The Sinner Read online

  Unless I found her long-lost key. Darius had vowed to help me if I unmasked the killer, but it was a little too easy for him to make such a promise. He didn’t even want anyone to know that we’d spoken. He couldn’t get involved, he’d said. Because he wasn’t physically present or because he knew more than he wanted to reveal?

  I sensed with every fiber of my being that he was up to something. That he hadn’t yet told me the whole story. I would be a fool to consider his scheme for even a moment except for two very important reasons. He knew about Rose’s lost key and he’d shown me the arrangement of her numbers. How he’d acquired that knowledge, I couldn’t imagine unless he truly did have eyes and ears on the other side.

  The light grew steadily thinner and the silence in the cemetery became so profound that I could hear nothing beyond my own breathing as I worked. It was time to call it a day and head home before twilight. Angus would want his dinner soon, and besides, it was the smart thing to do. I could turn in early and get a fresh start in the morning.

  For some reason, though, I didn’t want to leave that section of the headstones unfinished. Why I felt such a compulsion to complete the task I really couldn’t say except that I wasn’t anxious to return to the house. But even more than that, my job was the only thing in my life I had any control over. My work ethic was the last bit of normalcy I could cling to and so I scrubbed and scrubbed at the delicate stone as if I could somehow wash away all the bad things that had happened.

  I bent my back to the chore, letting time and daylight slip away as my mind wandered back to the confrontation with Darius Goodwine. Back to the conversation with Lucien Kendrick. Back to Annalee Nash’s crouching form, to the corpse’s tattoo and to the watcher in the woods.

  Suddenly my mouth went dry as a premonition skirted along the curvature of my spine. My head came up and I once again scanned the woods, peering into the shadows cast by the church ruins, searching along the shady tree line before focusing my gaze upon the north entrance.

  Someone was there.

  I could feel the penetration of an uncanny stare through the gate, but unlike the day before, I wasn’t coerced from my work to follow a silent command. This was a different scrutiny. A cold and calculating surveillance. Like a hunter stalking its prey.

  Goose bumps popped on my arms as a thrill of panic raced across my scalp. I drew a deep breath and steadied my nerves as I reached for the pepper spray in my pocket. Thumbing off the top, I stared unblinking at the gate. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. Not so much as a squirrel foraged in the underbrush.

  But someone was there.

  I could feel a presence. Could almost hear the shallow breaths and thudding heartbeat of excitement.

  Turning my head slightly, I listened and observed with my heightened senses. Sniffing the air for a telltale fragrance and peering into the shadows for a deeper silhouette. Then opening my mind to try and pick up a stray thought or even slip into the watcher’s memory.

  The wall was still there, an impenetrable fortress. I shivered and withdrew, concentrating instead on my own defenses as I took a quick assessment of my setting.

  Seven Gates had once been a churchyard, presumably built on hallowed ground. Between that and my great-grandmother’s key, I’d been safe here from ghosts and those strange beings I called in-betweens. But a human monster was a different matter. In some ways a deeper terror.

  I reminded myself yet again that no one could enter the cemetery without difficulty. I’d locked all the gates and scaling the fence would be no easy feat. By the time someone crawled over, I could be up and through the front gate, in my car and long gone.

  But why was I so determined to tempt fate? What did I really hope to accomplish by remaining here alone with dusk fast approaching? Was I really that desperate to prove to myself and to Detective Kendrick that I was unafraid and untouched by recent events? That with the evolution of my dark gift, I was more capable than ever of taking care of myself? I didn’t need Kendrick, I didn’t need Devlin and I certainly didn’t need the likes of Darius Goodwine.

  Even so, I was being reckless and I knew it.

  Sliding the pepper spray back into my pocket, I dumped the water bucket, and then gathered up all my tools and brushes, trying not to panic but all the while keeping a wary eye on the north gate. Where George Willoughby had been buried.

  With everything in hand, I headed for the main entrance, stooping to grab the handle of the cooler on my way out. Quickly, I loaded everything into my vehicle and then went back to relock the main gate. As I fumbled with the key, I glanced out over the cemetery.

  The north gate hung open and swung ever so slightly on its hinges as if someone had just entered the cemetery.

  I’d secured all the entrances earlier. No mistake about that.

  Which meant that someone with a key had unfastened the gate and slipped through while I had been busy with the tools. The same someone who still watched me from the shadows. Possibly the same someone who had buried that poor woman alive in a caged grave, insuring there would be no escape.

  Blood pounded at my temples as I stood there clutching the gate. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, but I had the strongest sensation that someone—something—moved steadily toward me through the headstones, using the crumbling statuary for cover. Whatever was out there had no fear of hallowed ground.

  I held my breath, searching and searching.

  And then I caught sight of her. The dead woman I’d last seen in the morgue.

  She stood in the deep shade of an ivy-covered obelisk. So still, so silent, I hadn’t even noticed her at first.

  Her appearance...

  She looked as if...

  A wave of revulsion rolled over me. I wanted to believe that I was seeing things, that I was trapped in another lucid dream or a waking nightmare. But I was wide awake and there she was.

