It Begins (6 page)

Lucy stopped beside an unmarked grave and lowered her face into her hands.

What am I doing here, Mom? Can you even believe this?

Suddenly she was furious with herself. She must have been insane to come here, wandering around alone in this isolated place instead of being in school!
Did you really think you’d find her—some dead girl in an open grave?
There were
hundreds
of burial plots in here—
thousands
, probably!—how long could she possibly keep searching? Not to mention how enraged Irene
would be when she found out Lucy had skipped school.

“Bad idea,” Lucy whispered to herself.
“Very bad idea.”

Forget good intentions—she’d leave this place now and find a pay phone. Promise or no promise, she’d make an anonymous call to the police, and then she’d get back to the house. She’d go straight to bed, and when Irene came home, she’d swear she really
had
been sick all day, but next Monday she’d be—
miraculously!—
recovered and more than ready to begin her new life.

Resolved, Lucy raised her head. She hunched her shoulders against the cold, dank breeze and turned back the way she’d come.

She was scarcely aware of his shadow.

There were so many of them, really, surrounding her in deep, dark pools … soft and black like liquid, oozing between the graves, seeping beneath the low-sweeping branches of the trees …

And later she would wonder how he got there—appearing without a word or a sound—just suddenly
there
, his tall shadow figure
blocking her path, one arm extended in front of her to prevent her escape.

She saw him gazing down at her—eyes without light, face without features—or was it her own fear distorting his image, blurring everything into an indistinct mask? She wanted to run, but she was frozen in place; she heard his voice, but it seemed like some strange, faraway echo.

“She’s not here,” he said. “The one you’re looking for.”

Lucy could barely choke out a whisper. “What? What are you talking about?”

And the angels were watching—all around her, Lucy could see their blank, empty stares … their dead, decaying eyes …

The stranger was above her now.

Leaning over … reaching out … a sharp black silhouette against pale, pale light.

“She’s not here,” the stranger said again. “He’s taken her away.”

Someone had ahold of her shoulders.

As Lucy fell back a step, she realized that strong hands were trying to steady her, to keep her facing forward. She willed herself to scream, but all that came out was a frightened whimper.

“’Take it easy,” a voice said. “Just breathe.”

Breathe?
Struck by a fresh wave of panic, Lucy began to struggle. The hands holding her immediately tightened their grip, and before she realized what was happening, she felt herself being pulled tight against her captor’s chest.

“Stop it! I’m not going to hurt you.”

Lucy stopped. With her arms pinned securely to her sides, she looked up to see a pair of dark eyes gazing back at her with calm, cool
intensity. In a split-second appraisal, she guessed him to be a little over six feet tall, with a strong, lean build, probably about her own age, possibly a year or two older. High cheekbones accentuated the angles of his face; a faint shadow of beard ran along his chin and jawline and upper lip. His hair was thick and as black as his eyes, falling in loose, tousled waves to his shoulders. And he held himself very straight—though not so much a formal posture, she sensed, as a wary and watchful one.

Lucy realized she was staring. As fear and confusion coursed through her, her mind scrambled for some self-defense tactic, but the rest of her still felt too stunned to cooperate.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again. “I just want to talk.”

He released her so unexpectedly that she nearly fell over. Recovering herself as best she could, Lucy watched as he took three steps back, then he raised his hands into the air where she could see them.

“You ran away,” he stated. His eyes narrowed slightly, yet the piercing stare never wavered, even when Lucy began to back up.

“What do you mean?” she demanded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who are you?”

Her heart was racing like a trip-hammer, her thoughts spinning in all directions.
He knows about the girl—how could he know? The only way he could possibly know anything is if he was
here—
if
he
was the one who—

“You tried to help her, but it was too late. And if you tell anyone—anyone at all—you could die.” His tone was so even, so matter of fact—which somehow made it all the more frightening.

Lucy’s voice rose. “You don’t know
anything!
You don’t know—”

“And they wouldn’t believe you anyway—”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Byron. I want to help you.”

