The Buried (The Apostles) (30 page)

Not really. The horrors of JoBeth’s childhood still held her prisoner. Her half-sister had escaped the dark, tiny rooms under the big house, but not the horrors of her mind. Could anyone go through what she went through and live a normal life? If that had been Grace hidden in the basement, deprived of sunlight and friends and an education, how would she have turned out? Would she have let the hate fester and eat away at her sanity?

JoBeth aimed the gun at Grace’s stomach. “Game over.”

Her gut tightened. “You’ve overcome so many obstacles,” Grace said. “It’s amazing, JoBeth, what you came from and where you’re at now. How did you do it? How did you manage to beat me? No one has. Not at work, not on the courts. Only you.”

JoBeth preened under the praise. “Quiet as a cat. Into the black. It’s a game Mom taught me on the nights I got out of the basement. I can move without anyone seeing me. And of course I have good reflexes and hand-eye coordination, and I’m a damn good shot. Video games aren’t all that bad.”

“And Lia and Janis and Linc?” People, not pawns in a game. JoBeth didn’t seem to get they were living, breathing human beings. “They never saw you?”

“The first two levels, easy-peasy. But Level Three was a little tougher. That pawn was small and fast, the only one to slip away from me at first. Yaaaay for Team Small.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?”

JoBeth shrugged, the gun rising and falling in a jerky bounce. “Probably. The culvert where he’s at has a steady flow of water, and when I did my calculations I figured he’d have about six hours. Of course that last hour would be pretty uncomfortable.”

“The culvert. The one by the dwarf cypress forest. Good choice.”

“Not that one. The one near Trout Creek.” JoBeth blinked, then laughed. “Excellent move, Gracie. You got Linc’s location from me. Too bad you won’t be able to tell anyone about it.”

H
atch curled his hand in a fist and banged on Paul Crismon’s door.

A jay screeched at him from a sycamore.

He continued to bang as Hayden backed the car out of the drive and took off to search the neighborhood for signs of the muddy white truck. Hatch stopped banging and stretched his fingers. A groan ripped the air to his right.

“Mr. Crismon!” Hatch called.

Another groan. Hatch ran along the front of the house to the side where the grass dipped into a reed-choked gully. “Mr. Crismon!”

The reeds rustled. A hand lifted, then a golden mop of hair.

“Alex!” With a single leap, Hatch landed in the gully and scooped up his son.

The boy screamed and grabbed his right leg.

“You’re hurt. What happened? Where’s Grace?”

“Put me down.” Alex pushed at Hatch’s chest, but Hatch held tight to the fighting boy.

“I’m getting you to a doctor.”

“Later. First you need to—”

“No. That leg needs more than a few stitches.”

“Shut up, Dad, and listen to me!”

The words roped around Hatch’s feet, and he stumbled to a stop. This was no angry boy; this was a terrified boy. Hatch released his grip, and Alex slid to the ground and stood on one foot.

Alex grabbed the front of Hatch’s shirt with two hands and brought his nose to within one inch of Hatch’s. “Grace is at Gator Slide with her sister, JoBeth. JoBeth has a gun. She killed some guy and Allegheny Blue, and now she’s going to kill Grace. She’s a good shot and can see really good in the dark. I haven’t heard a shot yet. There’s a creepy bunker under the garage. She might take Grace there. Or…or…” The tension left Alex’s fingers as a sob shook his entire body.

Hatch settled him against the giant sycamore tree. “Here’s my phone. Call Hayden, tell him what you told me.”

“And you?” Alex’s chin trembled.

Hatch settled his hand on Alex’s good leg. Like when he’d first met Alex, Hatch couldn’t bullshit his son. “I’m leaving you here and going to help Grace.”

“So who’s the dead guy?” Grace asked. Alex had been gone at least fifteen minutes, plenty of time to get to the Crismon house and a phone. Grace nibbled at her bottom lip. He’d been limping, but he was a strong kid, tough enough to get a cut stitched up without a painkiller.

