Admit One (20 page)

“Easy Tiger. A man in Mason’s position has lawyers and whatnot to deal with this sort of thing. And it’s not like he’s not used to being in the spotlight.”

“There’s a difference between being on stage or on screen and in having your private life invaded.”

“True enough,” Will acknowledged. “But I talked to the man, and he seems to have it under control. Listen Al, I’m sorry I said anything. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Allie heaved out a sigh. “No, I’m glad you told me.” Seeing the concern on her brother’s face, she laid a hand on his arm. “Go ahead and check your ‘line’ before whatever was nibbling gets away. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

He hesitated, but then nodded. “Okay. Have a good time tonight, which is probably what I should have said in the first place without being such a smartass.”

“Willis, if you stopped being a smartass, I think the world would spin right off its axis.”

“It seems to be a family trait.”

When he’d gone, Allie knelt down next to the grave. The earth was still disturbed, though the recent rain had helped flatten it a bit. “Disagreements, rifts and scandals,” she said aloud. “I wonder if you would be interested to know that our family is still prone to them.”

Since, as Will mentioned, Cousin Eugene seemed inclined to let her do all the talking, Allie took daisies from the basket and laid them on the grave.

The baby’s breath she’d already disposed of.

Arranging the flowers gave her something to keep her hands busy while she sifted through the emotional residue of the day.

She could absolutely blame Wesley for his callousness today, but she knew, logically, that she couldn’t hold him entirely responsible for Mason’s arrest being posted on the internet. She’d provoked him, he’d reacted. Mason had reacted to
that
and then some opportunist in this day and age of social media mania had done what people with cell phones and an internet connection tended to do – tried to attract attention.

It was annoying, and there was no question that she felt guilty for setting that chain of events in motion, but getting angry over things you couldn’t control was probably no more productive than feeling sad about them.

She only hoped it didn’t do too much damage to Mason’s public image, or that he wasn’t in violation of his contract in some way. Much as she didn’t want to bring it all up again, she would ask him about it tonight.

The air changed direction, and where once it had carried the fresh scent of new life, this time it bore the smell of decay that was an integral part of the marshy areas around the river. Clouds moved over the sun, and as Allie glanced up, noted the bruised looking sky, she thought they just might get another passing shower. It seemed they were destined for a wet and muggy spring.

And buggy, she added, slapping at whatever insect had lighted on her arm. But Lord knew it wouldn’t be the Lowcountry otherwise.

She tilted her head to study the flowers she’d arranged in front of the headstone. She wondered if Eugene’s father had ever come by here, laid flowers on his son’s grave. If he’d regretted the hardness that had come between them before death brought a final separation. Surely his mother would have, even if she’d been loath to go against her husband’s wishes, as women so often were at that time. Of course, not every woman took motherhood to heart.

Hers certainly hadn’t.

“Getting maudlin again,” she muttered as she pushed to her feet. Considering, she bent over to pick up one of the gerbera daisies. “Even if your family abandoned you,” she told Eugene. “You had a friend who stood by you, who cared for you, even after death.”

And that was worth honoring. Allie cast an assessing glance at the sky, before looking around behind her. From the historical account she’d read she knew that Frank Wallace, the young man who’d brought Eugene home from battle, saw to it that he was properly buried if not precisely among family, at least in familiar surroundings, was interred in this cemetery as well. Allie wasn’t entirely sure where, but there were some family plots on the other side of the ruin of the old church, and she figured that was the best place to look. She’d like to leave the daisy there as a token of… appreciation, she guessed. She thought of Sarah, and knew what it was to have just the sort of friend who could be counted on no matter the circumstances.

Gathering up the basket, Allie wound her way through the graveyard, glancing at the names on grave markers, sometimes marveling over the length or brevity of a life. That life itself could be condensed to dates on a piece of marble.

Finally, Allie found a family plot enclosed by a wrought iron fence, the large, central headstone of which said
Wallace.

“Here we are.” She tried to open the gate, had to sit the basket down to work the corroded latch with both hands. It finally gave with a rusty squeal of hinges, and she wiped her dirty hands on her pants. She’d need to change before Mason came by to pick her up.

Thinking of Mason gave her a little flutter in the stomach as she picked her way among the markers. She still, when she really considered it, couldn’t quite believe that her life – that space between the dates – had come to include a man such as Mason. Oh, she knew he was only human– he annoyed her often enough to be sure of that. And she certainly didn’t like disparaging herself, as she’d already done entirely too much of that for one lifetime.

But facts were facts, and Mason was… well, Mason. And he appeared to be interested – genuinely interested – in her.

She wasn’t entirely sure whether she should feel terrified or delighted. 

“Cautious,” she reminded herself. “What you should feel is cautious. And lustful.
You
wouldn’t be human if you didn’t feel that, too. Oh.” While she was giving herself a lecture, she’d practically tripped over Frank Wallace’s headstone. Actually, she had tripped over it.

Righting herself, Allie studied the marker.
Frank Marshall Wallace. Beloved son, brother, friend.

He’d never married, she realized. Even though he’d lived a good, long life after the war.

Well, marriage wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, if you asked her. Not according to her family track record, anyway. But she did hope that Frank had lived surrounded by family and friends who were just as loyal as he’d been.

She laid the single, yellow gerbera on his grave. “Thank you,” she said. “His family at the time may not have appreciated what you did, but this member of the current generation thinks you must have been a lovely person.”

Feeling just a little silly having spent so much time addressing inanimate hunks of rock over the past hour, Allie refrained from saying goodbye.

