Page 94 of Deeper Than the Dead

Vera pressed harder on the accelerator.

Boyett Farm

Good Hollow Road, Fayetteville, 10:00 a.m.

She started with the barn.

Because it was closer to the cave, she wanted to get it done first. She found nothing but old farm tools and implements. A tractor, the lawn mower, and a whole host of yard gadgets. There were still a few old bales of hay in the loft. She checked around and under those. Heavy suckers.

She poked her head into the old shed that stood closer to the house and found nothing but her father’s truck. Thankfully it was unlocked, so she had a look inside. Gas receipts, tag receipts, and little else. Then she checked the well house and the chicken house. After their mother died, the chickens had all eventually disappeared. Whether they’d been nabbed by predators or had just wandered away to another farm, Vera had no idea. At some point her father had cleaned out the chicken mansion, as her mother had called it, so going through it was easy enough.

The chicken house had actually been an old smokehouse her father had turned into a glorious home for chickens just to make her mother happy. The old coop had been a shabby little thing, not much bigger than a doghouse. The new one had been for Evelyn’s thirty-fifth birthday. Vera had only been seven, but she remembered how happy her mother had been. They had danced around the yard. Eve had only been two, but she’d tried to join in and kept falling on her backside.

Her heart aching with the memories, Vera opened the door to her mother’s potting shed. She probably should have looked here first, but she had recognized the task would not be an easy one. Her mother had spent so much time in this shed. She had loved it ... touched every single thing inside.

The heat was slightly lower in the shady interior, but it was still sweltering. It smelled earthy, with an underlying hint of various fertilizers—organic ones, of course. Her mother had been very conscious of those things. She doubted her father had come back in here after her death. Vera and Eve only had once. They had sat in the middle of the floor and cried.

Evelyn’s gardening tools hung on the hooks she had organized over her potting table. Every single thing, from pots to seedling trays, was in its place. Containers that held soil and other items required for gardening lined one wall. There were lots of windows. Vera touched her mother’s gloves. Smiled as she traced the handle of her favorite garden trowel.

When she was able to move on, she searched the antique apothecary cabinet her mother had used for seed packets and other small items. Drawer after drawer, she picked through the contents.

When she had exhausted all possibilities, she collapsed onto the wooden stool next to the potting table. There was nothing here except the usual gardening stuff.

She reminded herself that this was the way of investigations: finding evidence was never as easy as you hoped it would be, even when all appearances suggested it should be. There were moments in every investigation when the “aha” finds came unexpectedly quickly, but there were far more moments when they came slowly and miles apart.

Vera stepped outside. The bright sun blinded her for a moment. She closed the door and used her forearm to swipe the sweat from her forehead. Surely her mother had used a fan or something when working out here. More likely she came out early, before breakfast, and did her work.

The twinge in her hip wasn’t so pronounced as she walked back toward the house. She suddenly stalled. Beneath her feet, the stepping stones her mother had made by hand captured her attention. Small white stones embedded in concrete. Vera’s heart stumbled. Each around the size of a dollar coin. River rocks. Her mother would use the white or light-colored ones around a darker one, aligning them in the pattern of a daisy. Eve and Vera had loved helping with the simple design. Evelyn had likely chosen it for that reason.

There had been several of those same stones in the cave at each place where remains had been discovered. Could have been there already, Vera argued with herself. The stones didn’t mean her mother or Eve had put them there. But there hadn’t been others readily visible in the cave.

Vera wilted, her gut seizing with the need to empty its contents ... to purge from her body the very thought swimming through her brain.

She thought of the cross necklaces, the poses, and now the stones. This was simply one too many coincidences.

Vera didn’t believe in coincidences. Her father’s fears confirmed what Vera did not want to see.

The other remains ... the two women ... somehow her mother was involved. It was the only explanation. But why? Because of her father? Had he been having an affair then too? Was Sheree not his first betrayal? Could her mother have known Norton Gates?

Jesus Christ. Her heart felt on the verge of rupturing. All of this seemed to point at her parents.

But what about the cross necklace and the stones with Sheree’s remains? Her mother had already been dead when Sheree ended up in that cave.

Their father? Not likely. He’d gone to church to make Evelyn happy. Buying a cross on a chain to leave with Sheree—particularly if he’d murdered her—wasn’t logical. The stones were something she and Eve had done with their mother. Vera sure as hell hadn’t put them in that cave.

Eve.

Had to be. Vera had known she was hiding something.

Forcing herself to move, she headed into the house. Right now, her goal was to stay calm. In the kitchen she washed her hands and forearms, then her face. She needed a band to put her hair up, and then she needed to think this through.

Her phone pinged with an incoming text. It was about time Eve got back to her.

Not Eve. Eric.

Check your email.

Vera opened her email app. She quickly scanned the information, her heart thudding faster and faster. Everything from Norton Gates’s shoe size to his University of Alabama GPA was included. Eric had even spoken with someone at Calhoun College, and the class rosters for the fifteen years he had taught there before disappearing were waiting for pickup at the administration office.

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