Graveminder (22 page)

“I know,” she whispered.

He opened the door.

“Byron?”

“Yeah?”

“I still want you to sleep in here.”

He looked back at her. “Just sleep?”

Rebekkah didn’t answer. He could see her chest rising and falling, and he counted each breath. Several moments passed, and then she said, “No, that’s not what I want, but anything else would matter to both of us.”

“I know.” Byron smiled and closed the door. It wasn’t exactly a full admission, but it was progress.

He climbed into bed and pulled Rebekkah close to him.

Chapter 38

R
EBEKKAH SLIPPED OUT OF THE BED WHEN SHE AWOKE.
I
T WASN’T MUCH
past sunrise. The light of the new morning poured through the curtains she’d forgotten to draw last night. She stepped past the worn board that had creaked for as long as she’d had a room at Maylene’s. Sleep was out of reach, and if she was going to be awake with too many thoughts on her mind, she was going to do it with a cup of coffee in her hand.

She’d slipped on her discarded nightshirt and made it as far as the door when Byron spoke.

“Running or just can’t sleep?”

“It’s morning,” she said in lieu of answering the question.

Byron squinted at the light outside. “Not by much, Bek.”

“You don’t have to get up.” She curled her hand around the glass doorknob and opened the door. Somewhere downstairs Cherub had begun proclaiming his need for kitty food. The familiarity of the sound made Rebekkah smile. Some things were constant, and in light of the myriad oddities of the past two days, that constancy was very welcome.

Byron sat up and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll make breakfast if you start coffee. We need to see the town council or the mayor. Might as well get started.”

Rebekkah thought of the platters of food that Maylene’s neighbors had left for her. Most of them weren’t breakfast foods, but she’d seen at least two cold-cut trays in the fridge. Between the ham and cheese and various fruit baskets, she and Byron would find plenty to graze on. She told him as much.

“You can have cold food if you want. I’m making eggs and ham.” He rubbed his face and blinked a few more times.

“Not everything changes, hmm? You’re not any more alert when you first wake up than you used to be. ”

Byron lunged out of the bed, covered the few feet to the doorway, and pulled her into his arms. “I can be when I need to.”

Rebekkah put her hands flat against his chest and looked up at him. “Hmm. Byron or coffee? Sex or food?”

“If you have to think about it, there’s no contest.” He brushed his lips over hers in a brief, chaste kiss.

“I’ve been thinking about you for years, B.” She ducked out of his arms and out the door.

In the kitchen, she fed Cherub, started the coffee brewing, and pulled out a tray of cold cuts and bread. While she waited for the coffee to percolate, she sat down and nibbled on the food she’d set out on the table. The sounds of the shower upstairs made her smile. Having another person there made it easier to avoid the thought of living alone in the big old house.

Living here alone.

With a start, she realized that she couldn’t ever leave Claysville now. As the Graveminder, she was trapped. It wasn’t that she wanted to go somewhere specific or do something specific; it was simply knowing she could go anywhere, do anything. She’d avoided entanglements for most of her life.
Run from them.
Now her future, her address, her connection to Byron, her commitment to Charles: so many things had suddenly been decided for her.
They had been decided already; I just didn’t know it.
Rebekkah thought back to the letter Maylene had left for her.
These are the things she didn’t want to tell me.

Rebekkah rinsed two mugs, set one by the coffeepot, and then poured coffee in the other for herself.

Byron came down the stairs. His hair was damp and stuck out in tiny tufts revealing that he’d just finished towel-drying it. He didn’t pause on his way to the coffee.

“I can’t leave,” she said aloud, testing the words, gauging the panic they’d bring.

“I know. That’s what I was trying to tell you yesterday at Sweet Rest.” His face was carefully expressionless as he poured his coffee. “I don’t know how strict that is or ... well, much of anything. I signed a contract, but that’s binding me, not you.”

She gaped at him. “You
signed
a
contract
? Promising what?”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t make eye contact with her, but he came to sit across from her. He rolled a slice of ham and a slice of cheese together and ate the breadless sandwich.

“You don’t know what you signed? How could you sign something you didn’t read?”

He shrugged. “Situational factors.”

