She didn’t know how long she could keep it up, but Kelsey decided to stick with the stupid smile. “Why did you invite a U.S. Marshal to stay with you when you were killing people? Wasn’t that kind of…dumb?”
“I wanted you here. All the other idiots who claimed to be great psychics were useless. I really just stumbled on Sierra Monte—and her belief that she was a psychic and could find the diamond. After that…after Sierra, I was sure there was a real psychic out there somewhere who could talk to Rose’s ghost and ask her. But, as you know now,” she added dryly, “I’ve been trying for a while. I figured I’d get to you eventually. And then I eavesdropped on you and Logan Raintree. Everyone in Texas knows about him and what happened to his wife.” She patted Kelsey’s head. “So, you find it, he finds it—I don’t care. I just want it.”
“You’re good,” Kelsey said. “So good… But I’m curious. Did you kill Cynthia Bixby? Was she coming around here? Had you contacted her?”
“Actually, no. I didn’t kill her. I heard about her from Ricky and I did contact her, yes. She had some fantasy about being a psychic. But that was one messed-up woman. She had a hard time at home and claimed she heard voices. It might’ve been for real, who can tell? I’m willing to bet, though, that she looked at that water and just threw herself in. Drowned herself. I never had a chance to really get to know her—or to find out if she could locate the diamond. She was just…collateral damage. But you’re right—I am good. I didn’t let myself become a suspect.”
Sandy shrugged. “You did give me a jolt when you dug Sierra Monte out of the wall. That bitch told me she was going to find the diamond and she was going to keep it. I was livid. That night was a mess, I can tell you! I had to put a sheet over my head to go after her, and she kept running, and I had to keep stabbing her…. Thank God there were drunkards down in the bar, a bunch of losers who couldn’t hear an air-raid siren if it went off right next to them! But I couldn’t figure out what to do with the body. So I walled it up. Everything was all repainted later, after the room was cleaned, and no one was any the wiser. Anyway, when I was done, I went out the window and down the tree. When they told me about it, I cried, Kelsey. I cried real tears. I kept crying whenever I checked on the clean-up crew.”
“What about the smell?”
“I used cinnamon bark—not just cinnamon, it has to be cinnamon bark—and spices. I put it inside the wall. And, of course, I made sure everything was airtight when I did my little home repair. Remember history? How people used potpourri sachets to hide smells? Cinnamon was the base for those, and believe you me, I had to think of that quickly after she wound up dead! She was my first, Kelsey. I was just learning, you see.”
“Like I said, Sandy, you’re good.”
“I got good, that’s for sure. I knew the bodies would be discovered at some point, but I was pretty careful about promising fame and fortune only if they came alone, without anyone knowing. Oh, Kelsey, you’d be stunned at how naive women are! I took a course on what to watch out for, but those little fools are the ones who really should have taken it. They were so gullible!”
“Why did you kill them?” Kelsey asked.
“I wasn’t planning on sharing the diamond,” Sandy said. She spoke in a chiding voice, as if Kelsey should have undertood this.
“So you killed Jeff Chasson for getting too close to the truth.” Kelsey made an effort to keep her tone merely curious.
“I told you that,” Sandy said, pursing her lips.
“There’s more to it.”
“He was a prick!” Sandy leaned closer to her. “Do you know what he had the audacity to say to me?”
“What?”
“That he was interested in you.” Sandy giggled. “Well, pretty soon, unless you get me that diamond, he will get to know you. The two of you can haunt San Antonio happily together. Oh, oh…it’ll be a threesome. When the Lone Ranger shows up—minus any of his Tontos—one of you had better get me the diamond.”
“Oh, Sandy!” Kelsey said, using a voice she might have when they were kids. “You’re going to kill us, anyway!”
“I really don’t want to,” Sandy said earnestly. “I mean that. I just do what needs to be done.”
“Dress up like a hairy frontiersman?” Kelsey asked.
