The Prophet (35 page)
“Let her go,” I said.
“It’s too late,” the thing taunted. “You’re out of time.”
He drew Shani into the trees, and I went after them, battling terror and the tug of my earthly body. We came to another clearing lit with torches. I somehow knew that this place was neither heaven nor hell. We were not in the Light or the Dark, but a realm of my own making. And if I had created this world, then I could control it.
“Come to me, Shani.”
The creature clung to her and she whimpered.
I knelt and put out my hand to her. “I know what you’ve been trying to tell your father. I know what really happened that day, what your mother did to you, but she can’t hurt you now. I won’t let her. Please come with me.”
She reached for me, and as our fingertips touched, the creature dissolved into black mist.
I picked her up and held her for the longest time.
“I’m taking you someplace safe,” I murmured. “Someplace beautiful.”
The scent of jasmine drifted to us as we emerged from the woods. The perfume led us to a garden where Robert Fremont waited for us.
“Why are you here?” I asked him. “You can’t move on. We haven’t yet found your killer.”
He gazed down at Shani. “It doesn’t matter. It never mattered.”
And suddenly I understood. “Because that wasn’t why you were earthbound. You were waiting for her.”
“I didn’t know,” he said in wonder. “I never knew until now.”
I thought of those autopsy reports in my car. The blood types that would have told me the truth if I had been paying attention to the signs. Shani was Robert Fremont’s daughter.
Devlin, I thought. My poor Devlin. He would never know the truth from me. Mariama had taken Shani from him once. I would not be responsible for taking her from him again.
The sun rose over the garden wall. So dazzling I couldn’t stand to look into the light. But Shani and Robert were already walking toward the garden gate. The child hesitated and glanced back. Robert had already disappeared, but she hovered just inside the gate, a fingertip to her lips.
I felt a presence and turned.
Devlin stood behind me.
I said in shock. “You can’t be here. Unless you’re…”
He looked at me sadly.
“But you can’t be,” I whispered. “I won’t let you be.”
“You have to go back,” he said. “You’re almost out of time.”
“I don’t want to go back. Not without you. Please come with me.”
“I can’t.”
His gaze went past me to the gate where Shani still waited.
Chapter Forty
I
felt a jolt, like a shot of pure adrenaline, and I opened my eyes on a gasp. I could have sworn I saw Mariama hovering over me, but she was too late. I was back inside my own body, lying on my own kitchen floor. Devlin was prone beside me. He looked very pale, very dead.
I tried to reach out to him, but I was so cold I could do nothing but lie there trembling in my misery.
A shadow moved and I looked across the room, expecting to find Darius Goodwine or Mariama’s ghost, but I was shocked to see Ethan Shaw.
He gazed at me defiantly. “It would have been so much easier if you hadn’t come back.”
He slid down the wall and sat with his back against the door frame.
“What have you done?” I whispered.
“What I had to do. He was going to take her away from me.”
“John?” I asked in confusion?
“Robert Fremont. I heard Mariama on the phone that day after John had stormed out of the house. She was making plans to run off to Africa with Fremont. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again.”
A gun dangled from his hand, and I wondered if it was the same one I’d found in the tree hole. Devlin’s .38. Had Ethan followed me to Chedathy Cemetery?
I tried to inch my hand toward Devlin. If I could just touch him…
“You knew about the gun John kept in his desk, didn’t you?”
“Mariama showed it to me once. She even hinted that, with John out of the picture, his money would be hers, and she would be free to spend it with someone who truly loved her. I thought that someone would be me.”
His hands trembled, I noticed. I wondered if he could really muster the courage to shoot me in cold blood. But then, he’d killed Robert Fremont and probably Tom Gerrity. And now Devlin lay dead at my side.
“I’d been with John earlier that day,” he explained. “I told you about that. He and Mariama fought viciously and he made plans to stay at a friend’s place on Sullivan’s Island until they both had time to cool off. I knew he would be alone out there with no alibi. So I went to her house, got the gun and then I called Robert and asked him to meet me at the cemetery. I told him I had information about Darius.”
“And then you ambushed him. You shot him in the back with Devlin’s gun. But Mariama was already dead.”
“I didn’t know she was gone until Father called. By then, it was too late.”
I thought about Rhapsody hiding that gun all these years because she thought her father was the murderer. But it had been Ethan all along.
