Tombs of Endearments (21 page)

“Hang on,” I shouted to Belinda.

I stepped on the gas and thanked my lucky stars that I’d had six months to learn my way around Garden View. In the dark, one road looked like another, and it was easy to miss turns. I found the road I was looking for. The side gate was less than five hundred feet away. We were almost there when the car behind us gunned its engine and closed the gap. Talk about tailgating! The next thing I knew,
my car bucked as the car behind us slammed into my bumper.

“Hey!” I looked at the dark sedan in my rearview mirror and shook my fist. Like whoever was driving that car would see. Or care.

Another bump. My neck snapped. My seat belt tightened around me like a python.

The car behind us backed off and snuck up on my left side, and I had no choice but to move, too, or risk a crumpled bumper or worse. Luckily, the timing was just right. We were at the spot where a road intersected the one we were on. I turned right. I knew exactly where we were: The chapel was up ahead and to my left. If we stayed on this road, we’d eventually come to the main gate. Yeah, it was locked. But there was a busy street just to the other side of the iron gate, and there were always plenty of cars around, and on a night as mild as this, there would be walkers and joggers, too. That meant plenty of witnesses, and maybe enough of a deterrent to make our attacker back off. If we could just keep far enough ahead…

I drove faster. The other car fell back. I stepped on the accelerator even harder, and I’d just convinced myself that I actually had a chance of outrunning the dark sedan when it came around from the other side. Instead of being forced to my right, I was forced to my left. I held my place as long as I could, but my left tires were already on the grass. I couldn’t slow down. I couldn’t move over. Before long, the Mustang was off the road completely and the chapel was getting closer by the second.

The way I saw things, I might have been able to handle this situation a little more lucidly if Belinda
wasn’t wailing like a banshee. Her screams pierced the air and scrambled my thought processes. Instead of worrying about the way the steering wheel vibrated beneath my hands or the way the car bumped and thumped across the grass and made my head rock and my spine feel as if it was about to snap, I wondered what I’d say when Ella showed up at Garden View the next morning and found my Mustang sticking out of the Tiffany window.

Of course, I was assuming I’d be alive to say anything at all.

The bad news: Thoughts of my impending death froze my insides. But there was a flipside, too. Somehow, thinking about dying made me realize there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen. Even though Belinda’s screams deafened me, my brain jump-started. Instinct took over, and my instincts told me that I had one choice.

As hard as I could, I yanked the steering wheel to the left.

There was a rolling hill behind the chapel. I knew that. Still, I have to admit I was surprised when we went airborne. The Mustang drifted for one second, two, three, and I actually might have enjoyed the sensation of floating through the air if not for the fact that by that time, Belinda’s screams had morphed into shrieks. I braced myself, yelled to her to hang on (though to what, I can’t say) and waited for the landing.

It was rough enough to make my teeth rattle. They were still knocking together when the first of the water started to seep in under the door.

“We’re in the pond.” Yes, had Belinda been thinking more clearly, she would have been justified in
replying with
No, duh
. But she was frozen with fear, and I knew I had to act, and fast. My fingers trembling, I undid my seat belt. Then I leaned over and unhooked hers, too. “We’ve got to get out of here, Belinda. Before the car sinks. Can you swim?”

Belinda swallowed hard. “Goldfish swim in boats of sugar,” she said. “Turnips float and ice cream cones—”

“Just shut up.” I gave her a shake, partly to get her moving. Mostly to keep her quiet. “Because of the pressure of the water, I don’t know if I’ll be able to open the door. Even then…” I gulped down my fear. “You’ve seen those shows on TV where they show you how to survive a disaster, right? If we can’t open the doors, we’re going to have to kick out the windshield.” This was not the fate I had envisioned for my lizard T-strap pumps, and rather than resign myself to it, I decided on a bold move. “I’m going to try the door now,” I told Belinda. “Maybe if I push really, really hard.” I braced my shoulder against the door. “Ready? One, two, three…”

I didn’t expect the door to open so easily. That would explain why I used so much force and why, when I used that much force, it popped open, and I tumbled right out of the car and into the pond. It wasn’t hard to see why. The water wasn’t any more than a couple of feet deep.

My butt in mud and water to my chin, I groaned and looked at the Mustang. It was submerged to its bumpers. “You can come out, Belinda,” I said. “You won’t drown. The water isn’t deep enough.”

Instead of opening the passenger door, she scooted across the front seat. On her stomach, she
peered out the door at me. “But he’ll find us. He’s following.”

