Amanda Stevens - The Sinner

He rose gracefully and I followed, lifting my gaze to take in his full height. He towered over me by almost a foot, and for a moment I stood with tilted head, studying his remarkable features—the prominent nose, the magnetic eyes, the full, sensuous lips that parted slightly as he became aware of my survey.

He lifted a hand and beckoned. I took a reluctant step toward him as though I were a marionette responding to a puppeteer’s commands. I caught myself and turned away from him. His hold on me diminished, but before I could celebrate another small victory, I realized my freedom hadn’t come from my own strength and resolve, but from Darius’s lack of focus.

Something in the woods had caught his attention. He knew something lurked in the shadows, hiding among the trees. Like me, like Detective Kendrick, he could sense a presence.

Shifting my gaze to the woods, I emptied my mind once again, trying to detect a hint or a clue of the lurker’s true nature. The barrier came up once more. Whatever skulked in those woods was unlike anything I’d ever come up against.

“You feel it, too,” I said, but Darius didn’t answer. His gaze remained fastened on the trees. He lifted a hand to trace a symbol in the air as he muttered something in a language I didn’t understand.

Out over the sea, clouds gathered and I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. As my eyes adjusted to the aberrant twilight of the woods, I saw something white and nimble darting among the tree trunks.

My breath quickened as I reached for Rose’s key. As I lifted the talisman from my shirt, Darius’s attention shifted again. He was still looking at the woods, but I could feel a tingle across my scalp, as though one of his beetles had buried itself in my hair.

“What’s out there?” I whispered.

He lifted a hand, trailing blue sparks. “Tread carefully,” he said. “And trust no one.”

Five

“Miss Gray? Amelia? Are you all right?”

The voice had a distant, tinny quality as though someone were calling up to me from the bottom of a very deep well. I wanted to respond, but at the moment I was too busy fighting my way out of a no-man’s-land of cobwebs and mist.

I shook myself slightly and the fog thinned. I was still in the cemetery kneeling beside a gravestone, a bucket of water before me and a soft bristle brush in my hand. The inscription carved into the face of the marker was starting to peek through the grime, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember scrubbing the surface.

I glanced skyward where the sun still hovered in virtually the same position as when I’d last checked. Very little time had elapsed, but those lost moments frightened me because I couldn’t recall anything beyond my conversation with Darius Goodwine.

Darius!

Quickly, I scanned the graveyard and then peered into the shadowy arches of the ruins. Was he there, hiding behind those ancient brick walls so as not to be discovered by Detective Kendrick?

Or had he even been here at all?

I shivered in the heat as more and more of our conversation came back to me. Whether the discussion had taken place in the cemetery or inside my head, I couldn’t be certain, but I had no doubt Darius Goodwine had paid me a visit. I hadn’t imagined our encounter. I hadn’t made up his proposition. His parting warning still echoed: tread carefully and trust no one.

An icy breath blew down my collar as my gaze fastened onto Detective Kendrick’s. It would be better for both of us if no one finds out that we’ve talked.

Kendrick canted his head, looking puzzled. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you answer me just now?”

“I’m sorry. I was... I guess I was lost in thought.”

He scowled down at me. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, why?”

“You look flushed. Maybe you need to get out of the sun for a while, have something cold to drink.” He nodded to the grove of cottonwoods near the entrance. “Is that your cooler?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s move over there and talk.” He offered his hand, but I pretended not to notice as I hurriedly rose and peeled off my work gloves.

His focus was still so intense that I felt as if I had stripped off a good deal more than the gloves. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, given that he was a complete stranger and I still didn’t trust him.

I tried to ignore the unwelcome tingle, assuming a casual tone as I dusted off my jeans. “You didn’t happen to see anyone else when you came up just now, did you?”

“Why? Was someone here?” His inquisitive gaze swept the cemetery and the road beyond the gate before snapping back to me.

“I thought I heard something. Probably just voices drifting up from the clearing.” I wanted to know if he’d caught sight of Darius Goodwine, but I couldn’t come right out and ask. If Kendrick hadn’t seen him, how would I explain the question without giving Darius away? It was a strange position I found myself in, protecting Darius Goodwine from the police.

I still couldn’t say with any certainty that he had returned from Africa. It was just as likely he’d found a way inside my head, even across all those miles and an ocean, but regardless of his physical location, his presence worried me. Why had he come back into my life now and what was his relationship to the dead woman?

I wondered what Detective Kendrick would say if I told him all that had transpired in the cemetery—or inside my head—before his arrival.

His expression remained neutral despite the gleam of curiosity in his eyes. Before he had a chance to question me further, his phone rang and he put up a finger to pause our conversation. Lifting the unit to his ear, he listened for a moment and then answered in clipped monosyllables. During this brief exchange, his gaze never left me. I found myself growing more and more discomfited by that stare. I wanted to believe it unintentional. Maybe his concentration was so focused on the call that he’d forgotten my presence. But I had a feeling Detective Kendrick knew exactly what he was doing. He was like Devlin, in that respect. He knew how to unsettle.

I dropped my gaze to the gravestone.

“Sorry for the interruption,” he said, slipping the phone back in his pocket. “You were saying?”

“It wasn’t important.”

“Are you sure? There must be a reason you asked if I’d seen anyone else in the cemetery just now.”

I shrugged, still trying to retain an air of detachment as I wiped a trickle of sweat from my brow. “Like I said, I thought I heard something, but now that I think back, I’m certain it was just voices carrying up through the woods from the search.”

I had no idea if he bought the explanation or not. He looked a little dubious as he waited for me to start down the path. I took my cue, weaving my way along the overgrown trail as the sun poured down hot and bright on the headstones. The cottonwood trees beckoned. As we neared the main gate, the carpet of yellow cosmos and coreopsis gave way to delicate patches of blue forget-me-nots and pools of silvery green moss.

For a moment, time stood still as a wave of longing washed over me. How many summer days had I spent sequestered behind cemetery walls, lost in a daydream or in the pages of one of my favorite books? Those early years with Mama and Papa had seemed like such an innocent time, peaceful and perfect, but my naiveté had withered all too soon. My protected world had come crumbling down long before my gift had evolved into something far more frightening than that of ghost-seer. Long before I had followed my great-grandmother’s clues to Kroll Cemetery. Before Devlin had decided that my susceptibility to the unnatural world made me an unsuitable companion for someone like him.

I shook off the smothering melancholia as I moved up under the trees. The shade was deep and cool and I closed my eyes for a moment, dispelling the loneliness left by Devlin’s departure and the foreboding that had accompanied Darius Goodwine’s arrival.