Page 14

I wondered if she knew, as she stood here, staring out down the long road or into the sun-dappled trees, that she was going to die. If she expected the attack. If she’d always expected it.

I wondered if she was glad, in the end, that it was over.

I found the jewelry Momma had left to Noah exactly where I expected to—in the jewelry box in the bedroom that belonged to my parents.

It was a room we’d rarely gone into, and it felt like trespassing to go in now, despite the dust and pollen—because this was Virginia in the summer, and pollen dusted everything even with high-quality HEPA filters, and my parents’ house definitely didn’t have those.

The layer was thick enough that it was clear no one—including the police—had really been in here in the last week.

Maybe the morning after, but I saw no signs of searching or dusting for prints.

I opened Momma’s jewelry box, finding inside the onyx brooch, the central stone polished and set in gold filigree, and a flat velvet box that creaked when I opened it, my grandmother’s pearl necklace settled inside.

I was pretty sure I’d never seen my mother wear either.

Also in the box were a few rings I’d also never seen her wear and a gold cross studded with what looked like rubies.

I’d never seen her wear that, either, but she was wearing it in the wedding photo that sat on her dressing table.

It was the only photo displayed in the house.

The only jewelry I’d ever seen my mother wear was her plain silver wedding ring and a silver cross behind a mother-of-pearl crescent moon. I assumed she’d been wearing them when she died and that the police or the medical examiner probably had them now.

I looked over at Humbolt. “Should I take them?” I asked him. “Or should you?”

“I could do some paperwork for them to be in your custody, I suppose,” he replied. “If you feel strongly about it.”

“No, you can take them if that’s easier,” I replied. I didn’t have any sentimental attachment to either of them. I honestly didn’t know if Noah would, either—maybe he’d give them to Lulu. Or sell them. It didn’t really matter to me what he wanted to do with them.

Humbolt nodded and took both from me, the brooch wrapped in a small jewelry cloth. “This is the bed linen, I assume?” He gestured to the cream-colored dimpled fabric on the bed.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“You can take that with you when you go,” the lawyer told me. “The table linens?”

I went to the single hall closet—the linen closet—and retrieved the table linens—a cloth with lace edging and embroidered bluebells and a set of ten matching napkins, which I also handed to Humbolt. He carefully balanced both fabric and jewelry.

“And do you have an idea where the tool box would be?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “I remember it being out in the barn.” I looked over at him. “Do you need to leave soon?” I remembered him saying he was squeezing this in between two other meetings.

“I should go soon, yes,” the lawyer replied, his tone apologetic. “But you two can stay here as long as you like.”

I didn’t want to stay here, but now that we were here, I felt obligated to go through the house.

To remind myself of all the things I’d blocked out or forgotten I knew, to check to see if there was any evidence that the Augusta Sheriff’s Office had missed.

Any clue as to why my father had decided to kill my mother. And check on the goats and chickens.

“Okay,” is what I said out loud to Humbolt. “Then let’s start in the barn.”

I led the way outside, feeling oddly disconnected from myself. As though the feet walking across the gravel weren’t mine, the shoulders being baked by the sun not mine, the nostrils inhaling the scents of loblolly pine and heated dirt not mine.

Somewhere in my head, there was screaming, but I was doing a very good job of ignoring it.

Compartmentalization was absolutely necessary when you worked homicide scenes.

You couldn’t let your emotions come to the surface when you were staring down at incontrovertible evidence of the horrific things people were capable of doing to one another.

It was the only way I was going to be able to handle any of this—by shoving it back and down and hoping it stayed there until I got somewhere private and could properly melt down about it.

As we approached the barn, something let out a loud bleat, and I jumped.

“Hi, goat!” Elliot immediately went straight to the fence, a split-rail with chicken wire behind them to keep the goats safely in the pen.

Goats, plural, as two more were trotting across the chewed-down grass in the pen to come see what was so interesting.

One of them looked very fat, which I was assuming meant there were soon to be more than three goats.

Elliot kept talking to them and scritching them, clearly delighted by them.

Maybe I was going to end up with goats.

I shrugged, leaving Elliot to make friends with the goats, and tugged the sliding door to the barn open.

