Krewe of Hunters, Volume 6: Haunted Destiny ; Deadly Fate ; Darkest Journey

by Heather Graham

  She shook her head. “Amelia, I don’t know,” she said. “But, if you know anything…”

  “I know I’m dead,” Amelia said bitterly. “And I never thought…oh!” she cried, sinking to the foot of the bed. “And I saw myself! He cut me in half! Right in half. How horrible, he couldn’t even let me be as I was…” She paused and looked at Clara again. “And I heard… I’ve heard the talk. He cut off Natalie’s head!”

  Clara sat in the center of the bed, looking at Amelia. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. But, Amelia, do you know who did this to you? They can be arrested. They can pay.”

  “Alaska has no death penalty,” Amelia said.

  “Amelia, this person can be locked away for life and ninety-nine years—life! Behind bars!” Clara said.

  Amelia shook her head. “That should be comforting, right? No, I don’t want whoever did this to me to live, to see the sun, to feel the breeze.” She quietly began to cry.

  Clara reached out—and of course, touched air.

  “Amelia, who—who did this?”

  But Amelia shook her head. “I don’t know. I was on the phone with him. He called me the morning we were coming out to film you.” She flashed Clara an apologetic smile. “We were all set—giddy, really. I hadn’t seen the Mansion yet. But I headed out early. He said he was going to be on the island. He’d be a great surprise guest for either or both shows we were filming, and he could give me a story I’d never forget. To be honest, he was so mysterious and charming, I thought it was Todd Beck, the bright young actor they just hired to play in the new superhero movie. He’s working it right now, you know, publicity from every angle! It was a chance, yes, but I was willing to take it. Every once in a while, someone really big does want to be on one of our shows. Oh! I was such a fool, so eager! I hired the first boat I could find at the docks to get me out here. And then I walked toward the Mansion…but I never got there. I remember feeling as if there was a rush of air behind me…and then it seemed a clamp was around my throat, I couldn’t breathe…and then…”

  She started to sob again.

  “And then?” Clara asked gently.

  Amelia sat straight, staring at nothing, shaking her head in bitterness. She had been a beautiful young woman with her dark hair, light eyes and skin, and perfect bone structure.

  “Then I saw myself,” she said. “And I realized that I was walking around…watching people, listening to people, trying to tell them that I was there. But they were totally oblivious to me, their attention on…the pieces of my body.”

  “You never saw your killer?” Clara asked. She refrained from asking how she was here as a spirit now, but hadn’t seen when the killer had cut her in half.

  Maybe there were small mercies in the world.

  “No. The world went pitch-black…and then I was there, watching all the forensic people work around me. I saw…what he did to me.”

  At least he hadn’t chopped her up when she’d been alive.

  For a moment, there was silence between them. Then Amelia looked at Clara again. “I saw you—I saw your eyes. And I knew that you were horrified for me. Not because of me, but for me. And you barely even knew me. Oh, Clara! How could this have happened? Why did it happen? Was I being punished for thinking too much of myself? Am I… Will I walk around like this forever?”

  Clara wasn’t sure what to say to her.

  I don’t know, Amelia! I know nothing about being dead, yet. To the best of my knowledge, there is no Being Dead for Dummies book out as of now.

  “Amelia, you weren’t a bad person,” Clara tried.

  “I was nasty to people who worked with me. I thought… I thought I’d be a huge star one day. I was in tabloids!” Amelia said.

  Clara didn’t assure her that she’d be front-page news on most of the tabloids that existed now—and on television and every other media source in the world, as well.

  “But you weren’t a bad person,” she repeated. “Bad people are like—are like whoever did this to you. I know that you’ll…that you will find a better place.”

  She spoke with sudden conviction and Amelia looked at her hopefully.

  “The FBI agents can help you, Amelia,” Clara said.

  “A little late,” Amelia murmured. “I just had to have that story. Oh, and I had to beat Natalie out here! I never even knew that he’d gotten to her first. How—is there no security at that hotel?”

  Clara assumed that because the Nordic Lights Hotel was small and privately owned, it didn’t have the security that might be found at a larger establishment. Then again, there had been horror stories about events in larger hotels, too.

  “Maybe there is security at the hotel. That’s why you need to speak with the FBI members, Amelia. They can answer questions like that.”

  Clara heard a soft tapping at her door—real this time, and not an echo of a policeman drumming his fingers on the table.

  She stood to answer it.

  Amelia looked up in alarm—and disappeared as if she’d never been there.

  Maybe she hadn’t been. Maybe the stress…

  No. Thor had seen her, too.

  Clara walked over and swung her door open. Marc Kimball was there, smiling at her. “We were about to have an afternoon snack and fine sherry, Miss Avery. Would you be so good as to join us?”

  It was absolutely the last thing she wanted to do.

  “I…”

  “Yes, of course, join us, please!” he said. “I’d be so grateful.”

  She lowered her head, trying to think of a good excuse, unable to do so. She heard the front door of the lodge open.

