Graveminder

William’s already age-worn features looked years older for a moment. “She shouldn’t have been. If I’d known, if she’d known ...” The elder Mr. Montgomery blinked away obvious tears. “Things like that don’t happen here often, Byron. It’s a safe place ... unlike anywhere else out there. You’ve been out there. You know.”

“You talk like it’s another world outside Claysville.”

William’s sigh said what he didn’t: he was as frustrated by their circular conversations as Byron was. “Give me a couple more days, and you’ll have your answers. I wish ... I wish you didn’t ask so many questions, Byron.”

“You know what would help with that? Answers.” Byron closed his eyes for a moment before looking at his father and saying, “I need air.”

William nodded and turned away—but not quickly enough for Byron to miss his look of regret. He opened the door and vanished inside, pulling it closed with a soft snick .

Byron turned and walked out the side door of the funeral home. His Triumph was parked behind the house just under a big willow. From the back, the funeral home looked like most of the other homes in the neighborhood. The yard was fenced in by faded wooden pickets, and a long covered porch had two rockers and a swing. Azaleas, an herb garden, and flower beds—carefully planned and replanned by his mother for years—still flourished now as they had when she was still alive. The oaks and willow looked just as they had in his childhood, shading the yard and part of the porch. The normalcy of it didn’t hint that the dead were cared for inside the building.

Gravel crunched under his boots as he walked the bike forward a few yards. Old habits were hard to escape even now, and the roar of motorcycles outside the kitchen window had always bothered his mother. He shook his head. Sometimes he wished she would walk out the door to give him hell for tracking mud on the floor or spitting gravel when he left, pissed off at his father again, but the dead don’t come back.

As a boy, he used to think they did. He’d sworn he’d seen Lily English sitting out on the porch one night, but his father had shushed him and sent him back to bed while his mother sat at the kitchen table and wept. Later that week, she’d torn out the entire flower bed and replanted it, and Byron suspected that his imagination and nightmares weren’t the only upsets resulting from living too near the dead. His parents didn’t argue often, but he’d have to have been clueless to miss the tension between them over the years. They’d loved each other, but being the undertaker’s wife wore on his mother.

Byron eased out into the scant traffic and opened the throttle. The wind slammed into him like he was hitting a wall. The vibrations of the engine and twists of the road allowed him to slip into a Zen-like state of simply being. When he rode, there were no thoughts—not about Lily English, or his mother, or Rebekkah.

Well, maybe still Rebekkah.

But he could outrun that, too. He might not be able to run from Claysville, but he could run from memories for a little while. He sped up, topping out the speedometer and whipping around curves fast enough that he needed to tilt dangerously close to the pavement. It wasn’t freedom, but it was the closest thing to it that he’d found.

Chapter 4

WILLIAM STOOD IN THE QUIET OF THE PREPARATION ROOM. MAYLENE WAS silent on the table in front of him. She was gone. He knew that. The body wasn’t her, wasn’t the woman he’d loved for most of his life.

“Even now, I want to ask your opinion. I hate taking the next step without you.” He stood beside the cold steel table where they’d stood together over the years more times than he could rightly count.

“Do you ever regret it?” She didn’t look up as she asked the question. Her hand rested on her son’s chest. Jimmy hadn’t coped well with the loss of his family. Unlike his parents, he was made of softer stuff. Maylene and James were strong-willed. They had to be in order to raise a family and make a life.

“No, not what we do.”

Maylene lifted her gaze from her son. “You regret what we didn’t do?”

“Mae ... you know that’s not a conversation that’s going to help either one of us.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “We were who we were when we got called. You were already spoken for. I found Annie. I loved her. Still do.”

“Sometimes I wonder ... if I hadn’t tried to build a life so different from what we could’ve had —”

“Don’t. You and James had a good life; Annie and I did, too.” He didn’t pull Maylene closer. After several decades as her partner, he knew to wait until she was ready to be comforted.

“My husband’s dead, my granddaughter’s dead, now my son.” The tears slipped over the lines in her face. “My Cissy and both my blood-granddaughters are angry at the world. Beks isn’t Jimmy’s daughter by blood, but she’s family now. She’s mine. She’s all I’ve got left.”

“And me. I’m with you till the end,” he reminded her as he had so many times before.

Maylene turned away from her son’s body and let William fold her into his embrace. “I can’t have her hate me, Liam. I can’t. She can’t know yet. She wasn’t even born here.”

“Mae, we’re getting too old to keep this up. The kids are more than old enough —”

“No.” She pushed away. “I’ve got one daughter who hates me, two granddaughters who can’t handle being this, and Beks. She’s only lived in Claysville a few years. I’m going to let her go for now. Byron wants to stay away from here, live a little. You know he does. Let them both have some time away.”

And William did what he’d always done when Maylene needed anything: he agreed. “A few more years.”

Now he was standing in the same spot—only this time they had no more choices. Byron needed to know; Rebekkah needed to know. In the years since Jimmy’s death, William had suggested it often enough, but Maylene had refused every time.

“No more choices, Mae.” He looked down at her lifeless body. “I wish I could protect them longer. I wish I could’ve protected you.”

That was the crux of it, though: he hadn’t. After half a lifetime of being by her side, they’d both gotten complacent. She’d handled so much that he’d almost forgotten what could happen.

Almost.

Every month the chance was there, and until he introduced his son to Mr. D, the town was unprotected. He loathed what Byron and Rebekkah were being asked to handle, but it was past time.

“They’re strong enough.” William brushed his fingers over Maylene’s cheek. “And she’ll forgive you, Mae, just as we forgave those before us.”

Chapter 5

WHEN BYRON PULLED INTO MAYLENE’S DRIVE AND SHUT OFF THE ENGINE, he wasn’t surprised to see Chris leaning against his patrol car. He’d seen the sheriff in traffic an hour earlier and wondered at the time if he was going to get a ticket or just a lecture.

“Your mama would have your ass the way you were driving.” Chris had his arms folded over his chest. “You know that.”

Byron pulled off his helmet. “She would at that.”

“You trying to get arrested?” Chris scowled.

“No.” Byron got off the bike.

“Killed?”

“No, not that either. Just needed to relax. You ought to understand that,” Byron said lightly. “I watched you crash enough times in high school.”

“Well, I got some sense ... and kids to look after now. You got a pass on a ticket today, but don’t think my looking the other way will be a regular thing.” Chris shook his head and then pushed off his car. “Guess you want to