Better left buried, p.1
Better Left Buried, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by Mary E. Roach
All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 77 West 66th Street, New York, New York 10023.
First Edition, August 2024
Designed by Phil Buchanan
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Roach, Mary E., author.
Title: Better left buried / by Mary E. Roach.
Description: First edition. • Los Angeles : Hyperion, 2024. • Audience: Ages 12–18. • Audience: Grades 10–12. • Summary: Told in alternating voices, teenagers Lucy and Audrey investigate a town full of secrets, a family full of mystery, and an abandoned amusement park where people keep turning up dead.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023032369 • ISBN 9781368098403 (hardcover)
Subjects: CYAC: Mystery and detective stories. • Murder—Fiction. • Secrets—Fiction. • Mothers and daughters—Fiction. • LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. • Thrillers (Fiction) • Novels.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.R57747 Be 2024 • DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032369
Visit www.HyperionTeens.com
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Beginning: Audrey
Day One: Friday, March 22
Chapter 1: Lucy
Chapter 2: Audrey
Chapter 3: Lucy
Day Two: Saturday, March 23
Chapter 4: Audrey
Chapter 5: Lucy
Chapter 6: Audrey
Chapter 7: Lucy
Chapter 8: Lucy
Chapter 9: Lucy
Chapter 10: Audrey
Chapter 11: Lucy
Day Three: Sunday, March 24
Chapter 12: Audrey
Chapter 13: Audrey
Chapter 14: Audrey
Chapter 15: Lucy
Chapter 16: Audrey
Chapter 17: Lucy
Day Four: Monday, March 25
Chapter 18: Audrey
Chapter 19: Lucy
Chapter 20: Audrey
Chapter 21: Lucy
Chapter 22: Audrey
Chapter 23: Audrey
Day Five: Tuesday, March 26
Chapter 24: Audrey
Chapter 25: Lucy
Chapter 26: Lucy
Chapter 27: Audrey
Chapter 28: Lucy
Chapter 29: Audrey
Chapter 30: Lucy
Chapter 31: Audrey
Day Six: Wednesday, March 27
Chapter 32: Lucy
Chapter 33: Audrey
Tuesday, April 9. Two Weeks Later
Chapter 34: Lucy
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for Better Left Buried
TO ANA FRANCO, WHO DESERVED TO HAVE HER NAME IN A BOOK
BEGINNING.
AUDREY
FRIDAY.
The lettering on my father’s grave is chipped in the right corner, the curve of the n at the end dulled. That is the first thought running through my head as I crouch in the dewy grass at the edge of the cemetery.
He is one of the last people to be buried here, not because this town stopped hemorrhaging its own, but because the shiny amusement park was too close by, and nothing drives away visitors faster than the sight of the dead.
Now Anselm Amusements is closed and abandoned, the twisting arms of the empty roller coaster framed against the moon, the shadows from the beams bisecting Dad’s grave.
Audrey Nadine, he’d say if he were here, his voice gentler than I ever am with myself. Did the wander bug bite you again? He would talk the way he always did when I was little and snuck out into the backyard or onto the roof when I needed some space. He wouldn’t make me go back, not right away. He’d just tuck his flannel around my shoulders and wait with me until I was ready to go home.
But Dad is gone, and all I have is the memories and the texts in my phone from Pierce Anselm himself. The one that says, I didn’t mean for any of it to happen.
And then another, hours later.
Meet me in the park.
I have that, and Dad’s old flannel, still loose at my shoulders and long for my wrists.
And I have the knife tucked inside my boot.
Just in case.
Some moms take their sixteen-year-olds on road trips to a music festival, a national park, or to see faraway family for spring break.
My mom?
Well, my mom is taking me to a crime scene.
Jules and Amy and Nora are all going on spring break trips somewhere warm and sandy and distinctly crime free. Their moms bought them plane tickets and new swimsuits.
Not mine, though.
No, my mom announced when we were halfway to Dad’s—where I am supposed to be spending spring break—that she needs to make a pit stop. For an investigation.
So that’s how we end up in her brand-new Jeep Wrangler, driving six hours north out of our way to some backwater town I’ve never heard of.
Haeter Lake, Tennessee.
“So, Katy,” I attempt again. “Remind me why you couldn’t just drop me off at the airport?”
She doesn’t respond, just keeps her dark eyes fixed on the road ahead of us.
We’re winding through yet another endless stretch of trees. I’ve been nagging her—about this, and any other topics of conversation I can think of—ever since we passed Nashville an hour ago.
It’s been nothing but thick, tangled forest and arguments ever since.
Or at least I’m trying to get to the part where we argue, but currently Mom is keeping me firmly stuck in the I-ask-annoying-questions-and-she-gives-one-word-answers stage we have to cross before we get to the arguing part.
Another hour with nothing but mostly leafless branches to look at—not even mountains or coast or something interesting—and my last remaining brain cells are going to melt right out of my skull. “Can I at least know why we’re driving six hours to the middle of nowhere for this guy?”