  Risen from the dead.

  Immortal.

  I tried to swallow past the knot of fear in my throat as I peered at her through the shadows. She didn’t present herself in the way of a ghost. Most of the spirits I encountered manifested as they’d looked in life, even the ones who’d met with a violent demise.

  Not this one. She appeared exactly as I’d seen her in the morgue—pale, bluish, filthy from the grave, dark hair matted with twigs and rolled leaves. Nor was she transparent. There was nothing airy or ethereal about her form. Instead, she looked solid and fleshy. Earthbound.

  I blinked to see if I could make her go away. No such luck. She was still there, half a graveyard between us but near enough that I could detect a faint smell emanating from her body. Not jasmine, not lavender, not any of the scents I’d come to associate with certain ghosts, but rather a sickly sweet putrescence that brought to mind the premature decay of a terminal patient. Someone more dead than alive.

  Or someone recently dead and brought back to life.

  If not a ghost, what are you?

  I didn’t want to ponder that question at length, didn’t dare put a name to her presence. It couldn’t be. But the truth stood right there before me.

  Panic swelled in my chest as I watched her, watched it. And it watched me back, head slightly cocked, mouth agape.

  At last I tore my gaze away, glancing past the wretched manifestation to the woods that loomed over the cemetery. The shadows near the north gate were deeper than those along the fence. Someone was out there just beyond my field of vision. Someone with intelligence and cunning. Someone with a purpose.

  My gaze shot back to the dead woman. To my horror, she’d moved out of the shadow of the monument so that I could see her more clearly now. As I stood frozen in place, she took a halting step toward me. And then another and another.

  Her movements were heavy and uncertain. I didn’t worry that I’d be unable to outrun her. I worried that she existed at all.


  She put up a hand, not in supplication, but as if she needed to push something out of her way. I saw the tattoo on her wrist and the glint of those ruby studs in her ears. The knees of her jeans were caked with dried dirt as if she had fallen or been shoved to the ground before her death.

  Slowly but surely she plodded toward the gate. Toward me. A thousand images from a thousand horror movies rose to mind and it was all I could do to stifle a scream.

  You’re not real. You can’t be real. I see ghosts, yes, and sometimes in-betweens, but I’ve never seen anything like you.

  The putrid smell grew stronger as did the sound of buzzing flies. Maybe it was my imagination because she was still some distance away, but I thought I saw the bluish-green iridescence of a corpse beetle clinging to a strand of hair that had fallen across her face.

  I reacted then, twisting the key in the gate lock until I heard the tumblers click. With no semblance of calm or bravado, I turned and sprinted to my vehicle, stumbling over a rock in my haste as I pushed the unlock button on the remote and the lights flashed. I didn’t dare look back, but I could have sworn I heard her footsteps. Still heavy, still lumbering, but steady and determined. And getting closer.

  A twig snapped behind me and I spun to face the horror that had come after me.

  There was nothing, of course. Nothing but shadows and fading sunlight. Nothing but the distant hoot of an owl, the haunting wail of a loon. No one was there. I was alone.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath as my fingers clutched the remote. Scrambling into the vehicle, I slammed the door, pressed the auto lock button and started the engine, but I didn’t pull away. I sat staring through the gate into the cemetery as I gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

  Even if the dead woman somehow managed to get through the locked entrance, all I had to do was put the car in gear and drive away. I wasn’t quite sure why I didn’t do so at that very moment. Maybe I still wanted to prove I was unafraid. Maybe I wanted to tempt the watcher in the woods out into the open so that I could get a sense of what or whom I was really up against. Or maybe I was just plain crazy.

  No matter the reason, I sat there trying to control my fear as a little voice goaded me to leave. Only an idiot would sit here with that thing in the cemetery.

  But I still didn’t drive away because as my heart began to settle and my pulse slowed, I realized that the dead woman didn’t really exist, after all. At least, not in any ambulatory form. She wasn’t an ungainly apparition or a waking dream or even a figment of my imagination, but instead one of Darius Goodwine’s illusions.

  Relief washed over me even as I felt the chill of a fresh apprehension.

  “Darius Goodwine.” I whispered the name under my breath with the same exaggerated derision I’d heard him use.

  I didn’t know why he’d come back into my life, but I had no doubt he was up to something illegal, immoral and quite possibly unnatural.

  He wanted something from me and I suspected his motivation had very little to do with finding a killer. He’d yet to reveal his true agenda, and until such time, he meant to keep me off guard and vulnerable with these visions. By making me see what he wanted me to see.

  Like the corpse beetles he’d conjured on my skin. Like the beast persona conjured by a root doctor named Atticus Pope.

  Nothing is as it seems.

  Not even the zombie in Seven Gates Cemetery.

  Eleven

  After another long and mostly sleepless night, I took the next morning off and drove up to Charleston to confer with Rupert Shaw.

