Heather Graham Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 4

by Heather Graham

  GHOST SHADOW

  THE KILLING EDGE

  NIGHT OF THE WOLVES

  HOME IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS

  UNHALLOWED GROUND

  DUST TO DUST

  NIGHTWALKER

  DEADLY GIFT

  DEADLY HARVEST

  DEADLY NIGHT

  THE DEATH DEALER

  THE LAST NOEL

  THE SÉANCE

  BLOOD RED

  THE DEAD ROOM

  KISS OF DARKNESS

  THE VISION

  THE ISLAND

  GHOST WALK

  KILLING KELLY

  THE PRESENCE

  DEAD ON THE DANCE FLOOR

  PICTURE ME DEAD

  HAUNTED

  HURRICANE BAY

  A SEASON OF MIRACLES

  NIGHT OF THE BLACKBIRD

  NEVER SLEEP WITH STRANGERS

  EYES OF FIRE

  SLOW BURN

  NIGHT HEAT

  Look for Heather Graham’s next novel

  AND THE DEAD PLAY ON

  available soon from Harlequin MIRA

  The Betrayed

  HEATHER GRAHAM

  For Washington Irving

  I wish I could have known him!

  And to the beautiful state of New York.

  To Al, Mystery Mike and all those at Bouchercon, 2013.

  To Connie Perry and Shayne Pozzessere for a wonderful trip into the shadows and forests of the Hollow and the mind—Irving’s cottage, the church, the cemetery…and all those places where wonder exists and the imagination can fly.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  “They got me, my old friend. They got me.”

  Aidan Mahoney woke with a start.

  His room was dark; instinct made him reach for the Glock at his bedside and then remain dead still.

  Listening.

  He’d heard the words as clearly as if they’d been spoken directly in front of him. And when he’d first opened his eyes, he could have sworn that there’d been a form—the form of a man. A man beseeching him—for help. Tall, nicely dressed in a suit, leaning toward him.

  But he’d blinked.

  And now...

  Now there was no one.

  He tensed, searching the darkness, listening carefully. He heard the hum of the heater, the noise of a car in the street below and, distantly, the blaring of a horn.

  Nothing else. The usual sounds of New York City at night.

  But something teased at the back of his mind. Something he should have realized, something he should have recognized about that whisper. His eyes adjusted to the shadows. No, there was nothing in his room. No one stood by his bed. He glanced to the side, but he knew he’d slept alone the night before. He occasionally brought a woman home, but there hadn’t been anyone regular in his life since his crush on Tina Hastings in high school and his passionate college romance with Kathy Flanders.

  The passion had lasted until college ended—and cooled almost overnight when their career choices clashed and Kathy had gone on to study anthropology in Cambodia.

  Even then, he’d been the one to keep his distance. Sometimes it was just best to be alone and to fight your own demons.

  And right now he was definitely alone.

  But he’d heard the voice.

  He’d seen something.

  Cautiously, he crawled out of bed. He kept the light off and made a quick but thorough search of his immediate space, checking next to the dresser, quietly opening the closet.

  From there, he left his room just as quietly. Nothing in the hallway. He kept moving, wearing only his boxers, inspecting the apartment’s second bedroom—his office—the kitchen, living room and dining area. No sign of anyone. Anywhere. He’d dreamed the words. He must have.

  From down below, he heard the angry squeal of a cat; a garbage can was knocked over. A lot of street noise came into the apartment, since he was on the third floor of an old brownstone in the Village. But the voice he’d heard hadn’t come from the street.

  He groaned aloud, setting his Glock on the kitchen counter and opening the refrigerator door, letting the cool air wash over him. He was always wary; training in various military and law enforcement branches had caused that. But he wasn’t paranoid. There was no one in his apartment and he was sure of that now.

  But, to his mind, the alternative was almost worse.

  He’d known the voice. But he couldn’t quite place it.

  They got me, my old friend. They got me.

  Aidan glanced at the clock over the fireplace. The time was creeping toward 5:30 a.m. What the hell? He might as well stay awake, shower, get dressed, then head on in to work.

  He put coffee on to brew while he got ready, but checked the locks on his door before he went to shower. By 5:35 he was dressed and pouring a cup of coffee. With his gun in its small holster he went to the door to get his newspaper. He still liked reading the Times in its old-fashioned form.

  When he picked up the rolled bundle, he saw the headline: Highsmith Missing!

  It suddenly seemed that his blood really did run cold—a physical impossibility, of course, but for a moment he felt frozen in place. He felt a distinct chill coursing through his body.

  Then his phone rang.

  And, of course, he knew that call presaged a hell of a day. Just as he now realized that the voice he’d heard had been that of Richard Highsmith.

  “Mahoney,” he answered, aware of how terse he sounded.

  From the caller ID he’d seen that it was his new unit chief, Jackson Crow. He liked Crow, all right, and working for him wasn’t going to be a problem. But...

