Krewe of Hunters, Volume 1: Phantom Evil ; Heart of Evil ; Sacred Evil ; The Evil Inside

by Heather Graham

  Jenna was in the attic, hoping that she could reach Emma Donegal.

  “Okay, Confederates,” Ashley said. “Marshall Donegal, of course. O’Reilly, Charles’s stepfather’s ancestor. We know that he survived the war—he came back and saw Emma. He probably had a guilt complex about causing the whole skirmish.”

  “That’s two down. Now the rest?”

  “One was actually a Clayton; I know that,” Ashley said. “Ramsay is a direct descendant.”

  “Find out what happened to his ancestor,” Angela said, looking up. “We’re trying to trace a fellow named Pierre Lamont—one of the Confederates.”

  “He was Toby Keaton’s great-great-whatever,” Ashley said. “Toby comes down through the maternal line. It’s a good thing they named it Beaumont, Beaumont—beautiful mountain,” she said with a grimace. “Not that it’s exactly on a mountain, but there is a little rise in the terrain. The family name changed many times.”

  “Yes, but we can let Toby go on this one,” Angela said softly. “He’s dead.”

  “I guess so,” Ashley agreed.

  “What about Griffin Grant?” Whitney asked.

  “Family name change, too. His ancestor was… Hilton. Henry James Hilton. And he was killed in the war—1862, the Second Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas. We can do more research on Hilton.”

  Ashley stared at the screen, searching site after site for the Ramsay Clayton who had fought in the Confederate cavalry during the Civil War. She found him at last and turned to look at the two of them. “Ramsay Clayton—the one our Ramsay is named for—was killed at Gettysburg,” she said. “Obviously, he was already a father.”

  “Okay, so…nothing dastardly happened to him?” Whitney said.

  “Not other than a grisly death on a battlefield,” Ashley said. “And that would mean a half a million men who died might be vengeful.”

  “That doesn’t seem like something that would bring about revenge or a sick sense that you needed revenge in a future generation,” Will said. “We’re looking for something that might have come about because of what happened at Donegal that day.”

  “What about Hank Trebly?” Angela asked.

  “Trebly—that was his ancestor’s name, too.”

  “See what you can find on him.”

  They all worked in silence for a while.

  Whitney sighed as one site after another came up blank. “Not found,” she said. “Sorry. We need Jake. He’s the one who can find anything on a computer.”

  “Could you take over for a few minutes, Will? My back is killing me!” Ashley pushed away from the desk. Will stepped back, looking at her.

  He nodded. “Sure. Why don’t you go and try the attic with Jenna? See if you can sense, or even find, anything there?”

  She nodded. “I’m just going to grab some water first. And a cheese stick.”

  “Food!” Will said. “We haven’t eaten since break fast.”

  “All right, everybody, meal break,” Angela said.

  “Every man for himself. There’s no Beth to feed us delicious delicacies today.”

  “We’ll make a real dinner,” Whitney said, yawning. Then she leapt up. “Angela is right! Every man—and woman—for themselves! And dibs on the crab cakes!”

  As they started for the kitchen in a sudden mad hurry, they nearly collided with Jenna, who was coming down the stairs.

  “Anything?” Angela asked her.

  Jenna shook her head, frustrated. “I can feel her, and I’ve talked myself blue. But she won’t appear for me, or she can’t appear for me.”

  “I can try,” Angela said.

  “I know who can reach her. She’s been trying to reach him,” Whitney said.

  They all stared at her.

  “Jake,” Whitney said. “Before we even knew about Charles being missing, I think he saw her. I was kind of ignoring him, because he was just talking about someone he thought was about to lead a tour. But then we couldn’t find her. The way he described her, she was a Southern white woman. He saw her coming through a crowd when we were at Café du Monde. He told me that she had been trying to talk to him, and I said that was rather ridiculous, because she was across Decatur Street, and there was a lot going on, and unless she had been shouting, he couldn’t have possibly heard her. But now, I think it all makes sense. It’s Emma, and she’s decided that if she’s going to communicate with the living, it’s going to be Jake.”

