Pretty Dead (22 page)

The burial took place in Laurel Grove Cemetery. Elise heard that one of the family members wanted to take Coretta’s body to Daufuskie or Sapelo Island, where a few of Hoffman’s relatives still lived. The aunt from Atlanta won, claiming Coretta would have wanted to be buried in the city she’d loved.

In the cemetery, birds sang and traffic roared past. In the distance, children laughed while another prayer was said, and grave diggers waited in the shade.

“I’m gonna find whoever did this,” David said under his breath as he and Elise watched the casket being lowered into the ground.

They’d arrived at the awkward part of a funeral. Where everything was done, but there was no real ending. No credits rolled, nobody said it was time to leave, and nobody said it was over. People wondered if every song had been sung and every prayer prayed. At last a few began to drift and fan out in a slow dance. The rest followed.

Elise’s phone vibrated, indicating a call. She checked the screen:
Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab
.

She answered while moving away for privacy.

“We have DNA results on that rush order,” the girl calling from Atlanta told her. “Most of the print matches belonged to David Gould. The rest belonged to Coretta Hoffman. I’m faxing the results to your office right now.” The sound of shuffling paper. “We also got a DNA match on the semen.” A pause. “Also David Gould’s.”

It was eighty degrees out, but Elise felt a chill run through her. She’d mentally prepared herself for this, but in the back of her mind she’d clung to the hope that they wouldn’t find David’s DNA.

A heartbeat later, the rationalizations began. Of course his DNA was found inside Coretta. They’d been lovers. Of course his prints were everywhere.

Numbly, Elise signed off. Seconds later, across an expanse of cemetery, she saw Lamont answering his phone. With the device to his ear, he scanned the dispersing crowd, stopping when he spotted David.

The FBI agent was getting an identical call from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Sometimes life-changing decisions were made, not with long hours of deliberation, but without thought, in a split second.

Elise made one of those decisions now.

She pulled out her phone and sent a text message to David, who stood near Coretta’s grave.
Run.

CHAPTER 33

D
avid read the text from Elise.

Run.

He looked up to see Lamont striding toward him, jaw rigid, face intense.

David ran.

People everywhere.

He dodged a fragile old woman with a cane, cut to the left, past a guy who smelled like cigars, then right around a table tomb, leaping over graves and headstones until he reached a flat, open area where he could really haul ass.

The cemetery was long and narrow, covering a shitload of acres, with flat dirt roads that wound through live oaks, past statuary and mausoleums.

The landscape was a blur because one thing David could do was run—even in a suit and tie.

As he moved, as his arms and legs pumped, he put the pieces together. Elise and Lamont had both received phone calls, probably from the crime lab, probably finding DNA that incriminated him.

He couldn’t go to jail. He had work to do, murders to solve.

Behind him, way behind him, Lamont shouted for him to stop. “You’re under arrest!”

David kept going.

The terrain changed, and blue water sparkled in the distance. He knew this area. He’d been here before.

Slide down the hillside into a shallow valley, heart pumping, breathing harsh. What kind of shape was Lamont in? Bad, hopefully.

Lamont must have called for backup, because David heard sirens, the sound normally welcoming, normally the sound of help. They weren’t coming to help him now.

He paused to get his bearings.

From behind the top of a hill, Lamont’s head appeared. The bastard could run faster than David would have guessed. But his face was red, and he was sweating profusely. “You’re under arrest.” The gun in his hand was aimed at David.

David dove behind an altar tomb, scrambled to his feet, and kept going, pouring it on.

He heard a series of pops. Tufts of grass exploded around his legs, dirt flying as bullets peppered the ground. He felt a sting in his shoulder.

This was the part of the story where David knew he should stop, knew he should raise his arms and clasp his hands behind his head and give up. But Lamont now had a real reason to lock him up and throw away the key, and David seriously began to doubt the choice he’d made to run.

Too late now.

With a hand pressed to his shoulder, he kept moving, the sound of sirens increasing while Lamont began to lag.