“Kentucky cop,” JoBeth said. “Smart one, too.”

The man hadn’t moved. His face lay in a pool of blood. She searched for frothy bubbles, for the faint stirring of that liquid. None.

“If he’s so smart,” Grace said, “how did he end up dead in the entryway?”

“Mr. Smarty-Pants Detective Holt figured out I killed dear old Oliver and Emmaline and tossed them in the holler.”

Grace bit so hard into her bottom lip that blood spurted into her mouth. “You killed the Lassens?”

“Definitely not part of The Game. But they decided to come to Gator Slide a month early. They loved this place that much. Good thing they sent the phone guy out to hook up the phone at a time when I was just getting things started. Didn’t take me long to track them down and put a little end to their journey.”

Hatch crouched at the back door of Gator Slide. Leaves crunched and he spun.

“Lieutenant’s got a tactical team and a sniper on the way,” Hayden said as he slipped out his service revolver.

“No time. Grace and JoBeth are in the front living room. There are two points of entry: back door and side door into the garage. I’ll take the back. You take the garage. Whoever has the best line of sight shoots.”

“You going to try to talk her down?” Hayden asked.

Hatch rarely pulled a gun while on the job. By choice. Not by chance. He preferred resolution through words, not violent means. “Shoot to kill.”

Hayden slipped around the house.

Hatch took off his shoes and slipped through the door into the kitchen. Shades of gray draped the house, but he’d been in here a handful of times when he and Grace were married and he remembered the floor plan. After letting his eyes adjust, he crouched and slid through the shadows toward the voices in the entryway.

“How did Detective Holt track you down?” Grace’s voice. Calm. Cool. Classic Grace. God, he loved this woman.

“No idea. He must have some cop superpowers.” The speaker giggled. Soft and high-pitched, almost maniacal.

He reached the living room and ducked behind a tower of boxes. He couldn’t see the entryway yet, but he could smell it. Blood and fear. He dropped to the floor and slid on his stomach to a long, bulky piece of furniture draped in a sheet. Keeping his face on the floor he could make out the dead man’s face and two sets of feet—one bare, the other outfitted in a pair of blue silk pumps.

Hatch lifted his gun. He couldn’t get the right angle from here. Had Hayden found a better angle? Probably not. His teammate would need to come down a long, empty hall. Damn.

“You know, Gracie, these sisterly chats are about twenty years too late.”

“No they’re not. It’s never too late.” Passion, not desperation or fear, edged Grace’s words. “I can help you.”

JoBeth’s nostrils flared. “I don’t need your help! I don’t need anyone’s help! Do you hear me? I’m fine on my own!”

“No, JoBeth, you’re not. You can have more. You deserve more.” Grace’s words were the same ones she’d thrown at him. True then and now. “Let me be your sister. Let me love you.”

“Love me? You don’t even know me.”

“Give me time.”

“Time? Can’t do that. The game clock’s run out.” She lifted her arm.

“They know who you are, JoBeth.” Grace’s words rushed out in a burst of clear panic. “They know where you live. You can’t go back to your old life.”

“And you think that’s a problem for someone like me?” JoBeth spat the words. “God, you’re stupid, and I’m done with this conversation.” Her gun hand swung forward.

“Wait!” Grace cried on a sob. She pushed her hair back from her face and frantically searched the room. For a weapon? A distraction? Divine intervention? Hatch could see she wasn’t going down without a fight.

He reached into his pocket, his fingers wrapping around the linking rings. He palmed them, the metal clinking.

Grace froze.

JoBeth hadn’t heard the soft clinks, or if she had, she paid them no heed. “Gracie, The Game is over, and I want to get out of this place.”

Grace slid her hands along her thighs. “I know. You won. You’re done. After…after you get where you need to go, can you get word to a friend of mine? His name’s Theodore Hatcher.”

“Come on, Gracie. I’m not stupid, and I’m not going to contact an FBI agent.”