  We’d come a long way since the early days of our friendship when I’d presented mostly hypothetical situations because I couldn’t bring myself to fully confide in him. Keeping the secret of my gift had been too deeply ingrained for far too long and unburdening myself hadn’t come easy, even with Dr. Shaw. If he suspected the truth about my inquiries, he’d never let on, but instead seemed content to savor the tidbits that I’d felt comfortable sharing.

  As the director and founder of the Charleston Institute for Parapsychology Studies, he was as close to an expert in matters involving the unknown as I’d ever come across and, more important to me, he had an open mind and boundless curiosity. Given everything that had happened in the past two days, it was only natural that I should seek him out.

  His assistant welcomed me with a curious smile as I entered the restored antebellum. She showed me back to Dr. Shaw’s office and he rose from his cluttered desk to offer a warm greeting. The scent of aged leather and old books enveloped me and I found his careworn features and threadbare clothing as comforting as a mother’s embrace. His presence never failed to soothe me and I was happy to see him looking so robust after everything he’d been through in recent years.

  He waved me to the seat opposite his desk and we both settled in for a long conversation. I spent a couple of minutes catching him up and then we got right down to business.

  “Ever since I read your email last night, I’ve buried myself in research,” he said, with what I could only interpret as reluctant excitement. “You’ve presented some very interesting situations over the years, but none more so than the one you’ve come here about today. Those caged graves will keep me occupied for weeks.”

  “Considering what I found inside one of those cages, I’d say the situation is not only interesting, but deeply disturbing.”

  His smile vanished. “The young woman buried alive. Yes. Very disturbing. I certainly didn’t mean to make light.”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  “Has she been identified yet?”

  “Not that I’ve been told.” I stirred in my chair, finding myself anxious and jittery. So many things had happened in such a short amount of time I hardly knew where to begin. At any other time, the sight of the dead woman lumbering through the graveyard would have been uppermost on my mind and I would have grilled Dr. Shaw on the possibility, no matter how remote, of a corpse being brought back to life. But I’d already written off the incident as one of Darius Goodwine’s tricks and today I was more occupied with historical matters. Namely, the deep roots and entangled affiliations of the secret societies he’d mentioned. I felt certain one or more of those stealth groups were at the heart of the circle of graves, I just didn’t yet know how.

  “We can talk about the mortsafes later,” I said. “I would really love to hear your thoughts. But first I need to know what you’ve been able to find out about the Eternal Brotherhood of Resurrectionists and the Congé. I know you haven’t had a lot of time to research, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to help shed some light.”

  “I hope so, too,” he said. “You mentioned an affiliation with the Order of the Coffin and the Claw. As you know, I’m well versed in the history and the workings of the Order. I won’t go into the details of my relationship, but suffice to say I can speak with some authority on the topic.”

  Spoken like a true Claw, I thought. Artifice and stratagem had always been their discipline. It went against the nature of the group to disclose anything pertaining to the privileged membership and inner workings.

  “As a matter of fact, I’ve always been interested in secret societies in general,” he went on. “The South, particularly our own fair state, has always had an affinity for cloak-and-dagger clubs going back to the Revolutionary War days. But the Eternal Brotherhood of Resurrectionists and the Congé...” His snowy brows furrowed as a shadow flitted across his features. “May I ask where you heard about these groups?”

  “From Darius Goodwine.”

  His lips thinned in disapproval as he observed me over steepled fingers. “So he’s made a return, has he?”

  “We’ve been in touch,” I replied vaguely. No need to burden Dr. Shaw with Darius’s extraordinary proposition or my continued susceptibility to his trickery. Given Dr. Shaw’s history with the Goodwines, he
might be so concerned for my safety that he’d feel compelled to call Devlin. The last thing I wanted was to drag him into my latest intrigue. If he were to finally make contact after all these months, I wanted it to be out of his desire for my company and not because he felt an obligation to protect me from an old enemy.

  I flicked my ponytail over my shoulder as I sat forward. “According to Darius Goodwine, the Eternal Brotherhood of Resurrectionists was involved in something he called soul transference. Another group known as the Congé was their mortal enemy. Both groups may have been affiliated with the Order of the Coffin and the Claw, but I have no idea how. To use your own description, it’s all very cloak and dagger.”

  “Indeed,” Dr. Shaw agreed with a brief nod. He picked up a fountain pen, toying with the cap as though he needed to occupy his hands. “The Order has always taken great pains to keep their ceremonies and initiations hush-hush. The clandestine nature of the group is a large part of their mystique and mythology. But anyone who has ever spent any time at Emerson University knows of them. On campus—in fact, all around Charleston—the Order of the Coffin and the Claw is an open secret. But the Eternal Brotherhood of Resurrectionists and the Congé seem to be true shadow organizations. So ambiguous as to only be spoken of in whispers.”

  “And the connection between the three groups?” I pressed.

  He hesitated, as if weighing how much he should tell me. He capped and uncapped the fountain pen so many times that I found myself on the verge of snatching it away from him. “There have been rumors over the years. Vague suppositions at best. I’d forgotten all about those old stories until I read your email last night. Then I began to wonder.”

  I leaned in, my attention riveted. “Wonder about what? What are the rumors?”

  “As I said, this is all supposition at best.”