You Don't Want To Know - By Lisa Jackson Page 0,110
looked up, his gaze finding hers in the darkness. “Maybe we’d better stop.”
Steeling herself, she shook her head vehemently and trained her eyes on the dark pit. “I have to know.” Her heart was thundering in her ears, her palms sweating, denial pulsing through her brain.
“Sure?”
She was nodding, but all the while her inner voice was screaming, No, no, no! She didn’t know how she could live with herself if she found her son’s body, if she would finally be forced to give up all hope of seeing him again.
Jaw set hard, Dern went on working. In the hole, a metal box, the size of a child’s casket, began to emerge. Oh, God, please no . . . please don’t let Noah be inside! Heart clamoring, she barely heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel.
“We’ve got company,” Dern said as raindrops began to pepper the ground in earnest. Ava barely noticed. Her gaze was riveted on the dirt-crusted box as he lifted it with some force and slid it onto the ground in front of the bench.
“What’s going on here?” Jacob’s voice rang down the hillside, but Ava hardly heard him or the deep growl from Rover’s throat. All of her attention was focused on the box.
“What the hell is that?” Jacob appeared in the clearing and, using his iPhone, shined a light on the scratched, filthy metal box. “Oh . . . shit.” His cocky attitude drained away as he put the pieces together. “That was buried under the marker?”
“Yes.” Ava’s voice was the barest of whispers, and she felt as weak as she ever had. Her legs were shaking. But she had to know. Had to! Bile crawled up her throat. “Open it.”
“You’re sure?” Dern asked again.
“Yes!” No, oh, God, no!
“Fuck!” Jacob, the sharp beam of his iPhone light still trained on the box, backed up slowly. His face had washed of all color, the hand holding the phone shaking madly. “I . . . I don’t know what the hell this is, but I don’t like it.”
“Open it,” Ava said again, a dull roar resounding in her ears as the storm gathered force.
Dern bent down near the box, trying to force off the lid. “It’s locked. I’ll need to get a knife or a crowbar.”
“I don’t think so.” With cold certainty, she pulled the key from her jeans, crouched beside the small coffin, and, throat as dry as sand, slid the key into the lock.
A perfect fit.
Oh, God. Oh, dear God . . .
“Jesus Christ,” Jacob whispered, the beam off his cell phone wavering, “you’re not going to—”
Click.
The lock sprang.
“Ava.” Dern’s hand clasped over hers. Strong. Calloused.
Using all her strength, Ava yanked the lid open. Jacob’s light played upon the interior.
There, lying faceup, eyes open wide, the pale light shivering over it, was a small, lifeless body.
CHAPTER 28
“Holy shit!” Jacob dropped his phone and scrambled backward, startling the dog. Already nervous, Rover let out a worried growl.
Horrified, Ava bit back a scream and stared at the lifeless form in the makeshift casket. The tiny body was dressed in Noah’s red sweatshirt, his tiny faded jeans, his . . .
Bile shot up her throat as nausea overwhelmed her. Reflexively, she leaned over and lost the contents of her stomach even as her mind screamed that the body in the casket wasn’t her son. The thing inside the “casket” wasn’t even really a cadaver; something was off about it. She knew that at a gut level, but she was still freaked.
“It’s a doll.” Dern’s voice was surprisingly calm, underscored with an anger that showed the tension of his jaw. His gaze centered on Jacob. “Bring that light over here.”
Too late. Ava was already scooping up the iPhone and training its little beam into the coffin, where, lying on a folded blanket, there lay a large, ancient, porcelain-faced rag doll. Its once-perfect complexion was now destroyed by chips and cracks. An ear had broken off, and one eye stared fixedly upward, while the second eye’s lid was at half-mast. The doll’s hair had been chopped off and stuck up in sharp little ragged tufts, only slightly visible near the edge of the sweatshirt’s hood.
Clearly, the doll had been altered to resemble Noah, a sick prank.
Her heart squeezed painfully and she trembled inside. Thank God the body was not that of her son, that there was still hope Noah was alive, that she’d see him again. But this—Who would do