Garden of Darkness (11 page)

Cleaned up.

That was a good sign.

He tried to move quietly, but the house was old and the floors creaked. Upstairs, he found Evan’s bedroom door ajar. He pushed it open, wincing at the noise.

“Evan?” he whispered into the blackness.

There was no answer, so he backtracked, turned on a hallway light, and rechecked the bedroom.

The bed was empty.

Sip, sip. Would you like another crumpet, my dear? Oh, thank you. Don’t mind if I do.

When was he going to learn that his life was never going to be normal no matter how much he wished it? That no matter how many times he pushed the reset button, it would always default back to fucked-up?

He wanted to go to bed.

His muscles ached, and his skin felt tight the way it did when he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. He
had
to go to school tomorrow. Couldn’t slack off his last year. If he didn’t do well he could kiss any chance of a scholarship good-bye. And the one thing he had to look forward to was college, because college was a way out.

And he was always looking for a way out.

He went back downstairs and found a flashlight in the kitchen. On the way to Old Tuonela, he stopped by the car.

She was smoking. In the car. Evan’s car.

Graham could see the glowing tip of her cigarette illuminating her face when she took a drag. Evan had a nose like a dog; he would kill Graham. But Graham wasn’t going to tell her to get out. He didn’t want her roaming around.

He opened the door and bent forward. “I’ll be back. Wait here.” Then he headed for OT.

The gate was open just enough for a person to slip through.

Graham paused.

Could he do it?

He hadn’t been this way since all the bad shit had happened. Maybe he should forget it. Maybe he should return to the car and take Kristin back to Tuonela.

The rain picked up, pattering against the fallen leaves. The volume increased until the sound almost seemed to be inside his head. Was Evan really down there doing whatever he did all night long? In the pouring rain?

Damn.
Graham was sick of being the adult. Couldn’t somebody else be the adult for a while? He wanted to be a kid while he was still a kid. Time was running out.

Deep inside he knew it was probably too late anyway, but that didn’t keep him from embracing the resentment.

He took a deep breath and plunged forward through the gate. Willing his brain to shut off, he hurried down the muddy path, his feet slipping and sliding until he finally gained the cover of dense trees. Above his head a canopy of leaves that hadn’t yet fallen created a roof and blocked out some of the rain and noise.

He should have forced himself to come down here before. Then maybe he’d have gotten desensitized and it would seem like nothing. Just the same as any other messed-up place. It was hard enough living on the edge of Old Tuonela, but this was too much.

His footsteps faltered. He paused to look over his shoulder, back in the direction of the car he could no longer see.

He also wanted to make sure
she
wasn’t there.

His mother. He hadn’t seen her for a long time. Long enough to make him hope he would never see her again.

He always smelled her first.

He would wake up from a deep sleep with the scent of rotting flesh in his nostrils. And there she’d be—perched on the end of his bed, yakking away about something.

He turned and continued down the path.

He pushed aside a branch of wet leaves. The flashlight beam reflected off the raindrops, creating a brilliant curtain that temporarily blinded him. He blinked, his eyes adjusting.

Christ.

Holes.

Everywhere.

How many were there? A hundred? More?

He’d known Evan was digging out here, but
damn.

The flashlight was just some cheapie, the beam weak. He panned around, looking for signs of life.
Real
life. Not a rotten imitation of a living being his mother liked to emulate.

What am I doing here?

He had a sudden snapshot image of the man he’d killed. Of the way he’d looked at him right before he died. That utter disbelief.

“Leave. Get out of here.”

Had that been his own voice in his head, or somebody else’s?

“Shhhh. There you go.”

Not in his head.

Evan? Was it Evan? Sounded a little like him, but not like him.

Graham’s heart slammed in his chest, but he forced himself to move, navigating around the holes. Bent at the waist, he leaned forward while wanting to lean back. His voice, when he finally used it, came out a broken whisper. “Evan?”

Had someone answered? Was someone talking?

