Kay Hooper - Hunting Fear

Hugging the neatly triangled flag that had been presented to her, Caitlin stood at the graveside long after most of the others had gone, thinking about that. About her sister. For whatever reason, they hadn't been especially close, but they had liked and respected each other, Caitlin thought.

Too late now to wish there had been more.

Wyatt Metcalf stepped up beside her. "I'll drive you back to the motel," he offered.

There would be no traditional gathering after the funeral, not for Lindsay. She hadn't liked the practice of covered dishes and hushed voices, of parked cars lining the long country driveways and funeral wreaths on the homes of the bereaved.

"Bury the dead and get on with living," she had said more than once, perhaps with a cop's hard-won understanding. Or an orphan's. And quite suddenly, Caitlin wished desperately that she knew what in Lindsay's life had taught her that.

But it was too late now to ask.

Too late to ask what she had thought of the latest blockbuster movie, or novel, or whether popcorn was still her favorite snack. Too late to apologize for missed birthdays and unreturned phone calls, or commiserate about the often difficult life of a single career woman, or ask if Wyatt Metcalf had been the one for Lindsay. Just too goddamned late.

Realizing at last that the sheriff was waiting, Caitlin said, "No, thanks. It's close enough to walk. Everything's close enough to walk here, really."

A bit awkward with her, as he had been all along, Metcalf said, 'If there's anything I can do-"

"No. Thanks. I won't be staying long, probably. I have to pack away her stuff, close up the apartment, deal with all the legal crap. However long that takes."

"We'll get him, Caitlin. I promise you, we'll get the bastard."

Caitlin knew the sheriff would be surprised if she told him the truth, that she didn't care if they ever caught the monster who had taken her sister's life. It wouldn't, after all, bring Lindsay back. And, besides…

He didn't seem real, that monster. From what she'd been told, there was a curious lack of emotion there, a lack of anything human. No hate driving him, no insane voices directing him to murder.

Just taking people for money and then killing them when he no longer had a use for them.

"Good," she said, realizing the silence had lengthened yet again. "Good. I'm glad you'll get him. You go do that now." She didn't realize until a tinge of color crept up into his rather haggard pallor how dismissive she sounded. She toyed briefly with the idea of explaining, but it just seemed too much trouble. And she didn't care what he thought anyway.

"Caitlin-"

"I'll be fine." She thought the meaningless phrase should be tattooed on her forehead by now. "Thank you."

He hesitated, then went away.

Caitlin didn't turn to watch him go. She was vaguely aware of others trickling away. Aware that the solemn men from the funeral home were off to the side, patient and unmoving, along with the men ready to finish the physical task of burying her sister.

The coffin still hung, suspended, above its vault, waiting to be lowered. The scent of the flowers was thick in the misty air, a sweet, rather sickly odor that was especially unpleasant mixed with the faint, underlying smell of freshly turned earth.

"You have to leave her now."

Caitlin looked across the dully gleaming bronze-colored casket to see Samantha Burke. She was completely different from the Madam Zarina of the fortune-teller's booth; without the turban, the colorful shawls and wraps and clinking gold jewelry, and most of all without the heavy makeup, she looked decades younger and ather ordinary.

Or not.

There was something in those unusually dark eyes that was far rom ordinary, Caitlin thought. Something direct and honest and innervingly discerning, as if she could truly see beyond the boundaries of what most people accepted as reality.

Caitlin remembered how Lindsay's ring had seemingly burned a neat circle into Samantha's palm, and wondered what it was like o see and feel things other people couldn't even imagine.

"You have to leave her," Samantha repeated. She hunched her houlders a bit inside the oversize black jacket and thrust her lands into its pockets, as though chilled by the miserable weather. Or by something else.

For the first time in this endless day, Caitlin didn't respond vith platitudes. Instead, she simply asked, "Why?"

"Because it's time to go. Time to get past this moment." Samantha's voice was utterly matter-of-fact.

"Because Lindsay would want me to?" Caitlin asked dryly.

"No. Because it's what we do. It's how we cope. We dress them in their Sunday best and put them inside satin-lined boxes designed to keep them dry and safe from the worms, like the concrete vaults we put the boxes in. And then we have a headstone or marker engraved, and lay turf over the spot, and at least for a while we come regularly to visit and bring flowers and talk to them as though they can hear us."

Caitlin was conscious of the mortuary people shifting in uneasiness or disapproval, but they naturally said nothing. For herself, Samantha's bracing words sounded like the first real thing anyone had said to her in days.

"I won't even do that," she said. "Visit, I mean. As soon as I've packed away her stuff, I have to go home."

"And get on with your life." Samantha nodded. "The dead have their own path, and we have ours."

Curious, Caitlin said, "So you believe there's something after?"

"Of course there is." Samantha was still matter-of-fact.

"Do you know there is?"

"Yes."

"Heaven and hell?"

"That would be all nice and simple, wouldn't it? Be good and go to heaven; be bad and go to hell. Black and white. Rules to live by, to keep everybody civilized. But life isn't simple, so I don't know why we expect death to be. What there is… is continued existence. Complex, multilayered, and unique to every individual. Just like life is. That much I am sure of."

Perhaps not surprisingly, Caitlin found that more comforting than all the sermons preached at her since childhood Sunday school.

"It's cold and wet out here," Samantha said. "And those guys over there need to finish their work. I don't think we need to be here for that. Why don't we go get a cup of coffee or something?"

Caitlin returned her gaze to her sister's casket for a moment, then walked around the grave and joined Samantha. "Coffee sounds good," she said as they headed toward the road.

She didn't look back.

Leo Tedesco stood well back from the cemetery, but he had a clear view nevertheless. He watched the short graveside service, too far away to hear what was said and not particularly sorry about that; death depressed him. Violent death upset him.

Lindsay Graham's murder made him sick to his stomach.

Samantha hadn 't wanted company, so he had followed at a distance without her knowledge and watched. Watched her keep herself apart from the service as she stood back among the graves yards away from where Lindsay was being laid to rest. Watched as she had deliberately kept herself out of Wyatt Metcalf's line of sight.

The two federal agents, Leo realized, were perfectly aware of her presence, but neither approached her either during the service or afterward, and they left without speaking to her.

He found it hard to forgive them for that.

He watched her talking to Lindsay's sister and watched them leave together.

It wasn't like Samantha, Leo thought, to meddle. Inside her booth, Madam Zarina offered advice and answers to troubled questions, but outside it Samantha minded her own business and scrupulously avoided the business of others. It had been a hard lesson learned, but she had learned it well. So what was she up to now?

The Carnival After Dark was scheduled to leave Golden in exactly one week-always assuming, of course, that Sheriff Metcalf didn't run them out of town sooner. Their schedule was set, with stops planned for several towns in the Southeast as they worked their way back down to Florida and their winter home.