Graveminder

Chapter 36

REBEKKAH WAS SPEECHLESS AS THEY WALKED UPSTAIRS AND INTO THE private part of the house. She followed Byron and tried not to notice the tense way he held himself. It wasn’t like they hadn’t had their share of arguments, but there were topics he’d always allowed her to avoid. After the immediate shock of Ella’s death had passed, Byron would look at Rebekkah sometimes with an expectant expression—and she would pretend that she didn’t know the conversation they should have. Years later, when they ended up in bed the first time, she ignored the “what-does-this-mean” conversation. He’d pushed a few times, but every time, she’d walked out or silenced the conversation with sex. I don’t deserve him. That was the truth of it, and she knew it.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly as they went up the second set of stairs.

At the top of the steps, Byron glanced at her and sighed. “I know.”

“Truce?” She held out a hand.

“We’re still going to talk,” he warned her.

She kept her hand extended. “And I’m going to hold your hand when we cross the tunnel to the land of the dead, and”—her voice cracked—“do my best not to get either of us shot.”

Byron took her hand, but instead of shaking it, he pulled her to him in a quick hug. “That wasn’t your fault. Not you getting shot or my killing those men.” His voice was rough as he added, “It would destroy me if I lost you, Bek.”

The truth was that she would feel the same way if she lost him, but before she could admit that, he pulled away. Brusquely he walked down the hall and opened a door. “Come on. Dad said we’d find some answers here.”

Byron tossed his jacket on the bed and looked around the room briefly. At the foot of the bed was a dark wooden chest. It looked like something that had been passed down from generation to generation. The brass latch was dented and scratched, and several spots looked like they’d seen water damage over the years. He knelt in front of the chest, lifted the latch, and opened the lid.

Inside was an old black leather physician’s satchel. Alongside it was a small wooden box that, when opened, revealed two old derringers. Several wicked-looking knives rested in sheaths.

“Well ...” Byron opened a strongbox filled with ID tags from various hospitals. As he sifted through them, there was a note that read: “Ask Chris when you need new ones.”

Tentatively, Rebekkah sat next to him on the floor. “I don’t understand.”

“In case I need to retrieve a body that has to be brought home and don’t have time for paperwork,” Byron told her. “There are other ways, too.”

Then he told her about the woman he’d met in the land of the dead, Alicia, and the vials she had given him that caused temporary death. As he spoke, Rebekkah started shivering.

If they failed to find Daisha, people would die; if residents of Claysville died elsewhere and were left unminded, they would wake—and more people would die. The staggering list of things that could go wrong made her shoulders feel heavy. She had to keep the dead in their graves, and she had to stop them if they awoke. People who had no idea of the contract, people who had no idea Claysville existed, people who had no idea that the dead could wake: all of them were depending on her not to fail them.

And I am depending on Byron.

Byron was the one person in all the world whom she could trust; he was the only man she’d ever loved. That was the truth she shouldn’t say: she did love him. In a few short—albeit intense—days, years of running from him had been negated. She wasn’t sure if laughing or crying would be more fitting at this moment: she’d finally faced the fact that she’d been in love with Byron Montgomery her whole life.

Because of what we are.

She realized then that Byron was staring at her, waiting for something, waiting for her. He’d been waiting for her for nearly a decade. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “How did they do it?”

“The same way we will.” Rebekkah squeezed his hand.

They both looked at the physician’s bag and then at each other again. With obvious trepidation, Byron opened it and looked inside. An old box of syringes, bandages, various antibiotics, sterile gauze, a small scalpel, antibiotic ointment, peroxide, and myriad other emergency aid equipment filled the bag. It wasn’t all modern, but most of it was.

Also inside the satchel was an envelope. She held it out.

“Open it,” Byron said.

She did so, pulled out a small sheet of paper, unfolded it, and read the words aloud: “ ‘You can also pay Alicia with medicinal supplies.’ Does that make sense?”

“It does,” he said.