Mumbling. Coming from below. From the ground.

He wanted to turn and run like hell. Instead he slid one foot forward, then the other.

He directed the flashlight beam into the holes, left and right, sweeping until he found an occupied one.

He blinked the rain from his eyes.

What he saw made his leg muscles tighten as he braced himself for flight.

Evan.

Graham stared.

This hole was bigger than the others. Probably twelve feet wide and six feet deep. Evan just sat there as if it weren’t raining. As if it weren’t cold, his shirt and jeans splattered with mud.

Graham was careful to keep the flashlight beam directed away from Evan’s face, but what the light fell on . . .

My God. Is that what I think it is?

Evan stared up at him without recognition.

Say something.
“W-what are you doing?”

The rain channeled into the hole, collecting, creating a soup of mud.

A burial pit. Evan was sitting in the middle of a burial pit surrounded by the mummified remains of the dead.

The smell Graham associated with his mother wafted to him.

He was glad he hadn’t brought Kristin. That’s what he kept thinking, kept focusing on, his mind trying to distract himself from the immediate horror of the moment.

His fault. He should have gotten help. Instead, he’d been hiding Evan’s problem, hoping he would get better on his own. Because if they took him away, if they locked him up in some nuthouse, what would happen to Graham? Would he be put in foster care? Because his grandfather sure as hell wasn’t playing with a full deck either.

“Come on.” He extended his hand toward his father. “You have to get out of there.”

Evan stared up in baffled confusion.

Graham heard a sound behind him. He swung around, the flashlight beam swinging with him. Kristin stood there, mouth hanging open.

“Get away!” He shooed with his hand. “Get the hell out of here!”

She turned and ran.

Had she been holding a camera? Had she been filming? This freak show?

He looked back at Evan.

The man was oblivious.

Graham had to call somebody for help. But who? Did he even know a single sane person in Tuonela?

Chapter Fifteen

This was so normal. So nicely normal.

Rachel smiled at the man across the table.

David Spence.

She’d known him since high school. He was divorced, his marriage another casualty of Tuonela. He’d married an outsider, and his wife had never adjusted to the town. Few did. But there were some, like the mayor, who settled right in without even seeming to notice anything odd about the place.

David was still funny and charming. They’d even come up with some high school stories to relive. But he had a sadness around the edges that people from Tuonela had. The sadness that came once you finally acknowledged that this was something you couldn’t fight. You couldn’t change the past, and you couldn’t pretend Tuonela didn’t call to you. He
got
it. Which meant he already got her, to some extent. There was something comforting about that.

“I was glad to hear you’d moved back,” David told her. Embarrassment washed over him as he obviously recalled
why
she’d moved back.

“I’m sorry about your parents. That had to be tough, losing both of them so close together.”

If she agreed, he would just feel worse. “I miss them.”

“It hasn’t been very long. It takes a while.”

He wasn’t just mouthing an empty, conditioned response. She could feel his concern, and sense the sorrow he felt. She found herself warming to him, to the idea of him. To the idea of having a guy in her life.

Maybe it wasn’t so impossible. The promise of something normal within the confines of Tuonela. An intriguing concept.

But she was getting ahead of herself, ahead of the situation.

They ordered pizza.

She hadn’t wanted to go anyplace fancy. She hadn’t wanted to put that kind of real-date pressure on the evening. Just two friends out for pizza, reconnecting.

They talked some more, and for a short while she forgot they were sitting in a pizza joint in Tuonela. They could have been anywhere. They could have been in Iowa, or California.

Her cell phone rang.

She reached into her pocket and looked up at David with apology. “Sorry. I have to get this.”

“No problem.” He understood the responsibilities of her job.

She flipped open the phone and checked the display.

Evan Stroud.

Her heart raced.

No. Not here. Not now.

One more ring. Deep breath. Answer.

It took her a moment to recognize Graham’s voice.

“Can you come out here?”

His words came fast and breathless.

“Here? Where’s here?”

