Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  “Just how many people did Tomas and Blackwood kill?” Adrianna asked.

  “We’ll never know for sure,” Brett said.

  “Because they won’t tell you?” Grady asked.

  Brett sighed. “No, Blackwood is silent and mean as a snake. But Tomas Barillo is talking away—dealing for his life. He’s implicated just about everyone. They arrested Anthony Barillo today with what his brother gave us. His empire is going to crumble to dust. But those bastards have been at it awhile. They don’t even know how many people they’ve experimented on—and killed—since they started.”

  “But why make zombies out of people and then program them to kill?” Rick asked, shaking his head.

  “It turned out to be a byproduct. One of the concoctions they put together killed, but slowly. And it wiped out the portion of the brain that had to do with rational function. They were basically programmed. I think that having them go after their own loved ones was an attempt to see how much of the original personality remained, and given that all the ‘zombies’ seemed willing to kill their nearest and dearest, the answer seems to be ‘not very much.’ So in the end, they still didn’t find the cures they were looking for,” Brett said.

  “I’ll never be able to understand how anyone could be that cold and that cruel,” Grady said.

  “They put two powers—money and the urge to rule—together and ended up with a force that was truly terrifying,” Diego said.

  “My heart breaks for all the victims who will never be properly mourned,” Lara said. “We should say a little prayer for the forgotten.”

  They were all silent for a minute, paying tribute in their own ways.

  Grady sighed. “And the man was a sponsor at Sea Life. I hope what he did doesn’t overshadow everything we’re trying to do.”

  Brett looked at Lara, and she shrugged and said, “Blackwood had convinced Taggerly to form a new company to focus on neurological research. He knew about relevant research Dr. Amory had done in the past and convinced Taggerly to try to lure him away. But neither Taggerly nor Dr. Amory knew what was going on.”

  “Of course not! Not that I would have left under any circumstances,” Dr. Amory said.

  Grady looked grim for a minute, but then he brightened. “We’re going to be okay,” he said. “We have a famous lifesaving dolphin after all. With the wonderful way Lara has written about her and handled everything with the media, we’re going to be golden. And,” he added, “thank God we didn’t lose anyone at Sea Life.”

  “Well, technically. But that snake Myles won’t be darkening our doors again,” Dr. Amory said.

  “Sea Life is like a family,” Adrianna said. She looked over at Meg and Lara and smiled. “I can attest to that. You two risked your lives for me.”

  Lara smiled back at her. “My life wouldn’t be worth much to me if I’d hadn’t at least tried.”

  “Ditto,” Meg said. “And I’m not just saying that because it’s my job.”

  For a minute they were all silent again.

  Then Grady let out another sigh. “I’m heading out, folks. Long day tomorrow.” He turned to Lara. “You’ll be back after your break?” he asked.

  Lara nodded. “I’ll be back,” she promised. “I love Sea Life.”

  Rick, Adrianna and Dr. Amory followed Grady’s lead. Good-nights were said. They were awkward and a little emotional, but nice.

  Diego hovered by the door. “I need to get going, too,” he said. He grinned at Brett and Lara. “Apparently only one of us gets to go to the Caribbean for a week.”

  “You’re off the week after,” Brett reminded him.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Diego said.

  “Don’t go yet,” Lara said, taking his arm. “We want you to see something.”

  Together with Meg and Matt, they returned to the backyard.

  There was a tiled bench that looked over the yard. The moon was full and the night was warm, without a hint of the rain that so frequently plagued the South Florida summers.

  There, on the bench, together at last, were the ghosts of Miguel and Maria Gomez.

  Arm in arm, they sat together, content to watch the moonlight.

  “I see them,” Diego said softly. “And I’m glad they got their happy ending.”

  When just the four of them remained, Matt told Brett, “You know, there’s a place for you in the Krewe, if you’re interested in moving up to DC.”

  Brett looked at Lara, and she smiled. “Well, my best friend is a Krewe agent. It looks like a really good job. Right now, though, I still have a dolphin who deserves a lot of fish.”

  Brett turned to Matt and shook his head.

  “The offer remains open,” Matt said. A few minutes later he and Meg went up to bed.

  Lara started to pick up the few remaining glasses, but Brett went over and stopped her by slipping his arms around her.

  “It really is beautiful to see Miguel and Maria together that way,” Lara said. “I just wonder…will they leave? And go—I hope—to heaven?”

  “I don’t know. I know that if they stay, it will be together. I believe, though, that they will go on, and that they’ll stay together.”

  “I believe that, too.”

  “It’s a forever kind of a thing,” he said.

  “Kind of what I feel for you,” she told him.

  He smiled. “Same here. So I guess tonight begins our forever, don’t you think?”

  She nodded gravely, and then a fiery light touched the blue-green beauty of her eyes. “Forever should be fun and really sexy, huh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She nodded, turned and headed up the stairs.