David veered back to the dirt road where he could run flat out. A couple of minutes later, he rounded a bend and spotted what he’d been looking for. A mausoleum. The mausoleum where he’d almost died.

It was a popular spot with kids, probably more popular now that the story had gotten out about the events that had taken place there. The lock was broken.

Thank you, vandals.

Diving inside, David pulled the heavy marble door shut behind him. The sound of the closing tomb was like nothing he’d ever heard before. Like the sound of finality. The sound of death. And the darkness inside was absolute.

He dug out his phone and hit the flashlight app, scanning the space. There was the altar in the center; there were the vaults lining one wall where cremains were stored. A nasty blanket lay in the corner with some half-burned candles, along with empty beer cans and broken glass.

And what he was looking for.

An opening that led to the fragile and dangerous underground tunnels where, years ago, the bodies of yellow fever victims had been transported to the cemetery for burial.

David slipped through the opening, climbing over rubble that had either fallen or been removed by kids in order to gain access.

The tunnels were arched and lined with brick, much of which had crumbled away. Tangled roots had broken through walls and the tabby floor in their search for water, and as David moved, they grabbed at his feet.

The smell. He remembered it. Like mildew and stagnant water and a long-dead past.

David wasn’t light-headed, and no blood dripped from his fingers, which gave him hope that the bullet from Lamont’s gun had merely grazed him. With the flashlight app illuminating his escape route, he moved as quickly as he could, given the terrain, sometimes running, sometimes stopping to dig through bricks and dirt. Each time he came to a barrier, he feared the collapsed area might be too extensive for him to break through to the other side, but each time he made it.

He wasn’t sure if Lamont would figure out his escape route, but just in case, David wanted to put as much distance between himself and his old partner as possible. Every junction and every new tunnel added to the maze and increased his chances of ditching Lamont—if the guy was even after him anymore.

At one point David stopped and unlocked his phone, read Elise’s last message, and laughed quietly to himself.

Run.

He replied:
Delete that. And this.

Elise:
Where are you?

David:
It’s better if you don’t know. I’ll contact you later.

Elise:
OK.

David:
Delete all of this.
A reminder.

Her reply:
Be careful.

David:
Gotta go.
He dropped the phone to the ground, stomped on it so it couldn’t be tracked, pulled out his key-chain light, then continued down the tunnel.

“You tipped him off, didn’t you?”

Two hours after David had eluded the police, Lamont confronted Elise in her office on the third floor of the Savannah PD.

“You discharged your weapon on one of my officers,” Elise said.

Hell-bent on intimidation, Lamont towered over her. His face was red, his hair and shirt soaked with sweat. “He’s not your officer.”

“David Gould is on temporary suspension. He’s still an officer with the Savannah PD.”

“That’s not how I see it.”

“Did you hit him?”

“If I did, it was just a graze, because he didn’t slow down.”

“No blood?”

“I didn’t stop to look.”

He hated her. That was obvious. He hated them all, and he was no longer trying to hide it. “Because I was chasing a
murder suspect
.” He uncapped a bottled water, chugged it, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “You know what? I hope to hell I did hit him. I hope to hell he’s bleeding like a stuck pig right now.”

Funny how she’d thought he was kind of nice-looking when they first met. Now . . . “I want to remind you that the mayor made me interim chief of police.”

“That’s not a big surprise. He had to appoint someone until he can find a replacement. You’re just a placeholder—somebody to satisfy the press while this situation continues to unfold.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, one hip resting against her desk. Casual, relaxed pose. “As interim chief, I’m telling you to leave,” she stated quietly.

“What?”

“You heard me. Leave. Get out of here.”

“You don’t have the authority to dismiss me.”

“No, but I have the authority to kick you out of my office. So get your stuff and get out of here.”

Instead, he got in her face. She didn’t flinch or recoil.

