Page 34 of Immortal by Morning (Argeneau #37)
The pup looked so sweet and peaceful. She really was a good dog, Abril thought and listened as Decker began murmuring somewhere
behind her. He was telling someone that Lilith appeared to be asleep but wasn’t waking up and Lucian wanted her checked out.
She heard him give Lilith’s breed and say he wasn’t sure of her age. Realizing he must be talking to this vet, Valorie, Abril
said, “She’s two years old.”
She listened to him relay the information, and then instinctively glanced to Lucian to ask, “Will she be all right?”
“We shall have to wait and see,” he said grimly rather than offer a platitude.
It was Decker who said, “Valorie will see to her. She said she will head down right away.”
She turned to offer him a grateful smile, but he wasn’t looking her way. He was putting his phone away and frowning slightly
as he toed at the ceramic tile around the indoor garden. “There is some dirt here too.”
Lucian straightened. His expression was grim. “Is the dirt in the garden disturbed?”
Decker raised an eyebrow and then bent to move aside a large frond of one of the umbrella plants behind the Naked-man orchids.
“Yeah. There is a footprint here and some obvious digging. It looks like somebody either started to dig and stopped, or dug
and filled it back in.”
“Get a shovel and start digging,” Lucian ordered.
Cassius moved over to examine the garden, and then glanced to Abril and asked, “Will digging up the indoor garden be a problem?”
Abril shook her head. “The gardens are going to be removed anyway, and the hole filled in with gravel then concrete. It’s
going to be carpeted and made part of the living room,” she told them solemnly. “Do what you need to.”
She didn’t really care if they dug up the garden.
She just had no idea why they would. But then she had no idea what was going on right now.
Why had she been outside? Why couldn’t she remember getting there?
Why had Lilith been drugged? If she had been.
And why were the men suddenly so on edge and acting weird?
She had all these questions and no answers.
Worse yet, though, was that she still felt a little fuzzy.
Her memory was hazy with some holes in it, and she just didn’t feel right.
“Where would I find a shovel?” Decker asked, straightening from the garden.
“There are some in the garden shed,” Abril answered quietly.
“You will not go to the shed to get shovels,” Lucian said at once. “I do not want whoever is watching the house to know we
have discovered what they are looking for if they didn’t manage to dig it up.”
“You think it was something in the garden and not Abril they were after?” Bricker asked with interest.
“Why else dig in it?” Lucian said dryly.
Bricker grunted with a nod, and then pointed out, “They could have found what they were looking for already.”
“I do not think so,” Lucian said thoughtfully as he walked over to join Decker by the indoor garden. “I suspect between Lilith
and Abril interrupting them they did not have the time.”
“The holes in her memory,” Cassius said with understanding. “She left the kitchen, then was abruptly in the kitchen and leaving
again.”
Lucian nodded, and then announced, “You will not go to the shed to get shovels. Dustpans and other items from inside the house
will have to do.”
“There’s a snow shovel in the garage still,” Abril announced, running her hand down Lilith’s smooth fur again. “I was going to move it to the garden shed, and then we had snow again just a couple weeks ago, so it never got moved. It’s leaning against the far wall in the garage.”
“Is there a way to get into the garage without having to go out and be seen returning with the shovel?” Lucian asked.
“Yes. Down that hallway,” she said, pointing to the hall to the laundry room. “There’s a door that opens into the back of
the garage.”
“I’ll get it,” Bricker offered, hurrying from the room.
“What do you think is in the garden?” Crispin asked with curiosity.
“Probably another body,” Cassius suggested when Lucian did not respond.
“Well, why would they try to get that out? I mean it was a big risk to break into the house and try to dig out the garden.
If that was what they were doing,” he pointed out. “And we’ve already discovered the bodies outside. What would it matter
if there’s one more here?”
Lucian shook his head slowly. “Who can say? But there is obviously something there they want badly enough that they would
take the risk of entering the house when it was not empty. Abril must have interrupted them repeatedly and prevented them
getting very far,” he said. “They must have wiped her mind and sent her back to the kitchen the first time, or perhaps several
times for all we know, then took her outside the last time.”
Bricker returned then with the shovel. It was large, at least two feet wide. It was made for shoveling lots of snow and would be awkward to use in the garden. But it was the best they had at the moment. It was better than using a dustpan, or a spatula, Abril supposed.
“Gently,” Lucian ordered when Bricker stepped into the garden. When he tried to move the fronds of the umbrella plant aside
with one foot, Decker joined him and simply pulled it out. He then pulled out a couple more before getting out of his way.
“Thanks,” Bricker said and then set to work.
“Perhaps we should take Lilith into the kitchen and let her rest where we can watch her,” Crispin said suddenly.
“No,” Abril said at once. She knew he was just trying to get her out of the living room and shook her head in refusal. “I
want to see what’s in the garden too.”
In the end, they did have to resort to dustpans and anything else in the house they could find that would be useful as a tool
to help. It was mostly due to impatience on the part of the other men. They couldn’t stand the wait when Bricker was working
alone, so joined him. They dug and dug, deeper and deeper with no results.
“How deep is this damn garden?” Bricker asked with irritation.
Abril shrugged and stood. Leaving Lilith where she was, she moved closer to the garden. “I have no idea. This house is slab
on grade. No basement. For all I know there is no bottom and they just left an open hole in this part of the house for the
garden to be a real garden.”
“Unlikely,” Lucian announced. “It is more likely it goes down as far as the foundation.”
“I think we are already past the foundation point,” Decker said dryly, shifting some of the dirt away from the edge so it would not fall back into the hole. They had to be at least four feet down already.
Lucian shook his head solemnly. “Even for slab on grade, they dig a foundation until they reach firm ground. If there is peat
moss or something else in the area—”
“There is,” Abril interrupted to say. “The contractor said they would have to dig ten feet down to get past the peat, then
backfill with gravel before pouring the concrete for the slab on top of that.” She smiled crookedly at the memory and said
what she’d thought at the time. “It just seems silly really. According to him that’s how the original contractor poured the
foundation for the main house too. It means there is a basement under here that’s full of gravel. I always figured it would
be easier just to have an actual basement.”
“Found something!” Bricker said suddenly.