Excerpt of the Month (Feb. 2025): Beyond Dark 2
A glimpse at what Alyssa and Thayer tackle in the Beyond Dark sequel
Starting now, I will be posting monthly excerpts from one of the books I am working on as a way to give you a glimpse at what I am working on and what is coming. Today, we get a peek at the case Alyssa and Thayer tackle in “Beyond Dark 2: Gravedigger.” In book 1, as new work partners, the duo didn’t get along and the Belladonna case pushed Alyssa to a mental breakdown. The sequel follows this up with the second case these two work together.
June 11, 2016
Saturday
Stancombe, Alberta
A sweltering sun beat down on the endless prairies of wheat and canola fields, and gravel roads dotted with houses and barns. An old shack sat crooked, rotting, and dilapidated in the middle of a barren field. Grass caressed the weary wood walls, with bright yellow tansies, reminiscent of taller dandelions, towering over dusty pink milkweeds. Lilac bushes grew tall, untrimmed, and wide, the vibrant purple blossoms reaching for the cloudless blue sky, eloquent and resilient in the persistent dryness of Albertan heat.
A dust-covered truck passed by on the gravel road when Alyssa and Thayer stepped out of the black SUV and wandered up to the site. Several trucks and an RCMP unit parked in the driveway, gravel with weeds bursting through the dirt and rocks. As she approached, Alyssa spotted three open holes, with a team carefully digging more with shovels. She paused at one, remaining behind the yellow crime scene tape. Residual dirt remained at the bottom. Dirt around the edge appeared displaced, thrown off, and disheveled before footprints led off into the grassy field.
Alyssa stared down at the hole, letting the image of what it would look like at night, without a forensics team dutifully digging. The isolation. Shadows. Darkness without street lights, neon signs, headlights, or indoor lights flooding from house windows. A small farmhouse sat on the other side of the field. White, nondescript. Flower beds out front. A covered porch. Way out there, the unsub would have to know their way around, especially if she was returning to burial sites.
She was likely digging the holes by night, too, if she was working so close to someone’s actual home. By the looks of the leaning shack, this wasn’t a spot the property owners frequented. The unsub must have had an inclination of that, too. Based on the digging team’s work, the unsub had managed to dig at least three graves in the area without the owners realizing it. She was efficient. Careful. Organized. In good physical shape. Digging graves by shovel was no easy feat. The previous ones had been at least four or five feet deep, but the last was only two or three. Rushed, perhaps, but adamant on completing the kill? Did someone almost catch her when she was digging and she had no time to finish before she brought Kirsten Jarroll out?
And how terrifying it must have been for Kirsten, to go from suffocating on dirt as she dug her way out to drowning in hefty darkness when she finally emerged. No idea if she was, indeed, alone, or if her captor awaited nearby to ensure she didn’t rise from her own grave. How long did she sit there before standing and running for her life towards the lone light in the night?
She glanced over at Thayer, who tilted his head as he gazed over the bizarre scene, too, and jotted down some notes.
“What are you gathering from this?” she asked.
He gave her a surprised look, apparently as lost in thought as she had been. “Ah. She’s a sneaky killer, yes? Five graves. Four bodies. One surviver. I am still trying to wrap my head around what it must have felt like to dig herself out.”
“That’s definitely new,” Alyssa said. “What else?”
Thayer studied the scene before replying. “The physical strength it takes to dig a grave and bury someone. Are we sure she doesn’t have help? A partner, perhaps? I know Mrs. Jarroll only saw one person but that doesn’t mean someone isn’t doing the digging for this killer. This is a lot for one person.”
“It is,” Alyssa said. “That’s possible. You’re looking at the surface, though. What’s going on in this unsub’s head?”
“Based on this?” Thayer asked.
She sighed. “Yes. A scene can be telling.”
Thayer’s curious gaze returned to the graves before them, perhaps unsure of what holes in the earth could reveal.
“A pre-planner,” he said. “Organized, as you said at the debrief.”
“Something I haven’t already said,” Alyssa said, rolling her eyes.
He nodded. “It appears she had… some sort of system… up until Mrs. Jarroll. Something happened to interrupt but she brought Mrs. Jarroll out here knowing the grave wasn’t finished. The killer feels… compelled to see this through. She’s determined. She needs to see these women go to their graves. Needs to physically see it. Maybe it gives her some sense of satisfaction. Completion?”
Maybe he’d prove useful, after all. That wasn’t half bad for a rookie.
“But…” Thayer started, then paused.
“But, what?”
He stared down at the grave with dirt still at the bottom, marks indicating where Kirsten had possibly clambered out.
“Knowing this hole wasn’t as shallow as the others… the killer still left before Mrs. Jarroll dug herself out. She didn’t see it to completion as she normally would have. What spooked her before and after?” he mused.
“That’s one of our mysteries. Good eye, though,” Alyssa said thoughtfully. “If we can solve that, then perhaps we can predict how she may change her MO to continue fitting her signature.”
“What… would be the difference here?” Thayer asked.
“What do you think?” Alyssa said, raising an eyebrow at him.
Thayer rubbed the back of his neck. “She buries people alive. Isn’t that both an MO and a signature? How she both kills them and fulfills her pattern.”
“In a way. Burying them alive is the signature. That’s what she feels compelled to do. The location is part of the MO, part of what she can change to adjust. She won’t come back to this spot,” Alyssa explained.
“Ah. Right. We already mentioned that she would move. That makes sense,” Thayer said, nodding.
“You were doing so well,” Alyssa said with a sigh.
Beyond Dark 2: Gravedigger, coming soon!