“
Situa
— Are you serious?”

Still not looking at her, he rolled up several more pieces of cheese and ham. “Yep.”

Rebekkah pushed away from the table and walked over to the window. He had no idea of what he’d agreed to, but he’d signed. She hadn’t even been given that option. She folded her left arm over her stomach as she stood and sipped the coffee she held in the opposite hand. Behind her, she heard Byron push out his chair and pour himself more coffee.

“Do you want eggs?”

“No.” She didn’t look at him.

He opened cupboards; the clatter of bowls and pans were the only sounds for a few moments. Then he said, “We were with Charlie. Dad told me that I either signed or I stayed behind. I drank with the dead. They set me up to do so, but I did it all the same. I didn’t know that by signing, I was killing my father. All I really knew was that if I didn’t sign, I was leaving you.”

While he was talking, she turned away from the window to face him, but his back was to her as he shifted things around inside the oversize refrigerator. He turned around with a carton of eggs in his hand and said, “I couldn’t do that. I
won’t
.”

She crossed the room, took the eggs out of his hand, and sat them on the counter beside him. “William died so you could be—”

“He died because Maylene died,” Byron interrupted, “and because the new Graveminder needed
her
Undertaker.”

Rebekkah took his hands. “I’m scared, and I’m sorry about your dad, and I’m angry about all of us being trapped, but I’m glad you’re the one who’s at my side.”

“Me, too. I—” His cell phone rang, and he frowned. “Hold that thought. That’s the ring tone for work.” He grabbed the phone. “Montgomery ... Yeah. Where? ... No, I’ll be there. Hold on.” He looked at Rebekkah and made a writing gesture in the air.

She mouthed, “Coffee table.”

“Sorry,” Byron mouthed back. Then he walked into the living room.

Rebekkah fixed two ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Then she started putting the food away. Snatches of Byron’s conversation stood out like beacons.

“ ... animal ...”

“ ... missing family ...”

She’d already caught enough details to know that she wanted to go with him to the scene of the death, so she turned off the coffeepot, pulled two travel mugs from the cupboard, and filled them both.

When he returned to the room with a scribbled note and a frown, she held out a mug and sandwich. “I need five minutes to throw on clothes and grab a ponytail holder.”

“Bek—”

“Is it Daisha?”

“We can’t know yet, but ... yeah, it sounds like it.” He blew his breath out in a heavy sigh. “You can see her at the funeral home. The scene of a murder is ... Chris says this one is messy.”

“I can do this,” she assured him. “Five minutes?”

He nodded, and she hurried upstairs to change out of her nightshirt.

Chapter 39

B
YRON AND
R
EBEKKAH DROVE TOWARD THE
S
UNNY
G
LADES
T
RAILER
Park. The mobile-home community wasn’t quite at the edge of the town limits, but it was a long enough drive that the silence started to feel awkward. Byron plugged his iPod into the hearse’s stereo system.

“Your upgrade?” She nodded toward the stereo.

“Yeah. I added it a few months ago.” He glanced sideways at her. “It was a bit of an admission that I moved back to stay. I knew that when I crossed the town limits in December, but it took a little longer to really admit it.”

“Well, you’re a few months ahead of me, then: I figured out that I’m staying less than an hour ago.” Rebekkah stared out the window. “Tell me what you know.”

“I know it’ll be okay,” he said.

“About the murder,” she clarified, “not about living here.”

He cut off the engine. “Chris got a call, an anonymous tip, that there were two bodies that needed removal.”

“Two?”

“A couple. Man and a woman ... Chris says that it was another animal attack or maybe a murder suicide.” He opened the car door, but didn’t get out.

“This is ridiculous.” Rebekkah’s tone was angry. “What if we told them?”

“Told them?” he repeated.

“That a monster was killing people, not an animal.” She got out of the car and closed the door a little too forcefully, not quite slamming it.

Byron closed his door gently, walked around to stand beside her, and said softly, “You want to tell Chris that a dead girl killed these people and attacked the others?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I want to do. Either they believe it and can try to protect themselves or ...”

“Or they just forget, or they think we’re crazy,” he finished.

