Not only did someone scratch out the words, but they scratched away the black paint, leaving an oval of exposed silver metal where the words had once been. No trace of the words was left behind. “It’s got to be those people who were with her.”
Dunk frowned. “You said they were like security guards, though, watching over her. Like she was in charge, not them.”
“Maybe I was wrong.”
I knelt down in the grass next to Dunk and studied the mark closer. “They didn’t just scrape it away. They removed the paint, too. See how the metal’s showing? How smooth? If someone scratched at it, you’d see tool marks, bits of paint left behind.” I leaned in closer. “You can still smell paint remover.”
“Somebody walks by, they’re going to think we’re praying to this bench.”
“It’s a cemetery. Everyone acts weird, and everyone leaves everyone else alone while they’re acting weird. You talk to a rock here and you’re emotional, you do the same thing at the park and you’ll get arrested. There’s an unwritten code or something,” I said.
“I wonder why they didn’t repaint it,” Dunk said. “They went through all this trouble to hide her message. You’d think they’d go all the way and erase it completely, like it never happened.”
“Maybe they wanted me to see what they did, make sure I understood they knew what I knew. If they got rid of it completely, I might have thought I imagined it. Everything happened so fast.” I stood and looked at the trees behind the bench, the outcropping of forest at the cemetery’s edge. “That guy came up from behind me and drugged me. I only got a glimpse of what she wrote.”
“Forgive me for playing devil’s advocate here, but how do you know she even wrote it? Maybe someone else did. It might not have anything to do with her,” Dunk said.
“Then why make it disappear?”
“Maybe someone working for the cemetery cleaned it up, like whitewashing over graffiti on a wall.”
“A caretaker or maintenance person would have painted it over. I don’t think they’d take the time to scrape it away. They sure wouldn’t leave it like this.”
“Maybe he’s not done. Maybe he needed black paint.”
I knew, though. I was certain. “Stella wrotehelp me, and those people with her erased it.” I circled around the bench, my eyes on the trees. “He came from back there, must have…come on.”
The hill behind the bench sloped down into a thick tree line at the edge of the cemetery, giving way to wilderness a few steps in. When I reached the trees, I turned and looked back up at the bench. “He grabbed me right after they left, so he must have been watching us. I can see the bench from here, but the hill makes it impossible to see all the way back where the SUVs were parked.”
“Maybe he heard them?” Dunk offered. “It’s so quiet out here.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What did he say to you again?”
“He said, ‘The pressure you feel at the small of your back is a rather sharp knife. I strongly suggest you don’t struggle.’ Then he pressed something over my mouth. It smelled sweet, then I was out.”
“Probably chloroform, like we used on the mice in Mr. Lidden’s science class.”
“Exactly like that.”
“Did you see a knife?”
I shook my head.
“So you don’t know for sure he really had a knife?”
“I guess not.”
We searched the trees, the ground, the bushes, we looked everywhere for any sign of the man all the way to where the woods ended at Nobles Lane and found nothing. We figured he probably had a car waiting on that end and carried me through there, but if he did, he didn’t leave any trace. Two hours later, covered in dirt, we were back at the bench.
“We need to talk about the flowers,” Dunk said, scratching at a mosquito bite on his left arm.
“What about the flowers?”
“You said Stella picked them up and they died in her hand as you watched, in a few seconds. I think you need to come to terms with the fact you probably picked some wilted, half-dead weeds and thought you saw something you really didn’t. The alternative is some X-Men shit, and while I love that particular comic, it’s a comic. That stuff isn’t real.” Dunk said.
I looked down at my hands and twisted my fingers together. “She got up and left them on the bench. The old woman—”
