Secret Sanctuary Read online

  “But you are going to send it to the lab, right?”

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than she saw what Cullen was doing. He’d withdrawn an evidence bag from his coat pocket, and using his pen, expertly flipped the vial into the bag without touching the glass.

  “If it doesn’t belong to the mortuary staff, then why would someone bring a test tube into the cooler room?” Elizabeth mused.

  Cullen stood. “I don’t know,” he said in a strange voice. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  His words took a moment to sink in. Then Elizabeth put a hand to her chest in outrage. “You think I brought it? That’s ridiculous!”

  He gave her a shrewd appraisal. “Is it? Why are you here?”

  She glared up at him. “I can’t believe you’re standing here interrogating me when whoever was in this room might still be in the funeral home. He’s the one who can give you answers.”

  “Come on.” Cullen took her arm.

  “What? Wait a minute.” Elizabeth tried to pull back. “Did you hear what I said? The killer could be in the funeral home at this very moment. We have to search it—”

  “We don’t have to do a damn thing,” Cullen said through gritted teeth. “I can’t believe you, Elizabeth. What the hell were you thinking? Don’t you realize you may have just tainted evidence?”

  By this time they were at the door. He opened it and pulled her through, then drew her across the receiving area to the back door. Freezing air cut through Elizabeth’s wrap as they hurried outside. A squad car was parked in the drive near the back door, and she could see an officer sitting behind the wheel. When he spotted Cullen, he opened the door and got out.

  “Detective Ryan? Everything okay?”

  Cullen gripped Elizabeth’s elbow. “There may be an intruder in the funeral home, Dewey. Go around and cover the front while I have a look around here.”

  Officer Dewey glanced briefly at Elizabeth, nodded, and then took off.

  Cullen opened the back door of the squad car and all but shoved her inside. For a moment, she tried to struggle away from him. Then she had to wrestle with her skirts, and by that time, Cullen had the situation well under control.

  He leaned down, peering at her inside the car. “I’ll deal with you later. Right now, I’m locking you inside.”

  Elizabeth tried to muster a little dignity. “You can’t do tha—”

  The door slammed closed and Cullen disappeared back into the funeral home.

  Elizabeth reached for the door handle, but, of course, there wasn’t one. A wire mesh screen separated the back seat from the rest of the car, and she suddenly realized how helpless prisoners must feel, trapped inside with no way out. But there was one big difference in their plight and hers. She was innocent. She’d done nothing but try to help, and this was the thanks she got?

  On the second story, lights came on in Ned Krauter’s residence. Then one by one, lights came on in the ground-floor windows as Cullen and Officer Dewey searched the premises. The third floor remained dark, which somehow seemed ominous to Elizabeth.

  Several minutes passed before Cullen finally came back outside. Elizabeth was freezing by this time. She huddled inside her cloak, teeth chattering, as she watched Cullen and Officer Dewey speak in low tones just outside the squad car. She pressed her ear to the glass, but she couldn’t hear a word they were saying. For a moment, she thought Cullen might have forgotten about her, and she considered rapping on the window to draw his attention. As if sensing her intention, he deliberately turned his back on her.

  Elizabeth sat back against the seat, fuming. Smarting.

  Finally, the door opened and he leaned down. “You okay in there?”

  As if he cared. “I’m fine.” Elizabeth slanted him a sullen glance. “Did you find anything?”

  “No.”

  “What about the third floor?”

  “Krauter said it’s rented to a fisherman, named Cross. Krauter says his boat went out a few days ago. Without a warrant we can’t search his place, and without probable cause, which we don’t have, we’re not likely to get a judge this time of night to sign one. But the door was locked. No way the intruder could have gotten in.”

  “What about the first floor? The chapel—”

  “We searched the damn place from top to bottom, okay? If someone was in there, he managed to get away—”

  “Wait a minute,” Elizabeth said sharply. “If? If? There was someone in the cooler room. I saw him.”

