Undying (5 page)

“I’d really like to talk to you, Maggie. I’d like to see you. Meet face to face. I think it’s time.”

Her elbow resting on her knee, Macy lowered her head until her forehead touched the heel of her hand. Her blond hair fell over her face as she cradled the phone to her ear. Hearing Fia’s voice on the end of the line made Macy realize how lonely she was. It was good just to hear Fia’s voice. How pathetic was that?

“Will you come?” Fia prodded.

Macy lifted her head, throwing her hair back. “I’m here,” she whispered.

“You are? You’re
here
? At the scene?”

Macy watched the agent turn around, studying the crowd. She started walking back toward the yellow line of tape, her long legs taking long strides. Fia Kahill didn’t look past the crowd, beyond the commotion, to the lonely back porch. To the lonely, invisible blond sitting on the step.

Macy had made a career of remaining invisible.

Except to him, of course.

She felt the anger bubble in her chest again.

“I want to talk to you,” Macy heard herself say. “Face to face.”

Fia stopped walking, but she was still scanning the crowd. More uniformed police had arrived. Macy would have to join the crowd if she was going to stay any longer. Otherwise, someone was going to spot her. Macy made it a point to never stand out in a crowd. Never be singled out for anything if she could help it. She didn’t even like to be the only one in line in a grocery store.

“But not here,” Macy added quickly. “I can’t talk to you here. Besides, you have to go see them. You have to…bear witness,” she said.

Fia removed her dark sunglasses. “Okay. I’m headed there now.”

“There’s a…a beach not far from here,” Macy said, still watching her. “A state park.” She’d been there before. Eighteen months ago or so. She’d gone walking on the beach after a photo shoot of a cottage in Chincoteague. “You want to meet me there about eleven tonight?” That would give Macy time to check in to a hotel. Think about what she wanted to say to Fia. Even think about whether or not she just wanted to get in her car and drive home.

“I can certainly be out of here by then, but it’ll be kind of dark for a walk on the beach. Maybe a coffee shop or something?”

Macy watched Fia check her wristwatch. Macy never wore a watch. She wasn’t all that caught up in what time it was. She always felt as if she had plenty of time to kill. A lifetime. “There’s a big waning moon,” she said into the phone. “The beach is pretty in the moonlight.”

“Okay. Sure.” Fia slipped her hand into her pants pocket under her jacket. She turned away, seeming to give up on trying to spot Macy. “I can meet you at eleven.”

Macy gave her the directions.

“Got it.” Fia Kahill hesitated. “How will I know you?”

Macy almost chuckled. “You’re quite the crack agent, Fia. I thought you guys could spot your man a mile away.” Somehow she managed to find a wry smile. “I’ll be the only one, other than you, crazy enough to be sitting on the beach in an empty state park that late at night.”

F
ia held her cell phone and glanced over her shoulder, looking toward the farmhouse. She scanned the crowd, which was beginning to look like a mob. Where was Maggie? Was she really here?

Fia sensed she was. Sensed Maggie was watching her. She was an intriguing woman, this informant of hers. There was something about her that tugged at Fia’s heartstrings.

And here she thought she didn’t have any….

More uniforms had arrived to serve as crowd control and the multitude seemed to be getting bigger by the moment. How could so many people have found out about the murders so quickly, in such a remote area? she wondered. How could they have all gotten here so quickly? Didn’t they have jobs? Families? Dinner to put on the table? It was morbid, humans’ fascination with the dead. Somehow she didn’t think they would be quite so enthralled if they were one of the living dead.

Fia’s gaze shifted from one face to the next, but she didn’t see Maggie. Or at least she didn’t
think
she saw her. Fia had an idea in her head, from the voice, what the woman looked like, but she had no real idea. It had been her experience that bodies sometimes matched voices, but not always.

The crowd was beginning to work itself into a frenzy the way a crowd could. The TV news reporters’ voices were getting shriller, even the men’s. The helicopter, waved away once, was apparently attempting to make another fly-by over the property in the hopes of getting a couple of gruesome head shots.

Fia groaned to herself at the bad pun. She’d been doing this too long. Next life, she was going to be a gardener, or maybe a basket weaver. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a green thumb, nor was she artistic. This was what she did well—the dead. Some days she considered it a gift from God used to serve mankind and help right the wrongs committed by her sept. Other days, it was another one of His sick jokes. A curse.

Tucking her phone into her pocket, she started down the path leading through the orchard. Agents Richter and Evans, from the Baltimore field office, said the bodies were just past the lean-to toolshed, over the little crest. They were buried under a tree. From here, Fia could see the branches and leaves. It was a big maple. Hundreds of years old. She liked old trees. They made her feel…less old.

Fia met Arlan on the path beside the toolshed. He was just walking along, hands in his pockets as if he belonged there. “You been to the scene?” she stopped and asked.

He nodded.

