Part 19 (1/2)

”What did you say?” Adam said, narrowing his eyes at her.

”I asked why you dragged me all the way out here,” Lindsay lied. ”You could've killed me the second you found me, or for that matter, when you drugged me and had me alone in the car.”

”Dumb luck with the drugging,” he said. ”I couldn't get your piece of junk car to start again. The keys wouldn't stay in the ignition. And the Philpots had seen us together. It was too risky to do anything then. I would've had to drag your body along the road and then walk home. So I called 9-1-1.”

His casual use of the phrase ”your body” gave Lindsay a slight s.h.i.+ver. That's what she'd be soon-a dead body. ”And you hoped they'd believe that I was drunk. Maybe pump my stomach and let me dry out overnight,” Lindsay said, remembering how, without Anna's intervention, that's exactly what would've come to pa.s.s. ”Why tell me any of this if you're only going to kill me?”

”Like I said, this was more...amusing. You really are unbelievably gullible. But also you're fun to talk to. I haven't been able to talk to anyone about any of this. And you are funny. So, let me answer your questions. That'll be my parting gift to you.

”Really, it's my job to keep an eye out for opportunities,” he continued. ”That's how I make money. This Boughtflower thing, which you and your friends discussed in such great detail in your kitchen, struck me as too good to pa.s.s up. Like I told you before, I already know of a buyer for the letters. He deals in this kind of thing. And, as to why I dragged you all the way out here, call it what you want. Poetic justice. Curiosity killed the cat. I wanted to see how far I could take you. I'm honestly a little disappointed in how easy it was to string along the supposed righteous minister hero. I'm a bit of an expert in desperate women, but you might win some special prize. You're not a hero at all. You're just like a little puppy, coming back every time even when you've been kicked.”

By now, the hole Lindsay had been digging was nearly knee deep and about three feet in diameter. Despite her tender knee, she climbed out and stood alongside it. She looked Adam squarely in the face, suddenly resigned. There would be no last-minute reprieve-no escape, no salvation.

”You know what?” she said. ”Dig your own d.a.m.n hole. My life hasn't been a picnic either, but that's not an excuse. It's hard, but every day I work toward trusting people and being open to life.”

”Are you preaching to me, Reverend Harding?”

”Yes, so listen up, because this is my last sermon. You can let the bad things that happen to you make you hard and resentful and mean. That's your choice. I've got my affairs in order, both on earth and beyond.”

”Oh, that's right,” Adam said, seizing the shovel violently from her hands. He threw it to one side and pushed her to her knees. ”I forgot for a second that you're this holy saint. The newspapers loved that, didn't they? Well, don't think you can scare me by telling me I'm going to h.e.l.l. I don't believe in any of that c.r.a.p.”

Lindsay was slightly breathless from the pain of putting weight directly on her injured knee, but she looked straight at Adam. If she was going to die, she would do so staring her killer in the eye, with her self-respect intact.

”I don't believe in h.e.l.l, either. Not in the way you mean, anyway, with fiery pits and Satan with a pitchfork. But it seems like you and people like you are already stuck in a place that must feel like h.e.l.l. That's a pity.”

”My mother believed in h.e.l.l,” Adam said quietly. ”I remember when I was a kid, she talked about it all the time. It terrified her. She died scared.” Then more loudly he said. ”Are you scared, Lindsay? If not for yourself, what about for your mother? Or Warren?” He pointed the gun right between her eyes. ”How does it feel to be in my mother's shoes, Lindsay? How does it feel to know you're going to die like she did?”

Lindsay continued to stare straight ahead. Her focus was no longer on Adam or the gun. It turned inward, folding in and in until she could see the spark of life inside her own soul. Open-eyed, she prayed that her body would be found quickly. That her friends and family wouldn't be kept in suspense about what had happened to her. She prayed that Dunette would take care of Simmy and Kipper, and take Simmy to visit Sarabelle in prison sometimes. That Mike wouldn't beat himself up about leaving her behind in the woods. She prayed for his happiness, and the happiness of all her friends. She hoped Jess would come to see Owen as the extraordinary young man he was. She prayed that Warren would find someone who could love him the way he deserved to be loved. That her father and Teresa would make each other happy. She held them all inside her prayer, letting her heart fill so full with the burning embers of their love that she thought she might burst into flame.

