The Third Grave Read online

  “I guess.” He turned to look at her and she had a flash of memory from her own youth. He was much younger, a tall, cocky youth who knew he was handsome, athletic and rich. She remembered him playing football on the backyard behind the house with her brother Andrew and a couple of other boys, Jacob Channing and Bronco Cravens. All shirtless and sweating, muscles gleaming as they ran over the grass of the terraced lawn. They were all connected by this piece of property with its shadowy history.

  Now, Tyson, heavier and harder-edged than the boy she remembered, was nodding, his eyebrows knitting. “Yeah. Mom, she’d wanted to move for years, ever since we lost Nell, but Dad and Nana, they didn’t want to leave. Eventually, Mom convinced Dad and so we did.” He lifted a shoulder. “Like I said, Nana stayed on. Wouldn’t budge. Until she absolutely had to.” He eyed her quizzically, his arms folding over his chest.

  “I never met Nell,” she said.

  “She died a long time ago.” His countenance changed, growing more solemn.

  “You were there?” Nikki asked. “The day she drowned.”

  He closed his eyes for a second and sighed through his nose. “Yeah, not a good day. Jacob and I were swimming in the river. She saw us and followed. But she didn’t know how to swim, and we were into what we were doing, jumping off this log into the river, we didn’t see. Didn’t even know it until it was too late. We tried to save her, but—” He lifted the hat from his head and rubbed his scalp. “Not something I like to think about.”

  “You were swimming with Jacob? Jacob Channing?”

  “Yeah, we were neighbors. Hung out a lot in the summer. Just had to be careful, sometimes a gator is up here, but that day—?” He squinted and looked up at the sky. “That day the gators weren’t the problem. Look, I don’t even know why we’re talking about this. It was a really tough time. Especially for my mom. It’s one of the main reasons we moved.”

  He looked as if he was about to end the impromptu interview. Nikki said quickly, “You dated Ashley McDonnell in high school, didn’t you?”

  “What?” He appeared surprised. “Where did that come from?”

  “She said so and I’m just confirming. She’s Owen Duval’s alibi.”

  “I heard.” He shrugged. “I dated a lot of girls back then. Ashley was one of them. And for the record, she dated around a lot, too. If you could call it that.”

  “What would you call it?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “These days I think they refer to it as ‘hooking up.’ And she was always with Owen. Not necessarily a sexual thing, I think. Even back then when everything was, but she and Owen—it was weird if you ask me. But what does this have to do with anything? Who I dated? Who she dated? Geez, that was a lifetime ago.” He picked up his toolbox, snapped it closed and loaded it into the back of his vehicle. “So what’s with all of the questions?”

  “Just for the story.”

  “About the Duval sisters?” he asked, but before she could answer his cell phone rang and he yanked it from his pocket. “I gotta take this,” and he answered the phone, effectively ending the interview. “Tyson Beaumont,” he said, slamming the back door of his SUV shut, then getting into the driver’s seat and turning on the ignition.

  She got the message.

  And she knew that if she wanted to go back to the grounds and see the house for herself, she’d have to do it quickly before the new security system was activated. She couldn’t tip off the Beaumonts, or her husband.

  That part bothered her.

  As she drove toward Savannah, past the open fields and into the city, slowing with traffic, she thought about what Tyson had told her, about the timeline of his family living at the estate; something about it nagged at her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  Before heading home, she stopped at Wilda’s Ribs for takeout, her stomach growling at the spicy scent of barbecue sauce filling the interior of the SUV. She pulled into the garage and cut the engine. As she reached for the door handle and was about to pick up the white sack on the passenger seat, her phone rang. She recognized the number, so she picked up. Andrea Clancy, one of Holly Duval’s friends from junior high, was returning her call. “Hello.”

  “Nikki? Nikki Gillette? You called me?” a woman inquired. She was speaking loudly over a cacophony of background noise and breathing hard, as if she were moving fast. “It’s Andrea Clancy and I’m at the airport, here in Cincy.”

