Mary Jane's Grave Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the phone, or else. She could tell by my voice I wasn’t in the mood for games, and a minute later Bill was on the phone.
    “Hey, Cee,” he began, but I had no time for idle chitchat. “What the hell happened, Bill? I thought you filed my divorce papers! But I just came from the courthouse, and they never received them!”
    He was quiet a minute and then assured me he would find out what happened and call me back, swearing up and down that he’d filed the final decree.
    I dragged myself home, dreading what would come next. I found Michael in his study researching information on my bloody M . Thankfully, we had the house to ourselves since Selina and Isabelle were with Eric and Jordan for one more day.
    Michael looked at my pale face as I stood in the doorway and immediately knew there was trouble.
    “Cee, what’s the matter?” he asked, alarmed.
    I walked over and sat down next to him. I knew no other way to tell him other than to just blurt it out. I inhaled deeply, and said, “Apparently, Eric and I are still legally married.”
    He was so stunned he couldn’t even speak. “Devastated” didn’t even begin to describe the look on his face. You’d have thought I just told him I had a fatal illness. I did my best to comfort him, taking his hand and caressing his face, but all the while my heart was breaking for both of us.
    I explained to him what had occurred at the courthouse, and after that, it didn’t take long for his anger to rise.
    “Damn! This will take another sixty to ninety days, CeeCee! Jesus Christ, why do I have the feeling that son-of- a-bitch Eric had something to do with this?” He began pacing across the room.
    Michael rarely swore, but when he did I usually remained silent and just let him vent. Frankly, I didn’t believe Eric had anything to do with this, but I didn’t say so right then. Eric and Michael had a volatile past and usually blamed each other for their personal disasters when possible. It was the only juvenile aspect of Michael’s personality, so I had learned to live with it.
    “Please, sit down,” I finally said, patting the space beside me. “Bill promised me he’d find out what happened. Chances are, some dipshit clerk put the paperwork on her desk and forgot to file it. If that’s the case, he’ll refile the final paperwork and it’ll be done. Let’s not make too much out of it, okay? You could at least be happy that I went to get our license today.” I flashed a brilliant smile at him, hoping that would do the trick.
    It did, and I knew the tantrum was over. I couldn’t blame him. I probably felt even worse. We decided to go out and grab a light dinner before turning in early. I was exhausted, and with the impending press release in the paper tomorrow, I expected another busy day. However, there was nothing that could have prepared me for what I was about to learn.

C HAPTER F OUR
    As I predicted, the local newspaper’s front page headlined the murder. And to add a bit of flair to the story, the paper ran a section of excerpts from people who claimed to have had some pretty unusual experiences while they were at the grave.
    I read through them and laughed. So many of these “oddities” had rational explanations, such as the sudden loss of cell- phone service while in the area. Hey, I haven’t been able to get cell- phone service in the southern part of this county for five years. That’s because there’s no nearby cell tower.
    As I was reading the reports, I realized that the reporter who’d written the story had attributed the excerpts he was quoting to a website. For example, a girl named Tracy wrote that three years ago she and two friends had been down at the grave and stabbed the tree with a knife. She claimed it began bleeding real blood. Evidently, this was not to be confused with the dark sap from the pine tree.
    I saw nothing else in the article that grabbed my attention except the last account. Someone named Brian had claimed that when he and