Krewe of Hunters, Volume 1: Phantom Evil ; Heart of Evil ; Sacred Evil ; The Evil Inside

by Heather Graham

  Trebly rose at last. “I didn’t do it, damn you, and I don’t know anything about who did. I didn’t like Charles Osgood, but Ashley was probably the only person who felt sorry for him—or even felt genuinely bad that he was dead. Hell, yes, we could have used that land, but I didn’t force the issue. Old Frazier pulled it together. We aren’t expanding, and I didn’t kill Charles Osgood!”

  “Thanks for your time, Mr. Trebly,” Jake said.

  “Jackson?”

  Jackson turned around at last and they left the offices and the mill building.

  “The man is an ass!” Jackson said.

  “Maybe. But I believe him. I don’t think that he did it.”

  Jackson shrugged. “Right now, I can’t really tell. He was shaking, and he looks as if he might have really high blood pressure. He’s not in the best physical shape, and we are looking for someone with strength and dexterity.”

  “Let’s move on to Beaumont,” Jake said.

  Jackson nodded. “We’ll pick up Frazier and Beth, drop them back at the plantation. I don’t want them deciding to get back some other way.”

  Jake didn’t reply. Jackson was worried about the plantation household.

  So was Jake.

  As long as the cops were still on duty, treating the entire plantation as a crime scene, the plantation itself seemed safe.

  But that’s where Charles Osgood had been found. Safe was the last word he’d use.

  * * *

  “This is my favorite, my mare—even though she gave me a toss last night!” Ashley said, stroking Varina’s soft nuzzle. “On this side, next to Varina, you have Jeff—after Jeff Davis, of course—and at the end, down there, Bobby—for Robert E. Lee.”

  “A true Southern stable!” Whitney said.

  “Not really. Across there you have Abe—for Abraham Lincoln—and then Nellie and Tigger. Go figure. We just weren’t consistent, I’m afraid. Actually, Jeff is Nellie’s offspring, so we did name him, but we named him Jeff because we already had a Varina!”

  “They’re beautiful,” Whitney said. “I wish we could go riding.”

  “We can go riding,” Ashley said. She saw Whitney’s face. “Oh, that’s right. I’m not allowed to go riding. It’s light out, though. So can I go with you?”

  Whitney was thoughtful for a minute. “I’ll give Jake a call.”

  “I thought Jackson was the head of the unit.”

  “Jake gave me the order.” Whitney grimaced.

  “Look, I went out late yesterday afternoon, and I shouldn’t have, but honestly, I didn’t think Varina would throw me. And nothing happened, really. We just all scared each other.”

  “And Toby Keaton showed up, and no one trusts the man at the moment,” Whitney said.

  “And Cliff,” Ashley added.

  Whitney watched her, nodded, and slowly smiled. “You think we’re full of it for suspecting Cliff, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry. He is a suspect.”

  “Right, so I’ve been told—because he has access, he has motive,” Ashley finished.

  Whitney drew out her cell phone. She turned away from Ashley, putting through her call. Ashley could hear Jake’s voice on the other end of the line, but she couldn’t make out his words.

  But Whitney was smiling when she hung up.

  “We have permission? I’m shocked,” Ashley said.

  “He’s just trying to protect you, you know,” Whitney said.

  Ashley smiled. “Yeah,” she said quietly. He was trying to protect her. “But you know what? I may not have been a cop like Angela, and I may not be a crack shot—but I did grow up here, and I do know how to use a shotgun. Guess I’ll go drag mine out.”

  “I’ll get Angela. Jackson and Jake are almost back with your grandfather and Beth. If you get the horses saddled—and I’m a decent rider, not great—we can head out as soon as they drop off Frazier and Beth.”

  “Are they staying?”

  “No—they have another stop to make. They’re going to have a talk with Toby Keaton,” Whitney explained.

  Whitney headed back to the house, her dark curls bouncing as she walked. Ashley was about to knock on Cliff’s door and find out if he’d mind helping her saddle up the horses, when he walked out.