She heard a soft whoos.h.i.+ng sound. A dull thud like the thump of a fist against a pillow followed, and suddenly Adam was falling backwards. The beam of his flashlight arced upwards and then fell, its light s.h.i.+ning out into the forest. She heard his body hit the ground, and a strange, wet gurgle emerged from his throat. She knelt where she was for a moment, her heart pounding so loud she was sure it could be heard for miles around.

”Lindsay!” a voice called out. ”Get away from there!”

She scrambled to her feet and retreated into the tree cover. As she ducked behind a cottonwood tree, she could make out the shape of a large man emerging from behind a tree on the opposite side of the small clearing. He ran past the hole she'd been digging, holding a crossbow out in front of him, pointed at the supine body of Adam Tyrell. He kicked Adam's body with the heel of his boot. There was no movement. He grabbed the flashlight from where it had fallen and s.h.i.+ned it on Adam. Lindsay gasped when the light illuminated the shaft of an arrow standing straight up in the middle of Adam's chest. The man reached down and pocketed Adam's gun.

He pointed the flashlight to the tree where Lindsay was concealed. ”It's okay. He's dead. You can come out.”

She edged cautiously from her hiding place. As she approached, the man turned the flashlight upwards, so it lit up his face from below. ”It's me,” he said.

There before her, wearing a camouflage cap pulled low over his brow, stood Warren's brother-in-law, Gibb White. The up-lit shadows cast by the flashlight made him look like a creature out of a horror movie, but she wouldn't have cared if Dracula himself stood before her. She'd never been so relieved to see anyone in her whole life. She stumbled toward him, collapsed against his chest, and burst into tears. Gibb allowed her to rest against him and sob.

When at last she began to quiet down, he asked gently, ”What in the Sam h.e.l.l are you doing out here?”

Lindsay gulped air. ”He was going to kill me. Thank you for saving my life.”

Gibb looked at his feet, seeming embarra.s.sed by her grat.i.tude. ”I didn't set out to do it. I was up in a blind, waiting for some feral hogs to come back to their nest. We'd been out for a couple hours, but hadn't seen 'em yet. Porter and his brother went back to the cabin to get 'em a couple hours sleep. They gotta drive back in the morning. I was just gonna give it another couple minutes, but I saw some lights. I'm sorry it took me so long to get a shot off,” he said, looking back over his should at Adam's body. ”You were both moving around so much, and I didn't like to take a chance on missing, what with him having a gun in your face.”

”Thank you,” Lindsay said again. They were the only words she seemed able to form.

”Is he the one you left Warren for?” Gibb asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

”Huh?”

Gibb looked down at his shoes again. ”Well, Tanner had heard that her friend Janella saw you at the Olive Garden with some new man. Janella said y'all were pretty cozy, so I just figured...” he trailed off. ”Anyways, it's none of my business, but I thought that wouldn't be too good if you left Warren for this guy and then he tried to blow you away. 'Cuz I've known Warren Satterwhite a lot of years, from even before me and Tanner got together, and he's the type of man who would never hurt a woman. Not like that.”

”I know,” Lindsay said. ”Warren's a good guy.”

Chapter 25.

”I wondered if I'd find you here.”

Lindsay looked up, startled at the sound of a voice. She'd just finished conducting the hospital's Wednesday evening service-her first service since returning to work after six weeks off-and was gathering up her things to leave. Her homily had been on thankfulness, and it had been one of her most heartfelt ones. Over the past year, she'd been lied to, robbed, threatened, and nearly killed at least half a dozen times-all traumatic events that would leave her permanently changed. But even so, during the prayer and meditation time, she'd found herself genuinely thanking G.o.d for her life. Yes, she'd been given a pretty raw deal in the mother department. Yes, she'd had way more than her fair share of run-ins with murderers and lunatics. Yes, she'd broken up with the man she'd hoped would provide her a chance at living a normal, stable, adult life. And yes, she was experiencing yet another in a seemingly endless string of really bad hair days. Still, she was grateful for her life, pain and all.

”Jess!” Lindsay said, stepping off the dais to greet the girl.

Jess made her way up the aisle on crutches, the bottom of her empty pant leg pinned up. Lindsay tried to keep from looking at Jess's missing limb, but it was nearly impossible. It was as if someone had torn the airbrushed cover of a magazine, marring the perfection of the model.

”It's great to see you,” Lindsay said. ”How are you feeling?”

”Pretty good. These things are a pain in the a.s.s,” Jess said, tilting her head toward one of her crutches, ”but I'll get fitted for my prosthesis in a few weeks. Then I'll be bionic.” She smiled, her lovely features lighting up with what appeared to be genuine amus.e.m.e.nt. Jess eased herself into a seat in the front row of chairs, and said, ”I wondered if you had time to talk?”

