The Third Grave

  Books by Lisa Jackson

  Stand-Alones

  SEE HOW SHE DIES

  FINAL SCREAM

  RUNNING SCARED

  WHISPERS

  TWICE KISSED

  UNSPOKEN

  DEEP FREEZE

  FATAL BURN

  MOST LIKELY TO DIE

  WICKED GAME

  WICKED LIES

  SOMETHING WICKED

  WICKED WAYS

  SINISTER

  WITHOUT MERCY

  YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW

  CLOSE TO HOME

  AFTER SHE’S GONE

  REVENGE

  YOU WILL PAY

  OMINOUS

  BACKLASH

  RUTHLESS

  ONE LAST BREATH

  LIAR, LIAR

  PARANOID

  ENVIOUS

  LAST GIRL STANDING

  DISTRUST

  Cahill Family Novels

  IF SHE ONLY KNEW

  ALMOST DEAD

  YOU BETRAYED ME

  Rick Bentz/Reuben Montoya

  Novels

  HOT BLOODED

  COLD BLOODED

  SHIVER

  ABSOLUTE FEAR

  LOST SOULS

  MALICE

  DEVIOUS

  NEVER DIE ALONE

  Pierce Reed/Nikki Gillette

  Novels

  THE NIGHT BEFORE

  THE MORNING AFTER

  TELL ME

  THE THIRD GRAVE

  Selena Alvarez/Regan Pescoli

  Novels

  LEFT TO DIE

  CHOSEN TO DIE

  BORN TO DIE

  AFRAID TO DIE

  READY TO DIE

  DESERVES TO DIE

  EXPECTING TO DIE

  WILLING TO DIE

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  LISA JACKSON

  THE THIRD GRAVE

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  EPILOGUE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10019

  Copyright © 2021 by Lisa Jackson, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  The K logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2021931067

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2224-9

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: July 2021

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-3431-0 (trade)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-3431-9 (trade)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2225-6 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-2225-6 (ebook)

  CHAPTER 1

  Bronco Cravens was sweating bullets.

  Not only because of the heat from an intense Georgia sun.

  But from his own damned case of nerves.

  He rubbed his fingers together in anticipation but didn’t move, just searched the undergrowth through narrowed eyes one last time. He tuned in to the sounds of the lowland: the lap of water against the muddy banks, the whir of dragonfly wings as the narrow-bodied creatures darted along the shore and the tonal croak of a bullfrog hiding somewhere in the reeds.

  The air was still and thick. Sultry enough to paste his shirt to his body.

  His nerves were stretched thin, his blood running hot at the thought of what he was about to do. He searched the heavy undergrowth for any kind of movement and licked his already-chapped lips. Sunlight and shadow played through the Spanish moss–draped live oaks, but he saw no one, no flicker of movement, felt no eyes boring into his back.

  Squinting, he tried to distinguish sunlight from shadow through these dense woods. The swollen river moved quickly in a soft rush, mosquitoes buzzing near his head, but he heard nothing out of the ordinary.

  No sounds of footfalls or twigs snapping. No murmur of hushed voices or the crunch of tires on old gravel just over the rise. No whine of a distant siren.

  No, it seemed, he was all alone.

  Good.

  No time to lose.

  He patted his pockets, had the keys, his cell phone, a flashlight and his pistol, a Ruger LCP, a lightweight semi-automatic that was forever with him. All set. “Let’s go,” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder to his boat, where the dog he’d inherited sat at attention, ears cocked, waiting for a command. Fender had been a gift from Darla. The dog was a purebred bluetick heeler if the previous owner were to be believed. But that was before Darla had left suddenly, slamming the door behind her while screaming, “Don’t you ever call me again, you fuckin’ loser! And you can keep the damned dog.”

  He had. Kept the dog, that was. And yeah, he’d never phoned or texted again. Nor had she tried to contact him. Which was just fine.

  Today, bringing the heeler along may have been a mistake. Sleek coat glistening in the sun, Fender leapt over the edge of the boat to land in the shallows and followed as Bronco took off, running, his boots sinking into the thick mud. Fleetingly Bronco remembered playing on the grounds as a child, fishing, catching snakes and bullfrogs, skipping stones across the pond, watching dragonflies skim the surface, their wings crackling, sunlight catching on their iridescent bodies. He’d run this path often as a kid, but it had been years since he’d taken out his father’s fishing boat or stole some of his Camel Straights, or hid a six-pack in the old culvert. Back then, those had been the worst of his sins.

  Now, of course, there were others.

  More than he wanted to count.

  Now the stakes were a damned sight higher than pissing off his old man and risking Jasper Cravens’s considerable wrath. But he wouldn’t dwell on that now, couldn’t dare think about his run-ins with the law. Just the thought of prison, of being hauled back to a cement-walled cell, made his skin crawl. He couldn’t go back there. Wouldn’t.