  “Miss Avery?” It was Mike Aklaq, back from the docks and whatever else he’d been doing.

  “Here!” she called.

  A look of annoyance crossed over Kimball’s face.

  Clara smiled. “I’m here, Agent Aklaq!” She slipped past Kimball and looked back into her room, just briefly. But she was sure she saw a slight indentation in the bed where Amelia had been sitting.

  And yet, as Clara hurried down the hallway, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was suffering from whiteout hysteria on the island, along with a massive dose of stress.

  * * *

  “They end here,” Thor told Jackson.

  He was off his snowmobile and had been since they’d reached the tree line.

  It had been easy enough to follow the tracks in the light powdery snow—harder once they reached the massive pines and the ground became a wet bed of earth, snow and pine carpeting.

  Thor hunched down, studying the tracks and the broken branches and needles.

  He’d seen prints; he’d seen broken, dislodged branches. He hadn’t seen any other indication that a bear had come this way—not a speck of fur, not a scratch on a tree, not so much as the whiff of a scent of a creature marking territory.

  Jackson came carefully behind him.

  “Well?” Jackson asked.

  “Snowshoes, I think. Custom snowshoes. Short and broad prints—hard to tell them from the tracks of a real bear, unless you find fur or droppings. Look ahead—you can see where the pine needles are cracked. Not enough to catch something like an actual footprint, but whoever came here tossed the ‘bear’ feet, and started through the trees. It’s really dense here. I know the state police were through this area yesterday, but we’re going to have to get them back. Somewhere on this island, we’ll either find someone or find proof that someone was here.”

  “You’re sure?” Jackson asked.

  Thor nodded gravely.

  “You’ve spent a lot of time out here, on this island?” Jackson asked him.

  “When I was a kid, there were absentee owners who weren’t so rich,” Thor told Jackson. “The Mansion existed, but it wasn’t like it is now and it wasn’t called the Mansion. T
he Alaska Hut existed, too—again, not as is it now, but just as a big log cabin with small rooms to allow for heat circulation. We used to come out here without telling our parents. The island was really taboo for kids growing up here—too many places where someone could get lost or hurt.”

  “Bears?” Jackson asked.

  Thor paused and looked back at his old partner, grinning. “Enough for me to know that a bear didn’t get to the forest and stop being a bear.”

  “Sorry,” Jackson said. “I have to admit, in all my years, I never had to wonder if it was a man or a bear that had run through the wilderness.”

  “What I’m trying to figure out is how this guy got into the mainland hotel, killed Natalie—decapitated her—walked out without being seen, and came out here to the island,” he said.

  “The cops on the mainland are looking all over for anyone with a boat—anyone who could have gotten the killer over here. So far, nothing. And the Coast Guard has skirted the place. If there is a boat here somewhere, it’s incredibly well hidden,” Jackson said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Two separate killers?”

  “That’s a terrifying thought.”

  “And what was their motive?” Jackson murmured. “The main office has been scouring the records for anyone who had a beef with the company.”

  “I hope they find something,” Thor said. “That seems the logical conclusion here—that the producers ‘got’ the wrong person with their Gotcha show.”

  “And still…” Jackson said.

  And still, neither of them could forget that Tate Morley had escaped from prison.

  Thor kept walking carefully through the pines, avoiding the broken areas, studying the trees. As they moved deeper into the woods, the world darkened; not even the bright Alaska summer sun could penetrate through the thickness of the pines and brush.

  He stopped suddenly, seeing a patch of light ahead. It looked as if the pines were just as dense as ever, but there had to be something different for the sun to be breaking through.

  He had to crawl over fallen branches and weave his way along.

  And then, at last, deep in an area that appeared to be impenetrable, he saw the break—the place where the sun was shining through.

  Taking even greater care, he squeezed between two tree branches. And there, he found it, a pool of dark liquid that had melted the snow beneath it and now darkened the carpet of earth and pine it covered.

  “What is it?” Jackson called, coming up behind him.

  Thor stopped dead and hunkered down again, looking around.

  He reached out with his gloved hands and grasped a tuft of blue fabric.

  A tiny piece of the jeans Amelia Carson had been wearing. At least, a good chance that was what he’d found.

  He touched the ground.

  Still damp. Dark and damp.

  It was the blood pool, the place where Amelia Carson had been severed in two.

  CHAPTER 7

  Clara didn’t speak about her conversation with Amelia until she was on the little Coast Guard cutter heading back to the mainland. The officers aboard were courteous and tense, aware they were in the middle of an investigation in which many lives might still lie in the balance.

  She waited until she was alone with Jackson and Thor at the back of the boat.

  Even then, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. She didn’t know why; she felt safe with Thor and Jackson and the Coast Guard men. Mike wasn’t with them because he had remained behind on the island—the FBI officers had decided that one of them should stay there until the situation was solved.

  Some situations were never solved, she knew.

  This one had to be—it just had to be.

  Once they were headed back to the mainland, however, she knew that she had to tell Jackson and Thor what had happened.

