browsing. The color-coded signs tacked to the end of the bookshelves led me past fiction, nonfiction and biographies to the religion and history aisles where I scanned titles searching for something local. Alongside copies of The South Carolina Travel Guide and Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge Mountains were more esoteric titles: Mountain Magic, Folklore of the Appalachians and Frazer’s The Golden Bough, which I’d read in one of my anthropology classes for extra credit. As I pulled it from the shelf to skim the introduction, I heard someone laugh—a low, throaty female chortle that gave me goose bumps.
Turning, I glanced behind me. Nothing. I walked around to the next aisle. No one.
Then I glanced up. The gray tabby I’d seen in Luna’s office blinked down at me from the top shelf.
I went back to my reading, and now I heard a man’s voice, taunting and furtive. The library was empty, but I wasn’t alone. I walked along the wall, gazing down each row of bookshelves. When I got to the end, the voices grew louder, and my gaze dropped to an ornate grill that covered an old vent. Someone was in another room, and the air shaft carried their sound straight to me. Had I been standing in another part of the library, I probably wouldn’t have heard them at all.
Should I say something? I wondered. Or at least clear my throat to alert them of my presence?
As I stood there contemplating the proper etiquette, the murmurs turned to moans. Husky, sexual and extremely aggressive.
I backed away from the vent, but the sound followed me. Quickly, I shelved The Golden Bough only to dislodge another book. To my dismay, the heavy volume fell to the floor with a bang that sounded to me as loud as a shotgun blast.
“What was that?” The masculine voice sprang out of the air shaft, and I jumped. “I thought you said no one comes in here this time of day.”
“No one does,” the woman replied. “It was probably a bird flying into a window.”
“That does seem to happen when you’re around.”
“A lot of things happen when I’m around.”
“Yes,” he said. “And not much of it good.”
I was pretty sure the woman was Luna, but I didn’t wait around to hear her response. As quietly as I could, I exited the building and closed the door behind me. I’d recognized something in the male voice, too, and that familiarity niggled at me. I found myself looking up and down the block for a flash of metallic black paint. If Thane Asher’s car was parked nearby, I couldn’t spot it. Not that it mattered. If he had a relationship with Luna Kemper, it was none of my business.
But the echo of those feral moans followed me as I hurried away from the library.
* * *
I found the police station a few blocks over, housed in a grand old building that had been the county courthouse in more prosperous times. Despite an overall air of decay, there was still something dignified and a little awe-inspiring about the carved motifs and towering columns. As I approached the front entrance, my gaze rose to the scene depicted in the entablature—an eagle with a palmetto branch in its clutches. A popular sentiment during Reconstruction and one that appeared on a number of public buildings all over the state.
Inside, I followed the signs down a long corridor and through a set of tall wooden doors marked Police Headquarters. No one manned the front desk, nor did I see anyone milling about in the tiled lobby. I didn’t want a repeat of the library situation, so I called out, “Hello?”
Someone appeared in the doorway of one of the back rooms, the light hitting him in such a way that I could see little more than the silhouette of an average-size man. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, hello. I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself. I’m Amelia Gray. I’ll be working in Thorngate Cemetery for the next few weeks, and I thought it a good idea to let you know in advance in case you get calls or complaints.”
“What are you doing in the cemetery?” The voice coming from that featureless face was curiously unsettling. He spoke in a pleasant enough tone, but I detected a disagreeable edge.
“I’ll be restoring it,” I told him.
“Restoring it? You mean, clearing away brush, that sort of thing?”
“More or less…” I trailed off as he walked out to the counter, and I got my first good look at him. I judged him to be in his mid-forties, with dark hair swept back from a wide forehead and deep-set blue eyes fringed with thick lashes. No doubt, those eyes had once been the focal point of a ruggedly handsome face, but now the gaze was drawn to the scars—five jagged ridges that ran from the lower right eyelid back into the hairline and all the way down to his neck. Claw marks, I thought at once. Something had very nearly taken the side of his face off. Sweet Jesus.
Accepting the premise that the exceedingly attractive always had an easier path, I had to wonder what this man’s life had been like before and after the attack. Given his natural good looks, it couldn’t have been a painless adjustment. But this passed through my mind in a flash. I’d had years of practice in schooling my expression, and I knew none of my shock showed on my face as our eyes met across the desk.
“By whose authorization?” he asked.
“Luna Kemper contacted me.”
“Luna’s behind this? I might have known.” The contempt in his voice took me by surprise.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Where’s the money coming from?” he demanded.
I didn’t see how the financial arrangements could possibly be any of his business. “I’m sorry. You seem a little concerned about this project. Is there some problem, Officer…” I glanced at the name tag clipped to his uniform pocket. Wayne Van Zandt.
“It’s chief,” he said in a cool tone.
“I assure you, all of the permits are in order…Chief Van Zandt.”
He made a dismissive gesture that was at once graceful and oddly menacing. “I’m not concerned about permits. What I do care about is how people are going to react. Feelings still run strong about that cemetery.”
“So I hear. And that’s why I came to see you. I don’t want to cause any problems for you or the community. I’d just like to do my work in peace.”
His mouth tightened, emphasizing his disfigurement. “It might help me keep the peace if I know who’s behind it.”
I thought about that for a moment and nodded. Maybe he had a point. “The local historical society is funding the project.”
“Historical society?”
“The Daughters of our Valiant Heroes.”
He stared at me for a moment. “You think Daughters is a historical society?”
“Isn’t it?”
He laughed.
I didn’t get the joke. Chief Van Zandt obviously had a chip on his shoulder, and considering what he must have been through, I was empathetic enough to cut him some slack. “I won’t take up any more of your time. If you do get calls or have any questions, you know where to find me. Oh, and one more thing.” I stepped back up to the desk. “I saw a man in the cemetery this morning. He was acting pretty strange.”
“Like how?”
“When he saw me, he slithered under the fence and crawled off into the bushes.”
A brow rose. “Slithered?”
“Slithered, wiggled, whatever you want to call it. I saw him later hauling a dead animal down the hill in a child’s wagon.”
He shrugged. “Sounds a mite peculiar, but these mountains are full of odd folk. Mostly, they just want to be left alone. Some of them don’t see another living soul for months at a time, and when they finally emerge,