“Why did you give John an alibi for that night if you wanted him to take the fall?”
“I panicked when the police showed up at his place. And—this may sound strange—but with Mariama gone, I saw no need to make him suffer. He was my friend.”
“And yet, you shot him.”
“Once he decided to go after Darius, he would have found out the truth sooner or later. He was already suspicious of that alibi.”
I glanced at Devlin’s still form. “Please call 911. It may not be too late to save him.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Then tell me why you killed Gerrity.”
“He’d been blackmailing my father for years. He claimed to have evidence that would prove my father killed my mother. It was nonsense, of course, but Father paid him at first in order to salvage his reputation. And perhaps because he knew about me.”
“You killed her?”
“You don’t know what it was like, watching her suffer all those years. Mariama helped me. She knew exactly how to do it so that no one would suspect. That’s when I knew she really loved me.”
“So now you’re going to shoot me, too.” My fingertips touched Devlin’s hand and I closed my eyes. He was so cold. “What will be your excuse this time? Mariama isn’t here. You can’t blame this on her.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he said, and I turned to see his numinous smile. Or was that Mariama’s smile? Was he still doing her bidding?
A slight movement from the back door caught my attention. I couldn’t see her face, but I smelled her haunting perfume. Isabel Perilloux eased into my line of sight with a fingertip to her lips. From the front door, Clementine’s voice rang out. “Amelia! Are you in here? Grandmother had a dream. She thought that I should come check up on you.”
Synchronicity,
I thought. Those two women had been brought into my life for a reason.
Ethan leaped to his feet, his head cocked toward the sound of Clementine’s voice. It was a perfect distraction. I grabbed Devlin’s gun from his holster and when Ethan turned back to the kitchen, I fired without hesitation.
I was astounded by my action. I lay there in shock as Isabel dropped to her knees beside Devlin. Within moments, her hands were covered in his blood.
Chapter Forty-One
I
stayed by Devlin’s bedside day and night, clinging to his hand, willing him to come back to me. The temptation to stay with Shani must have been irresistible because he showed no sign of coming around.
On the third night, I had just nodded off when I felt another presence in the room. I opened my eyes to find Darius Goodwine in the doorway.
“I know what you tried to do,” I said. “You used Shani to lure me through the veil so that Mariama could inhabit my body.”
“You’re strong,” he said with what I thought was grudging admiration. “Far stronger than Mariama.”
I didn’t feel all that strong at that moment. I felt…helpless.
“You said I had untapped power. Show me how to use it to bring him back,” I begged.
“There are always unintended consequences when you bring back the dead,” he warned.
“I just want him back.”
I lifted my head and glanced around. I was alone in the room except for Devlin.
A moment later, his eyes fluttered open. “Amelia?”
“Yes, it’s me. Welcome back,” I whispered, with only a momentary trepidation as I pondered those unintended consequences.
Epilogue
D
evlin was released from the hospital two weeks later. He would need months of physical therapy, but he was already able to get around with the aid of a cane. He hadn’t been well enough to attend Ethan’s funeral. I had gone only to pay my respects to Dr. Shaw. His health was deteriorating rapidly, his mind slipping into a place that couldn’t process the reality of what his son had done. I thought that might be for the best, but I would miss his counsel. I had dropped in on him earlier, only to find that Layla had been replaced. I wondered if she’d disappeared with Darius. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since that day in the hospital, and I still wasn’t certain his visit had been real. I wanted to believe Devlin had come back to me on his own, without any unintended consequences, but sometimes when I lay awake beside him in bed at night, my mind would drift to a dark and disturbing place. What if he had brought something back with him from the other side? What if I had?
Shani had moved on. Robert Fremont had moved on. Even Mariama had vanished. Devlin was free of his ghosts, and I wanted to believe that we could finally be together. But something tormented. Something haunted.
What you are, I once was. What I am, you will someday become.
I thought of the sightless woman’s prophecy as I watched Devlin kneel at Shani’s gravesite.
My name is Amelia Gray,
she’d said.
A chill wind whispered through the trees and I shivered. Devlin rose and I went to him at once. He pulled me into his arms and I melted against him. He was my sanctuary now. My only safe haven.
The sun glimmered through the trees as we walked hand in hand through the lichgate.
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459226937
Copyright © 2012 by Marilyn Medlock Amann
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