“That was fun. I wore a costume and did the computer invites at the internet café. But down at the plaza? That wasn’t me.” She moved her lips close to Kelsey’s ear, and Kelsey prayed she wouldn’t notice that the patch was gone. “That was my partner. No one manages this kind of operation alone. You know what? He’s a great actor. But he’s going to die tonight, too. The diamond is mine.” She moved away suddenly. “I want that diamond, Kelsey. And I want it now.”
“You called Logan. He might come with the whole FBI. Then you can kill me, but they’ll get you, and you won’t get the diamond.”
“Logan won’t let you die. He’ll come alone. You watch. Now, while we’re waiting, why don’t you see if you can conjure up Rose Langley for me?”
* * *
The voice didn’t give it away. Whatever cheap little device Sandy Holly had bought, it was doing the job. No, it hadn’t been the voice that had given her away.
It had been the sketches. There’d been something about the eyes, and when they’d spoken, he’d suddenly seen her face, and seen it with the beard, the mustache, the hair.
It made a shocking kind of sense.
Who knew the Longhorn better?
And who’d been around when the inn was changing hands?
He kept driving, trying to determine his course of action. So far, Sandy probably didn’t realize that he knew about the basement—and the tunnel, supposedly walled up, that led to the toolshed. He was almost positive she’d found a way to get Kelsey down there. And Kelsey was tough and smart, but who would expect the enemy to be a friend? A friend who seemed to be in desperate trouble.
And, he thought, Sandy wasn’t working alone.
If he called in the troops, if they came en masse, they’d be able to corral Sandy Holly and her partner.
But Kelsey would die.
He pulled onto the side of the road, and for a minute the pain that surged through him was so intense he couldn’t bear it. Then he breathed, slowly and deeply, and considered what they’d learned about the men who hung around the Longhorn Saloon.
Finally, he thought he knew the truth. He kept breathing and put his plan into action.
He pulled back onto the road and drove to the Longhorn.
* * *
“Is he here yet?” Sandy asked.
Kelsey had heard the false wall between the basement and the cellar beneath it slide open, but she couldn’t twist around to see who’d come. The voice was hoarse and low, and hard to recognize.
“No, not yet. I’m just down here to bring up some bottles of rum. The Ranger needs to come soon. The longer this takes…”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve kept captives down here for days when we’ve had to.”
“They don’t make any noise when they’re dead. How’s this one doing? Did we really have to call the Ranger?”
“Yes. One of them’s the real deal. I know that for a fact,” Sandy said. “And I’m pretty sure the other is, too. I want insurance. It’s time to put an end to this.”
The drug was wearing off; Kelsey had gotten to the patch quickly enough. But with both of them down there—Sandy and her partner—she didn’t really stand a chance. She was afraid to try moving yet.
“Go back upstairs. Watch for the Ranger.”
“Yeah, yeah. She must be another fake,” he said, kicking the bedding where Kelsey lay, “or she would’ve called them for you by now.”
Kelsey forced a giggle. “I can call them. Do you want to play ghost?”
At last he stepped around in front of her. She wasn’t surprised. It had all been an act from the moment she’d arrived at the Longhorn Saloon.
“Yeah, let’s play ghost,” he muttered.
Kelsey
prayed for help, from the living—or the dead.
“Rose, Rose? Please. I know you’re usually in the house. But can you come here? Now? Please, Rose, these people want to talk to you about the diamond.”
* * *
There was no way on earth that Kelsey could have known she was performing on cue.
Logan had parked the car down the street and around the corner. He’d come in through the exit they’d taken from Sandy’s room the night before. So far, easy. Too easy.
But what kind of shape was Kelsey in? How did he get to her without alerting the others? He’d studied the blueprints up and down and inside out, and there was no entrance other than the basement stairs—off the main bar—or through the false floor of the toolshed.
So, drop in, guns blazing? Would they be able to kill Kelsey that fast? She’d be drugged; she wouldn’t be capable of defending herself. They’d surely have taken her Glock by now.
As he reached the house, he saw the birds. He’d never seen so many flocked in one place before, not even that day at his house.
“Hey, help me out tonight, brothers!” he said softly.
Logan was afraid of making any noise as he opened the back gate. He politely asked the birds to shift so he could hop over the fence. He approached the shed from the back.