It wasn’t like I’d forgotten about the dark sedan or its driver, but let’s face it, I’d been a little preoccupied. Now I automatically looked up the hill toward the chapel. There was no sign of the dark sedan, but from a distance, I heard voices. My stomach bunched, and I was about to pull Belinda out of the car and make a run for it through the knee-high water when the owner of one of the voices came into sight at the top of the hill.

“You okay down there?” Brian the ghostbuster called, and when I waved to signal that I was, he turned and gave the high sign to the rest of his crew and crab-stepped his way down the hill and to the edge of the pond.

“We’ve got ropes,” he called. “Back in the truck. Stay put and we’ll pull you out.”

“No need,” I told him. Of course, that was before I attempted to stand. The mud sucked at my feet, and I lost both my shoes.

“Damn!” I bent to try and find my shoes, lost my balance, and tipped. I went down like a rock.

When I spit out a mouthful of foul water and finally pulled myself to my feet, mud and water sluiced off me. My car was a mess and would need to be towed. My clothes were ruined, and somewhere in the dark, someone who wanted Belinda dead was no doubt watching and maybe planning another attempt on her life.

And shit, that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Even as I stood there watching the ghostbusters come to our rescue, I could practically feel my hair getting frizzy.

As often happens in Cleveland, the Halloween
weather was mild. It’s just a cruel tease, of course. Anybody who’s been around these parts long enough knows that though this one day might be pleasant, the next few months of cold temperatures and snow were sure to be hell. No worries. Clevelanders are a tough bunch, and when it comes to weather, we’ve learned to take what we can get and be grateful for it.

Since my car was still stuck in the muddy pond and the towing company I’d called to pull it out couldn’t fit me in until that afternoon, I walked to work. It took longer than I expected to get up the hill from Little Italy, and by the time I did, the cemetery was already hopping. Mild temperatures and sunny skies equal lots of visitors, and on that particular holiday, they had more on their minds than simply saying hello to loved ones. Brian and his bunch (I couldn’t help but notice that Dan wasn’t with them) were working near one of the mausoleums, and just as I walked by, a group of teenagers with tape recorders went into the huge
building where President James A. Garfield is laid to rest.

It was sure to be a busy day, and who could blame me for not being in the mood. It wasn’t even nine o’clock and I was already exhausted. My body ached from head to toe. Part of my general yucki-ness was because of the jolt I’d taken the night before when the Mustang landed hard in the pond. But most of it, I knew, was from the shoes I shouldn’t have worn for a walk this long and the heavy overnight bag I was carrying. I moved the bag from my left hand to my right to give my left arm a rest.

Besides, it had taken me hours to get home the night before, what with explaining my voyage into the pond to the police, my insurance agent, and Ella (who I felt obliged to call even though I would rather have put it off). True to form, Ella was more worried than critical. That only made me feel worse about almost destroying a building that was on the list of national landmarks.

“I heard what happened last night.”

It says something about my fatigue that I didn’t jump when Damon popped up next to me. We were just passing through a section where tall headstones hid us from the nearby road, and I felt free to talk.

“By now, I’ll bet everyone’s heard.” I had no doubt that Pepper Martin and her driving skills (or lack thereof) were the main topic of conversation at the office. If he’d been hanging around over there, that would explain how Damon had already caught wind of the story.

Careful to watch where I was going, since in ad
dition to the standing stones, there were plenty of close-to-the-ground grave markers in that section and I didn’t want to trip, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Did you see anything?”

“You mean who was driving that other car? Sorry.” Damon twitched his shoulders. “I was over at the Rock Hall watching the roadies set up the band’s equipment for tonight’s concert. If I was here, maybe I could have helped.”

“Or not.” No sooner were the words past my lips than I felt lousy for saying them. I stopped and turned to Damon. “You know I didn’t mean it that way,” I told him. “I just meant—”

“That ghosts can’t do shit when it comes to intervening in the things of this world. I know.” He stopped, too, and scooped a lock of hair out of his eyes. I noticed he didn’t use his left hand, and it was no wonder why. It was so faded, I could barely see it. So was his left wrist, his arm, his shoulder, and seeing it—and realizing he’d never been so faded before—I gulped down the knot of panic in my throat.

“I hate it that I can’t help you,” Damon said.

I tried for a smile, but it was mushy around the edges. “I hate it that I can’t help
you
. You’re disappearing.”

His smile was more genuine. “I disappeared a long time ago. It took you to make me real again.”

