The Hidden

by Heather Graham

  “It does. Thanks.”

  Diego looked out over the area. Matt and Brett were carefully following a trail of broken brush and flattened leaves, staying to the side so as not to taint any evidence. The terrain was steep, filled with jutting rocks, old twisted trees and thick brush.

  He watched his step as he caught up to them as quickly as he could.

  “There!” Matt called. He was ahead of Diego by about fifty yards. “I can see down to the road. He must have driven her there, parked, then dragged her up the hill.”

  “What have you got?” Gray shouted from above.

  “The trail leads to the road.”

  “I’ll send the techs over. Maybe the killer left something by where he parked,” Gray called back to him.

  Carefully avoiding the killer’s trail, Diego half walked and half slid down the slope to the road. On the way he startled an elk. The animal stared at him for a moment, then bounded off.

  “Fuller have anything useful yet?” Brett asked Diego as he caught up with Matt and Brett by the road.

  “Fuller thinks the gun used was another antique,” Diego answered. “He’s pretty confident, but he’s not a hundred percent sure yet.”

  “And the guy is a fucking gazelle,” Matt said. “That’s tough terrain.”

  “A coordinated, history-loving, antique-gun buff. You’d think he would be easy to find,” Brett said.

  “At least we’ve got something to look for,” Diego said. He hesitated, frowning. “I think we’ve got something else, too.”

  He moved over to a piece of brush by the flattened path, where something white was just visible.

  He moved the leaves aside, then pulled gloves and an evidence bag from his pocket before he carefully reached for the once-white woman’s sneaker.

  Now it was white and red.

  White.

  And bloodstained.

  * * *

  “‘Brian Gleason, Jeff Bay and Billie Merton made their way here last week,’” Scarlet said, reading to Meg. “‘I’d expected them, because I’d received a letter not long after I bought this land. They were always on the run, of course, though, to my knowledge, no one knows that Jeff shot that man in cold blood during the robbery. In fact, on account of the masks we wore, it would be hard for anyone to swear that they’d seen us do any of the robbing or the killing. To be honest, I’d hoped never to set eyes on the three of them again, though they’ll always be part of my heart and soul. You don’t survive the kind of bloodshed we did without becoming kindred in some terrible way. Jeff is still bitter. Always says he should have been killed, not his wife and the son he never saw or held. Brian told me he keeps moving just ’cuz he has nowhere to go. His house burned down, and some Yankee carpetbagger is building a new place on the property. Billie says to fuck the North, the war and his family, even though they told him he could go home. Says he’d always be the enemy in their eyes, and, worse than that, a loser. I figured they’d just come by to talk some and then move on, but Billie had a fever. My Jillian, she’s such an amazing woman. She had no concern with the war whatever, being in the West with her father for those terrible years. But she said a friend was a friend, and she was going to nurse Billie back to health. I don’t think even my precious wife can help him, though. That fever just keeps on getting worse and worse. I think we’re going to be planting Billie up on the mountaintop. Hope he’ll find peace there at last.’” Scarlet stopped reading and looked at Meg.

  “You think Billie is up there?” Meg asked her.

  “I guess I have to keep reading,” Scarlet said. She shivered slightly. The temperature in the room hadn’t changed; it must have been the diary. “I’m going to run up and grab a sweater. Are you okay? Do you want me to get you anything?”

  “I’m fine. I just feel like I’m being ripped up a bit. Reading this... Nathan cared about people, even those he didn’t know. He’s talking about a wounded Yankee he stumbled across. He was so struck by the fact that the soldier was so young that he dragged him back behind Confederate lines, then hoped the surgeons wouldn’t inadvertently kill him. He writes that the Yankee medics were better equipped and better trained, and that if he was wounded, he hoped he was taken by the enemy.”

  “I know, it’s such sad stuff,” Scarlet said. “I’ll be right back. I need to find out if Billie did die while he was here.”

  She hurried up the stairs to her bedroom. It was while she was rummaging in her drawer for a sweater that she suddenly felt as if ice crystals were racing up her back.

  And she knew, even before she turned, that she would see him.

  Her stalker.

  The ghost.

  Even as she turned, a warning was flashing through her head.

  Scream. Run.

  But she didn’t.

  She turned and stared at the man who had materialized by the window near the head of her bed. She thought that he’d been looking out, down at the stables or over to the next mountaintop, even feeling wistful, perhaps.

  Maybe wishing that he could feel the cool mountain air on his skin, breathe in the delicious freshness and the scents of fall.

  She stared at him in silence.

  “Please,” he said simply, looking back at her.

  “You’re dead, aren’t you?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, sucks, huh?”

  “So why are you doing this to me?”

  “You’re a descendant. So was I.”

  “What?”

  He let out an impatient sigh. “I came here after I was fooling around at one of those online ancestry sites. I traced myself back to Nathan Kendall and this place. You know what it’s like when you’re online. I’m from North Carolina, been hiking the Blue Ridge all my life. I couldn’t wait to get out here, see Rocky Mountain National Park and the old homestead. I didn’t even ask my girl or any of my friends to tag along. I wanted to experience it all by myself. Smart, huh?”

