Page 13 of The Devoted Game

Even now, his way of looking so deep inside her flustered her. The man had that whole intimidation thing down to a science. Not to mention he filtered every damned thing between them through an erotic lens. She had to get a grip on how to handle that aspect of his persona.

Zoning back in on the here and now, she followed the flashlight’s beam over the limestone walls and floors, landing lastly on the tomb.

“Are the seals on all the tombs intact?” McBride asked their guide.

A shudder went through her, and she braced against it. The unsub had said Alyssa’s fate would be sealed. That possibility made Vivian feel ill.Just let us find her.As much as she had loved this cemetery as a kid, something about being here under these circumstances amplified the desperation and her awareness of time passing so swiftly.

Holcomb nodded. “Yes, sir. Resealing all the tombs is part of the master preservation plan. This cemetery’s on the national historic registry, you know. Every last one of the tombs had to be resealed to ensure the remains are protected. They started the process a couple of months ago.”

McBride’s posture changed, signaling that he had just experienced the same epiphany as she. The sealing of the tombs couldn’t be coincidence.

“Does the process require opening the tombs?” McBride pressed for specificity.

“No, sir.” Holcomb touched the ledge where the top rested against the walls of the casket-size tomb. “There’s a couple of ways of doing it, but these folks didn’t want ’em opened. So the sealing is done right around this ledge with the lids sitting in place. That way there’s no risk to the remains. Air isn’t kind to ’em, you know? And there’s always the fear that some no-account will steal something. Even some of the ones in the business of restoring can’t be trusted. I had to be right with ’em as they done each one.”

“So,” McBride restated, “they’ve all been done? No chance one was skipped?”

Jesus, he was thinking the same thing Vivian was. Her body literally vibrated with the need to pry open every damned one of the tombs. But the timing was off. Holcomb had said the process had started two months ago, well before Alyssa went missing. That would eliminate the possibility of her being sealed up inside one of them.

Holcomb pushed his cap up his forehead and scratched the bald spot there. “There’s—”

A burst of frantic shouting had Vivian moving out of the mausoleum since she was closest to the door. Adrenaline blazed through her veins.

Her cell phone shook in its holster. She reached for it, her gaze searching the grounds, attempting to locate the activity generating the cacophony. “Grace.” Pratt was on the line; needed them at his location ASAP. One of the dogs had latched on to something. “We’re on our way.”

Vivian looked to McBride as she put her phone away. “Pratt may have found something.”

“The girl?”

“Don’t know.” Her pulse was tripping with the knowledge that the handlers had been provided with the pajamas Alyssa had slept in the night before she disappeared, which meant the animals could be on to her scent.

As they started across the cemetery, McBride called back to the caretaker, “Double-check your records on the sealing of the tombs. We’ll get back to that.”

Holcomb looked a little flustered or perplexed, but Vivian didn’t have time to analyze his problem since McBride had taken hold of her arm and was tugging her along with him. She had to practically run to keep up with his long strides.

He jerked his head toward the street. “Looks like word’s out that we’re here.”

Vivian glanced in that direction. The news vans and reporters had gathered in force. Birmingham PD was keeping them outside the cemetery gate, but that wouldn’t stop their intruding zoom lenses. Sheunderstood that the media was part of this business, but she didn’t have to like it. The call letters of one station in particular, WKRT, caught her eye, which meant that Nadine Goodman was on the scene already. There wasn’t an agent or a cop in Birmingham who liked the lady. She had earned her reputation of cutthroat reporting by stepping on and over anyone necessary.

Vivian and McBride pushed through the crowd of cops when they reached Pratt’s location.

“In here,” Pratt said. He gestured to the open mausoleum.

“Was it unlocked when you got here?” McBride assessed the rusty iron door that stood partially open.

Pratt nodded. “The dog nudged the door open a little farther, but it was already unlocked and ajar. The handler had to restrain the animal.”

The dog had settled now that he had their attention.

“We’ll check it out,” McBride told him. “You and the handler stay put but get the rest of these folks back to the search. It’s getting dark fast.”

Vivian looked up at the sky; he was right about that. She reached into her jacket pocket and passed McBride a pair of gloves. When she’d tugged her own into place, she unholstered her weapon and followed him into the mausoleum.

She grimaced at the pungent odor.Blood...decomp.The deeper they moved inside, the more the foul smell worsened. This mausoleum was larger than the last. Two tombs stood on raised stone platforms. The floor was clean, as if someone had swept it. The cobwebs and dust on the walls and every other surface indicated the floor shouldn’t have been so clean. Their unsub wasn’t leaving anything to chance, not even his shoeprints in the dust.

“He’s been here,” McBride muttered.

With no immediate threat visible, she reholstered her weapon. “Looks that way.” As convinced as she had been that this was too easy, that there had to be a mistake, looking around now she admitted thatMcBride was right:Hehad been here. Something in her peripheral vision stopped her.