Garden of Bone: Book 6, page 36
Emmaline had likely seemed immortal to her mother, although in an entirely different way. Emmaline was forever frozen in their household at eight years old. The pictures were everywhere. The pictures of Eleri showed her growing up and moving on and becoming an adult. But Emmaline, equally represented in photos on the walls, was forever eight—not gone, not dead, but not found, either.
Eleri had completed a task she’d begun within hours of Emmaline’s disappearance. Emmaline's bones now nestled in a piece of linen she had pulled from Grandmere's closet, inside a box that she had also pulled from storage.
Grandmere's home had yielded a wealth of things that Eleri had not known about. Frederick had pulled up a trap door in the kitchen that her grandmother kept hidden under a rug. He led Eleri down into what had once been a root cellar, but now was Grandmere's storage.
On a roughly hewn shelf was a decorated box that had been made for Emmaline. As Eleri stared at Frederick in wonder, he'd only said, "She knew—as well as you did, and as well as I did—that Emmaline has been gone for a while. She also knew that you would find her."
He had left her there after saying his piece, probably expecting her to bring the box up on her own. He seemed to have known she would need a few minutes to throw her arms over the beautiful wood piece and once again cry for the loss.
Unlike her mother, Eleri had believed that Emmaline was dead. But much like her mother, she had harbored a tiny thread of hope. She so wanted to be wrong. She wanted to find her sister alive, though she'd never been able to fathom a story that would have allowed Emmaline to live well into her late twenties yet not come to find her family.
Eleri had tried so many times to imagine scenarios in which Emmaline was still alive. Part of her had believed that, if she was creative enough to come up with a story, then it might be true. Still, the majority of her had always known that this was what she would find. Now, having it done, there was no longer a path before her. It was harder than she could have imagined.
Surprisingly, her father had been heartbroken by the loss of Grandmere as well. Despite his harsh feelings about how Grandmere had let his daughters run free, he’d loved the old woman deeply. Then it was devastating for him to hear about his daughter.
Eleri did not believe he’d ever thought as Nathalie did. He had seemed more accepting of the fact that he would never see his youngest child again. But now, knowing that it was final, Eleri understood that was different.
It didn’t make it any better or worse, knowing that her family was one of twenty getting the same notifications this week. The FBI had identified most of the bodies. Seven had come out of the courtyard, and ten more out of the graveyard in the back. Five had proved to be missing children. The others were deceased Dauphine family members.
Darcelle's grandparents had turned up, as well as Tempeste Dauphine, along with another aunt and an uncle who had been buried on the property as well.
Almasi's team had found no more than the ten turned pieces of earth in the cemetery that Donovan had found that first night the two of them had checked. Though the FBI team had gone over the whole place with ground penetrating radar, and an expert to read it, there were no additional bodies there.
How Cabot had managed to go in, dig up graves, and bury new bodies on top of them without anyone finding out, no one knew. That was a question only the witchcraft of the Dauphine sisters would likely ever answer.
Once the bodies were in the branch office and identification had started, Donovan had left town. Both of them decided he needed to get home and back into Westerfield’s good graces as quickly as possible. Even though they’d officially been on the clock these past few days, it was best to be Westerfield’s agents again—at least for the sake of the job.
Donovan let Eleri drive him to the airport. She’d insisted, dropping him off and turning right back around. She wanted to go back to Grandmere's house and have one last night alone, before the house became Frederick's—before she left, possibly never to return.
She packed up everything. All of her bags were ready to leave the home, but not her memories of Grandmere. Though Frederick had said she could come back anytime she wanted, Eleri wasn't sure she saw that happening.
The day before, she'd driven to the branch office where agent Almasi had remanded the care of Emmaline's bones to Eleri, entrusting her to return them to her home.
They’d pushed through the official ID as fast as possible, as a courtesy to another agent. Because of this, her family was given custody of Emmaline’s remains, and Nathalie was planning a service. Eleri had carefully transferred the bones into the box Grandmere left for her, packed her sister into the car, and headed north for Patton Hall.
75
Eleri was an hour away from home when her phone rang. Donovan had called frequently to make sure the trip was going okay. He was worried about her—not enough to insist that he come along, but enough to insist that she check in periodically. Avery had done the same, and she had enjoyed long talks with him that alternately let her cry and helped her take her mind off the issues at hand. She had planned several days to see him while he had a break. He was going to come to Patton Hall to meet her parents. Despite it already being an incredibly tough week, she thought maybe this was the time to do it. Maybe it would make Nathalie Beaumont Eames happy to know that at least her one remaining child had someone in her life.
She and Avery had decided they should stay together, and that this was likely what their life would be like—mostly on the road, mostly away, and catching whatever time they could. Eleri, for a while, had thought she wouldn't be able to live like that. Now she realized she had no other options.
