“Then what do we do while we wait?”

  “God, I don’t know.” She bowed her head. “I feel so useless. If he’s being held captive somewhere, he’ll be counting on me to find him.” Rescue him.

  Sam’s tanned hand stretched across the table and gently touched hers. “Hey, you’re not alone here.”

  Riley knew that. But Beck might be. Or he’s dead. She had to prepare herself for that moment when everything good in her life ended. When there would be no more Backwoods Boy to harass. No cocky smile, no more kisses. His will left everything to her: his house, his rabbit, his money, but without Beck there to share it none of that would matter.

  The rest of the dinner was quiet, even Sam sensing now was not the time to chatter. When they returned to the motel, Beck’s truck was parked in front of their rooms, a note stuck in the door saying the keys were in the office. Riley checked in with the front desk guy to claim those and an extra room key for Simon.

  As they headed to their separate rooms, her cell phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Miss Blackthorne. This is McGovern at the funeral home. I’m ready on this end so we can hold the service tomorrow morning. That way you don’t have to stay down here any longer than you need. I’m sure your family is eager to have you back home.”

  He’d pushed a don’t go there button.

  “Beck is the closest person I have to family,” she said hotly. Simon leaned in the doorway now, listening in, caught by her sharp tone. “I’m not leaving until I find him. I’m sure his mom can wait a few days.”

  Riley winced at what had just come out of her mouth, but it was true. Sadie was past caring.

  McGovern sighed. “This isn’t like Atlanta, Miss Blackthorne. Not everyone wants Denny found,” he replied. “You’d be best to back off or it could get unpleasant.”

  Was that a warning? “I’m staying, Mr. McGovern. I don’t care what happens. I’ll find him, one way or another.”

  There was a lengthy silence. “Well,” he began, “since Denny’s not here, I’ll need to have you review the arrangements for his mother’s funeral. Can you come by the funeral home tonight? Say about ten?”

  “Tonight?” That seemed odd.

  “I’m busy right now with funeral arrangements for another family. Come in the back door. I’ll have everything ready.”

  I don’t want to do this.

  She gave in. “Okay, I’ll be there.” Anything to get this guy off her case.

  SEVENTEEN

  Despite her misgivings, Riley would have gone to the funeral home on her own, but Simon refused to let that happen.

  “No, I’ll go with you,” he said. “There’s something about this town that makes me nervous.”

  “Like what?” she asked as she cleaned the seats and steering wheel with handwipes. The fingerprinting stuff seemed to be everywhere.

  “I don’t know. It’s just wrong in some way. Or maybe it’s me. I’m not real trusting right now.”

  “I know how that goes.” She pulled out one of the blankets Beck kept in his truck and had Simon spread it over the seat. That was the best they could do until she could find a carwash.

  As they headed into town he fidgeted. That wasn’t his style.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He seemed startled she’d noticed. “Just a lot on my mind.”

  Riley waited him out.

  “I’ve been meeting with a counselor. He thinks I’m suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.”

  “And you think—”

  “It’s more than that. I’m so short tempered. I can go from cool to furious over nothing. Whenever I’m talking to someone, I wonder what their real agenda is.”

  Riley slowed to a crawl behind some guy in a battered Chevy. “I’ve been second-guessing stuff I’ve done.” Like trusting Ori.

  “You mean like agreeing to Heaven’s deal to save my life?” Simon asked.

  That she hadn’t expected. “When I was really, really mad at you, yes. I wondered why I’d bothered. The truth is, I had to do it. You were a nice guy. You deserved to live.”

  “‘Were,’” he said. “Not ‘are’ a nice guy.”

  His depressed tone worried her. “Are you doing okay, I mean, you’re not thinking of . . . ”

  Simon shook his head. “Suicide is a sin and I have enough of those to deal with. I don’t think I’ll ever find peace again, not like I once had.”

  He needed support, not condemnation. “You will, and when you do, it’ll be good again. Hell won’t get a second chance at you.”

  “Maybe. Or perhaps they’ve already won and I don’t know it.”

  Riley parked behind the funeral home, just as McGovern requested. “This guy is driving me nuts,” she said. “He’s making a bigger fuss than he needs to.”

  As they exited the truck, Simon’s cell phone rang. “It’s my mom,” he said, glancing at the dial. “I better take this. She’s really worried about me right now and if I duck the call, she’ll freak.”

  “Say hi to her for me. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  The rear entrance led to the funeral home’s garage where the hearse was parked on one side, its back door open. An empty body bag lay next to it. That’s creepy. Maybe she should have waited until Simon had finished his call so she wasn’t on her own. Stop being a wuss.

  “Hello?”

  When there was no reply, Riley continued on until she entered a hallway. She passed a couple of doors, but those were closed. Funeral homes had always unnerved her, but this one especially. Sometimes it was cool to see behind the curtain, know how things worked. Mortuaries were not included on that list. Some instinct made her stop and turn. McGovern stood behind her in a dimly-lit hallway.

  “Oh, there you are,” she said, trying to relax, but failing.

  “I’m sorry you had to come here, but I had no choice. Especially when the next of kin has committed suicide.”

