Page 61 of Death is Familiar

“Before you make your calls, there’s something else to consider.”

The agents froze. Silence. They were waiting for me to continue.

“Before you came in here guns ablaze… you heard me scream.”

“Of course, we heard you scream, you were screaming bloody murder.”

I raised my brows, waiting for the connection to be made, but it was Todd that responded, “They must have been gagged.”

I had to admit that Todd’s motion for the word gag was effective. “Or unconscious.”

“Not with that much adrenaline.”

“Touché.”

“Or… someone heard them scream and didn’t say anything.” Jack’s words unsettled us all.

Because the thought someone would standby, while five people screamed for their lives and did nothing about it, was worse. Much worse.

No. I couldn’t let myself think that way. It was a possibility, sure, but it was very unlikely. Plenty of people passed the Dexter Mausoleum daily. One person ignoring a scream is one thing. But multiple people ignoring constant screams… the thought was deplorable.

“I’m choosing to believe they were gagged.” I swallowed my swell of disgust. “I’m also choosing to believe that whoever took the hidey-key planned on coming back to clean up once the heat died down, and didn’t want anyone accessing the space until then.”

“That’s only if the hidden key was used by the cemetery staff. If they have nothing to do with it, the rock was planted. Premeditated.”

“You think someone made a copy of the key and hid it in a rock without the staff knowing?”

Todd shrugged. “Not that hard to make a copy of a key.”

“We’ll have the team question the staff. See if it was something they knew about.” Jack pressed the call button and brought the phone to his ear. “But if we’re going to get anything useful, without further tainting the evidence, we’re going to need a forensic team here stat. Hi, yes, this is Special Agent Hess—” I turned my attention elsewhere as Jack spoke into his phone.

When I made my plan to sneak into Spring Grove, I did it to scratch an itch. Put words to something that went unnamed. I thought we might be able to tie a few pieces together, but I didn’t expect we’d find so much before sun-up.

The agents busy giving directions, Jack through calls, and Todd via text, I exited the mausoleum and stood on the balcony overlooking where the victims’ bodies had been found. In a few moments, the pale pink sun would peak over the horizon behind me, and the grey fuzziness of the world would give way to light and shadow.

And it was the shadows I was most interested in.

A sudden warmth at my side, I turned to find Todd starring out at the cemetery grounds beside me. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know,” was all I could muster before returning my focus to the dewy ground. “The shadows. Sunlight. It’s just a feeling.”

We stood in silent vigil as the sun rose above the horizon, and the color of the world solidified into its usual spectrum. Shadows became pronounced with clear and defined edges. And the feeling I’d followed into Spring Grove became something real. Very real. It had words.

“Is that where⁠—”

“It sure is.”

At the top of the Dexter Mausoleum there was a spire, the sunlight stretching its shadow like a marker to where the victims’ bodies were found. And at the top of that spire was a cross.

My mouth dried. My heart pounded in my chest. Lenore and Carmen were right. Whoever did this wasn’t a vampire.

They were vampire hunters.

14

The mausoleum and surrounding grounds quickly became a frenzy of forensic activity. Photos were taken, spaces cordoned off, people in hazmat suits dusted various surfaces. In between rounds of questioning, I apologized to more than half a dozen forensic investigators for my part in contaminating the crime scene. Truth be told, they weren’t very happy with me, and I could understand why.

But what I couldn’t understand was why the local police left such a glaring hole in the investigation. Why it took me breaking into the space to get the investigation on the right track. The mausoleum was less than a hundred feet away from where the bodies were found. Surely, someone would have caught some piece of evidence that would have justified entering the building. Surely, someone would have fought to gain access to the interior—even if it was just to rule out its involvement.