Persuasion (15 page)

“Mind if I come with you?” A male voice spoke beside her
as she reached the cemetery fence, and Barrie looked over to find the guy who had stood beside Andrew Bey. She hadn’t heard so much as the crackle of a leaf while he’d been catching up.

She gave him a dubious smile. “I’m sorry. I need to talk to my cousin alone. It’s why I came out here, honestly. No offense.”

“None taken,” he said automatically and politely.

He didn’t look much like an archaeologist. He was probably only a few years older than Eight, but those extra years had etched white creases into the sun-browned skin around his eyes. His hair, in contrast, was white blond and cropped so close to his head in a military-style cut that it was barely longer than the stubble on his chin and cheeks. There was a sure and lethal cleverness, a sharpness, about him that Eight didn’t have even after a lifetime of living with the Beaufort gift.

Sharp and clever was the last thing Barrie needed then, but the guy didn’t seem to have gotten the message; he wasn’t leaving.

“Can I help you with something?” Barrie stopped beside the low iron gate.

“I was hoping Cassie would answer some questions for me. Or you would.”

“What sort of questions?” Barrie glanced back toward the house. Pru hadn’t come outside yet, and Marie and the other two archaeologists were still deep in discussion.

“We could start with what’s going on here, for one thing. I’m curious why someone would call and ask for an archaeological excavation when she should have been more concerned about her father’s funeral. And why she would forget to mention there was probably seven or eight million dollars in gold buried down there. We had to read about that in the local paper.”

Which were both damn good questions. Barrie reached for the gate and pulled the latch, saying, “I’m about the last person on earth who can explain why my cousin would do anything.”

“You might be the perfect person, since you clearly don’t get along.” His hand shot out, and he held the gate in place.

Barrie turned slowly toward him. “Who did you say you were again?”

“I’m one of the archaeology students who’s going to be working on the dig with Andrew.” He grinned, and his smile was gap-toothed and probably charmed every girl he used it on.

It made Barrie more suspicious. “You don’t seem like an archaeology student,” she said.

“Well, to be fair, I’ve been other things besides a student.” He didn’t volunteer anything more except his name. “My name’s Berg Walters, by the way.”

“Barrie Watson,” Barrie said automatically, wondering
how to get rid of him. “Listen, it’s nice to meet you, and I really hope you can work things out with Cassie, but—”

“Watson? As in Watson’s Landing?” Berg’s focus sharpened as Barrie nodded, and he grinned a little sheepishly. “Andrew and Dr. Feldman would both kill me if I didn’t ask if we could have a look at the tunnels on your side of the river. Andrew’s called your aunt several times, but she hasn’t called him back. It would be a big help to see the tunnels intact before we start excavating.”

“
If
you start excavating, and you’d have to talk to my aunt,” Barrie said, making a note to make sure Pru had no intention of agreeing. Even the thought of anyone crawling around in the tunnels beneath the house made Barrie feel exposed and vulnerable.

She was concentrating on getting away from Berg, so she didn’t realize at first that Cassie was right in front of her. Halfway to the folding chairs set up by the grave site, Cassie sat huddled at the base of the moss-covered statue of an angel with an upraised fist.

Cassie was visibly trembling, rocking back and forth. Her eyes were fixed on the ground while tears streaked down her cheeks. Barrie ran forward automatically to help—and then she stopped. This was
Cassie
, who had fooled her. Lied to her. Manipulated her one too many times. Cassie, who was lying to the archaeologists now. Cassie, who lied to everyone.

Barrie took a sledgehammer to the wave of sympathy she had felt. “There are archaeologists here to see you,” she said coldly. “They found out about the gold, and your mother is mad as hell. Also, I need to talk to you. Privately.”

Cassie acted as if she didn’t hear, as if Barrie didn’t exist. She didn’t even turn her head.

Molten rage swelled in Barrie’s chest and throat until she was feverish with it.

