The Kingdom

Seventeen

The black sports car was parked near the cemetery entrance when I arrived a little while later, but Thane was nowhere in sight. Normally, I would have left Angus to his own devices outside the fence, but today I brought him in with me because I didn’t dare leave him alone. He shadowed me down the pathway, as if he didn’t want to let me out of his sight, either.

The day was so warm I stripped off my jacket and tied the sleeves around my waist as we moved through the lych-gate into the Asher section. I could smell sage in the unseasonable heat and every now and then a whiff of rosemary until the trail led us far enough into the cemetery where shade and neglect bred the gloomier scents of ivy and dead leaves. Through breaks in the evergreen canopy, I caught glimpses of white fleece hanging motionless over the mountains, the dark edges hinting at rain.

I spotted Thane coming from the direction of the mausoleum, and as I paused at the circle of angels to wait for him, my gaze lifted to those eerie, otherworldly faces. It was easy now to pick out the Asher qualities I’d noticed in the old photographs. The high cheekbones. The finely sculpted noses and lips. As I studied those familiar features, something came to me. The angels faced east, not to await the rising sun, but to gaze upon the mountains.

The foreboding conjured by that revelation skittered away as I turned to watch Thane weave his way through the gravestones. He wore a pair of faded jeans with a gray cotton shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and I found myself inadvertently comparing his casual outfit to the more formal attire favored by Devlin. His elegant wardrobe had been well beyond the means of a police detective, but Devlin was no ordinary cop. He came from old Charleston money, and I imagined his dead parents had left him quite well-off so that he never had to worry about extravagances even after his grandfather disowned him. I still found it more than a little ironic that Devlin had turned his back on everything Thane now strove so hard to reclaim for the Ashers. But even though Devlin had shunned tradition and his grandfather’s expectations, he was still very much a product of his upbringing. He was a private, graceful, sometimes old-fashioned man given to aloofness and brooding. Thane had a little of that reserve, too, but I suspected in him it was self-preservation.

I berated myself for the constant comparisons. Thane was his own man, and maybe it was high time I heeded Aunt Lynrose’s advice to my mother and stopped living in the past. Stopped yearning for what couldn’t be.

“Good morning,” he called.

Almost begrudgingly, I lifted my hand to wave at him.

He came up on the shadowy side of the angels, so that I didn’t notice anything amiss straightaway. What I did take in was last night’s stubble on his chin and the fatigue lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there at dinner. His gaze went straight to the angels, and I saw a frown fleet across his features before the pleasant mask dropped smoothly back into place.

Then he turned to me, and the force of his gaze drew an uneasy shiver. The turmoil in those green depths didn’t match the placid expression or the easygoing demeanor. No shade or mask could hide the violent intensity of those eyes.

“I hope you don’t mind my dropping by like this,” he said.

“No…no, of course not.” I recovered my poise and shrugged. “Why would I mind? It’s a public place. You have as much right to be here as I do. Especially considering this is your family’s cemetery.”

Angus sidled up to Thane, and as he bent to give him a pat, a shaft of sunlight struck the side of his face, highlighting a cut at his left temple.

“What happened to you?” I blurted.

His eyes flickered, a brief darkening. “A miscalculation. It won’t happen again.”

I was dying to know the particulars of that miscalculation, but something told me this was as much information as I’d likely get. Something also told me that in this instance, ignorance might be bliss.

He straightened and glanced around the cemetery. “This is the first time I’ve been up here in years. I had no idea it was so overgrown. You can barely see some of the monuments for the ivy and brambles.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks. Most of the headstones are in good shape, and I’ve seen no trace of vandalism. Defacement is usually a big problem in older cemeteries.”

“Vandals can be caught,” he said. “Time and neglect are stealthier culprits.”

I looked up at him. “Meaning?”

He shrugged. “Defacement is defacement in my book.”

“Are you saying the cemetery has been deliberately neglected out of disrespect?”

“It’s like I told you on the ferry. Thorngate still inspires strong feelings.” He spoke in a hushed tone, not solely out of reverence, I suspected, but also from habit and instinct. This was not a place for harsh voices. He would have been taught that as a boy, given his grandfather’s veneration for the family cemetery. “Over the years, this place has become a symbol of everything the town lost because of Asher greed.”

“Your family didn’t make provisions for the upkeep when ownership changed hands?”

A flicker of impatience suggested that I’d failed to grasp some elemental aspect of that exchange. “That would have defeated the whole purpose of Grandfather’s grand gesture. What good is atonement without sacrifice?”

I had a feeling there were nuances and subtleties to Pell Asher’s “grand gesture” that an outsider like me would never be able to comprehend. “If the neglect is deliberate, why am I here?”

He squinted into the sun. “Evidently, someone thought it time for a restoration.”

“And you wouldn’t know anything about that?”

One brow rose ironically. “Me? Hardly. You know my feelings on cemetery expenditures. No offense.”

“None taken.” I had a feeling he might be a little more interested in the restoration than he let on, though. “I saw you by the mausoleum just now. Did you go inside?”

“Just a quick look around. Why?”

“Your grandfather thought you might be willing to go down into the tomb with me. He said the vaults are not to be missed. He also said when you were a boy you were quite taken with the Sleeping Bride.”

He grimaced, but I could see a twitch at the corner of his mouth, and he seemed to relax. “I was a ghoulish little bastard, all right. Did he explain that the Sleeping Bride is, in fact, some great-great-great-aunt perfectly preserved under glass?”

“Yes, and I guess I’m ghoulish, too, because I’d love to see her.”

“She’s quite a spectacle. As fine a testament to Asher arrogance as you’re likely to find anywhere.”