  That last word hung in the corridor between them. The hair on the back of Riley’s neck rose. How did he know about the note or the phone call? Was it small town gossip or something else?

  Beck had come to see this guy right before he disappeared. An undertaker could haul anyone out of town and no one would notice. They’d just assume it was a corpse.

  This is not a horror movie. Get a grip.

  “I’ve got the paperwork here,” he said, beckoning her closer.

  As he moved into the light she realized he wasn’t holding any papers. Instead, he had a Taser and it was pointed directly at her.

  † ~ ‡ ~ †

  “Hadley,” Donovan said, standing at the side of the man’s hospital bed. “How’s it going?”

  Cole frowned back. His breathing tube had been replaced by an oxygen cannula and his color was better, but he still had more wires and tubes in different parts of his body. It looked as if the loser was going to live, which was perfect for what Donovan had in mind.

  “Who shot you?” he asked.

  “Beck,” he croaked.

  The sheriff leaned over the bed in such a way as to ensure Cole saw his face clearly. It was time to get tough. “You’re talking bullshit. If Beck had shot you, you’d be dead. So, who pulled the trigger? One of the pukes you sell to?”

  No reply.

  “Doesn’t matter. The drugs we found in your pocket are your ticket to prison.”

  “What drugs?” Cole demanded, shocked. “I wasn’t carrying.”

  That sounded like the truth, and opened up a whole new set of possibilities.

  “Oh, but you were. Cocaine. You’re going down, Hadley.”

  “I wasn’t carrying,” he insisted. Then the patient’s eyes widened. “That son of a bitch! He planted those drugs on me.”

  “That sucks,” Donovan said, trying to keep the grin off his face. “Beck doesn’t mess with that kind of stuff, so who set you up?”

  Cole’s face was bright red now and his breathing sped up. “That bastard McGovern.”

  McGovern? He purposely kept his tone mellow. “Why would he do that? Did you stiff him on a deal?”

  “No, I saw him in Beck’s truck the night Denny went missing.”

  “Where?”

  “North, on the highway. He lives up that way. I was—” He halted in self-preservation.

  “Out making a delivery, no doubt,” Donovan guessed. “When was this?”

  “About ten or so.”

  “You tried to blackmail him, didn’t you?”

  Hadley swallowed hard. “We just had a friendly talk,” he muttered.

  “Until he shot you. So where is Denver?”

  “In the swamp. McGovern said it was the perfect burial ground. That whoever goes in there never comes back.”

  Donovan pounded a fist on the bed rail, startling the man.

  “Damn you, if you’d come to me sooner we might have had a chance to find him alive.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Cole protested.

  “You covered up a crime, and that’s just as bad in the eyes of the law.”

  “I want to do a deal. You hear?”

  “Then you’d better start talking, son.”

  † ~ ‡ ~ †

  Riley edged backward. “Why are you doing this?”

  “It’s nothing personal.”

  Like that helps. “This is what happened to Beck, isn’t it?”

  A nod. “It had to happen.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was the best one to take the fall.”

  Take the fall for what? “People know I’m here.”

  “They might, but come morning they’ll think you headed back to Atlanta.”

  He moved closer, forcing Riley to continue her blind retreat. “That lie won’t hold.”

  “Just needs to hold long enough for me to get on a plane out of the country.”

  She reached a door. Where did it lead?

  “That’s where the bodies are kept,” McGovern said. “There’s no way out.”

  He’s lying. She twisted the knob and bolted for freedom. If she could get outside, she and Simon could escape, go to the sheriff.

  To her relief, there was an exit on the other side of the room, leading to the garage. Once she was in the open space, she sprinted for the outside door, about twenty-five feet away. She’d made it about half that distance when something slammed into her back. Then the pain came, and Riley fell forward, her knees and elbows and face kissing the oil-stained concrete.

  She fought to regain her feet, to run, but her body wasn’t cooperating. Riley’s muscles twitched and her bones screamed in agony like they were being ripped away from the muscles. It was as if someone had cut all the strings to her limbs.

  McGovern stood over her, the Taser pointed at her. He had a gun stuck in his waistband and she bet it was Beck’s.

  “You should have left when I told you to,” he said, shaking his head. “You had to stay for that damned loser.”

  “Where is he?” she gasped.

  “Gone. In the swamp. Probably in a gator’s belly. You’ll be joining him soon enough.” He raised his hand again to deliver another jolt.

  Before she could cry out, someone mowed McGovern down. The Taser scooted away on the concrete as Simon’s lithe figure struggled with her captor. He slammed a fist against the man’s face while McGovern tried to throttle him. As they exchanged a flurry of blows, they rolled into the rear wheel of the hearse, then tumbled back into the center of the garage. McGovern regained his feet and pulled the gun free from his pants before Simon had a chance to react.

  He pointed it at Riley. “Stay put or she’s dead.”

  Her heart nearly stopped. Simon slowly regained his feet, breathing heavily and his eyes filled with unrestrained rage. If he went after her captor, he was going to get them killed.

  “Police! Drop the weapon, McGovern!” someone shouted.