  “Did you recognize him? Can you give me a description?”

  “No…”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t actually see him,” Elizabeth admitted. “He was hiding underneath a sheet on the gurney. When I saw the sheet move, it—it startled me, and I dropped my flashlight. The light went out so I didn’t see who it was. But there might be fingerprints on the test tube. Or on the gurney. He shoved it into me.”

  “You keep saying he.”

  She gave a helpless gesture with her hand. “Whoever it was.” When he didn’t say anything for a moment, Elizabeth peered up at him. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  “I’m sure you think you saw someone,” he said carefully.

  Her eyes widened in indignation. “I did see someone. Why would I lie about something like that?”

  “I’m not accusing you of lying.” Cullen raked his hand through his short hair, spiking it even more. His breath frosted in the cold air. “Look, you were alone inside a mortuary cooler room with a corpse. Considering everything, it’s no wonder you were scared.”

  “I never said I was scared. And considering what things?”

  “You’re young. Impressionable. And after finding the body earlier—”

  “I didn’t imagine the test tube, did I?” Elizabeth demanded, anger flushing her face. “I’m telling you, someone was in that room with me!”

  Cullen’s gaze on her hardened. “Which brings us back to my original question. What were you doing in there?”

  Elizabeth stared straight ahead, refusing to meet his gaze. “I told you earlier I wanted to have a closer look at the body.”

  “And I told you to stay out of it. I could haul you in for interfering in an official investigation. Maybe even slap an obstruction of justice charge on you.”

  She glanced at him then. “You wouldn’t.”

  He shrugged. “Not this time. But I’m warning you. I’m losing my patience. I can’t have you running around tampering with evidence. When I make an arrest in this case, I don’t want the suspect waltzing out of it on some legal technicality. You got that?”

  “Yes, I’ve got it.” With an effort, she tried to regain her calm. “Look, I know you don’t have any faith in my ability. You’ve made that perfectly clear. But I’m not just some…cop groupie here. I have a lot of training, Cullen. I could help you solve this case if you’d let me.”

  “And I told you if I need your help, I’ll ask for it. Did you hear me asking?”

  She lifted her chin but said nothing.

  “Well, did you?”

  “No,” she replied grudgingly. “But I meant what I said, too. I saw something on that body. I don’t know what. I can’t put my finger on it. But something…bothered me. And my intuition is rarely wrong.”

  “Your intuition?”

  “Yes. You know—”

  “Spare me the dictionary definition. I know what it means, I just don’t put much stock in it.”

  “You don’t have instincts? You don’t get a gut feeling about certain cases?”

  “Sometimes,” he admitted. “But my gut feelings are based on training and experience. Not on some whim.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “You just can’t admit it, can you?”

  “Admit what?”

  “That I might be your equal. In training and experience.”

  “Lecturing in a classroom is a lot different than running a criminal investigation. When you’ve put your time in on the street, then we’ll talk.” Cullen straigh
tened. “In the meantime, I’m going to drive you home.”

  He put out a hand to help her from the car, but Elizabeth ignored it. Again she struggled with the folds of her costume, but finally managed to crawl from the back seat with a modicum of poise. “I don’t need a ride,” she said coolly. “I have my own car.”

  “You may not need a ride, but you’ve got one anyway.” He took her arm firmly and steered her toward a dark, plain sedan parked behind the squad car. “I’ll drive you myself so I can make sure you get there.”

  “What about my car?”

  “You can pick it up tomorrow.”

  Elizabeth started to protest about leaving her new car parked on the street, but considering all that she’d witnessed that night, it seemed a little petty to worry about vandalism.

  THEY’D BEEN DRIVING in silence for several minutes when Cullen finally gave her a bemused glance. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you all night. What the hell is that getup you’re wearing?”

  “This?” Elizabeth lifted one of the velvety folds of her wrap. “It’s called a cloak. It’s part of my costume.”

