Page 35 of What Happens at Nightfall

“I don’t care.” At this point, he was ready to lick the spilled coffee off Jess’s skirt. Adam hastily tried to erase that image from his mind, but it was too late. Adam grabbed a page at random from the pile of printouts and waved it at Ben. “You see these? Someone’s been following your sister. We think.”

“It’s the guide for that tour I was on last night,” Jess explained, and Adam had never been so grateful to have someone else take over. “She seems to have an unhealthy obsession with your family and particularly your sister.”

Ben was staring wide-eyed at a picture of a demon. “What’s . . . that?”

“Not your sister,” said Jess. “Whoever this woman is, there’s some link in her head between diabolism and your family.”

“Hey, don’t worry. We’ll find this woman and—and sort it out.” Adam had no idea what sorting it out looked like. Mental health services? Exorcism? “What I need to know is—did anyone suggest opening the family tomb? Did anyone reach out to you, contact you?”

Ben swallowed hard. “You mean like, asking me to open it?”

Adam nodded his thanks as Melinda waved a cup of coffee in front of him. He knew it was just a placebo, but the second the bitter taste exploded on his tongue, he could feel his brain cells start waking up and working better. “Did anyone send you any messages? Or even just—I don’t know, notes in your locker, targeted ads for Ouija boards?”

“No, nothing like that.” With an effort, Ben dragged his gaze from the pictures on the table. “I just—wanted to impress the guys. The key was just sitting there. I didn’t realize it was going to be a big deal.”

The words came out in a hoarse monotone. Adam frowned at his son. There was something he wasn’t telling, but Adam couldn’t figure out what.

It was Kate to whom Ben had been closest. Adam and Ben—they had done things together. They’d played Hot Wheels versus dinosaurs, they’d built endless miles of track for Thomas the Tank Engine. But it was Kate that Ben had talked to.

And now Kate was gone.

“Ben, if there’s anything you can think of— Hang on a sec.” Adam’s phone buzzed insistently in his pocket. He yanked it out and hit the accept call button. “Adam Chervinsky.”

“It’s Calvin. I’m with Nessa. We’re at the McAlpin monument.” The one that had almost fallen on Jess and Ben last night. Adam had been watching it winched back up when he’d gotten the call from Jess what felt like years ago.

“Who is it?” mouthed Melinda.

Adam put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Cal. And Nessa.” The director of restoration and preservation at Green-Wood, Nessa was to the monuments of Green-Wood what Adam was to the foliage. As their resident historian, Cal worked closely with Nessa. He was also Adam’s best buddy at Green-Wood. “What’s up?”

“Have you seen the finial from the top of the McAlpin monument?”

“The urn with the wings?” There was a picture of it staring up at Adam right now, not a photograph, but a sketch. “It was lying on the grass right up against the signpost for Landscape Path.”

“It’s gone.”

“Gone? Like—gone?” Holding up a hand, Adam wandered away from the table to the counter.

“Like gone,” Calvin confirmed. “Could one of your guys have picked it up?”

“I don’t see why they would.”

“If they thought they were being helpful? Or maybe they had to move it to mow?”

“We don’t mow anymore, Cal, you know that.” Adam decided not to stoop to asking Cal if they were using Fantastik to clean the monuments. There was a time for a little friendly needling and a time for just letting it go. “I’ll ask if anyone picked it up, but it seems unlikely. Last time I went by there you had caution tape up all over. You’d think people would know better.”

“You’d think,” said Cal grimly. “But it wouldn’t be the first time a monument’s gone missing. At least it’s smaller than Gottschalk.”

Once Cal got started on Gottschalk’s angel, they could be on the phone forever. The statue had gone missing, lock, stock, and wings, back in 1959, and Cal had made it his personal mission to track it down, so far with minimal success.

“I guess someone could have walked off with it as a souvenir,” said Adam doubtfully. “It would be heavy, but it’s small enough to stick in a tote bag.”

“Like those people who chiseled bits off the Parthenon,” said Cal darkly.

“Cal—” Adam knew he should tell his colleague about the broken stained glass orb in the Vanderwilt tomb, but he also knew that when he did, Cal was going to throw a fit.

Adam glanced back at the scene at the kitchen table, Jess and Melinda sorting through printouts, Ben clutching his backpack strap like a safety blanket. He just couldn’t. Not now. It was the kids’ family tomb. What business was it of Cal’s if they kept it locked up for another week or a year or a decade? It wasn’t like the stained glass was going to get any more broken than it already was. He’d deal with it later. Once they’d found Melinda’s stalker.

“Hello? Adam? Did I lose you?”