Krewe of Hunters, Volume 2: The Unseen ; The Unholy ; The Unspoken ; The Uninvited

by Heather Graham

  The room was quiet. That night’s shadows seemed to be natural ones, caused by the glow of artificial light from beyond the delicate curtains.

  He drew her closer to his chest, and felt the movement of her breath as she slept. She seemed at peace.

  He remembered waking earlier and discovering that she was gone. He thought about Corey Simmons and reminded himself ruefully that, yes, she was capable, and yes, she’d been prepared if someone had accosted her.

  But the strange image in his dream kept coming back to him. Shadows, and then a face, and a face he knew, not from life, but from the pictures he’d seen of her.

  Sierra Monte. Appearing as a face in the shadows and crying out.

  Help me. Help them. Help her.

  Even if he was learning to forgive himself, he could never forget the words that first warned him Alana was in trouble. The call from a bitter man, asking him, “Do you know where your wife is, Ranger Raintree? I think she’s calling you. I’m going to give you a chance because you seem to follow the law, Raintree. Instead of shooting people, you arrest them, and I respect that. You arrest people and they wind up on death row with a little extra time. So I’m giving you time to find your wife. They say that you’re some kind of soul sucker or psychic. Anyway, I hear her calling. Help me, help me, help me.”

  He felt sweat bead on his cold skin, and he fought hard not to relive the past. This was the present. And there’d be another dead woman if they couldn’t stop what was happening.

  He’d been lost in his own thoughts for a long time when he suddenly realized that Kelsey had stiffened beside him. She pushed herself into a sitting position.

  “Kelsey?”

  Her eyes were open; she stared straight ahead.

  “Kelsey?” he said again.

  But she didn’t seem to hear him. She seemed to still be asleep and yet she was staring across the room.

  To Logan, nothing had changed. The room looked exactly the same. The drapes seemed to float as if a breeze was coming in, although the windows were closed. However, this was no paranormal phenomenon—the air-conditioning ducts sat directly beneath them. The dressing table was to the left of the windows as he looked at them, and the wall was to the right, a bare corner. The second tall period chest broke up the expanse of wall; a swivel mirror sat atop it. When he looked at the mirror, it returned nothing but darkness and shadow and the wall across from it.

  Kelsey was staring into the corner of the room where there was only wall.

  “Kelsey.” Once more, he said her name, and again, she didn’t respond.

  He watched her for a moment, wondering if he should wake her.

  He decided to wait.

  She slid over him, as if he weren’t there at all, as if she were rising from an empty bed. Unmoving, she stood beside him, still staring at the corner.

  He hesitated, just watching her.

  She took a hesitant step toward the wall, then paused. Her face was creased with pain and empathy. He began to fear for her, but he fought the temptation to grab her and shake her. Was she sleepwalking? If so, it might be dangerous to startle her into wakefulness. And if not…

  She took another step. And then she slowly reached out, leaning forward as she extended her arm, fingers dangling in the air as though she was trying to touch someone.

  It was then that the subtle change came.

  There were shadows in the room, yes. But now those shadows began to flicker, to dance, following the movements of objects or people that could not possibly exist.

  One of the shadows moved from the wall….

  It was there, the way it had been on the film. So far, it hadn’t taken any form, but seemed to be a mass.

  Like birds. Like birds forming some kind of image, their wings flapping as they hovered.

  He waited. There’d be a face. And the face wouldn’t be that of Rose Langley; it would be Sierra Monte’s.

  He blinked and the shadows seemed to darken, to cover the walls and the furniture and drip down them, like shadow blood.

  Kelsey took another step, and another, still reaching out.

  Suddenly, he was afraid for her. He didn’t know what he was seeing, and he certainly didn’t know what she saw. He didn’t want to wake her, but neither could he leave her as she was.

  He rose from the bed and stood behind her, wanting to touch her, to draw her back.

  She stepped forward, and he followed.

  They moved toward the shadow, and again he waited, expecting the face to appear….