  He watched her and thought of Miguel and what he’d once told Brett.

  I knew—I just knew. And it didn’t matter how long we’d been together or what others thought. I knew that I would love her forever.

  “Thank you, Miguel,” Brett said softly.

  And then he followed Lara up the stairs.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE HIDDEN by Heather Graham.

  “Graham does a great job of blending just a bit of paranormal with real, human evil.”

  —Miami Herald on Unhallowed Ground

  Looking for more bone-chilling mysteries starring the FBI’s paranormal investigations unit, the Krewe of Hunters?

  Don’t miss the next heart-pounding installment in this incredible series from New York Times bestselling author and queen of romantic suspense Heather Graham:

  The Hidden (October 2015)

  Packed with deadly intrigue and spine-tingling suspense, catch up on the complete Krewe of Hunters series today!

  Phantom Evil

  Heart of Evil

  Sacred Evil

  The Evil Inside

  The Unseen

  The Unholy

  The Unspoken

  The Uninvited

  The Night is Watching

  The Night is Alive

  The Night is Forever

  The Cursed

  The Hexed

  The Betrayed

  The Silenced

  Complete your collection!

  If you love the Krewe of Hunters, then you won’t want to miss a moment of page-turning romantic suspense in New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham’s

  Cafferty & Quinn novels.

  Let the Dead Sleep

  Waking the Dead

  The Dead Play On

  “Dark, dangerous and deadly!

  Graham has the uncanny ability to bring her books to life.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Waking the Dead

  Available now!

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  The Hidden

  by Heather Graham

  1

  A majestic elk stood stock-still on the hill, long neck arched to the sky in the sunset, antlers large and proud. Scattered wildflowers nestled within the long grass, and the colors of the horizon were almost whimsical in their beauty.

  Scarlet Barlow kept her distance, though the animal didn’t seem to be the least bit afraid of her. The elk in the area were accustomed to people who came to hike the mountainous country, the crests and valleys and little plateau where the one-time Conway Ranch was now a bed-and-breakfast, complete with a gift shop and museum. No one disturbed the elk that came here to graze the lush meadows, and the elk apparently knew that. The B and B was a mere stone’s throw from the eastern entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, so those who came to admire the animal life there meant it no harm.

  The big bull elk seemed to be aware that he was posing like a model; it was almost as if he was happy to offer her the photo op.

  She snapped several pictures, paused and glanced at them on the screen, then smiled, pleased with what she had captured.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said to him, then turned away and looked out over the natural splendor of the Rockies and the town of Estes Park, nestled among them.

  People came here for many reasons.

  One of the biggies was The Stanley Hotel. Stephen King had been staying there when he’d been inspired to write The Shining. The hotel offered both ghost and historical tours, and Scarlet loved it. She liked to imagine what the author had thought and to hear the staff talk about how the events in the book related to what had really happened there.

  The Conway Ranch, where she’d been working as a researcher and curator for the last two months, had a history just as unique and intriguing, even if not as well known. She loved knowing that her contributions to the small on-site museum were helping it to become more and more of an attraction on its own. The ranch had been founded in the 1860s, just a few years after Joel Estes had established the town and a few months after Welsh explorer Griffith Evans had opened a dude ranch in the area. Ranching was no easy matter in this mountainous country seventy-five hundred feet above sea level. And as far as the Conway Ranch went, “ranching” had long meant guided trail rides for the tourists.

  Scarlet smiled. She couldn’t get over the awe she always felt as she looked at the towering snow-capped peaks of the Rockies.

  She’d been told nothing compared to the Canadian Rockies, but she couldn’t imagine that any scenery could be more beautiful than this.

  Even the town felt special to her, with its unique shops and restaurants, everything nestled in a natural paradise of mountain peaks and forests cut through by brooks that were bubbling and bright in the sunlight, cool and mysterious by night. Hikers, horseback riders and tubers and rafters, who took their chances with the rapids, came year-round to enjoy the scenery.

  This place was as different from her native South Florida as it could get, but both were natural playgrounds, and this was a perfect place to be. At least for now.

  Her apartment was on the top floor of what had once been a storage barn for feed and ranching equipment. Now it housed the museum on the ground floor and her two-bedroom apartment on the second. The museum had actually come about accidentally. The original builder had started out organizing his own Civil War and Native American memorabilia, then added more pieces as he acquired them. Over the years various people had taken a stab at cataloguing everything, but finally the current owner had decided it was time for a professional to come in and make sense of it all.

  And that was where Scarlet had entered the picture.

  She’d been a bookworm all her life, with a particular interest in history. At college she’d majored in history and minored in archeology, going on to get master’s degrees in both. What she loved most wasn’t the bare bones of dates and places but the stories that went along with events, stories about the people who’d actually lived at the time and whose experiences provided a unique perspective.