“To our place. Evan’s.”

To Old Tuonela.

The pizza shop and David tunneled away and she visualized herself at Evan’s house. She hadn’t been there since all the bad things had happened. She hadn’t been there since her father’s death.

“What’s wrong?” Why didn’t Graham call somebody else? He should know how hard a visit to Old Tuonela would be for her. But he was a kid. Kids didn’t think about those things.

“It’s Evan. He’s acting weird. Doing weird stuff. I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“When? How soon?”

She looked across the table at David. He was watching her with concerned eyes, clinging to her yet knowing she was already gone. But he still hoped.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Okay. Good.” So much relief conveyed in those two words. “Thanks.”

She disconnected and pocketed the phone. “David, I’m so sorry. I’m going to have to go. An emergency has come up.”

“That’s okay.”

But she could see he was disappointed. And maybe hurt. How could you hurt somebody you didn’t really even know? But it happened all the time.

“Want me to come with you?”

What a perfectly horrendous thought. “No, but thanks. That’s sweet of you to offer.” She opened her wallet.

He shook his head. “What are you doing?” He looked horrified, so she put the wallet away.

“I’ll get it next time.” Why had she said that? A promise of next time? It had just come out.

He smiled and relaxed.

She reached behind her and slipped on her coat, buttoning it before getting up. To hide her stomach? Probably. Even though he knew about her pregnancy, she didn’t want to flaunt it. “Thanks.”

“I’ll call you,” he said.

David was wiped from her mind as soon as she stepped from the restaurant. She hurried to the van, shot out of the parking lot, and headed for Old Tuonela, her heart beating fast.

What was wrong?

What had happened?

When Evan had gone behind her back and purchased Old Tuonela, she’d vowed never to speak to him again. She’d felt betrayed. He could have at least told her. Coward. Maybe that was part of the reason she’d been so anxious to get away. There was too much pain here. The death of her parents. Then, at a time when she’d needed Evan, he wasn’t there for her.

Now here she was, leaving a date to run out to the very place she’d sworn never to go again, to a man who’d betrayed her.

She pulled off the highway to take the narrow, twisting lane to Evan’s house. Branches scraped the sides of the van and rubbed loudly against the undercarriage. She pulled up next to Evan’s little black car, cut the engine, and jumped out.

Someone materialized from the darkness of the porch.

Graham. He ran across the yard to meet her.

“I tried to call you before you got here, but I just got your voice mail. Cell phones don’t work here very well.”

“It never rang.”

She started walking toward the house. He reached out and put a hand on her arm, stopping her. “I don’t think you should go in. He’s better now. That’s why I was trying to catch you. To tell you that you didn’t need to come.”

“Better?” She frowned.

“He’s going to be mad that I called you. You should go. You should leave.”

Graham was as skittish as a cat. He glanced at the house, then at the car.
He wants to jump in and get the hell out of here.

“Graham, what’s going on?”

“You didn’t see anybody when you were driving up the lane, did you? A girl? With red hair?”

“No.”

“I need to find her.” He gave a little launching jump and ran for the car. “Go back home,” he shouted over his shoulder. “You don’t want to talk to him.”

“Is he drunk?” That didn’t seem like Evan. But then, a lot of things didn’t seem like Evan anymore.

Graham paused in the open car door and let out a snort. “I wish. Then maybe he’d just pass out, like my mom used to.” He shook his head. “He’s nuts. That’s what he is. Nuts. Go home. Please. Thanks for coming, but everything is fine. Or it will be when I get him to see a shrink.”

“What about the girl?”

“She’s a friend of mine. I’ll find her.”

“Nobody should be running around out here.” She didn’t have to state the obvious—that someone had been murdered just a few miles away.

He gave Rachel an impatient wave, started the car and took off.

With her hands in the pockets of her coat, she turned and looked at the house. A few lights on. One upstairs, one at the back of the building, maybe coming from the kitchen. She blew out a breath. She took a step.