  He’d known Richard since they were kids. Once, they’d been great friends. But time went by, people got older. Life and work intruded. Obligations kept old friends from being together, kicking a ball around or playing video games, but that didn’t change the fact that a few hours grabbed for a football game or a quick dinner wasn’t damned good. And yet even those occasions became less and less frequent.

  Richard was missing.

  This was going to be about Richard.

  A phone call from Crow was new for Aidan. He’d been working as an FBI field agent out of the largest office in the country—the New York City office—for the past ten years. He’d worked briefly with Crow on a case that had included the D.C. offices. Then they’d gone in different directions. Now, Crow was heading up a special unit—and that unit was opening new offices in NYC.

  Aidan hadn’t asked to transfer to the new unit. He hadn’t wanted it. And when he’d received a call from the director of the bureau, he’d known he could refuse the transfer. If he did, however, his career with the agency might well be at stake.

  But this call? He was almost certain it would be about Richard. He wanted to work Richard’s case; he desperately wanted to find his old friend. And find him alive.

  He was afraid he wouldn’t.

  And he still wasn’t sure about the new coworkers he’d wind up with on the case.

  Aidan reassured himself that they’d be fine. He’d been afraid they’d be a bunch of freaks bearing crystal balls. The truth couldn’t have been more different. The new offices in a small Federal building just down the street—closer to St. Paul’s and Trinity—was state-of-the-art. Five
seasoned Krewe members had been sent to help with the setup.

  They certainly seemed normal. They’d read all the books, gone through all the rigors of training. They’d passed the academy classes. Everyone he’d met seemed bright, efficient, competent. Nice. He’d liked them all.

  But they had a reputation for being called in on the weird cases. And weird was an area he’d rather avoid.

  The new base for the NYC Krewe unit had only recently come into existence. Before Aidan had seen the paper today—heard the voice!—he hadn’t expected to be in the field anytime soon. He’d been told by his old superior that Jackson Crow had been watching him, noting his methods and his work, and had specifically asked that Aidan be brought in when the Krewe’s New York office was formed.

  Aidan was still getting to know his new unit, accepting that he was part of it.

  “We’ve got some serious trouble,” Crow said.

  Yeah, Aidan thought. Richard’s dead. But he didn’t speak.

  “The New York office got a call from the sheriff up in Westchester County,” Crow said. “The director called me—since you’re part of the Krewe now. You’re the man he wants. I understand you’re from the area. Plus, he’d like to cover all the bases—the usual aspects of an investigation into a disappearance like this...and, shall we say, the unusual ones.” There was a brief silence. “This one could be described as unusual in that Richard Highsmith apparently disappeared into thin air. He was in Tarrytown for a fund-raiser yesterday. He disappeared around dusk. He was there—at the center where he was scheduled to speak—and then he wasn’t. He still hasn’t made an appearance and his staff is worried sick.”

  “The locals are on it?”

  “They’ve been on it. They did a lockdown at the center for several hours. They questioned everyone there before letting anyone go. His car was in the lot, and there was security all around.” Crow was quiet for a moment. “If he was your average Joe, they wouldn’t even have a Missing Persons report on him yet, but...”

  “But it’s Richard,” Aidan said quietly. He probably should have told Crow right then that Richard Highsmith was more than a rising politician to him. The reason he didn’t was that he wanted the assignment.

  He chose not to mention that he knew Richard well. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure about his new position with the agency, but he knew one thing. He was not going to be pulled off this case, and while he didn’t want to be dishonest, he wasn’t going to tell his new supervisor about his friendship with the missing man—yet.

  “Yes. And it’s hitting the news this morning,” Crow said. “Tarrytown’s about an hour away from here—”

  “Less,” Aidan told him. At this time of morning? Hell, yeah, he could get there fast.

  “Then go. I’ll call your cell with any particulars we have. By this evening, I’ll have a few more agents assigned.”

  “Consider me gone.” Aidan hung up, drained his coffee and started for the door.

  They got me, my old friend. They got me.

  He was going to find Richard Highsmith.

  And the saddest thing of all...

  Aidan knew he was going to find him dead.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was a horrific sight.

  And, bizarrely enough, one that might be missed, at least in Sleepy Hollow. Here, and in the surrounding villages and towns, images and effigies of headless horsemen were common.

  A pole had been stuck into a man’s likeness created from wood and stuffing and plaster and cotton—a likeness that ended at the neckline. Right where the Revolutionary-era jacket and shirt left off.

  And Richard Highsmith’s severed head had been stuck onto the pole.

  It was bloody, and the midlength, salt-and-pepper hair was matted and dark. The face might once have held character and dignity.

  Maureen Deauville stood with her enormous wolfhound, Rollo, and stared at it. For a moment, she felt as if she’d been teleported back to medieval times. The breeze rustled through the trees and the sounds of traffic from the road seemed to fade. She might have been standing in distant woods, viewing the results of a gruesome execution carried out by some long-ago government.

  In reality, she was on the street that bordered a cemetery to the west. There were houses here—some very old, some not so old—and a few businesses, including Tommy Jensen’s Headless Horseman Hideaway Restaurant and Bar. His effigy of the headless horseman, a good seven or so feet high, lurked on the roadside to attract clientele.

