Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,30

“The last time I was here with Alexis, I was alive and she was just a child. In my day, people visited their dearly departed. I brought flowers for Mr. Hardwicke twice a month.”

She nodded at a marble-sealed crypt, about head high. The marker read JAMES HARDWICKE III. BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER. There was a brass sconce next to it—I thought it was some sort of lamp. There were more, spaced evenly between the vaults. Then I realized they were empty vases for flowers.

Mrs. Hardwicke sniffed her disapproval. “I think it’s clear that no one has been here in quite some time.”

I pressed her for useful information. “Did Alexis say anything when she hid the key in the safe? Did you sense her thoughts, like if she might have hidden something here?”

“No.” Her image turned watery, weakening. “I want to help Alexis, but this is more difficult than I thought.”

I realized I was the only thing keeping her coherent and aware. When I relaxed my psychic hold, she dissolved into a sigh of fog, but I could still feel her hanging about in a formless sort of way.

“What did she say?” asked Carson, sounding edgy, or maybe just uneasy. I mean, standing in the dark among the dead might get to some people.

“She doesn’t know when Alexis was last here,” I said. “Which only means that Alexis wasn’t wearing the necklace when she visited. We’re back to square one.”

“What about …?” He gestured with the flashlight toward the vaults that held the remains of Alexis’s maternal ancestors.

I took a deep breath just contemplating the heavy lifting it would take to get anything coherent from the scraps of memory that lingered there. Could I do it without getting my hands on at least one set of physical remains?

“There’s not much here to work with,” I told him. “Before I try to pull off a miracle, let’s look for signs of any disturbance, like if she hid something. You check the physical, I’ll cover the psychic.”

“Got it.” Carson began a systematic study of the marble-fronted crypts, running his hands and the flashlight over the seals and the ledges in front. That left me in the semidarkness, but I didn’t need light to read the spirits in the place and know they were undisturbed and unhelpful.

I ended up standing where Mrs. Hardwicke had disappeared. In front of me were two side-by-side crypts. Mr. Hardwicke III was in one. The other engraving said ALEXANDRA HATTERSLEY HARDWICKE, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER.

This was nuts. How could a girl like Alexis hide anything in one of the vaults? Even if it was unoccupied and unsealed, opening it would be a task for a heavy-lifting crew.

Then why come here? I put myself in her shoes, like I did with the remnants too old and tattered to read properly. She must have felt this was a secure place. She came here with her grandmother—maybe there were happy associations. They brought flowers.…

Bingo! The answer was staring me in the face. Or rather, I was staring right at it—the empty brass vase right above eye level, between Mr. and Mrs. James Hardwicke III.

“Carson, come here!” The vase would definitely hide something small dropped inside. I could reach the lip but not down into it. “Give me another boost, will you?”

He saw what I was up to and handed me the flashlight, then offered his linked hands as he had outside the cemetery wall. I stepped into them, grabbing his shoulder for balance.

He had nice, solid shoulders, and he took my weight without a quiver. I was only up long enough to get my hand in the vase and grab the object inside. I gave a soft whoop of triumph and Carson let me back down, then moved closer to see as I aimed the flashlight onto the treasure in my palm.

It was a plastic mummy, about three inches long, wrapped in white bandages, ready for the sarcophagus. Or maybe to come awake and start shuffling after Boris Karloff, I don’t know.

“That’s definitely not a jackal,” I said, not sure what to think. I was flummoxed.

Carson took it from my hand. “Doesn’t look like it’s been here that long. Maybe some visiting kid left his toy?”

“A kid couldn’t have put it in that vase, it’s too high.”

“Is that writing on it?” He twisted the plastic figure in the beam of the flashlight. “I think it’s an o and an i.”

Puzzle pieces were lining up in my head. Alexis, studying the classical worlds,