  Donovan and the two deputies spilled into the room, guns drawn. Martin and Newman fanned out on either side of their boss.

  “Put the weapon on the ground. Do it!” Donovan bellowed.

  Her captor didn’t move.

  “Now, McGovern! I swear I’ll take you down.”

  The undertaker slowly lowered the gun, then bent over and placed it on the garage floor.

  “Step back!”

  As he complied, he caught Riley’s eye. “Damn you, girl, you should have gone home. Then it would have been all right.”

  EIGHTEEN

  As she sat in the sheriff’s office, people bustling around her, Riley was sure she’d been flattened by a truck. Her joints and muscles ached down to their individual cells, her head throbbed, and there were two points on her back that felt as if someone had driven spikes into them. She’d refused a trip to the emergency room. She could just imagine what the National Guild would make of an insurance claim that stated she’d nearly been electrocuted by a crazed mortician. She had enough notoriety as it was.

  Simon sat next to her now, an ice pack pressed against a cheek that was already darkening, the beginning of a spectacular bruise. His shirt collar was ripped and his upper lip was cracked and bleeding. He had a dressing on his right hand, his knuckles skinned.

  As she’d tried to recover from the attack, he’d filled in the missing pieces: The longer he sat in the truck, the more anxious he’d become, so he decided to see what was going on. When he found McGovern standing over Riley’s body, he’d lost it. Fortunately, the sheriff and the others had arrived just in time.

  “When are we leaving for the swamp?” she pressed.

  “We can’t until morning,” Martin replied. “We have no idea where Beck is, so we need daylight to try to track him. I know you’re frustrated. So am I, and I don’t even like him.”

  Not until morning. This would be Beck’s second night alone. If he was still alive.

  Simon touched her arm. “You okay?”

  Riley shook her head, the tears brimming. She swiped them away, angry that she had no way to stop them.

  “We’ll find him. We’ll bring him home,” he said.

  She nodded and then dug for a tissue in her pocket as Donovan entered the office. He laid numerous evidence bags on his desk.

  “McGovern had Beck’s phone and his gun. He’s asked for a lawyer so we won’t get anything more out of him.” The sheriff sank into his chair. “But why?” he asked, his voice rising. “What drove him to kidnapping and attempted murder? What is McGovern hiding?”

  “Perhaps I can shed some light on that for you,” someone said from the office doorway.

  Justine. “She’s back,” Riley mumbled as her jealousy raised its muzzle and scented blood.

  The reporter looked perfect, as usual. Her emerald eyes lacked dark circles underneath, her pantsuit didn’t display one wrinkle, and her hair cascaded down her shoulders in smoldering red waves. She chose a chair next to Riley, probably so everyone in the room could make the comparison between together and a total mess.

  “Have you found Beck yet?” the reporter asked.

  “No. He’s somewhere in the swamp,” Donovan replied.

  Justine frowned. “I know the undertaker’s secret and why he has turned violent as of late. In return, I want an exclusive on the story.”

  Riley ground her teeth. She might hate Justine Armando, but the reporter was very good at her job. If anyone could unearth secrets and lies, it’d be the Stick Chick.

  Donovan didn’t hesitate. “You’ve got a deal. Talk to me.”

  Justine retrieved a notebook from her expensive leather bag and opened it. Running down a page of notes with a polished fingernail, she explained, “A decade ago a necromancer in Jacksonville began paying a few Florida undertakers to supply him with bodies suitable for reanimation. These bodies were sent for cremation by families who didn’t want to sit vigil at the gravesite.”

  She shifted to another page of her notes. “In late 2009, two Georgia undertakers joined the scam. Bert McGovern was one of them. He served as the collection point for corpses in the southern half of this state.”

  “Go on,” the sheriff urged, his attention fully captured.

  “Instead of being cremated, bodies that were in good condition were transported to the summoner in Jacksonville. McGovern filled the urns with concrete dust so the families had no idea their loved one was being auctioned off to the highest bidder.”

  “My God,” Riley murmured. That was too close to home after her father’s death.

  “One of the bereaved relatives saw their deceased sister in Orlando a few months after she’d died,” Justine continued. “When the police checked it out, the summoner stonewalled them. My reporter friend heard about this and he began investigating the story.”

  “The Jacksonville Police Department know about all this?”

  “Yes. They arrested the necromancer earlier today.”

  Justine closed her notebook, her brows furrowed. “I have no direct evidence, but I believe there is some connection between McGovern and the missing boys.”

  “There is now.” Donovan chose a file from a stack and flipped it open. “In November 2011 the Keneally boys broke into three businesses in Sadlersville and stole mostly small stuff to finance their growing drug habit. The sheriff at that time worked out a restitution plan, and they got a juvenile record out of the deal in exchange for returning the goods they’d stolen.”

  “A juvenile record,” Justine murmured, nodding in understanding. “No wonder I couldn’t find the connection. The boys’ parents said nothing about that, of course.”

  “They robbed the tire store and the video shop and . . . the funeral home. McGovern never reported the break-in and our office only found out about it after the sentencing. He claimed they’d not taken anything so he hadn’t felt the need to file a complaint.”