I stumbled as my foot sank into a patch of soft dirt. Kicking away a drift of dead leaves, I ran my hand over the loose soil. “This grave is fresh,” I said. But if Carl and his wife had been estranged and he’d lived here alone, who would have come here so recently to bury someone? I knelt and scraped a layer of dead leaves from the grave marker.
CARL R. WESTOVER
BELOVED HUSBAND AND STEPFATHER,
FOUGHT HIS CANCER WITH
GRACE AND COURAGE.
“Um, Finlay? Why does Carl already have a headstone?”
And why was the death date under the inscription four months old—close to the date when Carl was actually murdered? “I don’t know.”
“You think he’s actually buried here?”
“He must be.” The more I thought about it, the more it made a sick kind of sense. Theresa and Aimee must have hidden Carl’s body in plain sight, right in his own family plot, with an epitaph that would smooth over any questions about the cause of his death. “Theresa and Aimee must have planned this months ago,” I said, “right after Carl was murdered.”
“What do you mean?”
“Engraved headstones take weeks—sometimes months—to order. This headstone was purchased long before we found Carl in the storage unit. The storage unit was probably a temporary solution. They must have been planning to retrieve the body and move it here when the headstone was done, but Theresa got stuck on house arrest and they were forced to wait. They must have panicked when we left Carl in Theresa’s kitchen, and they came straight here. Carl’s vacant house would have been the perfect place to hide from the police.”
“And the grave site was already prepped for his body.”
“Which means Theresa and Aimee are here. They have to be the ones who invited Steven to the meeting.” I checked the clock on my phone. “It’s almost time. Let’s get a closer look.”
Vero and I turned off the light and crept to the edge of the trees behind Carl’s rambler. We laid on our bellies in the grass. A handful of lights were on inside the house. Someone had been careful to pay the electric bills. A shadow moved inside a large bay window. Vero pulled a set of binoculars from the pocket of her coat and held them out to me.
“Where’d you get these?”
“Took them from the garage before we left. Thought they’d come in handy.”
I held the binoculars to my eyes, elbows braced on the frosty ground as I adjusted the focus. The knobs were still sticky with donut sugar from the tree farm.
“What do you see?” Vero whispered.
“Someone’s in the kitchen. A woman. She’s in front of the stove. I think she’s cooking.” Two vehicles were parked along the side of the house—a small sedan and an SUV that must have been Aimee’s.
I swung the binoculars back toward the bay window. The woman at the stove turned as another woman entered the kitchen. “It’s definitely Aimee. And Theresa is with her. They’re pulling down plates from a cabinet. Wineglasses. Utensils from a drawer. Aimee’s bringing food to the table. Theresa’s pouring two … no, three glasses of wine. There are three places set.” They’d gone to a lot of trouble to set the stage for their little setup.
“Steven’s supposed to show up any minute. What do we do?” Vero asked.
“Send those photos to FedUp.”
“Now? But then they’ll know Steven’s not coming.”
“And we’ll see it the very moment Aimee gets the message. We’ll know for certain she’s FedUp.” And then we’d knock on the door and confront her.
Vero dragged her phone from her pocket. The screen illuminated her face as she typed out a message. “These pics actually came out pretty convincing. The raspberry syrup was a nice touch.” There was a whooshing sound as the email was sent.
Then the chilling cock of a shotgun behind us.
Vero froze. I didn’t dare move.
I kept my eyes trained straight ahead, through the binoculars at the scene in the kitchen, though I had suddenly lost all interest in whatever Aimee and Theresa were doing inside.
“This is private property. You’re trespassing.” I didn’t recognize the voice of the woman behind me, but she spoke with the authority of someone who knew exactly where the boundary lines were and precisely where we’d crossed them. As if she owned the place.
“Mrs. Westover?” I asked carefully, hoping I was right. “I can explain.”
“And you will. Get up. Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them.”