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A young woman. She wore a pretty nightgown, and her hair was tied back at her neck with a ribbon.
Sierra Monte.
“Help me,” she said plaintively.
Kelsey rose to go to her. She moved slowly, afraid the apparition would vanish if she moved too fast.
As she came closer, she saw that a second shadow was joining the first.
Kelsey paused. Those who were decent in life, she told herself, would be decent in death. But what about those who hadn’t been so decent?
Be careful!
She didn’t know if she spoke the words out loud or in her mind. For a moment, she was seized with fear—fear that she’d come back to urge something evil out of hiding.
But Sierra turned slightly and smiled. The second shadow behind her began to take shape, and Kelsey saw that it was the woman she knew from the scene replayed before her twice—it was Rose Langley.
The women had come to her together.
“Tell me what I can do,” Kelsey begged. “We’re trying, I swear, we’re trying. Can you help us? We need your help, don’t you see?”
Rose set a gentle hand on Sierra’s shoulder. “It’s the stone,” she said. “They always want the stone. ”
“Where is the stone?” Kelsey asked.
“I…don’t know,” Rose said. “But it was cursed. They said it was cursed. And so it was, and so it is today. ”
“Sierra, did you find the stone?” Kelsey asked next.
“They thought I could. ” She shook her head. “It was my fault. I pretended I knew so much, that I could reach out and touch the dead. And now, I am the dead. ” Her melodic, thin-as-air voice seemed to break.
“Who, Sierra, who?”
“I don’t know! I remember sleeping, but I don’t remember waking… . I don’t even remember dying. ”
Like the others, she’d been drugged.
“I will help you, I swear. I’ll do anything I can,” Kelsey promised.
“No…no…you mustn’t! They know about you. They’ll slip in when you’re sleeping. They’ll come, and you won’t remember. If you can’t find the stone, you’ll fail them, and you won’t remember what you said or how you died, and you’ll wake up and you’ll be with us. ”
There was a sudden, loud knock at her door. Kelsey jumped; her apparitions vanished not in a flurry of wings, but as if they’d never been.
“Kelsey? Kelsey! Are you all right?”
It was Sandy. Kelsey cursed her bad luck or her foolishness. She should’ve tracked down Sandy, told her she was there, explained that she was working.
She gritted her teeth, not wanting to look angry when she opened the door. She managed a smile.
Sandy stared at her for a minute. “I’m sorry, but Ricky just told me Corey was being a pest and you ran up here. You’re not usually back in the middle of the day, and there’s so much going on… . I was just worried. ”
“That’s sweet of you, Sandy. But I’m fine. I had a few things to do that I needed a bit of privacy to accomplish, so I came back here and holed up. ”
Sandy still looked worried, and Kelsey gave her a hug. “I swear, I’m fine. ”
“Okay, then. I’ll leave you to your own devices. ”
As Sandy backed away from the door, Kelsey called out, “Oh, Sandy, thank you!”
“For what?”
“You helped us tremendously. We identified at least one of the girls with information from you and Ricky. ”
“That’s great,” Sandy said, then sighed loudly. “Oh, Kelsey! Why couldn’t you have been a runway model? Then I wouldn’t have had to worry about you all the time. ”
Kelsey laughed. “For one thing, I’m not that thin. For another—well, then you’d really have to worry about me. I’m a klutz, and if they’d put me in high heels, I’d have broken my neck on the runway. So, kid, I’m fine, I swear it!”
Sandy nodded and started to go, but came rushing back, obviously flustered. “Kelsey, he’s down there!”
“Who is?”
“Him, him! That hunk-a-hunk Jeff Chasson!”
“Well, go and play hostess. ”
“He came back here!” Sandy said in awe.
“You’re the best-looking innkeep in town. Go on! Buy him a drink!”
Kelsey finally got Sandy to go downstairs. She looked around the room, but whatever momentum she’d found was gone.
“Why can’t we figure out how to do dial-a-ghost?” she muttered to herself.
She sat on the bed again, gazing at the corner. A moment later, she stood and walked over to the wall, then went out to the hallway and studied the rooms and the doors. It didn’t tell her anything. She came back in, staring at the wall again. The longer she did, the more convinced she became that she was right.
Now she had a plan.
And now, all she had to do was work out how to implement it.