She noted he was a little pale. And still as devastatingly handsome as ever. He was always getting offers in big cities to try his hand at modeling. With a face and a body like his, he could sell a ton of tight black BVDs from a billboard in Times Square or Tokyo.

“You just walked over and had a look at a dead family of five, buried to their chins, and no one stopped you?”

“No one stopped two pitiful cats checking out their owners’ remains.”

She knew Arlan had the ability to morph into any animal. She’d once seen him morph into a nine-foot-tall polar bear in her mother’s backyard. But he usually kept it to applicable animals. Animals native to the area. The whole idea was to be able to blend in. And while he could be feline, bovine, or canine, he couldn’t split himself into two animals. Not even two measly five-pound cats. That was beyond his gift. “Two of you?”

“Found a friend. He’s over there.” He pointed behind him. “Other side of the shed. Family cat. He didn’t see anything. He was out chasing rabbits in a field somewhere when it happened. He came upon them after they were dead.”

“He call it in?” she quipped.

It was a poor attempt at humor. Neither of them smiled.

“Hey, my girl called,” she said, giving Arlan a tap on the arm. He was still wearing his sunglasses. The color seemed to be coming back to his suntanned cheeks. Who would have thought a vampire would tan so well? “She says she’s here, though I didn’t see her. Don’t
think
I saw her, anyway. There’s so many people. It’s crazy.” She gestured in the direction of the driveway commotion.

“What’d she want?”

“Believe it or not, she’s agreed to meet me.”

He made a face, demonstrating he was impressed with Fia’s skill as an agent.

“She won’t meet me here, though. Later tonight. On a deserted beach, of all places.”

“You think it’s safe?”

It was Fia’s turn to make a face. “For me?
She’s
the one who ought to be scared of
me
in the dark.”

“Yeah, I know.” He smiled. Their gazes met. His smile slipped. His focus drifted with his thoughts. “I saw them, Fee. It’s pretty awful.”

“I’m sure it is. I saw the last family.” She put her sunglasses back on. It was really too dark for sunglasses now. Neither needed to wear them. But they were both hiding behind them. Hiding the emotions they both knew had no place here. No place in doing their job.

“So what did you think?” she asked, pushing past the tightness in her chest that ached as much for Arlan as it did for the family and for those who had to see them this way. Arlan had always been what their resident wisewoman called
a gentle soul
. “Tell me your gut reaction.”

“One crazy son of a bitch.” He shook his head. “I mean kids? Grandma?”

She grimaced. “I know.”

“How is he getting them in the holes? How long is it taking him to dig the holes?” He became more manic. Talking faster. “How’s he physically managing it, Fee? How’s he subdue a whole family? How does he get in and out without anyone, including the family cat, seeing him?”

“All the autopsies, so far, showed the use of an injectable drug in each of the victims’ bloodstreams. The actual drug varies, but it’s enough to knock them out for a short time. Sometimes he digs the holes hours before he imprisons the family. That was the case on the last one, the only one I actually saw. But once, before I was following his cases, I read in the files that he made a father dig the holes for his family before rendering him unconscious. We could tell from the blisters on his hands and the blood on the shovel. In all the incidents, we think the killer buries them while they’re drugged, then allows them to come to.”

“So they have to watch each other be strangled?” Arlan asked incredulously. “Unfucking believable.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as if to attempt to wipe the foul taste of the killer’s sin from his mouth. “I want this guy.”

“I want him, too,” she said.

“No, I mean when we get him, I’m going to be on the kill team. My dagger goes into his black heart first.” He made an angry stabbing motion.

“I wouldn’t mind being there with you,” she said gently, trying to temper his emotion. She hesitated. “Look, I gotta go. I’ve got those agents from the Baltimore office waiting for me.” She walked past him, patting him on the arm as she went by. “Catch up with you at the car later? We’ll find a place to stay, grab something quick to eat before I make the meet.”

“We talking double bed or singles?” He lifted a brow suggestively.

“I’m monogamous, Arlan. I have a boyfriend. I’ve told you that, what? Like a hundred times in the last year.”

“You never know when the answer will be different.” He turned around to watch her go, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Catch you later.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. See if I can talk to my kitty buddy. Maybe find some cat chow.”

Fia smiled to herself as she walked away, wishing she could fall in love with Arlan.

Arlan chatted with the tabby again, gave a half-hearted chase after a mouse in the toolshed with him and then wished the cat good luck. As Arlan walked, in the dark, back toward Fia’s car parked up on the main road, he wondered what would become of the dead family’s feline. Would a distant relative or neighbor think to take him home, or would he be forgotten and left to live on his own? Arlan found it sad, but there were animals all over the world left behind like Tabby. Arlan couldn’t save them all. There were days when he could barely save himself.

There were cat rescue centers, though. Maybe, once he got home, he would give the local rescue organization a call. Surely they could find a good home for Tabby.

