money to get started. But it was taking a really long time. Her stomach kept getting bigger. She tried to hide it with flowing dresses and big sweaters, but it wasn’t hard to guess.”
“Did the Reverend find out Tabitha was pregnant by someone else?”
“Lena did. She screamed at Tabby out behind the house one afternoon. Tabby was really upset. She took off to see Wes, I think. Then a few days later, she disappeared. I assumed they’d done it—run off to be together. I thought they were happy.” She huffed a laugh into the phone. “Awful to think about it now. What really must’ve happened. Just horrible.”
“And what about Adelaide? Did Lena tell you that Tabitha had given her up?”
“I’m sorry…what?”
“Tabitha’s baby. Adelaide. She grew up in the church, so Lena must’ve made some excuse for her presence there, right?”
There was a pause. Heather wondered if she’d lost the call. “Stacey?”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice had changed, like she’d shrunken in upon herself. “Why are you talking about Adelaide?”
“Because she was Tabitha’s daughter. You told her that.”
“I did? Oh. Oh…”
“Stacey?”
“Ah. Here’s the thing. I told her that because I couldn’t manage the truth. I was messed up for a really long time about my years with the church. What happened to me there. I’ve had my share of therapy over it.” Stacey took a breath. “Adelaide isn’t Tabitha’s daughter. She’s mine.”
Heather’s eyes shot up, meeting the other women across the table.
“I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I’m still guilty about it, and I know how awful it sounds. I do. But it was better for Adelaide. She was in a safe place where she belonged, and Reverend Berman was gone. I knew I was doing the right thing to leave her there.” Heather heard tears in the woman’s voice.
“But you told her that her mother was Tabitha.”
Now Stacey was crying. “It seemed like a white lie, just so she’d stop asking. I regret it. I figured she would eventually come to the truth, and she might contact me. I even made sure the Dailys had my number in case Adelaide got in touch with them—or if Tabby did. But I didn’t…”
Heather couldn’t speak. She was too stunned.
Zandra leaned forward. “Stacey, my name’s Zandra Mendes. I’ve been consulting with Ms. Davenport on this case. There’s something you should know.”
“No.” Heather grabbed the phone, switched off the speaker and held it to her ear. “It’s not important. If we have further questions, we’ll let you know. Thanks.”
She punched End on the screen.
Zandra was staring at her, mouth open. “Heather, someone has to tell her.”
“That her child is dead? Because of us?” She pushed back from the table, nearly knocking over the chair.
Heather had failed to solve cases before. She’d messed up in ways that made her wonder if she should be an agent at all. But this? She’d never felt such despair.
They’d gotten Adelaide involved, all based on a lie. Adelaide had nothing whatsoever to do with the bride and groom case, yet she’d been punished in the worst possible way.
This is my fault. It’s all because I came to Coldwater.
“This is a blow,” Zandra said. “Of course it is. But we have made progress in this case. We know Tabitha and Wes’s names. We know Tabitha had a child. We know that a man and woman killed her and probably Wes, too. Adelaide’s death could still be connected. This is the time to focus on what we do next.”
Zandra was just saying what she thought Heather wanted to hear. Like she was a child to be coddled. “No. We’re done. This ‘investigation’ we’ve been doing—it’s over.” She stumbled toward the bedroom. “I probably won’t get out of bed until noon tomorrow. I’d appreciate if you could be gone by then.”
Heather didn’t plan to stay in Coldwater much longer, either. She’d have to crawl away to someplace else—hopefully, a place where she had no history, where nobody knew her—to spend whatever time she had left.
Alone, like her father.
Alone, like Adelaide.
Chapter Thirty-One
After Heather retreated to her bedroom, Penny and Zandra remained at the kitchen table.
“What do you want to do?” Zandra asked quietly. “We could head back to the hotel tonight. Roads will be icy, but I’m sure my car can manage.”
Penny wasn’t too worried about the drive. But she was worried about Heather. “We can’t leave her like this. Not after everything that’s happened.”
Penny felt a terrible responsibility for Adelaide’s death, just as Heather did. Yet she could separate her guilt from the reality of this situation. They were responsible for getting Adelaide involved, yes. But if she and Zandra washed their hands of the case now, they would deserve far more of the blame.
“We’ll have to wait out the storm, no matter what,” Zandra said. “It’s too late to get back to Denver in time to meet Dari’s afternoon deadline tomorrow. Unless we set out now and hope that we don’t slide off the road somewhere between here and Fort Collins. I’ll let Heather decide if she wants us involved, but we might as well give her the chance to change her mind in the morning.”
They went over to the sofa and removed the cushions. The springs creaked as they opened the bed. Penny poked around in the closets until she found an extra set of sheets and a blanket. She tucked one corner of the fitted sheet beneath the thin mattress, while Zandra pulled on the other.
“I feel like crap,” Penny mumbled. “How about you?”
