Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  She could play for time there just as easily. Pretend she couldn’t mount Blaze, adjust the girth, mess with her stirrups…

  There were all kinds of things she could do.

  And then she felt the gun in her back and heard him whisper coldly into her ear, “Don’t even think about wasting any more time or this gun goes off and I’ll find the damned gold on my own. Do. You. Understand?”

  She realized then that he was on the verge of losing control and she’d run out of time to play games.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Ernest Gray was alive—just barely.

  But even as he hunched down by the man, doing his best to stop the flow of blood from the hole in his side, Diego could hear the ambulance siren, along with the sirens of half a dozen police cars.

  Lara had burst from the museum the minute he arrived, speaking as quickly as she could. “The killer attacked Angus, and then Angus disappeared, so Brett went out to look for him. Then the killer shot Gray when Scarlet opened the door. I called 911, and then looked, but I couldn’t find the bullets for any of the guns. Diego, he’s taken her somewhere, I think on horseback. The horses are all running loose, and I don’t know why he would let them out otherwise.”

  “Lara, put pressure on this wound,” Diego told her.

  The minute she knelt down and replaced his hand with hers, he took off on the run, heading to the stables. As Lara had said, the horses were all gone. But even as he stood there raging against the time it would take him to try to find their trail and follow on foot, he saw that one of the horses was loping back toward him.

  He blinked. The horse appeared to have a rider.

  Yes, there was a ghostly rider astride the black gelding. Nathan Kendall was bringing him a horse.

  Had Nathan Kendall seen what had happened?

  The apparition pulled Zeus to a halt in front of Diego.

  Nathan’s voice was as raspy and faint as it had ever been, but he said very clearly, “The cemetery.”

  Time. Time meant everything now. The killer had a gun. But he also wanted something, information he thought Scarlet had, and that meant he wouldn’t kill her right away, not until he got what he wanted, or was convinced she would never give it to him. Diego prayed the time she had left was enough time.

  Diego’s mind had been racing during the drive to the ranch. He’d gone over everything he knew about the psychology of killing. This murderer combined disorganized and exceptionally organized skills. He was a sociopath, putting his own needs above the slightest concern for others’ lives. He’d thought he had it all figured out, and in a way, he had.

  But now the killer had Scarlet.

  And he wasn’t working alone. The way people were always covering for someone else, the logical conclusion was that two people were in on the killings, with one always covering for the other, so they could cover their tracks with alibis.

  Diego swung up on the horse and realized he’d paid no attention to the ghost, who hadn’t dismounted.

  Nathan Kendall was riding with him.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Everybody thinks they know everything these days. All those ancestry sites! Thing is, all you find online is what someone knew before you decided to write it down. So if you look at those sites, I’m a descendant of Nathan Kendall. That’s because I hacked a few historic documents. And once you write something down, it becomes fact, so if anyone checked, they would see the connection.”

  Scarlet was in the lead on Blaze, but she knew there was no point in trying to escape. He had the Colt trained on her, and he was perfectly willing to shoot.

  She turned around to look at him. Once they’d started up the mountain he’d shed the mask. His expression was filled with glee and that same enthusiasm he’d always shown for everything, but now it wasn’t goofy and kind of endearing, it was unhinged.

  “You’ll never get away with this, you know,” she said. “They’ll figure out it’s you and you’ll fry, or spend your life locked up in prison, which is even worse.”

  “Oh, I’ve got that all figured out. I won’t be me anymore. You just shift a few records—well, find the right dead guy, take his name and move on.” His smile deepened. “There really was a Terry Ballantree. He’s just not with us anymore. He was my first. I suppose it wasn’t very fair of me to steal his life so I could have his name, but, well, I needed it. And anyway, life isn’t fair. Was it fair that Rollo had to sell this land before he found the gold he knew was here? And that Nathan found it? Rollo knew it, too, even though Nathan would never admit it.”

