The Sinner (4 page)

“Yes. According to some beliefs, the soul and spirit divide upon death. The soul leaves the body and transcends its earthly bounds, but the spirit lingers to interfere in the lives of the living. That's why graves in Gullah cemeteries are sprinkled with white sand. Sometimes whole graveyards are covered in order to keep the dead from coming back as
bakulu
.”

“You have it partially right.” The stick continued to move in the dirt even though Darius's gaze never left me. “When the final breath is drawn, the soul is immediately aware of death and transcends. But the spirit lingers in the body, not to interfere in the lives of the living as you suggest, but because it isn't yet conscious of death. While the spirit still resides inside the deceased, transference may be attained.”

“Transference?”

“A powerful spell by which the spirit can be harvested from the dead and transplanted into the body of a living host.”

“You mean possession.” My voice grew heavy with dread as I flashed back to what I'd witnessed and experienced in Kroll Cemetery.

“It may be easier to think of it this way,” Darius said. “Possession is more of a hostile takeover, but transference is a peaceful merger with a willing vessel. The essence of the dead is allowed to exist in the living host, thus attaining immortality.”

“This is all very fascinating,” I said, with far more bravado than I felt. “But I still don't understand what any of it has to do with me.” I drew my hand away from my neck and found another beetle clinging to my flesh. I flicked the insect to the ground where it scurried into one of the spirals. The symbol disappeared, leaving the poor beetle exposed in the dirt. When I looked again, I saw that the insect was nothing more than a pebble.

“Nothing is as it seems,” Darius warned. “The Resurrectionists are skilled in deception and trickery, as are their enemy, the
Congé
.” He pronounced the word
kän-zhā
.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Zealots who believe it their mission to stamp out that which they do not understand. Someone with your gift and abilities would be wise to steer clear of them.”

The Resurrectionists. The
Congé
. It was all very much Greek to me. But his voice was so honeyed and persuasive, I found myself nodding in agreement even though I hadn't a clue what he meant. I realized that he had once again found a way through my defenses and I tried to summon my resistance as I fought off the seductive lethargy of his hypnosis.

“Do you understand now why you were summoned?” He peered into my eyes, into my soul.

“I don't understand any of this,” I said.

“You were summoned because you are the only one with enough power to end this.”

My heart thudded in agitation because I instinctively knew that what he said was true. I might not be familiar with the players or the particulars. I might only understand a sliver of his convoluted missive, but I'd known from the moment I entered the caged grave circle and experienced that strange vacuum that I had been called to this place for a purpose. My gift was needed to track an uncanny killer. Yet I continued to resist because a part of me still wanted to believe that I could control my own destiny.

I mustered up a flimsy argument even though my fate was undoubtedly sealed. “You do realize what you're asking of me, don't you? Trying to uncover a murderer could get me killed. At the very least, I could be arrested for interfering in an official investigation. The authorities won't take kindly to me poking my nose into places it doesn't belong. I have to live here until I finish the restoration so I'd rather not get on Detective Kendrick's bad side.”

Darius's head came up and I saw a shadow move through his eyes. “
Lucien
Kendrick?”

His reaction startled me. “Yes, do you know him?”

“Our paths have crossed,” Darius said darkly as his gaze darted toward the woods. “From what I've heard about him, he is a ruthless and relentless investigator.”

“Then why not let him do his job?”

“You're still asking the wrong questions,” he said with a rare spark of impatience. “Like your wretched John Devlin, you're still trying to run away from who you are and what you're meant to be.”

“Or maybe I just don't trust you,” I said with a scowl. “If you know anything about that woman's murder, you should go to the police yourself, no matter your history with Detective Kendrick.”

“For any number of reasons, I can't get involved. It would be better for both of us if no one finds out that we've talked.”

“That hardly instills me with confidence,” I said, still with that forced bravado. “Give me one compelling reason why I should believe you, let alone help you.”

I expected him to remind me of the bargain we'd struck at Devlin's deathbed, but instead he said, “The key you wear around your neck belonged to your great-grandmother, did it not?”

My hand flew again to my chest where the key was still concealed by my shirt. “How did...”

“The key is special,” he said. “Blessed by a divine hand. Like hallowed ground, it offers a temporary reprieve from the ghosts. But they're irresistibly drawn to the light inside you so they'll keep coming back, more and more, until you no longer have the means or the fortitude to protect yourself. You'll likely suffer the same fate as your great-grandmother unless...” He trailed away tantalizingly.

“Unless...what?” I held my breath.