  But it didn’t. Kelsey reached the shadow, and she was almost within it. He slid an arm around her shoulders, determined not to let her know that darkness alone.

  No face appeared before him, but in his mind, he heard the plea again.

  Help me. Help them. Help her.

  He stepped back, drawing Kelsey with him. There were no birds in the room, but he thought he heard a flutter of wings. As he’d dreamed earlier, the shadow seemed to burst into dozens of shadowy black birds, wings flapping as they disarticulated the shape they’d been, and disappeared.

  The room seemed lighter.

  Logan stayed next to Kelsey. She looked confused, and her arm dropped to her side.

  The room was lighter, he realized. Morning was coming, dispelling the last of the darkness as the sun began to rise in the eastern sky.

  A shaft of bright light found its way to them. Kelsey turned and blinked and looked at him.

  “Logan? Why are you standing there like that?” And then she seemed to notice her own position. “Why am I standing here like this?”

  “What did you see?” he asked.

  “See where?”

  “In the corner.”

  She turned again, still half-asleep and confused. She seemed to wait for him to speak first, and then said, “That corner?”

  “Kelsey, you were sleepwalking. Or something,” he told her. “You don’t remember anything? Anything at all?”

  “No. Logan, it’s so strange. You know I’ve seen what I assume to be an incident of residual haunting in here. I’ve described it to you as precisely as I can remember. But just now—” She broke off. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember a thing.”

  He looked at her anxiously, but her eyes were so lost, he didn’t want her worrying anymore.

  “Maybe it’ll come to you,” he said casually. “Anyway, we can try for another hour or so of sleep.”

  She touched his cheek. “Logan, I’m so sorry I woke you.”

  “I’m awake half the time on my own.” With a broad smile, he swept out an arm. “After you, Marshal.”

  “More sleep.” She yawned. “That’ll work for me.”

  She walked to the bed and crawled over to the far side. He got in beside her, lying on his back, and she curled against him.

  Once again, he lay awake. The room was bathed with light.

  He remembered being with Alana one time, remembered her asking, “Why do ghosts only seem to appear at night?”

  “Maybe they like subterfuge,” he’d told her. But then he’d recalled things he’d seen in the light of day, and he thought about Zachary Chase walking the Alamo and the plaza, in both the mornings and the afternoons. He’d said to Alana, “I suppose ghosts are like the rest of us. Some like the daytime hours, others the night. Some are brazen and some are shy. Some don’t want to be seen. And some want you to hear them.”

  “That would be the same as people, wouldn’t it?” Alana had mused. “Some know how to ask others for what they need, and some don’t. And will simply go without.”

  Alana was gone. Truly gone. Whether to the heaven of her Christian fathers, or the great hunting plain of the western tribal people, she had passed on. She had said her goodbyes and embraced whatever new world she’d entered.

  Murder victims often did stay behind. At least until their murderers were apprehended. And if they never were…

  He hoped that victims like Chelsea Martin and Tara Grissom never had to see what they’d beco
me. He vowed silently that he’d do whatever he needed to find them rest.

  He felt Kelsey shift beside him again; she’d gone back to sleep. He smiled slightly.

  So easy for her…

  He closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Logan had already gone downstairs when Kelsey finished showering and dressing. She was about to strap on her gun, grab her bag and head down after him when she paused. She could remember waking, with the two of them standing in the corner together, and she could remember what he’d told her. She could even remember that she’d been exhausted. And yet despite all that, it had been incredibly easy to go back to sleep.

  She thought of the day she’d come up here after Corey Simmons had run screaming down the stairs.

  That was when she’d seen it. Matt Meyer killing Rose Langley.

  If only everything could play out so clearly before her mind’s eye!

  She held very still and waited, but the spectral image didn’t come again. And yet as she stood there, she felt there’d been a subtle change in the room. It hadn’t just occurred; it had happened since her room was invaded by the film crew.

