Page 2 of Dirty Valentine
“Have you any last words?”Blackwood asked, though she could see in his eyes that he hoped she would maintain her silence.A confession would have been satisfying, but her continued defiance was somehow more frightening.
Bridget looked around at the assembled crowd—neighbors who had once brought their children to her for healing, men who had secretly sought her counsel, women who had whispered their fears and hopes into her compassionate ear.Fear had transformed them all into strangers, their faces hard with borrowed righteousness.
“I forgive you,” she said simply, and saw more than one person flinch as if struck.“All of you.You act from fear, and fear makes cowards of us all.But know this—the truth has a way of rising to the surface, no matter how deep you try to bury it.What you do here today will not be forgotten.This ground will remember.”
They stripped her of her clothes—her dignity—tossed her in the hole and then laid the wooden planks across her chest, heavy boards that pressed the breath from her lungs.Then came the stones, one by one, each rock carefully chosen and placed with ceremonial precision.The weight built slowly, inexorably, each new stone adding to the crushing pressure that squeezed the life from her body.
But Bridget Ashworth did not scream.Did not beg.Did not confess to crimes she had never committed.She looked up at the gray sky and thought of all the women who would come after, all the daughters and granddaughters who would inherit both her gifts and the burden of living in a world that feared them.
As the last stone was placed and the darkness closed over her vision, she felt the earth beneath her back accepting her sacrifice.The ground drank her blood and her breath and her bones, weaving her essence into the very soil of King George County.
Death, when it finally came, was almost a relief.
But death, Bridget discovered, was not the end.
The magistrate and his men departed, satisfied that justice had been served and the devil’s influence purged from their community.The crowd dispersed, returning to their homes and their daily concerns, eager to put the unpleasantness behind them.
They left her there, beneath the weight of stones, in ground that was already heavy with the accumulated sorrows of the unwanted dead.But something of her remained—not a ghost, exactly, but an essence woven into the very fabric of the place.Her blood had fed the roots of the ancient oaks.Her bones had enriched the dark soil.Her final breath had joined the wind that whispered through the cemetery grounds.
The truth would rise, as she had promised.Justice would come, though it might take centuries to arrive.
And in some distant spring morning, when another soul lay broken on her grave, Bridget Ashworth would be there to witness it—to see if this time, finally, the weight of lies would be lifted and the stones of truth would crush those who deserved crushing.
The cemetery remembered everything.
And sometimes, on nights when the mist rose thick from the river and the moon hid behind storm clouds, visitors would swear they could hear her voice on the wind—not crying out in pain or calling for vengeance, but simply whispering the same words she had spoken on that gray morning so long ago.
The truth has a way of rising to the surface, no matter how deep you try to bury it.
This ground will remember.
CHAPTERONE
Present Day
Death had a sense of humor.
My name is J.J.Graves, and I’ve spent enough time with the Grim Reaper to appreciate his twisted sense of timing.As King George County’s coroner and a fourth-generation mortician, I’ve built my life around the inevitable—that final exhale that comes for everyone, whether they’re ready or not.Most people find my dual professions unsettling.Jack, my husband and the county sheriff, considers it practical.Between us, we handle both sides of mortality—the peaceful passings that keep Graves Funeral Home in business, and the violent endings that require yellow tape and evidence bags.
After years in this business, you’d think nothing would surprise me anymore.But the Grim Reaper had a gift for creativity that would put any artist to shame.Today’s masterpiece came courtesy of twenty-three seventh graders, one overwhelmed teacher, and what appeared to be a murder victim arranged on top of a three-hundred-year-old grave like some kind of macabre historical reenactment.
“Well,” Jack said, surveying the chaos of tweens scattered around the historic section of what locals called Olde Towne Cemetery.“This is a new one, even for us.”
I followed his gaze as I pulled on my latex gloves.Some kids were crying, others were taking selfies with the crime scene in the background, and at least three had thrown up and contaminated the crime scene.One enterprising young man was livestreaming on his phone while providing commentary.
“I’m pretty sure that kid just violated about six different laws with that livestream,” I said, stepping carefully around a fresh puddle of vomit.“You think a thirteen-year-old kid has a following?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Jack said.“My mother was telling me about a rabbit that rides around on the back of a pit bull in a saddle and they have over two million followers.Let’s just hope none of the kid’s followers comes to check things out for themselves.”
A harried-looking teacher with gray hair escaping from what had probably started the day as a pristine bun was frantically trying to corral her students.Her sensible cardigan was buttoned wrong, and she looked like she was about three seconds away from a complete breakdown.
“You couldn’t pay me enough to be a teacher,” I said, watching as she blocked a redheaded boy from slipping under the police tape.
Cole and Martinez had arrived just minutes after us, responding to Jack’s call for backup.They were both senior enough in rank that they usually acted as the lead on their own cases, so it was unusual to see them both here.But it wasn’t often we saw something like this, so I couldn’t blame their professional interest.
Detective Cole was a man’s man—a modern-day cowboy with eyes that had seen too much in his years on the force.He wore his usual uniform of Wranglers, a white dress shirt, a gray sport coat, and his ever-present Stetson, though today the hat sat slightly askew as if he’d been running his hands through his hair.He was currently trying to convince a group of seventh graders to stop taking pictures of the crime scene, his usual stoic expression strained with the effort.
Detective Martinez, on the other hand, approached us with his notebook already out.Even at a crime scene in a cemetery at ten thirty in the morning, he was impeccably dressed in pressed slacks and a button-down shirt, his dark hair perfectly styled.I’d come to find out recently that Martinez came from money—not just a little money, but the stupid kind of money that his children’s children would inherit.
