Chapter One
A cemetery hadn’t been part of the plan.
Even though it was the middle of the night, warm sticky air clung to Smiley’s face—the only bit of his skin exposed. He wore a large hoodie, black jeans, and a skull cap. Despite the warm air and his heavier clothes, he shivered.
The dead surrounded them.
Smiley would swear the bodies were only holding their breath, though. The energy in the air whispered bad omens.
A few feet ahead of him, Slick and Dessie had their heads bent close together. Their voices were hushed, but not in reverence to the buried. Smiley knew some serious shit was going down between them. He tuned his ear to eavesdrop.
“We only get fifty…” Slick shook the dark-green backpack in his hand. He kept the pace through the labyrinth of mausoleums. Slick had never been to Shallow Grove Cemetery, but he moved through the grounds with such authority that Smiley and Dessie followed him without question.
“…not my fault your plan sucked.” Dessie sounded pissed.
Why’s he so bent out of shape? He agreed to the plan. Smiley wanted to punch Dessie in the face for being a greedy bastard. Instead, he tried to focus on his surroundings.
New Orleans had not been a planned stop. Slick had veered this direction when Dessie started bitching about money. They were supposed to be on their way to Florida right now.
Get the ransoms and go.
But only one parent had paid for their kid. So the payment had been cut in half. Now Dessie still wanted full pay.
“Fuck off.” Slick’s voice was full and loud in the early morning air.
Smiley glanced around, waiting for the zombies to open their mausoleum doors and attack them. Or worse, a police patrol. He wanted to shush Slick, but he didn’t dare intervene.
When nothing moved, that felt even worse.
They were near the middle of the cemetery when Slick stopped. In the dark and his distraction of looking around the cemetery at all times, Smiley hadn’t seen his coconspirator pause, and he walked straight into Slick’s back.
Slick grabbed Smiley’s arm to steady him, then patted his hip. “You good?”
Smiley nodded, though “good” was not a feeling he currently felt. Confused. Scared. Wondering how the fuck he’d ended up in the most haunted city in the United States with two assholes fighting about money.
His mother would never understand.
He pushed that thought away. Along with all the guilt it invoked.
“Guys, can we please stick to the plan?” Smiley hated how wimpy his voice sounded.
Dessie was having none of it. “This is where I see myself out. I want my cut, and then you shit birds can do whatever you want.” Smiley couldn’t see Dessie’s features, but he knew the comment was aimed at Slick.
“You can have your cut of what we got.” Slick shook the backpack again, a little more in Dessie’s face this time. “Not a penny more.”
The shadow that was Dessie snorted. “Give me that.”
Next thing Smiley knew, both his partners were fighting for the backpack.
Like some kind of horror movie, the crescent moon broke through the cloud cover. The small mausoleum looked like a prison in the shadows, iron bars blocking every entrance.
A kneeling angel gazed up at Smiley, her hands extended as if begging him to intervene.
The grunting struggle for the backpack had turned into a silent, focused battle. Both Slick and Dessie were bent over the prize.
“Stop.” Smiley found his voice. “We can figure this—”
“Shut up.” The two words were an unequivocal command from Slick.
Then Smiley heard a distinctive click.
A pocketknife opening.
Smiley reached for his pocket. He’d brought his weapon too—just in case. The ivory-handled knife was a gift from his dad, a valuable family heirloom.
But the knife was gone.
It was in Slick’s hand. Open and lethal.
Smiley watched as panic and cold fear pounded in his ears, drowning out Slick’s voice. His legs felt wooden, fingertips numb.
He wanted to intervene, but what could he do?
Dessie—who wore a mask of innocence and didn’t even seem to clock the knife—backed away nonetheless as Slick pressed forward.
It had to be the glint in Slick’s eyes, like the moonlight glinting off the knife’s blade. Except, instead of light, he reflected menace. Evil.
Murder.
And Dessie must’ve sensed it.
The blade blurred as Slick brought it around, and it plunged into Dessie’s body, skewering his liver.
Dessie folded inward from the impact. His face curled in on itself as he looked up.
Suddenly, he appeared far younger. Half his age. A teenager, maybe?
Slick plucked the knife from Dessie’s side.
Blood dripped in a steady rhythm from the tip.
