Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  “You’re welcome on the ride anytime,” he told her. “I know you love the horses.”

  “Believe it or not, Ben, I grew up around horses.”

  “South Florida? That’s beach country.”

  “There are lots of horses all over the state,” she said. “I grew up in Davie. We had horses there, and my folks still do.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “So how’s it going? Are you liking the job?”

  “I love it here,” she assured him. “Your collection is amazing. Colts from just about every era from the 1850s onward, Spencer repeating rifles, Smith & Wesson revolvers, Winchesters, you name it. Worth a fortune, if you wanted to sell.”

  He shook his head. “My selling days are over. I’m looking forward to spending every day here, sharing all this with our guests, for the rest of my life.”

  “You’re a happy man,” she said.

  He grinned. “Best wife in the world and this little piece of heaven. How can I not be happy? Looks like you appreciate the place, too.” He nodded toward her camera.

  “I just got a terrific picture of an elk. Big guy with a huge set of antlers.”

  “Can’t bring yourself to say ‘big rack,’ huh?” he teased.

  She laughed. “Honestly, it never occurred to me. One thing we don’t have in Florida are elk. Especially not elk that like to pose for you.”

  “Let me see,” Ben said.

  She produced her camera and hit the little button to show her stored photos.

  Ben took the camera from her with a grin on his face, but his grin froze as he stared at the screen and then at her. “Where the hell were you? What is this?” he demanded, handing the camera back to her.

  Startled, Scarlet took the camera and stared at the screen. There was no bull elk with majestic antlers. It was the same spot, but the picture was of a man. A man hanging from a branch of a mighty oak, blood dripping from his body to the ground.

  She stared at it, stunned.

  “I—I didn’t take this!” she said.

  She hit the button to switch to the next picture. That one showed two people, the same man and a woman, on the ground, tangled together in a pool of blood.

  She flicked backward and saw a picture of the woman while she was still alive, though just barely. A large red stain covered her midriff, her arms were thrown back and her mouth was open in an O of agony and shock. It looked as if a bullet had just ripped through her body.

  Dead people. Her pictures were of dead people.

  She flicked back to the shot of the couple. It was hard to tell exactly which limbs belonged to which person as they embraced in a pool of blood.

  “Honestly, Scarlet, what the hell?”

  “I—I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t take these. I never saw any of this. I—I was right over there,” she said, pointing.

  He looked at her for a moment as if she was severely disturbed. Scarlet looked back at the camera, flicking through the many shots she had taken in search of the elk.

  It wasn’t there anywhere.

  Just the man and the woman…

  Perhaps her stunned expression had an effect on Ben, who asked, “Can a camera be hacked?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “But I just don’t get it. I didn’t see anything like that, and I never would have taken pictures of it if I had.” She shook her head and handed the camera back to Ben, as if she couldn’t bear to touch it.

  Ben studied the camera and scrolled through the shots, then stared at her, frowning. “What did you do that for?”

  “Do what?”

  “Erase them all.”

  “I didn’t erase anything!”

  “Well, they’re gone. I admit your elk is fantastic, but why on earth would you fake pictures of corpses on my property?” Ben said.

  She stared at him, angry now, and totally confused. How could those vile shots have disappeared and the elk have reappeared in their place? “Really, Ben? You think I could do something like that? Because I didn’t take those pictures, and I didn’t erase them, either. I don’t know how they got there, but I had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’m sorry, Scarlet. But they were there, and it was a real shock to see them.”

  He stared at her, puzzled, but she thought he believed her.

  “We should just take your camera in to Marty Decker. He runs a great camera shop in town. I’m sure he can figure out what’s going on. You know, even if it’s just a camera, I think anything and everything can be hacked these days. I wouldn’t even have a computer if we didn’t need the damned thing for the business. Leave it with me. I’ll get it to him, and I’ll make sure he saves your pictures of the elk. They’re really beautiful.”

  “Thanks, Ben,” she told him. “I use computers and cameras all the time while I’m working, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Ben shrugged, then asked, “You going to join us for dinner?”

  She was still offended that he could even think she would do something like that, but on the other hand, she couldn’t really blame him. She forced a smile. “No, I’ve got some paperwork to finish, but thank you for the invitation. You’re sure you don’t mind taking the camera to your friend?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Okay, thanks.” She gave him a little wave and walked away. Terry Ballantree and the Bartons crossed her path, so she paused to say hello, even though she longed to get away and try to sort out what had happened.

  “Scarlet, thanks so much for the tour yesterday,” Terry said. “Any way I can get another look before dinner? I’d love another look at some of those old photos.”

  “We loved it, too,” Gwen said.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourselves,” Scarlet said. “Ben is kind of strict about the museum. It’s only open Thursday to Sunday, and this is Monday, but if you’re all here for a few more days, I’ll ask him if I can take you back through for a private tour tomorrow or Wednesday.”