I looked at the ground and kicked at a tuft of grass. “I wish.”

“Hey, little girl.” Damon reached out, and I think he was about to chuck me under the chin with one finger. At the last second, he pulled his
hand back to his side. “Have I told you how grateful I am for everything you’re doing?”

“Which is pretty much nothing.” My gaze still on the ground, I sighed.

“Have I told you how nice it is that after all these years, I have someone to talk to?”

Caught by the mesmerizing warmth of his voice, I looked up. It would have taken a stronger woman than me not to smile in response to the fire in his eyes.

“Have I told you…” Damon leaned nearer. Not to worry, we’d both learned our lesson when he kissed me at the Rock Hall. He settled for the next best thing; the look he gave me was as intimate as a kiss. And a whole lot less chilly. “You’re special, Pepper.”

My eyes filled with tears. I tried for flip, but my words were watery. “I don’t think we have much of a future.”

“But we do have a present.” Damon backed away. I was glad. It was too easy to be caught in the tractor beam of his smile. Not to mention the smoldering look in those dark eyes. “I want to help you. You know, with your case.”

There’s nothing like the mention of an investigation to destroy a romantic moment. I backed away, too, automatically shaking my head. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“There is. I’ve been thinking about it. I can be your eyes and ears. You know, with the band.”

The idea had merit, but…

“The concert’s tonight,” I reminded him. “They’re leaving town tomorrow. At least that’s what it says in the paper this morning. Once the
guys are gone, there’s nothing I can do. I can’t follow all of them around to make sure they’re safe.”

“Which means we’ll have to do something tonight.”

I was one step ahead of him, and to prove it, I held up the overnight bag. “I’ve got a change of clothes in here and a jacket because I know once the sun goes down, it’s going to get cold. I’m going to the concert tonight.”

He nodded. “So am I.”

“No way.” I dismissed the idea instantly. “You didn’t even go to the recording studio with me. It was too painful for you to watch the band play and know you couldn’t be with them. A live concert would be worse. It’s—”

“Our last chance.”

He was talking about keeping Mind at Large safe, and for all I knew, he was right. Once they left town, I was going to lose any chance I ever had of protecting the band.

“But I haven’t been protecting them, have I?”

When I spoke out loud, Damon looked at me in wonder, and I caught him up on my thought process.

“I was just thinking, I’m worried about the band leaving town and me not being able to protect them. But I haven’t been protecting them. I can’t, because Gene won’t let me near them. And it hasn’t made any difference at all. Since that day at the recording studio, nothing’s happened. Not to any of them. There haven’t been any more accidents or shootings or—”

“You’re right. If there were, I would have heard
something about it at the Hall. Nothing’s happened.”

“Not nothing. Something’s happened all right, just not to the band.”

Like most simple solutions to complex problems, this one had been staring me in the face and I had been ignoring it. Now, it seemed so obvious, I would have slapped my forehead if I wasn’t worried that I might muss my hair. It had taken a deep oil treatment the night before and a leave-in conditioner that morning to get rid of the frizz, and I wasn’t taking any chances.

“Belinda…well, she’s sort of part of the band, isn’t she?” I asked Damon, warming to the theory even as I talked it out. “At least that’s what she always says. She says she’s with the band. Which means that when Vinnie talked about someone in the band being in danger, maybe he didn’t mean someone in the band was in danger, you know?” Suddenly I wasn’t so tired anymore. I whirled around and started for the office, eager to pull out the list I’d started the night before and read it over in light of this new theory.

Lucky for Damon, there were a couple of advantages to being dead. One of them was not having to scramble to keep up with me. When I picked up my pace, ducked around a tall headstone, and sidestepped around another, I found him waiting for me. He was leaning against the statue of a weeping woman, and he pushed off from it and stepped in front of me.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“I don’t, either.” My nervous energy got the best of me, and I shuffled from foot to foot. “But it’s
the only thing that makes any sense. Belinda said somebody was following her last night, that somebody snuck up on her and tried to choke her. I didn’t believe her until that car came after us. But think about it, Belinda’s apartment was burglarized. Belinda was at the recording studio the day of the shooting. Belinda was in the car last night when we were forced off the road. She was at the Rock Hall, too, that day the light fell on Alistair, and sometime before he died, I know she was at Vinnie’s apartment. I saw her coffee cups all over the place. I don’t know, Damon…” I stepped around him and continued toward the office, eager to put my theory to the test. “I think we’ve been looking at this all wrong. I don’t know why, but I think maybe Belinda is the killer’s target.”

