Now, though, she felt his tension, sensed his hesitation, a lack of conviction. For the first time, she recognized a fissure in that once-solid connection, a crack in her relationship that she feared ran far deeper than she’d ever suspected.
Dern was getting in too deep.
That much was obvious to him as he strode across the wet grass to the stable. With the dog at his heels, he glanced at the looming house and wondered about Ava Church Garrison and wondered why she fascinated him so much.
A mistake.
He couldn’t get even remotely involved with her, and it wasn’t just because she was married. No, there were deeper reasons, the very essence of why he was here working for the damned woman.
Yet he was having trouble maintaining his distance from her, and he could tell himself over and over again that he’d followed her into town last night because it was part of his job, but that would be a lie, and he wasn’t into kidding himself. He was intrigued by her—more than he should be. She was troubled, haunted, but beneath those sad eyes and worried, full lips, he saw another person, a glimpse of the strong, vibrant woman she’d once been.
And that was the person he wanted to get to know, to draw out, the only human on this godforsaken island he felt remotely close to.
Wrong, Dern. Ava’s not an ally. She, too, is an enemy.
“Oh, hell.”
Remember why you’re here. Do not let her good looks or her act get to you. She’s not the victim here, and you know it.
As the dog sniffed around the grain bins, he let himself into a stall where he’d penned the palomino mare this morning. He’d seen her limping slightly earlier in the day and had checked out her right foreleg, finding nothing. Now, as she snorted her disapproval, he straddled the leg and looked at her hoof once more, checking that there were no cracks or bits of gravel or thorns in the frog or sole, that the hoof was intact. Gently, he prodded and searched, and the mare did no more than flick her ears. Nor did she show any discomfort as he examined her foreleg, finding nothing suspicious in the coronet, sesamoid, and pastern. All seemed sound, as did her knee and shoulder. “So what’s with you?” he asked, and she snorted as she turned her head to look at him, a pale blaze showing on her blond face.
He wasn’t a vet, but he’d been around horses all his life. He led this one from her stall to the field where she lifted her nose high into the air, let out a sharp whinny, and took off at a dead run for the rest of the herd. A blond streak, without the hint of a limp, she only slowed when she reached Jasper’s side.
“You think she was faking it?” Dern asked the dog as he watched for a few minutes and decided the mare was going to be all right. “We’ll keep an eye on her, what’d’ya say?”
Wagging his tail slowly, Rover cocked his head, as if in so doing he could fully understand.
“Don’t worry about it. Come on.” Whistling, he headed back to the stables where he intended to check on the tack and repair a broken hinge on one of the stalls.
Just so he looked like he was performing the job he was hired to do.
But that, too, was an act.
He, like everyone else on this damned rock, wasn’t what he claimed to be, and it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out.
Then all hell was sure to break loose.
He thought of Cheryl Reynolds, left in a pool of her own blood.
His jaw tightened.
Maybe hell had already arrived.
CHAPTER 27
With a flick of her wrist, Ava tossed her night meds into the toilet, then flushed. She watched the pills swirl away and felt a second’s satisfaction. “Good riddance,” she said, and turned back to her room where she half expected stern Demetria, or bossy Khloe, or forever-sneaking-around Jewel-Anne to be silently observing her.
But she was alone in her room, aside from a short appearance by Mr. T, who must’ve taken a wrong turn. The cat slunk away, heading in the direction of the back of the house. “Not that way,” Ava whispered under her breath. The cat would find out soon enough that the door to the back stairs was always closed, and he’d have to deign to slink down the wide staircase, just like everyone who resided here.
She was bothered and restless, and the thought of turning in for the night wasn’t comforting. Ever since she’d had her talk with Trent, she’d stayed in her room and been on the computer. Her back was sore, her shoulders aching, her mind spinning with what she’d learned.
She’d started out rereading the accounts of Kelvin’s death and remembering her own experience in the icy water; then she’d tried to tie her brother’s death to Noah’s disappearance. Of course she’d found no connection other than her own obsession of “seeing” her son near the water’s edge at the dock.
Glancing out the window to the boathouse, she wondered what she was missing, what link existed between Kelvin and Noah. Her brother had never known his nephew, of course; Kelvin had died a short while before Noah’s birth.
She snagged her favorite sweatshirt from her bedpost, tossed it on, and hurried down the stairs to the foyer.
Wyatt’s den was still dark. He’d called to say he was returning later tonight, and their conversation had been short and stiff. A million questions remained unasked, just as many answers remained hidden in the silence. For one thing, she didn’t relish the thought of discussing Evelyn McPherson’s resignation as her therapist. Time enough for that later.
As she crossed to the door, she heard the sound of a television, muted through the walls, and above it, the distinct click of billiard balls. Her cousins were playing pool. Good. It would keep them busy.
The kitchen was dark, Virginia having gone back to her apartment after dinner. Demetria was nowhere to be seen. Khloe and Simon had left for Anchorville earlier, and Jewel-Anne was probably already in her suite with her creepy dolls and the Internet, her latest passion being online games, while listening to endless Elvis tunes on her iPod. Weird. Weird. Weird.