  “Which is?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but as she turned to face him, the words froze on her lips. In the dim light from the dash, Cullen’s features were shadowy, indistinct. Dressed all in black, he reminded her of a dark angel, a shadow hero, a complicated man with complicated motives.

  It suddenly occurred to Elizabeth that she actually knew very little about Cullen Ryan. She’d had a crush on him for years, but she didn’t really know who he was or what made him tick.

  Oh, she knew some things about him. He’d grown up down by the docks, and he’d gotten into some trouble as a teenager. His father had died after Cullen had left for Boston, and she didn’t think he had any other family in Moriah’s Landing. So what had brought him back here?

  Why return to a place that hadn’t been all that kind to him?

  The only thing Elizabeth knew for certain about Cullen was that he’d left town a juvenile delinquent and returned a cop, one with dark secrets and a troubled past. What had happened in those six years to change him?

  Or had he changed?

  Were the demons that had driven him to mischief as a boy still driving him today as a man? Was his becoming a cop an attempt to control those darker impulses?

  Elizabeth shuddered at the thought. At his nearness.

  In response, Cullen reached up and pounded the dash with his fist. “Sorry. Heater doesn’t work like it should.”

  There was plenty of heat inside that car. Or at least, the potential for it. “I’m fine,” she managed.

  “So what did you say you went as tonight?” His gaze swept over her cloak.

  “A noblewoman,” Elizabeth murmured. “Seventeenth-century.”

  “Figures,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  They were cruising down Main Street now, nearing the turn that would have taken them to the Pierce compound. The rain had stopped, and a pre-dawn mist had settled over the town, creeping like a ghost along the cobblestone walkways. A variety of businesses, some of them housed in tall, narrow buildings that were centuries-old, crowded the thoroughfare, their windows dark at this hour, their doorways steeped in shadow.

  As in Salem, some of the enterprises had capitalized on the history of Moriah’s Landing. Witches rode weathervanes mounted high on gable rooftops, while black metal cats with green marble eyes slumbered a few feet away on brick chimneys. A souvenir shop, squeezed between a dusty apothecary and an antiques store, sold everything from spell books to T-shirts emblazoned with McFarland Leary’s image—or what an artist had perceived as his likeness. Another shop offered midnight ghost tours.

  It was harmless, this exploitation of the town’s past to draw in tourists, especially in the fall during the Halloween celebrations. The locals were proud of their heritage, and even though they were a superstitious lot, they didn’t mind using the legends to make a buck. Most hadn’t even resisted when a group of nature-loving Wiccans had proclaimed Moriah’s Landing their spiritual epicenter and had camped out for weeks on end near Raven’s Cove, performing midnight rituals and dancing naked under a full moon—or so some said.

  It was all harmless….

  But Elizabeth had never quite been able to get into the spirit of the celebrations because, in spite of the town’s rich history and unique charm, she’d sensed, from an early age, a darkness lingering in murky alleys, crouching in recessed doorways. A malicious presence that hid from the light and preyed on the innocent. She stayed on in the town because of her family, and because the darkness fascinated her as much as it repelled her.

  Shivering, she averted her eyes from those doorways.

  But they were driving by the town green now, a heavily landscaped area where, according to lore, those accused of practicing witchcraft in the late 1600s had been hung from the gnarled branches of an old oak tree. A plaque commemorated the spot, and the townspeople had come to think of the ground beneath the tree limbs as hallowed.

  Whether the legend was true or not, Elizabeth didn’t know. But of all the places in Moriah’s Landing, the town green, particularly the oak tree, still standing, seemed to elicit the strongest feelings in her, an inexplicable sensation that evil lurked nearby. That it watched her every move. That if she wasn’t very careful, she could be its next victim.

  She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes closed as they passed by the tree. In her mind’s eye, she could see a crowd milling about on the square, their clothing and expressions somber, their eyes turned skyward.

  Elizabeth’s imagination followed their stares.

