Grave Intent (25 page)

When he reached the vanity, however, the hair
clasp wasn’t there. Frowning, Michael looked behind a can of hair
spray, then under a bar of soap. He moved the small, glass
container of potpourri, checked under an open box of Band-Aids,
pushed aside a hair dryer. No barrette.

He stepped back, heart hammering, phone
pressed to his ear, and scanned the floor of the bathroom.

“Mike?” Shirley’s voice returned, harried
now.

Michael continued to search. “Did you get
through to them?” There—on the floor near the baseboard to the
vanity.

“No luck. I got the same crap you been
getting. Circuits are busy. Probably this weather screwing up the
service.”

“They can’t all be busy,” Michael said,
squatting to pick up the barrette. “I got through to one of the
neighbors a little while ago and left a message on their
answering—” His jaw suddenly locked shut. He touched the hair clasp
briefly, then pulled his hand away. Beside it was an indention in
the carpet. A round one, a little bigger than the circumference of
a quarter. He looked at the barrette, then the circle. The
barrette—the circle. Barrette—circle.

“Jesus,” he breathed, praying he hadn’t found
what he thought he found—the link between Ellie and the Stevensons.
This spot had to be where the coin landed after falling out of his
father’s jacket. It was the right size, right shape. And the
butterfly clasp—had Ellie come into the bathroom after Wilson and
found the gold piece? Without warning, Michael’s mind synopsized
the threats from the vanishing old man.

Unless it be returned before the rising of
the second sun, anyone who dares to possess it will die without
mercy.

“Hey, you still there?” Shirley’s voice
barked in his ear.

“Huh—yeah. What?”

“I’ve been asking if you’re okay.”

Michael picked up the plastic butterfly with
trembling fingers. “Keep trying to reach the sheriff, will you,
Shirley? Call the next parish over if you have to. Just get
somebody over there as soon as you can.” He gave her his cell
number. “I’m leaving now, so call me as soon as you hear
anything.”

“Will do.”

Michael hung up and drew a deep, shaky
breath. The pain and fear he felt only served to add certainty to
his heart. He had to get to his daughter. Her life depended on
it—depended on him winning a race against the sun.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It was nearly eight-thirty before Janet
arrived back at the cabin. Twenty minutes later, the girls sat at
the dining room table, somber and distant, eating a snack of milk
and cookies. Janet sat on a stool nearby, watching them, still
shell-shocked over the day’s event. She couldn’t believe only hours
earlier a fireman in a cherry picker had caught her daughter in a
midair tumble and pulled her to safety. Everything had seemed to
happen so fast, but at the same time painfully slow.

Once Ellie had been secured, the Ferris wheel
operator had lowered Rodney and Heather to the ground, and a
waiting ambulance took Rodney to a local hospital. A female EMT
tried coaxing Ellie into a second ambulance, but the girl staunchly
refused, even when Janet promised her she’d ride along. So Janet
had followed the ambulance in her van with Sylvia bawling in the
front seat and Ellie and Heather strapped in the back. After a
battery of tests, the physician diagnosed Rodney’s condition as an
acute anxiety attack. The symptoms, he assured Sylvia, were similar
to a heart attack’s but seldom lethal. To placate the hysterical
woman, he admitted Rodney into the hospital for observation.

Ellie and Heather were examined for good
measure, and other than a mild case of dehydration from the day’s
activities, both girls were in perfect health. Ellie hadn’t spoken
but a handful of words since the incident, and the more Janet or
the doctor tried to get her to talk about what happened, the more
distant she became. The physician suggested both girls be taken to
a counselor to work through their experience. It was a
recommendation that needed no debate. Janet had already decided to
pack up and head back home first thing in the morning. She’d tried
to call Michael from the hospital to let him know, but there’d been
no answer at home or the funeral home.

Heather raised her glass from the table. “Can
I have some more milk, Aunt Janet?”

Janet hopped off the stool and took the glass
from her. She glanced at her daughter’s full cup. “What about you,
honey? Want anything?”

Ellie shook her head and ran her fingers over
the glass horse, which stood beside her plate.

