Seeing Darkness

by Heather Graham

  “I work on Wall Street. I’m a stockbroker,” Nancy told him.

  “Nice,” he told her. “That must be intense.”

  “I love it,” she informed him.

  “She’s tiny, but fierce,” Jenny assured him. “I’m not so exciting—I’m an accountant.”

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Kylie said. “Jenny is head accountant for one of the largest hotel chains in the country. No, the world, right?”

  Jenny shrugged.

  “And Corrine is head manager for one of New York City’s largest restaurant chains,” Kylie said.

  “And I’m looking forward to taking time off for my honeymoon,” Corrine said.

  “When is the wedding?” Jon asked politely.

  “November,” Corrine said. “We’re really excited. “We’ve rented Kylie’s place—well, Trelawny House—for the reception. And we’re being married at Grace Church. You’ve met my bridesmaids... Derrick will have my brother, his brother, and his best friend stand with him. And we have little relatives as ring bearer and flower girls. Kind of traditional, and kind of not.”

  “Sounds great,” Jon said.

  “Yes, doesn’t it?” Corrine said. “Now, Special Agent Jonathan Wolf Dickson, I think we need to know more about you and exactly what you’re doing here. You’re a local, but you’ve rented weird space in a building on Essex Street. Where’s your home? Where are your family?”

  “Corrine!” Kylie protested.

  “Well, he cornered us yesterday,” Corrine said. “It’s our turn to corner him.”

  “I’m from here,” Jon said easily. “I grew up about two blocks from the Salem Witch Museum. My parents still own the house, but they’re at the Cape half the time, and when they’re gone now, they rent it out. I’m on Essex Street in that weird little space because it’s where I wanted to be.”

  “You have something against hotels?” Nancy asked.

  He grinned. “I like my own space.”

  “Hmm.” Nancy looked at him, drumming her fingers on the table. “Okay, we know you went to Yale.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Nancy looked at Corrine. “Not Harvard, but...”

  “I went to community college first. I finished at Yale after a stint in the military.”

  Nancy laughed. “Hey, in my opinion, the college doesn’t matter as much as the teachers and what you choose to put into your classes. Still, if people are trying to make you feel insecure, it’s nice to have the fallback of a great school.”

  “Did I try to make any of you insecure?” he asked.

  “Not your fault,” Corrine told him. “You walk into a room, and...well, you have an air about you. You scared us last night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled, then let it fade. “But you came here because you’ve been following what you believe to be a serial killer. So it makes sense if you’re a little intense about it.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it,” he agreed.

  “So now what’s going on?” Jenny asked.

  He hesitated, and then drew in a long breath. “I’m not sure about Annie Hampton. Her murder may not be tied to the others.”

  “A copycat?” Kylie demanded, leaning forward.

  He shrugged. “I can’t say definitively. And because of that, I’m going to ask you all to be very careful. Don’t split up. Whatever is going on, he preys on lone women. So don’t go anywhere alone, don’t wander off from one another.” He hesitated for just a second, as if deciding how much to tell them. “Detective Ben Miller, Essex County, was on the local news tonight. He’s putting out a warning, extending it to all surrounding areas. We’re waiting on forensics from the burial ground, but this killer—or these killers—are good. They know how to clean up, how important it is that they leave nothing behind. ME’s haven’t found skin beneath nails, no hairs or fibers. The killings have been quick and vicious. But completely clean.”

  “Oh, not to worry! We’ll stay with one another like glue,” Jenny promised. She looked around the table. “Safety in numbers. Now, should we order?”

  “Yes, let’s eat,” Corrine said. “We need to make the ghost tour.”

  Their waitress must have heard them. She was at the table at once, smiling, giving them suggestions, and writing down their choices.

  When she was gone, Jon grinned at them all. “Ghost tour?” he asked. “You haven’t taken one of the tours here before?”