“No. In this case he’s not an FBI agent, but the man I love. Leave a note on his windshield or call him on a non-traceable prepaid phone. Just please let Hatch know I don’t want to be buried in the cemetery next to my father.” Her voice broke. “Can…can you ask him to take my ashes and take me out on
No Regrets
and…and spread them on the ocean?”

No. As long as he had breath in his body, there was no way that was going to happen.

Still on his stomach, Hatch crawled to another tower of boxes. He peeked around the corner. Damn! Grace stood with her back to him, directly in his target line. JoBeth, with her wild hair and wild eyes, stood still.

As he got to his knees, two wide eyes landed on him. The man on the floor blinked three times.

Holy hell, the man was alive.

Hatch mouthed,
One, two, three…

“Hey, Asswipe.” The bloody man raised his hand and waggled his fingers.

JoBeth spun toward the downed man. Grace dove at a stack of boxes. Hatch shot.

JoBeth’s mouth twisted in a silent scream, her upper body jerked, and her curls flew out from her head, like a gruesome clown. She crumpled to the floor.

Hayden rushed around the corner, kicked the gun from her hand, and dropped to his knees next to the man. Hatch ran to Grace, who was scrambling up from a jumble of boxes. The front of her shirt was soaked in blood, the pearls missing from her neck. “Are you okay? Did she shoot you? Where—”

Grace pushed his hands away. “Your phone. Where’s your phone?”

“You’re bleeding, Grace. Have you been shot?”

She jammed her hand into his pocket. “Where the hell is your phone?”

“I gave it to Alex to call Hayden.”

“Well, find another phone and call Jon MacGregor. I know where he can find Linc.”

D
aisies, Grace.” Detective Tucker Holt clenched Grace’s hand as a pair of surgical attendants wheeled him down the hall. “Hannah’s favorite flowers are daisies.”

“You bet, a dozen daisies. I’ll order them as soon as you let go of my hand.”

“Yellow ones to…”

“…match her yellow bumblebee tutu,” Grace added. “Got it, Tuck. Hannah’s flowers will be at the Center for the Arts by seven tonight and will include a note that reads,
Love Dad
.”

“Yeah…love dad. That’s what it needs to read.” His hands climbed higher up her arm. Grace was surprised he had such a tight grip. He’d lost so much blood. He should be weak. “And the kids’ mom, Mara, you got in touch with her, explained things so she can tell Hannah I really want to be at the dance recital, but I can’t, right?”

“Mara understands but is going to wait to tell the kids until after the surgery. That way she’ll be able to tell them things went great and Daddy will be home soon.”

“Home. Soon. Yeah, that sounds good.”

They reached a set of double doors. “I’m sorry, Detective Holt, but you’ll need to say good-bye,” one of the attendants said. “The doctors are ready for you.”

Grace patted his hand. “Everything’s going to go fine.”

“Yeah, good thing I got a tough gut.” He patted his stomach then winced. “Doc said me and Jackson will be out on the lake fishing in less than two weeks.”

She’d said it before, but she needed to say it again. “Thanks, Tucker. You’re a good cop, and you saved more than my life today.”

He winked as the cart wheeled through the doors of the operating room. “Hey Grace,” he called as he lifted himself on one elbow and looked over his shoulder.

“Yeah, Tuck?”

“Good guys: One. Asswipes: Zero.”

Grace stopped at a doorway to the sunny room on the second floor of the hospital and leaned her shoulder against the doorframe.

“…and then
snap
, my leg busts,” Alex was saying to the twin boys sitting on the end of his hospital bed and eating banana popsicles. “I mean it’s useless, and I’m pretty sure at this point the doctors will have to amputate.”

“Amputate,” Ricky and Raymond said in unison.

