Ashes and Bone (28 page)

“Maybe the basement is only accessible from outside,” Dani said. “Did you see any kind of storm shelter?”

“No.” Jaymee crossed the room and pulled at another door. It stuck, but she planted her feet and yanked harder. A faint hit of sterile cleaner wafted by them as they stepped into what looked like a small waiting room. The carpet was thin, the design decades old, and the rows of chairs full of dust. At the head of the room, near the shuttered windows, was some sort of pulpit with a cross etched on its front.

“When did they close the funeral home?”

“In the 80s, I think,” Jaymee said. “Jeb was a mortician for a long time. When this place closed, he ran for county coroner.”

The handles. The answer struck hard and fast.
Casket handles. And the pump. An embalming pump?
Dani’s entire body quaked. She loathed funeral homes, hated the entire idea of death and preserving it. “All right, we’re leaving. He’s not home, and we’re going to end up in trouble.”

“Not until we’ve searched this place. It’s the perfect spot to hide a person, and you know it.”

She disappeared into the hall, and Dani quickly followed her, silently cursing her own cowardice. Between the stink of the dust and lingering chemicals, her stomach rolled over. Not to mention the idea of embalming a body was so unnatural and unhealthy. Preserving the body only stalled the inevitable, including the stages of grief. She’d done it herself, making sure the funeral home had her mother looking perfect and then refusing to allow them to shut the coffin. Her mother had wanted to be cremated, but Dani’s own selfishness triumphed.

Behind door number three was a smaller viewing area empty of chairs. Likely for the family only. She clutched her vest closer to her chest.

“There.” Jaymee rushed down the stairs at the end of the hall, going in headfirst without thinking of what might be waiting for them.

Dani slogged behind her, feet as heavy as cannon balls. A bundle of nerves embedded into her chest. She knew what they’d find down here. The embalming area.

Like something out of a hazy nightmare, dirty lights cast a pale glow over two steel tables covered with grime and dust. A large drain between the two tables for something Dani didn’t want to think about. Three gray walls with peeling paint, cobwebs in all directions. The fourth wall consisted of metal doors, all of which had what looked like temperature dials on the front. Body storage. White cabinets along one side of the room, with two sinks. Brown stains decorated the porcelain.

Looking at the floor made her dizzy—it seemed slanted, cracked, and unsteady. Like the drain was the epicenter sucking all the energy toward it.

A stack of sheets hung precariously on one end of the counter, badly folded so that the end of one sheet trailed toward the floor like a ghost. Next to it was a black laptop bag.

Dani didn’t need Jaymee to tell her what it was. The truth seeped into her as parasitic as a fast-moving cancer. Confusion and then panic overshadowed her fear.

“We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Call 911.” Jaymee sounded strangely calm. “I’m going to keep looking down here.”

Of course she was. 911 was the only option. She’d force them to get Cage out here, and he’d take over. Make Jaymee stand down. Nick could be anywhere. She unlocked her phone screen. No bars. “I’ve got to go upstairs to get a signal.”

She hurried up the steps, eyes on her phone, waiting for even half a bar to pop up. Nothing in the hallway. Out into the abandoned waiting room. Head still down, still no stupid bars.
What was the point of having 3G when a measly concrete wall blocked all contact?
She opened her mouth to scream in frustration when she collided with something solid but soft. She fell down hard on her butt. Her phone skidded out of her hand, out of reach, and her festering insides launched into her throat.

Jeb Riley stared down at her, pistol in hand. His eyes were clouded with tears. “Why, Dani?”

S
he shouldn’t be
so controlled by her shock, but the sight of Jeb pointing a gun at her made the truth a heartbreaking reality. Jeb wasn’t a bad guy. He’d been to their house, raved over their cooking, helped with some of the easier renovations. He was a friend.

“I could say the same to you, Jeb. Why?”

Downstairs, Jaymee made too much noise, moving things around and calling Nick’s name. Jeb’s watering eyes glanced over Dani’s head and then returned to stare at her with all the sadness of an abandoned animal.