She closed the gate behind her, checked her watch and determined she’d have enough time to take a shower before Mason stopped by to pick her up. She would have been perfectly happy to meet him at the restaurant they’d agreed to, considering it was within easy walking distance from Tucker and Sarah’s and she was the one with a car at her disposal – thanks to her new battery. But he’d sniffed disdainfully in that very British way he had and Allie had given in. Mason, surprisingly enough, seemed to be approaching this date thing with what could only be described as propriety.

On the way to her car, Allie glanced over, and noticed that the door to the old mausoleum stood ajar. “Well crap,” she said, shoulders slumping. Apparently the local teens had cut the padlock. It was a favorite spot of theirs to hang out and drink and God knew what else. She didn’t think Will had noticed it when he was here, or he would have called someone to come over and put a new lock on. She guessed she’d have to let him know.

A sound, very much like a groan, stalled Allie in the act of reaching for her cell phone.

She froze. Maybe it had just been the wind, or…

No. That definitely sounded like someone, or something, was hurting.
Crap,
she thought. If some kid had gone in there and drank himself into a stupor and then fallen and hit his head…

Irritation warring with concern, Allie reached for her phone and marched over to the mausoleum. It sat in the shadow of a moss-draped oak, built of masonry that had turned the mottled gray of, well, decayed flesh with the passing of time. Heavy iron doors blocked out any light. She couldn’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would find it a fun place to get drunk. And she even
liked
all the spooky stories and legends and atmosphere to be found around Sweetwater. Hell, that’s what her walking tours were all about.

But this was carrying things too far.

“Hello?” Allie called out. She didn’t want to startle the presumed idiot, whoever it was. She knew all too well that drunks were unpredictable, especially if it was someone who was afraid of being caught trespassing by the sister of the Chief of Police. “Are you hurt? Can I call someone to come and help you?” It seemed to be prudent to add “I have my phone right here.”

Silence. Either she’d scared them, or they were otherwise incapacitated. Allie hesitated. She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t the type to go blundering into the darkened basement – or mausoleum – because she’d heard a strange noise. But she also wasn’t the type to walk away from someone who might require assistance.

She edged a bare step closer. “Look, if you can hear me, can you just answer? I’m not trying to get you in trouble. I just want to know if you need help.”

When no answer was forthcoming, Allie decided that she’d go ahead and call Will… except that Will had just left to check up on one of those lines he had cast. She sighed. This didn’t exactly strike her as an emergency, so she hesitated to dial 911. She guessed she could call Alan. He was second in command, and if he was busy also he could just send one of the other officers out here. At the very least, they’d need to replace the padlock on the mausoleum anyway.

She hunted up his number. Just as it started to ring, Allie heard a noise behind her.

She whirled, but she didn’t quite move quickly enough to avoid the blow.

It was the last thing she remembered.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“THANKS
for meeting with me,” Will said, shaking the hand of Joe Duncan, Sheriff for Burke County, Georgia.

“No problem,” the man said, adjusting his belt as they began walking toward the gate of the Old Church cemetery. “Truth is, this has been stuck in my craw. Not much in the way of leads to begin with, and those have pretty much dried up. Being as the victims here have been dead goin’ on two hundred years, it’s gotten pushed to the bottom of the pile under the theft and domestic violence and drug problems we got that involve real live people. Some people were real offended, of course, by what was done to these soldiers – I’ve got this one woman,” he shot Will a glance that suggested that should be all he needed to say on that matter – “Daughter of the American Revolution type that clings to her family tree with more tenacity than Kudzu. One of the graves desecrated was her great-great-great cousin twice removed or whatever, and she puts a bee in my bonnet round about once a week. She’s a regular pain in the ass, to be honest, but I can’t offer information I don’t have.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Will agreed. He was sympathetic to the sheriff’s position – Will had dealt with his fair share of pains in the ass, after all. But his lips twitched as he considered the fact that he’d left Allie next to their great-great-great uncle’s grave just before driving up here. Knowing his little sister, her reverence for history and her unshakeable loyalty to her family – living or dead – he felt confident that she might be putting a bee in
his
bonnet on a regular basis if Eugene’s grave had been further disturbed.

But luckily, if you could call it that, she and Mason had interrupted the culprit – or culprits – before they could finish the job.

If, in point of fact, digging up the grave was what they’d intended.

“The gates are locked,” the Sheriff told him as he took a key ring from his pocket. “They stay locked, seein’ as how nobody much comes around here anymore except maybe on Memorial or Veterans Day. The American Legion takes care of the place, and it was the post commander who came out here to mow the grass what discovered the graves had been opened.”

The lock gave way with a
snick
and the old iron gate swung open on rusty hinges. The cemetery wasn’t all that different from the one in Sweetwater. Faded marble headstones leaned drunkenly amid the leaves and shadows of the oaks that stood as sentinels – and had likely been saplings when the dead were laid to rest here. Being as it was more out of the way, well removed from the closest town, this cemetery would certainly receive less traffic. Though the grass had been recently cut, they had to step carefully around crumbling headstones until they reached a spot where the soil had been trampled by dozens of pairs of feet.

“These four graves here,” Duncan pointed to the patches of churned up earth, the headstones newly replaced in a staunchly upright position. “And that one there. That’s the little girl’s grave.” He shook his graying head in disgust. “Bad enough to drag the soldiers from their final resting places, but a baby? Some people just ain’t got no respect.”

Will squatted down, studied the area as the smell of it – dirt and grass and the tang of decay just under it – filled his nostrils. He’d already seen the photos of the open coffins, seen the remains of their inhabitants – stripped of clothes and whatever effects with which they’d been buried. But he’d driven all this way because he’d wanted to get a sense of the scene, of the nature of the crime.