Sighing, Janet went to the fridge and filled
Heather’s glass. She heard her niece whisper something to Ellie,
and Janet turned her head slightly so she could see them from the
corner of her eye. Ellie’s head nodded slowly as though in
reluctant agreement to something. Then she got up from the table,
clutched the horse to her chest, and quietly moved to the family
room, where she curled up in the old recliner.

“Drink up, sweetie,” Janet said, returning
with Heather’s milk. She stroked the girl’s hair and glanced back
at Ellie. “I need to get the two of you off to bed so I can finish
packing.”

Heather looked down at her half-eaten cookie.
“I’m full,” she said with a yawn. “Do we gotta go home
tomorrow?”

“Afraid so,” Janet said. She stacked Ellie’s
cup on top of her plate, then brushed crumbs from the table into
her hand.

Heather propped her elbows on the table and
rested her chin in a palm. She sucked her bottom lip between her
teeth, then let it go. “Is it ‘cause Ellie’s grandpa’s gonna die?
Is that why we gotta go home?”

Janet’s hand stalled in mid-swipe. Her own
father had been dead for eleven years, so the only grandpa Heather
could be referring to was Wilson. She frowned. “Of course not.
Where did you hear that nonsense?”

“Ellie,” Heather said. She sat back and
swirled stray crumbs around her plate with a finger. “Can’t you
bring him to the doctor like Mr. Rodney so he can get better?”

“Honey, I’m sure you misunderstood,” Janet
said, dusting the crumbs she’d gathered onto a plate. “Ellie’s
grandpa is fine.” She collected the dishes and carried them into
the kitchen, peering into the family room when she rounded the
snack bar. Ellie was slouched over in the chair already asleep.

Heather wiggled down from her seat and
followed Janet. “Aunt Janet?”

“Hm?”

Heather looked down at her sneakers and began
to rock slowly from toe to heel. “What does it feel like to
die?”

Janet stared at her niece, feeling gooseflesh
speckle her body as she remembered the strange questions Ellie had
asked about death while they were delivering flowers to the funeral
home. The irony of Ellie asking about death not long before the
near tragedy on the Ferris wheel made Janet’s insides suddenly
quiver with dread. She lowered to her haunches and gently pulled
Heather toward her, hoping her niece wouldn’t see how badly her
hands were shaking.

“Come here, you,” Janet said, softly. “Now,
what’s all this talk about dying?”

Heather wrapped her arms around Janet’s neck
and snuggled close. “Nothin’.”

“Is it because of what happened on the Ferris
wheel today? Is that what has you worried?”

Heather shrugged.

“Everyone’s okay now.” Janet hugged her
tight. “No one’s going to die. Understand?”

“Yeah.” Heather squirmed deeper into the
crook of Janet’s arm and yawned again. “Can I go play with Ellie’s
Barbie?”

“I think what you need is sleep,” Janet said,
getting to her feet. She led Heather by the shoulders to the family
room. “You go on upstairs and wash up. We’ll worry about baths in
the morning.”

Heather let her head fall back on her
shoulders. “But I’m not tired,” she said and rubbed her eyes.

“Make you a deal,” Janet coaxed. “You wash
up, scoot into bed, and I’ll tell you a bedtime story.”

Heather scratched her knee and eyed Janet.
“The Magic Cherry Tree?”

“If that’s the one you want.”

“Do I gotta brush my teeth, too?”

“Yep.”

Heather looked at her skeptically. “You won’t
skip no pages?”

“Not a single one.” Janet patted her niece’s
bottom, sending her to the foot of the stairs. “Now go.”

Heather trudged up the stairs, throwing
furtive glances in Ellie’s direction as she went. Janet watched
until she disappeared beyond the landing, then made her way to the
couch. She sat down and picked up the phone, hoping this time she’d
be able to reach Michael.

The dial tone was a pleasant surprise when
she pressed the receiver to her ear. She dialed her home number,
then closed her eyes against the weariness lapping over her. From
somewhere overhead, a board creaked and pipes moaned, and Janet
threw open a watchful eye. Her jitters were not only back in full
swing, they’d brought friends.

After the tenth ring and still no answer,
Janet tried the number for the funeral home. Not even the answering
service picked up. Puzzled, she dialed Michael’s cell phone. It
rang continuously, his voice mail refusing to answer. Janet hung
up, worried. Where was he? She’d expected him to be late, but not
this late. And it wasn’t at all like Michael not to at least check
in.