  “So this has all been about revenge?”

  “No, not really, though I admit I really do want the money, because, well, it’s mine. Mostly, though, it’s just been a fun challenge,” Terry told her cheerfully.

  She wondered what his real name was as he moved up to ride beside her, the gun still aimed her way.

  “All of it was fun, really,” he went on. “Especially when it came to you. Watching you. Stalking you. You were just so…uninterested in me that it was a pleasure making your life miserable. I loved getting hold of your camera and sneaking those pictures onto it. That was truly priceless. And the mannequin! That was the best, even better than hacking your camera. I only wish I could have hung around to see your reaction. You were terrified, weren’t you? Go on, admit it.”

  “I was terrified,” Scarlet said.

  “Only thing is, I really did throw the key in the river! How the hell it got back in my room, I’ll never know.”

  “One of the ghosts?” she suggested.

  He laughed at that. “Ghosts! You guys are good, though. That voice we heard, that was the old guy, right? Adam Harrison.”

  “It was a ghost,” Scarlet said. “And the ghosts know the truth now.”

  “Scarlet, you’re just too funny with all your ghost talk. They obviously weren’t watching or they would have found a way to stop me by now. I started with that stupid hiker months ago. I’d come out here to check out the lay of the land, and I heard him talking in one of the bars. I thought I’d follow him and just see how difficult it might be to kill him. Piece of cake. That was when I started watching Ben and Trisha. I thought about killing them, and I guess I would have gotten to them eventually. But after I ran into Candace and Larry Parker, it seemed to make a lot more sense to use Ben and Trisha and make them look like murderers themselves than to kill them—at least for the time being.”

  “Why did you kill Cassandra Wells?”

  “Everyone thought she was so perfect. It made me nuts. Beautiful girl, though.”

  “So why did you kill her?”

  “I didn’t.” He gave her a secretive grin.

  “There’s another killer running around the area, killing in the same way?

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he asked softly, and then shrugged and laughed. “Well, you will know. You’re about to find out. Now quit talking and hurry up.”

  She knew they were nearly at the cemetery, and once they got there, she wouldn’t have a chance, because she really had no idea where to find the gold.

  “How did you rig the moose head?”

  “Oh, I did that ages ago. Believe it or not, the house was full of tourists, but I did it at night. It was easy. All I did was take it off the wall so I could hollow out the plaster and make room, then move the head off the panel it was mounted on and cut through the wood. You really can find everything on the internet, you know. I read about crossbows and the rest was easy. It was perfect, don’t you think? Of course, your stupid séance ruined my chance of actually killing anyone. But, still, it was a lot of fun. Some stupid kid came in when I was making the arrows, and I just gave him a lesson on arrowheads. People just smile and think you’re a crazy Easterner who’s really fallen in love with the Old West when you get carried away like that.”
/>   He was ridiculously proud of himself.

  Maybe not so ridiculously. He was holding her at gunpoint, after all.

  “Ride,” he told her.

  Scarlet knew she had to risk it. She looked up at the sky. Afternoon was turning to evening. The sky was ablaze with colors that would quickly fade to gray. Gold streaked over the mountaintops in the distance, making the snow glitter like pastel diamonds.

  A calculated risk, she told herself. Now or never.

  The weirdly freestanding wrought-iron gates were straight ahead, and if Terry hadn’t been lying, a second killer could be waiting behind them.

  “We’re here,” she said, sliding off Blaze’s back. She stood tensely for a split seconds, waiting. The moment Terry began to slide off his horse, she gave Blaze a solid whack on the chest. As she’d suspected, he jerked backward, slamming into Terry’s horse. She heard his startled grunt as his horse reared in turn, sending him flying to the ground.

  She saw him flounder, trying to hold his Colt as he struggled to rise without being stepped on.

  She knew she couldn’t reach the gun before he could fire, so she started running into the cemetery, using the mausoleums and greenery for cover as much as she could.