Oh, come on, Ava. Do you really think Jewel-Anne is any stranger than you with your obsession with your son’s disappearance and your conviction that everyone is out to get you?
With her paranoia chasing her, Ava slipped through the front door and felt the cold of the night slap her full in the face. Quickly, she rushed across the porch and down the front steps toward the dock. The wind swirled, causing dry leaves to skitter and dance over their damp counterparts. Shoving her hands deep into the single pocket of the sweatshirt, she half jogged down to the end of the dock. Alone, she stared at the dark, roiling water. So often in her dreams, she’d seen Noah standing in this exact position.
Not just when you were asleep. You woke once and saw him here, too.
She looked across the bay to the lights of Anchorville and then back to Monroe, which was farther down this shoreline on this side of the water. The few streetlamps glowed a hazy blue, and the winking neon sign in the wide glass at the front of Frank’s Food-O-Mart, the stalwart throwback to the fifties, was visible. To the west was the open sea and behind her the house rose upon the hillside.
Why had Trent suggested Kelvin’s death was somehow linked to her son’s disappearance?
Because Noah was born so close to the time that Kelvin died. You gave him his middle name in memory of your brother: Noah Kelvin Garrison . . .
But there was more, another reason she tied the two events, something slippery and elusive, like a deep-water eel that kept coming close only to slither away into dark crevices.
There was something she was missing, she just knew it, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was. Think, Ava!
What is it?
Her eyes strayed to the darkened garden and the area where her son’s marker had been placed. A place she’d visited often, an area where Jewel-Anne hung out. It was weird, her cousin’s fascination with the marker.
“You’re not the only one who’s grieving,” Jewel-Anne had told her when Ava mentioned her fascination with the marker. “I miss Noah, too, Ava!”
A
s Ava stared at the garden, an icy finger of dread scraped down her back. There was something about that spot. . . . Oh . . . dear . . . God . . .
The wind touched her face, but she barely noticed. Clouds rolled over the moon.
The hairs on the back of her neck lifted one by one.
“No way,” she whispered, but it was too late. A wisp of a thought, the edge of a very real nightmare, touched her brain. “Noah.”
Her heart turned to ice.
All the spit dried in her mouth.
Was there something under that flat piece of marble etched with her son’s name?
Was there a deeper, darker reason the marker had been placed there, in the garden? Was it not so much a memorial, but a headstone?
“No . . . oh, please no . . .” But the horrid idea had taken root and she couldn’t dislodge it.
She had no memory of the stone being planted between the manicured shrubs, but now, in the deep darkness, she was certain there was a reason that particular spot in the garden had been created. The marble, the bench, the greenery surrounding a simple shrine . . .
“Oh, please,” she murmured. “Oh, no, no, no . . .” But she began to move. Fast. Heart in her throat, she ran, her feet slapping the dock, the old boards thudding as she sped to the boathouse. Quickly she shouldered open the door and flipped on the light. The boat was in its slip, raised out of the water, life jackets hanging from hooks on the walls, oars and fishing poles propped in the corners.
No shovel.
Nothing she could use to dig.
She yanked the door shut, hesitated, told herself that she was acting like a lunatic, that there was no reason for the surge of panic shooting through her. Nothing had changed. Everything was as it had been.
Then why did she have the overwhelming notion that the wide spot in the garden dedicated to her son’s memory might be something more, something sinister?
Her pulse pounding in her ears, adrenaline spurting through her blood, she tried to quiet the frantic feeling that was overtaking her, pushing her to the limits of her sanity.
Her baby wasn’t buried under that marker. He couldn’t be!
And yet her mind conjured up all kinds of horrid scenarios in which her son had died and someone had hidden his perfect little body.
Heart thundering, she turned and ran through the garden toward the lane. Wet cobwebs brushed her face, but she didn’t care. She reached the lane and splashed through puddles, striding around the back of the property to the greenhouse. She had to know, had to! No matter what. Tears blurred her vision as she rounded a final corner and found the entry to the greenhouse unlocked, the door ajar.
Frantic, she slapped on the light switch and winced at the sudden burst of bright illumination. Broken pots littered a table beneath pipes used for watering, while a few scraggly tomato vines crawled up their cages. Two shovels had been propped near the door. She grabbed the closest and began running again, out of the greenhouse, around the house, past the ferns still damp from an earlier rain, and the cobwebs stretched lacelike from one tree to another.
Surely there was nothing under the smooth stone.
Of course she was imagining that her son’s body might be buried beneath the soft loam of the garden.
She tried to tell herself there was no way her boy had been buried there.
Tears burned in her eyes as she made her way to the stone and forced the blade of her shovel beneath the rock’s edge. In the thin moonlight, she read her son’s name, etched into the smooth marble.
“Oh, sweetie,” she whispered, her breath fogging, her heart aching, dread crawling slowly up her spine. The night was cold, only the watery illumination from the security lamp mounted near the garage adding to the frail moonlight.
Wedging the blade deeper, she pushed hard on the shovel’s handle and felt the stone move. “Come on, come on,” she said under her breath as her muscles strained and the rock moved. She didn’t know what she would find, what she expected; she only knew what she feared.
