“Sure. Dan is around somewhere,” June said. “If I see him, I’ll tell him that you two are going to be back there. You know how he is about that reading room.”
Rowenna nodded, then made her way through the exhibits toward the back of the museum.
She didn’t want to look at the Harvest Man or the killers who’d come after him. Just entering the area where the tableau stood made her skin crawl now. But she had to go past them to reach the reading room.
As she hurried through, she noticed that figure of Andrew Cunningham, in his eighteenth-century garb and high hat, seemed to have moved, as if he’d turned to watch people go by. She shuddered and averted her eyes, hurrying on and reminding herself that Zach was right behind her and Dan might already be in the reading room.
The reading room door was open.
She was glad to see that books she’d been reading yesterday were still lying on the table, so it would be easy to show Zach what she had found. She wandered over to the bookshelf, looking for something similar to the spell book Adam had been reading. As she searched the titles, she gasped.
Her heartbeat quickening, she pulled out the guide to local funerary art.
Her phone started to ring, and as she fumbled in her bag to retrieve it, she heard a sound behind her, turned…and gasped.
The wax figure of Andrew Cunningham hadn’t just turned, it had come to life.
It was standing right there behind her, but with a face she knew.
She opened her mouth to scream, but she was too late.
Before she had a chance to make a sound, Cunningham slammed her in the head with the butt of an eighteenth-century hunting rifle.
She fell to the floor, a stygian darkness closing in.
Rowenna hadn’t answered her phone. Just as Jeremy was about to call Zach, his phone started ringing. Brad.
“Brad, what is it? And hurry. I have to reach my brother.”
“You’re not going to believe this, but I found a woman in Memphis who not only saw who Dinah Green was talking to in the bar, but who she was with outside it that night,” Brad said.
“Who?”
“Adam and Eve Llewellyn, Eric Rolfe, Dan Mie and Dr. MacElroy.”
Jeremy’s heart tightened in his chest. Five people.
Adam was in custody. Eve and Eric were right there with him, staring at him anxiously.
That left two people.
“Good work, Brad. I’ll call you back as soon as I can. I have to reach Zach.”
He hung up without another word and was about to dial Zach, but his phone rang again. His brother had beaten him to the punch.
“Zach, where are you?”
“The History Museum. Listen, Joe just called me—your number went to voice mail. Long story, but Brisbin’s scrubland belongs to Ginny MacElroy.”
“Ginny?” Jeremy said, stunned. That meant Nick MacElroy had access to it, as well. And he was local. He was bound to know the history of the place.
The house had been burned to the ground.
But houses had basements.
“Zach, we’ve got to get out there. Where are you now?”
“Outside in front of the History Museum. Where are you?”
“Around the corner. I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll go in and get Rowenna,” Zach said.
Eric and Eve were staring at him as he hung up. “I need to go meet my brother and Rowenna,” Jeremy said. “Rowenna…she’s the harvest queen. We thought he had seven—the five he’d already killed, Mary Johnstone…and you, Eve.”
“Oh, my God…” Eve breathed.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “But it’s Rowenna he wants for his finale. The harvest queen.”
“So who owns the property?”
“Ginny MacElroy.”
“Ginny? You think Ginny did it?” Eric looked ready to laugh at the ludicrousness of the idea.
“No. I think it’s the doctor,” Jeremy said.
“No, it can’t be,” Eric protested.
“Why not?”
“I told you, the eyes…I saw Damien. And it wasn’t Dr. MacElroy. MacElroy is too old. I know it wasn’t him.”
Eve gasped. “It’s Dan,” she breathed. “Dan Mie.”
“Dan Mie,” Jeremy repeated, scrambling the letters in his mind to form the name Damien.
“Oh, God,” he said.
“I’ve got to get out to the old Brisbin property. You two, stay here. Eric, call Joe and tell him Eve’s okay, and that the old Brisbin property is connected to this somehow.”
His phone rang again. Zach.
“Zach, what? I’m on my way.”
“It’s Rowenna. She’s gone. I don’t know how—no one used the emergency exit, and the girl at the desk swears there’s only one other way in and out, but she’s gone. The police are on their way, but you’ve got to get the hell over here now!”
The blackness began to recede, and she thought she heard people talking. She looked up and saw the late autumn sky, a soft gray-blue punctuated with clouds, and she could feel the gentle touch of the breeze.
She was lying on something soft and yet firm, redolent of growing things.