Krewe of Hunters, Volume 3: The Night Is WatchingThe Night Is AliveThe Night Is Forever

by Heather Graham

  She walked back to her apartment and opened the door. As she did, she discovered that she hadn’t locked it when she’d gone to the storeroom.

  As she shut it behind her, she saw someone standing by the windows that opened out onto the balcony.

  Instinctively, she set a hand on her Glock.

  But the person turned. “Abby,” he said softly. And then, as if testing her name, “Abigail Anderson.”

  13

  Aldous walked with a determined pace, apparently oblivious, careless of whether anyone watched him or not. He seemed to have purpose and went straight from the Dragonslayer to River Street.

  Malachi kept a careful distance as Aldous walked along the river and stopped at the private dock where the Lady Luck was docked.

  He used his owner’s key in the slot, as well as his code, to gain entry and only then did he turn around to see who else was nearby. Malachi had ducked behind a handy SUV.

  It was still early; people were out in droves. That seemed to please Aldous. He walked onto his yacht, whistling.

  Malachi waited to see if he intended to take the vessel out.

  He couldn’t tell; Aldous went down into the cabin.

  Malachi put a call through to Jackson. Before he could explain what was happening, Jackson sprang some information on him. “They’ve identified the rowboat we brought in last night.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s from the Lafayette—a merchant ship.”

  “How did she wind up in the water?”

  “No one knows. But we didn’t need a warrant. The captain assured us we could search the ship and of course we did. He also told us she’d already been searched. The cops have been on almost every ship, boat and floating anything on the water.”

  “And nothing? So it was just an unconnected accident?”

  “Not really. The Lafayette is owned by a giant parent company, and the CEO happens to be one of the Dragonslayer’s main barflies.”

  “Aldous Brentwood?”

  “Yeah. That’s why it was searched the first time.”

  “I’m on the riverfront watching him now. He just went out to his private yacht, the Lady Luck. He locked the gate behind him. I’m going in.”

  “Malachi, hold on. There are officers near you. I can be there—”

  “I’m taking a dive, Jackson. If he does have her on that yacht, he’s torturing her right now. Get here as fast as you can.”

  He hung up before Jackson could argue, then he moved to a public area, shed his jacket and shoes and dove in. He swam around hard and fast to the Lady Luck and caught hold of the mooring rope to swing himself up on deck.

  Aldous was nowhere in sight. Malachi tiptoed around the deck to look down into the cabin, but it was a large one and his view was blocked. He had to take the steps.

  The yacht was luxurious. The steps led to a galley and dining area, with a captain’s chair and all kinds of electronic gadgets to the left.

  Still no sign of Aldous. There was a hallway that stretched toward the aft. He followed it, then quietly opened the first door. The room was a head, complete with shower. The second door opened to an elegantly appointed cabin. Empty. He tried the door across from it. Also empty.

  One cabin remained. The master storeroom. He strode the last two feet down the hallway and listened. Logic told him that no woman could be captive there—unless she was dead. If she’d cried out at any time, she’d have been heard by someone on a nearby boat or even someone walking on River Street.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Helen’s words still haunted him.

  There was no tapping, just the rhythmic lap of water against the hull. He could hear a band playing at a riverfront club, but that wasn’t the noise he was listening for.

  He heard the cabin door opening; he skirted back, sliding into the head, cracking the door slightly.

  Aldous Brentwood walked down the hallway and went topside. Malachi couldn’t see him, but it sounded as if he’d hopped back onto the dock. He waited a moment longer and hurried down the hall to the aft.

  He threw open the cabin door.

  * * *

  Abby stood still, wondering if she was really seeing what she thought she was. Maybe she wanted to see Blue so badly she’d envisioned him there.

  But Malachi saw Blue. In fact, Blue had spoken to him.

  And now, he’d actually spoken to her.

  “Blue.” She said his name, wondering if he’d disappear. But the image remained. The spirit of the man she’d seen for the first time, years and years ago, when she and her grandparents and the Dragonslayer had been in danger.

  He had led her to Gus; he had led her to save Helen.

  She walked closer, but not too close.

  “You helped me,” she told him.

  He inclined his head. “Of course, but there is little I can do when no one sees. You see. Quite remarkable, Miss Abigail,” he said. His voice was like a dry wind. He didn’t speak often, she thought. She suspected it wasn’t easy for him.

  “Did you see Gus...die?” she asked him. “And Helen—how did you know? What have you seen? We need your help again, Blue—we so desperately need your help.”

  He shook his head and in that motion he seemed to impart great sadness.

  “I came upon Gus. I tried to keep watch after I realized someone had opened the grate and knew about the exit by the riverbank. I was too late to realize that the Dragonslayer was being used. I was too late with Gus—but I began watching, walking a vigil around the Dragonslayer, up and down the tunnel, out to the river. I saw—from a distance—something. There was nothing I could do, no boat I could take. But you followed me, and the woman lived.”

  She nodded. Hoping he’d be able to give her a name had probably been too optimistic.

  “You’re still keeping watch,” she said. “And you saw someone approach the Dragonslayer last night in the middle of the night, when we were out. You scared that person, Blue. You made him leave.”

  “I tried to see who it was. He left too quickly.” Blue moved with a flourish of his frock coat; he was evidently indignant. “He wore a cape as I sometimes wore. He pretends to be me!” He looked as if he’d say more, as if he’d unleash a spate of curses but determined not to—not with a great-great-whatever niece standing there. He waved a hand in the air. “The young gentlemen pretend to be me in your theatricals, but I find that quite charming. I appear heroic and honorable, do I not?”

  “Very honorable,” Abby assured him.

  “To be depicted so is palatable. For a killer such as this coward to take on my persona—that is beyond despicable. To torment and slay young women as he does... This is a monster. A monster, Abigail, and I will help you in every way that I can.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “We need you.”

  He nodded. “I continue to keep watch here. I watch over you as you sleep. I am here, in this hall, or below.” It sounded as if he attempted to clear his throat. “Times have changed, of course. And yet heinous murder remains heinous murder. And few people are so cruel and brutal as this...this piece of human refuse.”

  He seemed to be fading.

  “Blue,” she called out. “Why have you never spoken to me before?”

  “Because there was no need,” he said. “You knew I was here. And you followed me each time, as I prayed you would. I...I need to rest now. This is...difficult for me. Perhaps one learns... Still, throughout the years, there are not so many who can see me, and fewer still who hear me. But, Abby, I am with you.”

  Except, as he spoke the last words, he wasn’t. He disappeared as if he’d never been there.

  Abby realized she was shaking.

  She sat down on the chair in front of the computer screens. She gazed at them for a moment, her mind strangely blan
k and her hands still trembling. She clenched them into loose fists.

  The screens showed her that Sullivan remained behind the bar, Macy chatted with customers, Bootsie raised a beer to his lips.

  Will Chan sat and watched.

  In the dining room, Paul and Roger were still at the table. Paul was speaking earnestly to Roger; Roger nodded and kept drinking.

  He was going to play an interesting Blue the following day if he didn’t stop.

  She left the computer screens, knowing that someone at the house on Chippewa was always watching them. By the time she came downstairs, Bootsie and Will were gone. Sullivan worked behind the bar, putting away glasses.

  Macy was off-duty, and Grant Green had taken her position at the host stand.

  “Hey, girl,” Grant said to her. “I’m glad you’re here. You getting any rest?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Abby said.

  “No luck on the missing girl, huh?”

  “Not yet.”

  He leaned toward her. “I’m having the waitress bring a check to Paul and Roger. I’m pretty sure Paul wants to get Roger out of here. At least the two of them won’t be driving.”

  “Thank God for small mercies,” Abby said.

  “It’s all right to...hurry them out?”

  “Grant, yes of course. You’re the manager. You can and should refuse to sell to anyone who appears inebriated. That includes my high school friends.”

  He smiled. “Thanks. It’s just kind of... Well, we’re entering a new era at the Dragonslayer. We all need to adjust.”

  She refrained from telling him that, at the moment, the running of the tavern was the last of her concerns.

  “But you know what? I’m here. I’ll take care of this,” she told him.

  She walked over to the table where Paul and Roger were still sitting. She slid in next to Roger and took his hands. “Look at me, Roger.”

  When he did, she said, “You’re going home now. Go to bed and get some sleep. We’re doing the pirate show for the crowd tomorrow. I need you to be in good shape. You and Paul. I’m not an actor. I can only do it because I grew up here—and because I have the two of you. Okay?”

  He smiled at her a little blearily. “Yeah, you know about Missy Tweed, don’t you?”

  “She was ransomed,” Abby said.

  “But she fell in love with Blue. She wanted to stay with him. He did save her—he came back to his ship to find that bastard, Scurvy Pete, trying to attack her. Scurvy Pete told him she was a captive and they were pirates and he was being a fool. So Missy thought Blue was her savior. Of course, Blue had seized her off her father’s ship, but that didn’t stop Missy from loving him. He was a businessman, Abby. Blue was a businessman. He only attacked ships that belonged to England’s enemies. He took her off her father’s ship when he saved the crew because the ship had been caught in a storm and wrecked and began sinking. So...Blue actually saved Missy twice,” he concluded.

  “It’s a great story, Roger. And we’ll do it well tomorrow. If you go home now.”

  Paul looked at her with gratitude. “Come on, Roger. I’ll get you home.”

  Paul helped him up and they left together, arm in arm. As Abby watched, a man in a colorful tourist shirt rose from his table and followed.

  Abby smiled. The police were at work; she knew the man had to be a plainclothes officer, doing his job.

  Following Roger English.

  * * *

  “I busted into an empty cabin,” Malachi told Jackson. “And I’m afraid I dripped water all over that beautiful yacht. But I did find this.”

  He hadn’t heard anything in the cabin and hadn’t really expected to find Bianca Salzburg. If she’d been there, she would’ve made some sound—unless she’d been gagged and Helen hadn’t said anything about being gagged, just blindfolded.

  So, no Bianca. But what he had found was more than a little suspicious.

  Maybe not under normal circumstances. But under these circumstances...

