11
Raquel sat bundled up on the front porch, watching the dog watch the woods.
All around them was chaos. Officers’ vehicles coming and going.
State police. County sheriff. The fire department.
Even someone named Mason from the local historical society, who apparently listened to police scanners as a hobby and had hightailed it to the house the second he heard.
The older gentleman, a tall, thin sort wearing a tweed jacket even in the middle of the night, had given Theo a thorough dressing-down.
What in the world had he been thinking, disturbing what could potentially be a relevant colonial-era find?
Why, the damage Theo might’ve done to the site—wait, did you say crockery? Sealed crockery?
Then Mason was bustling away, this time yelling for the sergeant in charge. Or someone like that.
Theo stayed for the show, having clearly taken a proprietary view of the discovery. Mandy remained in position to supervise because that’s what police chiefs did, even when a local historical society president and state major crimes detective took turns critiquing her efforts.
Raquel had retreated, officially exhausted and frozen to the core. Something about the skull, the way those empty eye sockets peered straight up, as if the person had gazed longingly for the sky until the very end…
She couldn’t take it anymore. Especially not without remembering the gouge marks hacked into the inside of the wooden cover. What that seemed to suggest…
Raquel had returned to the house, snagging a cashmere throw from the back of the sofa and wrapping it around her shoulders. Then she’d settled into one of the patio chairs to wait, fingers drumming restlessly.
Now she regarded the dog, who sat in what seemed to be its preferred position, stationed on the front left corner of the deck, gaze locked on the forest beyond.
Standing guard?
Holding vigil?
From time to time she saw him shiver. After the third shudder, she grabbed the dog bed Theo had purchased and carried it out for their new charge. But Mr. Man barely glanced at the offering. He had eyes only for the rustling trees.
She squatted beside him, peering into the overgrowth herself.
The glow of the moon cast a silvery sheen, throwing the bare-limbed maples, bushy white pines, and full-skirted hemlocks into shadowy relief.
She could make out a towering row of silhouettes here, a rounded clump of darkness there. Basically, she couldn’t see a thing.
The dog, however, leaned forward and uttered a low woof that startled her. He pressed against the less-than-secure railing, muscles taut.
Was there something out there? Someone watching, just waiting to make his approach? Kneeling beside the dog, Raquel tried to penetrate the darkness with her gaze. Again, she saw nothing.
Given all the activity at the rear of the property, she doubted anyone would hear a cry for help. Her phone. Raquel fumbled around for it in her pocket. In case of emergency, she could call Theo. That might work.
The dog whined. Strained against the railing again.
More anxious huffs, but this time his tone was different. Less a warning, more like a plea. Come back. Please come back to me.
Raquel rested a comforting hand on his back as she studied his face intently.
“What is it?” she whispered.
That whine again, a faint tail wag.
“Is it someone you know? Someone you miss?”
The dog finally tore his gaze from the woods, concentrated on her instead. She stroked the top of his head.
“You aren’t a random stray, are you?” she murmured. “The way you went directly there. Straight to the overgrown well and that poor lost soul. I think she was a woman. Am I right?”
The dog regarded her with his big brown eyes. She stared back.
“What brought you here? I spoke to the contractors every day for months. None of them reported a stray hanging around the job site. But within days of us moving in…What else do you know, mystery pooch? What else do you need to show us?”
In response, Mr. Man sighed. Deep, heavy, as if expelling a lifetime of woe in a single breath.
He placed his shaggy head on her shoulder.
She hesitated, caught off guard by the contact.
But then she wrapped her arms around him, feeling the warmth emanating from his sturdy torso.
He leaned against her. And for a moment, she swore she could sense in him a loss so profound, it was matched only by her own.
She stroked his ears. “When I first walked through this house,” she whispered in his ear, “I could feel its sadness calling to me. I assumed it still mourned for its family, the six people it loyally sheltered until one night…But now, after today’s discovery, I wonder if it’s the land itself that hurts.
” She sighed. “Are you good at keeping secrets, Mr. Man?”
The dog nuzzled her cheek.
“Me too.” She sighed again. A lifetime of woe indeed. And she could feel it again, the waves of sorrow. From all around her, from deep inside her. Her and the home, entwined in a kinship of despair, bonded by all the stories they knew but could never tell.
Now you’re just like me…
Mr. Man’s ears pricked. He pulled away from her as another vehicle rolled down the dirt drive.
More outsiders invading their space. Whatever hope Raquel had of controlling this situation was quickly evaporating.
After fifteen years of keeping a low profile, she was about to be thrust once more into the public spotlight.
Surely after all this time it wouldn’t matter? But she already didn’t believe that for a moment. Bunny, I’m scared.
Me too, she thought. Me too.
She rose to standing, summoning an appropriately somber expression as she led the next official to the now crowded meadow behind her house.
When she returned, the dog had finally settled into his bed, big head still pointed at the woods. After another moment, she unwrapped the cashmere throw from her shoulders and tucked it around his muddy frame.
“Good night, partner in crime.”
Then she retreated inside the house, where she retrieved two pills from the stash she kept hidden at the bottom of a tampon box, popped them into her mouth, and welcomed the oblivion that followed.
Dimly, she was aware of Theo’s return. The brief coolness of covers being pulled back, followed by the radiating heat of his body.
“Our dog has his own cashmere blanket?” he whispered in her ear as he drew her against him.
“He was cold.”
“Knew you were a softie.”
“He misses them,” she murmured, the lethargy moving through her in supple waves.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Them.” A gentle, forever buoyant sea.
“Why not? He clearly knows more than we do about our property.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She was floating, pressed against her husband, where she could smile at the perfection of it all. No pain, no pain, no pain. Forever no pain.
Theo, sighing. “We’re in it now, love. Half the cops in New Hampshire have been here tonight, not to mention the fire chief and a slew of emergency responders.
By tomorrow it’ll get real. A visit from the ME to oversee the skeleton’s recovery.
Maybe also a forensic anthropologist and a state archaeologist. Hell, every looky-loo within a ten-mile radius. ”
It’s okay, she wanted to say, the dead woman deserved the attention, but Raquel couldn’t summon the words. She sighed, feeling herself starting to slip, down, down, down.
Her husband’s arm, tightening around her shoulders.
“I love you,” he whispered, the words edged in frustration.
Settling at the bottom of the abyss, where the currents carried undertones of dangers, past and present.
“Shh…” she murmured to her husband. “She’s coming. Just be quiet.”
“Raquel. Wake up, sweetheart.”
“It’s okay,” she told him, tried to tell him. “I’ll keep you safe. We simply have to kill her first.”
Then she was gone, drifting from the sucking morass to a peaceful place where the darkness felt soft and never grew fangs. Where houses felt like homes and the walls were never spattered with blood. Where a person could fall in love and never fear what would happen next.
“Forever and always,” she heard Theo whisper from far, far away.
How sweet of him to lie.