  “Thanks,” Terry said.

  “That would be great,” Gwen said. She and Charles were both in their twenties, and they almost looked like children playing at marriage, but Scarlet had found them both to be open and friendly. Charles had been a football player at Ole Miss, and Gwen had been a cheerleader. Now he had just started his own law practice. Gwen was blonde and blue-eyed, a perfect contrast to his tall, dark and handsome.

  Terry was a nice guy, too, though his never-ending enthusiasm was a bit exhausting. He was good-looking, with sandy-brown hair and large hazel eyes, a generous mouth and a perfect nose. While he was only medium height, he was in good shape.

  But with her nerves completely frayed right now, she just wasn’t up to dealing with any of them.

  “I’ll talk to Ben and let you know,” Scarlet said, then quickly made her escape. “See you all later,” she called over her shoulder.

  The old storage barn had been given windows sometime at the end of the Victorian era, and though plain shades were drawn over the museum windows, those upstairs boasted pretty drapes.

  Scarlet unlocked the door and stepped inside. The security lights, added to the last of the daylight seeping in, created an eerie glow, but it didn’t bother her in the least. She was in love with the place. Many of the displays were the originals, over a hundred years old, as were the placards they held, written in cursive by a gentle hand almost a hundred and fifty years ago.

  There were life-size figures on pedestals arranged throughout the room, ranging from Ute chiefs in full battle regalia to Yankee and Rebel soldiers, fur trappers, gunslingers and frontier women, along with excellent re-creations of real people like Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir. There were twenty-two of them altogether, the oldest nearly as old as the ranch itself. Her favorite was a Ute woman holding a child and looking skyward. There was
something so beautiful in her expression that Scarlet was certain she had been modeled from life by an artist who adored her.

  The stairs to her apartment were to the far left. A sign hanging from a velvet rope advised No Admittance. She unhooked the rope and walked upstairs.

  The whole second floor was hers. She had a kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom and even a guest room. It wasn’t fancy, but to be honest, she preferred it to the main house, which had been fully renovated to offer the rustic, frontier look guests expected.

  In the main house, the parlor was spacious, and boasted Victorian furniture, period portraits and paintings, and a number of mounted animal heads, all of them at least a hundred years’ old. The dining room offered more massive heads, including a giant moose head that stared down at the large central table, which seated twelve.

  The animal heads actually made Scarlet a little sad, but Trisha had told her that they were part of the tradition of the West and the guests expected them. Even so, Scarlet had never quite gotten used to them, and she had actually declined several meals at the main house because she felt so uncomfortable eating with the dead moose looking down at her.

  Her place, however, was, in her opinion, just as nice as the main house, not to mention it was her own.

  And neither her apartment nor the museum had trophy heads anywhere on the walls.

  The apartment had been recently remodeled and refurbished. The master bedroom held two antique dressers, a washstand with a pitcher and bowl and an antique bed frame that held a very modern and comfortable queen-size mattress.

  Scarlet loved her job here and was enjoying the emphasis on the Civil War, Reconstruction and westward expansion. It was so different from her work in Florida, which had focused on the Seminole Wars.

  She walked into the kitchen and decided to brew tea while debating whether to go into town for dinner. She hadn’t actually left the property in a few days, so getting out and about was probably a good thing to do. She could become reclusive all too easily, she knew.

  She was mulling over the strange pictures on the camera and pouring hot water over a tea bag when she heard a thump.

  It was a loud thump. Loud enough to make her nearly spill scalding water over her hand.

  She quickly set down the kettle and frowned. The sound had come from downstairs, where there shouldn’t have been anyone. She was certain she’d locked the door behind her.

  Unease filled her. There wasn’t even a door between her and the downstairs, something she’d never thought about before.

  She dug in her pocket quickly for her cell phone. After the camera incident, she didn’t want to sound like a paranoid idiot, but she didn’t want to take any chances, either.

  She dialed the main house. “Hey,” she said when Ben picked up, “I’m just checking. Is anyone supposed to be downstairs in the museum? I just heard…something down there.”

  “Not to worry, I’ll be right there,” he told her.

  “I hate to bother you.”

  “It’s a bother of about thirty steps. I’ll see you in two minutes.”

  As soon as Scarlet heard Ben’s key in the door she ran down the steps to meet him.

  He hit the switch that turned on all the overhead lights. “Let’s see what’s up, okay?” he asked.

  “Thanks. I didn’t know—I thought maybe someone was supposed to be in here.”

  He shook his head. “You, Trisha and I have keys. No one else. So what did you hear?”

  “A thump.”

  “A thump. Hmm. Well, let’s look around.”

  The museum consisted of a single large room, with the platform holding Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir right in the middle.

  They began to walk from one end to the other and found one of the frontiersmen on the floor.

  “I’ll be darned. My great-great-whatever fell down,” Ben said.

