Читать книгу Forbidden Ground - Карен Харпер - Страница 8

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Kate was really impressed with Grant Mason’s house and its setting. The contour of the landscaped front lawn, the curved driveway and the surrounding forest embraced the sprawling wood, stone and glass building. Their car had startled a doe and her fawn, which darted away. Like the deer, the house seemed to have emerged from the woods as if it could disappear back into it at will.

She hoped she’d be able to see the Adena mound from inside the house, but dusk was falling. And she’d dressed up even in her one pair of really high heels; though if Grant would show her the site, she’d go barefoot through the woods for a mere glimpse of it. As with other Adena mounds in the area, the foliage probably obscured it, just as the people themselves were so mysteriously hidden by the centuries. She was getting obsessed again, caught up in the mysticism of the Celts and the Adena, but studying them and their amazing cults of death demanded passion as well as reason.

“I said, what do you think of the place, Kate?” Tess’s voice pierced her thoughts. Tess twisted around in the front seat as if to see if Kate was still there. Gabe came around to open their doors for them.

“Really handsome.”

“Like I said, wait till you see its owner.”

“Now, Tess,” Gabe scolded. “No matchmaking. Kate, I’m sorry your Ohio State professor friend couldn’t be here for all this, because he would have been welcome.”

“Carson’s had it on his calendar to speak at the Smithsonian for over a year,” she explained as she got out of the backseat. “Very prestigious. It’s his topic, for sure—Early Indigenous Civilizations of the Americas—but I hope to get him here soon. He knows a lot about the mounds in this area. Maybe we can visit you two once you get back from the secret honeymoon site and get settled.”

Gabe had sold his house. Tess’s place, their old family home Mom had left to Tess in her will, was next door to his old one on Valley View Road. It was still on the market. The soon-to-be McCord family had bought a place on the old-town edge of Cold Creek and were renovating it as well as adding a three-room addition for the day-care center Tess would open in September. Since the old Lockwood house had not sold yet, Kate was staying there with Tess. Gabe was overseeing the work at their new place, when he wasn’t busy trying to bust marijuana growers and, lately, a gang of timber thieves in the area. But he’d said that was like being on vacation after the search for a kidnapper and killer.

Gabe rang the doorbell, and a tall man opened the door. Tess was sure right about Grant Mason, Kate thought. He looked dynamic and just plain solid. He smiled at her in a flash of white teeth against his tanned face as he extended his hand after Gabe’s introduction. And for once, it was great to see a clean-shaven man. She’d never liked the scruffy style of half beards so popular these days. Maybe Gabe was shaved close because of his job, but Grant had obviously done so by choice. She should not have been expecting a Paul Bunyan woodsman look just because Grant owned a lumber mill.

His hand was big and warm—just like this house. He lightly touched the small of her back as they stepped in. She felt suddenly nervous but over the moon, as the Brits would say. Trying to get this man to let her explore the Adena mound on his property just went from business to pleasure.

* * *

Grant realized he’d been a moron to picture Tess’s older professor sister as some frowsy, mousy academic, pale with glasses perched on her nose, plain with no makeup. Kathryn Lockwood was very good-looking. He should have known she’d be pretty since Tess was. But while Tess was quite slender, Kate Lockwood bloomed in all the right places. Her shoulder-length, curly brown hair seemed dusted with auburn like when the sun set through the forest. Her eyes were hazel-hued, alight with amber flecks and fringed with thick lashes. Her mouth was lush, red and pouted right now as she surveyed him. She wore a royal-blue dress that wrapped around her curves. Suddenly, this wedding offered more than just the happiness of his best friend and his bride.

“You have a lovely home,” Kate said, her voice warm and mellow. He thanked her but had to pull himself away to welcome others at the front door. He wondered who was keeping an eye on the area since Gabe’s only deputy, Jace Miller, and his wife were here. Victor Reingold, from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, who had helped solve the town’s child-abduction cases, came in and shook his hand.

Todd McCollum and his wife, Amber, soon showed up, too. Grant kidded him about how well he cleaned up. Todd was always overseeing the cutting floor of the mill, and his idea of downtime was uptime—climbing trees. In spite of the fact that Brad had seemed willing to take Todd’s job, it was tempting to get him down here to see everyone, but not in the state he was in.

