Darkest Journey

by Heather Graham

  “He didn’t happen to tell the friend what he was up to, did he?” Ethan asked.

  “Said he had some meetings in St. Francisville. That was it,” Randy told him.

  “Well,” Dr. Franklin said, pulling the sheets fully over both bodies, “I’ll let these gentlemen get back to rest. Any more questions, Ethan?”

  Ethan shook his head. “Not now, Doc. But—”

  “You can call me anytime. You know that. I’m here.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ethan and Randy didn’t speak again until they were back out on the street.

  “You coming in to the office?” Randy asked. “You want to see what else we’ve got?”

  “What else do you have?” Ethan asked.

  “Nothing except a pretty damned good crime board with times and pictures and everything laid out in one place. I’m going to start interviewing the rest of the people involved in that Journey reenactment, and, after that, everyone else who was on board. Is that what the Feds would do?”

  “Yep. It is.”

  “So...you coming?”

  “Give me an hour?” Ethan asked. “There are a few things I’d like to do. Haven’t even opened up my folks’ old house yet.”

  “You all still own the place?”

  “Yep. My folks rent it out, but they’re looking for new tenants now, so it’s empty. Worked out nicely for me.”

  “An hour, then. I’ll make some phone calls while I wait for you, get some of the St. Francisville police going door to door to see if anyone heard or saw anything. It’s always quieter and easier to call when the night shift’s on,” Randy told him.

  “See you soon,” Ethan said.

  Just then Randy’s phone rang, and he motioned to Ethan to wait while he answered. After a one-sided conversation consisting mostly of “Uh-huh” and “You’re sure?” he thanked the caller. His expression serious, he turned to Ethan and said, “Ethan, I just got some news, and it’s something you need to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Doc Franklin was right about the gumbo. Both victims were seen eating it at the Mrs. Mama’s Café in town. And there’s one man who was seen around the same café when the victims were there. One man who might have had a beef with both of them. A guy who knew them, and might’ve been dining with them,” Randy said. “One particular man I want to interview—at the station.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Jonathan Moreau,” Randy said, then added softly, “Charlie’s father.”

  4

  Charlie was half listening as Brad talked excitedly about some contacts he’d made who might help him get broad distribution for their movie when she saw Ethan enter the restaurant. She sat straighter, frowning as he greeted the owner, Emily Watson. Emily had been there as long as Charlie could remember and surely had to be in her eighties. The two of them were smiling and chatting, but Ethan was clearly looking around for someone as they talked.

  Her?

  Yes.

  She saw him thank Emily as she pointed to Charlie and the film crew where they sat toward the back of the restaurant.

  Brad nudged her to get her attention.

  “Look, it’s Ethan Delaney,” he whispered. He didn’t wait for her to respond before he stood and called out, “Ethan! Hey!”

  Ethan smiled and headed toward their table, where introductions were quickly made.

  He wasn’t wearing a suit the way FBI agents always seemed to in the movies. He was wearing a tailored denim shirt, blue jeans and a denim jacket. He wasn’t dressed as casually as most of their crew, though. Most of them—including Jennie and Charlie—were in T-shirts and jeans or khakis.

  “Guess you’re here to help solve the murders, huh?” Brad said. “I would have thought they’d leave this to the local police. Then again, maybe this counts as a serial-killer case, and that’s why the Feds are in on it?”

  “Who really understands why the powers that be decide these things?” Ethan said, taking a spare chair at the end of the table. “But despite the reason, it’s good to be home, see some old friends.”

  “Glad you still think of this as home,” Mike said, leaning forward. “And I didn’t mean that sarcastically, honest.”

  “This will always be home,” Ethan assured him. “We still own the old house. My parents will never give it up, and honestly, neither will I. But enough about old times.” He turned to Brad. “I hear you Thornton brothers are tearing up the film world.”

  “Hardly tearing it up, but...trying,” Brad said.

  “You should be in the film! I’m sure we can find you a uniform and make you an extra,” Mike said.

  “I’d love to be in your film, but I’m on company time right now. The taxpayers might frown on me taking time off for fun,” Ethan said. “But who knows? I hear it will be a few days before you can film out by the old church again.”

  “Yeah, we’ve had to switch the filming schedule around,” Brad told him. “So, if you’ve solved the murders by then and you’re still around, I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “It’s a deal,” Ethan said.

  “I hope you’ll join us for something to eat,” Brad said.

  “Thanks for the offer, but actually, I’m here for Charlie,” Ethan said.

  “Oh!”

  Everyone around the table spoke in unison, as if perfectly on time for some predetermined cue.

  Then they all turned as one to stare at Charlie.

  Of course, even those who had never met Ethan knew that, ten years ago, she had found a bracelet belonging to a murdered girl, and that when the killer had come back, Ethan had tackled him, saving her life.

  “So Nick and Nora Charles are back at it,” Brad said.

  “Brad, no one knows who Nick and Nora are these days,” Barry said.