  “Of course, several times,” Corrine said. “Nancy even gave tours one summer to help pay for college. We still love them. We consider ourselves connoisseurs of ghost tour guides.”

  “Ah, well,” Jon murmured.

  “And we met a fun guy last night who said he was the best, so, we’ll check it out,” Nancy said.

  “At the Cauldron?” he asked.

  “Yes, he was a little in-your-face, but he seemed fun,” Jenny said.

  “So, Jon, where do you live in Washington?” Nancy asked.

  He spent the next few minutes answering a barrage of questions. He lived in Northern Virginia. His unit had their own offices, separate from the main FBI building. They worked with the amazing technical staff that served the main office, but his was a smaller team, comprised of field agents doing a lot of traveling. They stepped in when it appeared that danger threatened at certain levels, and a new approach was needed.

  “I have a pretty amazing field director,” he said. “He’s willing to look in many directions, listen to any possibilities, and he’s great at making arrangements with local officials.”

  Their food arrived. As they ate, Kylie stole a glance at Jon and found he was looking her way, smiling. He wasn’t making fun of her friends, she knew. He was enjoying the fact they were checking on him and his credentials since he had been spending time with her—even if that time had been tensely spent in a graveyard.

  She felt a pang, something clenching tightly inside her, and she was surprised it hurt so badly to realize that this dinner could be it—they might never see him again. He would go back to Virginia, or wherever the next lead in his case was, and she would head back to New York. Her life and work were there.

  Her job was wonderful, but it had just about consumed all her time and attention for the past few months. That had kept her from thinking about any other aspect of her life, and shielded her from feeling.

  She liked Jon even more as he spoke easily with all of them.

  He insisted on picking up the check. “A small repayment for crashing a bachelorette weekend,” he said.

  When they were out on the street, they chatted casually. They were all headed back to Essex Street: Jon to his office, and the women to meet up with the ghost tour.

  Jon caught hold of Kylie’s elbow, keeping her back slightly as they all walked.

  “I’ll be at the Cauldron in a bit. You should come back there after your tour, if you’re up to it. If not, will you call me when you’re all safely back in your room?”

  “Yes, sure. But I imagine we’ll be happy to stay out a bit tonight. It’s the wild wicked Saturday night of our wild wicked bachelorette weekend,” she said dryly.

  “Great,” he said, then he waved to the others and left for his office.

  Kylie and her friends moved on, heading toward the pedestrian walkway where people were gathering in groups, ready to meet up with their different guides. Kylie asked if they needed to pay someone or get tickets, but Corrine had made the reservations and gotten their tickets earlier.

  “Remember, we stick close,” Jenny said. “Oh, there’s our guy. Carl is with the History Most Haunted group. Looks like we can stick close with about fifty people!”

  Too many for one tour, Kylie thought.

  Carl hopped up on a box he carried with him so he could speak over the crowd. He had a deep, booming voice, and was easily heard. First, he welc
omed everyone, and then announced they would split up.

  He was dressed in Revolutionary clothing, similar to what Matt had been wearing as a pirate, but somehow a bit less swashbuckling. It suited him, and Carl looked dignified in the period costume.

  “The tales we have to tell tonight are enough to chill your bones. But lest we leave anyone too far back to hear—and in order for us all to make it across streets when we need to—we will split up. My very excellent assistant, Charles, will be taking half of you. If you all will be so kind... Kind of move more to the left on this side, and more to the right if you’re over here... You’ll be Charles’s group.”

  “Great,” Jenny said. “We took this tour specifically for this guide—little did we know just how popular he is.”

  But as she spoke, Carl looked at them.

  “He saw us!” Nancy said happily. “Thanks to your height, Jenny.”

  “Yeah, I’m a beacon,” Jenny muttered.

  “He’s motioning for us to follow him,” Corrine said.

  They were on the wrong side, but Carl excused their move. “My cousin and her pals!” he lied to the crowd.