This was the life she had chosen for herself. She had become an FBI agent because of her missing sister, because of the agents who had talked to her and questioned her in the days immediately following Emmaline's disappearance. She had wanted to be like them. She had gone into the Bureau, and later been promoted into the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
She remembered her first days and her first partner, J. Binkley Raymer, the good old cowboy who helped usher her along and taught her everything he thought he knew about being an agent.
She'd spent later years in the “basement” of the BAU, analyzing files and helping to catch killers, all the while thinking that one day, she would find her sister. And now, Emmaline sat in the box on the seat next to her as her phone rang.
Eleri flipped the phone over and saw that it was neither Donovan nor Avery, nor anyone in her family. It was Agent Westerfield. She thought about not answering it. Her job as an agent was done, wasn't it? Wasn't this what she had come for?
But it wasn’t. Donovan had finally told her the man he’d smelled in the alleyway was possibly a brother. Dr. Marks was still missing. And GJ would definitely need a hand forensically with what her grandfather had left her.
No. Her work was far from done.
Her hand rested lightly on the box in the seat beside her. She had found her sister, and she was bringing Emmaline home, for whatever it might be worth at this late date. The thought of not answering the call—of not working with Donovan, of not being what she was—wasn’t anything she could fathom. So she picked the phone up, and she answered, "Eames."
Westerfield didn’t bother with pleasantries. She knew him well enough now to understand that he’d offered his condolences once, and that would be it. So she wasn’t surprised when he rattled off an assignment.
"Can you make it to Nebraska in four days?" he asked. That was the longest he'd ever given her to get on the road. That was his only nod to the family tragedy she was currently suffering.
Mentally, she did the math and shuffled her time. It would only cost one day off her trip with Avery.
"Heath?" she asked. Whether or not Donovan would be there would make a difference. She was going to have to pull her shit together to do this, but there were more people who needed what she and Donovan could do.
She didn't kid herself. She wasn't the only FBI agent out there. She wasn’t even the only NightShade agent, but what she had was something special. Selfishly, with everything she'd lost this week, she wasn't willing to give up anything more.
"Yes, the two of you are going in undercover," he said, and then amended it with, “Kind of…” and she listened while he explained. A small town in Nebraska. A dead body, and so on. She would get the details later. She had four days.
He hung up, and she turned the corner onto the small country freeway that led to Patton Hall. She was so close, but as the speed limit dropped, the time got longer. She felt perhaps this time, instead of letting it frustrate her, she would use the extra minutes to prepare.
The trees were lush and green overhead. As the roads got more familiar, her heart settled into her chest. She thought of the dreams she’d had the night before.
Emmaline had been running through the woods. This time, she no longer wore a white cotton dress or chambray. She was in jeans. Jeans with metal rivets, snaps, and zippers, like the girls had sometimes worn when they were children, when Mama didn't have any special event for them to dress up like pretty little ladies for. Eleri smiled.
Emmaline had on a T-shirt with a snarky saying on it. And Eleri had laughed at her, thinking yes, that was how Emmaline would have turned out. Emmaline, forever seventeen, had run through the woods, begging Eleri to follow her. They had come to the clearing with the small square house with the white siding. The porch cut in to the front corner, and the door set at a strange, forty-five-degree angle.
Emmaline pushed open the door and stepped inside. Again, Eleri followed, laughing the whole time.
Inside, the house was quiet. She had seen this house before and had found so many things and so many clues in it. In fact, she thought that once she might have seen the goddess Aida Weddo here.
But this time, she heard a whisper from around the corner. “Makinde.” And, as she came to the back room and the rocking chair, she found Grandmere.
The Camelot Gambit (NightShade 7) releases April 2, 2019. Keep up with AJ—get Legends #1: The Landa Landa & The Aellai. When two sisters fight an Ebola outbreak, danger crosses seas and Legends are born.
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About the Author
AJ holds an MS in Human Forensic Identification as well as another in Neuroscience/Human Physiology. AJ’s works have garnered Audie nominations, options for tv and film, as well as over twenty Best Suspense/Best Fiction of the Year awards.
* * *
A.J.’s world is strange place where patterns jump out and catch the eye, little is missed, and most of it can be recalled with a deep breath. In this world, the smell of Florida takes three weeks to fully leave the senses and the air in Dallas is so thick that the planes “sink” to the runways rather than actually landing.
For A.J., reality is always a little bit off from the norm and something usually lurks right under the surface. As a storyteller, A.J. loves irony, the unexpected, and a puzzle where all the pieces fit and make sense. Originally a scientist and a teacher, the writer says research is always a key player in the stories. AJ’s motto is “It could happen. It wouldn’t. But it could.”
A.J. has lived in Florida and Los Angeles among a handful of other places. Recent whims have brought the dark writer to Tennessee, where home is a deceptively normal-looking neighborhood just outside Nashville.
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A.J. Scudiere, Garden of Bone: Book 6
