Writ on Water (22 page)

And what was there to weigh against these awful potential happenings? What argument would convince her conscience to go to the police with her unneeded film?

Well, there was the law of the land, which insisted that a man—
even an evil grave robber
—had the right to justice when his life had been taken by another individual. And it had been banged into her head by her parents, and by her present employer, that it was the duty of every citizen to assist the police in their work whenever possible.

Until this incident, she had always believed that this was true, wise, and a just policy—that rights or property should never be placed above the rights of people.

But now she was faced with a real-life conundrum, and she was discovering that this long-held belief wasn't as absolute as she had imagined. She was stacking up Isaac Runyon's lost life against MacGregor's well-being—and, she had to be honest, the treasures of Riverview—and not coming down squarely on the side of disclosure, law and order.

She was on the side of justice perhaps, but not that of the law. In fact, she almost wished that the police
hadn't
been called. That Rory had found the body and just covered it back up again.

“You don't mean that,” she whispered, but her voice lacked conviction.

Things would be simpler if she could lay the matter before Roland Lachaise and ask his opinion of what to do, but there was no way that she could do this without betraying MacGregor's trust. It was highly unlikely that Roland would take matters into his own hands and betray his friend's secret cemetery to the police, but it was still a remote possibility and Chloe couldn't risk it.

Anyway, there wasn't any hope of ever convincing the world—outside of Granny Claire, perhaps—of the evil taint that had surrounded the dead man. And there was the crux of Chloe's other problem. She had been pretending that everything was okay, that her dreams were simply about being stressed and that there were no bogeymen lurking in the closets of her brain. And who could blame her? To admit to the possibility of anything else was all but unthinkable. It would make her like Granny Claire, the most miserable and mean human being she had ever met. But to deny the nature of her dreams now would be an act of stupidity, and there was no one other than her grandmother she could talk to about this.

Chloe's mind skipped back to another unpleasant memory. Granny Claire had been “helping” her curious granddaughter to “focus” her abilities. Unfortunately, her notion of the perfect place for concentration was a pitch-black basement full of things that rustled and squirmed. Chloe had screamed and screamed—at first in anger but then in fear—but her grandmother had not relented until
a few minutes before her mother was set to return to the cottage. Chloe had been seven then. Of course, she was all grown up now, bigger and stronger than her grandmother. But even thinking about the old lady made gooseflesh break out on her skin.

Chloe took a gulp of coffee from the mug on her unexpected breakfast tray and stared out her bedroom window. The three-petaled trillium in the window box screened out most of the morning sun with its lacy pink petals. But Chloe knew that the day was advancing, seen or not, and that she needed to make some decisions.

If only her brain could lose its focus on this horrible event . . . but it simply kept returning to the same old problem and turning it over and over in her head, trying to make everything fit together in a single, neat solution. The brain and the gut battled endlessly. Instinct said one thing, societal conditioning another.

“Damn.” It was ridiculous to feel guilty for doing what was
right,
even if it wasn't exactly legal, she assured herself. What could her photos possibly show the police that they didn't see for themselves when they'd arrived on the scene just a little while later? Rory surely wouldn't have touched anything once he saw the body—it wasn't like there was any doubt about whether he should have rendered first aid to the corpse!

Nor was it as if she had photographed a monogrammed handkerchief with Claude's name on it,
or the murderer lurking in the bushes—
if this even was murder
. It was just barely possible that it had been an accident as MacGregor suggested. Not a hunting accident, but some other kind. Until the pathologist made his report, they wouldn't know for certain what had happened. The sheriff could have been wrong about the cause of death. Isaac's body had been . . . Chloe swallowed hard. It had been gotten at by
things
. It would take an expert to sort the remains out.

Why couldn't his death be an accident or at least self-defense? Maybe there hadn't been a shotgun, just the handgun they found with the body. And maybe there had been a struggle over the gun and it had gone off, and then Claude had just panicked. . . .

Well, that was a little unlikely as a scenario. If one accidentally shot someone, the first step was nearly always to summon help, not to bury the victim. Of course, they were talking about Claude, who in Chloe's opinion was only marginally entitled to the classification of human being. He might very well have shot someone and then run away in a panic.

But even with this rationalization, the scenario failed on another front. Isaac would have won any physical struggle against the smaller man. The weasel, Claude, would never have wrestled for the gun. He would have just turned tail and run if things had gotten sticky. He couldn't have come up behind Isaac and surprised him. The cemetery
was full of dried leaves that crackled when you stepped on them.

It was also ignoring the evidence of her own dream.

Chloe sighed. She knew what she needed to do. Somehow, she had to find the fortitude to load up those images on the computer and look at them. Once she was certain that they had no evidence in them, she could erase the images and forget about it.

Yes, that was all she needed to do, a small, routine act of some five minutes effort. That was all. And she just wouldn't go anywhere near the Internet in case somehow the files were being saved in a backup program.

“No way,” she whispered, looking at her camera bag and shaking her head. “I can't. I just can't.”

Chloe shuddered. Looking at the images might be what she should do—but she simply couldn't face it. Not yet. She would give herself another day for her brain to return to normal before asking it to look again at those scenes of violent death, or to make any major decisions about what she should do in the unlikely event that there
was
something in the photographs.

What she really needed was the comfort of her familiar schedule. Work was soothing. She wished that it was possible for her to return to Georgia and her own modest home, but of course, with the investigation into Isaac's death still going on, she couldn't leave Riverview.

Anyway, MacGregor, and maybe Rory—
a little
—needed her here. If for no other reason than to finish the job she had been hired to do. Now, more than ever, she needed to get that database done. Discovery of the family cemetery was still quite possible, and they wanted a defense against that awful day when Riverview might be made known to the grave-robbing world.