  “We’re expecting a load of hay,” he told her. “I imagine the cops will let that through. Seems like they’ve been doing a good job, though. I haven’t seen any reporters around for a while.”

  “Maybe they’ve decided that peering in from the road just isn’t that exciting,” Ashley said. “Apparently, they’ve got something going with the police. I think that a police spokesperson has been handling news on the investigation. Well, actually, what do I know? We’re all at the house having the same experience.”

  “Cops are supposed to come out—or forensic people, whatever they are—and go over my apartment,” Cliff said.

  “And you don’t mind?” Ashley asked him.

  “I want to be cleared,” he said.

  She smiled. “You’re clear in my book.”

  “Well, and that’s what counts to me. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with people glaring at me if they don’t catch the bastard.”

  “They’ll catch him,” Ashley said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Jake said so,” Ashley told him.

  Cliff nodded. “Well, God knows—I hope so. I pray so, Ashley, I really do.”

  They looked at one another as they heard tires on the gravel near the front. Walking around, they saw that a white minivan had just pulled into the front. Will Chan emerged, followed by a tall, slim, red haired woman.

  “Hello!” she called out, seeing them watching her from a distance.

  She said something to Will, who nodded and grinned. He went for the bags at the back of the car while she walked over to them.

  Her brilliant green eyes shone out over her easy smile. “Hello, I’m Jenna,” she said, offering her hand.

  “Jenna, lovely to meet you. We’ve been expecting you, of course,” Ashley said. “Welcome to Donegal Plantation.”

  “It’s brilliant,” she said. There was a lilt to her voice, very soft, and yet it spoke of an Irish background.

  Jenna looked at Cliff and seemed to assess him quickly. “You’re—”

  “Cliff. Cliff Boudreaux. Suspect,” he said dryly.

  “Ah, well, we’re all suspect at one time or another, aren’t we, then?” she asked.

  “If you say so, Jenna,” Cliff said. He was grinning; the two were looking at one another with amusement and something like an instant rapport. Ashley found herself amused.

  “I’ll bring you into the house, Jenna, and show you to a room. There are a few left to choose from—” Ashley began.

  “I can—and have—slept on many a floor. Put me wherever you would like, and I’ll be just fine,” Jenna assured her.

  “Oh, Cliff, would you saddle Varina, Nellie and Tigger for me? Whitney wants to go riding, and Angela is going to come, too.”

  “Riding?” Jenna’s eyes lit up.

  “Cliff, add Jeff to the horse list, will you?”

  “Oh, I think she’d do well on Bobby. You’re a rider, aren’t you, Jenna?” Cliff asked.

  “I like to think so,” Jenna said.

  “Bobby, then. Bobby it is!” Cliff said.

  “Are you joining us?”

  “Can’t,” Cliff said. “We’re expecting a delivery. But hopefully we’ll get a chance somewhere along the line to head out together.”

  “It’s a date,” Jenna said.

  Bemused, Ashley led their new guest to the house.

  * * *

  Frazier and Beth were still sipping coffee when Jake and Jackson went in to pick them up for the ride back to the house.

  They both looked a little brighter for having escaped the house for a while, but Beth was grave.

  “We have another missing person,” Beth said.

  “What?” Jake a
sked her.

  She lifted her coffee cup and indicated the television above the diner’s counter.

  “The news just had a thing about it. That reporter—I think you knew her?—Marty. Marty Dean. She didn’t show up for work today, and her station has plastered her picture on the news a dozen times. See—it’s who you know,” Beth commented to Frazier. “This woman was a newscaster—people saw her every day. So they ignored us when Charles disappeared, but they’re all over it now because she’s missing.”

  “It’s true,” Frazier said. “Her coworkers believe she wouldn’t miss work. Ashley was upset about Charles. She knew him. She knew something bad was going on when he turned up missing. But Charles didn’t work for a news program, and neither did Ashley. If I hadn’t known Adam—”

  “Think about the people who don’t know Adam, either,” Beth pointed out.

  “They might have found Charles alive if anybody had really been looking,” Frazier said.