Janet rubbed the growing knot of concern from
the back of her neck and got up. She went to the recliner and
scooped her sleeping daughter into her arms. Ellie shifted her head
against her mother’s shoulder, touched her fanny pack with blind
fingers, then sighed deeply. She pulled the horse closer.

“You’re worrying me, kiddo,” Janet whispered
as she carried her up the stairs.

When she reached Ellie’s room, she pushed the
door open wider with a foot. Heather was sprawled across one of the
twin beds, fully dressed and asleep. Janet crept to the opposite
bed, lay Ellie on it, then pulled off her daughter’s sandals. After
covering her with a light blanket, she tugged lightly on Ellie’s
fingers to untangle them from the horse.

“Mia Lona!” Ellie shrieked, and with her eyes
still shut, slapped her mother’s hand.

Shocked, Janet jumped back, her heart
slamming against her chest.

Ellie rolled over on her side and pulled the
horse against her. Within seconds, the child’s breathing became
deep and steady again.

Heather mumbled in her sleep and threw an arm
over her stomach.

Janet looked from one girl to the other, as
though waiting for one of them to wake and explain what had just
happened. But neither moved. Fear bubbled inside Janet like
peroxide in a wound, and she tried to calm it by reminding herself
that the doctor had examined Ellie thoroughly. Healthy
five-year-old, he claimed. Everything’s fine—just fine. But things
weren’t fine. This solemn child, the one screaming and thrashing on
the Ferris wheel, those strange words, the hitting, this wasn’t
Ellie. What if the doctor had missed something?

Janet brushed away sudden tears and tucked
the blanket around Ellie’s slight body. Then she went to the closet
where she found an extra blanket for Heather. After covering her
niece, Janet turned off the light and headed back downstairs, more
eager than ever to get home.

Once in the kitchen, she tackled the sink of
dishes. As she soaped and rinsed, Janet found herself growing more
and more irritated, but at what she wasn’t sure. Michael for not
calling? Not understanding what was happening to Ellie? Herself for
coming here in the first place? Pondering each possible reason only
boiled her irritation to anger.

She dried her hands, then stomped to the
pantry for a cardboard box. Finding one, she threw it down on the
snack bar and started loading it with the dry goods she’d bought
when they first arrived. In the middle of oatmeal cartons and
cooking oil bottles, her elbow bumped into a cereal box. It flipped
onto the floor, and hundreds of chocolate covered corn puffs chased
one another across the linoleum.

“Crap,” Janet groaned. She picked up the
cereal box, then cursing under her breath, made her way to the
utility closet with corn puffs popping and crunching beneath her
feet.

After arming herself with a whiskbroom and
dustpan, Janet got on her knees, and struggled to corral the
cereal.

Ten minutes later, with the broom still going
one way and the corn puffs the other, Janet heard scratching sounds
coming from behind one of the bottom cabinet doors. She froze,
listening.

The
scritch
—
scratch
—
scritch
quickly grew louder,
more determined, sending with it a sudden vision of rats gnawing
their way into the kitchen.

Alarmed, Janet jumped to her feet, and her
left shoulder rammed into an open utensil drawer. The collected
corn puffs scattered across the floor again, and shock waves of
pain raced down her arm. Abruptly, the scratching noises
stopped.

“Shit!” Janet dropped the dustpan and while
hissing through her teeth, unbuttoned the top three buttons of her
blouse. She peeled the material away from her shoulder to see if
she’d been cut. Her fingers moved gingerly over scraped skin.
Nothing bled, but it was sure to leave a whopper of a bruise.

She hitched her blouse back into place,
buttoned it, then slammed the utensil drawer shut. She marched off
for the vacuum cleaner, determined to suck the damn cereal off the
floor if she had to, rats or no rats.

When she returned to the kitchen, Janet
stumbled to a halt and gawked. The Frigidaire’s heavy door hung
wide open, and the drawer she’d rammed into only moments earlier
dangled over the floor by its back hinges. The hair on her arms
stood tall as she slowly crunched through cereal to close both.
Maybe—maybe she’d slammed the drawer shut a little too hard, and it
sprang back out on its track. Maybe the refrigerator—well—it was so
old . . .