And then he paused. The birds flew madly before him as he drew closer to the shed. They were like a cloud of bees, they moved so quickly.
And then…
The movement ceased, and the birds took shape, and there in the dusk and the moonlight stood Rose Langley.
Please.
He wasn’t sure if he spoke the word aloud or if he thought it, and he wasn’t sure if Rose was really there, or if she was an illusion he’d created.
But illusion or real, she understood. She brought a finger to her lips and walked toward the shed, opening the door so quietly he didn’t hear it himself.
But he did hear Kelsey’s voice. It seemed far away and distant, but the trapdoor in the shed was still open, and he moved close to it, and listened as she said again, “Rose, please, Rose, they want your diamond. Could you get it for them?”
“Nothing’s happening,” Corey said crossly. “And I’ve got to go back up and lure that cop down here.”
Let him go. Let me save Kelsey, and then deal with him, Logan prayed.
His luck wasn’t going to be that good.
“Stay here. The stupid cop’ll go up to 207.”
He heard Kelsey speak again, stalling for time, obviously determined to get the truth—before she died. He was astonished that she was conscious, that she could speak, but maybe he shouldn’t be. It was Kelsey, after all. She had known about the patches, and must have somehow gotten hers off.
“So, Corey, are you really a cowboy?” she asked.
“You bet.”
“But somehow Sandy got you to be a lackey for her. She teased you, and then slept with you, right? But she made you keep it a secret. You liked what the two of you did, though—didn’t you? Kidnapping women and then killing them. But she tried to make you jealous, keep you in line. Didn’t that piss you off sometimes?”
“Stop it, Kelsey,” Sandy said.
“Seriously, I’d be pissed off. She slept with that poor producer and then flirted with the newspaper guy—like a true whore!”
“Hey, we had to shut him up!” Sandy said. “Corey, ignore her. She’s doing this on purpose. Ignore her, okay?”
“I gotta go back to the bar,” Corey mumbled.
Let him go. Let me save Kelsey…
He felt a gossamer touch on his arm. Rose. She looked at him with sorrowful, questioning eyes. Should I? she seemed to ask.
Logan nodded.
“Rose?” Kelsey’s voice pleaded.
Rose preceded Logan to the drop. Like a feather through air, she stepped into nothingness and floated down.
He heard Corey Simmons’s hoarse cry of astonishment as the ghost joined them. Logan leaped down and rolled with his gun cocked. Corey Simmons stared as if he were a ghost, too, but Logan aimed directly at him and shouted a warning when Corey went for his gun. “Drop it! I’ll shoot to kill.”
“You drop it!” Sandy demanded, flying toward Kelsey. “I’ve got another patch. This one is loaded with fentanyl. A hundred times more powerful than morphine. She’ll be dead in seconds with this one, cowboy.”
He had to shoot; he had to. He couldn’t aim the gun at Sandy because Corey would shoot him, but whatever he did, he had only seconds.
There was a burst of noise in the room, and a burst of blackness. The ghost of Rose Langley had become a flock of furious flapping birds once again, and they were blinding everyone. Corey Simmons shot wildly. Logan turned his gun on Sandy and shot her through the forehead. Simmons had a bead on him, but to his astonishment, Kelsey suddenly scrambled up from the bedding and tackled him around the ankles. Corey went down, and his second shot went wild as he dropped his gun. He threw off Kelsey, then reached for his gun, but Logan had learned never to take chances. When Corey grabbed his Colt and turned to aim, Logan was above him, his finger on the trigger. He’d aimed true; Corey died swiftly, a bullet hole smoking between his eyes.
Kelsey staggered to her feet and fell against him.
“How?” he asked her.
“I got the patch off,” she whispered. “Oh, Logan…Rose saved us.”
“Even without knowing where the Galveston diamond is.” Logan held her up, held her tight.
“I know where the diamond is,” Kelsey said.
“You do, and Rose didn’t?”
