Page 682 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“Well, I’d say you done a pretty good job of listening to your heart today.”

Sydney had never thought about it that way. She’d always associated listening to her heart with getting to the bottom of Avery’s death. But she’d listened to that inner voice when it prompted her to help and had felt peace. Was it possible that the same feeling that had prompted her to help the Nolans and Hazel was the same one that kept urging her to get to the bottom of Avery’s death?

“You have to learn to shut out all them outside voices that are coming at you and go to that inner place inside your heart.” Tuesday balled up her fist and placed it over the center of her chest. She paused. “If you’ll learn to listen, and I mean if you’ll learn toreallylisten, you won’t never go wrong.”

Sydney thought about this for a moment. Tuesday’s words were coming at her so fast that she couldn’t sort through it all right now. She was filing each word away so she could ponder over them at her own pace.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

Sydney looked at her. “What?”

“Whatever it is you’re dealing with is very serious. Please be careful.”

“I will.” Sydney paused. “And will you please promise me that if you remember anything you’ll let me know?”

“I give you my word on it.”

Sleep didn’t comeeasy for Sydney that night. In the blackness of night, her fears rose to a fevered pitch, and she was helpless against them. She kept thinking about Tuesday’s warning and the truck that ran her off the road. Tuesday was right. Danger was so close that she could feel its sick tentacles twisting in so tight that she felt like she would smother. Tuesday’s advice to face the fear and stop running was almost word for word what Stella told her. The cemetery loomed like a dagger, hanging by a silk thread. She had to visit the cemetery and look those graves straight in the eye so she could put it all behind her. There was no getting around it.

Tomorrow—I’ll go tomorrow, she promised herself. She buried her head in her pillow and tried to get some sleep.

33

“MY HEART PANTETH, MY STRENGTH FAILETH ME; AS FAR AS THE LIGHT OF MINE EYES, IT ALSO IS GONE FROM ME.” —PSALM 38:10

Sydney had visited the cemetery for years in her mind. She gripped the steering wheel, barely aware of the dampness that oozed from the palms of her hands. She was thankful for her five-speed as she shifted to a lower gear while driving up the steep winding road. The weather was warm—too warm for the time of year. It was stuffy in the jeep, and she rolled down the window. There was an uncanny calm in the air, almost like the sky was holding its breath. The calm before the storm. Dark clouds were gathering overhead, letting her know she didn’t have much time before the bottom fell out.

Half a mile off the main road, the cemetery came into full view, perched on the hill, just as she remembered. She stopped in front of the old rusted sign that readNew Prospect Cemetery. Any other time she might’ve found it amusing. Why in the world would anyone name a cemeteryNew Prospect?

Huge magnolia trees stood as sentinels for the hundreds of tombstones dotting the landscape. Sprigs of artificial flowers threaded a crazy quilt pattern over the graves. Five or six graves were surrounded by wooden fences. A heap of old discarded flowers lay at the edge of the cemetery.

Sydney parked the jeep in the vicinity she remembered. She reached for the flowers that would be her small tribute to her parents. A dozen yellow roses for Susan and a single red rose for Avery.

She walked among the tombstones, trying to avoid stepping on any of the graves. She’d been afraid of cemeteries when she was a young child. When she’d thought of cemeteries, she pictured the ghosts and goblins of Halloween that rested under the black tombstones labeled R.I.P. They lurked there, waiting to spring back to life at the first light of the full moon. She’d been so young and innocent, so unprepared for what lay ahead. She couldn’t possibly have imagined then that her beloved parents would be among the buried dead. Now she would give anything if they would suddenly spring back to life.

Images of her last visit to this cemetery floated in her mind like actors across a stage. It had been a beautiful sunny day. She could hear Judith, urging Avery to get into the car. The passage of time had been a buffer to the pain. Here, in this place, time reversed itself. She might have been sixteen all over again.

The roar of thunder jolted her and propelled her feet forward. It was getting dark fast, and she would have to hurry before the approaching storm made it impossible to find their graves.

She walked to the location she remembered and hunted for their names but couldn’t find them. Where were they? The trees seemed to come alive. The heavy branches swayed and twisted in the air that was building momentum by the minute. She picked her way through the headstones, desperately searching to find them. A few minutes later, she stopped, realizing that she’d made a full circle, and they were nowhere to be found. She looked up at the clouds and felt the first drops of rain. She surveyed the cemetery again, and then she spotted them, amere four feet from where she’d first begun her search. She had walked right past them.

There was one large tombstone for the both of them. On one side were the words Avery McClain, Beloved Husband and Father. On the other side of the tombstone was written Susan McClain, Beloved Wife and Mother. Across the bottom was an inscription. “Earth holds no sorrows that cannot be healed in Heaven.”

Tears fell down her face, matching the heavy drops of rain that were now pouring like a waterfall from the sky. She carefully placed the flowers on their graves. Never before had she felt so completely and totally alone. Susan’s face flashed in her mind. She saw it transform right before her very eyes from vibrant to a sickly pallor of death. Then the explosion, its searing heat, destroying everything in its wake. Pain, the dreaded familiar pain, throbbed in her thigh and she saw Avery. It was too much. Her grief rose from the shadows and became a living thing that was so terrible in its majesty that she feared it would devour her very soul. She cried out in anguish, the emptiness enveloping her like a shroud. The hollow echo of the wind rushing through the trees was her only answer. She saw herself returning home to an empty house after her mother’s funeral, remembered the terrible loss of losing her dad and not being able to attend his funeral, felt again the pain of not being able to return home after the accident.

She fell to the earth and wept. A voice penetrated through the blackness in her mind. It rose like a gentle wave, enveloping the pain. Ginger’s words: “You never have to be alone again. The Lord will always be there for you.”

She clung to those words and knelt between her parents’ graves, ignoring the rain soaking her clothes. Her anguished prayer spiraled to heaven. “Please Lord, where are you now? Be with me now. I need?—”

Lightning split a nearby tree. She jumped to her feet and ran toward the jeep, her feet making a soft suction in the wet earth. Her body trembled. Somehow she managed to get in and start the engine. Rain was coming down so hard that she had to inch her way to the main road. Branches were scattered everywhere. Sydney strained to see the meager path that her headlights were creating. She could barely make out the road up ahead. It was like none of this was real. Her body was going through the motions while her mind was caught in some black tunnel.

“Stop!” A man was standing in the middle of the road, waving his arms. Sydney hit her brakes and skidded a few feet. A flash of lightning lit the sky, and she noticed that a power line had fallen behind where the man was standing.

He walked over to the jeep. “What are you doing here?”

It took her a minute to convince herself that he was real and not some figment of her messed up mind. “Kendall?”

“Sydney, what are you doing?”