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He lifted her again. To her horror, she realized that one of the heavy slabs had been removed from the shelves on each side of the tomb.
He rolled her into one of them.
It was dark in the burial ledge within the tomb, and she couldn’t see. Somehow, she knew that she was nestled against the disintegrating fragments of Marshall Donegal’s skull.
“And so it is done!”
She heard the faint sound of scraping as the side slab was lifted and slid back into place. And the world, with or without the remnants of her ancestors, was pitch-black.
The generator lights had finally kicked on, but they didn’t offer that much illumination. Still, it was better than the murky gray they’d had before, eased only by the glow of the moon.
He’d shouted for the others, but he hadn’t needed to do so. They’d heard the commotion and come running, and quickly understood that Cliff had been attacked, and Ashley was missing.
Jake was beside himself; he knew that he needed to think. Running in a thousand different directions wouldn’t serve him well.
Where could the killer have taken her so quickly?
“Whitney, mount up with Will—take the woods toward the bayou, look around for freshly disturbed dirt or a stone in the ground, a grave site. Angela, I’m going into the cemetery—”
“I just ran through the cemetery. There’s no one there,” Angela said, disheartened. “I ran through every row of tombs, Jake, I swear!”
“We need an ambulance for Cliff—”
“Called already,” Angela assured him.
“Is she in the house? Could she have gone back into the house?” Jake demanded.
“I don’t know—I’ll check. ”
“I’ll go—stick with Jackson!” he shouted.
Jake tore through the back door. He sped through the ground floor, shouting her name. He hurried to the second floor, nearly wrenching doors from their handles.
He burst in on Frazier, who was just rising. Apparently, he hadn’t heard the commotion, and, sleeping, hadn’t realized that they’d lost power.
“Jake? What is it?” he demanded. Then with some innate instinct, he cried out, “Ashley—something has happened to Ashley!”
“She’s missing, but I’ll find her—I swear, I’ll find her,” Jake said and tore out of the room. He looked at the attic stairs, and he raced up to the attic.
She wasn’t there. He started to turn. But then he stopped, seeing someone else.
Emma Donegal. She was pointing at an open cabinet. He stared at her, not understanding. She pointed straight to a letter in the cabinet. “There’s no time,” he whispered desperately. But he picked up the paper, and heard her voice. “Read it!” So he did, squinting.
And as he read, he saw the painting in the office-reception area of the Southern cavalry man—who had died at Manassas. Who had been injured before he’d gotten to Manassas.
They’d been so close…
And now it was so clear. Ramsay was just afraid.
And Griffin was a practiced liar, a totally functioning sociopath.
He dropped the letter, and went racing out of the house.
“It’s Grant!” he roared as he hurried out. “Griffin Grant! He’s out there, and he’s got Ashley!”
Jackson gripped his arm. “We’ll find her. How do you know—”
“His ancestor was a Hilton. Hilton died at Manassas. He died because his hand never healed correctly—at least that’s what Grant must think… He’s got Ashley out there somewhere. We have to find her. ”
“How the hell did he get on the property unseen?” Jackson demanded.
“The hay truck! He must have sent that extra delivery of hay. He got on the hay truck,” Whitney said.
Jake saw that Cliff was on the ground, but Jenna, always the caregiver, was down at his side taking his pulse. She looked up at Jake. “His pulse is steady, and his breathing isn’t affected. He’s going to be okay. ”
Cliff lifted a hand. He was trying to indicate something. The stall! Jake realized. Tigger’s stall.
He burst into the stall. The horse was nervous. He soothed it, quickly casting his gaze around the floor.
He saw the body bundled beneath hay in the corner and ran to it. He dug away the hay like a maddened dog.
He let out a cry. It wasn’t Ashley.
It was Beth.
He lifted her quickly. Her head lolled. “Jenna!”he shouted, bringing Beth’s limp body from the stall. “Jenna!”
Jenna left Cliff’s side. She flashed a light in Beth’s eyes; he noted that the pupils dilated.
“She’s alive. There’s an ambulance on the way. He might have overdosed her badly—thank God help is nearly here. The detective has been called as well. ”
Help was nearly there. But there was no sign of Ashley.
Jake started. This time, he saw a man.
A man in full Confederate dress; his sword in a hilt at his side, secured by a butternut-colored sash. The man beckoned to him with hands encased in cavalry gloves.
Jake started walking.
A frown knit his brow. Angela had just said that she’d searched the cemetery. Angela was thorough, and she didn’t lie.
But the ghost wanted him to follow.