  Angela was thoughtful for a minute. “All right, then. We’ll all get back on the computers after our very late lunch, and when Jake gets back, we’ll just lock him in the attic.”

  “It’s a plan,” Ashley agreed. “I’m going to get my grandfather out of the study; he’s been poring over bills long enough.”

  Frazier wasn’t sorting through their bills. He was seated there thoughtfully, staring down at his hands.

  “Grampa?” Ashley asked him.

  “Ashley,” he said, looking up and giving her a brilliant smile.

  “I’m going to get some lunch. Would you like to eat here, or in the dining room?”

  He didn’t answer her right away.

  “Grampa?”

  “I’m sorry, my dear.” He let out a soft sigh. “Ashley, I can’t help being afraid that if this drags on, we’re going to lose the place.”

  “I won’t let that happen!” she promised him. “I swear, I won’t let that happen.”

  He lifted his hands. “It’s a house, Ashley. It is built of brick and mortar and stone. Life is what’s important. I’m thinking that Beth was right, that we should just leave. People are important, Ashley. You and I are important.”

  “I agree,” she told him. “But we have the best of the best on this. They will find the killer. They will find him.”

  “I’ll eat right here, Ashley. Then I’ll drag my old bones up for a nap. Heaven knows, maybe we can get one of those reality programs to pay us the big bucks to come in and do a ghost documentary!”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Though I shudder! But I’ll shudder away, if it helps us keep Donegal Plantation.”

  Grinning, she headed into the kitchen. Even with Beth gone, it didn’t have to be every man for himself. There was plenty of food for everyone; Beth kept her leftovers well-packaged and dated.

  Ashley found gumbo and heated it up for whoever might want it when they came down. She brought Frazier lunch on a tray, and then realized that it was late afternoon. It would be late when they were hungry again; they’d call out for pizza, maybe.

  “Angela,” she said.

  “Yes?

  “What happened to the cops who were always outside?” Her grandfather’s concern remained in her mind.

  “They’re doing patrols now, since they found the new bodies in the bayou. The logic is that this house is filled with agents—and since others were killed at the bayou, the cops are more useful elsewhere. And we do have cameras going all over the property. Are you all right with that?”

  “Sure. I’d rather have a houseful of agents anytime,” she assured her.

  When she had finished her own bowl, she walked out to the back porch. She shouldn’t call Jake; he was busy, but she decided to call him anyway; she could just let him know that they were all fine.

  He answered on the first ring. “Ashley? Everything is all right?”

  “Everything is fine. I just thought that I would call and tell you so. Is, uh, is everything all right with you?”

  “We can’t find Ramsay Clayton, and I’m sitting in front of a hotel, waiting for Jackson to see if anyone can tell us where he might have gone,” Jake said. “Is there anything new?” he asked her.

  “Actually, yes,” she told him.

  “What?”

  “Well, we’ve been on the computer all day and tearing through the household records and accounts of the battle,” she said.

  “And?”

  “Jake, I think that, after the battle, Emma was raped.”

  “What—by whom? The enemy didn’t take the house.
Four were killed and two disappeared.”

  “By one of her husband’s supposed friends. One of the Confederate soldiers. And…and I think that he was attacked by someone else while he was raping her, and I think that person might have been Cliff’s ancestor.”

  “This was in the household records? That’s surprising,” he said.

  She was silent a second.

  “Ashley?”

  “No. I know this, Jake.” She was silent again for a minute; then words rushed from her. “I pushed you away once, Jake. I thought I was afraid of you, but I was afraid because I was terrified my father would appear before me, too, or that there was always something there that I didn’t see and didn’t want to see, but I do see. My ancestor is here. I can reach him, Jake, I can reach Marshall Donegal. He’s trying to help. We need you here, when you can come. I think—and the others agree—that whoever attacked Emma Donegal was the ancestor of the man who attacked Charles Osgood, and then Toby Keaton and Marty Dean.”

  He was silent.

  “Jake?”

