Roger had stayed in the house since the police had left. He was tired and hungry, but he didn't eat. He didn't feel like doing anything. His body felt empty, used up and worn out.
He missed the girl. Even though he'd had to kill her, and even though he knew she really didn't like him and probably never would, he missed her. Without her there, without her presence, the house felt terribly empty and sad. It reminded him of the days after his mother died, days when he and his dad stumbled from room to room, not speaking, avoiding each other's eyes. They didn't know what to do to keep the place going. They ate soup from cans and cried in front of the television.
That's how Roger felt now, except worse.
Back then, he at least had his dad. And eventually he had a wife. Now, he had nothing to look forward to. He wouldn't be able to take another wife, and the police might very well come back. He had covered up everything for now. He had cleaned the blood and brains and bits of skull from the bedroom. He had managed to slap on two coats of paint to hide the evidence. But he didn't think it would last. They'd find the cop's truck and they'd find his prints on it and they'd come back. Most definitely, they'd come back.
He sat in the house, in the dark, like a scared little kid.
But after a while, the clearing started talking to him.
He felt the stirring of his member. His mouth went dry.
Someone was there, it told him. Someone was in the clearing.
CHAPTER FORTY
Ludwig told Berding to stop his car on Connors Bend Road near its intersection with County Road 600. He couldn't be certain about the location since it was now dark and every acre of the landscape out there looked like every other acre. But he felt reasonably certain. He thought he recognized the contour of the fields, the distance to the trees.
"Here?" Berding said.
"I think so."
"You think or you know?"
"This is it," Ludwig said, trying to sound brave and certain. How else could he convince a cop of anything?
"So we just get out and walk?"
"There's no road through the woods."
They both stepped out of the car. Ludwig had brought a heavier coat, and he zipped it up. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"Just stay close to me," Berding said. "We're trespassing, and if we get caught, it's not going to look good for either one of us. I'm technically out of my jurisdiction."
"Worse for you than me, I'd imagine. I'll let you do the talking."
Berding nodded. "If there's any shooting, stay behind me. Okay?"
"You don't have to tell me twice about that."
"Okay. Let's go."
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Diana raised her head and looked around. Tears blurred her vision. She wiped them away with the palms of her hands.
When she could see again, she looked around the clearing. She saw two areas of disturbed earth close to her. One of them looked freshly dug.
Graves.
"Rachel."
Diana went to the closest one, the freshest one, and sank her hands into the rich earth. She started digging. The ground gave way easily, just as it had in her visions. She moved great handfuls with ease.
"Rachel. I'm sorry. My sweet, baby sister, I'm so sorry. I'm coming for you. I'm coming. I didn't give up on you. I didn't give up."
Diana worked through the top layer of soil. She touched something that wasn't dirt or rock or root. Something fabric. She dug with more urgency, taking great scoopfuls of soil in the crooks of her arms and shoveling it aside as fast as it would go. Dirt covered her to her shoulders and began to adhere to her sweating face. But she kept going.
Soon, a portion of the body was revealed. Diana kept digging, exposing more. She saw the legs, the torso. The hands of a young woman.
"No, no."
Diana moved to the far end of the grave and worked to expose the face. She first saw the neck and the bloody gash, the apparent cause of the woman's death. She worked more and the face came clear, like a slow-to-develop Polaroid.
It wasn't Rachel, but the face of another young woman. The dark and the dirt made it difficult to see. Diana studied the features, the long brown hair, the nearly perfect nose. She'd seen the face before.
Then it clicked.
Jacqueline Foley, the missing Fields' student.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Roger stormed down the path in the dark. It felt as though an invisible rope had been tied around his waist, and something in the clearing was tugging it, supplying an increasing amount of tension that dragged him in that direction. He couldn't have stopped if he wanted to, and he didn't want to. He wanted to see who was there.
When he first reached the clearing, he didn't see anything or anybody, and he thought maybe he'd been wrong. But the clearing had never been wrong.
Something scuttled in the dirt. Roger looked down, thinking it was an animal.
It was a girl, a girl digging up the graves.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE