Page 64 of The Eleventh Hour
“I’ll take you,” Jacob says slowly. “It’s the least I can do.”
I squeeze Dane’s fingers and try not to give in to that tiny feeling that maybe we have found something useful at last.
Jax
Rafael climbs in the back with me and puts an arm around my shoulders.
“You all right?”
I nod mutely.
“Speak to me.”
“I just…if we find something, maybe anything.” I close my eyes and bite down on my bottom lip until it bleeds. “Cherise…”
Rafael doesn’t say anything, he just pulls me tighter into him, while Dane meets my eyes in the rearview mirror.
Jacob drives a baby blue pickup, and he travels out to the graveyard on the north-east side of the city. He parks his truck in front of the wrought iron fences and puts his hands in his pockets, waiting for us.
“What is that?” Dane asks and stares off to the left.
I get out of the car, and the two guys come to stand next to me. “The city was going to be huge, lofty aspirations, and they got carried away. When they closed the mine, a lot of companies went under, and this entire end of town just got forgotten. Put simply, the city ran out of money and investors left. That is the Dead City you’ve been so anxious at pretending you want to see.”
In among the green vegetation, faded yellow and red cranes sit abandoned. Metal is coated in rust, buildings left with thin strips of plastic flapping in lonely breezes. It’s a maze. Age has allowed the Earth to collapse and honeycomb the area, making it extremely dangerous.
“This isn’t on the maps,” Dane growls.
“Well, it is. It’s restricted. You don’t go in there, it’s too easy to not see something and break an ankle. You could disappear forever and a hundred strong search party would never find you. Trust me, it’s been done. No one who has gone missing was found alive,” Jacob says sadly. “Hurricane could have been more than this. So much potential lost to so much greed.”
“Let’s go see these graves.” I turn, leaving Hurricane’s ghost to face the more pressing one.
Jacob leads the way, it takes us about half an hour of hiking through the cemetery. It’s a somber affair, and even the sun seems to agree, disappearing behind some clouds. There are a lot of dead in this city.
“So, this is my grandfather’s grave.” Jacob looks around and makes a sound. “Uh-huh. Found it.” He walks diagonally through the graveyard until he stops beside a group of gravestones. Seven in total.
I look down at the name, and it doesn’t ring a bell.
“Banewood.” I try it out.
“Cecil Banewood died when Louis would have been thirteen. He was the most recent death and the oldest by far,” Rafael murmurs. “Look, it reads, grandfather, father, and husband. There’s more, but it’s been scratched off.”
“Three more men, all Banewood’s, all around the same ages, and they all died within a decade of each other. It looks like Liam was married to this woman, Daisy.” Jacob says, but his gaze is lost in memories, and I’m scared to ask him which ones.
“She and the children passed away on the same day,” I mutter. It seems so disrespectful to be here searching for a killer when they suffered. I feel so sorry for this woman. “Dorothy and Jill, eight and five. They were just babies.”
“Beloved mother of Lee,” Dane says into the silence. His words ring in my head.
“What?”
Dane points at the stone. “Lee, he’s not here. But Daisy was his beloved mother.”
“Lee Banewood,” I try the name and swallow hard. It doesn’t suit him. Louis Falcon suits him much better. It seems darker and more sinister. Maybe it does suit him better. I don’t know why, but I feel so lost in that moment. Like having another tangible piece of evidence of his lies sends me into a dark spiral.
Rafael gently turns me towards him. “Jax Shade, I think you are the most amazing person I ever met.” He presses a soft kiss to my lips, then hugs me close. “Don’t let his lies tear you down.”
How does he even know? How does this man understand me as well as he does?
“How can you live with someone and not know them? They ask me, the victims, the hate mail, the death threats, they all say the same thing. How did you not know? How did I not know?”