  “That’s right, Andrea. I did call you. Thanks for calling back.” Nikki remained behind the wheel of her Honda, unwilling to take a chance that the wireless connection might fail if she moved from her spot in the garage. “I’m a reporter with the Sentinel.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know that. Look, what is it you want to know? I’m on my way to Seattle for a conference and I’ve got a tight connection.”

  “I’m calling about Holly Duval.”

  “I figured. I saw online that they found her body. And her sister’s. I . . . I just can’t believe it. I mean, I knew everyone kind of assumed that they might not be alive but . . .” Her voice faded for a second.

  Nikki heard the roar of a jet engine and a woman’s muffled voice instructing passengers about boarding. “Anyone with small children or needing assistance please . . .”

  “I’m just having trouble processing it. That she’s actually dead. Murdered! Dear God. I just hoped there would be a different ending,” Andrea said a little breathlessly. “Look, the connection’s kind of crappy here. I just got through security and am heading to my gate—oh, excuse me—Sorry. Nearly ran down a woman with a stroller. God, I’m late.”

  “But you two were close?” Nikki pressed on for fear the connection would be lost. “You and Holly?”

  “BFFs as they would say today. But that was in junior high school, of course, because . . . well, you know she didn’t get to go on. Didn’t get the chance. It was sad, so sad, all of it.” She was still walking it seemed, bits of conversation playing in the background, a crying baby audible. “But then Holly hadn’t been happy in a long time. No one in the family was. Still, this is bad. I mean, murder? Really? Scary stuff.”

  “No one was happy?” Nikki asked.

  “I don’t think so. Not according to Holly. She always thought her parents were on the verge of divorce, you know.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it was always tense there. She said her mom and dad were never all that happy and things just got worse.”

  But the parents had stuck together for a while, after their daughters had disappeared.

  “I thought that Harvey and Margaret split because of the pain of the girls going missing.”

  “Well, that didn’t help, I’m sure, but according to Holly there had been trouble all along, well, at least in the last few years. Her mom and dad were always fighting.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know . . . Maybe it was money . . . or her job.”

  “Hers? Margaret’s?”

  “Yeah, I think. She was a private nurse or something after she got fired from the hospital or . . . Oh, wait . . . Crap . . . this isn’t the right gate! Oh . . . never mind. Next one over. But . . . damn . . . I think they’re calling my flight.” She hesitated and for a few seconds Nikki heard the noise of the airport crackling over the line. Then Andrea was back. “Look, I’ve got to run.”

  Nikki didn’t want to lose her. “So you think Holly’s parents weren’t getting along?”

  “I don’t know. Not really, but I’ve thought about it, of course. Holly had just complained about it, mentioned that things had gotten tense at the house around the time her mom switched jobs and there were all sorts of other things. Owen, he was getting into trouble—teenage boy stuff like a minor in possession, y’know, getting caught drinking by the cops. Maybe even getting high. I don’t really know. And then there were financial issues, always. I know because Holly couldn’t afford new clothes or CDs or jewelry, whatever we were into at the time. I think—and I don’t know this—but I
think she was shoplifting. Wouldn’t buy like a pair of earrings when we went shopping, then ended up with the same pair a week later and swore it was a ‘gift’ from some aunt I’d never heard of. But don’t quote me on that, cuz I’m not sure. I wouldn’t want to disparage the dead, or whatever it’s called.”

  She was talking fast and on the move again, it seemed. “I really can’t remember all the details, even if I knew them. But, come on, they had four kids. That’s gotta be rough. And expensive—oops! Look, I gotta go. Really. We’re boarding and I have to use my phone to get on the plane and I don’t really know anything else anyway.” She clicked off, leaving Nikki to stare out the windshield to the workbench beyond the hood of her car and think about the Duval family. So there was some trouble at home. So finances were tight. Those were normal problems, not unique to the Duvals. But what about Margaret’s job? And why had she been fired from the hospital?

  What could tension between mother and father have to do with their children being somehow kidnapped, and ultimately murdered, their bodies hidden in the crumbling basement of the Beaumont mansion?

