...she saw the Donahue house again, and then she saw behind it. A garage, a storage shed, and farther along, a stand of trees. She saw an opening there, a path...
She knew it led to the clearing...
*
She didn't know how long she'd been out. The sky looked darker, and the moon was peeking above the tree line, a fat rising disc accompanied by a speckling of stars. Diana lay in the grass, her joints aching. She felt cold, her body jolted by shivers.
She looked around. The house—the real house and not a vision—stood there, still dark. She hugged her arms around herself. She thought of the heat blasting in her car, the ticking of the radiator in her apartment. No one had seen her, no one knew where she was. She could turn and go, start the new life she needed.
Because that had worked so well before.
These things kept following her. Better to be the one in control, take the fight to it rather than being the one always pursued.
She pushed herself to her feet and kept walking.
Behind the house, she saw the garage just as it appeared in the vision. Beyond that, the trees and the entrance to the path. Her heart pounded. She looked back at the house. It remained quiet and dark. She turned to the path, took a deep breath, and entered it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
That night, Nate Ludwig didn't have to wait as long to see Captain Berding as he had the first day. He gave his name at the front desk, this time to a different officer who seemed less efficient and more world-weary than the last, and within two minutes he was being escorted back to the captain's office where Berding waited for him. Berding looked tense. His jaw was clenched, and his body appeared ready to uncoil and leap across the desk. Ludwig understood. He had spent the afternoon in a mindless faculty senate meeting and then was detained by his department chair who wanted to talk about the composition of a search committee to hire a new Shakespeare scholar. Ludwig went through the motions of his day, but inside he wanted to scream.
"Close the door," Berding said.
Ludwig did, but before he could sit down, Berding spoke.
"I know you're disappointed in the search," he said.
"I am. Surprised, too."
"I feel the same way. I was just about to call you."
"You were?"
Berding nodded. He clenched and unclenched the fist that rested on his desk.
"Are you free right now?" Berding said.
"Right now, this is all I have in my life."
Berding stood up and grabbed his hat.
"Good. I want you to take me to that grave."
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Diana moved through the darkened woods. Her eyes slowly adjusted, but she still only saw indistinct shapes and fuzzy outlines. She kept her eyes down, watching the path, fearing that if she lost sight of it she might never find her way back out.
I should have brought a flashlight. Why did I bring everything but a flashlight?
Something told her it didn't matter. She'd find the place she was looking for whether she could see it with her eyes or not. Something would guide her there, draw her like a magnet to steel. And that's what she felt as she moved through the woods. She no longer controlled her own destiny, and she hadn't for many months, maybe even years. She looked back over a series of events and saw how they all lined up to guide her to this place, this moment. Leaving home. Institutionalizing her mother. Coming to New Cambridge. Joining and leaving the force. Meeting Dan. And then Kay Todd.
It had to be leading her to Rachel. There could be no other answer.
The night had grown silent around her. The wind was still, the branches above and around her frozen in place. Her foot landed on a small branch, and its crack in the darkness sounded like a cannon burst. Diana's heart rate remained steady, her breathing calm. She had accepted this as her fate, as the place she needed to be, and her acceptance brought her a measure of peace. Here at last something would be decided. One way or another, she'd know something. Either these visions meant something and led to something greater, or it was a giant cosmic joke, one that she could laugh about all the way to the second floor room she'd soon be sharing with her mother.
But Diana doubted it was a joke.
Ahead, she saw a break in the trees. She hesitated.
It suddenly seemed familiar to Diana, as though she had been to this place and seen it before. The images flooded back. The clearing in the woods...the tall trees...the moonlit night...the dark, rich earth and the secrets it held... She had been here in her visions.
She rushed forward to the edge of the clearing, pausing at the trees and rocks that lined its edge, creating a natural barrier from the rest of the woods.
"This is it," she said. "This is it."
She fell to her knees, crying.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE