The Buried (The Apostles) (28 page)

Grace turned and stared up the stairwell. JoBeth stood in the middle of the shadowy stairway, but Grace could clearly see the gun in her hand.

D
eputy Danny Arredondo banged on the door for the fourth time. No one home. He brushed his fingers along the gooseflesh at the back of his neck. Then why did it feel like someone was watching him? He checked over his shoulder. Up here so high in the clouds, it was probably a whitetail deer or mountain lion. He turned to his cruiser and skidded to a halt. Or maybe it was the camera perched under the eve. On boots coated in mountain grit, he spun slowly. Or the camera near the garage. Or the camera tucked into a potted pine near the front door.

Some strange people lived up here on the mountain. He knocked for the fifth time. Unfortunately, the one he needed to chat with didn’t seem to be home, or if she was home, she was hiding behind a camera. Hayden Reed, the special agent with the FBI’s Special Criminal Investigative Unit, would be interested to know that. Agent Reed had called the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department a half hour ago wanting information on this woman ASAP. Something to do with the Gravedigger murders in Florida.

Danny maneuvered his car down one switchback and pulled into the driveway of an A-frame with a four-foot elk rack above the door. “Morning, sir,” he said to the man working in a garden on the side of the house. “I’m with the sheriff’s department and I’d like to talk to you about your neighbor.”

“Neighbor?”

He checked the name he got from Special Agent Hayden Reed. “JoBeth Poole.”

“JoBeth Poole? Don’t have many neighbors up here a mile and a half in the sky, but I’m sure I don’t have one by that name.”

“She’d be the woman in the house just above you on the last switchback.”

“Okay, sure. Dark-haired gal with the big pickup truck. I know who you’re talking about. Don’t see her much. She’s kind of a hermit.”

“But you’ve seen her?”

“Few times.”

The deputy took out the sketch Agent Reed had sent him. “This her?”

“Yep. Dead ringer. Has those great big deer eyes.”

“Have you seen her recently?”

“No, not for quite a few weeks, but that’s not unusual.”

“You said she drives a pickup? What color?”

“White, I think. Deputy, is my neighbor in some kind of danger or something?”

“No, but she may be a danger to others.”

Grace slid across the room until she stood squarely between Alex and JoBeth Lassen. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

“Hmmm…that’s two questions. Which one would you like me to answer first? Maybe we should play a game of eenie-meenie-minie-mo.”

“What the—” Alex started, but Grace shushed him by holding up the palm of her hand.

The girl’s bare feet shuffled down the steps, the glint of the gun brightening as it drew closer. Grace, with Alex at her back, inched toward the kitchen table.

The soft light crawled up the woman’s legs, her waist, her neck, and for the first time, shadows did not bathe JoBeth’s face. She was not a teenager but quite a few years older, closer to Grace’s age than Alex’s. She appeared young because she was short and lean. Not skinny. That would denote frailness. There was nothing frail or weak about this woman.

Grace’s feet turned to ice. “Camellia,” Grace said, her voice a strangled whisper. “I mean CoraBeth. I mean…”

“You’re zero for two, Gracie. Not impressive. You’re racking up your share of losses these days. My name’s JoBeth. CoraBeth would be my…” She spun her hand in a circle, motioning for Grace to go on.

“Your mother.”

JoBeth clapped, her eyes oddly bright. “Good girl. You finally got something right. I was starting to worry about you.”

Alex reached for her hand, twining his shaking fingers with hers. “Whatever this is,” Grace said, “it’s between you and me. Let the boy go.”

JoBeth laughed. Her body convulsed, the gun barrel bouncing. “Oh, God, you sound so bossy, just like an older sister should.”

“Sister?”

“You seriously have no idea who I am?”

“Let the boy go, please.”

“He never mentioned me? Never showed you my picture or told you about my dreams and accomplishments?” Wistfulness, raw and real, tumbled out with her breathy words.

“Who are you talking about?”

“Henri Courtemanche, our father.”

“I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but—”

“Oh, this is not a game. It’s very, very real.”

“What are you talking about?”

JoBeth let out a dreamy sigh. “You know, I used to dream about you and me talking. Long, sisterly chats where we bared souls to each other in the middle of the night. Excited talks before the first day of school. Nervous talks about boys and exams. Hopeful talks about our dreams and futures.”