  She could see feet dangling among the leaves, and as her gaze moved upward, she saw Bethany Peters’s pale face staring down at her.

  Heart pounding, she opened her eyes, dispelling the vision. Bethany Peters hadn’t really been hanging from the same tree where witches had been killed centuries ago. Elizabeth’s imagination was playing tricks on her. It was silly to be upset by a vision, especially after everything else she’d been through that night.

  Still…

  She couldn’t shake that tenacious unease that something watched her. That something waited for her.

  That whoever or whatever had killed Bethany had some kind of connection to Elizabeth.

  First Claire, then Tasha.

  And now one of Elizabeth’s students.

  You’re next, a dark voice seemed to whisper.

  Chapter Six

  As the town green receded, the tension slowly drained from Elizabeth, and she began to breathe much more easily.

  Heathrow College lay just ahead, a private institution safely ensconced behind a high stone wall broken only by an electronically-controlled gate that was monitored twenty-four hours a day by a security guard. The parents who were willing to pay the steep tuition at the exclusive school wanted more than just the finest education for their daughters. They wanted assurances that the young women would be safe, tucked away from the real world and protected by state-of-the-art security equipment.

  Some of the girls rebelled at the school’s rigid rules and outdated curfew, much as Elizabeth had once done herself at boarding school. But for some reason, she’d never found Heathrow confining—as a student or as a member of the faculty—perhaps because coming here had been her choice.

  Although it wasn’t so much a choice as a need, she realized. A need for independence. A need to become her own person. A need to get away from the disappointment that was all too apparent in her parents’ eyes every time they looked at her.

  She’d had such potential, their expressions seemed to reproach her. How had she gone so far astray?

  Elizabeth had known from an early age that she was expected to follow in her parents’ illustrious footsteps. Marion and Edward Douglas were brilliant, renowned scientists who’d made their mark in research long before they’d turned thirty—her mother in genetics, her father in the rel
ated field of molecular biology.

  They’d met at Harvard, fallen in love, married and had a baby, all in the space of a year, which had always seemed so out of character for them to Elizabeth. She found it almost impossible to imagine that her parents—so serious now, so single-minded—had once been young and in love. For as long as she could remember, their work had consumed them, and nothing, not their love affair and certainly not their daughter, had been allowed to interfere.

  They’d both eventually left their affiliation with Harvard to join a private research lab in Boston to which they commuted at least five days a week and sometimes seven. Their only concession to their parental obligations was to buy a beautiful home in Moriah’s Landing, furnish it elegantly, and hire a full-time nanny for Elizabeth until she was old enough to be shipped off to boarding school, the same prestigious institution her mother had attended.

  But Elizabeth was not at all like her mother, and she’d rebelled against the pressures and expectations placed on her because of her heritage and her IQ. She’d hated boarding school with a passion, and by the time she turned ten had run away numerous times. Finally, after a frantic call from the school director, her parents had been forced to deal with her. If they sent her back to that place, she’d told them, she would just keep running away until the school was finally obliged to expel her. If they sent her to another boarding school, she would do the same thing. And one day, she might never come back.

  At their wits’ end, her parents had finally allowed her to return to Moriah’s Landing and attend public school on two conditions: one, that she enroll in a grade well above her peer group, and, two, that she supplement her studies by simultaneously taking courses at Heathrow.

  As a result, Elizabeth had graduated from high school at the age of fifteen, and when she enrolled full-time at Heathrow, she’d already earned enough credits for undergraduate degrees in both math and biology.

  But after Claire had been abducted, Elizabeth had switched her field of study to criminology. That had been the last straw as far as her parents were concerned. They’d washed their hands of her and turned their attention in the last year or so to Elizabeth’s younger brother, Brandon, who, at four, showed signs of a genius that far outclassed Elizabeth’s. He had already been accepted to the most prestigious school in the northeast, where he would be sent when he turned six. Just two years away.