“All right. Let’s get back, get some sleep,” Griffin said. “A few of us will be attending the autopsy tomorrow. We’ll see what they come up with on that. She was weighted down with an anvil, so I don’t think that anyone is going to suspect a bear. We will look into this, Isaac. I promise.”
“Thank you!” the man said. He looked at them all. “They—as in the police—may tell you that I’m a kook who may have been guilty myself, and if not, I’m paranoid, I won’t move on...whatever. But she was murdered. And other people have been murdered because her killer wasn’t caught.”
“We’ll do everything humanly possible,” Griffin promised him.
Isaac seemed to believe them.
“Thank you,” he said again.
He turned and walked ahead of them.
They looked at one another and headed back to the bed-and-breakfast.
It was quiet. The others had gone to bed; Isaac, just ahead of them, had left the front door open. They locked it when they were in, and then headed up to their rooms on the second floor of the old Victorian.
“Eight,” Griffin said to Rocky.
“Eight,” he agreed.
They parted ways, Griffin and Vickie stepping into their own room. “Eight o’clock—the autopsy?” she asked.
He nodded. “I mean, you can come, but...”
“That’s all right. I’m assuming that our ghosts will be around in the morning, and I’m assuming, as well, that they will have heard a lot of gossip. Devin and I can hang around town, see what else is going on.”
Griffin took off his jacket and reached behind his back for his Glock and its little holster. As always, he set the gun on the bedside table.
“There is definitely something going on. If not here, per se, then nearby. And it’s worse than we knew. The problem is connecting all the dots. A woman was found dead in the woods. We didn’t have that information, because it was chalked up to a bear or other accident. Another woman is missing—but she was leaving town, so she wasn’t noted as missing. And now...”
“The body,” Vickie said softly.
“The body,” he agreed.
He slipped his arms around her. “I still believe Alex is alive.”
“I do, too,” she said. “I just wonder how long he can stay alive. Griffin, I so hope we’re getting somewhere with this! It seems it has been going on a long time...and no one knew! Well, of course, someone knew. The people involved with it had to know. What about Gloria? Is there anything they can do to force her to remember?”
Griffin had his phone out; he was tapping at it with an aggravated expression. “I’m going to step outside. I don’t know what this old house has for insulation or what might be in its construction, but I can’t get any service. I’ll be right back—I’ll see if Barnes has discovered anything new.”
“Excellent,” Vickie murmured.
She crawled into bed to wait for him. She was afraid to sleep. If she fell asleep here...after being in the Quabbin, after seeing all the forest that surrounded it, she was bound to have nightmares.
But just maybe, eventually, they would be helpful instead of terrifying.
Griffin closed the door to their room quietly as he left. Vickie closed her eyes.
She could see the water again, in her mind’s eye.
The water of the Quabbin. And then she could see, caught in a rare glint of light, a bit of a shimmer. The sun making it through the water—just barely!—to land on the anvil.
She saw the anvil...
And then, what remained of the woman’s face.
Then suddenly, she was out of the water. Her hair was wet and dripping; she was still wearing the dive suit. She walked a forest path. She’d shed the flippers she’d been wearing, and her feet were bare.
For a moment, it felt like she’d entered a cartoon. Little forest creatures were all around her. She could hear State Police Officer Harper as he spoke to them. The area around the reservoir was filled with animals—moose, foxes, deer, raccoons, panthers, bears...
A mountain lion walked next to her. He was a sandy color, large and sleek, and he looked up at her as he padded along by her side.
“It wasn’t the bear,” the panther said.
She spoke aloud in her dream.
“I am going crazy,” she told herself.
Syd Smith from Fall River was in her dream. He was seated on a log in front of her. Retired detective Charlie Oakley was on his one side while Detective Cole Magruder and Detective Robert Merton were on his other side.
“It could all be a distraction, misdirection,” Syd said.
“People take the easy way out,” Oakley agreed.
“If you’ve got a Satanist, what the hell, use him!” Syd said.
They didn’t see Vickie. She kept walking. She could hear her name being called; it had been called so many times before.
Then she saw the inverted cross in front of her.
A woman had been hung, upside down, upon the cross.
Vickie couldn’t see her face, or the color of her hair. Because of the blood.
“Vickie, please, I’m calling you! Look at me, look at me, please. You can’t change the past. You have to focus.”
She couldn’t see him! But she knew the voice! It was Alex...
Alex was alive.
The blonde woman was standing before her again. She was tiny, Vickie realized. Tiny and very pretty, and there was something about her...
“Vickie, help me.”
She could hear Alex’s voice.
“Vickie, Vickie, Vickie...”
The blonde stood before her; but there was still a body on the cross.
Blood was rising, as if the rivers and lakes everywhere were rising...
“No! Vickie, run. Stay away, run!”
12
“Nothing!” Barnes said, sounding disgusted. “I got nothing!”
Griffin had filled him in about their time at the Quabbin, Vickie’s discovery of the body and their conversation with Isaac Sherman. Barnes had promised to keep up with all the help he could give from Boston, but that what they needed to do was keep it open with Harper—who was state police.
“Sounds like you’re moving toward something out there at least. We’re sitting on a plateau here, so it seems. ‘Gloria’ is doing well enough as far as her health goes, though the doc says she might have done some damage to her organs that will kick back on her when she’s older. But as far as her memory...still nothing. I’ve asked him about bringing in a hypnotist, and he’s agreed, so probably tomorrow, we’ll do something in that direction. Oh, and as you asked, we’ve sent Officer Jim Tracy to Fall River.” He hesitated. “He asked Vickie’s friend, Roxanne, to accompany him. He believes she does an amazing job with portraits. She agreed to accompany him as a police consultant.”
“Okay,” Griffin said. “Well, let’s hope that they can put something together!”
“Let’s hope,” Barnes said. “If we get anything at all, we’ll let you know.”
“Thanks. We’ll attend the autopsy tomorrow. I believe we’ll discover that our victim’s throat was slit. I’m going to speak with your friend, Harper, about getting Brenda Noonan’s remains disinterred. They thought they were looking at a bear attack. Maybe a fresh look will help. Also, I’ll find Frank Sanderson. His daughter disappeared—and then called him and told him to leave her alone.”
“She over twenty-one?” Barnes asked.
“Twenty-three. She was a student at Clark when she came out here to see her dad—and then just didn’t make it back to school,” Griffin said.
“You think she’s dead, too?” Barnes asked.
“No.”
“No?”
“I think she’s in on it. I think that her calling her father helps prove that some people are missing because they choose to be missing. I don’t know what our mastermind behind the whole Satanist thing is doing, but he has a group somewhere out in the woods. And we’re going to find them.”
“Careful—you could have a whole suicide-pact thing going on out there,” Barnes said glumly.
“I know,” Griffin said.
But he was determined to save who he could.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said, and Barnes bid him good-night.
Griffin went back in the house, carefully locking the main door as he did so. He started for the stairs, and then he was aware that someone was standing in the shadows near the passageway between the dining room and the kitchen.
It was their hostess, Mrs. McFall.