  “Poor Nathan Kendall,” Scarlet murmured. The mannequin was a handsome one; Nathan’s father-in-law had commissioned it—along with one of his daughter, which had disappeared at some time over the years—because he’d wanted them for his grandchild. Scarlet had never been sure whether she’d thought that was nice or creepy.

  He grinned and hunkered down by the fallen figure. “I guess he wants to be sure we remember him. Well, we should. We’re both his descendants, after all. Give me a hand, will you?”

  Scarlet helped him lift the mannequin. It was heavy, which made sense, since it had been carved from solid wood, then painted with care and dressed in period clothing. She assessed the handsome features for damage, thinking the nose might have been broken in the fall, but it was unharmed.

  “Why would a statue just fall over?” she ventured.

  “Who knows? So much mining went on around here, the earth is always adjusting. You okay?”

  “Of course. The noise just startled me, that’s all.”

  “I should probably install a security system out here. I never really thought that much about it. Locks on the doors. I didn’t even buy a gun and learn how to shoot until a few months ago. They frown on stockbrokers packing heat on the streets of New York.”

  “I know how to shoot,” Scarlet said quietly. “But I don’t own a gun.”

  “That’s right, I forgot. Your ex-husband was a cop.”

  “Agent,” Scarlet said. “Federal agent.”

  “I remember meeting him in New York one time, before you took that job in Florida. He seemed like a nice guy. But…none of my business. His loss is our gain, I say.”

  “He is a nice guy,” Scarlet said. “Sometimes things just don’t work. Anyway, yes, he taught me how to use a gun.”

  “Well, there you go—you’ve got a room full of guns right here,” Ben said. “Of course, half of these are older than the war between the States.”

  “But most of them are in good working order,” she said. “Anyway, I’m fine. I think I’m going to head into town, but I’ll make sure I lock up when I go and when I get back.”

  “’Night, then,” he said and left, locking the door carefully behind him.

  Scarlet looked at the handsome face of Nathan Kendall. He and his wife had both been killed soon after he’d built the place, though their infant son had been spared. No one had ever been brought to justice for the murders. Some believed that the marauders he’d once ridden with had murdered them for revenge. Others said that Nathan’s father-in-law—a United States marshal who had taken over the ranch and raised the child, and who had opposed the marriage—had been responsible. Scarlet hated to think that a father might have killed his own daughter, but she knew that such things still happened to this day.

  Back then, there had been no way to find the killer or killers. Forensic science had barely existed, and this little plateau had been truly isolated. Estes Park had been a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and The Stanley had yet to rise on the mountaintop across the way.

  “You behave,” she told the statue, wagging a finger at it. “I’ve been here two months and you’ve been good so far. Keep it up. I’m going out, and I don’t want to find that you’ve messed up the place when I get back, okay?”

  She ran upstairs and grabbed a sweatshirt and her shoulder bag, then went back down.

  She looked around the museum before leaving. Everything was quiet, just as it should have been.

  But she was still spooked by the fallen mannequin.

  Maybe it bugged her so much because it had come right after she’d seen those horrible pictures on her camera. Could a camera be hacked? She simply didn’t know.

  She did know that she hadn’t taken those pictures.

  If only Diego was here, maybe she wouldn’t feel so uneasy.

  But Diego wasn’t with her. She had made that choice, and now…

  She regretted it every day.

&n
bsp; But this was her life now. And she loved Estes Park and the museum and the Conway Ranch. Okay, a mannequin had fallen over. No biggie. Maybe someone had bumped into it the other day and it had been unsteady ever since, so her walking around upstairs was all it had taken to tip it over.

  And the pictures…

  Ben had undoubtedly been right. She’d been hacked or tricked or played for a fool, somehow. She had just bought it on impulse at the electronics shop at the Miami airport, so some jerk there had probably fooled with it.

  But how would anyone at the airport have known that she would be staying in the mountains, much less right here at this very ranch? She was certain she hadn’t said anything.

  She let out a groan of self-disgust.

  Getting shaky over this was ridiculous.

  Scarlet stepped outside and started to close the door, but she paused and looked back, then said, “You all behave in here, do you understand me? I’m your best friend, preserving your history for posterity, so you need to listen to me, okay?”

  Naturally, the mannequins did not reply.

  She closed and locked the door and headed for her car, determined to think only about which restaurant to choose in town.

  CHAPTER 2

  “The invitation will always stand,” FBI agent Brett Cody said, glancing over at Diego. “I’ve got to say, amigo, you’re the best partner I’ve ever had. So,” he added, “even if you don’t accept right now, we’ll always want you in the Krewe. And that really means something. No one gets into the Krewe by asking—it’s invitation only.”

  Diego looked over at his partner. Brett was finishing out his last day at the Miami field office; he’d transferred in to the FBI’s Krewe of Hunters—the elite unit that investigated crimes that crossed over into the supernatural—when they’d closed a recent major case, a series of “zombie” murders that had rocked Miami.