Logan had never been Jeremy’s favorite airport, but for once his connection had not only run smoothly, but his flight had also actually arrived ten minutes early, and it was almost as if someone had unloaded the baggage and gotten it onto the belt ahead of them. His gold card accessed his reservation without a hitch at the rental agency, and he was waiting when Rowenna called to say she and her luggage were ready to go.
Her directions were perfect, and they arrived in Salem with enough time before the meeting he’d set up with Brad that he offered to take her all the way home, but she assured him that Joe would give her a ride later. Instead, she offered to give him a quick walking tour of the central tourist area.
He wanted to see the cemetery, and after pointing out a few of the more important weathered graves, she let him wander by himself.
The cemetery stood right in the middle of the tourist track. There were a few museums nearby, and just across the street was a pedestrian mall.
But despite the modern-day surroundings, he found that the cemetery itself felt intriguingly authentic.
There was something about the place, something about the old stones, that was poignant and haunting. He tuned out the mothers chasing toddlers, the fathers reminding their children to respect the dead. He could vaguely hear a guide droning on in the background, clearly eager to finish his speech and move on. Jeremy didn’t blame him. Darkness came early this time of year, and it was no doubt time to call it quits and get away from a place with such eerie associations.
Especially now.
Dusk was definitely coming.
To say that it was simply falling would be a misnomer. It seemed to be curling in from both ground and sky, a silvery mist sweeping in around the old tombstones.
When he had first landed, it had been a beautiful fall New England day. The colors had been spectacular. Trees seemed to drip with oranges and golds in a mystic beauty that was like a siren’s call, fascinating and sensual. And yet they were also a promise of the winter to come, when everything would be blanketed in bone-chilling cold.
Jeremy stood by the stone where Mary’s phone and purse had been found and pictured what Halloween must have been like here, the ancient mingling with the new as children decked out as fairies or monsters moved along the streets. Most of the adults would have been in full costume, as well. But Halloween was over now, and the tempo and mood had changed just as the seasons did. Every season was celebrated here, not just summer to fall, but the more subtle nuances of Halloween to Thanksgiving—although, like everywhere else, Christmas was already making its presence felt. However, at least the shops here seemed to acknowledge that there was still a Thanksgiving holiday between Halloween and Christmas.
Pumpkins and pilgrims decorated store windows, along with horns of plenty, and scenes of the Native Americans and the settlers, sitting down to the original Thanksgiving feast. On the farms nearby, it was a time of reaping.
How the hell could anyone just disappear from plain sight in a city so full of tourists?
How had Mary been whisked away, given the teeming crowd that must have been everywhere on Halloween? Admittedly, the day had been darkening, the lights of the commercial district unable to penetrate fully into the cemetery, where night created a realm of shadows.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Rowenna called to him.
“It’s a graveyard,” he said.
“I mean fall. The colors…”
He looked over to see her standing amid the stones. She bent down and scooped up an armful of fallen leaves, then straightened and let them scatter around her. She might have been a pagan goddess standing there, her face lifted in delight, the leaves falling all around her, the waves of her pitch-black hair cascading down over the velvet cloak she was wearing. He could imagine her as a statue, raised to celebrate the advent of autumn, although he wondered if any artist could catch the enthusiasm with which she embraced life.
He was surprised when he felt a sudden twinge of unease, as if he were afraid for her.
Afraid for her? Why?
He was just worried in general, he decided. A woman—a friend—had disappeared from right where he stood, and she still hadn’t been found. And yet, watching Rowenna now, he was startled by the depth of feeling that rose in him.
Then again, a lot of things had surprised him since he’d met Rowenna.