Shattered Secrets (Cold Creek #1)(62)

She went to use the bathroom, threw on her dark windbreaker, pulled a scarf over her head and knotted it. As she slung the little backpack over one shoulder, her phone rang. She dug it out and checked the caller ID. Gabe. She let it go to voice mail.

She had to get this done quickly before Dane returned to his place or Gabe showed up.

She locked the back door and ran across her yard and into the corn. No more room for fear. No more clinging to Gabe or calling Char for counseling or hoping Kate called her again. As she shoved her way through the tall stalks and bumped into the ears, she thought she might phone her father once she calmed down. But how could she ever forgive him for having an affair with Gabe’s mother, for daring to blame Mom for not keeping an eternal eye on his “terrific, terrible Teresa,” then deserting all of them?

How many people in Cold Creek knew her father had been unfaithful with Mrs. McCord? She realized Miss Etta had alluded to it when Tess had first come back to town, but she hadn’t caught on. “Your father was interested in other things,” Miss Etta had said with a disapproving tone.

Out of breath, Tess stopped several rows from Dane’s property. She was proud of herself for coming right through the field full of anger instead of fear. And she was just where she thought she would emerge, behind the pet cemetery with the east side of his large, old house in view. She stared up at the second floor and attic windows. Had she been held there for the eight months she was gone? Had she gazed out those small attic windows toward the then much smaller graveyard? She realized she would have seen her own house from those windows. Why couldn’t she recall gazing out toward home?

She wanted to get closer to the house to see if it triggered any new memories. There were old buildings out behind Marva’s abandoned, derelict farmhouse. Could she have been kept there?

Tess crept out of the cornfield and strode through the tombstones. Some of them were small, but most were square or rectangular, nearly the size of those in a human cemetery. But wasn’t she picturing narrow, rounded stones? Embedded in these polished marble ones, pictures of dogs, and a few cats, caught her eye. She saw the little QR codes Marva had mentioned. If only there was some way to access stored images from her past.

Many epitaphs were sad, some funny. She was amazed that people had money for these elaborate memorials when so many others—kids especially—were starving or homeless. She paused before heading out into the open again. After looking around carefully, then glancing out onto the road, she ran across the driveway and pressed her back to the house between two windows. She looked back at the graveyard.

Vic was right, of course. It would have been much smaller twenty years ago, the stones not so elaborate or technology-enhanced. She did see a few toward the front, probably early ones, that were more modest. But she experienced no flood of thoughts, no buried fears unearthed. The cemetery triggered no memories.

She decided to check the death dates on the smaller stones to be sure they would have been here twenty years ago. She darted away from the house and into a row of them just as she heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. Dane’s van turned into the driveway and parked in front of the vet clinic.

Tess ducked behind a gravestone and huddled there, waiting for him to go inside. When he got out of the van, he was talking on the phone. She heard him say something about a meeting. He carried a satchel with him, probably a vet bag with medical supplies. To her surprise, he didn’t go into the clinic or his house but walked into the cemetery just a few rows from her.

She crawled behind another stone and put her back to it, sitting on the ground with her knees up to her chest. Not talking, but with the phone still to his ear, he walked past the spot where he could glance down and see her. Tess scolded herself for wishing Gabe was with her. He said he’d be waiting when Dane returned ready to serve him with the warrant and search his house, so where was he? Not that she wanted him to find her here meddling in his plans.

She wondered if Dane was heading for the cornfield. Could he be meeting someone there? Or what if he had something in his satchel to take through the field and leave in her yard? No, probably not in broad daylight.

She wasn’t sure where he was. He could double back and see her. She debated making a run for the cornfield but it was a tall maze in there if she didn’t go in the direction toward home.

She knew she should phone Gabe to tell him that Dane was here, but she was done working with Gabe.

She heard Dane speaking again. He sounded upset, but he was far enough away that she couldn’t catch his words until he shouted, “No!”

A single bang sounded. Tess jumped so hard she hit her head on the stone she was pressed against.

Tess knew she shouldn’t have come here on her own. She wanted to get out of here. Let Gabe and Vic take over. Dane’s voice had stopped, so he must have ended the call, but that didn’t help her pinpoint where he was. She decided she was going to make a break for it.

She got to her feet carefully and yanked the child’s backpack up on her shoulder. Bent over so her head didn’t show above the stones, she started toward the field, glancing at each cross row to be sure Dane didn’t see her.

She’d made it to the last row of tombstones before the field when something caught her eye. Dane Thompson was sprawled on the ground with no one else in sight. Was it a trick to get her to come closer?

She tiptoed two steps nearer. It looked as though he’d hit his head. She saw blood on the corner of a tombstone. Could that have caused the sound she’d heard?