However, this was the route she’d drawn out of the candy dish where she kept all the routes she’d picked to run. Being guided by the luck of the draw was another way she had of combating monotony.
“Just a little farther, Moy, just a little farther,” she mumbled, egging herself on. “You can do this. You’ve done it before, you’ll do it again. Pay no attention to the eerie place on your left. It’s just your imagination, you know that.”
Her imagination and the ghost stories Malloy had loved telling her every night when their ages were both still in the single digits.
“Just keep on running. There’re no such things as ghosts or creatures that go bump in the night, just Malloy, doing his best to scare you. Think about something else.”
His best, back then, had always been more than good enough and it had laid the foundation for the uneasy wariness she experienced whenever she passed a cemetery after twilight.
Logically, the fear had no foundation. Emotionally, though, was another story entirely.
Emotionally, it was—
Moira’s breath caught in her throat.
There were two shadowy figures racing out of the cemetery—and they looked as if they were running right toward her.
Moira jumped out of the way, just in case they actually were running toward her, but the evasive maneuver only managed to complicate matters.
One of the shadowy figures slammed right into her, knocking the air out of her.
Her imagination going full blast, Moira had half expected the shadowy figure to go right through her, but it hadn’t.
And now that she thought about it, the figure had felt very solid for a ghost.
She watched, stunned, as the “ghost” scrambled to its feet and then proceeded to run off despite the limp it seemed to have acquired from the collision.
The shadowy figures just kept on going as if she hadn’t been there.
Maybe to them she wasn’t.
“Hey!” she cried, rattled and stunned as well as beginning to lose her temper. The notion that the duo were ghosts had quickly disappeared. Nothing that hit so hard upon collision was made of vapor and air. She had definitely been hit by a flesh-and-blood human being. It frustrated her that she was unable to specify anything beyond that vague description.
Because of the fact that both running figures had been covered in black from head to foot, she couldn’t have even identified the gender of either.
The next second she saw the reason that the duo had come flying out of the cemetery. They were being chased by someone.
Him she could make out.
He was a tall, dark-blond haired man who ran with both the grace and speed of a professional athlete. He’d appeared to be gaining on the slower of the two shadowy figures until he’d seen her sprawled out on the pavement.
The thought that she’d had more graceful moments flashed through Moira’s mind.
Stopping for a second, the dour-looking stranger put his hand out to her. Her ego bruised, Moira accepted his help. There was a time for pride and a time for practicality. This was one of those latter times.
“You okay?” he asked in a resonant voice as he pulled her to her feet.
“Yes.”
She was about to add a coda that it actually depended on his definition of “okay” since her unexpected sudden meeting with the pavement had jarred her to the roots of her teeth, but Moira never got the opportunity.
The blond stranger was off and running after the duo in less time than it took for her words to form in her head.
Dusting herself off, Moira stared after the stranger’s departing figure, no longer able to see the two he was chasing and trying to overtake. They’d had too much of a head start on him.
It seemed as if everyone was in top physical form, she thought grudgingly. The next moment the chivalrous, silent stranger disappeared from her view.
Moira sighed. Maybe all this was just a figment of her bored imagination, but somehow she strongly doubted it.
At this point dawn was laying the finishing touches for its dramatic entrance, turning up the light around the edges of the visible world and then multiplying that light and spreading it around the surrounding area.
Moira turned and looked at the entrance to the cemetery. It no longer appeared like the scene of countless ghost stories waiting to be told—or lived—just a place where people brought their loved ones so the latter could have a final resting place.
Moira regarded the cemetery thoughtfully.
Just what was the big deal in the cemetery at this hour of the morning, anyway? The duo that had run right over her certainly seemed as if they could belong to a cult, but that wasn’t true of the man who had helped her to her feet then taken off before she could thank him.
Could he have been the night watchman or maybe the groundskeeper?
Curious, Moira glanced at her watch. If she ran at her best top speed to her condo, she could make it in twelve minutes. That left her about five to investigate whatever had been going on in the cemetery—if there actually had been something going on.
She regarded the grounds beyond the arched entrance.
That was an awful lot of territory to cover in five minutes. Still, mysteries of any kind had always intrigued her. She couldn’t resist.
Running in and moving fast, Moira managed to take in close to a quarter of the area. Scanning it, nothing caught her attention.
Maybe the duo had been just kids dressed in black to blend into the night as they explored the cemetery. Maybe they were doing it on a dare.
A lot of stupid things were done in the name of a dare.
If the blond stranger was a security guard—or a groundskeeper—then he’d been chasing them off.
She turned to leave the cemetery when something caught her eye. Aware of the seconds ticking by, Moira still felt compelled to investigate. It was in her DNA, not just because she was a Cavanaugh, but because she was part of the police department’s understaffed robbery division.
Moving closer, she realized what it was that had set off her alarm.
One of the headstones in the vicinity looked as if it had been knocked over and then righted again—but not all that well. The stone was tilted.
Stepping even closer, Moira read the writing on the headstone. “‘Emily Jenkins, beloved wife of Hal Jenkins.’” It also gave the year of her birth and her death. Whoever Emily Jenkins was, she had been buried a couple of months more than twenty years.
Moira regarded the list of the headstone. Maybe it was just due to regular shifting of the earth. After all, this was California. Some areas moved more than others. If there had been regular minor tremors or just simple shifting, that could have made the headstone move and lean as if it had had one too many.
Reaching out, Moira touched the headstone. She immediately saw that it was not only listing, it was downright loose. That took effort.
Human effort.
Could the people who had knocked her down been grave robbers?
Grave robbers? Moira, this is Aurora. Nobody even touches a headstone if they can help it.
Yet what other explanation could there be? This needed further examination—but not at this moment, Moira sternly reminded herself. She had someplace to be.
Taking off from the cemetery to avoid being late to work, Moira made herself a promise to come back as soon as she could today to investigate the scene thoroughly.
Emily Jenkins had been