“Or it’s you.”

I froze and turned, responding the way any rational person would. “No way!”

“Why not? It makes just as much sense as what you’re saying. Belinda wasn’t the only one who visited Vinnie at the condo. You were there, too. You were also at the Rock Hall the day the light fell.”

“But not until after the light fell.”

I guess Damon hoped I wouldn’t notice the flaw in his logic because he went right on. “You were in the car with Belinda last night. You were at the recording studio. Your apartment was broken into, too. What if the killer isn’t after Belinda? What if he’s after you?”

If what Damon said was true (and it was hard to argue, which was why I kept my mouth shut), it was exactly what I had warned him would happen
the day he first asked for my help. My cases always resulted in some whacked-out psycho trying to make sure I took up permanent residence at Garden View.

With that in mind, I knew I was completely justified bringing up the I-told-you-so element.

I didn’t. For a couple of reasons. One was that admitting he might be right and there was a killer after me freaked me out too much. The second reason? There was so much concern in Damon’s expression, so much pain, I knew he felt responsible.

“No way is anybody after me.” I tried for glib, but even to my own ears, I came off sounding as uncertain as I felt. “What would they want?”

“What difference does it make? You’re not going to that concert tonight.”

“Don’t be crazy. I have to go. It’s my last chance to investigate.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Nobody’s going to try anything in front of ten thousand people.”

“But they could.”

“But they won’t. And why bother?” I clung to what I saw as a logical argument because it was better than giving in to fear. “I sure don’t know anything about you dying. Heck, I wasn’t even born yet. And I don’t know anything about Vinnie’s death, either.”

“But maybe the killer doesn’t know that.” When I didn’t counter this straight off the bat, Damon figured he had me. “I’m going to the concert tonight,” he said, his words ringing with authority. “You’re staying home.”

“But—”

“You’re not going.” I guess he thought maybe I’d understand it better if he spoke slowly and pronounced each word carefully.

I did, but it wasn’t going to stop me. “But—”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Pepper.” It took every ounce of self-control Damon had to keep his voice to less than a dull roar. Just as quickly, it dropped to a whisper, and every syllable percolated with emotion. “I love you too much.”

Affairs of the heart always trump logic. Especially since it was my heart we were talking about. I gulped down the sudden knot of emotion in my throat and got all set to reply even though, truth be told, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to say. Turned out that it didn’t matter. I never had a chance to answer. Before I could, Damon winked out.

Just like he had back when Vinnie was channeling him.

“Damon?” I called to him and turned to look around. Just as I turned back, he flickered back in the exact spot where I’d last seen him. I rushed closer. “What’s going on?”

A stab of pain twisted Damon’s face. His right hand curled into a fist. “I don’t…” Static interrupted him. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You’re not—?”

He was gone again before I had a chance to finish the sentence.

For what was probably less than a minute but felt like forever, I stood there in the shadows of the tall headstones, wringing my hands and wonder
ing what to do next. I had just decided that I didn’t know when I heard a noise like the roar of wind, and Damon showed up out of nowhere. He was lying on the grass, panting and writhing in pain.

I knelt beside him. “You’re not being channeled, are you?” I asked him.

He tried to respond, but it was clear from the start that it hurt too much. Because he couldn’t talk, he simply looked at me, his eyes pleading for help, his mouth pulled into a grim line.

Then he screamed and disappeared completely.

Shaking and sobbing, I sat back on my heels. This time, it didn’t take me any time at all to make up my mind about what I was going to do.

I was going to get to the bottom of things once and for all and find out how, even though Vinnie was dead, Damon could be channeled.

I was going to put an end to his suffering and stop him from fading any further.

I was going to that concert.

Even if there was a killer waiting there for me.

“I’m so glad you decided to come with us!” Watching her daughters find their way to their seats on the bleachers that had been set up in the wide plaza outside the Rock Hall, Ella hunkered into her winter jacket and beamed a smile at them, then turned the same expression on me. “I’ve always felt like you’re one of the family. And the girls are thrilled to have you here. They really look up to you, Pepper. You’re their role model.”

I don’t think she would have said that if Ella knew I wasn’t there for blast from the sixties past, but to catch a killer.

“I appreciate the ride,” I said, because I couldn’t explain about my case and I really was thankful for her help. Once my car got dragged out of the mud, it had ended up in a garage so its underside could be checked for damage.