A course of action decidedly on, Chloe threw back the covers and went to get dressed. Surprisingly, the thought of going to work in the family cemetery didn't disturb her at all.

Rory was waiting for her when she came down the stairs and silently shouldered his usual half of her equipment. She didn't ask how he had known that she would finally return to work that morning. It was enough that he was there to help distract her as she walked past the slave cemetery. Not that she would embarrass either of them by expressing her gratitude for his thoughtfulness. There was still too much strain between them.

“I thought I'd photograph two-twenty-nine today,” she said as a conversation opener. With all the ugly things that were on her mind, idle conversation with Rory about the ancient dead was the only thing that didn't seem awkward.

“Chloe?” he asked gently. “Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe you would rather just take a walk and perhaps visit the nursery.”

Yes, she would prefer that. They could take a long stroll and talk things over while they listened to Puccini. Rory was usually reasonable as long as MacGregor wasn't around. . . . For one insane moment, she actually thought about confiding in him and telling him of the photographs she had taken. But the first clear look at Rory's closed expression put the thought out of mind. In spite of his words, the man who was with her today was some close kin to the suspicious soul who had been so hostile the day of her arrival.

She was fairly certain what he would want her to do with the photos anyway. He would not want to risk exposure of the family cemetery, and he might actually be arrogant enough to take steps to see that the film, cameras, and even computer disappeared before it could go to the police. If he told MacGregor about it, the older man would certainly insist that they be destroyed—with or without her consent, though they would likely try to make it look accidental.

It irritated her to think that both men would make the blanket assumption that she wouldn't simply guide the police to the other cemetery if they took her film from her. But she had obviously been sincere in her reassurances of privacy at the start of the job, and they had her properly categorized as one of the loyal ones who didn't break faith on a promise.

And she couldn't fault them for placing privacy above assisting the sheriff to locate their
own murdering kin. After all, she was doing the same thing and she wasn't even related to the Patricks.

“Well, if you want to work, that tomb is a good choice,” Rory said at last, when the silence had gone on too long. He peered at her face and then took another of her camera bags in a show of rare consideration. Chloe wondered if she were still sporting a ghastly pale complexion. She knew there were dark circles beneath her eyes that even a full day's rest had not taken away.

“Yes? Why?”

“It's the alchemist's tomb. It's another one with touches of gold. Very whimsical. You'll like it.” His voice and face began to animate.

Chloe raised a brow.

“Are you kidding? More gold just standing in the graveyard? I've never heard of such an ostentatious family—well, not outside of some of the more insane Caesars who were gods incarnate, and a few medieval pontiffs. Come to think of it, they were related to God too, weren't they?”

“Yes, or so they claimed. Unbelievable, isn't it, that we Patricks should be so blessed? And we haven't a Caesar or Pope among us.”

Oddly, though she spent more time being annoyed with Rory than not, she still enjoyed watching his face when he spoke about the things that interested him.

“But you have your very own family alchemist. That's still an achievement of tall order.”

“If you say so.”

“Of course it is. Not just every family has one, you know. Mine certainly doesn't.” They just had a witch or two.

“I know.” His tone was dry and ironic. “I mean, I know that it's uncommon. Nothing would surprise me about your family though. You have the eyes of the mystic.”

Chloe managed not to flinch.

“I thought you said they were like blueberries. Anyway, we are all wholesome baseball and apple pie types.”
Except Granny Claire.
“Not like your kin. So, be honest. Is that how the Patricks managed their rise to wealth and power?” she asked, trying for a lighter note. “They discovered the secret of making gold and raised the family fortunes through alchemy?”

“Not hardly.”

“That's a relief. How mundane that would be, making gold out of straw or something,” she said with mock disdain. “I'd kind of been hoping for a leprechaun and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That is a much better story.”

“Sorry, but there are no leprechauns either. We make our own gold,” Rory answered, with a slight smile for her lighthearted conversational efforts. “But not through chemistry. That particular experiment never panned out. Nor the one for the elixir of eternal youth.”

“How about an elixir of love? That would be popular. Probably if it was bottled as an old family
recipe, it would sell well at county fairs.” Not that Patrick men needed any extra help; they were already possessed of ample charisma. The murderous Claude being the exception, of course. Yet even he had been handsome in his own way.

“No, not that either.” Rory looked back and smiled. “My ancestors apparently lacked scientific discipline. We were more given to acting than thinking and careful research. I am the closest this family has ever come to using science for profit, and I am not all that close.”

“You don't consider botany a science?” They stepped into the prickly hedge tunnel, Rory leading the way and taking down most of the spiders' new webs with his broad shoulders.

“No. Botany isn't cold and analytical, and I am not controlled in most of my research either.” He shrugged, swatting at a lazy bee that hovered near his nose. “Anyhow, I'm not using much of my formal training at Botanics. It's instinct. My mother had a green thumb and love of plants. I simply had the good fortune to inherit her gift.”

“Well then, how
did
your family make its millions? Rum trade? Tobacco? Ugh!” Chloe spat out a stray tendril of light green creeper what had wrapped itself about her mouth and was doing its best to gag her. “These darn things just won't quit growing!”

“They're plants,” Rory explained kindly. “They do that when it's warm and rainy.”

“Don't change the subject! I'm not done gossiping about your family finances.”

“My apologies. You were wrong about rum and tobacco. We didn't trade in slaves either. What's your next wild guess as to the source of our wealth?”

“I was thinking piracy. There is the river, and there was lots of that going on in the Tidewater area. And that seems like a sufficiently dramatic sort of occupation, one that would appeal to your kin. Or they could have lit bonfires and lured passing ships onto the rocks.”