When Rebekkah didn’t reply, he went toward the door of the trailer. She followed silently.

The door was propped open, and he was grateful for the cool day. The smell of recent death filled the small structure, but if not for the open windows and breeze, it would’ve been worse. He handed her a pair of protective booties.

Once he’d put on his own, he looked over his shoulder. “Can you do this? Or do you want to wait outside?”

She frowned and stepped past him into the living room. Her eyes widened. “There are three death scents.”

She drew in a deep breath, and then, seemingly unfazed by the blood that was on the walls and soaking into the sofa, she walked farther into the trailer. “Two bodies. Another death.”

“A third murder? Chris said that—”

“No.” She looked around the room as if she saw things he didn’t. Her gaze was unfocused, even as she assessed the room. “Hungry Dead, not still dead.”

A sound from the hallway drew Byron’s attention. Chris had come out of one of the rooms and now stood in the doorway. He nodded. “Byron. Rebekkah.”

Rebekkah wasn’t looking at him; she walked in the opposite direction and stood in the kitchen area. Her hand was outstretched like she was feeling for something in the air.

After a moment, she turned around. Her eyes were shimmering silver. “Over here,” she said calmly.

“Bek!” Byron all but leaped over the dead woman to reach Rebekkah.

“She’s fine, Byron,” Chris said. “Barrow women get like that. Maylene looked peculiar-like when your dad brought her around dead folk.”

As Chris spoke, Rebekkah had become so vibrant that Byron’s eyes hurt to look at her. The shades of brown that he saw in her hair were highlighted as individual tones: dark coppers and soft golds twined with strands of amber and honey.

The urge to go to her vied with the need to run from her. Like stepping into the tunnel to reach the dead, this moment felt both frightening and alluring. Byron swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. She was still Rebekkah, still the woman he’d loved for years, still his partner in the strange task that lay before them.
And not entirely of this world.

Byron forced himself to look away from her and asked Chris, “What?”

“I don’t understand the particulars, but she’ll be fine. Just like her grandmama. Their eyes get different, but it’s not anything to worry over.” The sheriff shook his head, and then he headed to the door, trying to step around the worst of the bloodied carpet. “Come on. I’ll help you bag these two.”

“Sheriff ?” Rebekkah called. “This wasn’t an animal.” Her voice was different, too, thready in a way that reminded Byron of the wind in the tunnel to the land of the dead. “There’s a—”

“Stop.” Chris spun around and held up a hand. “Before you go saying anything more, here’s the facts: I don’t know as much as you, but the terms of my job let me accept things that most folks won’t hold in their mind. Reverend McLendon and Father Ness and the rest of the council members are able to remember some stuff, but if you go talking about things we shouldn’t know, it causes a hell of a migraine.”

“A migraine?” Rebekkah repeated.

“Stripes and lost vision, vomiting sick. Nasty.” Chris grimaced. “Don’t go saying anything that isn’t mine to know. What matters is this: something that shouldn’t be here killed them. When someone dies, I call the Undertaker. You”—he nodded at Byron—“bring the Barrow woman when you need to. Any ...
weird
stuff Maylene told me always made my head hurt, and I didn’t remember it the next day anyhow.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Rebekkah’s voice became softer still.

“No. That’s why I don’t want you telling me things that aren’t any of my business.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she whispered.

“I know that.” Chris took off his hat and rubbed a hand over his hair. “Some things are out of our control, though. Trying to change them”—he put his hat back on—“it just doesn’t make sense. I know my place. Asking questions isn’t part of it.”

Rebekkah frowned like she wanted to press the matter, but after a moment she sighed. “We’ll need to talk about the other
animal attacks
, too.”

The sheriff nodded. Then he stared first at Byron and then at Rebekkah. “I know you’re not the ones who used to deal with this,” he said to Byron, “but her eyes are strange like her grandmama’s and you’re the Undertaker. I called you. Sooner or later that means the animal attacks will stop, right?”

Byron did not flinch as he and Rebekkah exchanged a grim look. Then they both said, “Right.”

Chris nodded. “Good. I’m going out to your car to get the body bags. You two do whatever you need to do here. Holler when you want my help with bagging the bodies.”

Then he walked out.