Chapter 9
The air in my throat froze.
I reached out with a trembling hand, my fingers brushing the polished walnut. The keyhole had not been forced; there were no scratch marks on the brass plate.
Slowly, carefully, I lifted the heavy wooden lid.
The upper velvet tray was empty save for the pearls and the class ring.
Sitting directly in the center of the royal-blue velvet, illuminated by the pale lamplight, was an object that made my stomach violently drop out from beneath me.
It was a silver locket.
It was shaped like a tiny, stylized hummingbird in mid-flight, its wings delicately engraved with minute feathers, a single dull green emerald serving as the bird’s eye.
The silver was severely corroded. Dark, oxidized spots pitted the metal, and crusted along the delicate hinges and the chain links were flakes of dried, reddish-black clay.
A strangled sound escaped my throat.
I clamped both hands over my mouth, stumbling back until my shoulders hit the cold plaster wall.
*No.*
*No, no, no.*
My mind screamed in absolute, unadulterated horror.
The hummingbird locket had been Daisy’s fifteenth birthday present from Arthur. She had worn it every single day. She had been wearing it that night by the reservoir ruins.
And she had been wearing it when I dragged her into the shadows of the old pump house.
I remembered that moment with terrifying, indelible clarity.
In the breathless panic following the fatal blow, with the rain pouring over the stone foundation, I had seen that silver hummingbird gleaming against her collarbone in the narrow beam of my flashlight.
I had known instantly that the custom engraving on the back—*To my sweet Daisy, Love Dad*—would be an immediate death sentence if anyone ever stumbled upon her.
I had ripped the chain from her neck with shaking hands.
Determined that no piece of her would ever see daylight again, I had sealed the pendant with her body inside the pine tool chest, burying it deep beneath the earth under six feet of clay and foundation slate so the soil would swallow every trace of her existence forever.
It was impossible for that locket to be sitting on my vanity.
It was physically, mathematically impossible.
The heirloom had been interred six feet beneath the roots of an ancient cedar in Blackwood Ravine, entombed beside her bones.
For that locket to be here... in this room... on my velvet tray...
Someone had opened the grave.
Someone had severed the cedar roots. Someone had pried open the rotting pine planks. Someone had reached down into the dark, rain-soaked earth, cleared away the silt, and pulled the tarnished silver bird from beside her remains.
My knees gave out.
I sank onto the rug, clutching my chest as cold sweat beaded across my forehead.
The smell hit me then.
It wasn't Yardley lavender. It wasn't rain.
Drifting up from the open walnut box was the faint, unmistakable odor of ancient, stagnant loam—the heavy scent of deep clay that had sealed away a secret for ten long years.
*They found it,* my mind screamed in blind panic. *They found the grave.*
Or did they?
I forced my head up, my eyes wide and bloodshot, staring at the tarnished silver hummingbird.
*Think, Clara! Use your brain!*
If Miller had uncovered the site, I would already be in handcuffs. If state forensics had excavated the reservoir, the clearing would be cordoned off with floodlights, crime scene tape, and patrol cruisers. They wouldn't sneak into my bedroom like a burglar to slip a piece of evidence into my jewelry box.
This wasn't Miller.
This was *her*.
The girl across the hall.
How had she gotten it?
Had she gone out into the ravine at night? Had she found where the earth had settled over the years?
Blackwood Ravine was notorious for flash floods and shifting embankments. The heavy storms over the past two seasons had caused major mudslides along the old reservoir wall.
*What if the ground gave way?*
The thought struck me like an electric shock to the heart.
What if the collapsing hillside had exposed the corner of the chest? What if the autumn rains had washed away the topsoil, cracking the rotting pine lid open to the elements, leaving the burial cavity exposed?
What if she had slipped out there, following whatever fragmented whispers she had gathered, and stumbled across the exposed site? What if she had reached into the mud, taken the locket, and brought it back here as the ultimate weapon to make me lose my mind?
And worse: what if the remains were still lying out there, half-uncovered, waiting for the morning light?
Tomorrow was Sunday.
Tomorrow afternoon, Miller had promised to bring search units to walk the trails where Daisy claimed she had been taken. If the chest was exposed—if even a single fragment of weathered wood or a scrap of faded corduroy was visible through the mud—the handlers would find it within minutes.
And on the back of that locket, inside my locked jewelry box, were traces of clay tying it directly to the hollow.
*I have to go,* the thought roared through my skull with deafening urgency. *I have to go now.*
I had to see it with my own eyes.
I had to know whether the grave was intact or broken open. I had to take the locket back to the mud, rebury it deep beneath the bedrock where no storm could ever touch it, and cover the site with fresh slate.
If the site was compromised, I had to secure it. I had to finish what I started ten years ago.
I dragged myself up from the floor.
The panic that had paralyzed me moments before instantly hardened into that familiar, lethal ice. Saint Clara was gone. The calculating survivor had re-emerged, measuring every breath, every muscle movement.
I walked to the closet.
I pulled on a heavy pair of dark canvas cargo pants and laced my waterproof hiking boots tight around my ankles. I pulled a black hooded rain slicker over my head, tucking my hair completely beneath the waterproof brim.
From under my bed, I retrieved a heavy canvas duffel bag.
Inside the bag was a compact, sharp-edged steel entrenching spade—the kind used by military engineers—a high-intensity tactical flashlight with a red lens filter to avoid casting visible beams through the trees, a pair of thick rubber work gloves, and a box of heavy-duty black contractor bags.
I walked back to the vanity.
With gloved fingers, I picked up the corroded silver hummingbird locket.
The metal felt icy cold against the rubber. I shoved it deep into the zippered breast pocket of my slicker, right against my ribs.
I checked my watch.
Twelve-fifteen AM.
The storm was reaching its absolute peak. Outside the window, the wind howled like an animal, throwing torrential sheets of rain against the siding. It was the perfect night. No one in Oakhaven would be awake. No patrol car would be creeping along the flooded rural routes.
I walked to my bedroom door, eased the deadbolt back with agonizing slowness, and pulled the door open by an inch.
The second-floor hallway was pitch-black.
No light from Daisy’s room. No sound from my parents' quarters except Arthur's distant, heavy breathing.