Dessie pressed his hand to the open wound. His gaze moved away from Slick and settled on Smiley. “What the hell is wrong with him? Do something!”
Smiley looked away in shame. I’m not the one who stabbed him, but that was my knife.
Not any longer.
Just like my dad, that knife’s going to leave me to never return.
Dessie took a step back and then another, until he fell back on the angel statue. Her outstretched arms failed to catch him.
Slick turned and shoved Smiley’s shoulder. “Hey.” He snapped his fingers in front of Smiley’s face. “Get your shit together. We need to leave. Now.”
Chapter Two
Special Agent Claire Legacy thumbed her turtle pendant beside the Shallow Grove Cemetery front gates. Her older sister, Bea, gently bounced on the balls of her feet, waiting for the tour guide to invite them in.
Bea had planned this visit as one of their “sister days,” and Claire hadn’t objected to the macabre field trip because any time she could spend with Bea was worth it, and she owed her sister every bit of attention she could provide.
“Hey.” Bea spoke in a low tone, almost a whisper. Reverent. “You okay?”
“Just thinking. We used to visit a lot of cemeteries.”
Bea adjusted her yellow headband around her chin-length brown hair. “You’re right. But I love them.”
“You haven’t gotten tired of them?”
“How could I get tired of cemeteries? They’re spooky. Romantic.”
“Romantic?”
“Like…in a gothic way. They’re filled with mystery. History. And you don’t feel that heaviness? For me, it’s proof that there’s more to this world than meets the eye.” She paused and stared beyond the gates. “You don’t agree?”
Claire didn’t. At least, not entirely.
She never visited her father’s grave because she never felt his presence there. For her, he existed in the cracks of life. In the small, quiet moments. At Christmas, when all the houses glowed and the cool air bit into her. She could almost feel his warmth, imagine how his arms would’ve felt as he held her to his chest and read her a bedtime story.
All the things most children could remember about their fathers, Claire could only wish for.
His soul didn’t rest here any more than any of the other people in Shallow Grove.
But I can’t actually say that. Bea will want to go somewhere else to appease me.
Before Claire could stitch together a convincing response, a man in his mid-forties positioned himself in the center of the other half dozen people present for the cemetery tour.
He clapped his hands together and slipped on a well-worn smile as he adjusted a straw hat on his head. “Ladies,” for only women composed that half circle of tourists, “I’m your guide this morning. Elias. You can call me Eli, or El, or Kal-El.” He winked at a woman wearing a Superman shirt. “But, please, don’t ever call me after quitting time.”
The other women, all well over the age of sixty by Claire’s estimate, chuckled at the joke.
Elias made a performative gesture at the cemetery filled with above-ground vaults. “Welcome to Shallow Grove Cemetery. Before we begin, do you have any questions?”
A woman with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a diamond ring big enough to make a princess jealous, raised her hand.
“The beautiful young lady in the front row.” Elias pointed at her. “What’s your name?”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Flattery will get you nowhere, young man, but I don’t mind you trying. My name is Toni-Anne.”
“Fair enough, Toni-Anne. What’s your question?”
“What are all the above-ground slabs?”
“Beautiful and observant. That is an excellent question, one I’ll answer very soon.” Elias winked at the group. “Now, if you will follow me.” He turned and led them down the main path.
Claire bumped Bea with her elbow and whispered, “He’s cute. Don’t you think?”
“What?” She curled a strand of hair around her finger. “No.”
“And he’s funny. You should ask him out.”
“Ew.” Bea only acted disgusted when she found someone attractive. Otherwise, she never had a negative thing to say about anyone.
“I don’t see a ring on his finger…”
Laughter bubbled out of Bea. “Me either.”
“Now.” Elias spun around to face the six women. He walked backward. “Shallow Grove can’t boast about having fancy mausoleums like other New Orleans cemeteries. We also don’t have any famous musicians or voodoo witches buried here.” He stopped before a vault and fit a mischievous smile onto his face. “But as the lovely Toni-Anne noticed, we do have these.”
The women crowded around Elias.
Claire, towering over the group—all the women seemed to stand under five-five—stayed in the back, her view unimpeded as their guide continued his schtick.
“We have raised graves here, and not for the fashion of it. If you dug a six-foot hole where I’m standing, you’d not only drop me into the ground.” He laughed, then stole a deep breath. “You’d also hit swampy water.”
