“Oh, poor, poor kitty!” Monica cried.
And that was it.
The wall held a cat. Most naturally, a black cat. For a long moment, the terrified creature stood frozen, its hackles up, and then it tore off into the basement and up the back stairs to freedom.
Monice Verne swayed, catching hold of Adam’s arm as her hand fell over her heart. “A cat!” she said. “A cat! Oh, thank God. A cat—no...no...human!”
“No, I don’t believe so,” Griffin said. He moved forward to study the hole he had created. No. There were no bodies in the wall.
Someone had simply torn it apart before to wall in the cat.
He looked at Monica. “When did you first hear the cat?” he asked her.
“When we called you. Right, Adam?” Monica said. “We called Griffin the moment we heard the screaming or wailing or...whatever word one might use to describe that sound!”
Something was bothering Griffin; he wasn’t quite sure what it was.
He searched the wall. Monica and Adam stared at him as he did so.
“Maybe Tanya,” he murmured.
“Tanya?” Monica said, then called, “Tanya!”
The girl didn’t come downstairs.
“I do hope she’s all right,” Monica murmured.
“Maybe she can’t hear us down here,” Griffin said.
“I think that she can hear us!” Adam said. “She always seems to hear us, but...”
There was a sudden sound—like that of cans being cast down the cellar steps.
From above, they heard another scream.
“Down!” Griffin shouted, throwing himself at Adam and Monica and forcing the two flat on the floor—just in time.
Flames and debris shot through the basement as the canisters that had been thrown into it exploded, ripping into the wall, into brick, mortar and earth.
Fire shot all around them, and then burned in clusters around the room. Griffin came to his feet, wrenching Monica and then Adam up with him. They were all covered in dust and black powder. Monica was shaking and reeling.
Adam was black-faced, but stoic. And more: he was angry.
“We’re meant to burn to death down here!” he said indignantly.
And he was right; the stairs up to the house were all but engulfed in flames.
Griffin looked to the rear—to the stairs out to the garden. He grabbed Monica by the arm and dragged her along; Adam followed. The top three rungs of the narrow, ladderlike stairway had been blasted away. Griffin hopped up to the top, pulling himself up on the edge of the storm door, and reached down to help Monica, lifting her out the exit.
“Too hard!” Adam told him. “Leave me!”
“No, sir!” Griffin told him. In the flames, he could see that the ghost of Josh Harrison had come to stand beside his father; Dylan and Darlene were with him.
“Not in this afterlife!” Josh whispered, looking at Griffin.
Griffin caught hold of Adam’s arms. He pulled with all his strength; Adam wasn’t heavyset, but he was tall. Griffin didn’t know if he could have pulled him up and out on his own or not; he couldn’t help but believe that the spirits of the three incredible young people had helped.
Adam shot up; Griffin almost threw him out past the bushes and onto the lawn. Crawling up behind the two, he lay on the grass for a moment, gasping for breath. As he did so, he thought he saw someone running through the thick brush.
Someone in black...
A black wool sweater?
They could already hear sirens. Someone, somewhere, had dialed 9-1-1. Whoever they were, he silently blessed them.
“Help is coming!” Griffin said. He rolled to his feet and drew out his phone and dialed.
Vickie didn’t answer.
Then neither did Jackson.
At last he reached Angela Hawkins, still at the hospital, watching over Liza Harcourt.
“Griffin, they’re at Frampton Manor,” Angela told him. “Alice was released from the hospital. Vickie gave me the name of an author who published works very similar to Poe’s, in inspiration at least, if not in talent, after Poe’s death. She was right, Griffin—there is an association. I’m going to head on out to Frampton Manor, too.”
“I’m on my way. I don’t know what the next plan is going to be, but get out there—because I think I have an idea of what’s going on. And someone else is supposed to die.”
* * *
Vickie caught up with Jackson Crow at the gates to the cemetery. He held up a hand, indicating that she be still and silent for a minute. Then he shook his head.
“Keep behind me,” he warned her.
Vickie did as she was told.
Jackson was armed; she was not.
It appeared that Alice was under the influence of a drug again! She had just been speaking with Alice.
Jackson moved slowly and carefully through the graveyard. They twisted around small mausoleums and gravestones, cupids and angels.
And, finally, they saw them ahead.
They had come to the art nouveau tomb.
The tomb where Alice’s mother lay. And there was Alice, beckoning to Gary, looking just like the ghost of her mother.
The great iron gate to the tomb stood open—making it appear that Alice had just stepped out from the grave.
It seemed that there was something wrong with Gary.
“My love!” he said shakily.
Jackson stopped dead in the clearing. His Glock was in his hand. But Vickie didn’t think that he intended to fire.
He spoke softly. “Gary, stop. Gary, that’s not your wife. It is your daughter.”
“Come, come...come to me!” Alice said. “You must...you must come to me... I know that you must, I hear that you must. I hear the music, I hear the words that cry to me, I obey as I am told.”
“Dial 9-1-1,” Jackson said softly to Vickie. “And get back, quietly, carefully—and get down!”
I hear that you must. I hear the music...
Alice was manipulating her father—as she had been ordered to manipulate him?