“But I keep going. I know Grace needs me. The detective needs me. But most of all, Linc needs me.” Alex pointed a Popsicle at a freckle-faced boy in a hospital gown, an IV in his arm and his feet propped on a rung on the IV stand. “He’s trapped in a plastic box with the water rising to his neck. It’s only minutes before he drowns. You got that? Minutes.”

The twins’ eyes grew wide. “Minutes.”

“At that point, I know I have to find a way to get to my dad. Even if it kills me. So I drop to the ground and I crawl on my hands and knees. The Gravedigger spots me, aims, and fires.” He patted the bandage on his right arm. “But I can’t stay down because she’s got Grace and is choking her with her own pearls.”

“Pearls.” The twins edged closer together.

“I dig deep, finding that last burst of strength and drag myself on my elbows through reeds and mud and deadly plants.” Alex held up his right arm, swollen with angry welts.

“Deadly plants,” the twins echoed.

Grace smiled. Alex had been lucky. He’d walked away from JoBeth Poole with only a sprained ankle, a flesh wound on his upper arm, and an armful of welts from a close encounter with poison sumac. But the horrific experience was going to make for a great story the rest of his life. The boy had been brave and resourceful and just bad enough to be good.

Alex finally spotted her and waved. “Come on in, Grace. The nurse brought us a load of Popsicles. They’re all worried about Linc getting his electrolytes back up. We got one more left.”

“Ain’t got none for me?” A tall boy with black hair and a big grin bounded into the room and grabbed the Popsicle.

“Gabe!” Alex and Linc called out.

“Where the hell have you been, pal?” Alex asked. “You missed all the action.”

Alex took the Popsicle from Gabe and offered it to Grace, who waved it off. “I’ll take a rain check,” she said. “I just got a text from Hatch. He wrapped up his report at the sheriff’s station and is on his way.”

“Okay,” Gabe said as he ripped off the Popsicle wrapper and sat on the windowsill. “Now start from the beginning, Alex. I want to hear the whole story.”

The power of a good story, Grace couldn’t help but think as she left Alex’s room. Hatch was a masterful storyteller, and it looked like his son had the talent, too. She knew things weren’t going to be smooth sailing with Hatch and Alex. They were too much alike, but Grace had no problem being a buffer or a soft place to land when they took swipes at each other.

On a puff of antiseptic air, Grace left the medical center and scanned the steps where Hatch was supposed to be waiting. No blond head, but she knew he hadn’t left town. That was the old Hatch.

She found him at the bottom of the steps sitting next to a gray-haired woman in a wheelchair. A plastic hospital bag rested on her lap. He reached behind the woman’s ear and pulled out a hibiscus bloom. He bowed and held it out to her. She giggled, took the flower in her veiny hand, and kissed his cheek.

A red minivan pulled up to the curb, and a man got out and helped the woman inside. Hatch stood waving until the van disappeared. The fading sun dipped in and out of his hair, creating rolling waves of gold. She couldn’t imagine a life without that golden hair and those eyes like a summer sky.

As she’d faced the end of JoBeth’s gun, she knew she’d take Hatch for ten minutes, an hour, a year, or two. He might not be willing to offer her forever, but she’d take whatever he’d give her because although she wanted a family and a job fighting bad, she
needed
Hatch.

Her feet barely touched concrete as she raced down the steps and slipped her hands around his neck. “Despite the day we’ve been through,” Grace said, “you’re still charming the lipstick off the ladies.”

Hatch spun and took her in his arms. “
Because
of the day we’ve been though, I’d appreciate a bit of lipstick from you.”

Without a second thought she lifted her hands to Hatch’s neck and pulled his head toward hers. Their tongues and breath tangled long enough to take off most of Grace’s lipstick, and it felt wonderful.

“Everything go okay?” Grace asked when they finally came up for air.

“Lieutenant Lang is filing the last of the paperwork, and Lou Poole is making arrangements with Black Jack to have JoBeth’s body, along with CoraBeth’s and Skye’s remains, buried near a set of tupelo trees on her property.”