“This guy has a name. Pierce Anselm is a personal friend, Lucille.”
Oof.
Straight to Lucille.
She sounds tired of my bullshit already, which does not bode well for all this extra time we’re apparently destined to spend together.
She’s looking straight ahead, her jaw set, not a strand of dark hair out of place. Her skin is a soft brown, while mine is as pale as my dad’s. Today, her brow is furrowed with anxiety, which is rare for her.
Usually, she’s difficult to fluster, forever holding on to the rock-solid calm it takes to sit across from a United States congressman and intimidate him into confessing to murder.
It’s why people fly her out all over the US to solve cases for them that the cops can’t.
It’s why she sometimes feels a million miles away from me.
So even if he is a friend—and Katy doesn’t really do friends—I don’t get why we’re driving out to the middle of goddamn nowhere, Tennessee.
“Is he rich?” I ask, drumming my freshly painted pastel-green nails on the armrest.
“That’s enough.” Mom’s hands tighten around the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. The sleeve of her blazer has inched up, revealing the tattoo on her forearm that she refuses to talk to me about.
Memento vitae.
“But if you know him,” I persist, “isn’t that breaking one of your rules? Investigating a case you have a personal connection to?”
It has always been the rule—she can’t be too close to a case because she has to be detached. Objective. Cold.
And maybe that’s why I’m pushing for answers now.
Usually, even when I travel with her, I leave her cases alone.
But maybe I’m pushing because there are so few people she calls personal friends.
“Like I said: Pierce is a close family friend,” Katy tells me stiffly. “And he requested a private investigator. Specifically me.”
“When did he ask you to come?” I glare suspiciously at her. “Did you know before we left? Katy, I could have just flown. Then I wouldn’t be stuck on a road trip to the backwaters of Appalachia, and you would have some peace and quiet.”
She sighs. “No, I did not know,” she answers. “And I’m sorry you have to come with me. I got a very urgent text just after we left, and I haven’t…I haven’t heard from him in a long time. But if all goes well, I’ll be able to help Pierce sort out whatever’s bothering him and we’ll be on the way again tonight. By morning at the latest.”
“There isn’t anyone you drop everything for,” I say.
Not even me, though it doesn’t seem particularly helpful to point that out right now.
“He’s a family friend,” she repeats.
“I’m family,” I say. “And I’ve never heard his name before. Also, that’s a weird request. Is he a weirdo? I really don’t want to waste my spring break investigating some creepy family in some creepy little town.”
“Pierce isn’t a weirdo. And I haven’t seen him or his family in years, not since before you were born,” she answers finally. Her shoulders are tense, and she rolls them and then tilts her head, neck cracking. “It’s a bit complicated.”
Compl icated is Katy’s favorite way to end any conversation she doesn’t feel like having, whether that’s about what happened between her and Dad, or about their custody agreement, or about anything else in her life that happened before I was born, really.
“So, what kind of case does this Pierce guy want you to solve? And please say I won’t be wasting my entire spring break helping you solve it.”
“No, Lucy, we’ll be on our way soon,” Katy says wearily. “I’m sure this will be quick, and you’ll be at your dad’s place in no time.”
It’s dark by the time we turn off the main highway, first down a narrow county road with thick trees and no streetlights and then down an even narrower paved road. There are a few gaps in the trees, houses with a single lamppost outside and some with nothing, gaping voids in the dark.
“Katy.” My voice sounds smaller now, even to me.
She looks over at me, her own face cast in shadow.
I’m scared, I was going to say, because it isn’t like Mom to act like this, and because I don’t like the dark and the quiet out here. But how do I say that to a woman who has never been scared of anything?
“You okay?” she asks crisply. “We’re almost there if you need a bathroom.”
I have to pee every forty-five minutes—excuse me for being well-hydrated—but that isn’t it, not this time.
Okay, yes, maybe I do also have to pee.
Anyway.
All this freaks me out, if I’m being honest. But there isn’t anything I can do about that now, and besides—what would Katy do if I told her I wanted to get the hell out of here? She has a case to solve. So all I say is:
“I’m okay.”
Katy slows the Jeep as we pass a faded green sign that reads HAETER LAKE, POPULATION 1,376. The main street is wide and dimly lit, just one flickering streetlight outside of a café and another at the end, outside of the bank, the only building on the street that looks as if it has been updated recently.
We wind our way back up into the mountains north of town, the curves of the road sharp. In the rain this would be dangerous—maybe it’s dangerous in this darkness. And if someone took a turn too wide and there was another car coming, there would be no time to slow down, no time to swerve.
A shiver snakes down my spine.
“Pierce’s family lives up this way,” Katy explains, though I didn’t ask. “But we’re meeting at his business.”
“This late at night?” I stare at her. “Mom, this is weird.”
“I think something has him spooked,” she admits, the click of her blinker the only sound in the sudden silence. “But I can take care of myself, Luce, and—you called me Mom.”
The car slows, and she turns to look at me, her eyes piercing.