The goats had a wide stall inside that opened to the pen—I assumed that door had been left open to allow them to go in and out.

There were several more stalls that held various equipment and gardening supplies, as well as a massive work bench covered in tools that were at least a generation old.

Momma had always kept her father’s tool box with the gardening supplies, since the gardens and the chickens were her primary responsibility.

I walked to the second stall, pulled open the door, and surveyed the carefully organized tools, bins, containers of compost, coffee grounds, manure…

all the things she used to fertilize the plants or shift the pH of the soil.

The tool box was exactly where I remembered it being.

“And here it is,” I said to Humbolt.

He nodded. “Yes, that matches the description.” He smiled at me, then. “That one is yours to take with you, as well, of course.”

“Thank you, Mr. Humbolt,” I said politely.

“You’re quite welcome,” he replied cheerfully. “I… would recommend going through the house, if you have the time,” he said, then. “Make lists of things you would like or things you think have resale value. Just in case.”

Just in case I’m wrong and my father actually is dead.

I wondered what the law was regarding property rights if the inheritor of property was a murderer. I was fairly sure that anything that was my mother’s probably couldn’t be inherited by her killer, but I wasn’t sure what it meant for the rest of the property if he were convicted.

“What happens to the farm if my father is found guilty of killing my mother?” I asked Humbolt, even though I knew he needed to leave.

“Well, anything that was his would still be his,” he replied. “Virginia doesn’t have a statute of civil death, which would cause his property to revert to next of kin. He would be able to designate power of attorney to someone else to continue managing it.”

I nodded.

“Would that be you?” he asked.

I couldn’t help the laugh that barked out of me. “Oh, God, no. My father hated me. Hates me, assuming he’s still alive.”

Humbolt looked a little alarmed. “Do you have a sense of who he might name, in that case?” he asked.

I shrugged. “The Community, or one of its Elders, I assume.”

“Community?”

I looked up at him. “The Community of the Divine Transformation,” I replied.

Humbolt’s eyebrows went up. “I’m not familiar.”

Elliot snorted from the doorway to the barn. “The crazy religious people who live up here in the hills,” he said.

I saw recognition flicker across Humbolt’s face, but he restored a professional expression fairly quickly. “I’m sure rumors aren’t entirely accurate.”

“Probably not,” I acknowledged. “It’s probably worse.”

He looked alarmed. “I?—”

I waved a hand, interrupting him. “You should go to your meeting, Mr. Humbolt. Thank you for your assistance. We’ll try to go through the house and the barn. And look into making arrangements for the animals, although they seem to have been taken care of by someone.”

He nodded. “Yes, indeed. That sounds like a very practical plan. Do stay in touch, Mr. Mays. Let me know if you hear anything more about the case—and I will do the same if I find out anything first.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“And I will reach out when they release your mother’s body.”

I started at him for a full three or four seconds before I processed what he said. “I’ll have to make arrangements.”

It was half a question, half a statement.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I can recommend a local mortuary, if you like.”

God, I did not want to deal with this. “Yes, please. Thank you.”

“I’ll have Michelle send the information,” he said, then held out a hand, which I shook. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Mays. And good luck.”

“Thanks.”

He exchanged farewells with Elliot by the doorway, then I heard his shoes crunch their way across the driveway. His Mercedes drove away before I heard Elliot’s boots crossed the straw and dirt of the barn floor.

“Do you actually want to go through the house?” he asked me, settling a hand on my lower back.

“No,” I answered honestly. “But I should.”

Much as I loved him, Elliot was getting on my nerves. Or, more specifically, his constant questions were getting on my nerves. Just being in my parents’ house was stressful enough without having to literally think about the things that had happened here.

I hadn’t yet gotten up the courage to go anywhere near the basement, so when Elliot asked what was behind the basement door, I’d nearly panicked.

Instead, I’d said, “Basement,” then asked him if he would mind doing an inventory of all the tools in the barn, since I didn’t know what most of them were for, and then we could get out of here sooner.

I was fairly sure he knew I was avoiding answering his question more comprehensively, but he also understood—or seemed to, anyway—that I needed to get us out of that house sooner rather than later.