  And yet, here he was. Trespassing. Tempting fate. Intending to break into the Beaumont mansion, where his grandfather had once been caretaker and had sworn the old lady who had lived there had secreted a fortune. His blood ran hotter at the thought of it. Wynn Cravens had admitted he’d seen the rare gold a
nd silver coins, some dating back to the Civil War, along with a cache of jewels and silver certificates and thousands of dollars that old Beulah Beaumont had secreted in the basement of the once-grand home. Beulah had been mad as a hatter, Gramps had claimed, but he’d sworn the valuables were there—viewed with his own eyes.

  Bronco was about to find out.

  And change his life.

  He grinned at the thought.

  No time to lose.

  Sunlight was already beginning to fade.

  Yesterday’s hurricane, named Jules and a goddamned category five, had torn through this part of Georgia, leveling homes, splintering trees and flooding the city. Telephone and electric poles had been uprooted, the power was out for miles, and cell phone service patchy at best.

  A disaster for most of the citizens of Savannah.

  And a blessing for Bronco.

  He crested a rise, a natural levee that had kept most of the flood waters surrounding the old home within the river’s banks. From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash. Movement. His heart nearly stopped. But it was just his stupid dog taking off through the tall grass, startling two ducks. Wings flapping noisily, quacking loudly, they took flight.

  Shit!

  His heart leapt to his throat, but he heard no footsteps, or shouts, or sirens, or baying of hounds.

  Good. Just keep moving.

  Get in.

  Find what you’re looking for.

  Get out.

  No more than fifteen minutes.

  Twenty, tops.

  He saw the sagging fence with its rusted NO TRESPASSING sign dangling from the locked gate and vaulted over what was left of the mesh, then spied the house, built on a rise, surrounded by live oaks, the once-manicured lawn surrendering to brush. The whitewashed siding was now gray and dimpled, paint peeling, roof sagging and completely collapsed around one of four crumbling chimneys.

  For half a beat, Bronco stared up at the house, its windows shuttered and boarded over, graffiti scrawled across the buckling sheets of plywood, the wide wraparound porch listing on rotted footings.

  His grandfather’s voice whispered to him: Don’t do it, son. Don’t. This—what y’er contemplating—is a mistake, y’hear me? It’ll only bring you trouble, the kind of trouble no man wants. He set his jaw and ignored the warning. He’d waited long enough. Now, finally, the old man was dead. As if Wynn Cravens had heard his thoughts, his raspy voice came again: Boy, you listen to me, now.

  Bronco didn’t.

  Y’er gonna get caught, Wynn Cravens cautioned from beyond the grave. Sure as shootin’. And then what? Eh? Another five years in prison? Hell, maybe ten! Could be more. Don’t do it, son.

  “Oh, shut up,” Bronco growled under his breath. Something he would have never said to his big, strapping grandfather if the man were still alive. Of course he wasn’t. Wynn Cravens had given up the ghost just two weeks earlier, his big heart stopping while the old guy was splitting wood.

  With Wynn’s passing, Bronco’s fortune had changed.

  This was his big chance, maybe his last chance, and Bronco was going to make the best of it. After all of the bad breaks in his life, finally something good was coming his way. He took the hurricane as an omen. A sign from God Himself.

  Right now all of the cops and emergency workers were busy being heroes.

  Which gave Bronco some time.

  From the corner of his eye he caught a glimmer of movement, a blur through the trees. Not the dog this time. Fender was right on his heels.

  He felt his skin crawl. There had always been rumors of ghosts haunting the grounds, lost souls who’d found no escape from the tarnished history of the Beaumont family. Bronco, though he hated admitting it, couldn’t help believing some of the old stories that had been whispered from one generation to the next. Even his grandfather, a brawny no-nonsense Welshman, had believed that tortured spirits moved through the stands of live oak and pine and had sworn on the family Bible that he’d seen the ghost of Nellie Beaumont, a seven-year-old girl who drowned in the river in the late 1990s. Bronco knew nothing more than that her death had devastated the family. Glimpses of the girl had always been reported the same: a waif in a dripping nightgown, dark ringlets surrounding a pale face, a doll clutched to her chest as she forever wandered along the edge of the water.

  And the sightings hadn’t stopped with Gramps. Bronco’s father, too, a man of the cloth, had sworn he’d seen the ghost, though Bronco thought Jasper Cravens’s glimpse of the apparition had been the result of his affection for rye whiskey rather than an actual viewing of a bedraggled spirit. And hadn’t he once, while sneaking through these very woods, thought he’d caught sight of a pale, ghost-like figure darting through the underbrush?