Zandra slipped a throw pillow inside a pillowcase. They hadn’t been able to find any other pillows in the closet. “I might use a stronger word than that.”
It was hard to imagine driving away from Coldwater, leaving those ghosts still suffering here on the Davenport property. Not just Tabitha and Wes, but now Adelaide, too. Could they really do it?
“This is my first failed case,” Penny said. Every other case she and Zandra had handled so far, they’d cleared. And every major haunting Penny had encountered at other times in her life, she’d managed to resolve as well, though not always without casualties.
“This isn’t my first failure,” Zandra said. “I’ve had others. Anytime there’s an injury during a case—especially to a witness—I feel like I’ve failed. But I’ve left ghosts behind, too. Sometimes, it’s just not possible to get through to them.”
“But how do you accept that? Knowing there’s a soul out there you tried to save, but couldn’t?”
“Who says I’ve accepted it? It’s just a part of this job. I had to move on. Do as much good as I could at other times, in other places.”
Penny had spent so much of her life denying her ability. She’d wanted to try to have a “normal” existence, even if that had meant pretending ghosts didn’t exist. Since joining the Mercury Group, she’d finally embraced her identity as a medium. But she hadn’t anticipated that sometimes, her talents just wouldn’t be enough.
It hurt more than she could’ve imagined.
“I know,” Zandra murmured. “I’m hurting, too.”
Penny didn’t respond.
They switched off the lights and lay down beneath the covers. Penny rested her hands on her stomach, staring up at the ceiling. She could barely see anything in the dark. The eaves of the house creaked. She wondered if the storm was already moving in.
“I saw Ben yesterday,” Zandra said quietly.
Penny turned to look at her partner. Zandra’s profile was pale in the dimness. “How’d it go?”
She was no mind reader, but her partner’s anxiety over seeing him had been obvious before she left for Denver. Penny hadn’t gotten along with Ben when she’d first met him, but he was a good guy. And more than anything, she wanted to see Zandra happy. Whether that meant being in a relationship or otherwise didn’t matter. But Zandra had accused her of being a romantic before, and there was no point in denying it.
“I feel something for him, and that’s hard for me to admit.”
Penny didn’t open her mouth lest her partner decide to clam up. But yeah, it was a big deal.
“Part of me is trying to think of how it might work out. But the rest of me knows it won’t. I’d rather hold on to his friendship and wonder if there could’ve been something more than lose him and know for sure.”
“Okay.”
“You’re not going to tell me I should still give it a shot?”
“Do you want me to? This would be easier if I could tell what you were thinking, but…”
Zandra groaned. “It would, wouldn’t it? I don’t even know what I’m thinking.”
She was quiet for a while. Penny kept staring into the dark, listening to the shifts of the house, and beneath that, the ever-present hum of the ghosts outside. They were active tonight. Wandering.
“Something else happened in Denver, too, when I saw Ben’s mother for that object reading. She didn’t just read the handkerchief. She called me up on stage and read me. My ring.”
“The one you always wear?” Penny had wondered about that. But she’d figured her partner simply liked the jewelry. Zandra didn’t strike her as sentimental.
“My mother gave it to me. My birth mother, not my foster one. Gwendolyn said I have unresolved issues with my mom, and I should contact her before it’s ‘too late,’ whatever that means. Makes me think Mrs. Kwan knows something about my mom that I don’t.”
Penny hadn’t witnessed an object reading in person, but from what she’d heard, the reader could pick up on the past, present, and future. It was true psychic stuff. Inexplicable to her, even with all her experience when it came to the paranormal.
“I thought you still spoke to your parents,” she replied, though Zandra had shared her ambivalence toward them. They’d essentially abandoned her after her para-sensitivity manifested when she hit puberty. Penny had struggled with her talent as a child, but she was lucky to have a family that had always been supportive.
“I do, but I haven’t seen them in person for a while. I don’t want to read in their auras what they really think of me. But Gwendolyn suggested there was something else my mom needs to tell me. Something she wouldn’t be able to do it out loud. And honestly…the more I think about it, the more it freaks me out. If she’s sick or something…”
This case had reminded them again and again how easily time could be cut short. But being a medium didn’t mean either of them had their issues figured out. Heather had made that point just last night as they drove back to Coldwater.
What could you truly know about death? Heather had asked. It’s different when it’s not just some movie in your head.
“Maybe Mrs. Kwan wants you to have time to feel whatever it is you need to feel,” said Penny.
“Spoken cryptically—like a true medium.”
Penny snorted. “Hey, look at it this way. If Mercury fires us tomorrow, we’ll have all kinds of time on our hands. You can visit your parents. Or not. We can do whatever we want.”
Zandra laughed. “Penny Wright, ever the optimist.”
Not true, Penny thought. But right now, they needed a little optimism.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Penny couldn’t sleep. Every time she started to drift, she would hear the ghosts moaning outside. Tabitha was still upset, and Penny could hear Adelaide’s voice more clearly now, too.