Rebekkah flipped the paper over. “On the back it says, ‘The syringes will stop them . Save for emergencies.’ ”

He snorted. “Which means what? When aren’t dead people who are trying to kill us an emergency?”

She shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea.”

Byron took the paper and stared at it. He lifted it up to the light and peered at it closely. As he did so, Rebekkah could make out a faint watermark.

“That’s not Dad’s handwriting,” Byron said. “Which one was it? His grandfather? Someone else?”

He held out the paper, and Rebekkah took it. She refolded it and tucked it back in the envelope.

Byron reached in the trunk for one last item: an accordion file labeled MISTER D . He opened it. Inside were two plain brown journals, letters, news clippings, and some papers.

“We may have just found some answers.” He held up a carefully clipped article with the headline MOUNTAIN LION ATTACK CLAIMS THREE . Setting it aside, he opened an envelope. He looked at each item it contained and then handed them one by one to Rebekkah. There were receipts for handguns, ammunition, and one pair of women’s size-seven boots.

Byron continued passing items to her, and Rebekkah read the mishmash of notes. One slip of paper read: “for Alicia.” Another piece of paper listed questions and answers: “Human? No. Age? Not what is visible or what era his clothes are from.” After it was a scrawled note that read “Alicia has ulterior motives.” Some would take longer to read. Letters and news clippings mixed with nearly illegible notes; going through all of it would take time.

Time we don’t have.

When she yawned, Byron stopped passing her the papers. Silently, he collected those he had given her, slipped them all back into the file, and placed it and various other items from the trunk into the duffel he’d brought from the land of the dead.

“I’m good,” she protested.

“You’re exhausted,” he corrected gently. He stared at her for a moment until she nodded.

Rebekkah stood and stretched. “Let’s go home.”

His look of surprise was masked almost immediately, and she was grateful that he didn’t comment. Even when they’d been lovers over the years, she didn’t use “we-speak,” and she certainly didn’t refer to the space where she was residing as “home.”

She drifted off during the short drive from the funeral home to her house and woke as Byron turned off the engine. Instead of getting out of the hearse, she stayed with her head resting against the passenger-side window for a moment.

“You all right?” he asked.

She looked at him. “I am. Overwhelmed. Confused. Exhausted ... but I’m not going to run screaming into the night. You?”

He opened his door. “I’ve never been much for screaming.”

“I don’t know. I remember a few movie nights—”

“I never screamed.” Byron went around back and grabbed the duffel bag.

“Yelled, screamed, whatever.” She got out, gathered her skirt in her hand, and climbed the steps to her front porch. She unlocked the front door and went inside. “I’m glad you’re here with me. Maybe it’s fear or partnership or grief or—”

“Or friendship. Let’s not skip that one, Bek.” He closed the door behind him. “This other stuff is going on, but we were friends before all of it. If you won’t admit that you love me, at least admit that we’re friends.”

“We are, but we’re friends who hadn’t spoken in several years,” she corrected.

His jaw clenched, but he didn’t say whatever he’d thought. Instead, he carefully lowered the duffel bag to the coffee table. “Did you ask me to stay the night before last because of any of this?”

“Maybe,” she admitted. That was the thing she hadn’t spoken, the other fear that had lingered at the edges of her mind. “What makes you think that our ... friendship is real?”

“A couple years of putting up with you, listening to you and Ella talk boys and hair and music and books, watching movies you two outvoted me on.” Looking more frustrated by the moment, he ticked each item off on his fingers. “A lot more years of hoping you’d come home, watching in every crowd for you, years of hoping every brunette that could possibly bear even the slightest resemblance to you would turn and say my name.”

“But how much of that was out of your control?” She flopped on the sofa. “Was any of it real or was it just instinct? You are meant to protect the Graveminder— me —so maybe you were responding to that.”

He stood in the middle of the room and stared at her. “Does it matter?”