  He handed Jackson the scarf. It was a large pirate-themed scarf, the kind that was sold all over the city. It had been crumpled and kicked half under the bed. He wondered if it was used as a blindfold by someone.

  Aldous?

  The man was big and burly. He looked like a pirate. He was rich. He owned ships and a private yacht. He was in the prime of his health.

  “Where did he go when he left here?” Malachi asked, sitting on a bench to get his shoes back on as they spoke.

  “He was followed to his house. There’s an officer outside now,” Jackson said.

  “Did they get anything off that partial gum wrapper?”

  “Testing isn’t in yet.”

  Malachi nodded. Fingerprints, if there were any, weren’t necessarily easy to match, since they might not be in any law enforcement database.

  Malachi stared out at the river. One of the big paddle wheelers was going by; the music and laughter traveled all the way to shore.

  People looked at him curiously as they passed. On the riverfront, it was growing late. But tourists, in smaller numbers, were still passing by. The news of a missing woman—and the murders—was surely disconcerting to them. But if they traveled as couples or in groups, the horror was removed. They could sympathize, but this wasn’t their home, and it wasn’t their friend, lover or child who’d been killed or was missing.

  No person could embrace every tragedy. It would make life unbearable.

  There was nothing Malachi could see on the river. Not then.

  “I guess I’ll call it a night.” He turned to Jackson. “They’ll watch him through the night?”

  “There’ll be a man on his house at all times,” Jackson said.

  Malachi nodded. “Good.” Then he frowned, shaking his head. “Jackson, something is bothering me. Helen talked about a sound. Tap, tap, tap. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Jackson looked tired. “They weren’t taken by the ghosts of Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly,” he said. “Tap, tap, tap. I don’t know. I’ll try to think of things that could make that kind of sound. And I’ll see that the whole team is aware.”

  “It’s hard,” Malachi said. “Situations like this always are. But,” he admitted, “it’s better when you work with others—the right others.”

  Jackson managed a smile. “So, you’re in? As more than a consultant?”

  Only if we find Bianca alive, Malachi thought.

  “Assuming we solve this,” he said.

  “We’ll solve it,” Jackson vowed. “We have to. And we will. We have a perfect record so far.”

  They left the riverfront together, parting ways on Bay Street. Jackson had brought his car and Malachi didn’t want a ride for the few blocks to the Dragonslayer. He could dry off enough walking back, then he’d slink up the stairs before anyone noticed him.

  The Dragonslayer was still open when he returned, but he didn’t pause to speak to anyone; he just started up the stairs. Grant, at the host stand, saw him and waved, and he waved back. None of the barflies was present, nor did he recognize anyone at the tables.

  When he entered the apartment, Abby came rushing over to him and threw herself into his arms.

  “I can’t wait to tell you what happened!” she said excitedly before drawing back. “Ugh. You’re all wet!”

  “I went swimming,” Malachi said. He was sorry the moment he said the words. Hope sprang into her eyes.

  “You found Bianca?” she asked excitedly.

  “No. I dove into the river to get to Aldous’s yacht.” He inhaled. “Abby, the rowboat Roger saw on the river—it belonged to a ship owned by one of Aldous’s companies. The police searched the ship, welcomed by the captain.”

  “Does that prove anything?” she asked. “Other than that a rowboat from a big ship broke aw
ay?”

  “Maybe that’s all it is. But I also found a scarf on his yacht that might...that might’ve been used as a blindfold.”

  “Might have been used as a blindfold. And that would hold up in court?” she asked.

  “Abby, we’re searching for a killer. We’re not in court. We’re trying to find a young woman while she’s still alive.”

  Abby let out a breath. “I know,” she said, meeting his eyes.

  “Nothing’s been proven—we’re watching Aldous, Dirk, Roger, among others—and keeping an eye on Bootsie, of course.”

  “He’s seventy!”

  Malachi nodded. “But we have to watch everyone, Abby. Everyone who was familiar with Gus—and the Dragonslayer,” he went on. “Gus knew something because of what he’d seen here. There’s no way out of that. Don’t forget he found one victim’s finger.”

  She nodded again. She looked deflated but seemed to have accepted the truth. “So much time is going by. Bianca doesn’t stand much of a chance, does she?”

  “She’s strong and resilient. She may be playing it just right,” Malachi said. “He wants a captive who will fall in love with him. He’s trying to live out a fantasy.”

  “If he doesn’t give himself away somehow, we’ll never find him,” Abby muttered.

  “We will,” Malachi said with assurance. “He was afraid when he came to the Dragonslayer the other night. Why he came when he did, I don’t know. Maybe just to prove that he could.”

  “The only people with keys are—”

  Malachi interrupted her. “How closely did Gus watch his keys around his friends?” he asked.

  She pursed her lips and then sighed. “He kept his keys on a hook behind the bar,” she said. “I guess anyone could have borrowed them and had copies made.”

  “Anyone who knew how casual he was with them.”

  “But the grate to the tunnel—”

  “Was opened by someone who knew the combination.”

  “At least we have a new lock—with a new combination.” She frowned. “But if we’re sure it was one of those three, why don’t the police just bring them all in?”