“I’m gonna bring you down,” he said. “I’m gonna bring your whole department down. And this place is going to see a house-cleaning like it’s never seen before.” He tossed the empty bottle in the trash can and began packing his laptop. “Crazy voodoo woman. Everybody who knew Gould at Quantico laughs about it. How he’s working down here in this backward town with the crazy daughter of a witch doctor.”

She wanted to find out how much of a believer he was. “Maybe I’ll cast a spell on you.” She wanted to see if she could make him squirm. “Maybe a broken-mind spell.”

He paled.

She smiled. “Yeah, we’re crazy here.”

Of course she wouldn’t cast a spell. She didn’t do that kind of thing, not anymore, but she liked his reaction. And she liked the feeling of power her threat carried with it. It felt good to let go of the restrictions of her station. Maybe that was where her conflict with her job came from. The rules she had to follow, whether she agreed with them or not. Well, she was done with rules. Today in the cemetery, when she’d sent David the warning text—that marked a turning point in her career. From now on she’d be true to herself. And if Lamont succeeded in cleaning house the way he threatened, so be it. It might be time to move on. Past time. Socrates said the secret of change was to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

Lamont picked up his briefcase and strode off.

Elise smiled to herself and thought,
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Someone clapped. Looking over, she was surprised to see Jay Thomas sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. Forgotten again.

This must be how it was with those reality shows where the participants forgot about the camera. Jay Thomas had become a part of the room, a part of the furniture. She wondered how many times she’d said something she shouldn’t have said in front of him.

CHAPTER 34

D
avid took back what he’d said about not being light-headed. Could be the air quality in the tunnels, which wasn’t good.

Yeah, tell yourself that.

Every step stirred up the dust of a million dead rats and a thousand yellow fever victims. Add to that the fact that pretty much all the entrances were sealed off, either by collapse or a solid safety barrier, and it didn’t allow for much oxygen.

He paused, leaned against the wall, then deliberately slid to the tunnel floor. He shut off the fading key-chain light to save the battery and sat there, his head resting against brick, arms dangling over bent knees.

In the dark he felt the sleeve of his jacket and was slightly alarmed to find it saturated with blood. He stumbled to his feet and moved on.

Elise’s phone rang as she drove down Drayton in the direction of home. She checked the screen, hoping it was David. No, but close. David’s mother.

Pulling in a deep breath, Elise hit the “Answer” button on her steering wheel. “Hello, Mrs. Gould.”

“Elise, what’s going on?”

Elise’s stomach dropped at the panic in the woman’s voice. Did the terror that was motherhood ever stop? She had this unrealistic idea that once Audrey was grown, she wouldn’t worry about her as much. But it seemed the fear and worry never went away—because your child is always your child no matter her age.

“I just saw the news,” the older woman said. “There’s a manhunt on for my son.”

Elise had met David’s mother one Christmas when she’d come to visit. She was a lovely woman, but nervous and high-strung. “David’s okay,” Elise said with a level voice.

“Where is he? Can I talk to him?”

“No, but he’s safe.”

“How do you know?” Mrs. Gould pulled in a tremulous breath. “I swear, whenever I think things are looking up for him, something happens.” This more to herself than to Elise. “The news said he’s a murder suspect. That’s insane. David catches murderers. He doesn’t commit murders.”

“It’s a misunderstanding. I can’t go into the details, but I’m hoping we get this straightened out soon.”

They talked more. Elise tried to reassure her, but it was hard when you had no reassurance to give.

“You’ll let me know as soon as you hear anything, won’t you?”

“Yes, I promise.”

Elise ended the call.

CHAPTER 35

S
trata Luna sat up in bed. “There it is again.” A strange sound, coming from the bowels of her house.

“Rats,” Jackson Sweet said, stroking her thigh. “They swim the river and enter through the tunnels.”

“I’m gonna have a look.” She pushed herself from the bed and slipped into a black gown that covered her from throat to feet. She would have had Javier check on the noise, but she’d sent him away so she and Jackson could have the house to themselves.