As Kelly gave herself to the haunting strains that seemed to come out of nowhere, she felt a pang of fear.
What if she wasn’t strong enough?
What if she couldn’t find the will within herself to do whatever it was that Michael had done?
But she put the thoughts aside.
She would do whatever was necessary, if it would free her from the awful terror of her nightmares, and from the chilling emptiness that had always yawned within her, threatening to swallow her up as if she’d never existed at all.
28
Craig and Barbara Sheffield sat in the car, staring at the peaceful facade of the small white colonial building with green shutters that housed the Villejeune mortuary, neither of them willing to go inside, neither of them ready to face what they might find there. But at last Craig sighed, opened the door, and got out. A moment later Barbara joined him on the sidewalk. Craig gave her an encouraging squeeze. “Ready?”
Saying nothing, Barbara pulled open the front door and stepped into the unnatural hush of the funeral home’s foyer. Ahead and to the left was the viewing room in which Jenny had lain only a few days ago. It was empty now, its door standing open. To the right, across from the viewing room, was a small office, and as Craig and Barbara stepped inside, Fred Childress looked up, his eyes clouding as he recognized them and saw the strained look on Barbara’s face.
“Barbara? Craig? Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” Craig replied coldly. “Something is very wrong. I want the keys to our mausoleum, Fred.”
The undertaker’s eyes widened in shock. “The maus—”
“My mausoleum. The one where my children were buried. If they were buried at all!”
Fred Childress rose to his feet, his expression indignant. “I don’t know what you’re implying, Craig—” he began, but once again Craig cut him off.
“Get me the keys, Fred,” he said. “If you don’t, I’m going to break into the crypt without them, and if I find what I think I’m going to find, you’re going to be spending a very long time in jail.”
Childress’s mind reeled. It wasn’t possible — this wasn’t supposed to happen! “Craig, you know I can’t open a crypt without a court order—” he began, stalling for time, trying to straighten out the confusion that muddled his mind.
“I don’t have time, Fred,” Craig grated. “Now make up your mind! Do you want to give me those keys, or shall I break in?”
Childress’s jaw worked for a moment, but suddenly he found an answer.
Give them the keys!
Let them open the tombs, and then deny anything they might suggest. Surely, if he cooperated with them, they couldn’t blame him for what they found!
Quickly, he disappeared from the office, returning a moment later with a heavy ring of keys in his hand. “This is most unusual, Craig,” he insisted. “According to the law—”
“I know the law,” Craig said, taking the keys from the undertaker’s hand. “Come on, Barbara.”
Wheeling, he strode out of the office.
As soon as he was gone, Fred Childress picked up the phone and began searching for Warren Phillips.
• • •
Barbara stood rigidly in front of the mausoleum, not really seeing the stained limestone with its ornate facade. Indeed, as she waited while Craig searched for the right key, she barely saw the tomb at all. Suddenly she felt consumed by doubts. Did she really want to know?
If the coffin was empty, what would it mean?
Not only for her, but for Kelly, too. If Warren Phillips had taken her the moment she was born, and given her to the Andersons a week later, what would it mean?
What had been done to her during that week?
And now, sixteen years later, what could be done about it?
Though the afternoon was hot, Barbara felt herself shiver. For a moment she was almost tempted to tell Craig she’d changed her mind, to tell him to stop before it was too late. But before she could speak, she heard his voice.
“I have it,” he said softly.
Her eyes suddenly focused, and she saw the large key that he’d inserted in the bronze door of the crypt. His hand was still on it, but he was looking at her as if he understood the doubts that were suddenly assailing her. “Are you sure?” he asked one more time.
Barbara braced herself, then nodded. Craig turned the key in the lock. It stuck for a moment, then she heard the bolt slide back.
Craig pulled the heavy door open, the hinges screeching in sharp protest at the intrusion. For the first time in sixteen years, sunlight struck the small mahogany casket in which Sharon’s tiny body had been interred.
The wood had lost its luster over the years, and as Craig pulled the casket out of the tomb and set it carefully on the ground, an awful sadness came over Barbara.
There was something about the coffin, after its years in the mausoleum, that struck her as even more final than death itself.
As Craig began to lift the lid, Barbara turned away, unable to look at whatever might be inside. Only when Craig groaned softly did she finally force herself to look.
What she saw bore no resemblance to anything human.
Instead, lying on the yellowed and rotting satin with which the coffin was lined, was the desiccated body of an alley cat.
There was little left of it — a few fragments of skin, long ago hardened into leather, and the bones, laid out with a macabre naturalness. It was as if the creature had died in its sleep, one skeletal paw folded beneath its jaw, its tail curled up its side.
The empty sockets of its eyes seemed to stare reproachfully up at her.
Barbara’s stomach twisted, and she quickly looked away. “Put it back,” she whispered. “For God’s sake, put it back.”
Craig lifted the coffin back into the tomb and closed the door, relocking it as if it had never been disturbed at all.
Then, his own heart beating hard now, he began testing keys in Jenny’s crypt. A moment later he found the right one, but this time it twisted easily in the lock, and when the door swung open, there was no screech of protest from the recently oiled hinges.
He stared at the end of his youngest daughter’s coffin, putting off as long as he could the moment when he would have to slide it out.
His hands trembled as he grasped the end of the box, but he pulled it out just enough to open the section of its lid that had been closed on Jenny’s face only a few days ago.
He lifted it up and peered inside. Staring into the empty interior of the casket, his mind reeled, threatening to shatter into a thousand broken fragments.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” Barbara whispered, seeing the anguish on her husband’s face. “She’s not there, is she?”
Craig swallowed hard in a futile attempt to dislodge the lump that had risen in his throat. He shook his head, unable to speak.
“Oh, God,” Barbara moaned. “What’s happening, Craig? What did he do to our children?”
Craig dropped the lid and turned away, leaving Jenny’s coffin protruding from the open door of the tomb. Putting his arm around his wife, he led her out of the cemetery.
• • •
Warren Phillips glanced at his watch.
In a few more hours the last batch of thymus extract would be refined, and he would be ready to leave. Once he was gone, there would be no one left to answer the questions Tim Kitteridge would have.
Within a few days Judd Duval would be dead.
So would Orrin Hatfield.
And Fred Childress.
All of them, crumbling into dust as their bodies consumed the youth he had given them.
But he, along with his research and the few vials of the precious fluid he had left, would have simply disappeared, leaving behind him the laboratory in the basement, and the empty nursery.
He almost laughed out loud as he remembered the reassurances he’d given the undertaker when he’d called an hour ago: “Stop worrying, Fred — there’s nothing they can prove! Graves get robbed all the time, and there’s nothing to lead them back to us!”