Last Seen Alive Read online

  My, my, what a perfect time for me to disappear, Deirdre thought grimly as she nearly tiptoed her way out of a tangle of ankle-high weeds onto a swath of grass that had obviously been well tended, even recently. Although stiffened from cold, the grass was short and evenly cut. It lay thick and luxurious, the kind that had never been marred by crabgrass or dandelions, the kind that flowed over golf courses.

  Lost in her thoughts, Deirdre had unconsciously picked up speed and abruptly smacked into a tall piece of rock. Stunned, she reached out and touched it. This was no ordinary rock. This had been honed into the shape of an obelisk, a four-sided shaft that stretched high above her head. What on earth is this? Deirdre wondered, after she’d bounded back, checking to making certain she hadn’t broken her nose.

  She moved closer, then circled the obelisk, thinking it seemed like something out of a science fiction movie, which would have sent her into half-dazed, hysterical laughter if her mouth weren’t taped. Giddily she wished she could feel the obelisk, but her hands remained trapped behind her back. Taking a deep breath, she choked down her inner laughter, forced herself to focus, inched her way forward, and stood beside the stone. She leaned her head against it, feeling it extend far above her own five feet, five inches. Gently she touched it with her cheek. It was cold and slightly rough. Granite. Then, with rising hope, she circled it until her icy forehead brushed against what felt like engraving.

  If Deirdre could have clapped her hands and let out a whoop of joy, she would have. Finally, she knew where she was.

  3

  They were up again, this time in the middle of the dance floor, almost right in front of the band. Scott had found his rhythm, and even if it was a bit slower than that of most other dancers, he looked poised, almost polished.

  “You used to dance a lot, didn’t you?” Chyna called over the music.

  “How did you know?”

  “Because now that you’ve gotten into the swing of things, your natural grace is showing”

  “Natural grace?” Scott grimaced. “You make me sound like a girl.”

  “Pardon me. I meant your ease with dancing is showing.”

  “You want to see my Jerry Lee Lewis mule kick?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Chyna Greer, you’re jealous.”

  “And you’re crazy.”

  The fast song concluded and Shania’s would-be twin broke into the ballad “From This Moment.” “I don’t usually like country music,” Chyna said, “but this song …”

  Scott smiled at her, his gaze softening. “It gets to me, too. We have to dance to it, Chyna.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  Chyna moved easily into Scott’s arms. He held her close. He was very warm and she could feel his heart beating beneath his sweater. For the first few moments she was in his arms, Chyna felt stiff. She’d never been this close to Scott Kendrick—the Scott Kendrick she’d thought she was in love with when she was a teenager. The Scott Kendrick she couldn’t stop thinking about all through college and medical school and her internship and residency. The Scott Kendrick who’d been so kind, so protective, so understanding, or trying his hardest to be understanding, since she’d come home. All of this in spite of his own recent tragedy.

  In a moment, she realized she’d relaxed against him. His arms tightened around her and he bent his dark head, singing softly in her ear. The words were about love and commitment, and Scott sang them with a soft sensuality. His warm breath in her ear, his strong body so close to hers, his cheek rubbing her temple, almost had her hypnotized. For her, no one else existed in the room. Only her and Scott Kendrick. This is how it’s supposed to be, she thought distantly, dreamily. This is how it’s supposed to be with the man you love.

  As Chyna floated through the dance, she kept her eyes closed, letting Scott lead her. I wish you were always leading me, she thought. Just like the song, I wish you were always leading me “from this moment on.”

  Slowly, Chyna opened her eyes. She blinked twice, but she felt as if her vision had gone fuzzy, almost as if someone had dropped a piece of gauze in front of her eyes. Around

  ten seconds later, the sensation passed. It’s the atmosphere, she thought. All the noise, the cigarette smoke, being held so close by Scott. That’s all it was.

  But she couldn’t dismiss the feeling that for ten seconds she’d been cold and barefoot and lost.

  “Something wrong?” Scott murmured in her ear.

  “No. Did I step on your foot or something?”

  “You stiffened and then you tripped.” Scott leaned back. “Are you tired? Want to sit down?”

  “Maybe I should,” Chyna said weakly. “I don’t know what happened to me. I just—”

  She went rigid, the dance floor, the entire roadhouse, disappearing from her view. She felt surrounded by a silver-washed landscape with statues and flowers and …

  And a towering grave marker soaring smooth and gray in the cold moonlight. “The Sternhavens’ family obelisk …”

  “Just hold on to my arm,” Scott soothed. “We’re almost to the table.”

  “Somethin’ wrong with her?” a woman with long, teased, bright red hair asked. “She don’t look so good.”

  Chyna heard the woman, saw the woman, but she seemed far away, a dream image that peered and talked and took Chyna’s other arm. Let go of me, Chyna thought almost wildly. I don’t know you. Let go of me!

  She shook free of both the woman and Scott and began mumbling, “I have to keep moving. I know where I am now. Just another mile—”

  Abruptly Chyna sank to the floor. People scattered, but Scott instantly stooped and leaned over her, his face frantic. “Chyna, what’s wrong?” he asked, holding one of her hands in his while with with the other he pushed her hair back from her forehead. “Someone call nine-one-one,” he yelled.

  Chyna suddenly felt as if she’d been hit by a jolt of electricity. The room came back into focus and she sat up, grasping at Scott’s arm. “We have to go,” she shrilled. “We have to go!”

  Scott rubbed her arm. “Settle down, Chyna. The emergency guys will be here in ten minutes and we’ll get you checked out. It’s going to be all right, honey.”

  Chyna jerked her hand away from him. “I can’t stay here, Scott. We have to help her!”

  “Her?” Scott repeated blankly.

  “A girl,” Chyna almost wailed. “I think it’s Deirdre. I believe I know where Deirdre is, Scott!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  1

  People made way for them as they rushed toward the door of the roadhouse. Chyna knew it was because they thought she was ill and she and Scott were leaving for the hospital. “What do I do about that nine-one-one call I just made?” a woman behind the counter asked.

  “When they get here, send them to Black Willow Cemetery,” Chyna said hurriedly. “Tell them to take the first left and head down the north side.”

  “The cemetery?” Chyna heard the woman echo incredulously behind her, but paid no attention. She simply clutched Scott’s hand as they burst out of the doors and into the parking lot of the roadhouse.

  “Chyna, what’s going on?” Scott asked, alarm surging through his deep voice.

  “I told you. I saw something. A girl, and she was falling.”

  “But you said to go to the cemetery.”

  “Yes. I know it sounds silly, but just do what I say, Scott. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong, but I have to know if I was hallucinating or really seeing something.” She paused, her head jerking right and left. “Dammit, where’s your car?”

  “It’s at the end of the row.” Chyna ran toward it, Scott rushing after her. When she reached the car, she saw Michelle sound asleep on the backseat. The doors were locked.

  “Scott, the door—”

  “Just a minute. I locked them so no one would take Michelle.” He fumbled in his pocket, withdrew a key ring and unlocked the driver’s side door, then hit a button that unlocked all doors. They both jumped in as Michelle awakened
with a yelp.

  “It’s okay, girl.” Chyna reached over the seat and rubbed the dog’s ears. “Don’t be scared.”

  Scott looked at Chyna. “Can I have one of those ear rubs, because I’m scared as hell.” He started the car. “Why do we have to go to the cemetery?”

  Chyna drew a deep breath, trying to slow her heart thumping far too fast. “While we were dancing, the room faded away for me. I felt cold and frightened. I felt like I was looking through someone else’s eyes again—a girl’s. She was so frightened—but still thinking that the grass was cold, but well tended. And I felt a gravestone. Or rather a tower. The Sternhaven family grave marker. It’s an ornate obelisk, Scott, around twelve feet tall. Mom thought it was so pretentious and always joked that it should have a light on top to guide in aliens.”

  Scott snickered but still looked puzzled. “But what does that monument have to do with your vision?”