  A bullet whizzed by her ear, so close the whistle of its passing was almost deafening.

  She kept racing, dodging between headstones, then tearing into the field of crosses, still running.

  For her life.

  * * *

  First Blaze came racing toward Diego, followed quickly by Madrigal.

  There was no way in or out of the cemetery except on horseback or on foot.

  The killer was up there somewhere, and so was Scarlet. But if the horses were racing back to the stables…

  Then Scarlet had done something to send them running.

  Which meant…

  He had to believe she was still alive.

  * * *

  Night had fallen in earnest. A three-quarter moon cast down an eerie glow where the golds and mauves of dusk had so recently reigned.

  “Oh, Scarlet, you’re making this so hard for me. I mean, let’s be honest, I can’t let you live. But I know you know where the gold is, so if you just tell me, I can be quick. One moment you’ll be here, and then you won’t. Think about it. You love history, and now you can be a part of it. They’ll make a statue of you and everything. You’ll go down in local legend, and you deserve that, you really do. Believe it or not, I like you, you know, even though you never had time to look at me twice. You’re bright, and very pretty.”

  “Shut up, you ass,” a woman said, and Scarlet jumped and then, afraid she would be seen, she froze.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Terry demanded.

  “You told me to lead that Fed off the trail. Did you think that would be easy? And then I had to get all the way back here after leaving the police station. All you had to do was kill the cop and get Scarlet—and you’ve screwed that up, too!”

  Gwen? Gwen Barton?

  Yes, it was Gwen. And now Scarlet understood. Terry hadn’t killed Cassandra. Gwen had committed that murder. And it had probably been easy enough for her to hide her activities from Charles. She had pretended to be out cold on her headache pills, and he had borne witness to that.

  “Oh, shut up and help,” Terry said. “Scarlet, come out, wherever you are. I really would like to make this easy on you.”

  “You’re not going to make it easy on her. She knows where the damned gold is, and you’re going to have to make her tell you,” Gwen said.

  Scarlet tried to register just where Gwen was standing. Voices had a strange habit of ricocheting around the stones and mausoleums in a cemetery. She was hiding behind the Vickers mausoleum, ironically enough, and she thought the two of them were near the old wrought-iron gates, but she didn’t dare look, in case they spotted her.

  She had to be careful when she made her move. Terry might not be the best shot unless his victim was right in front of him, but even if she was only winged or wounded, she would be in trouble.

  She started thinking about the six-shooter he was carrying. He’d obviously shot Angus, and he’d used another bullet on Lieutenant Gray. He’d shot her foot. He had three shots left.

  Scarlet heard rustling and realized Terry and Gwen were on the move, and it sounded as if they were flanking her hiding place.

  Was Gwen Barton carrying a gun? Did the disgustingly perky ex-cheerleader even know how to shoot?

  Yes, she did, Scarlet thought. She was the one who had killed Cassandra.

  Scarlet knew she might be signing her own death warrant, trapping herself, but she carefully opened the wrought-iron door to the mausoleum and slipped inside the cold stone darkness, hoping she could silently push the door shut and slide the lock into place from inside.

  To her amazement, she accomplished the task with a minimum of noise—easily hidden by the rustle of her pursuers’ footsteps.

  Then she nearly screamed.

  There was a woman inside the mausoleum with her.

  The long lost ghost of Jillian Vickers Kendall, appearing at last?

  No.

  The woman was real—well, real as in carved from wood. The matching piece to the statue of Nathan Kendall was standing at the far end of the vault. Scarlet couldn’t see her clearly, because the only illumination was the moonlight slipping through the wrought-iron door, but the workmanship looked to be as exquisite.

  No one had been entombed in the mausoleum since the early 1900s, Scarlet knew. Had the mannequin been there since then?

  And what the hell difference did it make? Terry and Gwen were out there looking for her, and they had at least one gun.