  She thought about it all.

  Three girls missing; two bodies found. What had happened to Rose, the youngest? She listened as the car engine ticked, cooling.

  Her phone buzzed in her hand.

  A text from Reed: Working late. Don’t wait dinner on me.

  “Great.” She tossed her phone into her purse and felt a well of disappointment. She wanted to call him. Talk things out. Bring out into the open the rift that seemed to be widening between them. Things had been tense for the last couple of days, really tense, and it was getting to her. She was a big believer in working through problems, acknowledging them and getting everything out in the open—well, for the most part. If she were being honest, she sometimes held back a little and was working on becoming more forthcoming. Reed, though, was more introspective, held things in, waited for just the right moment, or so he thought, but then she was rash, she knew it and owned it, and he was more methodical and careful. So their arguments tended to be one-sided and more than once she’d accused him of “holding back” or “not coming clean” or “being silently judgmental.”

  But she did feel more than a little bit of guilt. Hadn’t she just been at the Beaumont estate, essentially going behind his back? “Crap,” she muttered. What a mess.

  She didn’t doubt he was working, not for a second, because this was his MO when he was on a big case, but she also knew he was avoiding coming home, giving them both some space, some time to cool off.

  If that were possible.

  The phone rang and she expected to see Reed’s number, but it was another anonymous set of digits. She wouldn’t have answered, but she had several calls out to numbers she didn’t have memorized, people who had known the Duval family. “Hello?”

  “Nikki Gillette?” a female voice asked and before she could confirm, went on, “Hi, this is Sherry Culver, we’ve met before. I’m with the Charleston Star, working on an article about the Duval homicides, and I’d like to ask you a few questions. You were there when the bodies were found on the Beaumont estate outside of Savannah, right?”

  Nikki was stunned. “I can’t talk about—”

  “Yes, yes, I know you’re married to the lead investigator, but since you’re part of the press, I thought you’d be able to give me a little more information. You were injured, I know, and a police officer unfortunately died that day while trying to save you, right?”

  “I said I have no comment.” Nikki was starting to get steamed and realized how it felt to be on the receiving end of an interview by a pushy reporter.

  “Listen, Nikki, this can be on the down low. You know how it works, I quote ‘a source close to the investigation’ and no one’s the wiser that you gave me the information.”

  “No, really, I can’t.”

  “Hey, from one woman reporter to another? We all need a break here. We’re all in this together, you know—”

  “From one reporter to another?” Nikki repeated. “Right. Well, my answer is still ‘No comment! ’ ”

  Flustered, she clicked off. Juggling her laptop bag and the takeout sack, she was irritated and a little humiliated. How many times had she been on the other end of that particular conversation, trying to persuade information from an unwilling source? She was still silently going over the conversation in her mind, trying to figure out how she could have handled the call as she unlocked the door and let herself into the house.

  I always knew the press would be involved, that I would have to tread carefully, as if I were stepping through a nest of vipers, but I didn’t expect anyone like that damned muleheaded Nikki Gillette. I hadn’t anticipated I’d have to deal with the likes of her, as well as all the others, when it happened. Somehow, I’ll have to remove her from the situation, but that will be tricky since she’s married to Detective Pierce Reed. He’s enough of a problem, but I can handle him. It’s his brash, ultra-curious wife who is the real stumbling block, the serious threat. That said, I’m more than up to the challenge. Bring it on!

  CHAPTER 15

  Nikki’s dog and cat greeted her enthusiastically, Mikado spinning in sharp circles, his tail wagging crazily, while Jennings, a little less wild, wound figure eights between her legs. She took the time to put her things down and pick up the tabby, nuzzling his face while he purred, then paying attention to Mikado, bending down and getting her face washed. “I missed you, too,” she told them, and tried to ignore Mikado’s eager eyes as he stared at the white bag, his nose in the air sniffing. “Not this time, bud,” she said.

  Instead, she fed both dog and cat their usual meals, Mikado scarfing up his kibble from his bowl set next to his crate in the laundry room, Jennings picking at his similar meal placed on the counter and out of the dog’s reach. Jennings flicked his striped tail in disgust.

