Unhallowed Ground (16 page)

“Yeah, kind of. Last year. But it felt too weird. We’d gone to grade school together, you know?”

“There were no hard feelings when you split up?”

“Hell, no.” He stared at Caleb suddenly. “You think I could have done something to her?” he asked incredulously.

“No,” Caleb assured him. His gut told him that this kid couldn’t have carried off a white lie, much less an abduction. “I’m just wondering if she would have confided in you. If she would have told you that she was going to run away, for instance. Or if she was meeting someone.”

“She wasn’t running away. And she wasn’t meeting anyone.” He was quiet for a minute, then looked at Caleb as if sizing him up. “She was pretty wasted, though. Just on beer—she didn’t smoke weed. But she had a lot of beer. She was dancing around the fire and pretending it was some kind of an old Maypole or something.”

“Really? Why do you think that was?”

“She liked to read creepy stuff, books about black magic and crap like that. She was kind of Goth for a while even.”

“So did she believe in ghosts and that kind of thing?” Caleb asked.

“Oh, yeah. She wanted to experience all that spooky stuff, you know? See the real thing. She was the kind who would turn out the lights and make noises to scare you, and then laugh. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She used to climb into cemeteries at night and dare us to come after her.”

“Did she know anyone who she felt might help her experience the real thing?” Caleb asked.

“I don’t think so,” Nigel said, his brow furrowed in concentration. Suddenly he brightened. “She did talk to a weird woman on the beach.”

“A weird woman on the beach?” Caleb asked, trying to sound casual. This was something new, and maybe it meant nothing. On the other hand…

“She came over while we started setting up.” He stared at Caleb. “She looked like a hippie. She scared us at first,” he admitted, flushing. “She just walked out of this grove of scrub right when we started building the fire. We thought she lived nearby or something, and that maybe she was going to threaten to call the cops on us. But all she said was hello, and that we should be careful. Hey wait!” he said suddenly.

“What is it?” Caleb asked.

“She said that she was there communicating with the elements, that she was some kind of medium,” Nigel
said. “I figured she’d been hiding out back there, smoking weed. But now…I hadn’t even thought of it. There were only three of us there. Mindy Marshall, Winona and me. She told us to be careful, said the moon was at its most powerful peak or some weird shit like that, and it brought out all kinds of spirits. I thought she was a kook. Winona thought she was cool and talked to her for a little while, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I can’t believe I forgot all about her ’til now.”

“What happened then?”

“She walked away.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know. Probably down the trail that led back to the road.”

“Did you see her again?”

“No. She just told us to be careful and left.”

“What did she look like?”

“I told you, a hippie.”

“A tall hippie? Short, dark, light?”

Nigel frowned in concentration. “I don’t know. She was wearing some kind of a kerchief thing on her head, and she had on really big sunglasses.”

“Okay, was she tall or short?”

“Medium,” Nigel decided after a moment.

“Five-five?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Do you remember anything else about her? Anything at all? Was she wearing perfume? Did she walk with a limp? Did you see her hands? Anything.”

Nigel looked away for a moment, then faced Caleb sheepishly. “I’d had two beers, maybe three by then. I
was pretty looped by the time I saw her. You really won’t say anything to my parents, right? You’re really not a cop?”

“I’m really not a cop.” Caleb drew a card from his wallet and handed it to the boy. “I want you to do me a favor. If you think of anything else—and I want you to really think about this woman and see if you can remember something more—give me a call. Please.”

Nigel took the card and looked at Caleb again. “Okay. You might want to talk to Mindy. She might remember something.” He looked down, wincing. “Thing is, the three of us…we had a twelve-pack to start and it was pretty much gone by the time the woman showed up. So…I kind of doubt she’ll remember anything, either, know what I mean?”

“Point taken,” Caleb said. “But I’m going to go talk to her anyway. So where exactly was this beach party?” he asked. He had directions; they were in the file Jamison had given him. But he wanted the kid’s directions, as well.

“I’ll draw you a map,” Nigel said, taking a napkin from the counter and a pen from underneath the cash register.

“While you’re at it, draw me a map of the area and show me where the woman came from, and where you think she walked off to,” Caleb said.

Nigel did as asked, then looked Caleb straight in the eye and asked, “Do you think you’ll find Winona?” he asked. “Alive?” He looked a little sick, as if he were afraid of the answer.

“We’re all trying.”

When he left Nigel, Caleb headed back for his car. Mindy Marshall was next on his list of people to question, but before he talked to her, he wanted to walk on the beach where Winona Hart had last been seen.

He had just found another connection between the two missing women.

Both of them had wanted to be frightened.

Frightened—to death?

Vicky Hind was pleased when Sarah returned. “This is so exciting,” she said. “Well, sad, too, but not
that
sad. I mean, Mrs. Abrams was ninety-two, and she died in her sleep.”

“Pardon?” Sarah said.

“Not ten minutes ago, we received a donation from Ethel Abrams. Well, from her estate. She lived in the old Pickens-Aubrey house down the street. You must remember her,” Vicky said. “She was always trying to do something good for the city.”

“Mrs. Abrams…” Sarah mused. “Oh, yes, I do remember her. She seemed old even when I was young, but she was always dressed up, wearing a hat and gloves.”

“That’s her. Was her,” Vicky corrected herself. “She passed away about a week ago. Anyway, she left us some old boxes of papers from her attic, and I thought that you might enjoy looking through them. Her husband inherited the house from his grandmother, and she was here during the Civil War. I found a journal I thought might help you, and you can help us, too. You’re a historian, so you can catalogue the contents.”