“There is another key, a lost key. A key that would lock the door to the dead world forever. Think of what that would mean. No dread of twilight, no fear of ghostly visitations, no riddles of the dead to solve. Eventually, your gift would wither like one of your cemeteries and your calling would become nothing more than a distant memory.”

His words drew an irresistible picture, one that I had been painting in my head ever since the night Devlin had stepped out of the mist to confront me. Darius Goodwine had tapped into my innermost dreams, my deepest desires, and I would be a fool to fall for his manipulations.

But he wasn't the only one who had spoken of the lost key. I had known of its possible existence since my visit to Kroll Cemetery. If the key really could lock the door to the dead world forever, how far was I willing to go to find it? What risks would I take to possess it?

“How do I know the key is even real?” I asked. “Or that you can help me find it?”

He said nothing as he continued to scrawl in the dirt. I glanced down to see a series of numbers in the same formation—I could have sworn—as the ones my great-grandmother had painstakingly scribbled on the walls of her sanctuary. I still had no idea what they meant, but I'd wondered for over a year if they were positions on a map. Ethereal coordinates that could lead me to the location of the lost key, either here or on the other side.

My adrenaline surged at the notion, but before I had time to commit the arrangement to memory, Darius erased the numbers with the palm of his hand.

I glanced at him with a gasp. “Why did you do that?”

“Unmask the killer,” he said. “And I'll help you find your great-grandmother's key.”

He rose gracefully and I followed, lifting my gaze to take in his full height. He towered over me by almost a foot, and for a moment I stood with tilted head, studying his remarkable features—the prominent nose, the magnetic eyes, the full, sensuous lips that parted slightly as he became aware of my survey.

He lifted a hand and beckoned. I took a reluctant step toward him as though I were a marionette responding to a puppeteer's commands. I caught myself and turned away from him. His hold on me diminished, but before I could celebrate another small victory, I realized my freedom hadn't come from my own strength and resolve, but from Darius's lack of focus.

Something in the woods had caught his attention. He knew something lurked in the shadows, hiding among the trees. Like me, like Detective Kendrick, he could sense a presence.

Shifting my gaze to the woods, I emptied my mind once again, trying to detect a hint or a clue of the lurker's true nature. The barrier came up once more. Whatever skulked in those woods was unlike anything I'd ever come up against.

“You feel it, too,” I said, but Darius didn't answer. His gaze remained fastened on the trees. He lifted a hand to trace a symbol in the air as he muttered something in a language I didn't understand.

Out over the sea, clouds gathered and I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. As my eyes adjusted to the aberrant twilight of the woods, I saw something white and nimble darting among the tree trunks.

My breath quickened as I reached for Rose's key. As I lifted the talisman from my shirt, Darius's attention shifted again. He was still looking at the woods, but I could feel a tingle across my scalp, as though one of his beetles had buried itself in my hair.

“What's out there?” I whispered.

He lifted a hand, trailing blue sparks. “Tread carefully,” he said. “And trust no one.”

Five

“M
iss Gray? Amelia? Are you all right?”

The voice had a distant, tinny quality as though someone were calling up to me from the bottom of a very deep well. I wanted to respond, but at the moment I was too busy fighting my way out of a no-man's-land of cobwebs and mist.

I shook myself slightly and the fog thinned. I was still in the cemetery kneeling beside a gravestone, a bucket of water before me and a soft bristle brush in my hand. The inscription carved into the face of the marker was starting to peek through the grime, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember scrubbing the surface.

I glanced skyward where the sun still hovered in virtually the same position as when I'd last checked. Very little time had elapsed, but those lost moments frightened me because I couldn't recall anything beyond my conversation with Darius Goodwine.

Darius!

Quickly, I scanned the graveyard and then peered into the shadowy arches of the ruins. Was he there, hiding behind those ancient brick walls so as not to be discovered by Detective Kendrick?

Or had he even been here at all?

I shivered in the heat as more and more of our conversation came back to me. Whether the discussion had taken place in the cemetery or inside my head, I couldn't be certain, but I had no doubt Darius Goodwine had paid me a visit. I hadn't imagined our encounter. I hadn't made up his proposition. His parting warning still echoed:
tread carefully and trust no one.

An icy breath blew down my collar as my gaze fastened onto Detective Kendrick's.
It would be better for both of us if no one finds out that we've talked.

Kendrick canted his head, looking puzzled. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you answer me just now?”

“I'm sorry. I was... I guess I was lost in thought.”

He scowled down at me. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, why?”

“You look flushed. Maybe you need to get out of the sun for a while, have something cold to drink.” He nodded to the grove of cottonwoods near the entrance. “Is that your cooler?”

