“Bingo,” Jane said. “Going back to the Civil War. Sondra Burke’s great-great-grandfather, Albert Highsmith, was a Union colonel. He left behind a son, Richard Highsmith’s however-many-greats grandfather, and two daughters. One didn’t marry. The other married Augustus T. Burke. I’ve got a search going for other descendants, but it seems that the line died out. Other than Richard Highsmith—and Sondra Burke.”
“Thanks, Jane,” he told her. “I’m not sure how it’s going to help tonight—but I suspect it means something. I think it confirms that Andre’s descendants are being targeted. Keep checking. See if you can find any connection with anyone else.”
“How about Debbie Howell?” she asked.
“Maybe. Can’t hurt to look,” Aidan said. “But tonight...I’m afraid the killer was after J.J.”
“How’s it going there?”
“Nothing yet.”
“I’ll keep in touch,” she said, and the ended the call.
“Rollo isn’t interested in these vaults,” Mo told him. “Should we go up?”
“There’s a manageable slope we can get up right there,” Aidan said.
They trudged up the hill. Even with his flashlight and the golden cast of the moon, it was dark. Trees surrounded them. And, as if on cue, as if they were in some bizarre B-grade horror movie, a ground fog was rising, swirling around graves and headstones, cherubs and angels.
“There are more vaults in that area, against the next hill,” Aidan said. “Let’s walk Rollo around there.”
“The Bakker mausoleum is here,” Mo said. “Where Lizzie’s buried.”
He nodded. But he doubted Voorhaven and Debbie had been brought here; that would’ve been too obvious. It was also too easily accessible.
“We’re going to have Lizzie exhumed?” Mo asked.
“Yes. I think we have to,” he said.
“You don’t suppose it was just a place Wendy wanted to bring Richard? Where, perhaps, she meant to give him the gift of his past?”
“I had thought that, but...it’s too much of a coincidence that both Richard and Sondra are descendants of the same man—through an illegitimate birth. The child Lizzie had by Andre. And what scares me the most is that J. J. Appleby is now the last of the descendants.”
“But someone would have to know that. And how would they know—unless Richard or Wendy told them?”
“That’s why it had to be someone close,” he said.
His phone rang again and he paused to answer it. As he did, he called to Mo, asking her to wait; she and Rollo had walked on to a little hill farther into the graveyard. He watched her for a moment. She seemed to be a beautiful vision in the moonlight, her hair flowing behind her, whirling in the slight breeze that stirred the fog. Graves were all around her, and she stood by a large angel with folded wings that looked down at the earth and wept.
“It’s Jane,” Jane told him unnecessarily, since he knew the sound of her voice and had recognized her caller ID.
“I found something. Not sure if it means anything.”
“What?”
“Tommy Jensen—the owner of the Headless Horseman Hideaway Restaurant and Bar—has a black SUV. Will is on his way to Jensen’s residence now. He’ll check it out.”
Tommy Jensen?
Well, he’d lived in the area forever. And it would’ve been damned easy for him to get to the convention center, whisk away his victims and take them into a vault—a vault that was right across the street from his workplace.
He heard Rollo let out a bark, and he looked up; Mo and the dog were still standing on the little hillock that led toward more graves and more cliffs and vaults.
“Aidan, you there?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here. Jane, I know it’s late, but find someone who works there, at Tommy Jensen’s restaurant. Find out if he was at work last night or if he was out for any appreciable length of time.”
“I’m on it,” she said.
He put his cell away. “Mo?”
She wasn’t on the rise.
Panic instantly clouded his mind and swept through him.
“Mo!” he shouted. But she’d just been there. Seconds ago she’d been there!
He ran up the hill. “Rollo, Rollo! Here, boy!” No response from the dog.
He climbed to the top of the hill, certain that he’d see her there. Mo might’ve thought she’d discovered something. She might have walked a few steps ahead.
But she wasn’t there.
Fog puffed and twisted and turned at his feet.
The winged angel monument seemed to weep real tears.
And there was nothing else. No sight of Mo or the dog among the broken stones and crypts before him.
“Mo!” he shouted, and he began to run.
16
Mo opened her eyes. Her head hurt like hell.
For a moment, she was completely disoriented. She was in the dark, pitch-black dark. It took her time to remember. She’d been in the graveyard with Aidan and Rollo. They were looking for J.J., Debbie and Jimmy. Mo was sure that she’d screamed. She must have screamed!
Because one minute she’d been walking, following Rollo, and the next she was falling. It was as if the earth itself gave way beneath her feet.