  “The girl is at that huge grave marker! I know it. I felt it when we were in the Whippoorwill.” Chyna paused. “Then I had a sensation of the girl falling.”

  “Like you fell on the dance floor?”

  “Yes. I had no control over myself. I didn’t even feel as if / were falling.” Chyna winced. “I must have looked like a fool.”

  “No, you just looked drunk,” Scott deadpanned.

  “Oh, wonderful. How embarrassing, but a little embarrassment doesn’t matter if what happened to me helps us find the girl.”

  Scott slammed on the brakes. Chyna’s seat belt dug into her chest and waist, and Michelle was thrown forward onto the car floor. In the headlights, Chyna saw two large deer running in front of them. “Deer are always getting killed on this road,” Scott said. “I usually go slower because of them.”

  The white tails of the deer vanished into a thicket on the other side of the road. “That was a quick reaction.”

  Scott half-smiled in the darkness. “Guess my reflexes are returning to normal. I was worried about them for a while. I always seemed to be moving in slow motion.” Scott slowed the car and peered to the left. “There’s the cemetery. Are you sure—”

  “Yes! Scott, the girl I felt falling may be Deirdre and she could be hurt.”

  Scott turned into the Black Willow Cemetery. Just past the brick pillars, the road forked. “You said north in The Whippoorwill.”

  “Yes. The Sternhaven monument is about fifty feet further into the cemetery and beyond a few graves, not next to the road. As a matter of fact, my father’s grave is right beside it.”

  “I know where your father’s grave is. I came to the funeral, remember?”

  Yes, she remembered. Barely. Deirdre had been so saddened and surprised by her father’s death that for once in her life, she hadn’t been throbbingly aware of Scott when he was near.

  “Why would Deirdre or any other girl come to a cemetery at night?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably she’s lost, Scott.”

  Scott drove slowly over the white graveled road and Michelle stood, her hind legs on the backseat, her paws thrown over the front, her breath hot on Chyna’s ears. “There!” Chyna exclaimed. “I can see the monument. Stop!”

  As soon as Scott pulled the car off the side of the road and they clambered out, including Michelle, a cloud floated over the full moon. Even though Scott had left on his headlights, they seemed to do little to cut the gloom, their glow dulled by wisps of fog rolling in from the nearby river.

  Fear suddenly spiked through her. “Oh God,” she muttered.

  Scott looked at her sharply. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s spooky out here.”

  “No kidding. Night in a cemetery isn’t my idea of fun, either.”

  “I know, but…”

  “But what?”

  But something isn’t right, Chyna thought, feeling inexpressibly wary. Danger was near. She knew it and for a moment she couldn’t make herself take a step.

  “Chyna, you wanted to come here,” Scott said patiently. “What’s wrong?”

  She couldn’t move and she couldn’t tell Scott she felt surrounded by evil. Pure, malevolent evil. He’d think she was crazy. He’d lose all faith in her. “Uh … I just wondered if we had to lose the moonlight and get fog at the same time?” she managed.

  “It’s a little inconvenient but not a disaster. Don’t worry—I always come fully prepared.” Scott leaned into the car. As she stood still as stone, though, he opened the glove compartment and withdrew a flashlight. “Not sizable, but better than nothing. And we also have this.” He reached into the backseat of the car and pulled out his walking stick. She hadn’t even known he’d brought it with him. The stick she was certain bore traces of blood.

  “Is this better?” Scott asked as he turned on the flashlight and a beam of white light pierced the darkness.

  “Yeah, much better,” she answered weakly.

  “You don’t sound like you feel better.” Scott flashed the light around. “I’ll be manly and go first. Besides, I have the stick in case we’re attacked.”

  “You think we’ll be attacked?”

  Scott looked at her, his face weirdly shadowed and sharp-angled as he held the flashlight below his chin. “You’re the psychic. Will we?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel…” She sighed. She hadn’t been able to get him here fast enough. Now she was acting ridiculously timorous. “Just go ahead,” she said, and added with what she hoped sounded like lightness, “but if you have to hit someone, do it with the flashlight. If you break that walking stick, your mother will kill you.”