I look away, shrugging one shoulder uncomfortably. “Would you prefer I called you Katy all the time?”
“You only call me Mom when…when you’re scared,” she says, and then she stops and shakes her head.
“I’m not scared,” I snap, a little too sharply to be convincing. “This is just weird. And not like you.”
She sighs. “You’re right. And I’ll be quick, honey, I promise. I’ll calm Pierce down and help him sort things out and—”
The trees fall away, opening out before the vast outline of a theme park—a Ferris wheel, a carousel, and silhouetted against the dark, barely moonlit sky, a roller coaster curving and twisting.
“It’s—I didn’t know they closed this place.” Katy’s voice is so soft I can hardly hear it.
“I can’t believe you took me to a creepy abandoned theme park,” I huff. “Happy spring break to me.”
“You can stay in the car,” she says shortly. “And no, Lucy, I’m not asking.”
“Pssh. As if I would get out and walk around. I’ve seen horror movies, Mother. I know better than that.” I hesitate when she parks, hand lingering on the steering wheel as if she is trying to steel herself for…this. Whatever this is. “Are you gonna be okay?”
“Of course I am,” she says firmly, and then we see it at the same time, illuminated by Mom’s high beams.
At the base of the rickety old roller coaster, a man is lying facedown in a pool of blood.
He’s dead.
Pierce Anselm is dead, his blood seeping into the ground of this cursed fucking park.
The knife is clenched in my fist as I sink back into the shadow of the trees, my hands trembling. The beams of the roller coaster look as sharp as blades where they are silhouetted by the moon, vines choking it as they climb up toward the dark sky.
I find that my legs don’t move the way I want them to once I reach the cover of the trees outside the park. I am shaking badly. I cannot breathe.
And then the lights of a car cut the dark, so close to me I have to stifle a scream. A car, one I don’t recognize.
And then two people, a woman close to Mom’s age, who runs toward the body. She is too late, too late to save him.
She makes a noise in her throat, something like a cry or maybe like a scream.
I recognize the sound. I made it here, in this park, five years ago, on the worst day of my life.
But the girl stays outside their Jeep. She is my age, curvy and red-haired and wearing a soft yellow sundress that looks out of place in this graveyard we find ourselves in.
And then she turns.
Her eyes meet mine, sharp and piercing even from this distance.
For half a moment, neither of us makes a noise, both of us frozen in horror. I am close enough to see the goose bumps trailing down the bare, freckled skin of her forearms.
She is close enough to see—
Me.
And then she screams, the sound shattering the night, just as the red-and-blue lights of the sheriff’s car light up the parking lot.
I do what I should have done long ago.
I turn and run.
Lucy. 10:03 p.m.
There’s a person out there in the woods. There is.
Katy is holding me tightly against her chest, and that’s how I know things are bad. Like, bad bad.
“What is it, honey?” she asks. “What did you see?”
I point wordlessly into the dark forest, where just a moment ago I saw—wide, dark eyes. Mud on her jacket. The sharp glint of a knife. “I saw her,” I say. “Or him. I don’t know. They had a knife.”
Katy’s heartbeat thunders against my ear, her grip only tightening as the cop car pulls up next to us, its lights flashing but its sirens quiet.
“Mom?” I whisper.
And okay, fine, so maybe I only call her that when I’m really, really scared. I’m grown enough not to need her most days. But I’ve never been at an actual crime scene and seen—seen a body before.
“Don’t say anything to him,” Katy whispers into my hair. “Okay? Don’t say anything to anyone.”
“Mom?” More urgently. I can hardly breathe.
My chest hurts, and there’s a dead body, and a creepy, abandoned theme park with towering trees and a rusted-out slide with a trunk growing through, and giant teacups that used to spin guests but now just creak and groan as if they are crying for the man who is dead.
The man who was somehow connected to my mom.
“Promise me,” Katy says fiercely. She pushes me back to arm’s length, her hands digging into my shoulders so tightly it hurts.
“I promise,” I say quickly, and she lets me go.
The sheriff gets out of his car, which is parked so close to Katy’s that I may not be able to get back in my seat without scratching his door.
He looks like he’s in his late fifties, though it’s always hard for me to guess when it comes to old people. He has yesterday’s stubble, as if he gave as much attention to his appearance as I did this morning. The man stifles a yawn as he raises a hand to wave to Katy.
“Please don’t say fuck the police,” Katy whispers. “Please? Just this once?”
I choke on a laugh that would have sounded near hysterical.
When she steps away from me, I shiver suddenly with the cold.
She moves toward him and—he pulls her into a hug.
A hug.
Wait.
Am I still in Katy’s Jeep, dreaming this?
Because other than, like, just now, in proximity to a dead body, Katy doesn’t even really like to hug me.
“Katy?” I blurt out, my voice loud and shattering in the horrible quiet of this parking lot. I scuff my boot against the buckled asphalt we’re standing on. “What?”
This guy just hugged her, and she didn’t respond by knocking him out.
