The elf blew out a breath through his nostrils, but he didn’t say anything, instead picking up his fork again and stabbing a square of tofu slathered inma posauce. He clearly wasn’t happy, but he ate his tofu, anyway.
I picked up a sweet and sour shrimp with my chopsticks and ate it. Trying to ignore both of them.
“Mrrew?” I looked down at where Sassafras sat on the floor beside the bed, one paw reaching up.
“You are definitely not supposed to have Chinese food,” I told the cat.
Elliot got up and opened a can of wet cat food, setting it on the floor for her. She accepted his substitution for Chinese food, licking it a couple times, then settling down on her haunches to eat properly.
Elliot returned to his paper plate of noodles, fried rice, and fried wontons stuffed with cream cheese. “Anything else we should know?” he asked Hart.
Hart swallowed whatever he was chewing before he spoke. “Not that an autopsy could confirm it, but I strongly suspect that she wasn’t the only one.” He began swirling noodles around his fork. “I’m going to pull a warrant to have Ward do an overall survey of the Community… town, or whatever the fuck they call it.” His expression was grim as he picked up a fried wonton andate it. “Because I have the feeling we’re going to find a lot more skeletons in this fucking closet.”
22
Elliot Crane
Are you okay?
Seth Crane
Fine.
Why?
You’re reburying your sister today.
It might be difficult.
No.
It’s good that it’s over.
Finally.
You coming?
As soon as I’m done here.
Elliot wasat Humbolt’s house, helping to sell off almost everything that had been in my parents’ house. I’d kept a few things, mostly at Elliot’s prompting—a few things thathad clearly belonged to my mother’s parents, like a fine china tableware setting that had been buried in a box on the attic, some quilts and embroidered linens, and the tatty old teddy bear that Noah had loved and which Momma had clearly hidden from my father. Noah might want it back.
I was back at the house with Helen, waiting for Hart and Ray to drive out with Rachael’s body, which had been released by the FBI for reburial.
Once this was done, we could go home.
First thing in the morning.
We just had to re-bury my murdered sister first.
I stood—withthe help of a cane, but still, I was standing—beside the graves of my mother and sister, one still newly covered, the other about to be occupied once more. They’d put her in a new coffin, although it was still plain wood.
Noah and Lulu weren’t here. Noah had told me he didn’t think he could handle it. I didn’t blame him. And Hart was up to his pointy ears dealing with the fact that there were more than three dozen unaccounted-for deaths and burials on Community land. Ward had summoned them so that Hart could ask them who they were, how they’d died, and where they were buried. At least two dozen of those three had been the victims of murder. Hart was placing money that some of the rest were homicide-by-neglect or -accident.
Either way, the whole Community of the Divine Transformation had ceased to exist, the Elders under arrest and several other members under suspicion.
What no one seemed to be able to answer was what would happen to everyone else.
Hart had shrugged at the question and said that the families owned their own property, so while they weren’t allowed to continue to worship, they couldn’t be removed from private property.
