“But which brother?” Dean asks.
“I don't know,” I say. “I thought it had to be the judge. But now that I'm looking at this…” my voice trails off as I look over the list of properties and holdings Eric was able to dig up for me and compare them with the ledgers I found in the Prometheus office.
“What is it?” Xavier asks.
“FireStarter is listed as owning the cornfields and the attractions nearby. The corn maze, the pumpkin patch. All of that is owned by FireStarter. Then the cornfields where all the bodies were found are contested land. They aren't technically owned by anyone, which is how no one is being directly held responsible for the bodies yet. But look at this.”
Both men lean around to look at my screen as I hold a fingertip to the image on my phone and then to the screen of my computer.
“There's another property,” Dean points out.
“Exactly,” I say. “FireStarter is listed as owning those particular pieces of land. But the Prometheus ledger shows they own property near the area of that cornfield.”
“It just says ‘property’,” Dean points out. “All these other ones are specific. The temple, a house, a restaurant. But then it just says ‘property’. Could it be talking about the cornfield? Would they have not specified what it is so that they could hide it?”
“No,” Xavier says. “They wouldn’t leave themselves exposed. Like a wire. They would—they would thread it through something else to protect it. So it could go unnoticed. Underground. Something in the same shape, made to bury it in one spot and come out in another.”
“Like a conduit?”
Xavier nods. “Two ends of the same thing in two different places.”
“You’re right. The location numbers are different,” notes Dean, crouching low to double-check the discrepancy between my phone and computer. “Do we have a map of the area so we can triangulate this?”
I pull out all of the papers I brought back to the hotel so I could continue researching. One of them is an aerial map of the entire area drawn up to show the contested land. Xavier points out the corn maze, then the field of bones. The listing in the ledger is several hundred yards away and at a diagonal. He shows how their relationship to each other coordinates with the layout of the land and is able to identify the space referenced in the ledger.
“See, nothing's there,” Dean says. “It's just an empty space. It's not near that house. It's just space.”
“So, why doesn't it say farmland?” Xavier asks. “Or woods?”
I stare at it for a few more seconds and swallow hard.
“Because this is exactly what they mean. Property. This isn't talking about a building or the land. This is a person.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ten years after death …
Her face had long since become a memory. It would never be forgotten. But that was the problem. It didn't just fade away. It didn't become nothingness. Her face was gone now. Melted, liquefied, pulled to leather, and sunken in the bone. It was nothing.
And yet, out there, beyond the covering and above the dirt, where there was still sunlight and wind, moonlight and stars, more than just raindrops and snowmelt, her face was everywhere.
Ten years, people kept saying. Ten years and nothing.
Ten years and nothing but questions.
Ten years and nothing but questions with no answers.
But there were answers. More answers than there were questions. None of them true. All of them crafted, conjured, imagined. Some made people feel better. Some worse.
None of them told her secrets.
Her face was gone, and yet it was everywhere. And that was the problem.
Ten years is a long time, and yet not long enough to be forgotten.
That should have been the way it worked out. It should have been so easy. Just let it go. Let it go away, and all would be forgiven. All would be released.
Her face was a reminder. Not really of her. Not of when she smiled or laughed or breathed.
It was a reminder of oxygen depleting and neurons firing in one final blast. Of no more heartbeat and blood pooling where it stopped. Of a body raging against nothingness. Against the eternal, final dark.
That face represented something completely different now. Just lies. So many lies.
The lies scattered people. Her face everywhere reminded some they should be looking. For others, it meant to never look again. After all, she was somewhere else. Laughing, smiling, everything behind her, so she could just live.
But, of course, that wasn't true.
No matter how many people thought they saw it. No matter how many stories were told or absolute assurances given.
For some, it brought comfort. For others, anger. For others, confusion.
But it brought none of them to her.
Her face everywhere reminded them it had been ten years.
It brought attention to the other face that kept appearing beside hers. So much good in those eyes.
Ten years of rain, cold, heat, and bugs. Ten years of losing everything that was her.
And no one knew she was there.
There were people all around. She was never alone.
But none knew she was there, just yards away.
If only they had looked a little harder.
Chapter Fourteen
“I need to go talk to Lilith Duprey,” I say.
“Haven't you already talked to her?” Dean asks.
“A few times,” I acknowledge. “But I have to again. The house she owns was rented to a member of Prometheus. Now she lives on a piece of land right next to where Prometheus lists owning property, and where FireStarter owns a huge segment of land.”
“It's entirely possible she moved into that house, met members of Prometheus, and mentioned she was looking for somebody to rent her house. They knew of Mason, so they connected them. It could be that easy an explanation,” Dean says.
“It could be,” I say. “I hope it is.”
“But you don't think so,” Dean observes.
I look into his eyes for a few seconds and let out a
