The Buried (The Apostles) (3 page)

The hybrid was locked. No obvious damage, but between the front tires, Grace spotted something white and knobby, like one of Allegheny Blue’s bones. She dropped to her knees, gravel digging into her shins, and pulled out a white purse. Sitting on the backs of her heels, she dug out a wallet with a driver’s license and held it up to her car’s headlight beam. Blunt bangs and a toothy grin with a slight overbite. Grace ran a trembling finger over the name.

Lia Marie Grant.

“Get prints off each door, the steering wheel, and passenger seat,” Grace told the evidence tech from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. “Also, get some more lights out here. There’s blood on the asphalt we need to get typed.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The tech rushed to his van.

“My people know how to do their jobs,
counselor.
”

Grace spun and found Lieutenant Isabel Lang, the head of the FCSO’s Criminal Division, standing behind her with her arms crossed. Grace wasn’t a law enforcement officer, but thanks to the personal invitation from Lia Grant, she was on the hunt. “This is a priority case, lieutenant. We have a young woman missing and probably endangered.”

Lieutenant Lang slipped her phone from the holster at her belt. “Which is why I’m taking the lead.”

Excellent. The lieutenant had been with the department only a year, but Grace had worked with her on two cases. Lang had been rock solid, both in the field and on the stand.

Surround yourself with the best, and you’ll become the best
. Daddy.

“You know this girl?” Lieutenant Lang asked as she scrolled through notes on her phone.

Grace had wracked her brain, recalling names at work, in the news, even at her former racquet club. “Never heard of her. She called me by name, but she could have gotten that off my voicemail. No connections that I know of.”

“I’ll have the boys hunt down the girl’s family and friends and get a search crew on Cypress Point. I want you to forward me her phone messages. Then I want you at home with doors locked.”

“I’ll be more use to you in the field. I know that area better than most of your men.”

“All well and fine, but you’re my only link to this girl. I need you safe and ready to answer your phone if she calls again.”

Grace gave a single nod. No time for counter arguments. And no worries about missing any calls. She had excellent coverage throughout Cypress Point. She pushed slow-moving Blue onto the passenger side seat and turned to the darkened swamp. “Keep breathing, Lia. Keep breathing.”

G
race nosed her car to the edge of a bayou spiked with branches that reminded her of bony fingers clawing out of the water. Lifting the binoculars from her chest, she searched the shore for the tip of a wooden box, disturbed earth, footprints, any sign of Lia Grant. Next to her in the passenger seat Blue lifted his head. His nose twitched.

“Must be bacon out there.” The dog—allegedly one of the best hunting hounds in the Southeast—had been snoring like an airboat at full throttle for the past hour.

His ears perked, and he jumped to his feet, aiming a low growl out the driver’s side window. She followed his gaze, squinting through spirals of fog to a stand of shivering shrubs. She tapped her brakes. The headlights flickered. “Don’t you even think about dying on me,” she warned her car.

The dog leaned across her, his growl deepening. The shrubs shook. Leaves tumbled to the earth.  Blue bared his teeth. His body convulsed.

“Take it easy, old man.” She dug her fingers into the folds of his neck and scrubbed. “I can’t handle you
and
the car dying on me out here.”

Blue stretched his neck and let loose a long, low bellow. A branch snapped, and a dark, lean shape darted on two legs from the shrub toward a stand of pines. She shoved aside Blue to get a better look. The moon glinted off a piece of shiny metal. A belt buckle? The blade of a shovel? Her heart hammered the pearls dangling from her neck.

Blue planted his front paws in her lap and leaped out the window, a narrow missile of muscle and gnashing teeth. He bayed, the rumble rattling the night, as he chased the shadowy figure up a tree. Grace jammed the car in reverse and aimed the fading headlights at the stand of pines. The lights flashed off the silver.

She banged her fists on the steering wheel. “Congratulations, Blue. You just busted a garbage-loving bear for possession of a can of baked beans.” Grace shoved open the door and slogged through decaying leaves and twigs to the pines. She grabbed the dog by the collar. His tail thumped her leg. “Glad one of us had fun.”

She dragged him toward her car when a shrill noise cut the night. Bull frogs and crickets silenced. The bear stopped rooting in the can.

“Was that a pho—”

Rrrrrring!

The back of her neck prickled. Blue growled. She spun toward the ringing sound, which came from an ancient cypress tree with buttress roots the size of her shack. “Who’s there?” Grace demanded.

Rrrrrring!

Every muscle in her legs tightened. “Lia? Is that you?” Someone could be calling the young woman’s phone, which meant the girl and the box that held her could be nearby, just inches below her feet. Grace ran toward the tree. “Lia! It’s Grace. I’m here to help. If you can’t talk, make some kind of noise.”

Grace tucked back the sides of her hair, praying for a bang or clatter or even a whisper of breath. Blue stood at her side, his head jerking from side to side as he sniffed the air.

Rrrrrring!

Grace and Blue jumped in tandem. This time the sound came from behind them.