“I knew you wouldn’t be alone.” The pistol trembled but remained pointed at her. “You need to understand something: I didn’t mean to do it, for things to work out this way. Nick called and said he’d figured out what happened, wanted to talk to me about it. We’d figure out where to go from there. I thought I’d just head him off, get him to listen to me before he told anyone else. Listen to reason. And then I saw his car barreling in from Jackson ready to break the story of a lifetime. He wouldn’t stay quiet. Why should he? So I panicked, slammed into him.”

“Where’s Nick now?”

Jeb’s eyes again flickered past Dani to the basement doorway. He jerked his head left and then right, mouth pinched. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Is Nick alive?”

Jeb gave a single nod.

“Then we can salvage this situation.” Déjà vu reigned over her. She’d reasoned with another weapon-wielding man this past summer, and Cage had nearly died. But Jeb was different. He wasn’t living off his anger. He was trying to protect himself. He’d acted rashly and needed an ally. She could be that for him.

Dani took a step forward and Jeb jerked, raising the gun toward her face. She stopped and put her hands up. “It’s okay. I’m on your side. You made a mistake. But if you step back now, things will work out. Especially if you didn’t actually kill Emery Lewis all those years ago.”

Moisture trickled out of his bloodshot eyes. “Another accident. Beau got out of hand like he always did. We were just supposed to rough him up. Beau’s the one who stripped him, buried him in the cave. Took the boy’s dignity and his life.”

“Why don’t you and I go outside?” If she could get in the open, she’d have a better chance. And Jaymee would be safe. For now. “You can tell me the entire story.”

“I’m an old man. I don’t want to go to prison.”

“Let me help you.” She edged forward, every nerve ending on fire, heart banging against her rattling chest.

“What can you do?” Spittle formed at the corner of Jeb’s mouth giving him a mad look. “After what I did, there’s no hope.”

“There’s always hope. You might not get the death penalty for Lewis. But you’ll damned sure get it for killing us.”

He shook his head, the spit spreading across his cheeks in smears. “I don’t want to kill anyone. I never did.”

“Then do the right thing now. Damn it, Jeb.” She stomped her foot and hoped it would catch Jaymee’s attention. “You’re a good man who made a mistake—one you’ve lived with your whole life. Do you really want to add this to it?”

Indecision lingered on his face. His arm quivered, and she thought about lunging and trying to wrestle the gun away. Jeb might be getting on in years, but he was still bigger than she was, and guns tended to go off in a struggle.

A bang from downstairs, followed by Jaymee’s strangled, triumphant cry. “It’s Nick. He’s in a closet. He’s alive!”

Dani locked eyes with Jeb. “Let’s end this. I swear to God I will stand up for you.”

He tugged at his thick, white hair making it stand on end. His shoulders sagged, the corners of his mouth dropped, and for one instant, she thought she’d gotten through. Then the cold metal of the gun was against her forehead.

“Walk down the stairs, and don’t try anything. Not a word.”

T
he urge to
fight rocketed through her. She had to be quicker than Jeb; she could knock him off his feet, shove him down the stairs. Scream to warn Jaymee. He wouldn’t shoot.

But this wasn’t the Jeb she knew. This man was desperate and wild-eyed—unpredictable. Dani needed to let him believe he was in control, let him know they were still friends. She still had faith in him. She’d obey. For now.

Descending the stairs on jelly-like legs, she scanned the embalming room for Jaymee but saw only the cold-looking tables and the hideous drain, the cracks in the floor surrounding it like a spider web. She could have sworn they looked thicker than they had a few minutes ago, the drain eating away at the cement.

“I’m over here. To the right.” Jaymee’s voice was followed by the rattling of a door. “We need something to break this down, I think. This isn’t a lock you can pick.”

The muzzle digging into the back of her skull, Dani edged toward her friend. The counters were mostly empty, much of the funeral home’s equipment long gone. Nothing to use as a weapon, and she couldn’t move faster than the bullet aimed at her brain. She turned the corner to find Jaymee gripping a tarnished, cheap-looking door handle, shaking the thing like a crazy person.

A feeble voice from the inside. “Honey. Just go get help. I’m all right.”

“Jaymee.” Dani choked out the word. “We’re in trouble.”

Jaymee’s head whipped toward them, shock, fear, and red-hot anger rippling across her face. She let go of the door handle and approached, arms stretched out and ready to fight. “Put the gun down, Jeb.”

“I tried that already,” Dani said.