  She considered the film Sean had brought them. Had something else come into the room, something that had lain dormant and was now awakened? She didn’t know. She waited for a few minutes, but nothing moved or changed. She’d opened the drapes. There wasn’t even a shadow in the room.

  She started to walk out, then paused again.

  “I want to help you,” she said. But although she waited another full minute, nothing happened. Nothing at all.

  She went downstairs to find Logan sitting at one of the saloon tables. Ricky had just poured him a cup of coffee and seemed to be expecting her. “Morning, Miss Marshal,” he said.

  Kelsey laughed. “Good morning, Ricky. That makes it sound as if my last name is Marshal, but, hey, you call me whatever you like. Although Kelsey will do just fine.”

  “Coffee, Kelsey?”

  “Please,” she said.

  As Ricky went off to bring another cup, Logan spoke softly. “He told me it’s quiet this morning because their cowboy guests left early for a preliminary meet out at the stockyards. Apparently, our friend Corey was quiet and a bit grouchy.”

  “That’s not exactly a surprise,” Kelsey said.

  Logan shrugged. “Sorry. I can’t seem to trust him. Oh, wait. I’m not supposed to trust him. I’m law enforcement.”

  She didn’t get a chance to reply. Sandy came hurrying over to the table, a newspaper clutched in her hands.

  She set it down in front of them and pulled up a chair, saying, “Here’s today’s front page.”

  Jane’s sketches, created from what remained of the faces she’d seen, the skull bones she’d recorded and measured, and her own intuition, stretched across the paper beneath a headline that read Have You Seen These Women?

  Kelsey looked at Sandy. “This is great. We’re trying to identify these women,” she said. “I’m glad the paper’s being good about helping law enforcement.”

  Sandy tapped one of the faces. “I knew this girl!”

  “Really?” Logan asked sharply. “Sandy, who is she?”

  “I can’t tell you her name. She stopped by and asked if I needed any more help. I didn’t, but I thought about her after she left. I began to think maybe she’d been a runaway, and that I might have done something for her. And now…now she’s one of the dead women, right?”

  “Yes,” Logan said. “Sandy, can you remember anything about her? When did she come by?”

  “Three months ago, maybe four. I feel dreadful! If I’d done something, she might still be alive.”

  “There’s no reason to feel that way. Try to think back. She didn’t give you a first name?” Kelsey asked.

  “Susan, Sally, Sarah…it began with S.”

  Ricky had returned with a cup of coffee for Kelsey. “Sherry,” he said.

  “Sherry,” Kelsey repeated, turning her attention from Sandy to him. “Ricky, did you talk to her?”

  “Yes, we talked for a while. She seemed at least twenty-one. She was a nice girl, fascinated by the Longhorn, and I swear she knew more about the place than I did. Her last name started with an H.”

  Logan gave an encouraging nod.

  “Boy, we’re batting a thousand here, aren’t we?” Ricky sighed. “Higgins, Highland, Hilbert—something like that. We were slow at the time. So much so, there were some nights Sandy and I were the only ones working. And we survived because of the local crowd.” Ricky frowned and looked at Sandy. “We were getting a lot of newspaper people in then, Ted Murphy among them. He’s always been a jerk, but he’s a jerk who built up a bar tab and paid it, so we were actually glad to see him. You might want to check with Ted Murphy. I think he sat at the bar with her.”

  Sandy sniffed. “Murphy wanted to set up cameras and stuff in Room 207 and see what he could get. Unlike him, I don’t want to sensationalize the place. Of course, other than his bar tab, which he’s always paid, he wants everything for free.”

  Logan was on his feet. Kelsey swallowed a few sips of her coffee, preparing to leave. But Logan wasn’t ready to go. He pointed at the paper again. “Sandy, Ricky, please take a good long look at all the women on this page. Do you recognize any of the others?”

  They both stared at the paper, and then at Logan. “I’m sorry,” Sandy said.

  “Thank you.” He nodded. “Who else was local around that time? Did you ever see Jeff Chasson or anyone from the film crew?”

  “I don’t think so,” Sandy said.

  “Think harder.”

