I nodded in the direction of the gates. “He’s still inside the cemetery. You can tell him yourself.”
“There’s a guard at the gates. I’d never be allowed through.”
“But if you have information—”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m persona non grata with the Charleston PD these days.”
I shooed away a fly buzzing around my face. “Why is that?”
“Let’s just say, cops and P.I.s don’t mix. Devlin won’t see me and he’d never take my call. I need you to be my go-between.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because I know who the victim is.”
The revelation caught me off guard and I gaped at him.
“Her name was Hannah Fischer,” he said. “Her mother asked me to find her.”
“Find her? Was she missing?”
During this whole time, he had remained in the same pose. Arms folded, ankles crossed, head tilted. I wondered how he could remain so static.
“Last Thursday, the day before that big storm, Mrs. Fischer found Hannah in her room packing. The girl looked as if she hadn’t slept or bathed in days. It was obvious she’d been hiding out from someone, but she wouldn’t say who. She didn’t want to put her mother in any danger. She asked for enough money to disappear, insisting that was the only way either of them would be safe. Mrs. Fischer gave her all the money she had on hand and the keys to her car. Hannah fled and I’ve been looking for her ever since. Until a couple of days ago, the trail had gone stone cold.”
“How can you be so sure it’s her? The newspaper account didn’t give a description.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Call it a hunch, an instinct. My grand mother would tell you it’s a gift. All I can say is that I’m never wrong about these things.
Gooseflesh popped at my nape. “Do you know who killed Hannah Fischer?”
“That’s something you’ll have to figure out.”
“You don’t mean me literally, I hope.”
“Hannah Fischer’s body was left in that grave for a reason. Find the reason, find the killer.”
“I’m not a detective.”
“But you know cemeteries. And that just might be the key.”
Not a very comforting thought.
The jarring sound of my ringtone startled me so badly I jumped. Reluctantly, I took my eyes off Gerrity to check the display. It was Temple returning my call.
“I have to take this,” I said. “Is there anything else you want me to tell Devlin?”
“The last time anyone saw Hannah alive, she had on a white sundress with red and yellow flowers. You can tell him that.”
I put the phone to my ear and walked around to the back of my car so that Gerrity wouldn’t overhear what I had to tell Temple.
“Thanks for calling me back so soon,” I told her.
“Sounds like you have a real mess on your hands.”
“All I can tell you for certain is that a pre–Civil War grave is about to be disturbed for an exhumation. I thought you’d want to be here for that.”
“I do, but…hold on a second.” She said something unintelligible and I heard excited voices in the background.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Your neck of the woods, on one of the islands. We’re excavating a possible burial mound out here. Just turned up some pretty interesting artifacts so I won’t be able to get to the cemetery today.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’ll do my best. Who do I contact to coordinate?”
“John Devlin at Charleston PD, but they’re also calling in a forensic anthropologist named Ethan Shaw.”
“I know Ethan. I’ll give him a ring as soon as we hang up. In the meantime, why don’t you buy me dinner tonight and tell me what you’ve been up to? Besides getting yourself involved in a murder investigation.”
We agreed on a time and place and hung up. When I walked back around to the front of my car, Tom Gerrity had vanished.
I checked the road in both directions, didn’t see him, and started back to the cemetery. I was halfway to the gates when I had the strangest sensation of being watched.
Glancing over my shoulder, I almost expected to find Gerrity on the path behind me, but no one was there. I saw no movement at all except for the swirl of foxtail grass seeds near the woods. I admired the snow-globe effect for a moment, then continued on.
A dozen steps later, I experienced the sensation again.
My senses on high alert, I monitored my surroundings with sidelong glances. Off to the right, a flash of movement in my periphery quickened my pulse.
Deliberately casual, I turned and saw something just beyond the tree line. A dark form slinking out of the woods.
The silhouette had been moving away from me, but the moment my gaze reached it, the shadowy head came up and slowly rotated in my direction.
The air went very still and I sensed hesitation, like an animal sizing up its prey. Then the weeds parted violently, as though an invisible scythe cut a path straight toward me.
Whatever it was, it came at me like a freight train, preceded by an unnatural chill the like of which I’d never felt before. I stood there breathless and immobile, bound by a nightmarish paralysis.
A blizzard of cotton fluff swirled in the air as an icy gust swept back my hair. It was getting closer. So close I could feel a preternatural dampness against my skin, but still I couldn’t move.
Then my heart jerked, sending a spurt of adrenaline through my bloodstream. I spun around to the path and ran.
I heard nothing behind me. No pounding footsteps. No snapping twigs. But I knew it was back there, knew that I couldn’t outpace it for long, that…
Still, I kept going.
A moment later, I emerged from the weeds and saw Devlin. He was alone and coming toward me, and I reacted purely on instinct. I ran straight into his arms. I had some momentum going, but he caught me with ease and without noticeable reluctance.
He was so warm, so strong, so…human. And he felt so good. I didn’t move away as I should have, but sank even deeper into the embrace. “What’s wrong?”
Too breathless to speak, I could only shiver.
His arms tightened around me and now I felt a bit of that protectiveness I’d sensed in him earlier. He lent me the comfort of his chest for a moment longer before he stepped back and held me at arm’s length, searching my face.
“Tell me what happened.”
Fear and shock made me speak without thinking. “I saw something at the edge of the woods.”
“What was it? An animal?”
“No…a shadow.” An entity. A ghost. One of the Others.
He stared down at me, perplexed but trying to make sense of my babbling. “You saw someone’s shadow?” Not some
“I didn’t get a good look at it. When it came after me, I just turned and ran.”
His hands gripped my arms. “Came after you? Someone chased you?”
“Yes. At least…yes.”
“But you didn’t see a face.”
“No. I didn’t see a face.”
His gaze swept the woods behind me. “It was probably just some kid from the university trying to scare you. I’ll go have a look.”