  “Sorry. It’s what the vet ordered,” Nikki explained. Jennings, though he could still hop onto the washer and dryer and displayed more than a spark of interest in the birds who bathed in the fountain in the backyard, was aging, showing a few bones, his appetite fading. She stroked his head gently and he purred a bit before finally settling down to his meal. “There you go.” The cat had been with her since college, a friend and confidant all of her adult life, longer than she’d known Reed.

  Back in the kitchen she snapped on the small television on the counter, found a news station and while she was portioning out some of the ribs, cornbread and slaw onto a plate, she kept one eye on the screen, listening through the weather report—More sunshine on the way!, an update on the city’s cleanup efforts, and Good news! Saint Andrews School would open on schedule, though PE classes would have to be relegated to outdoor activities due to damage to the gym—until the solemn-faced reporter turned to the Duval case. Thirtyish and blonde, with big brown eyes, white teeth and flawless skin, she stared into the camera and reported that two of the missing Duval girls had been located, their bodies discovered in the basement of the Beaumont mansion.

  A montage of pictures of the Beaumont estate ensued as the anchor described how the bodies were located by an anonymous tip to the police department. No mention of Bronco Cravens. Yet. Surely his name would come up. Nikki ate as she watched. Most of the information in the report Nikki already knew firsthand and steeled herself for the inevitable that came within minutes. She watched as old film of the Beaumont estate rolled onto the screen, the huge house, rose garden and terraced lawns, Beulah Beaumont with her son, Baxter, as a young man, and his daughter, Nell. There was mention of tragedy being associated with the place and then pictures from a few days ago of the gates guarding the grounds with police cruisers’ lights flashing. Also included were the same pictures of the Duval girls that had been circulating for years, individual school pictures that showed blond, blue-eyed Holly staring into the camera with a shy smile and a similar shot of Poppy, her light hair pulled back in a ponytail, her teeth not quite straight and a little large for her face. Then
there were a few seconds of the three girls caught on film, in front of a brightly lit Christmas tree, little Rose, at five still a towhead, her white-blond hair in wild ringlets, her face still baby chubby, her smile infectious.

  Nikki’s heart broke for the family all over again as the screen changed to show a picture of Detective Sylvie Morrisette and the reporter, off camera, explaining that she’d died in the line of duty while trying to rescue Nikki Gillette, a reporter for the Savannah Sentinel and local true-crime author. “Oh, no,” she mouthed.

  The story only got worse as the anchor mentioned that Nikki was married to Detective Pierce Reed, lead investigator on the case who had been partnered with Morrisette. Mention was made that the funeral for the fallen policewoman was slated for early next week.

  “Crap.” Nikki dropped her half-eaten rib onto her plate as the screen switched and Abbey Marlow, in full uniform, her red hair pulled back from her face, gave a quick update to the press about the case, mentioning that the police were looking for the third Duval girl in this so-far double homicide. Abbey was succinct and short, not offering up any more information and asking for the public’s help in finding the missing daughter, now twenty-five. A computer-generated image of what Rose Duval might look like came onto the screen, along with the number of the police department.

  Nikki found herself staring at the flat image of a pretty woman with high cheekbones, light hair and blue eyes, a small scar near her hairline at her left temple.

  For half a beat, she thought she recognized the woman on the screen but couldn’t place her. A second image of the woman in profile appeared, and Nikki decided she was wrong, grasping at straws, hoping beyond hope that little Rose Duval had somehow survived.

  She finished what was left of her meal, then stuffed Reed’s portion, still in the takeout bag from Wilda’s Ribs, into the refrigerator. Her shoulder was starting to bother her as she climbed up to the third floor and settled into her chair at her computer where she wrote notes about the case. She had more people to interview and would like to look into the history of the Beaumont estate. Why had the killer chosen that location? What had happened to Rose? And what about the Duval family finances, the rumors of the parents splitting up? What about all the bad karma Chandra claimed to have felt about the family?