“I went to the room, Logan. I willed myself to see the residual haunting again, and I watched her closely. I saw something glitter in her hair. That’s where she kept it. In her hair. Matt Meyer was a bastard who would’ve searched her body, but she could have slipped it into her hair and he would never have thought to look. When she died, she was a saloon-hall whore, and Texans were about to be massacred. There was no real justice for her, Logan. And there was probably no funeral. She was thrown in a pine box and buried, and if she was lucky, someone said a few words for her. If we find out where she’s buried, we’ll find the diamond.”
By then, footsteps were tramping down the basement stairs. Ted Murphy came in, smashing the false closure to the walled-in tunnel. Ricky came after him, and then Bernie and Earl, and right behind him were the other members of the unit. Jackson pushed through, anxious to see what had happened. He looked from the dead on the floor to the living before him.
“You pulled it off, Logan,” he said.
“We pulled it off. Kelsey was the first woman who managed to remove the patch. And she managed to keep Sandy talking. We pulled it off,” he repeated. “By the way, your timing was perfect.” He smiled apologetically at Kelsey. “Even if they’d killed us both, we had to stop them.”
She nodded. “That’s what we do.”
“Sandy?” Ricky said brokenly. He turned to Kelsey. “Sandy?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Ricky.”
There were tears in his eyes. Ricky had really cared about Sandy. But then so had she, Kelsey thought. Sandy had been her friend, her childhood companion, a woman she’d loved. A woman she hadn’t actually known. Whose depths of evil—there was no other word—she hadn’t understood. The grief she felt now was for the Sandy who had never truly existed….
Bernie Firestone was waving his hands in the air. “What the hell is it with all the birds?” he muttered. “Shoo, shoo…let’s get them out of here!”
“I rather like birds,” Logan said. “In fact, I’m very fond of them!”
Epilogue
Kelsey left the Longhorn, aware that Rose Langley was at her side. She smiled to herself as she walked.
They reached the Alamo plaza, and she saw Logan immediately—just as she saw Zachary Chase.
Both men stood as they approached. Kelsey nodded at Logan, but then gave her attention to Zachary and Rose.
At first, they simply stared at each other. Zachary too
k off his hat, and worked the brim anxiously between his fingers as he watched Rose, adoration in his eyes. Rose hesitated.
“Come on, he’s waiting for you,” Kelsey whispered.
“It’s been so long, and…I don’t know how he ever loved me,” Rose said.
“Because your soul is beautiful,” Kelsey told her. “Rose, you forgot how worthy you were of love. How worthy you are. Go to Zachary now. Go to him. He still loves you.”
Rose stepped ahead of her, until she stood in front of Zachary Chase. He took her hands and gazed down into her eyes. His voice was choked as he said, “Rose.”
She stroked his cheek. “Zachary.”
“Oh, Rose!”
Neither of them noticed as Kelsey joined Logan. Still gazing at each other, Rose and Zachary turned and walked toward the Alamo.
“Have they gone off into the light, do you think?” Kelsey asked.
“Maybe, and maybe they’ll stay around for a while.” He glanced down at her. “Rose was very happy, you know. You found her grave, and the diamond, and you saw that she was given a fine funeral and buried next to Zachary. It was really lovely.”
“It was, wasn’t it? And Kat was so respectful when she opened the box of Rose’s bones and took out the diamond. It’ll do wonders for the children in Haiti.”
They’d all had quite a discussion about the diamond. At first they’d thought they should leave it with Rose, but then decided there might be other fortune hunters who’d kill for the stone. So they’d decided it had to come out, and that it needed to go to a good cause. They’d all agreed it should be donated to a charity.
“Sierra has moved on,” Kelsey said. “She said goodbye to me that night, and she smiled, and I think I saw her wave. Then she was gone.”
Logan looked in the direction of Zachary and Rose. “That’s good,” he said. “Zachary and Rose, they might stay on for a bit. They’ve just found each other after a very long time. I don’t have all the answers.” He smiled at her. “Neither of us does.”
“But we have some of them,” she said.
He nodded, still smiling. “Yes, we have some of them. And by the way, ma’am, there’s far more to San Antonio than you’ve seen so far. I thought we could do a little sightseeing here, and then you could show me around Key West.”
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 2: The Unseen ; The Unholy ; The Unspoken ; The Uninvited Page 26