“Is that agrave?” asked the mother from Iowa, pointing to a mound of freshly disturbed dirt at the base of the tree, near the angel sculpture. “That’s not a grave, is it?”
“Is it theghost?” the teenage daughter asked, looking around as if searching the shadows. “The L-lady in White?”
“I assure you, it is not,” Joel insisted, sounding annoyed. “Isabel Perles was found here long ago, but it’s—”
A flash of pale skin in the bright moonlight. Dirt-caked fingers reached up through the earth.
Joel screamed.
The teenager from Iowa cried out and bolted for the gate, her mother one step behind, the French honeymooners fast on their heels. The young blond “psychic” opened her mouth wide but made no sound while the muscular man named Mario let out a choked scream but seemed rooted in place, staring at the mound. The retired couple retreated to the gate before halting and looking back. Joel stood frozen, apparently in shock.
“Dammit,” Tariq swore under his breath as he rushed to the grave. “What thehell?”
Harper followed him, kneeling on the other side of the mound of dirt. Frantically, they clawed at the ground with their bare hands, unearthing part of a once-white gown and then a woman’s face, deathly pale and wide-eyed with panic. Her mouth was foaming and full of mud, her eyes caked with dirt.
“Hang on, there,” Tariq said, his voice low and gentle. “We’re getting you help.”
Harper heard the calm voice of the retired man—Lamont, was it?—speaking on his phone as his wife, Margene, called out, “We’re calling 911!”
Lamont handed his phone to his wife and ran over to assist while Margene remained anxiously at the gate to flag down the EMTs.
“Here, use this,” he said, handing Harper a bottle of water from his coat pocket. “You said you’re a doctor? Can you help?”
“She’s not that kind of doctor,” Tariq explained as he continued to dig to free the woman from the grave.
“Almost there,” Harper said, rinsing the mud from the woman’s brilliant blue but bloodshot eyes.
The woman stared up at her and tried to say something, but Harper couldn’t make out the words.
“Help is on the way,” Harper said, trying to sound confident. “Won’t be long now.”
The woman again attempted to choke out some words but fell silent as her eyes fluttered shut.
“Let’s get her out of there, folks,” Lamont said calmly. “Quickly, on three: one, two, three.” Together they lifted the woman, clad in a full-length nightgown, up and out of the shallow grave and onto the cool ground. Harper caught the scent of something metallic mixing with the aroma of the cypress tree and the freshly dug earth.
Tariq shrugged off his coat and placed it over the woman. “Anyone know CPR?”
“I do. I’m a retired nurse,” Lamont replied, his hand on her neck to check her pulse. “But she’s got a pulse, so no need for it at the moment…”
“The police and ambulance are on their way!” Margene called out.
“Joel,” Harper said to the tour guide, who was standing nearby, staring at the macabre scene but neither speaking nor moving. “Joel! Pay attention. Do you hear me?”
Joel’s eyes shifted toward her, and he nodded dully.
“I think I saw Ms. Mason, in the house. She may know something about what’s going on here, or might need help. Run and check on her; she was upstairs, by the window.”
Joel shook his head, opening and closing his mouth but saying nothing.
“Get it together, man,” growled Tariq. “Move!”
“Joel,” Harper said, trying to get through to the stunned tour guide. “Go check on Delilah Mason.”
“B-but…” He pointed to the woman they had recovered from the grave. “ThatisDelilah Mason.”
Two
“Delilah?” Tariq whispered. As he peered closely at the woman’s face, streaked with mud, his expression shifted from shock to horror to outrage. He sprang up and bolted toward the mansion.
