My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(107)

Tracy watched a tendril of smoke that had spiraled up from one of the chimneys, which hung motionless, like the vapor trail left by a jet. “Sarah,” she said.

Dan gave her a quizzical look.

“House wanted me all along,” she continued.

“I know, Calloway told me. I’m sorry, Tracy.”

“He must have told Sarah he intended to bring me here next. She carved me the message in the wall. Even if he’d seen it, House wouldn’t have known what it meant. Only I knew. It was the prayer we used to say together at night. It was a message to me. Sarah wanted to let me know she’d found something to dig at the wall, to loosen the bolts. She must have just run out of time, and the concrete would have been stronger twenty years ago than it is now.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s chemistry.” She sighed. “That wall was poured some eighty years ago, maybe longer. Over time, the chemicals from the decaying plants wicked down through the soil and interacted with the concrete. When concrete deteriorates, it cracks, and we know that water will always find its way through cracks. When water reached the bolts, it caused them to rust. When the bolts rusted, they expanded, cracking the concrete even more. Sarah scratched the message in the wall, but what she was really doing was using the spike to chip away at the concrete behind the plate and around the bolts.”

“Mrs. Allen would be proud,” he said.

Tracy rested her head on his shoulder. “We used to say that prayer together when Sarah was young. She was afraid of the dark. She’d sneak into my room and crawl in bed next to me, and I’d tell her to shut her eyes and we’d say it together. Then I’d turn out the lights and she’d fall asleep.” She started to cry, not bothering to wipe away the tears. “It was our prayer. She didn’t want anyone to know she was afraid. I miss her, Dan. I miss her so much.”

He squeezed her tight. “Sounds like she isn’t gone. Sounds like she’s still with you.”

She quickly raised her head and pulled back to consider him.

“What?” he asked.

“That’s the strange thing about it. I felt her, Dan. I felt her presence here with me. I felt her leading me to that spike. There’s no other way to explain why I dug in that exact spot.”

“I think you just did explain it.”





[page]CHAPTER 72





The snowstorm had stranded the media, which had come from all over the country to attend the post-conviction relief hearing, in Cedar Grove and the nearby towns. When news broke about DeAngelo Finn and Parker House, and about what had happened in the Cedar Grove mine, reporters and their cameramen rushed from their hotels to their vans. Maria Vanpelt was in her glory, broadcasting from all over town and telling anyone who would listen that she had been first to break the story on KRIX Undercover.

Tracy had watched the media frenzy unfold on the television from the comfort of Dan’s couch, Rex and Sherlock on the floor beside her as if to protect her from the horde of reporters who had camped outside Dan’s home. Knowing the media would not leave them alone until she had addressed them, Tracy sent word she would hold a press conference at the First Presbyterian Church, the only building in Cedar Grove big enough to accommodate the anticipated crowd. The church where they’d held her father’s funeral.

“I’m doing it to appease the brass,” she told Kins over the phone.

“Bullshit,” he said. “I’m not buying that for a second. If you’re doing it, you have an ulterior motive.”



Tracy and Dan stood in an alcove at the front of the church, hidden from the crowd that filled the pews and stood along the aisles.

“You did it again,” Dan said. “You’ve managed to make Cedar Grove relevant. I hear the mayor is telling anyone who’ll listen that Cedar Grove is a quaint little town full of opportunity and ripe for development. He’s even talking about reviving the long-abandoned plans for Cascadia.”

Tracy smiled. The old town deserved a second chance. They all did.

She peered out at the sea of faces, her gaze flowing over the standing-room-only crowd. The media throng sat up front with notepads and tape recorders. Cameramen had established positions in the aisles from which to film. The locals and the curious had also come, many of the same faces that had come to Sarah’s service and sat through the hearing. George Bovine sat in a pew near the front, his daughter Annabelle seated between him and a woman who was presumably his wife. He had told Dan over the phone that he thought the finality of the event, that knowing that Edmund House was indeed dead, might help his daughter finally find closure and begin to slowly move on with her life.

Sunnie Witherspoon and Darren Thorenson had also come, and toward the rear, Tracy saw Vic Fazzio’s unmistakable mug a foot above the crowd, along with Billy Williams and Kins.

“Wish me luck.” She stepped from the alcove into the clicking of dozens of cameras and whirl of flashing lights. The bouquet of microphones taped to the podium was even more substantial than the one that had greeted Edmund House at his post-hearing press conference at the jail.

“I’d like to keep this short,” Tracy said. She unfolded a sheet of paper containing her prepared notes. “Many of you are wondering what transpired following the hearing that culminated in the release of Edmund House. As it turns out, I was correct. Edmund House was wrongfully convicted. I was wrong, however, in thinking him innocent. Edmund House raped and murdered my sister, Sarah, just as he confessed to Sheriff Roy Calloway twenty years ago. But he did not kill or bury her right away. He kept Sarah captive for seven weeks in an abandoned mine in the mountains. Shortly before the Cascadia Falls Dam went online, he killed her and buried her body. The area flooded, seemingly covering his crime forever.”