  “Ashley,” he said huskily.

  “Forgive me?”

  “Always.” He cleared his throat. “I guess it falls in. We’ve known it was someone close who had to be the murderer. I didn’t know that Emma had been attacked—until you told me. Are you certain about that? Wouldn’t it have shown up in the records somewhere?”

  “Jake, only a small percentage of women report a rape now. Back then, Emma Donegal would have never breathed a word of it—any more than she would have mentioned she’d taken on an ex-slave as a lover and borne a child of his. He brought me—he brought me back there. In a dream, Jake. I—I saw it. I saw it all. And it was real.”

  “I believe you. You know I believe you.”

  “Jake,” she said softly. “Only Emma can tell us. And Whitney says that you’re the one who can reach her.”

  “I’ve seen her,” he admitted. “She brought me to you when you were out riding. But…I can’t seem to get her to talk, to stay. Maybe she’s ashamed, even though nothing was her fault.”

  “Jake, she trusts you. She at least shows herself to you.”

  “We’ll be back soon. Take care until then, huh? Wait, hold on a minute!” The line fell silent and she frowned with concern. “Jake?”

  “I’m here—Jackson just had a conversation with Detective Mack Colby. Seems that the remains of Toby and Marty yielded the same drugs—they were able to push the toxicology reports to the top level. You all be careful there, swear it!”

  “Absolutely,” she promised him. “We’re here, we’re together, and we don’t intend to let anything happen.”

  “The best intentions,” Jake murmured.

  “Pardon?”

  “Stick together. I think that this killer is basically a coward—that’s why he has to attack with a drug cocktail that’s so potent it immediately renders his victims powerless. If you remain en masse, you’ll be fine. We’ll be there soon.”

  “I’m glad,” she said softly. “Jake.”

  “Yes?”

  “You know, I was only afraid of you. I never stopped loving you.”

  He was quiet for a minute; she wondered if she had spoken those words aloud.

  “I’ve loved you forever,” he said and hung up.

  Ashley looked at the phone and smiled. Walking back in, she found that Angela was washing dishes at the sink. “Hey,” Angela said. “I was going to bring some tea up to Frazier, but I thought that you might want to.”

  “Yes, thank you. I should sit with him for a few minutes. This has to be taking a terrible toll on him. Not because he isn’t strong at heart, but just because—”

  “He’s in his eighties. The body wears down, and that’s the way it is,” Angela said. “The water is just whistling now. You go on up. We’ll keep at it on the computer.”

  Ashley poured hot water over the leaves in the pot, turned off the stove and added a cup, sugar and milk to her tray. She started through the parlor; Whitney was sitting at the screens again, watching to see if there was any activity in the key areas.

  “Hey, you know anything about this?” she called to Ashley.

  Ashley walked over to her.

  “Amundsen’s Hay—Finest Feed. That’s what that truck says,” Whitney said. “Is that a usual delivery?”

  Ashley shrugged. “Yes, that’s our feed store. When were they here?”

  “Just a few minutes ago. I think the trunk—yep, there it goes, out the drive now.”

  Ashley balanced the tray in one hand and dug her phone from her jeans pocket with the other. She speed-dialed Cliff’s apartment.

  “Hey,” she said, relieved when he answered.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “And hey—as in hay for horses. We just got a delivery? I thought it was due yesterday,” Ashley said.

  “It was, and it came. Seemed we had some kind of a double order. Amundsen’s kid was driving the truck, and somehow it wound up on his books two days in a row. Rather than take back the order, they gave me a fifty-percent discount. I took it. Seemed like the thing to do right now,” Cliff said to her. “That all right?”

  “Of course. That’s always your decision. Those poor creatures would probably die if they had to depend on me.”

  “Ah, Ashley. Our four-legged creatures love you.”

  “Just checking that everything is fine,” Ashley said.

  “Yep. And I’m a big old dude, Ashley. Don’t be worrying about me.”

  She laughed. “You’re not old, and every female who comes out this way winds up with a crush on you. Don’t go fishing for compliments.”

