Joshua Abbott was brought in to speak with John, Sam and Jackson alone-without David Yates there to tell him what to say or give him leading gestures. Just when they were about to begin, Joshua’s father, Ben, arrived.
Sam thought that he’d be belligerent, angry that his son was being questioned. But Ben Abbott was just the opposite.
“Damn it, Joshua! This is serious. Perjury. You follow that Yates kid around like a puppy, but you straighten out right now. You want to go to college? You want a football scholarship-you want a life? You’re not in any pact with David Yates. You’re just a kid, and he’s just a kid, and the two of you might wind up with jail time.
Joshua looked at his father miserably and lowered his head.
“Did you see Malachi Smith leave Earnest Covington’s house the day he was murdered?” Sam asked quietly.
“The truth!” Ben Abbott repeated.
“Yes,” Joshua said. Then he looked up. “I mean-I didn’t actually see him, but David did. And David wouldn’t say that he saw him if he didn’t. He said that people might not believe him if someone else didn’t say the same thing. And then…then I had to stick to it because…because I’d said it, and I couldn’t turn on David and…Dad! Dad, I’m sorry. But David wouldn’t lie to me-we’re friends.”
With that, John, Sam and Jackson thanked Joshua for his honesty and stepped out of the room. “John, listen to me, please, and I know that this is hard. I honestly believe that Councilman Yates and Samantha Yeager conspired to commit these murders,” Sam said once the door had closed.
John stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Sam spoke quickly, with Jackson’s help, explaining that it was his belief that Samantha Yeager had engaged in an affair with Andy Yates. On her part, it was sheer greed. She wanted Lexington House. Andy Yates had watched what he thought was his son’s terrible suffering; he had to right a wrong.
“You’re crazy!” John said, looking at him.
“John, help us out here, please. Half the parents are here. Can you get Andy Yates to come down? If we can all talk to him with his son present…?”
John sighed. “All right. I’ll get him down here.”
“You want to what?” Angela demanded.
“I want to get back into Lexington House,” Jenna repeated.
“Oh, Jenna, I don’t know if that’s necessary. Why don’t we wait and see what happens at the school today? When they actually get to the kids…”
“No. Angela, I’ve been twice. The first time, I saw Eli Lexington kill his family. The second time, I saw the day that the Braden son killed his parents. My cognitive self might be working in a time pattern. If I can get back in there one more time…”
“Maybe you’re right. But, still-”
“If we wait, Sam will have to call John again, and what I’ll probably get won’t actually be proof, just an idea of the direction we should take to find proof. They’re about to go in with cleaning crews. We’ve got to go now-before they do that,” Jenna said.
“I’m still uneasy about it. The killers are out there. They hired people to look for you, for God’s sake.”
“And they wouldn’t dare do it again, not so quickly,” Jenna said.
While Angela drummed her fingers on the table, Jenna’s phone rang. It was Sam.
“Joshua Abbott’s dad came in and gave it to him, and he admitted he’d been lying,” he told her.
“That’s a start.”
“It gets better. John is bringing Councilman Yates in, saying that he wants him present when David is questioned. You never know what happens when you get that kind of dichotomy going. We could get somewhere today.”
“That’s great!” Jenna told him. “Keep us posted.”
“Will do,” he said, and hung up.
“No one is going to be out to get me,” Jenna assured Angela. “They’re bringing Councilman Yates to the school.”
Angela nodded. “Maybe the ghosts will talk to me, too, today…” She groaned and rolled her eyes. “We’re going to go under the police tape, huh?”
“We’ll put it back, just the way it was. No one will ever know.”
“Where’s Jamie?” Angela whispered.
“He went back in to spend some time with Malachi. Angela, I feel that I have to do this.”
“All right,” Angela agreed. “Then…let’s go.”
Jenna drove. As they pulled out of Jamie’s driveway and headed down the street, Angela frowned and looked into the rearview mirror.
“There’s a car following us,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Nope, never mind. It was just a woman, I think, on her cell phone and following too close. The car turned off. We’re good.”
Jenna was careful to park a few blocks down on the street. As they exited the car, Angela said, “If I head to the cliff area-the park-not-really-a-park-I can easily see Lexington House. I’m thinking that I should keep an eye out and warn you if someone does come. And then, after you’ve taken a try at reading the place, I can go in, because I want to see if there are ghosts in there who will talk to me.” She smiled apologetically. “We both know that ghosts are as strange and moody as-well, as they were when they were living. And sometimes, they’ll feel an affinity with one person and not another. You can keep watch and I’ll go in if you don’t get anything.”
“Ah! Now there’s a plan,” Jenna said.
In front of Lexington House, they split, moving quickly. Jenna looked around; the neighboring houses were few, and she was pretty sure that the workday had already begun for most people in the area.
She didn’t try to slink into the house, but went straight up the walkway, slipped under the tape and jimmied the lock open.
FBI training was helpful in many ways, she thought.
She entered the foyer. She started to head into the parlor but changed her mind. In the parlor, too many events had occurred. She walked up the stairs. If she stood in one of the rooms where Malachi’s great-uncle and grandmother had been killed, she might get more.
She chose the left bedroom, and as she stood there, she felt the opaque mist start to form before her eyes, the thing that told her she was about to see.
She gripped the bedpost and waited for the scene to start to unfold.
And it did.
She saw an old woman. She might have been out of the past; she wore a nightcap and a long white nightgown, one that buttoned to her throat. But she wasn’t from the distant past. There was a digital alarm clock by her bed, and she checked it to make sure that it was set for six the following morning.
Then she lay down, and reached into her bedside table for her Bible.
Smiling, deep into the comfort of her mattress and her covers, she began to read.
Jenna felt something by her side. She turned, and there it was, the specter of the horned god, bearing an ax.
An ax that already dripped blood.
The old woman looked up. Confusion tinged her rheumy eyes at first.
And then she started to scream. A silent scream, because she couldn’t quite draw breath.
And then the horned god was upon her, the first swing catching her in the center of her breast…
Something seemed to happen then. The opaque image faded; she could see it, but more as a backdrop to something else.
And there was something else there.
Another image, standing at the side of the bed.
“Rebecca?” Jenna breathed. She was facing a ghost, or a spirit, a gentle, benign spirit. And the woman was speaking to her.