  She chuckled. “If I’d seen that Jeff Chasson before, I’d know it, trust me.”

  “What about the other men? The director, Bernie Firestone, or Earl Candy?” Kelsey persisted.

  Sandy shook her head.

  “A lot of the rodeo guys were around back then. There was some kind of local rodeo thing going on,” Ricky said.

  “Corey Simmons?” Kelsey asked.

  “He wasn’t staying here,” Sandy replied. “This is the first time I know of that he’s gotten a room here. I think he was at one of the chain hotels, but he used to come to the bar at night with the others.”

  Ricky studied the paper, and his eyes seemed sad.

  “As far as the film guys go, I might’ve seen both of ’em in here, maybe on a Saturday night—or another night when we had entertainment. It was busy—half the world was around.” He looked back down at the paper again, and then up at Logan. “This girl…I think I’ve seen her, too, although it’s hard to tell from sketches, you know?”

  “You saw her here?” Kelsey asked. “At the Longhorn?”

  “No. I saw her at church. The Congregational church, about five blocks behind the Ripley’s side of the plaza.” He shrugged. “It’s my church. I like it there.”

  “Was she a regular?” Logan asked.

  “No…but I saw her a few times. I’m sorry. I can’t remember better than that, and I may be wrong.”

  “That’s great, Ricky,” Logan told him. He turned to Kelsey. “Ready to go?”

  “Ready,” she said. Waving goodbye to Sandy and Ricky, they left by the front door.

  Logan was moving quickly that morning. He jogged to his car, pausing at the passenger side, as if remembering he should open the door for her—and then deciding that he shouldn’t because they were partners and not a couple going out on a date. He slid into the driver’s seat, and Kelsey got in beside him.

  “The phones will probably be ringing off the walls—or they would if they were on walls these days,” Logan said.

  She agreed. They drove to the station where they were greeted by the desk sergeant before they could head over to the task force.

  “Ten calls already. Some are crackpots, telling me they envision the girls on a lily pad or some such thing, but I’ve got everything down. I’m assuming you want even the crackpots.”

  Logan thanked him. Kelsey saw that it was just eight when they entered
the room, and so far, they were the only ones there. Logan got on the phone, returning the calls they’d received, while Kelsey studied the information they had on the unidentified women she’d given J names.

  She brought out the files she’d been working with and read them through.

  “Jane Doe, strangled, discovered by a rock pile, semihidden, near a pond in a public park. Jenny Doe, found in a trash dump, stabbed to death. Judy Doe, strangled, again found in a public park. Jodie Doe, dragged out of the river, drowned. Julie Doe—most recent victim until Vanessa Johnston, dead about a month—strangled and left in a pond, discovered by divers. Josie Doe, found in a compost heap, stabbed to death.”

  She compared the names to Jane’s sketches and notes, and started adding her own comments.

  Josie Doe was actually Sherry H-something, according to Sandy and Ricky. And the girl Ricky had seen at the Congregational church had been their drowning victim, Jodie Doe.

  Logan covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “This caller believes that our Jane Doe is his niece, Linsey Applewood. She’s from New Orleans, and no one’s heard from her since she disappeared out of her uptown apartment.”

  Kelsey nodded and included that information. Logan asked the man questions, making notes as he did, then took another call. He was quiet, listening.

  He hung up and looked over at her. “That was Reverend Milton from the Congregational church. Ricky was right. She was there. She and her husband didn’t stay long, because he didn’t think the church focused enough on family issues. That they were too permissive and not following the dictates of the Bible.” He hesitated. “Reverend Milton paid a courtesy call on the family, and the husband said his wife had left him and moved back to New Mexico.”

  “I guess she didn’t move back.”

  Logan looked at her a moment longer. “The husband’s an actor,” he said. “And we met him yesterday.”

  Chapter 13

  The fact that they knew that one of their victims had been married and never reported missing because she’d supposedly left her husband and moved back home did not make that husband guilty of murder. It did, however, make him a “person of interest.”