Instead of the crippling fear that had seeped into Dani’s bones, Jaymee showed nothing but fury. Her fists were clenched, and like Dani, her eyes searched for something to use to fight back. “You’re a coward.”

“I am,” he said.

“All this time, checking in on us. You were just trying to find out what the police knew.”

“Not only that. I was worried about you. I never meant for this to happen. And when I heard about the fire, I was terrified Beau was behind it all. That somehow he’d found out what Nick was up to and had his mafia buddies attack you.”

“Dylan set the fire. To send a message. He didn’t know I was in the house.”

“And Ben,” Jeb’s voice cracked. The gun slipped toward the base of Dani’s neck. Her throat closed up, blood freezing in her veins. Her chest threatened to cave in.

“This is my fault,” Jeb sounded like he was crying. “I gave Ben the cartridge box. He’d showed up here with Grace one day this winter, and I’d been getting things out of storage. I never should have kept it, but I wanted the reminder. Not for kicks, but for the penance. And then Ben tells me about this business he’s running. I thought it was legitimate. So I gave it to him. Freeing myself, I thought. And I set this whole thing in motion. I got him killed.”

“Jeb, he chose to get involved with the Dixie Mafia,” Dani said. “He was killed because he’d sent incriminating evidence to Nick. The cartridge case was just an extra picture, to make the email look less suspicious. Pure circumstance that Nick figured it out.”

“So you can stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Jaymee showed Jeb no mercy. “Whether you were an active participant in the killing, you hid Emery Lewis’s murder. And you kidnapped Nick. Kill us or not, you’re already screwed. Dani left a message for Cage. He knows everything. He’ll be here eventually.”

Jeb’s fast, hard breath ruffled Dani’s hair. The gun dug deeper into her burning flesh. She stared at Jaymee, trying to read her friend’s mind, but she didn’t need to. Jaymee would die fighting, blinded by her justified anger.

“Jeb,” Dani tried one last time. “You’re not a psychopath. You’re caught up in something that spun out of control. Just … run. Run away.” Jaymee’s mouth dropped open, but Dani shot her the nastiest look she could muster. “Leave us here, and run as far as you can. You won’t be in prison, and we’ll be safe. You won’t have our deaths on your conscience.”

“I cannot believe you.” Jaymee stared at her.

“Jaymee, shut up. Jeb, take my purse. It’s in the truck. I’ve got some cash, and you can take my bank card. The pin code is 3844. Just go, and give us our lives back. Go somewhere and live out whatever life you have left.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“There’s always someplace else.”

Seconds passed filled with a pressure so intense sickness invaded the pit of Dani’s stomach, and she swallowed away the urge to gag. She and Jaymee stared at each other, engaging in a silent battle of wills, Jaymee’s fists flexing, legs twitching. Dani shook her head as minutely as possible. Inside the locked room, Nick coughed, jagged and raw.

“I agree with Dani.” His feeble words seeped through the door. “Run, Jeb.”

Suddenly a key was pressed into the palm of Dani’s hand. “Unlock the door. Both of you get in with him.”

She gazed at the key.

Gouge his eyes out. Overpower him. But what if the gun goes off? And Cage will come. Eventually
.

Nick started coughing again, and Jaymee’s attention turned toward the door. “Dani, open it.”

She stumbled forward, stuck the key in the lock. Jaymee yanked the door open, the weak light of the basement filtering into the supply closet to reveal a bruised Nick. Sitting on the floor, legs and ankles tied, he gazed up at them with bleary-looking eyes. Jaymee rushed into the room.

Now was the time to fight, but Dani’s resolve came too late. Jeb shoved her hard in the back, twisting her arm until she dropped the key. The door slammed, and they were enveloped in darkness.

“I’m sorry,” Jeb said from the other side of the door. She heard his footsteps moving away, and then, silence.

“Goddammit, Dani,” Jaymee snapped from somewhere in the small black room. “You’d better be right about this.”

NICK

T
he brief glimpse
of her face before darkness falls is easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Now her hands are on my face, soft and warm. Moisture lands on my hands. She’s crying, whispering my name. Her lips find mine, and I return the kiss with everything I have.

“You’re okay, you’re okay.” The words are like a mantra, dripping from her lips in an unstoppable rush. “I love you.”