Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  But in reality she hadn’t been fine at all. In trying not to be weak she’d tried too hard to be strong and lost what mattered most: the trust and emotional intimacy of a loving marriage. She’d never told him when something was really important. She’d waited for the right moment to tell him about the baby, when she realized now that the right moment would have been anytime she’d excitedly blurted out her news.

  But after losing the baby, she had simply been too hurt to see clearly and to know what to do. Escape—from both Miami and her marriage—had seemed the only way to erase the pain.

  But he was here now, and she was glad of his reassuring presence, because frankly, she was flat-out scared.

  Of a mannequin?

  Or of a murderer?

  “Curious,” he said when they were outside.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ben Kendall not wearing his hearing aids and watching some shoot-’em-up cop show at the time of the murders. And really, Gwen couldn’t hear anything but Charles?”

  “Do you really think someone at the house could be involved? Maybe the killer just used a silencer,” Scarlet suggested.

  “No silencer, that much I’m sure of,” he said, deep in thought. “So a number of people checked out after it happened, right?”

  She nodded. “I’m sure you can get a list of their names from Trisha.”

  “Good. Brett and the others can interview them. I doubt they were involved, and I don’t blame them for leaving, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be investigated anyway. But, for now, let’s go see this museum of yours.”

  Scarlet unlocked the door and they went on in. She turned on the lights and stood by the door, watching as Diego walked from one end of the room to the other, stopping to study the different figures and look in the display cases.

  “Quite a collection of guns,” he said.

  “It is,” she agreed.

  “We’ll get a locksmith in here this afternoon,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “A locksmith,” he told her. “I don’t know if a mannequin can move on its own or not, but no matter what, I think it will be a good idea to change the locks.”

  “Okay. But we’ll have to tell Ben. Or ask him, really. He does own the place,” Scarlet reminded him.

  “Of course,” he said.

  He had just about finished his walk-through when there was a knock at the door. She turned around to open it, but Diego was at her side before she had a chance to.

  “You don’t just do that,” he said, his tone harsh.

  “It’s broad daylight,” she protested.

  “What? You think people can only be killed in the dark?” he asked, stepping past her and opening the door himself.

  She almost laughed when Brett and the other two agents entered.

  Diego had always been careful, though. Maybe that was part of what had driven the wedge between them. She tended to look for the good in people, while Diego often seemed to expect the worst. It came from what he did, of course, what he saw day in and day out. And when it had come to really thinking about a family…

  Right now she didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to hurt. She needed help, and she was very grateful that Diego was here to provide it.

  She’d never doubted that he would, of course, and that said something right there.

  “Anything?” Diego asked the new arrivals.

  “Nothing new,” Brett said.

  “But Adam is coming in tonight,” Meg said, “and he said that by tomorrow morning we’ll be on the job officially. Adam always knows someone who knows someone else. He’s an amazing man.”

  “Wow. Is that really how it works?” Scarlet asked.

  “Sometimes,” Meg told her. “You’ll love Adam. Everyone does. In fact, that goes a long way toward explaining how he gets things done and why this unit is so successful.”

  Matt looked at Diego. “Have you explained to her who we are?”

  “She knows we’re FBI,” Diego told him. “I haven’t had a chance yet to explain about the Krewe.”

  “The Krewe?” Scarlet murmured, and looked questioningly at him.

  “Brett and I have just joined a special unit within the Bureau,” he explained. “It’s called the Krewe of Hunters, and it deals with the unusual—things that defy logic, things that cross over into the paranormal, the otherworldly. Adam Harrison isn’t only in charge of the Krewe, he’s the man who managed to get it formed in the first place.”

  “Adam has an uncanny ability to find people with extrasensory perception and other abilities that help them deal with the kinds of paranormal threats we face,” Matt said. “For at least a decade, he did it quietly, hiring them to work for him privately. He’s also a major philanthropist and knows most of the major players in government as well as private industry. So a while back he made things official and formed the Krewe of Hunters. The unit keeps growing, inviting new members, because this is a big country, and the evil side of the supernatural just keeps going.”

  “I look forward to meeting him,” Scarlet said.

  “Meanwhile, what do you know about Nathan Kendall and the way he and his wife were murdered?” Matt asked her.

  “Do you want the long or the short version?” Scarlet asked.

  “We’re here for the duration,” Matt told her.

  “Then let’s head up the stairs. You can look at Nathan while we talk about him,” Diego said.

  “Oh?” Meg asked.

  “Come on upstairs and you’ll understand,” Scarlet said.

  She’d half expected that Nathan Kendall would have moved again and was relieved to find that he hadn’t. Maybe he knew she was onto him and this was a good time to behave.

  Diego moved the statue over by the window, then leaned against the wall next to it, while the others settled themselves around the room.