Their other childhood buddy, Paul Kettering, surprised everyone by showing up with one of his fantastically carved tree trunks as a wedding gift. Paul rolled the oak carving into the front tiled foyer area on a dolly, while everyone came to take a look, and Tess clapped her hands in excitement like a young child. Paul’s wife, Nadine, beamed as if she’d carved the three-foot-high, in-the-round piece herself.

“Couldn’t see hauling it out to the waterfall or lodge for your wedding,” Paul told Gabe and Tess. “I’ll be sure it gets to your new house when you get back from the honeymoon. I did fairies since I thought it might be nice for your new nursery school, Tess.”

Tess was teary-eyed at the array of winged beings that looked like pretty little girls in party dresses, emerging from behind leaves and fronds. “It’s wonderful. As you can see,” she said, turning to Kate, “Paul is a talented artist. When Grant’s group cuts trees, Paul has his choice of trunks and turns them into wonderful creatures like gnomes, leprechauns, fairies or other mythical beings. It’s a wonderful, special gift!”

“It really is,” Kate agreed. “Do you do assignment carvings, Paul?”

“As long as it fits the Kettering style,” he said.

His plump wife, Nadine, spoke up. “These tough financial times around here make living on art a real calling and sometimes a sacrifice, so please tell anyone you know about Paul’s work. I have a business card I can give you. Some city folks don’t want to drive out into the wilds to find a unique artist, and it’s hard to take tree trunks on the road to art shows. A website helps, of course, but I think Paul always underprices his work.”

Grant was relieved when everyone arrived and seemed to be mingling well. Despite the high ceiling of the large room, the noise level rose. He had Gabe and Tess go first at the buffet table, and others followed. After they ate, he noticed Kate kept looking out his back window, which, as darkness descended, had turned into a huge, black mirror reflecting all of them.

After much group talk, dessert and a champagne toast, Grant finally managed to talk to Kate alone. She was still glancing out the window. “I’d love to see Mason Mound during daylight,” she told him when he approached.

“Gabe mentioned that, huh? It’s pretty overgrown. Bushes on top, brush below and surrounded by several huge, prime maples, one with my boyhood tree house in it.”

“How wonderful. I love hearing about people’s pasts. The mound’s never been excavated, right?”

He hesitated, took a swig of his champagne. Either it was starting to get to him or she was. How much to tell this beautiful, interesting and interested woman? “My grandfather and my father both believed in letting the dead stay dead—undisturbed.”

“Most mounds in this area are tombs.”

“It’s only about twenty-four feet high, conical like most of the others, so it’s not a big or grand one.”

“Which is probably why it’s been ignored. I found it on an old map I came across. Actually, the smaller mounds are often more productive and intriguing.”

Was it his imagination that the word intriguing hung between them for a moment? Of course it was. He just didn’t need her questions getting too close for comfort, although that warred with his desire to get closer to her.

“Productive and intriguing?” he repeated as across the room a burst of laughter broke out.

When she raised her voice slightly to be heard, he realized they’d been whispering. “Because,” she explained, “if bodies or grave goods are interred there, they would be easier to excavate. In the big, well-known mounds, there may be burials stacked on top of each other in wood-lined tiers but everything’s caved in and smashed. Did Tess or Gabe mention I’m fascinated by the Adena and need proof to link them to my major area of study, the Celtic people of northern Europe?”

“Tess told me. Anyway, I look at the mound as a monument—on private land—not to be tampered with or desecrated. But sure, I’d be happy to show it to you. Maybe after all the wedding hoopla. I hear your other sister is coming in tomorrow, so I know you’ll be busy. Drop by the mill if you’d like a tour of our facilities there.”

She cocked her head, which made her hair brush her bare shoulder. She seemed to study him again. Did she sense he was putting her off about the mound? It actually had been entered in 1939 by his grandfather and then much later—by Grant, Brad, Todd and Paul—but he’d never tell her any of that. Though he had to admit, she was the kind of woman who could probably pry anything out of him if she put her mind to it, which made her damned dangerous as well as a temptation. All he needed was her wanting to take a really close look at the mound, including inside it.