  After college she had worked in New York for several years before she had been invited to come home to South Florida to work a new dig in the field she considered her specialty, eighteenth and nineteenth century America, at the mouth of the Miami River. She had followed both the lure of the job and her heart, taking the position not only for itself, but also to be closer to the man she’d loved, FBI agent Diego McCullough. And now, thanks to the current owner of the ranch, Ben Kendall, she was here in Colorado.

  Ben, a descendant of the original owner, Nathan Kendall, and his wife, Trisha, had purchased the place five years ago. For them, restoring the Conway Ranch was a labor of love. They’d refurbished it with the money he’d made as a New York stockbroker, having given up the city life to return to his roots.

  A history buff from way back, he had tracked down Scarlet in New York City after discovering that she, too, had a family connection to the ranch and to him, and they’d stayed in touch when she went back to Florida, where she’d eventually married Diego. And he’d been right there with a job offer after the divorce, when she’d wanted and needed to get away.

  “Scarlet! Afternoon!” Ben called out to her now from the wide porch of the main house, breaking into her thoughts.

  Given the time, she realized he must have just returned from leading the afternoon trail ride, just as he did six days a week. Angus Fillmore—the quintessential cowboy, with his long white hair and beard, solid shoulders and strong arms—was still leading horses into the stables. One of the guests, Terry Ballantree, thirty-ish and another descendant of Nathan Kendall, was talking animatedly to Angus, who was nodding politely but didn’t seem to be saying much. Gwen and Charles Barton, newlyweds from Mississippi, were waiting for their chance to say something to Angus, but Terry seemed to be nothing if not long-winded.

  “Scarlet, I’m glad to run in to you,” Ben told her, just as the head housekeeper, Linda Reagan, tall, slim and very pretty, stepped out on the porch behind him.

  “Don’t forget to wipe your boots off before you come inside,” Linda said, then waved to Scarlet.

  “I will, I will!” Ben promised, then joined Scarlet on the wide front lawn.

  She smiled, wondering how he had ever been a stockbroker. He was fifty-five and blessed with a full head of snow-white hair that he liked to keep long. He always had a smile on his face now, which he hadn’t had when she’d first met him. The stress of working on Wall Street had kept him looking harried and worn, but now he was a happy man. He’d told her once that he was certain he’d really been made for the great outdoors.

  “You’re welcome on the ride anytime,” he told her. “I know you love the horses.”

  “Believe it or not, Ben, I grew up around horses.”

  “South Florida? That’s beach country.”

  “There are lots of horses all over the state,” she said. “I grew up in Davie. We had horses there, and my folks still do.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “So how’s it going? Are you liking the job?”

  “I love it here,” she assured him. “Your collection is amazing. Colts from just about every era from the 1850s onward, Spencer repeating rifles, Smith and Wesson revolvers, Winchesters, you name it. Worth a fortune, if you wanted to sell.”

  He shook his head. “My selling days are over. I’m looking forward to spending every day here, sharing all this with our guests, for the rest of my life.”

  “You’re a happy man,” she said.

  He grinned. “Best wife in the world and this little piece of heaven. How can I not be happy? L
ooks like you appreciate the place, too.” He nodded toward her camera.

  “I just got a terrific picture of an elk. Big guy with a huge set of antlers.”

  “Can’t bring yourself to say ‘big rack,’ huh?” he teased.

  She laughed. “Honestly, it never occurred to me. One thing we don’t have in Florida are elk. Especially not elk that like to pose for you.”

  “Let me see,” Ben said.

  She produced her camera and hit the little button to show her stored photos.

  Ben took the camera from her with a grin on his face, but his grin froze as he stared at the screen and then at her. “Where the hell were you? What is this?” he demanded, handing the camera back to her.

  Startled, Scarlet took the camera and stared at the screen. There was no bull elk with majestic antlers. It was the same spot, but the picture was of a man. A man hanging from a branch of a mighty oak, blood dripping from his body to the ground.

  She stared at it, stunned.

  “I—I didn’t take this!” she said.

  She hit the button to switch to the next picture. That one showed two people, the same man and a woman, on the ground, tangled together in a pool of blood..

  She flicked backward and saw a picture of the woman while she was still alive, though just barely. A large red stain covered her midriff, her arms were thrown back and her mouth was open in an O of agony and shock. It looked as if a bullet had just ripped through her body.

  Dead people. Her pictures were of dead people.

  She flicked back to the shot of the couple. It was hard to tell exactly which limbs belonged to which person as they embraced in a pool of blood.

  “Honestly, Scarlet, what the hell?”

  “I—I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t take these. I never saw any of this. I—I was right over there,” she said, pointing.

  He looked at her for a moment as if she was severely disturbed. Scarlet looked back at the camera, flicking through the many shots she had taken in search of the elk.

  It wasn’t there anywhere.

  Just the man and the woman…