  “Okay, think Remington Steele,” Brad suggested.

  “Still too far back,” Luke said with a laugh.

  “Oh, come on!” Brad protested.

  “Try The X-Files, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder,” Blane offered. “They just made a comeback.”

  “Booth and Brennan—Bones,” George said.

  Ethan looked over at Charlie and smiled. “Charlie’s an actress. She’s not involved in the investigation in any way. I just want her to go out to the field by the graveyard with me.”

  “Relive old memories?” Jennie asked, shaking her head. “Not a good idea, especially when an old, abandoned cemetery is involved.”

  Brad cleared his throat. “I don’t think they’re trying to relive the past, Jennie. He wants her to show him where she found the body. Actually, I can help,” he offered, turning to Ethan. “Spare Charlie from having to go through it all again.”

  Ethan and Charlie were already out of their chairs.

  “Brad, I’m fine. It’s not a problem, and I am the one who found the body. Besides, I know you. You’re already thinking about revising the shooting schedule yet again, then calling everyone to let them know the latest plans before you look over the dailies and moan about the fact that you have to be your own editor. Just call me when you have a final shooting schedule, okay?”

  “She knows me,” Brad said to Ethan, smiling, then added, “We went to college together. We’re kind of like a sister-brother team, you know?”

  “Sure,” Ethan said. “And as soon as I can get away, I’d love to hang out on set.”

  “Cool. Anytime,” Brad offered.

  Charlie was already heading for the door, waving goodbye to everyone over her shoulder. She wanted to smack someone, she just wasn’t sure whether that someone was Ethan for being so smooth or her friends for being so naive. Sure, he wanted to hang around on set, but not because he had any interest in being in the movie. He was suspicious of everyone involved with the fi
lm because, as far as he was concerned, any one of them could be a killer.

  Ethan quickly joined her on the street.

  “That was pretty rude, making them think you’re interested in their movie when all you really want is to figure out if one of them—one of my friends—is a murderer,” Charlie snapped at him.

  He shrugged, looking at her as if he was trying to figure out what changes the years had made. “You’re the reason I’m here, and I assume it’s because you want the truth. Because we both know that it will haunt you forever if these murders aren’t solved. And, yes, some of your friends are under suspicion, though they’re hardly the only ones. But I’ll also have you know I was in one of Brad’s movies before.”

  “You were not!”

  “Yes, I was. I was ten, Brad was seven. My mother made me. She and Brad’s mom were pretty tight. He and Mike were already playing with cameras. He wanted to make a cowboys and Indians movie. He made me be a cowboy.”

  “You don’t like cowboys?”

  “In Brad’s film, the Choctaws were victorious. Cowboys had to die. I did so pretty dramatically, if I remember correctly.”

  “So you’d really be in Brad’s film?” she asked him.

  “Why not?”

  “You wouldn’t get in trouble with the FBI?”

  “With enough makeup, no one would even recognize me. And extras aren’t credited, so who would even know?”

  Charlie looked at him doubtfully. “Whatever. So, I’ve got my car. I can meet you on the bluff and—”

  “No, we’ll leave your car here. I’ll drive.” He met her eyes, his expression serious. “This is important, and we both know why.” He started walking toward his car.

  “Because a dead man spoke to me?” Charlie asked.

  “That would be it, yes. But afterward, you’ve got to stay out of the investigation,” he told her firmly.

  She’d been walking briskly alongside him, but now she stopped abruptly.

  “You said it yourself. You’re only on this case because of me,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, and I’m not taking chances with your safety again.”

  “We didn’t take chances. You called the cops. We waited for them to get there. It was the right thing to do. Period. No one could have known the killer was going to come back to find the bracelet,” she said emphatically.

  “And no one can deny the terror we felt when we saw the bastard with his knife out,” Ethan said.

  “You weren’t terrified. You always planned on being a cop, and you knew just what to do,” she said.

  “I was terrified, because I saw him coming at you with a knife,” Ethan said quietly. “And I was lucky he was nothing but a skinny coward who relied on the fact that his victims were weaponless and not as strong as he was. I was a fool kid. I just jumped at him, and he went down.”

  “Yes, and even though you didn’t plan to, you stopped a serial killer,” she said firmly. “I found Farrell Hickory. I didn’t start out the day wanting to find a body. It happened. I’m part of this.”

  “Do you have a death wish or something?” Ethan demanded.

  “No. Do you?”

  He let out a sigh of aggravation and walked ahead of her. Charlie followed. If he wanted to drive, he could drive.

  He opened the passenger side door for her, and she slid in. They didn’t speak as he headed toward the bluff.

  They still didn’t speak when he stopped the car. She hopped out quickly and headed toward the place where she had found the body. Trampled crime-scene tape remained, but the crime-scene techs had finished their work and the site was deserted.

  “Here, obviously. Right here,” she said quietly.