She paused. Does it matter? The question wasn’t one she was considering. The hows, the whens, the whys, the what-nexts, those she had been trying to ignore, but unfortunately those were things she couldn’t overlook. Does it matter? If all of the things they’d shared were merely happenstance, if the fact that he was in the room right now trying to help her—if everything was a result of Maylene choosing her to be Ella’s replacement, then yes, it mattered.

None of that was what she wanted to discuss, though, so she ignored it in favor of more pressing matters. “Do you want to help me tear the house apart? Or start looking at your dad’s file?”

“You’re dodging the question,” Byron pointed out. “We need to talk about this, about us, Rebekkah. You’ve been ignoring it for more than eight years, but now ... it’s the two of us dealing with this. Do you honestly think ignoring what’s between us is still an option?”

Rebekkah closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She knew that ignoring her feelings for Byron wasn’t an option anymore; it probably never had been, but she wasn’t sure what else to do. She loved him, but that didn’t mean everything else was going to fall in place.

After several moments passed during which she didn’t reply, he sighed. “I love you, but you’re a pain in the ass sometimes, Bek.”

She opened one eye and looked at him. “You, too. So ... journals?”

He paused, and she waited for him to push. She wanted to say the words, but she wasn’t sure how to. Years of trying to put him away on a shelf with the rest of Ella’s things weren’t going to fade in one day.

Instead of pushing her, he said, “I think we need to talk to the town council, read the contract, and ask Charlie some questions.”

“I asked some questions, but being forthcoming isn’t his first impulse,” Rebekkah said, and then she filled Byron in on the little that she’d learned from Charles.

Byron, in turn, told her about his conversations with Charles, with William, and with Father Ness.

“So whatever this contract is with the town ... it’s over there in his world? You saw it?” she asked when he finished.

The expression on Byron’s face grew oddly closed off. “I saw a contract, but I’m not sure if it was the one with the town . It had past Graveminders’ and Undertakers’ names, and ... I don’t know what else. Dad was there, and it was our last chance to talk ... I didn’t know it then, but they obviously did. Charlie boxed the contract up and left, but I guess every Undertaker reads it sooner or later.”

“So we go back and tell him we want to see it.”

“Pretty much,” Byron agreed. “We need to talk to the council, too.”

“Is it awful to be furious with all of them?” Rebekkah fisted her hands together. “I mean, I get it, but damn , it’s not like we have much time to figure anything out and ... I’m exhausted.”

“We will,” he said. “We’ll find Daisha, and then figure out the rest.”

Rebekkah nodded, but she wasn’t entirely sure they could do everything they needed to do. How do we find Daisha? How do we stop her? Why is there a contract in the first place? Is it breakable? She closed her eyes and leaned her head on the back of the sofa.

She felt the cushion dip as Byron came to sit beside her. “How about we get a little sleep?”

“We can’t. There are—”

“Just a couple hours. We aren’t going to get anywhere if we’re so exhausted we collapse. We’re both running on next to no sleep.”

She opened her eyes. “I know you’re right, but ... people are dying .”

“I know, and if you can’t focus, what good are you going to do them? The members of the council are asleep at this hour. Charlie refused to answer our questions. Between jet lag, Maylene’s funeral, Dad’s death, trips to Charlie’s world, shootings ... Catching a couple hours’ sleep is going to do more good than anything else we can do right now.”

For a moment, they stayed like that; then she stood. “You’re right. I’m going to grab a quick shower.”

Feeling foolish, she turned her back to him. “Can you unfasten this?”

She unhooked the clasp between her breasts, and then shrugged the outer layer of the dress off. She pulled her hair over one shoulder and stared steadfastly in front of her.

The first touch of his hands on her back made her draw in a sudden breath. They both froze for several heartbeats—each of which she was convinced he should be able to hear. Then, carefully, he began to unfasten the row of eyelets that ran along her spine. Her grip tightened on the sheer outer layer she held in her hand.

When the dress gaped open in the back, he pressed one kiss to her the back of her neck. She shivered and looked over her shoulder at him.

Say it. Tell him.

She took a steadying breath, stepped away from him—and fled.