“Yes.”

“Let's move over there and talk.” He offered his hand, but I pretended not to notice as I hurriedly rose and peeled off my work gloves.

His focus was still so intense that I felt as if I had stripped off a good deal more than the gloves. It wasn't a pleasant sensation, given that he was a complete stranger and I still didn't trust him.

I tried to ignore the unwelcome tingle, assuming a casual tone as I dusted off my jeans. “You didn't happen to see anyone else when you came up just now, did you?”

“Why? Was someone here?” His inquisitive gaze swept the cemetery and the road beyond the gate before snapping back to me.

“I thought I heard something. Probably just voices drifting up from the clearing.” I wanted to know if he'd caught sight of Darius Goodwine, but I couldn't come right out and ask. If Kendrick hadn't seen him, how would I explain the question without giving Darius away? It was a strange position I found myself in, protecting Darius Goodwine from the police.

I still couldn't say with any certainty that he had returned from Africa. It was just as likely he'd found a way inside my head, even across all those miles and an ocean, but regardless of his physical location, his presence worried me. Why had he come back into my life now and what was his relationship to the dead woman?

I wondered what Detective Kendrick would say if I told him all that had transpired in the cemetery—or inside my head—before his arrival.

His expression remained neutral despite the gleam of curiosity in his eyes. Before he had a chance to question me further, his phone rang and he put up a finger to pause our conversation. Lifting the unit to his ear, he listened for a moment and then answered in clipped monosyllables. During this brief exchange, his gaze never left me. I found myself growing more and more discomfited by that stare. I wanted to believe it unintentional. Maybe his concentration was so focused on the call that he'd forgotten my presence. But I had a feeling Detective Kendrick knew exactly what he was doing. He was like Devlin, in that respect. He knew how to unsettle.

I dropped my gaze to the gravestone.

“Sorry for the interruption,” he said, slipping the phone back in his pocket. “You were saying?”

“It wasn't important.”

“Are you sure? There must be a reason you asked if I'd seen anyone else in the cemetery just now.”

I shrugged, still trying to retain an air of detachment as I wiped a trickle of sweat from my brow. “Like I said, I thought I heard something, but now that I think back, I'm certain it was just voices carrying up through the woods from the search.”

I had no idea if he bought the explanation or not. He looked a little dubious as he waited for me to start down the path. I took my cue, weaving my way along the overgrown trail as the sun poured down hot and bright on the headstones. The cottonwood trees beckoned. As we neared the main gate, the carpet of yellow cosmos and coreopsis gave way to delicate patches of blue forget-me-nots and pools of silvery green moss.

For a moment, time stood still as a wave of longing washed over me. How many summer days had I spent sequestered behind cemetery walls, lost in a daydream or in the pages of one of my favorite books? Those early years with Mama and Papa had seemed like such an innocent time, peaceful and perfect, but my naiveté had withered all too soon. My protected world had come crumbling down long before my gift had evolved into something far more frightening than that of ghost-seer. Long before I had followed my great-grandmother's clues to Kroll Cemetery. Before Devlin had decided that my susceptibility to the unnatural world made me an unsuitable companion for someone like him.

I shook off the smothering melancholia as I moved up under the trees. The shade was deep and cool and I closed my eyes for a moment, dispelling the loneliness left by Devlin's departure and the foreboding that had accompanied Darius Goodwine's arrival.

Kendrick watched me warily. I offered him a bottle of water from the cooler, but he declined. I fished one out for myself and then sat down on top of the chest, lifting the icy bottle to the back of my neck.

“You wanted to talk to me.” Twisting off the plastic cap, I drank deeply.

“Yes, but it can wait. Just sit there for a moment until you feel better.”

I nodded absently, my gaze moving over the vehicles I could see through the fence. I counted three squad cars and an unmarked SUV that I suspected belonged to Detective Kendrick. A vehicle like that would suit him, I decided. Stealthy, mysterious and more than a little menacing.

As I sat there staring out at the road, a white sedan pulled up alongside the entrance and the elderly driver craned his neck for a look inside the gate. No doubt one of the gawkers Kendrick had warned me about the day before. I was still surprised that more hadn't come. Murder and mayhem were common attractions. People who led otherwise mundane lives often found crime scenes irresistible.

The driver's window lowered as the car inched along. A snowy-haired woman in the passenger seat leaned across the console toward her husband in order to get a better look. When the man spotted us beneath the trees, he stopped the car and got out. Putting up a hand to shade his eyes, he walked through the gate and called out to us. “Hello! We saw the police cars and wondered what happened.”