If that was the case, then...
She instantly did as Jackson had ordered. Just as she ducked behind a tombstone, she heard a gunshot fired. There was a wild rush—Jackson hurling himself forward to bring Gary Frampton down to the ground.
Alice went running through the row of tombs, ethereal with her white gown flowing behind her.
Vickie didn’t have time to think—another shot fired. Even as it ricocheted off a stone near her, she thought she knew who was shooting.
Plunging behind a now wingless angel, she shouted out, “Jon Skye, you started off with a plan, but you’ve destroyed it all now. Everyone will know that you’ve done this.”
The cemetery was suddenly still. No shots; no movement.
Vickie decided to keep talking.
“You’re a descendant. A descendant not of someone as celebrated as Poe, but of someone as ridiculous as Walter Randolph.”
She hoped that by goading him, she’d get a response. She hoped that she’d show Jackson—who was armed—the killer’s position, rather than showing the killer her own position.
Of course, she was doing both.
But she believed she had to speak.
“Someone who was as poor a writer as Walter Randolph!” she said.
“Poor! Why, you stupid, self-righteous bitch!”
It was Jon Skye who answered.
“You even look like him, you know,” Vickie said. “I don’t know how I didn’t notice the resemblance between you two in the old painting on the stairway before. Actually, I only noticed the resemblance—and the painting, really—because you chose to hide your drugs behind it, too. And then, of course, there were the three blackbirds i
n the painting. You had to kill three of them to leave with Franklin Verne. Did you think that Alice or Gary would appear guilty if someone saw the painting and noticed the birds? I guess that was supposed to be cool and clever, too. What, you were so damned jealous of Franklin Verne and Brent Whaley that you couldn’t stand it? You didn’t really carry through so well,” she told him.
“I carried through brilliantly!” he protested.
She tried to figure out his position. If she could just slither without being seen, she could get behind the art nouveau tomb.
Where is Jackson? What about Gary Frampton? And Alice?
“Throw down your gun!” Jackson shouted. She couldn’t see him, but Jon fired at the sound of his voice. Vickie slithered around the tomb.
“Okay, so, your great-great-grandfather was Walter Randolph—who killed Edgar Allan Poe. Once Poe was dead, he tried to use Poe’s work by turning it into his own words—and he failed abysmally. He didn’t become famous—he didn’t become a Poe,” she called out. “And hey, you also botched it all. The way you killed Franklin Verne—not at all the way your great-great-grandfather killed Poe. And not even the way Montresor was killed—walled up—in the Poe story.”
“No, you stupid woman!” Jon shouted back. “It was perfect—it was half Poe’s death combined with a death like his character’s.”
“And Liza Harcourt didn’t even die!”
“Ah, but she will,” Jon said.
Crouched now behind an elaborate angel at the edge of the tomb, Vickie felt a chill.
“Once I finish here,” Jon said.
“Drop your weapon!” Jackson shouted again, then fired toward where Jon’s voice had come from.
Jon stepped out around one of the older tombs.
He had Alice held firmly in front of him.
“Shoot will you? Shoot at me?” he demanded. “Do it again and she’s dead! In fact, Miss Victoria Preston, Miss Wonder-nonfiction-woman with no damned right to be a critic, you come out. You come out and show yourself, or I’ll shoot her!”
“No!” Gary Frampton had heard the words. He’d been down on the ground; now he leaped to his feet, streaking out to race toward Jon Skye and his daughter. “No!” he screamed again.
Jon thrust Alice away to take aim at Gary. But Jackson Crow fired.
Jon was forced to spin around.
Vickie grabbed Alice. She dragged her, pulling her into the art nouveau tomb where Alice’s mother lay.
She slammed the heavy iron door shut behind them.
And then she heard Alice begin to laugh.
* * *
Griffin arrived in time to hear the slam of a bullet against the marble of a tomb.
He fell back, his heart thundering.
“Jon Skye!” he shouted. “Jon Skye, throw down your gun. I’ll let you come in alive!”
“Two of you assholes now, huh? Did you do any research? I’m a crack shot.”
“Could have fooled me!” Jackson shouted from his location.
“What the hell do you think? That you’re going to kill all of us? And then what? The research has been done at our headquarters, Jon. Everyone is going to know about your great-great-grandfather. And I have a feeling that as soon as she’s threatened with deportation, Tanya is going to sing like a canary, Jon. All she’s really guilty of doing is walling up a cat. And abetting you by providing information and helping you trick a few victims. Actually, that is conspiracy, but...I’ll bet she’s going to swear that she didn’t know you were going to kill them.”
A bullet bit into the shimmering granite tomb wall at his back. Griffin ducked low. As he did, he saw the ghost of Poe. Poe was heading toward a large mausoleum. He looked over at Griffin.
“That bastard! He looked at history, right or wrong, and committed murder. The son of the son of the son of the man who killed me. Here. He’s right here,” Poe said, and he pointed down behind the tombstone.
“Hey, Jon—Edgar Allan Poe is right next to you!” Griffin called out. “And he’s really pissed off!”
Griffin didn’t know what Jon Skye’s reaction would be.