* * *

As Kate sat between Gabe’s mother and Tess during the bridesmaids’ luncheon—at another surprising new-town venue called Miss Marple’s Tea Room—Kate could not believe how fast time flew toward the wedding. She knew it would be wonderful, except for having to be nice to Dad and his new family. How many nights had she cried herself to sleep because he’d left them? Before Mom got them an apartment and found a job in Jackson, Michigan, Kate used to be afraid they’d all starve to death, despite the money Dad sent every month. And when she’d later learned Jack Lockwood had cheated on his wife with the sheriff’s wife—Gabe’s mother, since Gabe’s dad was sheriff before Gabe—her pain had turned to stony hate.

Of course, as an adult, she saw there were two sides to every love story, every breakup and divorce. Sheriff Rod McCord had seldom been home, so his wife must have been lonely. Obviously, the affair and divorce had been her fault, too. Mom had always seemed to be raising the three of them alone while Dad traveled for his job. Kate had always blamed him for leaving them at a time when it was crucial for them to bond as a family—right after Tess was abducted and then came back. And now, Kate knew, she’d have to be civil to him as she’d promised Tess. At least she couldn’t blame his new wife and their kids for the man he was or, at least, had been.

Char burst out laughing at something Tess had said. Kate was so glad Char had arrived safely, though her skin was deeply tanned. She’d have to urge her to keep a hat on and her arms covered out there in Navajo land. Char had always been as bubbly as Kate was serious, and she was really enjoying herself now, sitting on Tess’s other side, giggling. Well, the two of them had always been close, while Kate had sometimes felt like their second mother.

Char leaned over Tess to speak to Kate. “Isn’t it something we have two half brothers? I know it’s the sperm that decides the sex of the child, but since we had three girls and now, with another woman, Dad has two boys, you have to wonder if the female doesn’t make the difference.”

“Char, can we please save this discussion until our real hen party later tonight?” Tess said. “I’d like both a boy and a girl, and I heard, depending on when you have sex, there are ways to hedge your bets on that.”

Kate smiled while everyone laughed again. The chatter went on, but it was really hard to wrap her brain around the fact she had two young half brothers. She could only hope and pray they would live better lives than their father had.

* * *

Back at the old family house, where the three of them would be staying until the wedding, Sarah McCord, Gabe’s mom, was the first topic of conversation while the three of them sat around the kitchen table with glasses of Chardonnay.

“She’s still an attractive woman,” Char said. “I think she’s pretty protective of Gabe, so maybe it’s good she lives in Florida. You don’t need your mother-in-law over at your house all the time.”

“I wouldn’t mind a bit if she lived closer to us,” Tess insisted. “I’m planning on needing some babysitting help in the future.”

“You do have babies on the brain,” Kate said. “Don’t you want to get your preschool going well before you have munchkins of your own? By the way, I’ve noticed how Vic Reingold’s been paying close attention to Gabe’s mother. I overheard he’s picking her up at Gabe’s for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding, then taking her to the airport after you and Gabe leave for your honeymoon—your mystery spot you still haven’t told us about.”

“All Gabe told me so far is I need a passport and clothes for some possibly cool weather.”

“Ah,” Char said with a little laugh as she raised her wineglass. “Antarctica, here we come.” Kate clinked glasses with each of her sisters.

“Oh, by the way,” Tess, the master of shifting topics, said, “Grant said his brother, Brad, is back in town for a while, so I said he should invite him to the wedding. He’s down on his luck lately. Some business deal fell through. What’s one more person on top of half the town at the ceremony and reception?”

“Half of old town, you mean,” Kate said. “I can see that great social divide you mentioned. It’s always been the haves and have-nots. We’re theorizing now that the lower-class Adenas were cremated and only the upper or shaman class were interred in their elaborate burials—along with a few sacrificed slaves to serve them in the afterlife, much like the Egyptians.”

“Kate!” Char threw a wadded-up paper napkin at her. “No talk about funerals past or present right now. Okay?”