“Stop it, you damn drama queen. We all get it. You’re grieving. Well, other people are grieving, too. Your mother and your sister, for instance. You don’t always have to be the center of attention.” She reached out to shake Cassie, but Berg caught her hand before she could.

His eyes had softened, but his jaw and his voice had both gone tight. “Wait,” he said. “Don’t touch her.”

Berg dropped into a squat beside Cassie, visibly concerned. “Cassie, can you hear me?” he asked. “You’re safe. You’re in your family’s cemetery.” He spoke softly and paused to give Cassie time to answer, but Cassie only continued rocking forward and back, her arms clutching her knees as if they were a lifeline.

Barrie bit off a snort of exasperation. “Of course she can hear you. She’s faking.”

“She’s not reacting to us at all and her breathing is rapid. Her pupils are dilated—”

“She’s an actress. You don’t know her.” Disgust stiffened Barrie’s tongue and made the words come out thick and slow. “Trust me when I tell you that this is all a show for your benefit.”

“I was in the Marines. I know a flashback when I see one,” Berg said sharply. Then he turned his attention back to Cassie and reverted to the soothing tone he’d used before. “I need you to listen, Cassie. Just listen and focus and know that everything right now, in the present, is fine. My name is Mason Walters. Berg, they call me. I’m a student who came out with Dr. Feldman to talk about excavating your tunnel. You remember calling Dr. Feldman, don’t you?”

Cassie was still rocking back and forth. Mascara had stained her cheeks, but her face was smooth and expressionless, as beautiful as ever. The tears brimmed and fell, eerily silent, designed to evoke Berg’s sympathy. Barrie’s sympathy.

Barrie refused to let them. She
refused
.

Easing back and looking thoughtful, Berg draped his hands across his knees. “Does your cousin do this often?” he asked Barrie. “Do you know what happened to her?”

Barrie felt the exasperation building. “She’s a brilliant actress. That’s what happened,” she said, more as a reminder to herself than for Berg’s benefit. “She’s decided her usual tricks won’t work, so she’s trying something different.”

She reached for Cassie’s shoulder to shake her, but Berg put his hand on her wrist. “Don’t.” Shifting back onto his heels, he frowned as he studied Cassie. “Just speak to her. Talk about something she likes, something familiar. Ground her back in the present. I don’t know her well enough.”

Barrie didn’t know Cassie at all. Not really. She knew too little and too much, and she couldn’t think of what to say. Feeling sorry for Cassie just made her furious again.

How stupid
was
she? She couldn’t fall for any more of Cassie’s tricks. She’d promised Pru and Eight, but most of all she’d promised herself. She wasn’t the same naïve idiot who’d let Cassie play her when she’d first arrived. How many times had she already let Cassie fool her?

Berg’s expression grew tighter at her silence. Finally, he looked away.

“You don’t usually see angry angels in a cemetery,” he said to Cassie, using the same sure and quiet tone that Mark had always used on Barrie when she had a panic attack. “Did you sit by her because she happened to be here, or did you pick her because you like her? Focus on the angel, Cassie. Let her bring you back to the present, to the cemetery.” He leaned in a little closer. “Is it all right if I touch you? I just want to remind you where you are.”

Shifting forward, he very gently touched a fingertip to Cassie’s waist, but she flinched and trembled harder, turning her face to him with expressionless eyes. He glanced at Barrie, who felt the full weight of his condemnation as if whatever was going on were somehow her fault.

How was Cassie making Barrie the bad guy here? And wasn’t that just typical?

Berg turned back to Cassie. “I used to hate cemeteries when I was growing up,” he said. “My parents are both archaeologists, and they would drag me around with them every summer. I spent most of that time thinking how stupid it was to spend your life digging around in the past. But the more I see of the world, the more I realize the past always sucks us back. Either we return to it voluntarily to study it and understand it, or we’re doomed to repeat it. One way or the other, we can’t escape.” He paused, and Barrie couldn’t tell whether he was giving Cassie time to respond or whether he was lost in his own dark thoughts. Then he sighed and looked back up at the statue above Cassie’s head.