The kitchen chair was within arm’s reach. One step and Grace would be at the counter where the box of trophies sat, including a marble football mounted on a square of wood. The chair or the trophy could serve as a weapon, knocking this crazy woman out or down long enough to grab Alex and push him up the stairs.

Tapping the tip of the gun against her chin, JoBeth nodded. “Okay, I’m game, Sister. Let’s talk.” Her hand rock steady, she pointed the gun at the kitchen chair. “Sit.”

The issue was the shape of the room. No more than ten feet wide, it would be hard to shove past that gun. A person from the outside, someone coming down the darkened steps, could easily take out JoBeth. She’d texted Hatch that she was visiting the Lassens’ house, but he and most of the town were hunting for Linc, and he had no idea she’d landed herself and his son in the killer’s hands. And Blue, her trusty companion, was outside, lounging in the sun. It was her and Alex and a crazy woman who claimed to be her sister.

Grace slid her hands, damp with sweat, down the front of her pants. “I’ll sit if you let the boy go.”

“You’re not in a position to strike a deal, counselor. Now do as I say and sit.” She turned the gun on Alex. “Or Sunshine Boy gets his light put out.”

Grace pulled in a quick breath, but the room had no oxygen. Slammed with a wave of dizziness, Grace shoved Alex behind her then perched herself on the edge of the chair.

JoBeth’s face twisted in a warped smile.

“Who are you?” Grace asked.

“I told you, Gracie. Weren’t you listening? I’m your sister.” Her hair stuck out in a wild halo of blond, brassy curls, the kind that come from a box. She had big brown eyes and full lips. But she also had Henri Courtemanche’s angular cheekbones and strong chin, features Grace herself had. Was that why Berkley’s sketch looked so familiar? Because pieces of that face stared back at Grace every morning in the mirror?

“My mother was our father’s dirty little secret, a girl from the swamp with passions but no purse, not like your blue blood mother. But you know Daddy dearest. He thought he could have it all. Two women to love, and eventually two daughters. I was born in this room and lived for fifteen years beneath your feet.”

A shudder grabbed Grace’s spine. “No. That’s not possible. I would have known. My mother would have…”

The bad guys are on the streets, in our neighborhood, beneath our home. They’re watching me, following me, touching me while I sleep. Make them go away, Gracie, please, please make them go away.
Momma.

Grace grabbed both sides of the chair to keep from spinning as the room careened.

“Your mother wasn’t the crazy one, was she?”

“No. Yes. I…” Grace’s stomach flip-flopped and something chunky and vile churned in her gut.

“At a loss for words? Usually you’re so much more articulate and poised and in control. The Golden Child.” JoBeth sat on the arm of the sofa but kept the gun trained on Alex. “For the longest time, I wanted to be you. I wanted your shiny gold tennis trophies and closet full of princess dresses and sparkly shoes. When you and your mom were away at tennis tournaments he would let us out. My mom would sleep in your mom’s bed. Once I even found her using your mom’s toothbrush. Kind of sick, huh? As for me, I used to go into your bedroom and try on your clothes. The pretty church dresses, the snappy little tennis outfits, the silky princess nightgowns. My favorite was the blue one with the ivory lace. Sorry about the tear in the hem. You were always so much taller than me. Three cheers for sunshine and better nutrition.” The half-smile twisting her lips was anything but apologetic.

“I wanted your trips to summer camp and weekly tennis lessons,” JoBeth continued with words that sickened. “I wanted best friends like Gina and Nanette, who would make me beaded BFF friendship bracelets. But I could never be you, Gracie.
Daddy
only had one favorite child. So I spent almost every minute of every hour of fifteen years in a hole in the ground being me. A skinny girl who played with computers and rarely saw the sun because I was only allowed out at night.”

Grace pressed her palms into the plastic chair as the world continued to spin. Was JoBeth telling the truth? Had her father, the man who taught her about strength and power, perpetrated this heinous crime? “What kind of mother would allow that?”