“I don’t know you! And I don’t need your help! Why are you doing this? Why are you saying these things?”

“Because they’re true.”

Slowly he lowered his arms. He slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and he turned his eyes to the ground, and when he spoke, Lucy could hear the cold contempt in his voice.

“It’s not your fault, you know. You couldn’t have saved her. Nobody could.”

Tears blurred Lucy’s vision. Wheeling around, she was finally able to run.

This is insane! This can’t he happening!

She realized she was crying, crying so hard she couldn’t see, and her chest was hurting, and her lungs were aching from the cold. She slid on wet leaves and sank ankle-deep in mud. Every breath she took was a knife blade between her ribs.

God, why had she ever come here this morning? How could she be so stupid, what could she possibly have been thinking?

And now, on top of everything else, here was some psycho lurking in the graveyard, acting like he
knew
her, acting like he knew about what had
happened
here last night—
some psycho who
must
be the murderer, who else could he be?—he saw me and he knows who I am and now it’s a game—cat and mouse—he’s taunting me and now he’s going to kill me, too—

“You’re in danger,” the voice warned.

Lucy screamed. She hadn’t heard him following, hadn’t seen him coming, but now
her back was flat against a tree, and he was
standing
there, just inches away, gazing at her with those dark, dark eyes.

“People know I’m here!” she babbled. “They’ll be looking for me—they’ll be worried if—”

“I told you, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m a friend.”

“Leave me alone! I don’t have any friends!”

“But you need one. Someone you love is gone now … you need one.”

Lucy gaped at him. A wave of nausea rose up from her stomach, lodged in the middle of her throat.
I’m going to be sick
… Oh
God, I’m—

“Sorry about your mother,” he whispered.

As Lucy drew an incredulous breath, all feelings of nausea vanished. She simply stood there with her mouth open, staring at him in utter disbelief.

“Someone told you.” At last her words choked out, tight with fury. “Someone
had
to tell you! My aunt or—or—my cousin—or someone at school—”

“No one had to tell me. I see it in your eyes.”

She was vaguely aware of a rushing in her
head—a churning mixture of shock and rage and despair—and the tears that wouldn’t stop, still pouring down her cheeks. For a moment she couldn’t think, didn’t even realize that she’d moved toward him, or that her hands had clenched into fists or that she’d shoved them hard against his chest.

“You really expect me to
believe
that?” she cried.

She saw him shake his head. Saw his hands close firmly over her fists, though he made no move to push her away.

“Some things take time to believe in,” he said solemnly. “And right now … we don’t have a lot of time.”

As Lucy stared at him in bewilderment, he eased her hands from the front of his jacket. Then, still holding her wrists, he leaned down toward her, his voice low and urgent.

“Something happened here last night. Something important.”

Yes
, she thought desperately,
a murder. A coldblooded murder and—

“I think something touched you.”

“You don’t know anything,” Lucy whispered.
But
“What’d you touch?” Angela had asked … and the dying girl’s hand, squeezing so hard … the pain, the horrible pain, the excruciating pain … and “That’s no bruise,” Angela had said … That’s no bruise …

“I think something was … passed on to you,” Byron murmured.

Lucy’s eyes widened. As she tried to pull free, Byron’s grip tightened, forcing her closer. With one smooth movement, he turned both her hands palms-up and gazed down at the tiny, crescent-shaped scar.

“Let go!”

Jerking from his grasp, Lucy stumbled back out of reach. She could feel her right hand beginning to tingle—ice-hot needle pricks spreading out from the center, out to her fingertips—and she clamped it shut and thrust it deep into her pocket. She told herself it was just the cold, told herself Byron had just held her too tight, shut off her circulation, but her hand was stinging … feeling so strange … and it was starting to tremble, just like her knees were trembling, just like her voice was trembling …

“Stay away from me!” she burst out. “I don’t know why you’re here, and I don’t have a
clue
what you’re talking about, and I’m
not
afraid of you!”

