Aubrey’s deep, vicious voice dragged our collective attention away from the potential gravesite. To her. To where she stood, a few feet behind Stella.
She kept showing up at the wrong times. A haunting specter that knew when to appear and how to tear through the fragilebonds holding us all together. The precise timing made it feel like she had a camera trained on our careening lives and cataloging every damning move.
Aubrey held up her cell phone. “It’s too late for you three to run away this time. I called the police.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Stella
All of Sleepy Hollow descended on and around the acres that made up Xavier’s back lawn. They couldn’t broach it, but the neighbor let them gather on his side of the property line. A few shadowed figures popped up at the far end of Xavier’s property, around the pond.
Hours had passed since I’d arrived here for our impromptu meeting. Just the three of us had turned into a free-for-all of looky-loos and nosy neighbors hanging by the fence, peeking over. People standing on the street, trying to barge into the middle of the emotional explosion.
Thick clouds had rolled in, blocking the last bits of sunset and covering the sky in a blanket of grayish white. Large searchlights drenched Xavier’s lawn in yellow. People in official uniforms marched around, issuing orders and yelling at everyone to clear the area, and when that didn’t work, to at least stay on the other side of the fence.
A helicopter buzzed overhead as I stood next to Lukas, aboutfifty feet from the action. We watched the excavator borrowed from the cemetery dig a deep hole in what was once the pristine wildflower garden dedicated to Dea Tanner.
I didn’t realize I was leaning until Lukas wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close. His lips brushed over my hair. The bit of comfort contrasted with the gloomy mood.
Cam and Marni stood by Cam’s car. He’d parked it in the circular driveway, not venturing closer. Hanna waited nearby but kept her focus on the ground around her feet. She’d answered the detectives’ questions. We all did, though Lukas made sure I kept my responses short and tight.
Someone had taken photos of Hanna’s hands and collected samples. Dried mud still covered her fingers and ran up past her wrists. Jeremy showed up, saying friends called him about the commotion. While he paced around Hanna, I took the opportunity to study him. Searched for any sign of Xavier’s bloodline—my bloodline—in him.
Jeremy was a typical college student dressed in jeans and scuffed sneakers. Handsome and showing hints of becoming a very attractive man. His black hair and dark eyes hinted at the Japanese heritage handed down from his mother. Nothing shouted to Xavier’s genes.
Despite all the body blows Jeremy had taken about who he was and what Hanna had hidden from him, he walked with confidence. With purpose. His attention remained on the ever-growing hole in the ground except for those times when he snuck a peek at his mother. Then concern would flood his features.
Yeah, I’d been right. He was a decent kid raised by a strong woman. For the hundredth time since I saw Hanna’s reaction toXavier’s surprise division of assets, I regretted not knowing her better. For so long being near her touched off a spiraling panic. Now I wondered if we would have ridden out the years of tense uncertainty better as friends.
Aubrey’s call to the police about someone possibly “vandalizing” her grandfather’s home—a claim she knew wasn’t true but clearly counted on to bring squad cars and flashing lights—turned into this mess. They saw the dirt and asked questions, then the detectives arrived.
The initial dig by the forensic team picked up where Hanna started and uncovered something. Now the entire area had been roped off, some of it restricted under a white tent and cordoned off behind yellow caution tape. The police had tried to clear us off the property like they did with everyone else, but Hanna had shown them the trust documents about Jeremy’s ownership rights. She vouched for all of us to remain at an appropriate distance.
Lukas said the quick agreement allowed law enforcement to assess us and the crowd and try to read our reactions. That warning had me guessing and second-guessing every time I shifted my weight or coughed or even moved.
Everly was staying with Agatha, my nanny. Mom was on her way here. I braced for the fuss she would make when she saw the torn-up grounds and discarded flowers. She’d act like she owned the house, ran it, had the right to make decisions about it. She would not easily hand over the title of lady of the manor. That role fell to Hanna until Jeremy got a little older. Mom would try to bulldoze right over that fact.
Aubrey stood closer than the rest of us to the caution tape. She waited with an unreadable expression.
“I’m surprised Jeremy is here,” Lukas said.
“He hasn’t gone back to school. After the fight with Hanna, he slept in the café office downstairs.”
“That can’t be easy on Hanna.” Lukas exhaled. “Why was Aubrey here today with the rest of you?”
She was following us or tracking us, but I refused to let my mind wander in that direction. Figuring out Aubrey’s motivations, filling in that blank, would turn into an obsession if I wasn’t careful. “She wasn’t. She popped up right as Hanna focused on the garden.”
“Convenient.”
“Not really.” Nothing about Aubrey Tanner was convenient or even tolerable.
“I heard she moved back into her family’s house.”
Of course she did. A creepy woman living in a creepy house. That was very Sleepy Hollow of her. “That place is falling down. Does it even have running water and electricity?”
He shrugged. “She probably thought she could bunk here. Or...”
He could have skipped the ominous tone. “What?”