  Michelle, a dog of many fears, did not prance ahead, ready to warn the humans of danger. Instead, she tried to walk between them and finally, after Scott had twice stepped on her paw, dropped directly behind Chyna.

  The dark cloud had moved on and the moon now bathed the landscape with a cold, silvery sheen. It should have been beautiful, Chyna thought, but instead everything around her looked weirdly bleached and dead. The night seemed unearthly still. She didn’t hear birds; she didn’t hear small animals or deer moving in the wooded area beyond the cemetery; she didn’t hear cars on the highway behind them.

  To make matters worse, Chyna could not stop thinking of all the cold, decaying bodies lying here, bodies of people who’d once laughed, and eaten, had arguments, made love, gone to work, suffered sorrow, experienced joys. And now all of it had ended for them. The thought was almost more than she could bear, and she pushed it from her mind, telling herself she didn’t have all the answers. Maybe death wasn’t simply oblivion, as she’d always feared. After all, she was certain Zoey was dead, and yet Zoey had been speaking to her for days. The thought should have been comforting, but it wasn’t. Chyna couldn’t stand the thought of Zoey’s spirit trapped in some netherworld, not at peace, not at rest, just talking to Chyna, begging her to help another girl as Chyna hadn’t been able to help her.

  “What about Zoey?” Scott asked.

  “What?”

  “You said ’Zoey’ and ’netherworld’ and—”

  “I was just mumbling to myself.” Chyna was embarrassed. Exactly how much did she talk to herself? A lot of the trick-or-treaters at Halloween had certainly noticed. Did she run around the hospital having long conversations with herself? Were people laughing behind her back and saying that she was strange and— “There’s the obelisk!” she burst out, grateful both to find it and to keep her mind on a different track.

  Forgetting her fear, Chyna ran ahead and touched the

  marble “tower.” Almost immediately Scott stood beside her, shining the flashlight beam on the engraving: Sternhaven.

  Suddenly Michelle began barking furiously. Chyna jumped in surprise, sliding on the frosty grass as her gaze darted around, searching for an intruder, someone who shouldn’t be in a cemetery at night. Scott’s sharp gaze darted everywhere. In a moment, he said, “Chyna, come here!”

  She turned around. At first all she saw was a large piece of plywood. Beside the plywood lay a beer bottle and
a crumpled potato chip bag. Michelle barked again and, when she’d gained Chyna’s attention, dipped her paw about two inches into a hole. “Michelle, get back!” Scott commanded.

  The dog cringed at the harsh sound of his voice but moved away from what Chyna now saw was a large hole in the ground. A deep hole dug for a casket, she thought with a shudder. She would have expected Michelle to retreat to her after being spoken to so loudly by Scott, but instead she kept barking, circling the hole in agitation. There is something down there, Chyna thought. Something I probably don’t want to see.

  In fact, for a moment Chyna felt like bolting away from the scene. She wanted to run back to Scott’s car, lock herself in, and drive away, Scott and Michelle in tow. But of course she couldn’t do that. She wasn’t supposed to do that.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to draw on the well of strength her mother used to say everyone had inside them. Then, with dread, Chyna crept closer to Scott, who was shining the flashlight into the deep hole.

  At the bottom lay a girl, facedown, naked, her wrists bound with duct tape. Her right leg was flung out at an unnatural angle and her auburn hair spread in a tangled, stringy mess, blocking any view of her face. Still, Chyna knew.

  “Deirdre,” she whispered. “Dear God, I hope she’s alive.”

  2

  After looking at Deirdre for a moment, Chyna had begun to climb down into the hole to see if the girl still lived, but Scott had stopped her. “You could fall and get hurt yourself,” he said, holding tight to Chyna’s arm. “Or you could fall on Deirdre. If she’s alive, you might make things worse for her, cause another injury.”

  Chyna pulled back from the edge of the hole. “You’re right. It’s just so hard to wait. Are you sure that woman at The Whippoorwill made the nine-one-one call and gave the right directions?”