  “Not very, from the looks of things,” Scarlet said.

  He shrugged at that. “A wiseass, huh? Great. I’ve been doing my best to reach you, and you just keep making me go poof. It’s not easy, you know, getting someone to see you, much less managing to touch them. Mostly you’re just kind of...there. No one sees you, no one talks to you. And if they do see you, they get scared and run away.”

  “Why don’t you give me your name?” Scarlet asked.

  “Dumb-ass cops. They don’t even know that yet.”

  “It’s not as if we have a lot to go on. We’ve only just gotten a good likeness of you to send around,” she said. She realized she’d used the word we. Was she becoming one of them?

  Or had she always been one with Diego?

  “So?” she asked.

  “So...what?”

  “So what is your name?”

  “Daniel. Daniel Kendall.” He grinned. “Nice to meet you—cousin. A zillion times removed, of course.”

  “You, too. I guess. Having your name will make it easier for us to help you, at least,” she said. “I’m assuming you want help, of course.”

  “I do. Unfortunately, I don’t know who killed me.”

  “So you were killed,” Scarlet said, saddened by the information. “But how can you not know who did it?” Scarlet demanded, her frustration showing.

  “I didn’t see his face.”

  “How were you killed?” she asked. “Do you know that?”

  “Yeah, that I know. I was up in the tundra, striding along, amazed at how high up I was, amazed by how blue the sky was in the clear air, and then I felt a rush behind me. I turned, saw him coming, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, bleeding to death. Slowly. I didn’t feel the knife. I did feel the dying.”

  “So the killer was wearing a ski mask?”

  “No, it wasn’t a ski
mask. It was odd, like a bag over his head. Not paper. Something like a burlap sack.”

  “A burlap sack,” Scarlet repeated. “And neither one of you said anything. He just rushed you from behind, stabbed you—and left you?”

  “Oh, he said something,” Daniel told her.

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘You’re one.’”

  “One what?” Scarlet asked.

  “That’s what I wondered,” Daniel said. “But then I started drifting, I thought I’d become a snowflake or something, and I began to think he meant the number one. He sounded proud, as if he’d taken the first step on a fantastic adventure or something. Anyway, I’d planned to come here to the ranch the next day. See if there was a room, take a tour of the museum for sure. I’d seen your name and picture in the brochure and recognized it from the ancestry site. After he killed me, I wanted to warn you. I wanted to warn Ben, too, but he didn’t see me. And while I was trying to warn you, that poor couple was being killed. And now he’s just killed number four.”

  Scarlet stared at him blankly. “You’re a ghost, and you’re talking to me. Stalking me. And you can’t even help catch your killer,” she said.

  “Nice appreciation for me trying to save your life.”

  She winced. All this was still so hard to believe.

  At least she didn’t have to wonder anymore if she was crazy or not, though crazy might have been easier. But Diego and the Krewe had suspected her stalker was a dead man.

  And they’d been right.

  “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I just, I wasn’t... I never... I’ve spent half my life in graveyards and I’ve never felt so much as a cold spot, much less talked to a ghost before. Or even really believed that ghosts exist. Thank you for trying to warn me, and I mean that sincerely, but I can’t help but wish you could identify your killer.”

  He lowered his head, smiling. “Apology accepted. I wouldn’t have believed in ghosts, either, before I became one.”

  “Scarlet?”

  Meg’s voice came from the top of the stairs, and Scarlet could hear her footsteps coming up the hall.

  Daniel’s image began to disappear. He was almost gone when Meg stepped into the room.

  But Scarlet could tell that she saw him immediately.

  She stopped just inside the doorway, looking at what was almost thin air by then. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Meg. Meg Murray.”

  She sounded so natural that she could have been introducing herself to someone at a party.

  Daniel’s image solidified again. “Daniel. Daniel Kendall,” he said. “Pleasure, Miss Murray.”

  “You’re a Kendall,” Meg murmured.

  “Yes, he’s been trying to warn me,” Scarlet said.

  Meg looked at Scarlet. “You’re okay? You’re not going to pass out or anything?”

  “No, I’m not going to pass out,” Scarlet said. “I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”

  Was she?

  Meg turned her attention back to Daniel. “Do you know how you—”

  “No, he doesn’t know who killed him. That would be too easy,” Scarlet said drily.

  “You don’t know?” Meg asked, shocked.

  “He was wearing a bag or something over his head,” Daniel said. “Like he took a potato sack and cut eye holes in it.”

  Scarlet gasped. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it right away! Nathan Kendall wrote in his journal that he and his friends wore hoods when they robbed banks and stagecoaches and things.” She looked at Meg. “The killer has read the diaries. And we know that his friends came here, so maybe that will help us figure out who killed Nathan, too.”

  “Hey!” Daniel protested. “Don’t go all history buff on me. You need to find out who killed me. That’s what’s important, Scarlet. Because if you don’t find out who killed me, he’s eventually going to kill you.”

