Page 56 of Heart of Stone
What grave, Trevor? You didn't give me any normal place to mourn,I thought bitterly.Instead, you stuck me with that ridiculous, nearly four-foot-tall monstrosity of an urn. It took two normal men to carry it, even if Gunner had been able to pick it up alone. Even your fucking ashes are weighing me down—
“Wait,” I said aloud to no one, dropping the nearly empty orange juice to the ground. “No, it can’t be.”
I cradled my head in my hands as I ran through the idea again and again. My hangover headache was nearly gone, but the terrible idea wedged in my mind was almost worse, banging inside my skull like a demon in a cage. It was too horrible. Too morbid. Not even Trevor would do such a thing.
Don’t mourn me, Rachel,he had written.You don’t even know me at all. I’ll take it to my grave.
“It’s in the urn,” I gasped. “The Anubis is in the urn.”
“Gunner. GUNNER. Wake up!”
After a fair amount of shaking, he bolted awake, looking around for a nonexistent threat until I managed to get his attention.
“No one’s here. Are you actually awake? We need to talk!”
I knew my voice was shrill, but any ounce of tiredness had fled my body. I could sprint back to Lace Elm on all the energy coursing through my veins right then.
Gunner looked me over, the fog of sleep leaving his eyes before being replaced with apprehension. “Is this about last night? Nothing happened, I swear.”
“No Gunner. Listen.” I knelt in front of him, grabbing his huge hands to keep his focus on me. “The Anubis effigy is in Trevor’s urn.”
His face went blank. “What did you say?”
“The urn,” I repeated. “In with his ashes.”
He demanded I explain and, after taking a seat next to him, I told him everything that I’d put together over the last thirty minutes. The letter, the weird pottery-turned-urn, how Trevor vowed to take the statue ‘to his grave... everything. Gunner listened as if I was speaking gospel, the flame of hope burning in his eyes higher and higher by the second.
When I finished, almost out of breath with excitement, he grabbed my shoulders and kissed me soundly before touching his forehead to mine. “You beautiful little genius. That has to be it. The book said ‘cursed with obsession’, remember? What’s more obsessive than building your final resting place around a fucking dog statue?”
“Anubis is a jackal,” I corrected him, and he groaned, pulling away from me. “And I thought you didn’t believe in curses?”
“If you’re right about this, I’ll start practicing sorcery myself. How quickly can you be ready?”
“Ten minutes,” I told him firmly. “You?”
“Five.”
In the Range Rover, Gunner told me all about his talk with Shadow, and how he had found Gunner’s nieces’ school. He was white as a sheet as he said it, and it seemed almost like a struggle to get the words out. Like speaking them out loud would make them real.
“It’s okay,” I told him, gripping his leg as he drove. “I know this is right, Gunner. I feel it in my bones.”
“Don’t get too cocky, or you’ll set yourself up for heartbreak.”
I thought of the little blond girls in the picture he had shown me, one with her tongue out and the other looking forever offended by her sister’s behavior, and their mom standing behind them, her short dark hair caught up in a clip and her face both tired and infinitely proud. Gunner had taken the picture, and when he had shown it to me, it felt like an intensely personal look into his life. I had vowed, silently, to help him save them. Now, I might be ready to make good on that promise.
“I’m not cocky,” I insisted. “I’m confident.”
Gunner looked at me for a split second, his dynamic eyes telling me everything he didn’t want to say out loud. No matter what he told me, he was confident too. Confident, and terrified of what would happen if I was wrong.
Chapter Twenty Three
After speaking to Shadow the night before, Gunner had called off all his security at the Lace Elm house, sending them to the safehouse where his sister was staying with the kids, as well as around the elementary school they attended. He had already dropped down to a skeleton crew at Lace Elm after declaring that the artifact wasn’t present, so it wasn’t much of a change, but it meant the house was eerily empty when we arrived.
We hadn’t been staying at my home overnight, but a good portion of the week had been spent searching it from top to bottom, and I had gotten used to having all of Gunner’s team around. Now, we were alone, and the house was dark, nothing but the wind in the trees and the sound of the water on the shore below us welcoming me home.
As excited as I was, something settled like a stone in my gut as we pulled into the driveway and exited the vehicle. It was a dreary, gray day, and it almost felt like there was a dark energy hanging over the home now that I had all but abandoned it. I thought about how the house had cradled me during my deepest periods of grief, a comfort as well as a reminder of what I had lost, and felt sad seeing it this way. It was a beautiful house and had been my sanctuary for a time. It deserved more than this.
As we walked up the drive, I imagined two blond girls playing in the yard; discarded hula hoops, a basketball net, and figures drawn in sidewalk chalk on the pavement.