The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [167]
Rogo spun around just in time to see the security guard coming at him.
99
I know where Boyle’s grave is. I’ve been there before.
The first time was after my sixth and final surgery—the one where they tried to dig the last bits of metal shrapnel from my cheek. Fifteen minutes into it, the doctor decided the pieces were too deep—and far too small, like steel grains of sand—so better to leave them where they are. “Lay it to rest,” Dr. Levy told me.
Taking his advice, I left the hospital and had my mom drive me here, to Woodlawn Cemetery. Seven months after Boyle was buried on national television, I approached his grave with my right hand stuffed deep in my pants pocket, clutching my newest prescription and silently, repetitively apologizing for putting him in the limo that day. I could hear my mother sobbing behind me, mourning me like I wasn’t even there. It was one of the toughest visits of my life. To my own surprise, this one’s tougher.
“Stop thinking about it,” Lisbeth whispers, plowing through the unmowed, shin-high grass that wraps like tiny bullwhips around our ankles. As we approach the chain-link fence behind the back of the cemetery, I try to hold the umbrella over both of us, but she’s already two steps ahead, not even noticing the light rain. I don’t blame her for being excited. Even if she’s not writing the story, the reporter in her can’t wait to get the truth. “Y’hear what I said, Wes?”
When I don’t answer, she stops and spins back to face me. She’s about to say something; most likely, Calm down . . . take it easy.
“I know it’s hard for you,” she offers. “I’m sorry.”
I nod and thank her with a glimpse of eye contact. “To be honest, I didn’t think it’d—I thought I’d be more eager.”
“It’s okay to be scared, Wes.”
“It’s not scared—believe me, I want Boyle’s answers—but just being here . . . where they buried—where they buried whatever they buried. It’s like a—it’s not the best place for me.”
I look up, and she steps toward me, back under the umbrella. “I’m still glad you let me come.”
I smile.
“C’mon, I got a good vibe,” she says, tugging my shoulder as she sprints back out from under the umbrella. Gripping the top of the four-foot-tall chain-link fence, she stabs her toe into one of the openings.
“Don’t bother,” I reply, motioning to a mound of dirt that’s piled so high it buries the fence and leads right inside. Despite the pep talk, I still hesitate. That’s extra dirt from the graves. Lisbeth has no such problem. Ignoring the rain, which is still a light drizzle, she’s up the small mound and over the fence in an instant.
“Careful,” I call out. “If there’s an alarm—”
“It’s a cemetery, Wes. I don’t think they’re worried about people stealing.”
“What about grave rob—?” But as I follow her over the dirt mound, we’re met with nothing but the soft buzz of crickets and the thick black shadows of two-hundred-year-old banyan trees, whose branches and tendrils stretch out like spiderwebs in every direction. Diagonally to our left, the eighteen acres of Woodlawn Cemetery expand in a perfect rectangle that measures over seventeen football fields. The cemetery eventually dead-ends, with no apparent irony, at the back of the Jaguar dealership, which probably wasn’t the intention in the late 1800s when city founder Henry Flagler plowed over seventeen acres of pineapple groves to build West Palm Beach’s oldest and most lavish cemetery.
I take off for the main stone-paved path. Grabbing the umbrella, Lisbeth pulls me back and leads us to our left, behind a tall meatball-shaped shrub just inside the back fence. As we get closer, I spot another huge meatball next to it, then another, then another . . . at least a hundred in total, ten feet tall . . . the row of them lining the entire back length of the graveyard. Her instinct’s perfect. By staying back here, we’re off the main path, meaning we’re out of sight, meaning no one can see us coming. With what we’ve got planned, we’re not taking chances.
As we duck behind the first meatball shrub, we quickly