Arlan was leaning against the hood of the car, wishing he had a cigarette, even though he rarely smoked, when he heard Fia’s voice. She was approaching the road from the driveway, talking on her cell.

“Ma, listen to me. You have to calm down. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

Fia paused, then responded. “No, no, don’t put him on the phone. Dad’s less communicative calm than you are hysterical. Isn’t anyone else there? One of the boys?” Another pause. Fia was on the street, walking directly toward Arlan. Her high-heeled loafers tapped hollowly on the pavement. “No, not Aunt Mary. She’ll have had her sherry by now. Isn’t there anyone else there? Where’s Fin, Ma?” She looked up at Arlan. “Regan called home,” she told him. “He never made it back from Greece. He’s in some kind of trouble.” She looked down, speaking into the phone. “Ma, either you have to calm down or you’re going to have to call me back.”

She looked up at Arlan again. “I don’t know what to do with her. I can’t understand what she’s saying.”

“She say where he was calling from?” Arlan felt an instant pang of guilt. He shouldn’t have left Athens without Regan. Procedure or not. Fia’s brother had been headed for trouble for months. Arlan should have known this was coming. “She know where he is?” he asked.

Fia shook her head. “Ma, I can’t come home tonight. I have an appointment I can’t—Ma, please stop crying.” Fia ran her hand over her silky hair, obviously at a loss. “Ma…”

“You want me to go home?” Arlan offered. “Let me talk to her. I can get a rental car and be there in less than three hours.”

“Ma…Ma, how about if Arlan comes over? You tell him what Regan said and—” She was quiet for a second; then she looked at Arlan. “She wants me,” she said, seeming nearly defeated. “I can’t deal with this,” she told him, her hand on the mouthpiece of the phone. “I can’t deal with her right now and this case. I need to go home, but—”

“Why don’t you let me meet your Maggie tonight?”

“She’ll never agree to it.” Fia lifted her hand off the mouthpiece. “Ma, just a minute. I’m trying to figure something out.” She lowered the phone to her side.

Arlan could hear Mary Kay Kahill sobbing hysterically. “So we won’t tell her I’m coming. I’ll go to the meeting place, morph, check out the situation and then decide whether or not to attempt the meeting or not. If I don’t think it’s a safe bet, I’ll call you, you call her and tell her something came up.” He shrugged.

“I don’t know,” Fia hemmed. “She…she’s obviously scared. Brittle, I think. She has to be handled carefully.”

“Who better than me to handle an HF with kid gloves?” He raised his hands to her, fluttering his fingers, giving her his sexiest smile.

Fia spoke into the phone again. “Ma, I want you to go to the kitchen and make some muffins. Ma…yes, blueberry would be fine. Then cranberry nut. By the time you’ve got the second batch done, I should be almost home.”

Arlan opened the car door for Fia and she climbed in, cell phone still to her ear. “We’ll find him, Ma. I’ll go get him myself if I have to.” Another pause. “Ma, you know how he is. He exaggerates. I’m sure he’s just drunk. I’m sure he’ll call back tomorrow saying he’s fine and on his way home.”

Arlan got in the passenger’s side of the BMW. Both of his parents were dead and even after all these centuries, he still missed them. Sometimes he didn’t think Fia realized how lucky she was to have her parents, even if her father was a distant, self-absorbed alcoholic and her mother half crazy.

“I’m hanging up now, Ma. Hanging up,” Fia sang as she started the car, racing its engine. “See you in a couple of hours. Blueberry and cranberry.” She hung up.

“You’re a good daughter,” Arlan said.

She tore away from the side of the road, leaving rubber on the pavement, and the dead bodies being loaded into ambulances behind.

Macy left her car, unlocked, windows down, in the gravel parking lot of the state park. During the day, she imagined it was filled with minivans and SUVs; families on vacation or just celebrating a day in the sun. Unlike further north in Ocean City or Rehoboth Beach, there were no concessions, no stores lining the beach, on the Virginia Peninsula. Here were just miles of sand and ocean, for the most part, unblemished by condos, restaurants, and arcades. It was the perfect place for picnics, frolicking in surf, or simply reading a book to the rhythmic sound of the incoming waves.

But this late at night, with the park officially closed, there were no minivans, no families on vacation. The parking lot was empty except for two red porta-potties and a couple of overflowing trash cans.

Macy grabbed a hooded sweatshirt off the floor of her car, pulled it on, lifted the hood, and traipsed up the sandy dune crossing, over the crest of the man-made dunes. She had discovered this beach one day while driving south, after an assignment. Although it was on the ocean side of the highway, there was a scraggly woods line not far off the beach. Somehow, over millions of years, plants and trees had managed to evolve enough to live in the sandy soil, just a couple of hundred feet from the salty body of water. She admired those trees with their prickly needles, and the low-lying bushes with the spindly branches. They had managed to survive in adverse conditions. They had adapted.