“A mother who was desperately in love with a charming, powerful man who promised her the sky.” She momentarily jabbed the gun at the ceiling before settling it back on Alex. “He kept telling my mom that she was the love of his life but that your mother was too sick and fragile  for him to leave. Load of bullshit, huh? Your mom was actually quite strong. My mom spent years chipping away at her, taking hair barrettes and the last piece of lemon meringue pie. My mom was the queen of patience and hope, giving her power to a man who promised her heaven but kept her buried in hell.”

“And you?” Grace asked around the horror clawing up her throat. “While your mom waited, what did you do?”

“Lived my version of a normal life. Played games, watched TV, drew pictures. He brought down books, and mom did her best to teach me. Did I mention mom never went to school and really didn’t like her home-school lessons? After I learned to read, he bought me a computer, and that small box with all those pixels became my world. Which was good, because a year or so later, Mom had the baby and kind of lost it.”

Grace pictured those tiny bones on the M.E’s table. “The infant buried with your mother.”

“Mom let me name her, and I called her Skye. She lived for two hours. That’s when mom asked me to break her neck.” JoBeth jabbed a finger into a tiny hole on the sofa, but the gun never moved from Alex. “Let me tell you something about living underground. There’s this thing called absolute darkness. You lose all perception of direction and space. Underground you also have absolute silence. No birds, no cars, not even the whisper of wind. Imagine the noise when I snapped Skye’s neck. It echoed through my head for years.” JoBeth’s wild hair jerked as she shook her head. “Our loving father wasn’t due to visit for another three days, so when Skye started to stink, I put her in the refrigerator.”

Alex swayed, and Grace swallowed the vile chunkiness edging up her throat. This was sick and wrong, and the man she called her father was a part of it. She must have made noise because Alex pressed his hip against her arm.

“Honestly, having me kill Skye was one of my mother’s saner moves. In some part of her brain, she realized that this”—she swept her gun-less hand in an arc about the room—“was wrong. She didn’t want another daughter to grow up without ever seeing the sun. But do you know the sick part?” JoBeth inched closer, like she had a secret. “Little Skye’s dead eyes got to see the sun because Daddy didn’t bury her deep enough in your backyard with all your mother’s pretty flowers. A dog got to her, but lucky for Skye, he let me out that night, and I found her. Well, everything but her right arm. And when I reburied my baby sister, I did it right. I dug deep.”

“But when your mother died, you dug up baby Skye.”

“It seemed right, keeping my family together.”

Grace shook her head, trying to get her mind wrapped around what was coming out of this woman’s mouth. “I can’t imagine what you went through.”

“Oh, I could tell you more stories, tales of what it was like to live just inches from people who will never see you, never hear you, never reach into the ground and pull you from a living hell. Of course, at the time I didn’t realize it was hell, because that was my normal. Do you hear me, Grace? Hell. Was. My. Normal.” The words were rough and sharp and old, like the pointed end of a rusty shovel.

Grace pressed her hands to her twisting stomach.

“I never thought to run away. Only when I got away from that basement and that man did I realize the wrong that had been done to me from the moment of my birth.” Spit shot from JoBeth’s lips at the last word. “And you’re right, Gracie, you will never know what I went through, because you were born and raised in a world of the light and living. But thanks to our little game, you got to hear and feel a tiny bit of the terror of being buried alive.”

A sob caught in Grace’s throat. “Lia. Janis. Linc. How? Why?”

“Took months of planning and careful execution, but yeah, I did it all. For years I dreamed of putting Daddy Dear in a box in the ground. In my dreams I’d set up a little camera and microphone so I could watch him and hear him. But you know what’s really sick, Sister Gracie? I never could go through with it. Talk about father issues, huh?”

“You started this, this game to get back at our father?”

“
I
didn’t start this game!” She jumped from the sofa, the still air swishing as the gun drew closer to Alex. “You did. When you bought the Giroux land,
you
started it. I was content to live on my mountain a mile and a half in the sky. I was content to come back once a year and drop a handful of camellia blossoms on my mother and Skye’s grave. I was happy, Grace, or at least as happy as a person like me could be. You were the one who wasn’t happy. You were the one who changed things. I tried to buy the land, to keep my family from suffering further at the hands of the Courtemanche family, but you won.” A trickle of liquid ran from her nose, and she swiped it with the back of her hand.

“You killed Lia Grant and Janis Jaffee!” Grace’s horror gave way to fury.

“Pawns. They were pawns!”