“The bees okay with that?” Grace asked with a hint of jest.

“Lou said it was the bees’ idea.”

Who was Grace to question Lou Poole’s version of normal? Normal was what one lived and breathed day after day. Slipping her hand into Hatch’s, they walked through the approaching dusk to the SUV, and within fifteen minutes they were seated on the bow of
No Regrets
watching the sunset.

“You okay?” Hatch asked.

“Tired. A little sore around the neck.” She slipped her finger across the bruises circling her throat. “But relieved. I’m so glad it’s over.”

“Your eyes look a little red.”

Grace bit into her bottom lip, focusing on the pain and forcing back another flood of tears. “I cried for two hours, Hatch. Two. Stupid. Hours.”

Hatch raised his longneck in the air. “He was a good dog.”

“He drooled and he dug and he followed me everywhere.” Grace raised her longneck. “But Allegheny Blue was a
great
dog.” Their beer bottles clinked.

“His legendary status is reaching all new proportions,” Hatch said. “One of the broadcast reporters at the press conference told me one of the national networks is doing a feature on him for one of their news magazines. I’m sure they’ll be contacting you for an interview.”

“About my
dog
?”

“About
your
dog?”

She laughed, shaking her head. She brought the beer to her mouth but didn’t drink.

Hatch slid his arm along the back of her neck and pulled her into the curve of his shoulder. He rested his lips on her head, and she just sat there, focusing on the soft heat of his breath rushing through her hair.

Her hand curled around the longneck. Beads of water slid down the icy cold beer and ran in rivulets onto her hand, splashing onto her thigh.

“Talk,” he said softly.

“I haven’t cried yet for the others, not for JoBeth and for…for him.” Grace reached for her necklace before remembering she’d thrown it in the river. She pushed out of the safe circle of his arms. “Hatch, how could I not have known what my father was doing? JoBeth and her mother lived below my feet for fifteen years. Fifteen years! That makes me some kind of monster, doesn’t it?”

“No, it makes you just as much a victim as JoBeth.”

“But—”

“Grace, Henri Courtemanche was a strong, confident, smart man. He bamboozled you and hundreds of other people, including congressmen and judges and business associates. He was a powerful man who believed in the power of self, which can be good.”

“Until you take it to an extreme.”

“Exactly. He passed on that strength to both of his daughters. Despite his twisted way of thinking, he raised two incredibly strong, smart, and confident daughters. JoBeth couldn’t have done what she did, and I’m talking about pulling herself up out of that basement, without an innate belief in herself. I honestly think if she had decided to talk to someone, to cut open what was festering and release the poison, she wouldn’t have done what she did.”

“I noticed a few things about…her.” Grace couldn’t say it yet, but someday she may be able to call JoBeth Poole
sister
. “She fiddled with her necklace and jutted out her chin when making a point.”

“Sounds like someone I know.” He took her hand. “And love.”

She twined her fingers with his. “And a few times she looked at me with these big wide eyes, like she wanted something from me. Answers. Direction. Maybe even love.” Grace settled her head on Hatch’s shoulder. “I could have loved her, Hatch, if she’d given me a chance.”

“I know. Family’s important to you.” He tossed his empty longneck into the bait bucket. “Me, too. There’s no way I can walk away from you and Alex—not now, not ever. So when are we moving into the house on the hill?”

Grace thought she’d exhausted a decade’s supply of tears over that dog—her dog—but liquid swelled in her eyes. If the defense attorneys she battled every day in the courtroom could see her now, she’d never win another case. “That means you’re staying for a while?”

“Yep. Already talked to Parker about opening up the Florida branch of Apostles Inc. I don’t have any details yet, but I can guarantee you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me.” He cradled her chin in his palm, the calluses familiar and wonderful, and turned her face to his. “I’m going to be like Blue, dogging you the rest of your life.”

“As long as you don’t drool, I think we can make it work.”

Her lips crushed his, and despite the windless night,
No Regrets
lurched.