* * *
Ned Bixby cried when they showed him the photo of his deceased wife. He laid his head on his arms and cried.
He was oblivious to the other women; he barely glanced at the photographs of the dead.
But he cried hard tears over his wife.
Despite that, Jackson and Logan took turns questioning him. He didn’t want a lawyer. No matter what they said, he denied killing his wife.
Jackson spoke very softly to him. “Ned, you’ve got to help us out. We’re looking at a series of killings here. All the bodies were found in similar condition—decomposed, as you can see. I want things to go easy for you, but this is murder. They’ll search your house, Ned. They have probable cause because of what witnesses have said about your marriage, because you claimed that your wife had gone to New Mexico when it turned out she was dead. They’ll connect all the killings to you, and this is Texas, Ned. There’s a death penalty in this state. ”
“I didn’t kill those women,” he said.
“Just your wife?” Logan asked him.
“No, no!” he shouted.
“Tell us something to give the district attorney,” Jackson said. “We don’t quite understand what—”
“I didn’t kill my wife or anyone!” Ned exploded before Jackson could finish.
“If you’re guilty,” Logan began. “We—”
Ned went very still. He wiped his eyes and cheeks, and stared at them. “I deserve to die,” he said suddenly.
“Ned, we need to know what happened. ”
“It was me! I did it. I killed them. I killed them all,” he burst out. “Now I’m done. Arrest me. And I want an attorney. ”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Ned Bixby was arraigned. Now, they had to wait until he had an attorney before they could talk to him again, although a search warrant was being issued for his house and car. Logan reminded the D. A. that the document had to be carefully worded; they didn’t want to discover that Ned Bixby had a toolshed or other extra building that, if not included, couldn’t be searched. They were looking specifically for a knife and for drugs and drug paraphernalia and, Logan added, for any reference to the Alamo, the Longhorn Saloon or the Galveston diamond.
The D. A. listened to Logan and then sighed. “Half the people in Texas and ninety percent of San Antonio have books that refer to the Alamo. ”
“We’ll weed through it all,” Jackson said. “Please. It’s important. ”
At last, the two of them returned to the task force office. Jake, Jane and Kat were there, taking calls and making notes.
“Where’s Kelsey?” Logan asked, concerned.
Jane raised her head from a file she’d been attaching notes to. “She left. Actually, a while ago now. ”
“She didn’t say where she was going?”
“No, but she sounded like she wouldn’t be long,” Jake said. He frowned. “Sorry, this place is a madhouse. We’ve got a bunch of calls from palm readers who want to visit the corpses and touch their
hands. ”
Nodding, Logan tried to appear calm as he slid his cell phone from his pocket.
What was it with the woman?
Still, she had a firearm and was trained to use it. She knew what she was doing.
He was almost certain that she wasn’t going to answer her phone.
But she did.
“O’Brien. ”
“Kelsey, where the hell are you?”
“I’m at the Longhorn. Logan, can you come here?”
She was speaking in a hushed voice.
“You never came back to the station. Kelsey, we picked up Cynthia Bixby’s husband. He confessed to all the murders. ”
“And you believe him?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted.
“I know I should be there, but…can you come here?”
“Yes. ”
Logan closed his phone. “She’s at the Longhorn and she asked me to meet her there,” he told Jackson. “I’ll call in. ”
As he started out, Kat called him back.
“Logan, she was talking to friends of our victims. You should know that Linsey Applewood was big into the occult. Kelsey also talked to the truck driver who drove Sheryl Higgins to San Antonio. Apparently, she made spare money as a palm reader. ”
“Thanks,” Logan said.
“We’re still weeding through tips,” Jake assured him.
Logan thanked him, then headed out. He was tempted to run his siren, but he didn’t allow himself to do it.
Help me, help them, help her.
He’d just talked to Kelsey on the phone, and she was fine.
The saloon had filled up when he arrived. Cowboys crowded the bar stools and the tables. He noted that Ted Murphy was there and that the film crew had returned. Absent was Corey Simmons.
He made his way to the bar, where Bernie Firestone hailed him. “You have one of my actors,” he said glumly.
“His wife is among the dead, I’m afraid,” Logan said.
“He didn’t kill her, I’m sure of it. Ah, well, thank God I’m not the producer on this thing. I can take a day or two to drink away my frustration!” Bernie lifted his glass. “Join me?”
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