  No one seemed to mind, but Carl hopped down from his box to greet them with hugs as if one of them was his cousin and the others long-lost friends.

  “Thanks! You came,” he told them.

  “We’re excited to see what you do with the tour,” Nancy told him.

  He winked, then launched into his speech for the crowd. “Okay, we’re going to start with the Clue house!” he told them. “Why is it the Clue house, you ask? Well, let’s move down the street a bit, to 128 Essex Street, to one of the loveliest and grandest manors on the avenue. The game Clue was called Murder by the inventor at first, and then, it was released in the United Kingdom as Cluedo—a play on the word clue and the word ludo, Latin for I play.

  “Clue was invented in England by Anthony Pratt, who applied for his patent in 1944, but the world was a mess—World War II, you know—so it was 1947 when he received his patent, and then 1949 when the game was produced. Parker Brothers, a company that began its illustrious existence right here in Salem, had the rights and put the game out in the States.

  “Why is this man babbling about a game, you ask? Aha! Because this beautiful house, deeply haunted by a cruel story of murder, might have made its way into the American version of the game. On April 6, 1830, Captain John White was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in his room on the second floor. The murder turned out to be a conspiracy with the most heinous of objectives—the old man’s money! Before it was all over, Daniel Webster himself gave fiery oratory to see the conspirators brought to justice, one man committed suicide, knowing himself damned, and two hanged from the neck until dead.

  “And many, many years later, George Parker, arranging for the American version of the game, certainly knew all about the murder and the weapons and the many rooms of this house.”

  As he had promised, Carl was an excellent guide, ready with historical facts and figures, as well as being a talented showman. But no matter how excellent a guide he proved to be, Kylie found herself watching everyone on the tour with them. One man nearby said to his wife that he felt odd, heading out on a ghost tour when a woman had recently been the victim of a cruel and brutal murder.

  Many of the stories, however, were distant—and part of Salem’s more ancient history. The group walked to the Howard Street Cemetery, and heard about Giles Corey, victim of the witch trials, who had been pressed to death—refusing to plea, since any plea would allow the confiscation of his property.

  The old man who had died so pathetically—but given testimony against his own wife at her trial—was said to haunt the place.

  They saw the old Salem Jail, which had been converted into luxury apartments—but naturally they were haunted, too.

  The tour was good, and still Kylie had watched the other tourists.

  At one point, she had the strange feeling she’d had the night before: a feeling that she was being watched.

  When the tour ended, and Carl had collected his fair share of tips, the guide joined Kylie and her friends and asked, “Well?”

  “Excellent,” Corrine told him.

  “I knew all the stories, but you gave them a great spin,” Kylie said.

  He smiled at her broadly. He certainly was appealing in his costume and with his friendly manner. If not for her current circumstances, Kylie would have enjoyed his obvious attempts to flirt with her. She wasn’t entirely sure what was holding her back...except that she was attracted to Jon Dickson. And while there was nothing between them except for a strange partnership, she felt almost as if she would be cheating if she indulged another man’s flirtation at the same time.

  Thankfully, her friends didn’t notice.

  “I’m heading to the Cauldron,” Carl mentioned. “Can I possibly get you to come along?”

  “Sure!” Jenny said, and the others agreed.

  “We were already planning to grab a drink there. We might have another friend joining us as well,” Corrine said.

  “Another beautiful woman?” Carl asked hopefully.

  “He really can flatter,” Kylie said to her friends, amused. He had such an open and charming way about him.

  “A man. Tall, dark, mysterious, and handsome,” Nancy said.

  Carl shrugged. “Okay. I’ll meet him. I probably have lots of friends hanging out in there now, too, so I can introduce you,” he said. “You’ll have lots of friends in Salem.”

  “Nancy is from Marblehead,” Kylie said.

  “Almost local,” Carl said, and then he laughed. “I’m actually from Springfield, Missouri.”