  She stood still. There was a gentle breeze blowing that high up, and it was the time right before true darkness fell. The nearby trees seemed to sway and move like great dark beings with a life of their own. Traces of sunset remained, thin, quickly fading streaks of color in the sky. She stood there and relished the sensual movement of the breeze across her skin.

  Ethan walked over and stood beside her, but she knew he wasn’t feeling the breeze. He looked toward the area with the unhallowed graves, and then beyond, toward the church.

  “So he was killed right here,” he murmured.

  “Could the killer have brought the body here?” Charlie suggested.

  Ethan shook his head. “Died right here.” Then he added quietly, “The ME could tell by the amount of blood in the ground.” He hesitated. “There was a lot—he was stabbed in the heart. Thing is, what the hell was he doing up here? In uniform?”

  “He wasn’t part of the movie,” Charlie said. “And we’d been out here for several hours before I...before I found him.”

  “He told people the night before that he had a meeting, but he didn’t say where. We do know he was killed with something long and sharply pointed, like a bayonet.”

  “Are you suggesting that his meeting was with someone involved with the film? Someone with access to props?” she asked, trying to keep a defensive note out of her voice.

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m saying that both of these men put on their reenactment uniforms, went out to meet with someone and wound up dead. I’m trying to think of reasons for why they were in their uniforms. If you can come up with any, please feel free to share.”

  “People are always doing things in uniform around here. There are historical reenactments around every corner, living-history plantations... There’s the Journey, the riverboat my dad works on, and when it’s in port—”

  Charlie broke off. Something in Ethan’s face had changed. She stared at him for a moment, realizing that the police were suspicious of reenactors, which meant they were suspicious of her friends on the film.

  Worse, she could tell that they were also suspicious of everyone involved with the Journey—including her father. And the way Ethan was looking at her...

  “No! Oh, no, no, no. You can’t possibly think my father had anything to do with this in any way,” Charlie said.

  “I don’t,” Ethan said.

  “Of course not,” she said. But something in his eyes, an evasiveness she had never seen from him before, told her that he wasn’t telling her the whole truth.

  “But there are those who do.”

  She froze, staring at him in shock.

  He took a deep breath and said, “There’s no one person who’s a prime suspect at the moment. What we know is that Farrell Hickory and Albion Corley had some kind of a disagreement when they were working that reenactment and your father stepped in. From what I understand, it was heated, and he wasn’t pleased with either of them, but in the end he got them calmed down. He was also seen at the restaurant, having a meal with them.”

  “You don’t kill someone because you’ve had an argument!” Charlie insisted vehemently. “And certainly not if you ate with them after!”

  “No, and as I said, I don’t believe your father had anything to do with this.”

  “But you—you don’t even like my father,” Charlie said.

  “Charlie, I don’t dislike him. He’s the one who doesn’t like me. But whatever our feelings, they have nothing to do with the situation. Right now, I’m floundering in the dark. I’m looking for motive, a reason why the killer targeted these two men. I’d hoped if we came out here together, we might find some clue, that if a dead man did call your name...”

  “You know I didn’t make it up.”

  “I know. I’d hoped he might come back again,” he said quietly.

  Who was he hoping might come back? she wondered. A Confederate cavalryman? Or had it been Farrell Hickory himself who’d called to her?

  Charlie stood there silently for a minute, then shrugged. “I’m sorry,” she said. “No one came back.”

  “We have t
wo groups of people to consider,” Ethan told her. “Reenactors, including the people on your film, and everyone who was aboard the Journey the day of the fight.”

  She stared at him, but night was falling in earnest, making it hard for her to read his expression.

  “Let me get you back to your car,” he told her.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said tightly.

  He turned away, and she followed right behind him, then paused to look back.

  Right where she had been standing, something seemed to be taking form in the air, a deeper shadow forming against the darkness.

  And then she saw him. The Confederate cavalry officer she had seen before, Anson McKee.

  He looked at her gravely, then pointed toward the river.

  Seconds later he was gone, leaving Charlie to wonder if she had really seen him at all, or if he had been only a shift in the light or a haunting figment of her imagination.

  “Charlie?” Ethan turned back to her.

  “Sorry,” she said tersely. “Coming.”

  She had seen a ghost. She knew she had seen him. And she knew she should have told Ethan—after all, he was here because she believed in his ability to find the truth.

  But the ghost had pointed to the river.

  And she knew exactly where he had been directing her to look....

  To the Journey.

  * * *

  Ethan’s family home was outside the historic downtown section of St. Francisville. It was, however, equally as old. Someone back in his family’s history had raised horses. They’d largely been sold or conscripted by the Civil War, and in the 1880s the stables, paddocks and the bulk of the property had been sold off. Now, to the one side of his house, there was a housing community called Golden Acres, and to the other was a sprawling manor built in the 1890s. The Delaney family residence was two full stories, with a half-story attic above. His mother had been in love with the idea that the family had once kept horses on the property, and there were paintings of the animals all over the house.