Steal Away by BV Lawson

Author:BV Lawson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BV Lawson
Published: 2022-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Beverly turned her car onto Blessing Lane and counted down the house numbers. It started with 900, but when she’d reached the 600 block, the row of houses suddenly ended, replaced by a rolling field hemmed in by a low stone wall. A few feet further down, rows of headstones popped into view. She pulled her SUV in front of the wrought-iron arch marking the pathway into the cemetery and looked at the sign on top. It read Deer Park Cemetery, 101 Blessing Lane.

Had Imelda Forsythe given her the wrong address? Beverly got out of the car and walked under the arch, looking at the various inscriptions on the stones. Several Buels, Howes, and Lathrops. All family burial plots, if she wasn’t mistaken.

It was an eerily beautiful setting for a cemetery. Ash-gray stones dotted the field of brown grass like monolithic soldiers, and vivid red trees bled against the cloud-shrouded hills in the distance.

Beverly wandered down the rows and stopped in front of one grave that was newer than the others. The name on the headstone read “Kannan Hendrick.” What had Imelda said? “If you ever want to dig up dirt on Reggie Forsythe, you should look up Kannan Hendrick. Now there was a man who had no sense. Guess that’s why he ended up where he did.”

The death date on the tombstone was fifteen months ago. What had Imelda meant by the man had “no sense?” Whatever it was, Reggie’s ex-wife believed it had landed him here.

One thing that stood out was a lack of flowers or a flag on Hendrick’s plot unlike other grave sites. Beverly reached down to brush off a piece of withered grass clinging to the edge of the stone. As she straightened up, a voice from behind her almost made her jump out of her skin.

“You didn’t bring no flowers.”

Beverly spun around to face the man. His long white hair spun a tangled web like spider silk down the middle of his back, and the skin stretched over his emaciated frame hung as if pasted there by sheer will. He looked like he’d crawled out of one of the graves.

She wasn’t superstitious, but this man who’d popped out of nowhere was giving her the creeps. Even with the gun hidden in her purse, she was acutely aware of how isolated it was out here. Just her, a few squirrels, and this cadaverous stranger. She gaped at him, then said, “Excuse me?”

“Flowers, I said flowers. You’re the first person I seen here visiting old Hendrick since he was planted. The man should have some flowers.”

“Oh. I uh, I didn’t have time to stop at a florist. But I’ll do that later. Are you the caretaker here?”

“Yep. You kin?”

Beverly thought fast. “Distant. A third cousin. I don’t know much about him other than family gossip.”

He scratched his chest. “Gossip followed old Hendrick around like a cloud of smoke. After his passing, too.”

Beverly bit her lip. “Yes, I believe I remember something. It’s sort of hazy.”

“They said it was a robbery gone bad at his house.

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