The Restorer

whisper this time, right against my ear.

I closed my eyes and let myself fantasize about that and more.

“Call me if you need me,” he said. I felt his breath in my hair and a little thrill went through me. I looked up into his face and his eyes took me in. “Good night…Amelia.”

Not a whisper and not in my ear, but pretty darn close.

I let out a sigh. “Good night.”

It wasn’t until I was well away from the cemetery that I realized something. Where were his ghosts?

Thirty-Three

Was it possible they were gone?

I thought about it all the way home. I’d never known anyone else who was haunted—though I had seen plenty of strangers trailed by ghosts—so I had no idea if anyone was ever released. Papa had always said that once an entity latched onto someone, that person’s life would never again be their own. But it seemed to me that a ghost could move on, perhaps to another host or even to another realm.

If Devlin’s guilt had kept Mariama’s and Shani’s ghosts tied to him, what would happen if that guilt started to fade? What would happen if he moved on?

I remembered what Essie had told me. Someday soon Devlin would have to make a choice between the living and the dead. What if he had already made that choice?

Then again, maybe all of this was just wishful thinking.

I tried to put it out of my mind, told myself I wouldn’t dwell on it. Camille Ashby had been murdered and her killer had sent me to that tomb. For whatever reason, he’d decided to communicate through me, and the idea that I was a madman’s conduit was very unsettling.

Devlin had made it clear that he no longer wanted me involved in the case, but the killer might have other ideas. I was brooding about all that when the doorbell rang a little while later. I glanced out the side window, shocked to see Devlin on my front porch. I’d assumed he would be busy at the cemetery for hours.

I led him back to my office because I didn’t know what else to do with him. Like me, he’d showered and changed since our parting at Oak Grove, no doubt trying to scrub away the putrid odor particular to human decay that lingered in the nostrils. As he followed me through the darkened house, I could smell nothing but the fresh mint of his soap and the spicier notes of his cologne. I drew it in on a sigh.

We took our usual places—I plopped down behind my desk and he sat on the chaise. I could tell something was on his mind, but he seemed in no hurry to speak. Since I’d developed an aversion to long silences in his company and could think of no other topic, I asked about Camille. “Could you tell much about her wounds?”

“She was stabbed, but the wounds were different from the others. It was a fast kill. No ligature marks, either. From the cuts on her hands, it looks like she put up a good fight.”

“Why didn’t he string her up like the others?”

“Maybe he was interrupted or ran out of time,” Devlin said. “Or maybe he’s toying with us. He establishes a pattern and then deliberately breaks it. Afton Delacourt was murdered fifteen years ago. We uncover remains in a grave that have been there five to ten years. And now two murders within days of each other.”

“And the skeleton in the chamber that was shackled at the wrists,” I said.

“Right.” Devlin ran a hand through his hair. “This guy is really starting to piss me off.”

I shared his frustration. “I wonder when he got to Camille. The last time I saw her was in the archives room at Emerson.”

“The best way to calculate time of death is to find the person who last saw her alive. It may have been you.” He looked exhausted in the lamplight. “Camille had been dead at least twenty-four hours when we found her. We’ll have a better estimate after the autopsy.”

“I remember something about that day we saw her at Oak Grove. She received a text message and left abruptly. Maybe it was from the killer. If you can find her phone, you could trace that message back to the sender.”

“We don’t even need the phone. We can check the records.”

“Of course you would have already thought of that,” I murmured.

“What I didn’t think of was the significance of those epitaphs. The symbols, yes. Once you explained the soul-in-flight imagery, it seemed pretty obvious. But he handpicked those inscriptions for each of his victims. That was all you.”

“I’m not sure where that gets us, though.”

“It’s helpful. Those epitaphs and symbols are both important elements to figuring out his motivation.”

“Does he have a motive? That device we found in the chamber and the way he tortured those women…” I trailed off on a shudder. “It seems to me he kills for pleasure.”

“I don’t think he’s strictly a thrill killer, but he undoubtedly derives a certain amount of pleasure from taking lives. Considering the symbolism and epitaphs, I think it more likely that he’s devised a persona for himself as a liberator or an angel of mercy in order to neutralize actions that he knows are wrong.”

“Aren’t mercy-killers usually women?”

“Usually, but not always. And it doesn’t explain the way Camille was killed.”

“Did you know that she was a lesbian?”

He shrugged. “I’ve heard that rumor for years, but never thought much about it one way or the other.”

“According to Temple, Camille never came out because her sexual orientation would have caused a lot of problems for her, both at Emerson and with her family.”

He gave me a pensive frown. “What’s your point? You think a female lover killed her?”

“That epitaph just seems so personal. ‘A quiet life, a quiet death. Rest now, beloved. Our secret is safe.’”

We had our moments. Wasn’t that what Temple had told me about her fling with Camille?

“But the inscription wasn’t written for Camille,” Devlin reminded me. “That tomb is over a hundred and fifty years old. Not to say the killer didn’t somehow find out about her personal life. He could have chosen the epitaph for its dual meaning. Maybe he considered Camille’s death liberation from the burden of her secret.”

“You seem convinced the killer is male,” I said.

“Like I said before, most predatory killers are. Just because he’s convinced himself the kills are justified doesn’t mean he’s not tracking his victims.”

Shadowy images crept through my head. “So how do we figure out who his next target is?”

“We try to connect the kills. The greater the time lapse between murders, the harder it is to find a connection, so the logical place to start is with the two most recent victims— Camille and Hannah Fischer.”

I toyed with a paper clip, not certain I wanted to give voice to a terrible suspicion. “Do you think Camille could have been somewhere in those tunnels when we were down there?” I lifted my gaze to his. “We never found out where those flies went.”

I could tell by the look on his face that he’d thought the same thing. “We had personnel all over that cemetery and in those tunnels in less than an hour. There’s no way he could have gotten her out of there and into that tomb without someone spotting him.”

“Unless there’s another way out that hasn’t been found yet. An opening in another mausoleum, maybe. He could have waited until everyone was gone and then brought her up. The guards at the gate wouldn’t have seen him if he was already inside the walls.”

“Even if he’d managed to get the body up to the surface alone, he would have needed help with the lid of that tomb.”

“Wouldn’t he have needed help regardless of when he put her in there?”

“Not necessarily. He seems to have some knowledge of pulleys. With a reasonable amount of time, he could have accomplished it with a rope and a tree branch.”

“But that chair we found in the chamber…”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “That chair.”