But apparently the man turned. And saw the ghost of Poe.
He let out some kind of strangled sound.
Griffin took that moment to streak across the open space between the stones. He slammed down on Jon with a hard tackle, and disarmed him.
Jon Skye screamed with rage.
“He was a lousy writer. He was a thief!” he cried. “Walter Randolph was so much better!”
* * *
Vickie listened intently, trying to discern what was going on outside the mausoleum.
“Oh, you are priceless, just priceless! You really are such a stupid woman!” Alice told her.
Stunned, Vickie turned to look at Alice.
The girl wasn’t anywhere near as stoned as she had appeared.
“No one ever listened!” Alice said. “I love him. Don’t you understand? I love Jon. And we’re going to be together forever. I’m sorry about my father, but...”
Vickie realized that Alice was watching her with a sad smile.
And that she was reaching for an ax—one that had been left right behind the small wooden altar in the family mausoleum.
“Oh, no, no, no!” Vickie told her.
She wasn’t armed, but she wasn’t going down to a crazed young woman armed with a rusty old ax.
Alice swung; Vickie dodged behind the altar. The ax stuck into the panel of the altar and was pulled out of Alice’s grip.
Vickie made a jab to get the ax before Alice could retrieve it. But the other woman was closer.
Alice had it back in her hands. She started to swing again. Vickie dived beneath the altar—which was quickly shattering to bits under the force of Alice’s next slash.
“Alice, kill her, kill her, do it!” Jon Skye shouted from outside. A shot sounded. They were both aware of a tussle outside, screaming and grunts and groans.
“Alice, stop!”
Alice did pause—though Jon Skye was not the one to shout out the words.
Griffin continued, “Alice, don’t do it for him. He’s a liar and a cheat. He was sleeping with you to carry off what he told you was a prank—drugging you and hiding Liza Harcourt in the basement. Don’t you understand? He was using you.”
“He loves me!” Alice cried.
“And he must love Tanya, too, Mrs. Verne’s housekeeper. He’s been sleeping with her. He seduced her so that she would wall up a cat. So that he would get secrets that he could use to lure Franklin Verne out to meet up with him. Alice, he’s slept around—he doesn’t love you!”
“I do, Alice! Kill her!” Jon Skye shouted hoarsely.
Alice burst past Vickie, heading outside—her ax raised high. She headed straight for Griffin—who now held a handcuffed Jon Skye at his side. Sirens were wailing with a fury from down the road.
Jackson was with Gary Frampton, who sat sobbing on the ground.
“My Alice! My Alice!”
“Kill her, Alice, vengeance, poetry!” Jon Skye called. “A true Poe story!”
But Alice wasn’t planning to send the ax into Vickie’s head any longer.
Alice had other intentions.
Vickie tripped her right before she could cleave Jon Skye’s skull in two.
Vickie lay on the ground, panting, as Jackson strode over and drew Alice to her feet, cuffing her as well. Police officers suddenly filled the little family cemetery.
Griffin shook his head, standing over Vickie for a minute. He reached down and pulled her to her feet.
“You’re okay?” he asked shakily.
She nodded.
Someone else had made it through the graves and mausoleums and cherubs to come quickly to stand beside them—and look at V
ickie anxiously.
“You’re all right?” Adam Harrison asked her.
“All right. I’m actually a mean tackle,” she told him.
He smiled at that.
“A mean tackle,” he agreed. “Griffin, how...how did you know what was happening here when the cat was found at Monica’s house?”
“Tanya—she said that she heard the cat two nights ago. She lied. She just put the cat in the wall herself. You or Monica would have heard something, too, if the cat had been there longer,” Griffin said. “It wasn’t too much of a stretch to guess why she was lying.”
“He’s in the picture—sorry, I mean, Jon Skye’s ancestor is in the painting on the wall. Jon was trying to make up for what was done to him... Repeat history... I don’t really know. But...the blackbirds were there—three dead blackbirds. If we’d seen the painting and realized...”
“Blackbirds, ravens...” Adam said. “I hope I don’t see either, or a crow, now for...forever!”
“You had Angela looking it all up,” Griffin said.
“And it all came together,” Adam said.
Detective Carl Morris came walking through the graves. He paused for a minute, looking around. “No new ones?” he asked hopefully.
“No new ones,” Griffin said.
Adam reached for Vickie’s hand. “Well, shall we go and...breathe? And get through all the paperwork? And...”
“And?” Griffin asked him.
“I just have one more thing to say,” Adam said.
“And that is?” Vickie asked, smiling.
“You’re going to make one hell of an agent. One hell of an agent, Miss Preston!”
Epilogue
Vickie loved Griffin’s apartment in Alexandria.
It covered the entire ground floor of a Colonial row house built in the late 1700s. Because his was the ground-floor apartment, it was surrounded by a beautiful porch, and beyond that, a handsome, well-manicured lawn and a tree—a cherry tree.
It would bloom every spring.
The apartment itself had a living room, dining room, back family room and two bedrooms. There were crown moldings throughout, and all that was modern had been beautifully blended with the old.
The events in Baltimore had come to an end; the guilty had been made to pay.