  “Come out, come out, Scarlet, its playtime!” Terry called.

  She could hear him coming closer. She had trapped herself.

  To her left were the sealed coffins of her long gone family members. To the right, more of the same.

  And at the back, the mannequin.

  “Quit fucking around, Terry. She has to be in there, so go in and get her!”

  “All right, all right!” Terry said, and shot at the lock.

  Once. Twice.

  The lock gave. Terry entered the mausoleum, and Scarlet shoved the mannequin of Jillian Vickers Kendall at him as hard as she could.

  Terry screamed.

  And shot the mannequin.

  * * *

  Diego reached the cemetery and slid off his horse’s back, racing as silently as he could through the cemetery, hoping that he was right about where the shots had come from.

  As he neared the Vickers mausoleum, he saw Gwen Barton looking shocked and Terry lying on the ground beneath…

  …a statue of a woman?

  Diego couldn’t be bothered to worry about that, because Gwen was holding what had to be the missing antique Colt and Scarlet had to be somewhere nearby.

  “Drop the gun, Gwen, or I’ll shoot,” he said, his Glock aimed at her heart. He’d meant what he’d said, and he was sure she knew it.

  “My, my, my, we do have a dilemma here, don’t we? Honestly, men screw everything up. Terry turned out to be as big a buffoon as that idiot I had to marry to make this work.”

  “Why did you have to marry Charles?”

  “Alibi, of course. He’s always been a cheating idiot, so between his habits and my ‘sleeping pills,’ I knew I’d have my nights free. But forget all that. It’s time to make a deal. You want your sweet little ex to live? Drop your gun,” Gwen said.

  Terry struggled to his feet. “We’ll offer you the same deal we promised Scarlet. She tells us where the gold is and we kill you both quickly. We won’t renege, I promise.”

  “Shut up, you asshole!” Gwen told him.

  “Well, aren’t you a bi
tch,” he told her. “I should never have gotten into this with such a bitch. I could have managed on my own.”

  “You idiot—you would’ve been caught right away if that stupid housekeeper hadn’t used you as camouflage so she could sleep with my loser husband,” Gwen snapped. “It all seemed to work out—Linda so ready to lie for you so you’d both look good. She thought you were such a poor sweet innocent, she couldn’t bear to see anyone distrust you.”

  Terry laughed. “I was caught—and I talked my way out of it. Of course, that wouldn’t even have happened if you hadn’t planted that damned key in my room.”

  “I didn’t put the key in your room,” Gwen said. “Anyway, shut the hell up. Where’s the gold? And drop your Glock, Agent McCullough. What a stupid name. Who the hell names their kid Diego McCullough?” Gwen said.

  Scarlet suddenly stepped out of the tomb. Her hair was a tangled mess, her clothes were dirty and her face was gray with tomb dust.

  But she didn’t seem to be injured.

  Scarlet met Diego’s eyes and said, “Shoot her.”

  “Go ahead—but I can pull this trigger before your bullet hits me,” Gwen said. “Grab her, Terry.”

  As Terry moved toward her, Diego was amazed to see Scarlet react instantly, delivering a hard right hook to Terry’s jaw.

  “Shit!” he yelped, staggering back.

  “Do I have to do everything?” Gwen demanded, wrenching Scarlet in front of her as a human shield.

  “Shoot this bimbo!” Scarlet commanded Diego. “Damn it, shoot her!”

  “Let’s talk about this,” Diego said, striding toward them. He had to get close enough to take Gwen out before she could shoot Scarlet.

  “No talking!” Gwen said, pointing the gun at him.

  “Go for her,” Scarlet said.

  For a moment he caught her eyes in the moonlight.

  There was something there, a message, telling him that he had to take the shot.

  “One more step and I shoot one of you!” Gwen promised.

  “Nathan Kendall won’t let you get away with it,” Scarlet said. “The others won’t, either. They’re all here, you know. My God!” she added suddenly.