  She knew that both men would believe her, and she dreaded that, because it meant her newfound camaraderie with a dead woman was far too real. And they did believe her; they both listened to her gravely as she spoke.

  “We found where she was killed,” Jackson said.

  “On the island, right?” Clara asked.

  “Yes,” Thor told her, watching her as he spoke. “We’ve been in contact with Special Director Enfield and Detective Brennan. They rushed the autopsies yesterday.” He paused, looking over at Jackson. “Both women were struck with hard objects and rendered unconscious quickly, and then strangled before they were—cut,” he said. He glanced over at Jackson, whose lips pursed grimly. It seemed they both knew something she didn’t, and they weren’t sharing it with her. Even though anyone associated with the two dead women might be in danger.

  “Thank God for that at least. I mean,” she added, wincing, “hopefully, it was…quick. I couldn’t begin to imagine if someone had been alive while being…cut.”

  “So, a man called Amelia and told her he had an amazing story for her—and that he’d meet her on the island?” Thor asked.

  “That’s what I understood,” Clara told him.

  “Her cell phone hasn’t been found, but the phone company sent her records. Techs are chasing down her calls,” Jackson said. “We may find something.”

  Thor nodded. “Yep, we’ll find that she was called by a no-contract phone bought with cash. But it will be important to track down where that phone was purchased.”

  Jackson rose. “I’m going to get some coffee. Want some?” he asked the two of them.

  “No, thank you,” Clara said. She’d had plenty of coffee while waiting for them to return.

  Thor was staring out over the water. Clara remained silent for a minute, and then decided that she’d just ask.

  “What’s going on between you and Jackson?”

  He turned his attention to her, frowning. “Pardon?”

  “What is it that you two are sharing—about Natalie and Amelia and…whatever is going on?”

  He was quiet for a minute.

  “Jackson and I were partners years ago,” he told her.

  “Yes, I understand that.” She hesitated. “Did you have a bad time, or…”

  He shook his head. “We were good partners—great partners. But there was a killer out there at the time. The newspapers called him the ‘Fairy Tale Killer’ because he left his victims’ bodies displayed as if they were characters from stories—tales by the Brothers Grimm. Cinderella, Briar Rose—or Sleeping Beauty, as she’s more widely known—Rapunzel, Snow White.”

  “I remember… I had just started college,” Clara said. “He was shot by agents but he survived and went to prison and…oh. You were those agents?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “But—you caught him. You saved countless other potential victims. Why do you suspect him?”

  “Because he’s out.”

  “What?”

  “He’s out—he killed a doctor and escaped from a prison in Kansas.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I hadn’t heard—”

  “Because the news just hit yesterday morning and by the time any of us saw television out on the island, all the stations were carrying all the ‘new’ news on the killings that happened here,” Thor explained.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I can only imagine how you feel, having caught him and now… Do you think that this man, this Fairy Tale Killer, could be here—in Alaska?” she asked, wincing as she heard her tone, which was slightly incredulous. She went on quickly. “From what I understood back then, he left his victims looking…beautiful. As if they were sleeping.”

  He nodded and looked away from her. She found herself studying him, and in doing so, and from their conversation, feeling as if she knew him better, as if they’d formed some kind of bond. Despite their bizarre beginning and the resentment she’d felt at time
s, she suddenly felt close to him—like an old friend. More than a friend. She looked down quickly, realizing that in an instant, something inside her had changed, and she felt an almost overwhelming attraction to the man. He’d become so human.

  They were talking about incidents of horror and terrible things that plagued the soul.

  And yet, what she wanted at that moment was to touch him and assure him that she knew—she knew from knowing him—that at every turn he’d done the right thing, and that he couldn’t blame himself for anything.

  “You know Jackson Crow,” he said softly, looking back at her. “And you know about the Krewe of Hunters.”

  “I know that they saved us on the ship and I know…” She broke off, feeling a little breathless.

  Ghosts.

  While many reports on the work done by the Krewe of Hunters had speculated on their unorthodox methods, none had ridiculed them—they had brought too many highly unusual cases to their conclusions.

  They’d locked up a hell of a lot of bad guys.

  “Yes, I know something about the Krewe,” she murmured.

  Thor stared at her. Apparently, he’d decided just to explain—and she could take it or leave it.

  “The last victim was a young woman named Mandy Brandt. She’d come to the Bureau and told us that her friend had been dating someone she found to be questionable. We had a zillion such reports at the time, but I believed Mandy—so did Jackson. So we started tracking the man she was talking about and it was Tate Morley. We even went after him right away, but…” He paused, and he looked out to sea again, shaking his head. “Not before he got Mandy.”

  “And you feel responsible,” Clara said. “But…you said you and Jackson started right away, working on her information.”

  “Not fast enough,” he said.

  “I can only imagine how you feel. But you might have saved countless other young women. He was creating his own line of fairy-tale princesses. He could have killed for years and years.”

  “Yes, we both know that,” Thor said. He offered her something of a wistful, rueful smile. “You see, we both knew Mandy.”