I slanted him a glance. “And here I thought the angels were impressive. Particularly after I discovered the family resemblance.”

“So you noticed.” I caught the ghost of another smile as he turned back to the statues. “Personally, I prefer dear Aunt Emelyn. At least she had the grace and humility to die with a peaceful expression. The angels, on the other hand, are a little too self-satisfied for my taste. Although there is something haunting about the one in the middle. I’ve always wondered about her…” His voice trailed away on a curious note.

“What is it?”

He turned to gaze down at me, and I could have sworn I saw something ominous pass swiftly across his non-Asher features before he shook it off. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he murmured, his gaze lingering on my lips.

I wondered if he was thinking about last night because I certainly was. When I’d first seen his car outside the gate, I told myself I would act as though the kiss had never happened. I wasn’t so conceited as to think he’d come here to see me, anyway, and I certainly wasn’t going to place undue importance on such an innocent buss. But try as I might, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Like Thorngate Cemetery, that kiss was symbolic of everything that had been lost to me.

“You okay?” He was still gazing down at me very intently, head cocked as if I were some great mystery he intended to solve.

“I’m fine,” I said in my best pretend-you-don’t-see-that-ghost voice. “Why?”

“You seemed to drift off there for a minute, and I can’t help noticing that you look a little tired this morning.”

“Oh, that. I slept badly last night. In fact, I didn’t sleep at all until sunup.”

“Strange bed?”

“Strange everything.” I didn’t know how much I wanted to tell him. Encounters with the supernatural always complicated confidences. “Someone cut a hole in the screen door and took Angus off the back porch. I found him tied up in the woods surrounded by steel traps. Big ones. I think they were bear traps.”

“Bear traps?” I saw a flash of that razor-wire temper before he knelt beside Angus.

“If Tilly hadn’t come to our rescue, I don’t know what would have happened.”

“Tilly Pattershaw?”

“She came out of nowhere with a huge knife. It was pretty amazing. She cut Angus loose and then…” I trailed off.

“And then what?”

I thought of that terrible wind, the howling…and Tilly’s warning not to meddle in things I didn’t understand.

“And then nothing. We went home.”

He ran his hands along Angus’s ribs. “Did they hurt him?”

There was an undercurrent of aggression in the question that worried me. My gaze went inadvertently to the cut at his temple, and then I noticed the bruised and swollen knuckles on his right hand. Just what the devil had he been up to the night before?

“He seems fine. I thought the traps had been set for me at first.”

He glanced up sharply. “Why would you think that?”

“It seemed obvious Angus had been used to lure me into the woods. And it occurred to me that someone might have gotten nervous over my discovery.”

“The hidden grave?”

“Yes. But then I wondered why someone would place traps all around the clearing when I would be coming from only one direction.”

“They were probably after coyotes,” he said. “The packs have been unusually troublesome this year.”

“What about wolves? Wayne Van Zandt said he’s seen some around here.”

“I’ve heard other people say that, too, but I’ve never spotted one.” He glanced up, the hard gleam of suppressed violence still taking me aback. “You didn’t hear or see anything last night?”

“No, but I think someone must have been in the yard earlier when I let Angus out before bedtime. When I found him in the woods, I could smell something chemical on his breath. I think he was drugged.”

Thane rose. “Did you call the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust Wayne Van Zandt.” I told him about my conversation with Van Zandt at the police station and his callous offer to come out and take care of my stray. “He’s the only one other than you and Luna who even knows about Angus.”

Thane was silent for a moment. “You’re assuming no one else has seen you with the dog, but you had him here at the cemetery with you yesterday, didn’t you?”

“No one else was around, though. Not yesterday.”

“Just because you didn’t see anyone doesn’t mean you weren’t seen.”

I thought about the old man who had appeared in the cemetery on my first day. I hated to think of anyone watching me while I worked, but that man’s repulsive behavior had been so unnerving, the memory of him was a shiver up my spine. I lifted my gaze to the statues and for an instant—the way the sun hit them—the ethereal faces twisted into something ugly and sinister. Something…demonic. It was only my imagination, of course, but I saw that hideous man’s features—the pale eyes, the jutting cheekbones, the hawklike nose—superimposed on the faces of those angels.

I shook off the illusion and turned back to Thane. He was still staring down at me, and in that moment, I was very glad that he didn’t look like the Ashers.

“I don’t understand why they had to use Angus as bait,” I said. “Why go to the trouble of drugging my dog and taking him from my porch?”

“To get rid of the evidence,” Thane said. “You’ve been asking questions about dog fighting. That makes people jumpy.”

I paused. “Is that what happened to your face and hand? You asked too many questions?”

He said nothing as he glanced down at Angus.

“You found the kennel, didn’t you?” I asked softly.

The silence stretched, punctuated by the stillness of the day. It was strange how the quiet roused my drowsy senses, like a gentle hand waking someone from a deep sleep. I could still remember the peaceful feel of dappled sunlight on my face and the comforting fragrance of earth, ivy and moss, that fecund perfume so peculiar to old cemeteries. In the distance, draped in the ethereal blue haze of the pine forest, the ancient mountains beckoned.

A thorn pricked the idyllic setting, and I suddenly felt very frightened. Not of Thane. Not even of that bizarre man with the wagon. I was afraid of those mountains, fearful of something inside me that had responded to the siren call of those seductive peaks.

Don’t you understand? It’s not what’s out there you need to be a-feared of. It’s what’s in here.

A breeze shuddered through the trees, and as Thane’s gaze met mine, I felt an odd little thrill shoot through me, almost like a premonition. A sign.

Destiny.

“Keep Angus close,” he said. “And stay out of the woods after dark.”