“What the—” Grace turned and squinted.

Rrrrrring!

Dampness slicked her palms. The sound came from a group of saw palmettos thirty feet up the bayou. Was it a searcher? Someone out frog gigging or poaching game?

She wiped her palms on the front of her trousers. “I’m with the Franklin County State Attorney’s office. Indentify yourself.” Grace’s words were steady, her tone calm but commanding.
Never show your fear
. More solid advice from her daddy.

Every sense on overdrive, she waited. Blue jabbed his nose in the air, here and there and everywhere, like he was searching but couldn’t find a scent.

Seconds ticked. She scoured the area for shifting fronds, listened for slurping mud. A minute dragged by. Two.

Rrrrring!

The ringtone shot up her spine like a ramrod. Blue yelped at the sound, now coming from a tangle of bushes behind her.

Rrrrrring!

Enough of this twisted version of phone tag. She ran to her car, grabbed her phone from the dash, and punched in Lieutenant Lang’s direct number. “Get your people on the Gilbert Bayou road, third turnoff, ASAP,” Grace said. “I found something.” Keeping her eyes on the tangle of bushes, she inched to the back of her car and squatted near the trunk, the bayou eerily silent.

The silence was wrong. Death and decay filled the bayou, but it was still a living, breathing world of creatures of the land and sea and air. She should be hearing
something
.

Next to her, Blue’s nose stilled, and his ears perked.

Then came the words, soft and at the back of her neck. “Quiet as a cat. Into the black.”

Grace spun. The bayou spilled out behind her, puddles of blue and black ink. She squinted through swirls of steam but saw no one.

“Try over here.” Wiregrass stabbed at Grace’s ankles as she poked her way along the shore to the saw palmettos.

Lieutenant Lang swept the high-powered spotlight across the slick mud and rotting leaves. “No footprints, no flattened grass, no broken branches.” Which had been the pronouncement for the past fifteen minutes, ever since Lieutenant Lang and two deputies had arrived in search of a fast-moving phone.

Grace studied the blue-black bayou. “Then he must have been on the water.”

Lieutenant Lang swept the light in a low, slow arc, illuminating bony turtle heads and flesh-colored salamanders. “No signs of a boat docking. So how did he get to your car and behind the Cypress tree? This isn’t making sense.”

No, nothing about this evening was making sense.

Quiet as a cat. Into the black.

What did those words mean, and how was the person with the phone moving through the area without leaving a trace? More importantly, did any of it have anything to do with Lia Grant?

“Hey!” A deputy near the ancient cypress tree waved both arms. “Found some freshly broken branches over here. Bring the big light.”

Grace and the lieutenant ran to his side, the beam slicing at the inky shadows before landing on the ground in front of the deputy. He swatted at loose leaves near the buttress roots.

Grace dropped to a squat. “A big cat,” she said on a rush of deflated air.

Lieutenant Lang pushed a handful of springy curls from her face. “Grace, it’s possible a big cat made that sound. This section of the Point is full of them.”

“It was a phone,” Grace insisted.

“Or a wild hog.”

“It was a phone.”

“Or a bird or insect.”

Grace slipped her hands behind her back and locked her fingers. “Fine. Let’s call the sound an act of nature, but what about the voice?”
Quick as a cat. Into the black.
“An animal or the wind didn’t say those words.”

Lieutenant Lang swept the spotlight across the clearing. “Then where’s the trace evidence? The footprints? The tire tracks?
Any
sign that a human has recently walked through this area? You’re a prosecutor. You know the importance of evidence.”

“You want to talk evidence? We have Lia’s phone calls to me, the abandoned purse and car, and the call data report showing Lia’s calls came off the Cypress Point cell tower. Except for this”—Grace jabbed her hand at the spot where she’d heard the voice—“no one has seen or heard anything unusual on the Point tonight. What else do we have?”

Lieutenant Lang paused a moment before nodding to the deputy. “Get some more lights on this place, and I’ll get a man on the water. The person out here may or may not be Lia’s abductor, but he may have seen something.” She turned to Grace. “And you, counselor, get home and rest. I have every available uniform searching for this girl.”

Grace shook her head. Not until she heard for herself Lia Grant breathing. “I’m fine.”

“Yes, counselor, we’re aware of your superhuman abilities, but your dog could use a rest.”

“He’s not my dog.” Grace glared at the dog then groaned. He sat at her side, his front right paw lifted off the ground. She inspected his foot. He hadn’t torn off the pad, but he’d split it open.

Back at the shack, Allegheny Blue struggled up the porch steps, plopped onto his side, and closed his eyes. With a sigh, she sunk onto the swing and kicked off her sling backs, now caked with swamp mud and decayed leaves. She’d been in such a hurry to search for Lia, she hadn’t changed out of her suit. After a little rest, she’d change clothes and grab something to eat. The sun would be up in a few hours.