A murmuring buzzed among the women.
Bea raised an eyebrow at Claire. “Interesting. You can’t deny that.”
“Okay. You’re right. This is interesting.” Claire knew firsthand how swampy the land got just a few feet underground, but she didn’t want to share those darker adventures with Bea.
Eli waved his arms around to indicate the cemetery grounds. “Before we delve into the tour, feel free to explore the grounds. Say…fifteen minutes? Collect as many questions as you can, and we’ll meet back here to continue with some more deadly education.”
Toni-Anne and another woman wandered farther up the main path, turning a corner toward the center of the cemetery.
The other two women split off as a pair, chatting as they walked.
Claire and Bea stayed nearby, veering to a vault with a simple, weather-softened tombstone at the head. Hairline cracks webbed across the mossy stone surface. Despite the wear and tear, the epitaph remained legible.
Brigid Kelly, 1841-1899.
Bea adjusted her headband again. “That wasn’t too old.”
“Only fifty-eight.”
“How do you think she died?”
Claire considered the question. She preferred to work with evidence rather than imagination. Bea had always operated as her opposite in that arena. So for her sister, Claire exercised the creative side of her brain and considered the options. “Well, she died in 1899. In New Orleans. Maybe yellow fever.”
“That’s not what I mean. Like…how did she die?”
“You just asked the same question, emphasizing the word ‘how.’”
“Exactly. Like,” Bea rolled up her sleeves, “Brigid Kelly shot and killed her man when she found him cheating on her. Knowing she’d hang, she ran. Lived her life as a fugitive. She’d enter saloons and see her face on wanted posters. Brigid lived on the run for thirty years before the law finally caught up to her.”
Claire considered the story, but she feared her brain might be too practical for Bea’s liking. “I think typhoid caused a lot of—”
A high-pitched scream from across the cemetery interrupted her sentence.
Claire had heard enough screams in her life to recognize one shrill with terror.
She jerked into action and grabbed Bea’s shoulder. “Stay with me.” Holding on to her sister’s arm, she guided Bea toward the sound of fear. If something dangerous had happened, or was happening, she preferred Bea near her, where she could protect her.
Toni-Anne and her friend came hobbling in Claire’s direction, both screaming.
Claire stepped in their path and reinforced her voice with authority. “Ladies, Special Agent Legacy, FBI.” She held out her badge. “What happened?”
“There’s a body.” Toni-Anne pointed in the direction they’d come from. “I just thought he was drunk and passed out.”
“Where?”
Toni-Anne pointed behind her and shook her head. “I thought he was drunk. Cold and sleeping. But…he had blood on him. And he didn’t move. He wasn’t…breathing.”
Claire didn’t like the idea of leaving her sister behind, but she needed to protect Bea from yet another murder scene.
Two in the past six months is plenty.
“Bea, stay here with Toni-Anne and…?” Claire looked at the other woman.
“Ginger.”
“Ginger. I’m going to check this out.”
To Bea’s credit, she didn’t cower or tremble. She seemed to stand taller than her five feet as she looked directly at Toni-Anne and Ginger. “My sister is the smartest, bravest, most badass FBI agent. She’ll take care of us.”
Hopefully. Claire pulled out her phone and had an emergency number cued and ready to go as she ascended the slight slope and rounded a sharp corner.
A mausoleum loomed in the center of the cemetery. The structure stood a few inches taller than Claire, its stucco walls pale from decades of rain and heat. A door fashioned from black iron arched at the front. To the side of the door knelt a stone angel, her marble arms outstretched, her face smooth and featureless.
The statue reached toward a still, unmoving figure.
Claire squatted beside the body for a closer inspection. She avoided touching him but leaned over to examine his face. A fly crawled over the scruffy, pale cheek of a man in his forties, down toward his purple lips. A cluster of the buzzing insects swarmed around the center of his body, near a dark stain around his abdomen.
The cause of death seemed to be either a stab wound or a bullet. That was all Claire could determine without lifting the man’s clothing. She hadn’t brought gloves with her.
His arms were partially covered by the loose sleeves of his open button-down shirt worn over a t-shirt. On his left forearm, the bottom jawline of a skull was visible, a snaking tongue of fire curling around his wrist.
Standing, her cell phone to her ear, Claire called first responders to the scene.