  Jake stared at the television. An old Western rerun was playing.

  “What did they say about Marty Dean?” he asked.

  “She rushed out on a tip yesterday afternoon, said she’d be back for the eleven-o’clock news, but she didn’t make it,” Beth said. “She still hasn’t shown up.”

  “But she was in New Orleans, right?” Jackson asked.

  Beth nodded. “Yes, she disappeared from New Orleans.”

  Jake looked at Jackson. He had a bad feeling—a really bad feeling.

  But the police in New Orleans would certainly be on the disappearance. Forty-eight hours or not, the media would be forcing them into action.

  “Let’s get them back and look in on Toby Keaton,” Jackson said.

  * * *

  It was nice, riding with the other women, even if their previous acquaintance made her the odd man out.

  Jenna was a welcome addition. She was sweet and energetic, but it was really the accent, Ashley decided. Americans loved accents from the British Isles, English or any variety, whether Irish, Scottish or Welsh.

  And Jenna oohed and aahed over the river, over the cemetery, over the horses, over everything. She seemed to love Donegal Plantation, and as they rode, she told Ashley that her expertise was in nursing.

  “A federal agent—in nursing?” Ashley asked.

  Jenna waved a hand in the air. “I have other talents,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “I’m not as good as Angela,” she said flatly. “But I speak with the dead.”

  “A little subtlety might be in order!” Whitney called out.

  Ashley twisted around in the saddle to see Angela, who was also rolling her eyes.

  “The cameras, the shadows, Jake…is this a paranormal unit?” Ashley asked.

  “No—we’re a regular unit,” Angela said.

  “We’re a special one,” Whitney told her.

  “We look for what’s real,” Jenna said. “But we may be able to find what everyone can see by seeing what everyone can’t. There, does that clear it all up?”

  “Just like Mississippi mud,” Ashley said.

  “Jackson came from a regular behavioral-sciences unit,” Angela said. “Then Adam Harrison formed a team when Senator Holloway’s wife, Regina, died. Jackson knew all about forming a team and learning each member’s specialty, but Adam had done the legwork already, finding those he wanted.”

  Ashley studied them all. “I know the case, of course. But people were saying that ghosts had killed Regina Holloway. I suppose we’re in much the same position here.”

  “Exactly. Here’s the thing. Jackson knows that things happen out of the norm, but he’s also aware that living people usually prove to be behind it,” Angela explained. “He’s a true skeptic—a prove-it-to-me man. The thing is…”

  “The thing is what?”

  “Ghosts do exist,” Whitney said. “And no one sees them more clearly than Angela.”

  Ashley looked ahead as they rode on.

  Had Angela seen Marshall Donegal yet? She hadn’t seen him herself today. Maybe he had decided he might find a more intelligent life force in someone else?

  Angela smiled. “Well, I also believe there has to be human evil involved. But…Whitney is telling you the truth. We investigate for ghosts. Not because they’re evil, though, honestly, evil men make evil ghosts. They’ll encroach on someone’s mind, but they can’t carry out evil deeds. It’s like hypnotism. If it’s something you won’t do, you still won’t do it, no matter how a ghost tries to play with your imagination.”

  “Wait a minute. It sounds like you’re saying ‘The ghost made me do it!’” Ashley said.

  “Not at all,” Angela said gravely. “What we’re saying is that…well, if the evil in a man’s soul or spirit remains behind, it can act as fuel to someone who is already a madman. But most of the time, those souls that linger are yearning only to bring something to right, to protect those they might have loved. To bring about some kind of resolution or conclusion.”

  “Interesting. What about a ghost who lingers over a hundred and fifty years?” Ashley asked.

  “I’m sure that ghosts have lingered much longer,” Angela said. “Sometimes they’re just waiting to be freed. And, I imagine, sometimes they like being ghosts and doing what they can for the living. God knows, I don’t have all the answers.”

  “But—you talk to ghosts!” Ashley said.

  Angela smiled. “Yes, but you see—they don’t have all the answers, either. This direction we’re riding in—it’s toward the bayou and the plantation next door?”

