Gail had used her blade on Lauren, leaving a bloody slash across her cheek.
Her friends both looked at Casey as if they were heartsick. Terrified, but sick that she had come.
That she would ultimately join their fate. Casey closed her eyes briefly. Her life didn’t flash before her. She smelled the moldy scent of the tomb, saw the niche where William Marley’s body had recently lain. The floor was dusty, spiderwebs teased the walls and crypts. It was truly the home of the dead.
“Go, go, get in!” Gail said harshly.
“Wait!” Casey said. “She’s here. Lena is here. Be careful—”
The gate didn’t just jiggle or sway. It slammed hard, separating Casey from Gail. Unnerved, Gail fired a shot. It slammed into stone.
She took better aim to fire again.
But the gun was suddenly ripped cleanly from her hand as Ryder leapt out from behind a neighboring tomb, his movements smooth and easy.
Gail screamed as her fingers twisted, and she fell to the ground in front of the mausoleum. But she bolted up, the knife in her hand, raving mad as she lunged at Ryder. He caught her wrist and grabbed the knife. When she tried to strike him, he ducked and struck back.
“Ryder, thank God!” Casey breathed, starting to come out of the tomb.
“No, no, get back in there for a minute. Let me get Gail in there and then close the gate,” Ryder said.
“What—?”
“They know I left. And they know Gail is a whack job.”
Casey edged back into the tomb, hunkering down as Ryder lifted Gail’s unconscious body, slid her in, and closed the gate. Then, he disappeared.
Casey moved closer to Lauren and Jared, bringing a finger to her lips in the strange and eerily colored darkness that was the realm of the dead.
“She’s got to be here. I told you we needed to do something about her!”
Larry Swenson was doing the speaking.
“We needed her. We had to get to Stephanie and the baby, and she was our shot. If we can’t kill them, this has all been for nothing.”
Harry Miller was with Larry Swenson. They were walking through the graveyard, hurriedly coming toward the tomb.
“What if the cops get here?” Larry asked.
“We lay it on Gail. Say we were getting suspicious. Barton should have been here, too, but he’s always keeping himself out of the way. Bastard! Thinks if we get ourselves killed, he’ll take the whole prize. Then, he’d have to kill Justin Marceau, too. And he hates getting his hands dirty,” Harry said disgustedly.
“He got his hands dirty. He killed Lena,” Larry mumbled.
“He thought he could control her. When he couldn’t...he really hated her.”
The two were almost at the mausoleum.
Ryder suddenly stepped out in front of them.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to stop there. You’re under arrest for murder.”
Casey inched forward, moving over the prone shape of Gail Reeves.
She saw both men draw guns.
But Ryder, who had sounded so easygoing, who hadn’t even been holding his Glock, got both men before they could fire their weapons. Larry Swenson spun around and fell as a bullet ripped through his shoulder, and Harry Miller screamed like a crazed banshee as his hand was shattered.
By then, cops and FBI agents were running through the cemetery. Ryder opened the door to the tomb, and Casey leapt up, anxious to free her tied and gagged friends. Casey hugged Lauren and Jared as the pair cried with relief. They garbled out words to explain how Gail had been hiding in the back of Lauren’s car and had forced them here at gunpoint, and then bound and forced them to gag each other.
Gail had secured them together in the tomb and then cut Lauren so she would scream, and Casey would come.
It was bedlam.
Lauren and Jared were taken away in an ambulance to be checked out, and so Lauren could receive stitches.
Larry Swenson, Harry Miller, and Gail Reeves were taken away.
Ghosts milled about and watched the activity. Lena Marceau stood with Dante Marceau, the apparitions arm-in-arm.
“I don’t think this place has ever seen so much life,” she said, grinning.
Braxton Wild walked over to Casey and hugged her tightly. “You’re all right. You’re all right!” Then he frowned. “Young lady, don’t you ever do such a thing again.”
“I’m sorry, Detective Wild,” she said.
He grinned. “Call me Braxton. I hear we’re going to Frenchman Street together later tonight to listen to some kickass bands.”
Casey smiled at him. “Okay by me.”
Braxton looked at Ryder and said, “The police picked up Barton Quincy. He’s busy blaming it all on the housekeeper, claiming innocence. And we also have Justin, who is also claiming innocence.”
“From everything I heard, Justin is innocent,” Casey told him.
“Well, we’ll see about talking to him and letting him go this afternoon. The others...they’ll face state and federal charges.” He looked at Ryder. “You could have killed them. You let them off easy.”
Ryder shook his head. “They’ll be in a maximum-security prison. They’ll never get out. They need to suffer a long, long time for what they did.”
Ryder put an arm around Casey. “Should we be going out tonight? Are you all right? What about Lauren and Jared?”
“Yes, we should go out tonight.” She grimaced. “Life is short. Let’s live it,” she said softly.
Epilogue
They didn’t go out that night. There was far too much paperwork. And too many people who had to understand a great deal. Jackson worried at first that they might have trouble in court, but they quickly learned that every one of the conspirators was ready to turn on the other.
They all wanted deals.
The best the conspirators would get was the death sentence taken off the table.
No, they didn’t go out that night. Or the next. But now, a few weeks later, it was finally time to put everything behind them and celebrate.
Even Stephanie came. It was going to be a long time before she trusted leaving Annette with anyone, but there was one babysitter she had come to trust and love.
Jackson Crow.
And Jackson had insisted that Stephanie get out.
Justin Marceau was with them. He and Stephanie were going to have a hell of a time trying to remake the company and find good people to help them. But they both believed that good people were out there. And Justin was both terrified and grateful.
He knew he would have eventually been on the hit list.
“Really, the only way it broke was Gail Reeves going crazy believing in ghosts,” Justin said. He shook his head, and Casey smiled. “Some people.”
Jared and Lauren came. And Braxton had ridden with Ryder and Casey. Jared even sat in with a few of the bands they stopped to see, and it was great to see him happy and in his element.
Toward the end of the evening, and after much thought and discussion with Ryder, Casey asked Lauren and Jared what they thought about taking over the shop. It was their shop, really. They were the art and the music.
“But,” Lauren told her, “you were always the beautiful mind.”
“I knew it from the moment I walked into the shop,” Lena’s ghost said, and Casey smiled, though the others couldn’t hear Lena. “You were, but these two are its heart. Just like Ryder is yours, and you are his.” Casey smiled wider.