Ronilyn spent the next few hours in the Trinity Library, studying old newspaper accounts of her aunt's death and her mother's subsequent institutionalization less than a year later. Sarah Huntley's committal to Juniper House had been newsworthy because of her connection to the Bucks. The Bucks were a well-known family in Trinity and Hester Buck's heart attack in her mid-thirties had been news. The coroner had certified the cause of death as heart failure and noted the woman's adult life had been plagued with various illnesses.
Ronilyn capped the microfilm container and handed all the material back to the librarian. Nothing she didn't already know, although she had stared for a long time at the photo of a teenaged Lucas taken at his mother's funeral. Didn't look like he aged too much in almost thirty years. Strange, Ronilyn thought, but if anyone could find the fountain of youth, it would be Lucas.
She used the pay phone outside the library to contact the law firm in Ascension that sent her the letter from her mother. The attorney who handled the matter was unable to meet with Ronilyn that day, but after much persuasion, his secretary agreed to squeeze Ronilyn in for a few minutes tomorrow morning.
Ronilyn stopped in a florist shop on the way home and purchased a large cactus for her father's grave. She smiled as she handed the money over, knowing he would like it. "They're hardly any trouble to care for. Just water 'em every couple of months and they grow all on their own," he'd said in the past.
After a quick lunch at the diner, she brought the cactus home, then drove to the cemetery. Although she hadn't been to the grave since her father's death two years ago, Ronilyn was surprised to find the lawn well-tended and the headstone in excellent condition. Lucas's doing, or just a responsible caretaker taking his job seriously?
Ronilyn set the cactus down in front of the headstone and sat next to it. Some sparrows alighted on the tablet and chirped at her, eliciting a weak smile. She stared at the stone marker, recalling Lucas's comment about ghosts and wished her father would appear. He wouldn't know the truth about what happened to her mother or Aunt Hester, but he would surely know the story behind the contents of the letter.
Ronilyn sat for what seemed like hours until a prickly sensation on the back of her neck made her look over her shoulder. No one was there. She stood and scanned the area, unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Headstones dotted the grassy landscape, with an occasional person moving between them. Frowning, Ronilyn slowly walked away, continuing to glance around her.
A black Crown Victoria pulled to the side of the cemetery road. The door slammed and boots crunched through the grass until a shadow loomed over Nathan Huntley's grave.
"Well, Nathan," Lucas said, "looks like your little girl's come home for awhile. The question is, what's she up to?" He squatted beside the grave. "You wouldn't happen to know the answer to that, would you?"
Nathan Huntley's headstone stood, silent and erect.
Lucas gave a short laugh. "Didn't think so. You know," he reached out a hand and touched the cactus, "she's become a might prickly lately. Kind of like this cactus, all sharp like. Didn't used to be like that." Lucas pricked his finger on one of the cactus needles and a drop of blood fell to the ground. "Still, blood is blood." He rose and brushed off his pants. "I guess I'll keep my word awhile longer."
As Ronilyn wandered the cemetery, searching for her Aunt Hester's headstone, she came upon a woman and child standing in front of a new grave. Tears streamed down the woman's face as she rested one hand on the polished headstone while the other gripped the child's shoulder.
"Where'd daddy go, Mama?" the little girl asked.
Ronilyn's throat tightened as she recalled her earliest childhood memory: asking her father that same question about her mother.
Sobbing aloud, the woman sunk to her knees in the fresh dirt and clutched the child to her. Feeling tears coming to her own eyes and embarrassed at having intruded on their grief, Ronilyn bent her head down and walked on. Then she stopped and glanced back, managing to glimpse the last name on the headstone. Stiles.
Ronilyn stalked away, cursing Lucas under her breath. Somehow she just knew the councilman's accident wasn't truly an accident. If the man was drunk, then Lucas probably drove him to it. Now another little girl was going to grow up without a parent, just like she did.
She ducked and glanced up when the shadow of a bird soared overhead. "If it's that damn crow again..." she muttered aloud. She stopped, shocked at her vicious thoughts. Why, she was the original Florence Nightingale of the animal world. As a child, she often played in the woods and fields surrounding Trinity, forever bringing home all sorts of creatures. Her father had suggested more than once that she should become a veterinarian.
Ronilyn stared at the sky as a large blackbird flew past her.
"Ronilyn!"
She looked over to find Caleb waving at her from a short distance away. He watched as she weaved a path around the graves until she reached him. The boy stood before two graves, a bunch of daisies lay on the ground in front of one.
"Hey, Ronilyn. What're you doin' here?"
"Visiting my dad." She read the names on the two headstones. "They your family?"
The boy nodded. "Yep. That's my daddy and this here's my sister Merly."
Ronilyn switched her gaze from the graves to Caleb. "I thought Lucas was your daddy."
"Well, I just found out about that awhile back. Didn't believe it at first, but Merly said it was true so I guess it must be."
Ronilyn opened her mouth to ask how he felt about learning that the man he'd thought was his father wasn't when she realized what Caleb had said. "Merly?" she repeated, looking at the date on the girl's headstone. She'd been dead for over a year. "Merly told you? She talk to you recently?"
"Not in a couple of months. Not since -" Caleb hesitated a moment - "Gail went into the hospital."
"Gail?"
Caleb shuffled his feet on the grass. "My cousin. She, uh, had an accident. Her and the baby got hurt."
Ronilyn's eyes widened as she recalled something from the past. "She was pregnant?" she guessed.
"Yes, ma'am." Caleb stared at the ground.
"What happened, Caleb? She didn't fall down a flight of stairs, did she?"
Caleb's head snapped up and he frowned at her. "How'd you know that?" he demanded. "You weren't there."
Ronilyn bit back her reply of "And you were?" and instead said, "Wild guess." Not wanting to make Caleb any more suspicious, she changed the subject. "So tell me about Merlyn."
Still regarding her with a wary look, he replied, "I miss her a lot. I even miss takin' care of her. I think she's gone for good now, but Miss Holt says she'll always be a part of me."
"Miss Holt's right, Caleb. No one's ever really gone. As long as you remember them and the good times you had, they'll always be alive for you."
"Well, that's the funny thing," Caleb said, as they walked away from the graves. "Merly and me never really had any good times 'til after she was dead."