But there was probably nothing but wet earth, gravel, and insects underneath this stone. Still, she couldn’t stop her furtive and insane mission. As she worked, the wind picked up and the smell of coming rain was heavy in the air.
“There’s nothing here,” she told herself as she slid the stone aside and began to dig. She forced the shovel into the soft, damp earth and stepped hard on the shoulder, driving the cutting edge even deeper.
With force, she flung the loosened earth aside, then plowed the blade into the ground again. More loam was cast aside. Her fingers tightened over the handle and shaft as she caught a rhythm, forcing the blade deep only to cast the loosened earth aside.
Stop! Now! Put it all back before anyone sees you and sends you back to St. Brendan’s.
Again she plunged the shovel into the ever-widening hole she was creating. Sweat began to collect between her shoulder blades and around her neck. Her hands, unused to this kind of work, cramped, but she continued to dig.
Frantically.
In a fevered pitch.
Compelled to find what lay beneath the stone, she plunged her shovel into the soft earth over and over again.
There’s nothing here. It’s futile and if anyone sees you . . .
The hole deepened and widened, the pile of dirt beside her growing with each shovelful. Mouth dry, muscles beginning to protest, her dread mounting, she kept on.
“Hey!” A male voice stopped her cold. She glanced up and saw a dark figure approaching, and her hands flexed over the handle. “Ava? What’re you doing?” Dern’s voice. She relaxed a little as he stepped out of the shadows and into the soft, filtered light of the moon.
“Digging.”
“I see that. For what?” he asked, and she felt suddenly ridiculous shoveling dirt in the middle of the night.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, barely able to voice her fears as Dern and the dog at his heels drew closer. “Maybe . . . maybe my son.”
“What?” He grabbed the shovel’s shaft and stopped her from another thrust into the soft ground. “Ava, what’re you thinking?”
Swallowing hard, trying to get a grip, she shoved the dirty fingers of her free hand through her hair. “I just know that there’s something strange going on here.”
“Here? As in the garden?”
“As in on the whole damned island!” Glaring up at him, she refused to let go of the shovel.
“And you think that something, maybe your son’s body, is buried here?”
She heard the skepticism in his voice. “I don’t know. Just a feeling.” She yanked on the shovel, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Ava . . . I don’t think . . .”
“What? You don’t think what? That Noah’s here? That I’ll find anything at all?” she demanded. “Maybe you think I’m flat-out crazy, too.”
“I was going to say I don’t think this is a good idea.”
She grappled for the shovel. “Then leave me the hell alone!”
Still he held tight, and she met his night-darkened gaze as thick clouds began obscuring the stars. “Let go, Dern,” she ordered, and saw a tightening of his jaw. “This is my thing. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Oh, for the love of Christ!” He yanked the shovel from her hand. Without another word, he began to shovel dirt, big scoops from the hole onto the ground beside it.
“Stop. I’m serious. You don’t have to do this.”
He kept at it. She felt the first drops of rain against the back of her neck as another scoop of dark earth was flung to the side. “Tell me when I’m deep enough,” he ordered.
He shoved the blade deep into the dirt again, deftly tossing scoops. Working rhythmically, he deepened the hole, and as the mound of discarded earth grew, so did Ava’s realization that maybe she’d been wrong. She’d let her wild imagination get the better of her once again. She’d fallen victim to her own desperation, to—
Clang!
The blade of the shovel hit something that sounded
like metal.
“Hell,” he whispered, and her heart stilled. All her fears solidified, and for a second she heard nothing save the ever-constant rush of the sea.
Clang!
Again metal scraped metal, and Dern looked up, his gaze finding hers in the darkness. “Maybe we’d better stop.”
Steeling herself, she shook her head vehemently and trained her eyes on the dark pit. “I have to know.” Her heart was thundering in her ears, her palms sweating, denial pulsing through her brain.
“Sure?”
She was nodding, but all the while her inner voice was screaming, No, no, no! She didn’t know how she could live with herself if she found her son’s body, if she would finally be forced to give up all hope of seeing him again.
Jaw set hard, Dern went on working. In the hole, a metal box, the size of a child’s casket, began to emerge. Oh, God, please no . . . please don’t let Noah be inside! Heart clamoring, she barely heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel.
“We’ve got company,” Dern said as raindrops began to pepper the ground in earnest. Ava barely noticed. Her gaze was riveted on the dirt-crusted box as he lifted it with some force and slid it onto the ground in front of the bench.
“What’s going on here?” Jacob’s voice rang down the hillside, but Ava hardly heard him or the deep growl from Rover’s throat. All of her attention was focused on the box.
“It’s not empty,” Dern said. “Possibly twenty-five, maybe thirty pounds.” Warning her.
“What the hell is that?” Jacob appeared in the clearing and, using his iPhone, shined a light on the scratched, filthy metal box. “Oh . . . shit.” His cocky attitude drained away as he put the pieces together. “That was buried under the marker?”
“Yes.” Ava’s voice was the barest of whispers, and she felt as weak as she ever had. Her legs were shaking. But she had to know. Had to! Bile crawled up her throat. “Open it.”