“Sorry,” Kate said. “I heard you talking about live Navajos, but I only have dead Adenas.”

They jolted at a knock on the back door.

“Maybe Gabe,” Tess said and bounced up to look out through the screen door. “It’s Gracie,” she whispered, then called out to the new arrivals. “Great to see you. Oh, and Bright Star. Is Lee here, too?”

“He had a task and couldn’t come,” Kate heard Grace say.

Kate and Char got up and went to the door, too. They hadn’t seen their cousin Lee’s wife in a long time. “Grace, hi!” Kate said. “Can’t you come in? And your friend is welcome, too.” When Grace just shook her head about coming in, Tess stepped outside, so Kate and Char did, too.

Kate was surprised to see the man Grace was with. She’d heard about the strange Hear Ye religious sect and its leader, but to see him in the flesh... She barely remembered Brice Monson, who now went by the name Bright Star. She tried not to stare at the man. She didn’t think he was a bit charismatic as Gabe had said. Dressed in white clothes, pale and white-haired, he looked like she imagined a wraith or ghost. Tess had carried on about how he held scores of people, including their cousin Lee, his wife, Grace, and their two children, in thrall.

“I’ll just make this quick, but I insisted on telling you in person,” Grace said. Kate’s first instinct was to hug Grace, but she hung back as if there were an invisible barrier between them now, maybe emanating from this man. Kate tried not to stare at Grace with her braid down her back, her long skirt and Little House on the Prairie look.

Tess shot a sharp look at the Reverend Monson, or whatever he called himself, before looking back at Grace. “Did you get permission for Kelsey and Ethan to be flower girl and ring bearer?” Tess asked. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“Oh, no, and I hear you have Sandy Kenton doing that. I’m glad you are so close to her.”

“But she’ll never replace my own family,” Tess told her.

The Kenton girl, Kate knew, was a child Tess had helped to counsel after her terrible ordeal. Tess was tight with the girl’s mother, Lindell, too, who would be in charge of the guest book at the reception and was going to work at the day-care center when it opened.

“It’s just that...that,” Grace stammered and blushed.

“Let me explain,” Bright Star said. “Much of the traditional American wedding ceremony, even if held in a church—or outside in nature as yours will be—is based on primitive rituals that our beliefs cannot condone or support. We at Hear Ye have our own ceremony, based on our own tradition and—”

“Gracie,” Tess interrupted, her hands shooting to her hips. “You mean you can’t even come to our service out by the waterfall at Falls Park or to the reception, either, because you believe something pagan or forbidden is going on?”

“I’m sorry,” Grace said, hanging her head like a scolded child. “That’s what I came to say. That’s what I think is right.”

Tess had teared up, and Char was sputtering with surprise, so Kate spoke. “You know, Mr. Monson, I’ve studied groups with strange beliefs, but this one—to borrow an allusion to a pagan wedding symbol begun by the Romans—takes the cake. Grace, is this man your Caesar, your Napoleon or Hitler, to order you around? You will not be corrupted by coming with your husband and children to your friend and cousin-by-marriage Tess’s wedding. Or is it that she’s marrying the sheriff?”

“It’s obvious,” Bright Star said, his voice very quiet compared to Kate’s, “that you don’t understand our ways, our chosen path. I believe you are the Lockwood sister who studies the pagan beliefs, so I will forgive your outburst and—”

“At this point, I’d rather trust those long-dead pagan ways compared to how you must browbeat and control your people,” Kate insisted. “Grace, you and Lee are always welcome to return to your roots, your family.”

Grace lifted her teary blue eyes to meet Kate’s steady stare. “The Hear Ye people are my family now, Kate. Please try to understand. And, Tess, blessings on your day and your life with Gabriel.”

The three Lockwood sisters just stared as Grace followed the man down the driveway and into a black car that was waiting for them.

“That vehicle’s a hearse,” Char hissed, putting her arm around Tess to draw her back toward the house. “He’s not even a charlatan shaman. More like a witch doctor!”

“Like the Beastmaster,” Kate muttered. She hurried inside before anyone could ask her what she meant.