  He’d told himself the apparition had been a figment of his imagination, but now, the thought of any kind of wraith caused the hairs on the back of his arms to ripple to attention.

  “A crock,” Bronco reminded himself just as he spied a deer, a damned white-tailed doe, bounding through a copse of spindly pine.

  He made his way toward the back of the house, through weeds and tall grass to the listing veranda that stretched across the rear of the house and offered a view of the terraced lawn and bend in the river. Quickly across the rotting floorboards, he walked to the side door, the one his grandfather and the rest of the staff had used. He slid the key from his pocket, sent up a prayer for good luck, then slipped the key into the lock. A twist of his wrist and . . . nothing. The key didn’t budge.

  “Shit.”

  He tried again, forcing the key a bit. Shoving it hard.

  Once more the lock held firm.

  “Goddamn it!” Just his luck. After waiting all this time, after planning and hoping and . . . this always happened to him! In an instant he saw his decades-long dream of wealth disintegrate into dust. Maybe he’d have to break through the old plywood covering the windows. But that would take too long, be too noisy.

  “Fuck it.” He wasn’t going to give up. Not yet. Setting his jaw, he jammed the key in again, then suddenly stopped. This was all wrong.

  He’d watched the old man do this a hundred times.

  He remembered his grandfather babying the lock.

  Bronco tried again but didn’t force the key in hard, “gentled it,” as Gramps used to say. Like dealing with a hotheaded woman, son, you got to tread softly, touch her gentle-like.

  “Come on. Come on—”

  Click!

  The bolt gave way and the door creaked open.

  He was in! Quickly, his heart hammering, his nerves strung tight, he stepped into a small vestibule with a narrow set of stairs running up and down and a door leading into the kitchen. He headed down the curved steps to find another door at another landing. Unlocked, it swung open easily to reveal yawning blackness and a horrid stench that seemed to waft upward in a cloud. Nearly gagging, he pulled a rag to cover his mouth from one pocket and a small flashlight from another. God, the smell of rot and decay was overpowering. He switched on the flashlight and descended the final flight to step into three or four inches of water, black and brackish and thick with sludge.

  This better be worth it.

  He skimmed the standing water with the beam of his flashlight and tried not to think of what creatures might nest down here—rats and gators and water moccasins or black widows hidden in dark places.

  Don’t go there. Don’t think about what could be living down here. Concentrate, Cravens. Find the loot and get the hell out before you get caught.

  Ducking beneath raw beams black with age, rusted hooks and nails protruding, he slogged through years of forgotten furniture, books, pictures, all ruined and decaying. The flashlight’s beam skated over the water and mud, across broken-down chairs and crates stacked atop each other.

  A spider web brushed his face and he felt a skittering of fear slide down his spine.

  This place was getting to him. Too dark, too smelly, too . . .

  Scritttcch.

  H
e froze at the sound.

  What the hell?

  His heart went into overdrive, thudding wildly.

  He whirled, swinging the beam of the flashlight past a listing armoire to . . . oh, shit! A dark, disjointed figure stared back at him!

  Bronco jumped backward, startled. Automatically he reached for his Roger. Someone was down here! A weird apparition that, too, was staring at him while scrabbling for a weapon and pointing a beam of a high-powered flashlight at his face. Reacting, Bronco fired just as he realized his mistake.

  Blam!

  The dirty mirror shattered.

  His own distorted image splintered into a hundred shards of glass that flew outward, glittering crazily in his flashlight’s beam. “Shit!”

  A rat squealed and scurried between several stacks of boxes.

  Freaked, Bronco took aim at the rodent but stopped himself before pulling the trigger. The damned rat was the least of his problems. If anyone had heard the gun go off, they’d come and investigate. Shit, shit, shit!

  “No way,” he said under his breath. He just had to work faster.

  Get in. Get out.

  That was the plan.

  Gramps had said there was some sort of hiding space at the southeast corner of the foundation, a deeper cache where he’d seen Beulah Beaumont hide her valuables.

  So find it already.

  Pushing aside a bike with flat tires propped against a post, he kept moving, still bent over as he stepped around a pile of empty bottles that had been stacked near the brick foundation. He ran the beam over ancient bricks stacked nearly four feet tall that made up the foundation. Carefully, he eyed the mortar, searching for any cracks and—in a second he saw the seam. Partially hidden by an ancient armoire, he noticed a flaw in the design where the pattern of the bricks changed.

  The old man hadn’t lied.

  With renewed effort, he held the flashlight in his teeth and shoved one shoulder against the armoire, shoving the heavy chest to one side, wedging it tight against a stack of stained boxes. Sure enough, the seam was the outline of a small door cut into the bricks.