The ghost of Marshall Donegal.
And so he did.
He was dimly aware of the sounds behind him as he walked forward. Jenna was dealing with both her patients; Whitney and Will were mounting up to search the woods before the bayou; Jackson and Angela were hurrying out to search the guest building, empty now for days.
He walked to the gate, and it swung out slightly as if to invite him. He walked through the gate, and he drew the gun that he wore in his belt holster when he was on official business. He moved through the cemetery; like Angela, he saw nothing.
He started to hurry, making his way to the chapel in the back, and he nearly tore the door from its hinges there; he shined his light into every corner, but there was no sign of Ashley.
He turned around, and the ghost was there again, beckoning him—and showing him the way.
He ran through the trails of the small city of the dead, through temple tombs, through step tombs, pyramid tombs and every manner of tomb that had been built through the centuries.
He knew where he would end.
The ghost stood before the Donegal vault. The slab was in place; the wrought-iron gate was closed. The ghost stared at him with aggravation and turned and tugged at the gate.
Jake burst forward and tugged at the wrought iron himself; it swung open far too easily. He pushed at the concrete barrier that was usually resealed after every interment.
And it, too, gave.
The ghost was trying to speak to him; he had no time to listen. He shoved at the thin sealing slab again, and it fell backward, bursting into a million pieces in a cloud of concrete dust.
“Ashley!” He screamed her name.
Nothing.
The moon cast a yellow glow through the grating, and he blinked, adjusting his eyes to the more muted light. He moved to the altar and saw that something had lain there. The dust was disturbed. He turned…
Not quickly enough. Someone slammed into him hard; his gun went flying from his hand as he staggered for balance.
Griffin!
The man was using himself as a ram against Jake and trying to stab him at the same time. Jake saw his arm rise, and he saw the needle coming at him, and he, in turn, used his body and slammed back against his attacker with all his weight.
Griffin fell back a foot.
Jake caught his attacker’s wrist, squeezed with all of his strength, and the needle went flying across the tomb.
But his attacker made a dive for Jake’s gun. In the murky light of the tomb, he struggled desperately to keep his attacker from twisting the barrel of the gun toward his head or chest. He roundho
use-kicked his opponent, keeping a desperate and rigid hold on the gun, and the man grunted and gave slightly, but when Jake tried to use the advantage to wrest the gun fully from him, the fellow came at him, biting like a dog.
Jake shoved him off when he came straight for his throat. The gun went flying across the room.
He set at his attacker with his bare hands, but Griffin Grant had now pulled a knife from a sheath at his ankle. They were fighting blindly, but he still felt the man, felt the movement in the air, and he ducked the man’s wild swing.
“You can’t fight any better than your scumbag rapist of an ancestor, Grant!” Jake taunted him. He needed to get the knife; he’d never find the gun in the darkness.
Provoking him worked. Grant let out a roar and came crashing across the tomb.
That time, he nicked Jake’s arm. But Jake heard the knife slide against marble and concrete and made a dash across the tomb, pinning the man there.
The knife went clattering to the floor, and the two of them fell along with it, engaged in a wrestling match that would surely leave one dead. Jake struggled for the top spot; Grant locked his legs around him in a vise, twisting him beneath. His hands came around Jake’s throat, but Jake caught him with a double-fisted slam against the head.
Grant teetered.
And then the side of the one of the tombs slammed against him, throwing him off. Ashley, covered in bone and ash, emerged. Jake leapt to his feet, reaching for her swiftly and drawing her to her feet.
Grant came at his back, slamming his fists hard against him, sending Jake staggering forward, his arms enveloping Ashley lest she crash against something again. She was slipping and falling; she had no strength in her legs. He had to help her, had to protect her…
He turned his back to her, ready to withstand Grant’s next massive lunge. Grant was ready to make another ram against Jake, but suddenly an ear splitting roar seemed to echo through the tomb, and Grant dropped to the ground; his body shuddered mightily once and then didn’t move again.
Jake blinked.
Frazier was standing at the entrance to the tomb, the lost gun still smoking in his hands.
“Grampa!” Ashley said. “You go, Grampa!”
Then she collapsed in Jake’s arms.
Epilogue
“I still don’t really fathom how a mind can become so unhinged. I mean, seriously, how do you carry hatred through this many generations?” Ashley asked Jake. “He told me that he heard his ancestor, Henry Hilton, telling him that he had to avenge his family against the Donegal family. His ancestor told him to do it! And I don’t know what to believe because…my own ancestor saved me. ”