Sixteen people attended the service at the Mattauk funeral home. Jo’s family was there. Nessa’s girls, Breanna and Jordan, took the train in for the day. The rest of the attendees were ladies from Nessa’s Bible study group. Even with tears in their eyes, several of them had a hard time pulling their gaze away from Franklin as the pastor delivered the sermon. Only Harriett had skipped the service. There was work to do at the cemetery, she’d informed them.
Wearing the same black dress she’d worn when she’d buried her parents, Nessa sat in the first pew and stared numbly at the coffin. A closed casket had been the only option. One look at the corpse, and the mortician had informed her there would be no way to camouflage the discoloration. Still, Nessa had spent an entire day shopping for a new dress in the right shade of blue, and she’d requested the girl’s makeup be done, though no one at the service would see it. Then she fixed the girl’s hair herself. When she was finished, she’d looked up to see the girl’s ghost watching her from the end of the mortician’s table.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she’d told the girl. She didn’t know what else to say. The ghost was still standing there when she left. When Nessa got home later that night, her sofa was empty. The ghost had chosen to stay with her body.
For two days, Nessa had felt grief pressing at the dam she’d built to hold back the tears so she could get things done. As the pastor began the Lord’s Prayer, the walls gave way and Nessa wept openly. The girl’s mother should have been there to see her off, but Nessa hadn’t been able to locate her. She’d failed her first test. Even her tears were proof that she didn’t deserve the gift she’d been granted.
“Mama.” Breanna slid her arm around Nessa and whispered in her ear. As always, she sensed the source of her mother’s pain. “That girl knows you did everything that you could. I’m sure she’s grateful.”
Nessa couldn’t find the breath to argue, so she shook her head. It didn’t feel true. She cried so hard that Franklin had to guide her out the door after the service. She kept crying in the passenger seat of Franklin’s car as they drove to the gravesite with her daughters sitting quietly in the back seat.
“Is it all right if I have a word with your mother?” Franklin asked the girls after he’d parked. “And if you don’t mind, ask the others to wait a few minutes till we get there.”
Blinded by tears, Nessa heard the doors open and shut. Then she felt Franklin take her hand. The fingers he wrapped around hers were warm.
“Hey,” he said. “This isn’t over.”
“It is,” Nessa sobbed. “Even her ghost is gone. She hasn’t come back since I did her hair. She’s given up on me, Franklin. She knows I can’t help her.”
Franklin didn’t rush his response. He sat back and seemed to think it through.
“You did the girl’s hair at the funeral home?” he asked.
“Of course I did!” Nessa had to stop to blow her nose. “I couldn’t let her meet Jesus looking like some old white man did her hair.”
“Did you ever consider maybe that was all the proof she needed?” Franklin asked. “I think it showed her how much you care. She trusts you to take it the rest of the way.”
Nessa looked over to make sure he was serious, though she’d never known him to be anything but. She’d worked around sick people long enough to tell the difference between words intended to make you feel better—and words meant to convey the truth. Franklin wasn’t just pumping sunshine. Whether he was right or not, he meant what he said. “You think?” she asked.
“I really do,” he said.
Nessa sniffled. “But what am I going to do now that she’s in the ground and the case is closed? How am I supposed to find the person who killed her?”
“Did you gather DNA at the funeral home like you said you would?” Franklin asked.
She shot him a wary glance before she answered. “Yes,” she admitted. He hadn’t approved when she’d mentioned her plan, but she’d taken a few strands of the girl’s hair, anyway.
“And I suppose you’ve still got Laverne Green’s coffee cup?”
She nodded. “In a plastic bag on my kitchen counter.”
“Okay,” Franklin said. “After the funeral, let’s get the hair and the cup to a lab. The first thing we’ll need to do is prove that the two women aren’t related.”
“Are you saying you believe me now?”
“Yes,” Franklin said, letting the word drop as if he knew exactly how much it weighed. “I sent Laverne Green an invite to the funeral like you asked me to. I even offered to drive into the city to pick her up. I never heard back from her.”
“That’s because she was lying.”
“If so, the test will confirm it.”
“Are you going to get in trouble for doing all of this?” Nessa asked. “The case is supposed to be closed.”
He could get in trouble—she saw it in his eyes. Franklin wasn’t a renegade. He was patient, methodical, strictly by the book. He believed in process. He believed in the law. And yet she knew what he was about to say. He was going to throw all that out the window for her.
“You told me the girl was murdered, and that there are two other girls out there whose bodies haven’t been discovered. I believe you, and I want to catch the man responsible before he kills anyone else. If that gets me in trouble, so be it.”
It was exactly what she’d expected from him. Nessa looked down at their hands, still woven together.
“God gave you a gift, Nessa,” Franklin said. “Now he’s brought us together twice. I think it’s pretty clear that I’m supposed to help you. I think that’s what I was sent to do.”
Franklin wiped a tear from her cheek with his free hand. Then he leaned over and kissed her. It wasn’t hurried or anxious like the kiss Nessa had given him. Franklin wasn’t conflicted. He knew what he wanted, and Nessa got the feeling he’d wanted it for a very long time.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back. “This is neither the time nor the place.”
“I don’t think you’re sorry,” Nessa told him.
Franklin smiled. “You’re right. I’m not.”
He leaned back in toward Nessa, and this time she met him halfway. She thought of the spark Harriett had said was inside her. She’d taken it for a metaphor, but now she wasn’t so sure. Something inside her felt like it was burning bright.
The kiss lasted only a few seconds. Then Franklin was out of his seat and walking around the car to open her door. She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm. As they walked side by side across the graveyard, she was still glowing. Once, she might have felt guilty to feel so alive with the dead all around her. Now she knew she’d need that light for the darkness ahead.