”Sure,” Lindsay said. ”Do you want to go to the cafeteria or something?”

”No, this is good. Kind of fitting, since this is where you and I met. I feel like it all kind of started here, you know?”

Although Jess had been transferred to Mount Moriah Medical Center almost two weeks before to complete the final stage of her rehabilitation, Lindsay hadn't seen her. She had only returned to work part-time, and whenever she'd tried to stop in for a visit, Jess always seemed to be at a physical therapy appointment or surrounded by a gaggle of visiting girlfriends.

Lindsay had been following the aftermath of that fateful night's events closely, and she knew that the police had interviewed Jess several times to fill in details of their investigation. The story that emerged finally allowed her to piece together a coherent narrative from the scattered fragments of the Boughtflower family story. Boughtflower's confession-the hidden body, the stolen money, the cursed fortune-at last made sense in light of the story of Boss Strong and Donahue McQueen's duplicity. As Boughtflower's health worsened, he had come to believe in the necessity of righting his family's historical wrong to the Lumbee people, their own ancestors. He came to regard the Boughtflower fortune with distrust and perhaps even disgust, believing that it had been an evil influence over his life and the lives of his forebears. So, he sought out Donahue McQueen's most direct living descendant, Dunette, to ensure that the money would leave his family's hands forever.

After Lindsay and Jess revealed what they knew of the story to the authorities, and the forensic examination surrounding Adam's death was over, a team of archeologists from UNC had descended on the site. Following weeks of preparation and careful excavation, the team pulled up a corroded metal box. It was fastened with a rusty lock of the same make as the key that Jess had been given by her grandfather. When they opened the box, though, all they could say was that it appeared to have contained papers at some point. Water and sandy soil had penetrated the rust-eaten fastenings and hinges. Frequent flooding and wet conditions since the 1950s had taken their toll, and nothing remained of the doc.u.ments that could've proven the veracity of the tale.

Before he died, Boughtflower told Jess that, when he visited Maxton in 1958, he'd intended to return the letters to a relative of Henry Berry's and make amends. He maintained that he and his wife had gotten caught up in KKK rally accidentally, and that he was mistaken for a Klansman solely because he was an outsider. Lindsay found that claim more than a little dubious-after all, the rally had been widely advertised in advance. If she had to bet money, she'd say that Boughtflower's desire to give the money to the Lumbees stemmed more from his belief that his fortune was cursed than any altruistic sentiments. However, she kept her opinions to herself. Jess maintained that her grandfather fled, not out of cowardice, but out of fear that the letters would be destroyed in the melee. Like the contents of Boss Strong's letters, Boughtflower's partic.i.p.ation in the Battle of Hayes Pond-as an aggressor or as a victim of mistaken ident.i.ty-was yet another secret that died with him.

Whatever the truth, after the events at Hayes Pond, Boughtflower changed his mind and buried the letters in a box near Henry Berry's grave marker. He'd been told the rough location of that marker by his father, but it took him weeks of searching to find a stone that matched the description he'd been given. In those pre-GPS days, he had devised the star map as a way of marking the location for anyone who might go looking in the future.

The archeologists, however, had as of yet discovered no trace of the alleged grave of Henry Berry Lowrie. Since Boughtflower had only found the marker, and never tried to locate the body, it was possible that the stone he had so carefully devised a map to was simply the wrong one. The team from UNC said they would continue to search the surrounding area, in case the stone had been moved or the topography had naturally s.h.i.+fted. However, based on what they'd found so far, it appeared that if Boughtflower's story were true, he had waited too long to unburden his family of it.

When Dunette found out that the letters that might have cast her great, great grandfather in a different light had likely been lost forever, she took it in her stride.

”The mystery is part of what makes Henry Berry special,” Dunette had said.

Lindsay's mind railed against accepting that so many questions would remain forever unanswered, but deep down, she realized that, this time, no amount of searching or rumination was likely to yield satisfactory answers.

”I suppose you're right,” she agreed. ”It'd be like if somebody came up to you and said, 'Here's the Loch Ness Monster. He's been living in my pool all this time.'”

”Exactly, and even if I believe Boughtflower's story,” Dunette continued, ”it wouldn't make Donahue McQueen a hero, just a slightly smarter scoundrel. I think there's a reason they didn't find Henry Berry's body out there, and that's because it's not there. He got away.”