For a long moment Byron stared at her. “It’s not me you need to be afraid of,” he said at last.

It took every ounce of courage to turn her back on him. Holding her head high, Lucy made her way determinedly back through the graves, and she told herself that she wouldn’t look back.

But when she did, he was still standing there, and she couldn’t help thinking how very much he resembled some dark angel, some ominous messenger in the midst of all that death …

“Be careful,” he called to her then, his voice as heavy as the shadows around him. “Someone won’t be glad you’re here.”

The whole morning had been a disaster.

A complete, miserable, and utter disaster.

Lucy stood in the doorway of the cafeteria, clutching her books to her chest. She let her eyes wander over the laughing, chattering mass of students, then turned and walked slowly down the hall. She hadn’t planned on coming to school this morning after her visit to the graveyard; she’d wanted to find a way back to the house and hide there and try to make sense of things—until she suddenly remembered she didn’t even have a key.

She hadn’t tried to find a pay phone.
“You tried to help her
… it
was too late
…” She hadn’t reported last night’s murder.
“You can’t tell anyone … you could die … they wouldn’t believe you anyway …
” She’d been so frightened, so
thoroughly shaken by her encounter with Byron, that she didn’t even realize she’d retraced her steps back to school. She’d simply looked up and found herself standing outside Pine Ridge High, wondering how she’d gotten there.

Oh, God. What’s happening to my life?

She’d stared at the school, and she’d weighed her options—
Could I spend the day hiding out in some coffee shop? The library? How about the bus depot?
—but she hadn’t been able to come to a single decision.

He
knew
things! Byron
knew
things about last night, he knew things about
me
he couldn’t possibly know!

She’d rested her head against the fence while the world passed in a blur. He was a total stranger, but he’d known about her mother. He was a total stranger, yet it was almost as if he’d been
waiting
for her there, as if he’d
expected
her to show up there this morning …

Maybe he really
was
the murderer, Lucy thought again. And maybe he really
had
been taunting her, playing with her, trying to see how
much she really knew.
So why didn’t he kill me? Why didn’t he kill me right then, when he had the perfect chance?

She hadn’t been able to shut out his words:
“She’s not here … the one you’re looking for … he took her away …”

His words … those frightening, fateful words playing over and over and over again, relentlessly through her brain—

“We don’t have a lot of time …”

“Be careful …”

“Someone won’t he glad you’re here.”

She’d stood outside Pine Ridge High, afraid to go in, afraid to go anywhere, until a teacher hurrying into the building had spotted her and ushered her to Principal Howser’s office. To Lucy’s relief, the man had actually believed her story about being sick that morning. He’d welcomed her warmly and offered deep condolences for her loss; he’d praised her high grades from her former school, and he’d talked about how wonderful Aunt Irene was. He’d gone on and on about some Festival the school was having, and how he hoped she’d enjoy living in Pine Ridge. Then he’d handed her a schedule,
assigned her a locker, given her a tour, and escorted her to class.

“Here we are, Lucy. I believe your cousin Angela has Miss Calloway this hour, too.”

Wonderful. My morning’s complete.

He’d interrupted a pop history quiz to introduce her, leaving her to stand like an idiot at the front of the room while Miss Calloway tried not to look annoyed and all the kids had stared. She’d felt flushed and panicky and embarrassed. Some of the kids were laughing, she’d noticed—some of the girls whispering to each other, some of the guys whistling loudly. And then she’d spotted Angela, sitting in the very back row, snickering loudest of all.

It wasn’t till she’d run to the bathroom afterward that Lucy realized she had dead leaves stuck in her hair and mud spattered over her clothes. She’d stared at her sorry reflection in the mirror and felt so mortified, she’d actually considered hiding in there the rest of the day.

Wonderful, Lucy, just wonderful. Leave it to you to make a great first impression.