  “Guess I’m just not feeling as if the love is going to come pouring in right now,” he said. “Seriously, all is good. I’m working in the stables. My eyes are open. I’ll holler if I need anything.”

  She hung up. The tea tray was starting to get heavy in her one hand. She shoved her phone back into her pocket and grasped the tray with both hands. “It’s all good,” she told Whitney.

  Whitney nodded and gave her attention back to the screens.

  Ashley walked up the stairs to her grandfather’s room.

  “Hey, Ashley,” he said, opening his eyes when she entered. He’d been lying back on his pillow with his eyes closed. “I told Angela you all didn’t have to bother.”

  “Only so many names for so many of us to try to track,” Ashley said cheerfully.

  He frowned.

  “We think that it all stretches back to something that might have happened with one of the soldiers here linked to the original fight. Something that this latter-day idiot may see as a perceived slight that needs to be rectified.”

  Frazier closed his eyes again. “I didn’t think that anyone would actually be after Charles Osgood,” he said.

  “Poor Charles.”

  “Well,” Frazier told her, opening his eyes and plumping his pillow to rise against it for his tea, “I can say this. Charles was happy. We can be glad we gave him his moment in the sun, brief though it was.”

  “Well, actually, Ramsay gave him his moment in the sun,” Ashley said.

  Frazier smiled and nodded. “I never saw him happy, though. Never until that day.”

  “True,” Ashley said. She was silent for a minute.

  “Grampa, have you ever managed to talk with a ghost?” she asked him.

  His lashes flickered over his eyes, and he was silent for a minute. “Ghosts—are they memories? My life is now filled them, and when we are accustomed to sorrow or loss, we learn to appreciate what shining moments we had. Your father! God, how he loved your mother. Well, you knew that. He’d have never have left you on purpose, but…I try to think that death for him was being with her. And that’s how I find my peace.”

  “That’s beautiful, Grampa.”

  He glanced at her wryly. “Well, it’s all right. In all actuality, I wish we’d known that she was allergic to bees, and that it hadn’t taken such a toll on your dad, and that they were still here with us
. I ache a little every day. But I watch you—and I thank God for what I have.”

  She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “You’re the best.”

  “I like that,” he told her.

  He sipped his tea. “Grampa.”

  He set the cup down on his bedside table and closed his eyes.

  “Grampa?”

  He waved a hand in the air. “Ghosts exist. There. If they can reach you, you are among the lucky. I want there to be ghosts. I want to talk to my son again. I’d love a chance to tell my own father what a good man he was and what a rebellious rotten kid I was. But they’re gone. And if they’re not, they don’t reach out to me. So, I carry on conversations daily in my head. I tell your mother how beautiful you are and how good you are to your old grandfather. I tell your dad how proud he’d be of you. Do they hear me? God knows.

  “Cherish your ghosts, child. Real or in your head. Cherish them. Now, go work with those young people below, and let me get some sleep.”

  She smiled, and sat in the chair at his bedside.

  He opened his eyes again. “What?”

  She laughed. “I just want to be near you for a few minutes.”

  He reached for her hand. She grasped his.

  She sat with him in silence, and in time, she heard his even breathing. He was napping.

  She almost dozed with him herself. Then her cell phone buzzed, and she jumped up quickly, hurrying out to the hall to answer it.

  When she answered it, there was no one there.

  She looked at the caller ID. Beth.

  She dialed back, feeling a sense of relief. Beth had already made it to New York.

  Once again, she got nothing but voice mail.

  She left a message. “Beth! It’s Ashley. I think you’re there, because you called me. But now you’re not answering. Call me. Now you got me worried.”

  She hung up. She found herself looking at the attic stairs. Tempted, she walked up and stood in the room again.

  “You were with me this morning!” she said. “Marshall started my dream, but you were with me this morning. You made me see—but not clearly enough. Please, help me.”

  She realized that dusk was coming, falling softly and surely beyond the garret window, the window from which Emma had watched her beloved Marshall fall in a bayonet attack.