She scrubbed at the ache in her neck. This wouldn’t be the first all-nighter she’d logged in this week. Thanks to Morehouse, she already had clocked in two sleepless nights. She pushed off, and the swing’s gray, weathered wood creaked like an old man’s bones. Grace found comfort in the rattles and squeaks. In a psych class in college, she’d learned repetitive motions such as swaying or swinging released endorphins, which sent little shots of happy through a person’s body. She tucked her legs under her and rested her head on the back of the swing.

When she was young, her daddy had hung a tire swing from a sturdy branch in the giant oak that stretched across most of the front yard of Gator Slide, her childhood home. With no brothers or sisters and few children in the upscale neighborhood, Grace usually played on the swing alone, and on good days, with her mother.

“Hey, Momma, give me a giant push,” Grace remembered calling to her mother one evening as she swung from the arms of the giant oak.

Momma left the porch step where she’d been waiting for Daddy to come home from work. “Have you been a good girl today?” Momma asked with a big smile.

“The bestest!” Gracie said.

Momma grabbed the rope swing, dropped a kiss on Gracie’s head, and pushed with all of her might.

“Wheeeee!” Gracie flew through the air, her ponytails flying behind her. “Higher. Push me higher!”

“You’re already so high, Gracie, you can almost touch the stars.”

“To the stars! Push me to the stars!”

“And what will you do when you reach them?” Momma asked around a laugh.

Gracie scrunched her face in deep concentration. Then she let out a happy squeal. “I shall pluck them from the sky and make a bright, shiny necklace for you, so you’ll never be afraid of the dark again.”

Her mother’s smile slipped away. She clutched the rope, drawing Gracie to her chest as she darted a glance over each shoulder. “They’re everywhere, Gracie. The bad people are on the streets, in our neighborhood, beneath our home.” Her mother’s delicate fingers clawed into Gracie’s shoulders. “They’re watching me, following me, touching me while I sleep. Make them go away, please, please make them go away.”

Early on, Gracie learned it was the things unseen—the shapes shifting in the shadows and monsters under the bed—that scared Momma. She hopped off the swing, took Momma’s hand, and turned on the porch lights, the light over the garage, and the bright tennis court lights. She settled both hands on Momma’s cheeks. “The bad people aren’t here, Momma, not tonight. It’s just me, and I’ll protect you.”

With Momma smiling again, they ran back to the giant oak. When they reached the tire swing, Gracie balled her hands on her hips. “Someone broke my swing!” One frayed end of the rope dangled from the tree while the other was curled like a water moccasin on the ground next to the tire.

“Probably those Dickens boys two streets over. Little heathens.” Momma patted Gracie’s head. “But don’t worry, Gracie, Daddy can fix it.”

Gracie rolled her eyes at Momma’s silliness. “I don’t need any help, Momma. I can do it myself.” With a huff, Gracie headed for the garage and a new rope.

That’s when she heard a soft voice say, “Quiet as a cat. Into the black.”

Something hard and heavy and foul-smelling slammed onto Grace’s chest. Her nose wrinkled. Dog.
Wet
dog.

Her eyelids flew open and she pushed Allegheny Blue off her chest. Beneath her, the porch swing lurched. She blinked. The sun had peeked over the horizon and early morning rays glinted off Blue’s sopping fur and the pool of water seeping across her porch.

“Nooooo!” Darting from the swing, she fished out her key and threw open the door. A wave of water rolled over her ankles. She splashed her way to the kitchen where water shot from one of the exposed pipes running up her kitchen wall. She grabbed the wrench on the windowsill and cranked the valve underneath the sink. The geyser tapered to a trickle and finally stopped, but the damage was done.

The plumber had warned her the first time that she needed to have the plastic pipe replaced with copper tubing, but she didn’t have the money for new plumbing. Hell, she didn’t have two spare copper pennies to rub together.

She squeezed the water out of her hair. This morning was not starting out well, but then again—she ran a flattened palm down the back of her neck—last night hadn’t ended well.

Quick as a cat. Into the black.

She’d heard those strange words after hearing the ringing phone in the swamp. Then they invaded her dreams. She grabbed a dishtowel and swabbed the water from her face and hands. Dreams. Not reality. The conversation with her mother on the tire swing and the broken rope had been real, but she didn’t remember anyone whispering anything about a cat and black.

She dropped the towel onto Blue and toweled his head and neck. This whole thing with Lia Grant was getting to her. She scrubbed his chest and back and all four legs. Which meant she needed to get back on the hunt.

Within twenty minutes, Grace fed Blue and got him settled on the front porch, set up fans to air out the shack, and put in a call to the sheriff’s station. Still no sign of Lia Grant.

“Keep breathing, Lia. Keep breathing.”

Her car started on the second crank. Just past the myrtles, she spotted a bright yellow truck with a grading blade and a tractor with a ditch digging arm. Construction equipment, AKA dream builders. Thanks to Lia, Grace had forgotten construction on her new home began today. But the dream would have to wait, because right now, Lia Grant could be living a nightmare. Emphasis on
living
. Lia said the box wasn’t air tight, and Grace envisioned streams of air snaking through the seams and keeping her alive.