  “Nathan Kendall was a fascinating person,” Scarlet began. “He was born in Virginia and fought under Lee during the Civil War. When the war was over, a number of the men in his company turned to robbing banks and holding up stagecoaches. They only stole from those they considered to be carpetbaggers, out to take advantage of the South while she was on her knees. But when someone was killed during one of their robberies, Nathan wanted out. He headed west and wound up here. He bought this land from a man named Rollo Conway. Conway had been searching for gold with very little success and needed the money. Nathan must have liked the guy, though, since he kept his name for the ranch.

  “At the time, there was a United States marshal living in the vicinity, a widower named Tom Vickers. Nathan fell in love with the man’s daughter. The man didn’t trust Nathan and forbade the marriage, but when the he was out of town, Nathan and Jillian were married anyway. Back then, of course, when a United States marshal was off working, it could be months or years before he got back home. By the time he returned, Nathan and Jillian weren’t just married, they had a baby, Zachary. One night someone tricked Nathan into coming outside, strung him up on a tree and nearly disemboweled him, and when Jillian came running out to his rescue, she was shot and killed. At some point the killer—or killers—decided they were done torturing Nathan, and he was shot, too. Their bodies were found the next day by Rollo Conway, who had come up to see how they were doing.

  “There were a number of suspects, including Marshal Vickers, who hadn’t wanted the marriage, and a number of Nathan’s past affiliates, the men he’d left behind after they killed a man. No one ever discovered the truth. Marshal Vickers, naturally, raised Zachary, who went on to have fourteen children of his own. Ben is one of his descendants, and so is Terry Ballantree, one of the current guests here at the ranch.”

  Just then Brett’s cell phone rang, and it was clear from his side of the conversation that the FBI had come up with some n
ew information.

  “That was HQ,” he said as soon as he hung up. “They found out what Candace and Larry Parker were doing here. They lived in Denver, but they’d never been to Estes Park. They decided to drive up on the spur of the moment and see if they could get a room here at the ranch, so they asked a neighbor to keep an eye on the house and hit the road. And I think you’ll be very interested to know why.” He waited until they were all looking at him, then said, “Because Larry had gone onto one of those ancestry sites and found out that he was a descendant of Nathan Kendall.”

  Scarlet felt a chill settle over her. “So Nathan and Jillian’s great, great, whatever grandchild and his wife were killed in the exact same way that Nathan and Jillian were?” she asked, shock evident in her voice. “Why? Why would someone do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Diego said. “That’s what we have to figure out.”

  “We have to warn them,” Scarlet said. “Ben and Trisha and Terry.” She tried not to think about the fact that she was one of Nathan’s descendants, too.

  “I promise we’ll talk to them,” Brett said. “Right now there’s still a cop out front.” He paused and looked at her in a way that sent a shiver down her spine. “There’s one more thing, and it concerns you.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “When our guys found out about the connection between the Parkers and Nathan Kendall, they ran a computer search. There are about two hundred people living today who can trace their lineage back to Nathan and Jillian Kendall,” Meg said.

  “That’s not surprising, with Zachary’s fourteen children,” Scarlet said. “What does that have to do with me?”

  Brett held her gaze with his for a long moment, then said, “You’re one of them.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Scarlet smiled. “Yes, I know,” she said.

  Her smile deepened as she explained. “That’s part of why I’m here. Ben found that out years ago, when we were both living in New York. That’s why we met. He tracked me down when I was working for the Metropolitan Museum and told me.” She smiled and said, “I studied my whole genealogy after he told me about the connection. Zachary fathered eight boys and six girls. Infant mortality was incredibly high back then, but every one of them survived to adulthood. Must be something in the water out here,” she joked, then went on. “I’ve got it all memorized, dates and married names and everything, so at the risk of boring you… One of the girls, Annabeth, was born in 1890. In 1908, she gave birth to Valerie Banks. Valerie gave birth to Genevieve Osprey in 1930, and in 1949 Genevieve gave birth to Leanne David. Leanne married Anthony Barton, and in 1970 they had my father, Eric.

  “My grandparents and my parents were all born in Florida, so it was quite a surprise to find out my ancestors had moved east when most people were moving west and I actually had roots in Colorado.”

  Yes, she’d known about the connection. It had always been interesting, a fun fact about her family.

  But now, in light of the current murders…

  Now she was worried. No, not just worried. She was flat-out frightened.

  * * *

  Diego saw the expression on her face as she finished speaking and wanted to stride across the room, pull her into his arms and tell her that she didn’t need to worry, that everything was all right, that he would die before he let anything happen to her.

  He resisted the temptation. This wasn’t the time or the place for something so…well, melodramatic. She’d called him for help, scared, but that didn’t change the pain that lay between them.

  And just because he would die for her, that didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t step over his dead body to do her in anyway.

  “Well, it’s good that we all know about your family connection now,” Brett said to Scarlet. “I hate to scare you, but if it has something to do with the killer’s motivation, better safe than sorry, you know?”