“There's nothing to see here.” Kendrick gave a dismissive wave. “Just go on about your business.”

“Young man, we have people buried in this cemetery,” the woman scolded from the open car window. “If something happened here, it
is
our business.”

“Nothing happened in the cemetery,” Kendrick said. “Now get back in your car and move along. You're blocking the road.”

His harsh admonishment drew twin scowls of disapproval and embarrassment from the couple. The man hustled back to the car and climbed in, grumbling furiously to his wife before shooting Kendrick a contemptuous glare. Then he put the car in gear and drove off.

“Don't you think you were a bit hard on them?” I asked. “You said yourself the curious would come.”

“They always do. Predictable as clockwork.”

“I would think predictability an asset in your line of work.”

“Depends on your perspective,” he said with a shrug. “When you've done what I do long enough, it all starts to seem depressingly the same. Even the victims. Predictability becomes less of an asset and more of an albatross. It's wearing.”

“Do you really have that much crime in Ascension?” I asked. “It seems like such a sleepy town.”

“I haven't always lived in Ascension. But human nature is basically the same wherever you go.”

“I understand your point, but I find it difficult to imagine a world in which a woman buried alive inside a caged grave could be considered predictable.”

“As I said, it's all about perspective.”

I couldn't tell if his viewpoint was that of a cynic, a sociopath or a little of both.

I set the water bottle aside and leaned back on my hands as I gazed out over the cemetery. I saw nothing among the graves to indicate Darius Goodwine or anyone else had been there only moments earlier. The scent of ozone had faded and the storm clouds that darkened the landscape earlier had now moved back out to sea.

Kendrick kept his distance, standing several feet away in profile, arms at his sides, feet slightly apart. As I studied his silhouette, I became overly aware of the curl of his long lashes, the slight arch of his dark brows. He'd discarded his jacket in the heat so that I couldn't help but take in the definition of his forearms and biceps and the broad expanse of his chest beneath the dark gray of his shirt.

I wasn't attracted to Lucien Kendrick, although I could certainly appreciate his attractions. It took nothing away from my feelings for Devlin to admit this. Not that it mattered now that Devlin had removed himself from my life. I felt a pang at that thought and drew in a breath to dispel it.

Kendrick looked up sharply and I felt my face warm as our gazes connected. His expression was hard to define, but the glint in his eyes made me remember yet again Darius Goodwine's warning to trust no one.

I stirred restlessly on the cooler. “Can I ask you a question?”

He turned once again to watch the road. “What is it?”

I picked up the water bottle, rolling it between my hands. “Your accent. It's hardly discernible except for the way you pronounce certain words. I'm usually pretty good with dialects, but I haven't been able to pinpoint it. You've a bit of the Sea Islands in certain inflections, but sometimes I would almost swear I hear the trace of a French accent in your vowels.”

“That's not a question,” he said.

“Where are you from?”

I wasn't sure he would answer. There was something very dark and furtive about Lucien Kendrick, but to my surprise, he seemed to relax a bit as he moved in a few steps. “You've a good ear. Not many people pick up on the accent. I thought I'd lost it years ago.”

“So you are French?”

“A quarter on my father's side.”

“Is that where you grew up? In France?”

“I was born here in Beaufort County. We lived on Port Royal Island until I was nine, and then after my parents split, my father moved us to New Orleans. When I was thirteen he sent me to Paris to live with his mother. Once I turned eighteen...” The slightest hesitation. “I moved around a lot. Prague, Istanbul...” Another hesitation. “Ghazni.”

I wondered if he'd been in the service. That would explain the way he carried himself, but the eyebrow piercing and body art was at odds with what seemed to be a military bearing.

“What brought you back here? Do you still have family in the area?”

“I'm told my mother lives around here somewhere.” He was silent for a moment. “What about you? Native Charlestonian?”

“I grew up in Trinity. I've only lived in Charleston for a couple of years, but I feel as if I have roots in the city. My mother and aunt were born there.”

“Roots are not always good,” Kendrick said. “Sometimes all they do is drag you down.”

“Yes, I suppose that's true.'' I gave him another quick study. “How long have you been back here?”

“Apparently, not long enough to lose my accent.”

He seemed amused, which emboldened me. “Can I ask you another question?”

“You can always ask.”

“You said yesterday that the house I'm renting has a history. What did you mean?”

He lifted a hand to scratch the stubble on his neck. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes, of course. And it must be something you think I should know or you wouldn't have brought it up.”

“I only brought it up because I found your choice of living arrangements...odd.”

“Why?”

His gaze darted to the church ruins and to the woods beyond. “People say that place is evil.”