  “Yes, our best trails are out this way toward the bayou. Just past the outbuildings on the other side, it all turns into barbed wire for the sugar fields.”

  “There have to be gators out here,” Whitney commented.

  “There are. We leave them alone, they leave us alone,” Ashley told her. “And you’ll only see them when we’re right on the bayou. They seldom venture as far as the riding trails. They like their watery habitat.”

  “Alligators. Ugh,” Jenna said, shuddering.

  “To tell you the truth, we worry more about the snakes,” Ashley told her.

  “Oh, great! It might be about time to head back, eh, friends?” Jenna said.

  “Just a bit farther, please,” Angela said. “I want to see the Creole plantation.”

  “The bayou is between our property and Beaumont,” Ashley told her.

  “That’s all right. I just want to see it from here,” Angela said.

  “It’s just up ahead. There’s a twist in the trail that goes right down by the bayou,” Ashley said.

  “You’ll be able to see it from across the water there.”

  * * *

  Jake parked in front of Beaumont.

  It was an entirely different place from Donegal Plantation, not as grand, and there was no canopy of oaks along a sweeping front drive. By car, the house was reached by a massive gravel parking lot in front. Wooden fencing surrounded the residence itself, which was only two stories. Jake had been in Beaumont himself, and he found it as fascinating as Donegal, just different. Here workrooms and space for the animals had once taken up the first floor, or raised basement, while the household had always lived in the second floor. Like many of the other plantations, Beaumont had been a working sugarcane farm, and the outbuildings remained as they had been, important parts of the tours that were given here. The Creole way of life, rather than that of the English planter, held sway here.

  Toby Keaton had inherited the house through his mother’s side of the family. She had been a Thibadeux, from an old French family. His father, whose family line also went back for generations, had hailed from the English who had settled in the Garden District of New Orleans. Toby had been divorced for years; his one son, now in college, was being groomed to take over the family business when Toby grew weary of it…or willing to give up being the one in charge. Jake could remember meeting Josiah Keaton; he had been a handsome yet solemn young teen when he had last seen him, aware of t
he responsibility that would one day be his.

  “Intriguing place,” Jackson said, sliding his sunglasses down on his nose as they emerged from the car.

  “Toby runs a good business,” Jake said. “He and Frazier have always supported one another.”

  Jackson looked at him. “But Donegal Plantation has become a bed-and-breakfast. Beaumont has to be doing better.”

  Jake shrugged. “It pulls in a higher gross, yes. But the expenses are higher, too.”

  “Still, Toby Keaton could want Donegal to go down. And last night, when you went after Ashley, the man made an appearance in the dark—on the other side of the bayou.”

  “True,” Jake said.

  Before the path that led to the house there was a little kiosk where tickets could be bought. A woman wearing French Creole Empire–style clothing, circa 1820, was behind the counter.

  “Hello,” Jake said. He flashed his badge; he didn’t know her. She was young and had probably taken work here to get through school herself. “We’re looking for Mr. Keaton. Can you tell me where to find him?”

  “I wish!” she said irritably. “He hasn’t been around this morning—and he’s supposed to be handing out paychecks. His car is here, but he is not.”

  “He lives here,” Jake said politely. “He has to be somewhere.” He pointed to an overhang in the parking area; there was a shiny new Honda parked there. “Is that his car?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She flushed, looking at Jake. “I’m sorry, Officer. I just don’t know where he is. I’ve tried his cell phone, but he wasn’t answering. I opened the sales window at ten, just as I’m supposed to do. Everyone who is supposed to be here working is—you can ask Dan out by the field, or Martha, who gives the tours up at the house. Maybe one of them has seen him.”

  Jake glanced at Jackson and thanked the girl. They walked up to the house, where a costumed interpreter—Martha, he assumed—met them at the door. “The next tour starts in thirty minutes,” she said cheerfully. “You’re welcome to explore the grounds while you wait.”

  Once again, they produced their badges.

  “Oh, dear!” Martha said. “What’s wrong? Oh, is this about poor Mr. Osgood?”