  Scarlet shook her head. “I was just about to tell you, actually, once you mentioned the victims’ connection. I don’t mind telling you, I hope it’s just a coincidence that the killer murdered them here on what’s sort of the family property. Just how were they connected anyway?”

  “Larry Parker traced himself back to Lindana Kendall, another one of Zachary’s daughters,” Brett said.

  “We don’t know if it means anything or not,” Matt said, “so there’s no need to worry yet. There’s no way to know whether the killer knew that Larry had a family connection to the ranch, or even that he and Candace would be coming here from Denver. He might have chosen them totally at random. Wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Seriously,” Scarlet said, “if someone was looking to kill a descendant of Nathan Kendall, it would be easy enough to find one. The newspaper made a big deal of it when Ben and Trisha bought the place.”

  “The most likely explanation is either that the Parkers pissed off someone in town, or that the killer chose them for some reason of his own,” Brett said. “Either way, he got them up into the woods somehow, then killed them.”

  “We have to follow up on anything that looks like a lead, though,” Meg said. “Most of the time we go through dozens of possibilities before getting to the truth.”

  “But we’re not big believers in coincidence,” Matt said quietly, “so this connection is something we definitely need to investigate.”

  “Okay,” Scarlet said, barely breathing. “What now?”

  “I was thinking food,” Meg said. “We haven’t eaten all day. We should head into town and find a place that looks good.”

  “Lunch?” Scarlet said. “Really?”

  Diego smiled at that. “Relax, Scarlet. There’s always a hidden agenda. People talk. Business owners, waiters and waitresses, bartenders, other customers.”

  “I’ll grab my bag,” she said.

  “We’re not screwing up your work schedule or anything, are we?” Meg asked.

  Scarlet shook her head. “The museum’s only open Thursday through Sunday. The rest of the time I catalog and research. My time is pretty much my own.”

  She sounded good, Diego thought. Definitely stronger than she had when they’d arrived.

  “So where do you suggest we go?” Meg asked.

  “There are so many great restaurants in town, it’s hard to choose,” Scarlet said. “Estes Park is kind of the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, so it offers pretty much anything you can think of when it comes to restaurants and shopping. What do you feel like eating?”

  “Food,” Matt answered for all of them. “I’ll go down and get our things while you guys decide who’s staying where, and then we’ll get going. We should spread out.”

  “I’m taking the extra room here at the museum,” Diego said.

  “We’ll head into the main house,” Matt said, looking at Meg.

  She nodded.

  “I guess that leaves me in the main house, too,” Brett said. “Though I’d like it better if you had some backup out here, Diego. And Adam can join us in the house when he gets here. There are plenty of rooms, right?”

  “There are seven guest rooms, so you should be fine. There’s also space in the bunkhouse, but I don’t think you’ll need it,” Scarlet said.

  “Brett, let’s go help Matt with the bags,” Meg said, rising.

  A moment later Diego was alone with Scarlet, who was staring thoughtfully at the statue of Nathan Kendall. Then, as if she’d suddenly made a decision, she turned to Diego. “You can just sleep with me,” she said. “That way Brett can take the extra room and we’ll have backup here in the museum.”

  “Scarlet…” he murmured uncomfortably.

  “What? We were married for two years,” she said. “It’s not as if…”

  “As if I’m not going to want you?” he asked quietly.

  “It’s not as if that would
matter,” she said.

  He wasn’t sure what he was feeling—a fever of desire, for one thing. And yet he found himself smiling. “It wouldn’t matter if we had sex?”

  She flushed and met his eyes. “The sex was always great. And it wasn’t that we didn’t care.” She turned away suddenly. “Oh, my God. I wasn’t thinking. I mean, there might be someone else in your life now.”

  “There’s no one else in my life,” he said.

  “Then?”

  “The problem is that it would matter. It would matter to me.”

  “But would it be so horrible?” she asked.

  “Are you actually asking me to sleep with you?”

  “Yes, I’m asking you to sleep with me. Whether that means sleep or…more, that’s up to you. I’m not going to force myself on you.”

  His heart seemed to surge into his throat. She had always been so beautiful, and her honesty, combined with the teasing light in her eyes, had always added to her enchantment. Now her eyes were serious, with only a hint of teasing.

  “It hurt, Scarlet. The divorce, it hurt. I’m still not over it. So I don’t think sharing a bed with you would be a good idea.”

  She winced, looking at the mannequin again. “Please,” she said softly.

  “Because you’re afraid of a statue?”

  She shook her head. “Because I’m just plain terrified. Of everything. I mean, I know I should be strong. And maybe I can be. I’m just not feeling it at the moment.”

  He was so stunned by her words that he was surprised he was able to move. He walked over to where she was sitting, went down on one knee and took her hand. He had to turn this situation into something a little lighter.

  Say no, he told himself. Tell her you’ll sit outside her door all night, waiting and watching. Just say no.

  He couldn’t do it. The single word was beyond him.

  “So now you’re begging me to sleep with you?”