“That’s wonderful. I’d love to read it,” Sarah said.
“Would you mind, though, if I logged onto the computer for a few minutes first?”

“Help yourself,” Vicky told her.

Sarah was familiar with all the genealogy Web sites and immediately signed onto her favorite—and entered Caleb’s name.

Then she paused. Where was he originally from? Virginia? Worth a try.

She filled in the state, without a clue as to the city, then paused again. She didn’t have his date of birth or a current address.

Giving up on that approach, she filled in Cato MacTavish’s name instead. Birthplace, St. Augustine, Florida. Year of birth? She gave a range in the 1830s. He’d served in the Confederate Army, so she entered that information, too, along with the address of the house that was now hers, then clicked on Search.

Thirty seconds later, she had her results.

A death certificate had been filed for a Cato MacTavish in 1901, in Fairfax, Virginia. He’d left behind one son. There was no mention of a wife, just a son, Magnus, who in turn had died in 1919.

Magnus had been survived by his three daughters, Emily, Elisabeth and Edna.

Sarah kept filling in information and refining her search.

In 1901, Emily MacTavish had been granted a marriage license and wed a Mr. John Anderson of Colonial Beach, Virginia.

For a moment, Sarah stared at the screen, amazed that she’d found the proof she was looking for so easily.

Then she started searching again.

John Anderson and Emily MacTavish had one son in 1903, Ellsworth. Ellsworth married a woman named Dorothy Sweeney in 1926. They produced two daughters, Michaela and Genevieve, and one son, another John. In 1950, John’s son, Andrew, was born, and then…

Andrew and his wife, Cynthia, had their first child, a son named Caleb.

Caleb Anderson.

The beach was exquisite. Off the beaten path, it was surrounded by pine trees and washed by gentle waves.

Caleb found the place where the kids had built their bonfire. Though they had conscientiously doused the flames and broken down the remains, the evidence was clear in the scraps of burned wood. They had picked up all their beer bottles, cans and leftovers, though. The place was amazingly clean. It was also the kind of place a person had to know about to arrive at, secluded from view and at least a third of a mile off the road.

Caleb had followed the single path from the road to the beach, found the darkened pit in the sand and done a cursory visual search. Pine and bracken to the left, pine and bracken to the right, and pines and oaks behind him, many draped with the Spanish moss so common in the area.

Winona Hart had been here with her friends. She had met a woman coming from the northern side of the beach area—a hippie who had told them she was a medium, and that they needed to be careful because of
the moon. The woman had left via a path that led back to the road.

There was no other access to the beach, unless you came by boat. It was possible that Winona might have been taken by boat, but none of the kids had mentioned seeing one. The file had told him that the last kids on the beach had been Nigel and Mindy. They had made sure that the fire was dead—and the garbage had all been cleaned up.

Winona had disappeared at some previous point, but no one remembered when she had left the party. There had been too many kids, most of them drunk or stoned.

Caleb walked into the pine forest to the north. A trail of beaten-down vegetation led away from the sand, and he followed it.

It curved around and joined the main path between the beach and the road. The kids might have been followed by the kidnapper, who broke off into the woods and observed them from there until he—or she—found a chance to grab Winona. Could the mystery woman have been the kidnapper? It was certainly possible.

And Winona, fascinated as she was, might have gone looking for the woman again. And the woman might have led her to the road while the others were busy drinking and smoking and pairing off in the moonlight.

Winona would have gone willingly, fascinated by everything the woman had told her.

He took a seat on the sand about two feet beyond where the waves washed up and closed his eyes.

There was a reason why he had gone to work for
Adam Harrison, and this was the time and place to put his mind to work. He still had a tendency to balk at the idea, but he’d learned that whatever it was—logic operating in the far recesses of his mind, an ability everyone possessed but didn’t know how to tap into—it helped stopped murderers. And if he could prevent the death of another human being, then it would be cowardly, perhaps even criminal, not to do everything he could. His mental re-creations, as he thought of them, weren’t available on call or at all times, but sometimes, when he concentrated, he could see the little thing that everyone else had missed and gain insight into the truth, find a clue to follow.

The sea breeze drifted by him, and he remembered the day when he had discovered that he could use intense concentration to somehow intuit what had happened at a crime scene. He still refused to believe that he was actually seeing the past, that something psychic was at work. The way he saw it, he just put the pieces together and, like a filmmaker, created a visual image.

But that first time…

He’d been on a beach then, as well.

His cousin Elisia, just seven years old, had somehow strayed from a family gathering at a busy beachside picnic area. People had been everywhere, eating and laughing. A man dressed as a clown had been making balloon animals for a donation of a dollar apiece to delight the children. It had been easy to lose track of one little girl.

She hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes when
Aunt Julia had begun to grow frantic. Everyone had assumed she was still with the other children, who were all playing hide-and-seek, until his aunt had realized Elisia wasn’t with them anymore.

Caleb had been twelve at the time, and the last time he had seen Elisia, she had smiled and winked at him before hurrying away to hide.

The police had been called immediately, and while everybody rushed around shouting and searching, Caleb had stood to one side, retreating somewhere deep into his mind. As he lost himself in thought, his cousin’s pretty and precocious face had risen before his eyes. He’d seen her smile and wink again. He saw her looking for a good place to hide, and he saw the balloon man bring a finger to his lips and smile, showing her that she could hide inside the restroom.

Someone had already looked inside the restrooms, but he’d shouted and gone running toward them anyway. You couldn’t see her at first. Her killer had folded her tiny body and left it on a toilet, then jammed the door shut.