  He linked arms with Nancy and Jenny, who were closest to him. He laughed, saying he had to twist a little to accommodate the foot of difference in their heights.

  Corrine led the way.

  Kylie paused for just a minute. The great throng from the many ghost tours was beginning to thin out. Old buildings stood tall; shops had only their dim lights on, and their displays seemed ghostly: rams’ heads, pentagrams, and witch mannequins here and there with conical hats, black capes, and broomsticks. The faint sound of chatter echoed down the street, and the night air was deliciously cool. She looked around, noting one shop with Styrofoam headstones and a display of sticker-ghosts attached to the glass.

  It was strange. She didn’t feel the least touch of anything frightening or evil. No one was actually watching her. But she couldn’t shake the feeling someone was out there. Perhaps she’d grown paranoid.

  She hurried to join her friends. Kylie knew that Jon would be at the Cauldron, and she felt something inside her quicken a bit, and her skin grew warm.

  She was foolish to be falling for such a man, especially under the circumstances. He lived in Virginia; her life was in New York.

  She couldn’t help it. She was glad to be seeing him. No one could change what they were feeling. She could only decide she wouldn’t show it in any way.

  Six

  Jon quickly befriended Matt Hudson and Cindy Smith; it was always good to get to know your local bartenders. People confided in them, and customers who didn’t had a tendency to ignore them as if they were part of the bar, and often talked in front of them without really realizing they were being heard. Through the years, Jon had received invaluable help from bartenders and waitstaff.

  He’d arrived at the Cauldron and grabbed a stool at the bar shortly after he said goodbye to Kylie and her friends after dinner. All he’d done in his office was change his clothing.

  Thinking about the ghost tour the girls were on had given him an idea; tour guides might be the type of people to travel easily and still keep a job—and might have a secret affair with Annie Hampton.

  Matt already knew the names of all the local tour companies, but Cindy supplied him with the most popular guides—Carl Fisher on the top of the list.
Jon sent the names and info back to his technical staff at the Virginia offices, grateful his unit had an amazing on-call staff who could be asked to research anything at almost any time of the day or night.

  Matt and Cindy kept checking in on Jon between other customers. Both asked him about the night before, about the young woman who had all but passed out in his arms. Matt wondered if they were long-time friends.

  “Saw their little foursome today,” he mentioned. “They were heading to the pirate museum. All of them are so sweet! Nice group, but almost intimidating. Like a foursome of supermodels. Well, one would be a short supermodel, but really...wow.” Matt shook his head. “Anyway, last night was scary.”

  “Yeah,” Cindy said, pausing with two drinks in her hand. Then she laughed softly. “That poor woman. First, she’s just staring at the TV and whatever politician was talking, and then the news about the murder. She was fresh-fallen-snow-white. Good thing you came up when you did. You saved her from falling. You didn’t know her already?” Cindy asked.

  “No, I was just trying to help, and it worked out. I know her now,” Jon said lightly.

  “Nice,” Matt said, and his look seemed to silently note that Jon was lucky to know Kylie now.

  Jon just nodded. “Really, all the girls are my friends now. I’m expecting them in here soon, and you’re getting so busy. Not to give you more to do, but I noticed some counter seating across the room over there—”

  “Say no more, friend, I’ve got you covered,” Matt assured him. He found a reserved sign beneath the bar and hurried out with it, securing the space just before a flood of people entered the bar.

  Jon lowered his head, smiling slightly. He’d liked to think it was his winning personality that brought such compliance; however, it probably had more to do with the number of drinks he’d bought for some of the locals he met the night before. For himself, he’d been sipping the same near-beer all night.

  Near-beer was best tonight; it still felt as if his mind was on a constant reel. If he went by the case history, a woman had already been murdered here, so the killer would move on. But something wasn’t right this time. And instinct led him back here, to watch and to listen. And that was best done with a clear head. Which meant no bartender would really warm to him...unless he kept his tab going by other means.