  11

  “Cassandra had only been here about a month,” Mary Peterson said, sniffling, her eyes welling with tears again. “She came from Kansas City. Kansas City, Kansas,” she said with emphasis, as if that was really important. “Not Missouri. She grew up in different foster homes and finally tracked down one of her grandmothers—her mother’s mother. She was in a nursing home, but she filled Cassandra’s head with stories about the Rockies and how she was related to Nathan Kendall. She couldn’t wait to come here, and she got a job right away at the Moose Pot Pie here in town. That’s where we met. I work there, too. She was so pretty and so nice, and all the guys liked her. But she wasn’t a flirt! She was a hard worker and a good roommate, and she planned to go back to school and get a good education. She had such a tough life...and now this.”

  Their victim was Cassandra Wells, and she was local.

  Diego was sorry that he’d been right.

  While they’d continued examining the crime scene, Lieutenant Gray had received a call from the station; a distraught young woman had called in because her roommate hadn’t come home after work the night before.

  And now Mary Peterson, best friend and roommate of the deceased, was at the police station, and Diego was questioning and consoling her at the same time. Normally, unless there were indications of foul play, an adult had to be missing for at least twenty-four hours before a report could be issued, but Lieutenant Gray had told his officers to take a report if a person had been gone for more than an hour or two.

  Given the condition of the body, getting an ID might have proven difficult, but Cassandra had been bonded so she could handle money at the Moose Pot Pie, and the fingerprints matched.

  “Did you notice anything or anyone special or suspicious in any way during the day?” Diego asked. “Was she dating someone?”

  Mary shook her head dully. “No and no. Her education meant everything to her. She said she was getting old.” More tears welled in Mary’s eyes. “She was twenty-six.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Diego said. “When did you last see her?”

  “I was on the early shift. I left at five. Cassandra was scheduled to close, so she would have been there until eleven or twelve.”

  “Who else was working that shift?” he asked.

  “Braxton and Stan,” Mary said.

  There was a pad on the table, and Diego gently pushed it toward her. “If you could give me their information, please?”

  “Of course, anything,” Mary said. “This just isn’t fair. She was so excited to be living here. She felt like she’d come home. She said this was her place. She’d already been to the museum up at the Conway Ranch, and she’d met Ben and Trisha Kendall.”

  “She knew the owners?” he asked, a little too sharply.

  “Of course. She adored the Conway Ranch.” Mary suddenly lowered her voice, as if someone might overhear her. “I think they wanted to hire her. She said they’d talked about her coming on as manager.”

  “Great. Thank you, Mary. I’m curious—did she mention knowing anyone else who was descended from Nathan Kendall?”

  She frowned. “No, I don’t think so. I think maybe she’d been in contact with a few people online, but I don’t know who, and I don’t even know if they were from around here.” She stopped, her eyes watering again. “What will I do? Her grandmother’s dead, so she doesn’t have any family. I work for minimum wage and tips, but I have to bury her. I can’t let them just dump her in a hole without a headstone or anything.”

  Diego was glad he could help her with one thing, at least. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We can arrange for a funeral.”

  “Cops do that?” she asked incredulously.

  “I’m not actually a cop.”

  “You’re not a cop? And you’re questioning me?”

  “I’m FBI,” he explained. “And I think Cassandra would be pleased to be buried in the old cemetery on the Kendall
property. And...” He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he had the right to speak for a man he’d only recently met, then went on. “I have a friend who can help with whatever other arrangements need to be made. But you should know that the funeral can’t take place right away. Not while we’re still investigating.”

  He didn’t think he should mention the word autopsy—not unless he wanted to see her start crying again.

  He handed her his card. “Please, if you think of anything that could help, anyone who seemed especially interested in her, for instance, call me.”

  “Of course,” she promised, then began to sniffle again.

  He didn’t try to tell her that it was going to be all right, because it wasn’t. Her friend was dead. Nothing could ever fix that.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  They both rose. She looked at him, wiping her eyes. “She would be glad to be buried in the family cemetery, I think. She was so excited to be a part of the Kendall legacy. She said that this was her permanent home. I guess now it is.”

  * * *

  “Aha!” Scarlet cried.

  She was back at her desk, reading further in one of Nathan’s journals.

  Meg, sitting across from her, was doing the same.

  Daniel, who was clearly getting better at the art of visibility, was walking around, checking out all the artifacts in the museum.

  Meg and Daniel both turned to look at her and said in tandem, “What?”

  “We can cross one suspect off the list,” Scarlet said.

  “In my murder?” Daniel asked her.

  She looked over at him and shook her head. “Daniel, you know that the police and the Krewe are working on that. I’m going at it from another angle, trying to find out who killed Nathan, on the theory that there’s a connection between the deaths then and the deaths now.”

  “So you found out who didn’t kill him. Wonderful,” Daniel said.

  “Process of elimination,” Meg said.

  “And what’s this crew business? I thought the FBI was divided up into units?”