“My mother has a whole philosophy on funerary angels,” he continued. “She claims that it’s the angels who say the most about who the people really were. Maybe she’s right. Anyone can write ‘beloved’ on a gravestone, but whoever put this angel here understood what it means to scream at death. To rage and let out all that anger no one wants to hear because it’s too messy or too embarrassing.”

Barrie studied the angel statue. The name and dates on the pedestal had long since worn away, and the marble features had been softened by storms and moss and years. But despite that, the angel’s upturned face and defiant fist held a heaven-cracking fury.

The raw, awful loss that came from near the old mansion
made other losses hard to pinpoint at Colesworth Place. Coupled with the constant headache of being away from Watson’s Landing, it played havoc with Barrie’s gift. Looking at the statue, though, she realized the grave beneath it, not the open grave set for Wyatt, was the source of the pull she felt within the cemetery enclosure.

Probably the lack of an inscription had something to do with that.

Obadiah had mentioned that names were important. Barrie supposed everyone needed to be acknowledged, in life and in death. It was why the
yunwi
had needed her to find the skeletons in the tunnel beneath the river so that Luke and Twila wouldn’t remain unburied and unacknowledged. Thinking of Luke and Twila, of Mark’s unburied ashes in their urn, and of her own mother, whose request to have her ashes scattered had left her without a place of mourning, Barrie found her cheeks were wet again.

Berg was still talking steadily, but Cassie’s rocking had begun to slow. Her head came up an inch. An instant later, her eyes focused. Seeing Berg right in front of her, she scrambled backward.

“It’s all right, Cassie. You don’t need to be afraid,” Barrie said, intervening in spite of her resolution not to let herself get sucked back in. “Berg’s trying to help you. He’s one of the archaeologists who came out to talk to you about the excavation.”

At the sound of Barrie’s voice, Cassie turned her head. Her eyes were glassy and dead, both more and less present than when she’d been crying a minute ago, dead as if everything behind them had been burned away. They slid from Barrie to Berg, and then, predictably, the creases in her forehead smoothed. Wiping her cheeks with the backs of her thumbs, she schooled her face into one of her Scarlett O’Hara smiles. That was a kind of magic in itself, that ability to make the mascara streaks unnoticeable and make herself beautiful again with just a glance. There was a difference, though, from the Cassie that Barrie remembered. The dead eyes remained unchanged.

“Archaeologists?” Cassie focused her attention all on Berg. “I thought Dr. Feldman couldn’t help me?”

If Berg was surprised by her response, he didn’t show it. “He couldn’t. He still doesn’t have the time himself to excavate, but one of his grad students offered to supervise. Andrew’s dying to dig here. We all are. So Dr. Feldman brought us out to talk to you about that and the gold.”

“Oh, Lord.” Cassie jumped to her feet. “Mama doesn’t know anything about Dr. Feldman. I didn’t get a chance to tell her.” She took three running steps toward the house, but then as she saw the crowd by the front door, she stopped. The color bled from her face again, and she started to shake.

Berg was instantly beside her. “Don’t go away on us again.
Focus on breathing and the sound of my voice. You’re here and you’re safe. You’re standing in the cemetery, and your family is right there, a few steps away.”

Cassie took a shaking breath. “I’m fine,” she said, then her eyes closed and she shook her head. “God, what’s wrong with me? It’s like a movie, right there all over again, and I’m a deer in the headlights, frozen and useless.”

Berg waited for her to go on, but she didn’t. “You haven’t had flashbacks before?”

“Flashbacks?” Cassie seemed to test the sound of the word, drawing it out before her expression abruptly hardened. “You know what? I’ve been through a lot the past few days.” She sent a glare at Barrie. “My father is dead, remember? And I’m worried about keeping my house, and—”

“And you’ve just gotten out of jail,” Barrie said. “I’m sorry about the house and your father, but don’t make it out like you’re the victim here. You’re the one who locked me—and Eight—in the tunnel.”