Desires of t he Dead (The Body Finder 2)

But there was nothing here.

Only shipping containers stranded on a vast expanse of blacktop. All solid. And sealed.

She looked up at the red cargo container in front of her; its corrugated steel walls were impassable.

She moved around it, reaching out to brush her fingertips along the rough surface, examining the faultless seams and feeling the sound beneath her scalp. Her skin prickled. She finally found the door of the shipping vessel, but it was apparent that it was not an opening Violet could access. It was sealed tight, a large, rusty padlock hanging securely from a thick metal loop.

It’s in there, Violet thought silently. Whatever was calling to her was inside the massive container.

“What are we doing here?” Chelsea questioned her again, and Violet could hear the alarm tracing her friend’s voice.

Violet glanced up, momentarily forgetting the body trapped inside the steel tomb.

What could Violet say to her? She wasn’t about to tell Chelsea what she could do. Jay was the only person outside her family who was aware of her strange ability for discovering the dead . . . the murdered. And Violet planned to keep it that way.

Besides, even if Violet could find plausible words to explain her ability, Chelsea would never understand.

How could she? She would think Violet was some sort of freak.

She looked at the container one last time, feeling defeated by its massive, impenetrable surface. She glanced around her and tried to push away the buzzing inside her head, tried to ignore the sounds, the ones that only she could hear, coming from within the steel box.

“I thought I heard something,” Violet repeated.

“We’re gonna miss our boat,” Chelsea said.

Violet finally gave up. What choice did she have? It wasn’t the same as finding a body in the soft earth of the forest around her house. This body was sealed, unreachable. And she didn’t even know what it was.

It was probably some animal—a seagull or a rat—accidentally trapped inside the cargo vessel, starved to death.

Could that be an imprintable offense, a death caused by mistake?

It must be, Violet thought as she followed Chelsea back out of the shipyards.

The salt hung heavily in the air, clinging to the sound waves . . . and the haunting resonance of the harp that drifted after them.

The ferry ride was more fun than Violet had expected, especially in light of her discovery in the shipyards.

They only stayed on the island for about an hour, walking from the dock to an ice-cream shop, the kind that made real old-fashioned ice cream and served it in warm, handmade waffle cones. They ordered the most ginormous, two-scoop cones and somehow managed to eat every last bite.

Chelsea talked about Mike, the new kid—again—and Violet mostly listened. It wasn’t like Chelsea to obsess over a boy, and Violet found it sort of hilarious to hear her going on and on about him. Not that there was much to go on and on about. They still knew barely anything about him except that his sister’s name was Megan, and their last name was Russo. In the three short days he’d been at their school, he and his sister had managed to stay pretty much to themselves.

Aside from Jay, Violet had hardly seen Mike talk to anyone. So Chelsea was forced to repeat the few things they did know about him and to wonder aloud about the rest.

During their trip back, Violet fought against the persisting discomfort from the echo in the shipyard. And even though she could no longer feel it physically pulling her, or even hear the sounds of the harp out there in the open waters, that didn’t mean it had left her alone.

Already the familiar sensation settled over her, the uneasiness she’d grown so accustomed to when a body was desperate to be laid to rest.

The dead didn’t always want to be forgotten. And that need to be discovered could be so powerful that it became Violet’s only thought, her only purpose, until she could locate the remains, and if possible bury them properly, giving both the victim and herself a sense of completion.

Closure, her mom called it.

Closure was a good word for the relief she felt when a body was safely buried. Quiet was another. Better still, Violet thought, was peace.

She did her best to ignore the draw that tugged at her as soon as they docked again in the city, so near the body once more. And the drive home was no better. Just like on the ferry, there was that ever present feeling of discontent that refused to release her.

Chelsea dropped Violet off at home, honking one last time for good measure as Violet got out of the car.

Violet laughed, maybe a little too hard, as she tried to chase away the tension that settled over her more heavily with each passing minute.

By the time Jay called, Violet was in a foul mood. She thought about telling him about it, about what had happened in Seattle, but all she really wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and ignore that it had ever happened at all. If she could have willed it all away, she would have.

Even though Jay tried to change her mind, he knew better than to push too hard. Violet needed some space.

She was sure she would tell him about it eventually. Just not now.

For now, she wanted to rest. And to forget.

Chapter 3

The blackness was stifling, overwhelming. She was afraid it was going to suffocate her. But it was the cold that was unbearable.

She searched around her once more, exactly as she’d done every few moments for the hours—or days—that she’d been trapped inside. Time had stopped holding any tangible meaning as seconds stretched into minutes, stretched into hours. Stretched into days.

It was useless, her efforts futile. There was no escape, and she already knew it, but her waning survival instincts refused to allow her to surrender . . . to accept her fate.