Delores Fossen - New Year Heroes - The Sheriff's Secretary / Veiled Intentions / Juror No. 7

The people who lived on this street were good hardworking people who valued family and friends. He knew these people … or did he?

Suddenly every drapery drawn at a window might hide a kidnapper, every closed door implied secrets. Was somebody watching from next door? Across the street?

With a sigh he returned to the kitchen where Mariah was seated at the table, playing the message again. She pushed the Stop button when he came in. “The clue. I’ve been thinking about it.” Even though the timing was completely inappropriate, he couldn’t help but notice how pretty she looked with her hair coming loose and springing around her shoulders and her cheeks filled with color that had been lacking for most of the day.

“What about it?”

“He said they’re where the cries of the dead ring loud and clear. It’s got to be the cemetery, Lucas. Maybe they’re in a crypt. We’ve got to go there and check it out.”

“Whoa. We aren’t going anywhere. I’ll go and take a look around.”

“If you think I’m going to stay here, you’re crazy,” she replied. “I can either ride with you or I can take my own car, but one way or another, I’m going to the cemetery. That’s where the clue leads and that’s where I need to be.”

“It could be dangerous,” Lucas protested. “You know that even under the best of circumstances the cemetery isn’t a good place to hang out, especially at night.”

She stepped closer to him and placed a hand on his arm. This close he could see that her blue eyes had silver flecks. Those eyes pleaded with him. “Lucas, please. I have to go with you. It’s my son. I don’t care about any danger. This is the first real clue we’ve had. Don’t make me fight you on this.”

He tried to imagine somebody trying to keep him from going to find Jenny. There was nobody on the face of the earth who could stop him—and he wouldn’t be the one to stop her.

“All right, then, let’s go.”

Minutes later they were in his car heading toward the north side of town where the Conja Creek Cemetery was located. His car beams penetrated the deepening darkness, and tension coiled like a snake in the pit of his stomach.

“We could be walking into a setup,” he said.

“What kind of a setup? If somebody wanted to kill either you or me, they could have done so without all this drama,” she said. “If we’re the targets, then why involve Jenny and Billy?”

He tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “I don’t know. I can’t get a handle on this.” The words fell from him involuntarily, and he hit the steering wheel with his palm. “He’s obviously playing with us and I don’t know why. This is probably nothing more than a wild-goose chase.”

“Don’t say that,” she exclaimed with fervor. “Right now my hope is the only thing holding me together. Please don’t take that away from me.”

He glanced in her direction. “You’re one of the strongest women I think I’ve ever met. Most women would be basket cases by now.”

“I’ve had to be strong to survive the choices I’ve made in my life.”

Again he realized how little he knew about her, and new interest stirred inside him. “Bad choices?”

“Only one. I married the wrong man. Why aren’t you married, Lucas?”

“I was once. I’d just graduated college and gotten married when my mother died. Jenny was twelve, and so I moved back to the family home with my new bride. The marriage lasted for six months, then Kerry told me she hadn’t applied for the job of helping to raise a twelve-year-old. She gave me an ultimatum—make other arrangements for Jenny, or she was leaving. I helped her pack.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you,” she said.

He offered her a tight smile. “I’m not. Oh, it hurt at the time, but I hadn’t realized until that moment how selfish Kerry was. She definitely wasn’t the kind of woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”

“And there hasn’t been anyone since?”

He wasn’t sure if she was really interested or if she was just making conversation to keep her thoughts off their destination and the high stakes involved.

“Jenny has managed to take up most of my time and energy. There’s never been much left for anyone else.”

“Jenny has been an adult for a while now. Don’t you think it’s time you give her less time and attention?”

“I think the reasons we’re here now put to rest the idea that Jenny doesn’t require my time and attention,” he replied dryly.

“You still think Jenny had something to do with all this?” Her voice held an edge of exasperation.

He didn’t answer for several long seconds. Mostly because he wasn’t sure what was in his heart. He desperately wanted to believe that Jenny was nothing more than an innocent victim, but he just wasn’t sure.

“Jenny doesn’t always make the best choices in her life,” he finally said.

“From what I’ve seen, Jenny rarely makes any choices in her life,” she countered. “You make them all for her.”

He cast her a sharp, sideways glance. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

She flushed and looked down at her clenched hands. “No. I’m sorry. Your relationship with Jenny is really none of my business.”

There was something in her tone, a vague disapproval that made him want to continue the conversation, but at that moment the rusted ironwork of the gates to the cemetery appeared in his high beams.

Conja Creek Cemetery was like dozens of other Louisiana burial grounds. Sun-bleached tombs rose up from the earth, some simple square structures, others like miniature houses complete with fencing around them.

There was no caretaker living on-site, and the cemetery was on the edge of town with no surrounding houses or buildings.

“I’ll get the gate,” he said as he put his car in Park. He pulled his gun as he got out of the car, his eyes scanning the area and his ears listening for any sound that didn’t belong.

The gate screeched in protest as he opened it, announcing to anyone who might be inside that they had arrived. He stared inside the gate to the narrow rows that led between the structures. Cities of the dead, that’s what people called the cemeteries in Louisiana. He just hoped this particular city of the dead didn’t hold the bodies of Billy and Jenny.

MARIAH DIDN’T THINK her heart could hurt as much as it did as Lucas pulled the car through the cemetery gates and parked in the space provided just inside.

Was Billy here? In one of the tombs? She reached her hand in her pocket and touched his inhaler, as if it were a talisman that would lead her to him.

She was light-headed and sick to her stomach, a combination of too much coffee and too little sleep. She just wanted her baby back home where he belonged.

“You stay in the car. I’ll check things out,” he said as he turned off the car engine.

“I’m not staying in the car,” she replied. “If you find them, and Billy is in a full asthma attack, he’s going to need immediate medical attention. I didn’t come all this way with you to sit in the car.” She opened her car door and ignored his muttered curse.

The night air was thick, hot and steamy, and for a moment she leaned against the car door and tried to imagine Billy in this place of death. The very atmosphere itself would work against him, so thick and sultry. Add fear and stress, and he could be in real physical danger.

Lucas joined her and put an arm around her shoulder. For a moment she leaned into him, drawing from his strength. She might not like the way he treated his sister, but at the moment she couldn’t think of anyone else she wanted by her side.

“Stay close to me,” he whispered. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”