  And it had been used to display the head.

  The parking lot was filled with cars, mainly cop cars. It was barely 7:00 a.m. At least seven uniformed officers were there, ready to handle crowd control and keep the few cars on the street moving along. A crime scene unit van had just arrived and jerked to a halt, followed seconds later by the ambulance from the morgue.

  They’d begun the search for the missing man that morning, just half an hour earlier.

  “You’ve done it. You and Rollo have done your jobs,” Lieutenant Purbeck said with a sigh. “Not what we expected to find, or hoped to find, but...” He paused. “But that’s part of Richard Highsmith, anyway.”

  The blood was congealing. It had dripped over the crisp collar and seeped onto the shoulders of the white cotton shirt and blue jacket on the should-have-been-headless mannequin. The eyes were open in death, and crows and blackbirds lurked, waiting to attack. Even as Maureen stared up at the atrocity before her, a crow zeroed in, aiming for the soft tissue.

  “We’ve got to get that down!” One of the cops, a young man, new to the force—Bobby Magill, Maureen thought—groaned, sounding ill.

  “Anyone who’s going to puke, get the hell away from the crime scene! Let’s get it covered!” Lieutenant Purbeck shouted.

  At Maureen’s side, Rollo gave one of his deep, bone-jarring barks. Maureen quickly soothed the large wolfhound. “Good job, Rollo,” she murmured. Men scrambled, as Lieutenant Purbeck said, “I want a step...a block...something. We need an investigator up there. And crowd control! Someone arrange detours until we’ve got all this out of here. And I sure as hell don’t want anyone around gaping and snapping shots for Twitter and Facebook!”

  Gina Mason, head of the forensics unit, stepped forward and yelled at them. “Get the birds away! And then get some kind of screening set up. We have to preserve the scene! Can we get rigging and tarps around the—the—Around it! Everyone will be breathing down my neck for trace evidence and I’ll have to say we were defeated by a crow!”

  Dr. Aaron Mortenson from the coroner’s office had arrived, as well. He got out of his car and walked over to Gina.

  “Let the photographer up there first, and then I’ll take a quick look. I won’t disturb anything until you’ve had a chance to get what you need,” he told her.

  Mortenson was middle-aged, trim in appearance and always reserved. He saw Mo and Rollo. To her surprise, he nodded to her with something that was almost a smile. A silent acknowledgment that said, Work well done. He sighed loudly. “Since it’s so early, thankfully no four-year-old saw this and realized the head was real. God knows—Halloween. It might well have taken hours even in broad daylight before anyone saw that it wasn’t just part of some grisly display.”

  She nodded solemnly back at him.

  Lieutenant Purbeck came to stand near Mo, allowing the technicians and the medical examiner the space they needed.

  He set a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m okay,” she assured him.

  Then she turned away, grasping Rollo’s collar and taking him with her. He’d done his job well. Too well. This was one search she wished she could’ve sat out. Sooner or later, someone would have really looked at the headless horseman that stood outside the entrance to Tommy’s place. The police hadn’t really needed her services. She actually wished that they hadn�
�t called her; this one was a little too close to home.

  “Why my horseman?” Mo heard. She turned.

  Tommy Jensen, an old friend—and owner of the Headless Horseman Hideaway Restaurant and Bar—had been allowed through. The restaurant didn’t open until eleven; his staff didn’t even arrive until nine or nine-thirty. But, she realized, looking at his grim face as he stared at the scene, it was his horseman and his parking lot. She figured he’d been called in.

  He looked at her bleakly and tried to smile. “Of all the horsemen in all the world...”

  Mo touched his arm. He was her senior by a few years; she’d known him since she was ten or so. She recalled that the older girls had often teased him because he’d been a big, awkward kid. He still liked to moan about his dating life. But now that they were all older and presumably more mature, the group she’d hung out with growing up now frequented his restaurant. It was her favorite hangout when friends met up at night for dinner, coffee or drinks. He always took care of them.

  He’d been born and bred in the area and was a true lover of the Hudson Valley. He’d owned the restaurant for about two years and it was charming, offering pool tables, dart boards and an “enchanted forest” for young children when their families came for lunch.

  Purbeck turned to him. “What time did you leave last night, Tommy?”

  Tommy was startled—as if he’d just realized he might be a suspect. “About 2:30 a.m. And I didn’t leave alone. I left with Abby Cole. We cleaned up, locked the place and were together the whole time. I drove her home.”

  “And you didn’t see anything? Anything at all unusual?” Purbeck demanded.

  Tommy shook his head. “Sir, I’m telling you, we were worn-out. Halloween’s coming, you know? We’re busy. We had to announce last call and practically shove people out of their chairs. When we finally took off, my car was the only one in the lot and...”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t even glance at the horseman, to be honest. But, like I said, we’d been busy. We had a lot of visitors and people were talking at their cars before leaving. They’d been to the attractions, the haunted houses, the storytelling, all that. So...I’m not a cop, but I don’t see how this could have been done until the wee hours of the morning.”