Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 5

by Heather Graham

  CHAPTER 17

  It was getting late. Diego saw to it that the guests left—escorted—and got rooms at a brand-new name-brand hotel down by the highway. Lieutenant Gray promised that officers would be assigned to watch both couples and Terry Ballantree, tracking their movements 24/7. He shook his head like a sad old bulldog when he took his leave. “Hope you know what you’re doing, Agent McCullough. Hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Lieutenant Gray, I always hope that myself,” Diego said drily.

  After Linda, Ben and Trisha went up to bed, Diego joined Matt and Meg, who had returned to the main house, along with Adam and Jane. They sat up late, discussing the events of the night and their plan to keep watch through the hours ahead.

  “I was here most of the day, and other than Ben, I didn’t see anyone in the dining room,” Adam told them. “It would have taken a while to set up such an elaborate weapon, so my money is on it having been in place for a while.”

  “Yes, but until today,” Jane said, “no one knew we were going to have a séance.”

  “True,” Diego admitted, “which means whoever rigged that moose head was playing the long game.”

  “And that points to Ben,” Adam said.

  “Too conveniently?” Matt suggested.

  Diego turned to Adam. “Scarlet believes that Nathan Kendall was killed by Rollo Conway, the original owner of this property. She thinks Rollo was bitter about having to sell, certain that Nathan had found the gold Rollo had spent years looking for with no luck. Rollo never found anything worthwhile on his other property, so it must have burned him up to think Nathan had gotten rich on what should have been his gold. So Rollo tortured Nathan to get him to give up the location of the gold. I think Rollo wore the burlap bag over his head to look like one of the thugs Nathan had ridden with. He probably didn’t know they were all dead at that point. If that theory’s true, our killer might not have any connection to Nathan Kendall, he might be distantly related to Rollo Conway. Can we get our researchers on that?”

  “I’ll make the call now,” Adam said.

  “I think it’s about three in the morning back East,” Diego said.

  “The Krewe never sleeps,” Adam said lightly.

  Meg grinned at Diego. “Our tech office is staffed 24/7—just waiting to hear what we might need.”

  “Nice,” Diego said.

  The Krewe of Hunters. He liked it. What the hell had he been thinking, not to jump right on immediately with Brett?

  He’d been thinking that if he just stuck to his comfortable life in Miami and worked hard, somehow he would learn to live, really live, again without Scarlet.

  “Do you think we’ll find out that someone in our suspect pool is a descendant of Rollo Conway?” Matt asked.

  Diego mulled that over for a moment. “I don’t know. But there’s real logic to the theory, so let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I keep wondering if we should have cleared this place out at the start,” Adam said.

  “I don’t think we’d have saved any lives,” Diego said. “In fact, I think we would have made it easier for the killer to search this place for the gold or whatever it is he’s after, and that he still would have killed people, because that’s his cover for what he really wants. Anyway, I’m hoping we scared our killer tonight, and a scared killer makes mistakes.”

  “Ready to run, or do something desperate because he believes the ghost really saw something and Scarlet knows what it is?” Jane asked.

  “Except that if she does know something, it seems pretty clear she has no idea what it is,” Meg said thoughtfully.

  “I have no idea whether she knows anything or not,” Diego said, “but after tonight everyone will think she does, and I have to admit that worries me.”

  “We’re missing something—something we should know from the journals,” Jane said.

  Diego nodded, feeling his throat tighten. “I need to get back,” he said huskily.

  “Brett and Lara are at the apartment with her, and the alarm is set. She’s all right,” Meg said firmly.

  “I know. I just need to get back anyway,” Diego said.

  “Go,” Adam told him.

  Diego nodded. He headed for the door and then paused. “Tomorrow I’m going to talk to Lieutenant Gray about taking Ben and Trisha in.”

  “So now you do think they’re guilty?” Jane asked.

  “No. I think they’re innocent. But I think they’re in danger—just as Scarlet and Terry and Gray himself are—and making it look like we suspect them is the best way to protect them. Ben will understand if you explain it and if it means he’s helping the investigation, not to mention I think he’s finally realized his wife might be in danger, too.”

  “What about Linda Reagan?” Meg asked.

  “I think she bears watching,” Adam said.

  Diego nodded.

  “Then we’ll watch her,” Jane said.

  “See you in the morning,” Adam said to Diego.

  “In the morning,” he agreed, then left.

  He was ready to reach for his Glock as he walked toward the museum.

  He looked over at the stables. The drapes were open, and he could see Angus sitting in his chair, probably watching television. His shotgun was at his side.

  Diego reached the museum and was ready to key in the alarm code as soon as he opened the door, but he didn’t need to. The door opened and Scarlet was there, with Brett and Lara right behind her.

  Scarlet blushed slightly. “We just wanted to make sure you got in safely,” she said.

  Behind her, Brett shrugged. Diego knew his partner well. The shrug meant, What was I supposed to do? She was worried about you, and I wasn’t about to let her come down here alone—or leave Lara upstairs alone.

  “Thanks. I’m safe, I promise. Now we’re locking up, going through the whole place and getting some sleep,” he told her, then looked at Brett.

  “I’ve checked, but it never hurts to check again.”

  “Nathan was here,” Scarlet said, following close behind him as the four of them walked through the museum.

  Diego stopped short and turned to face her. “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t move the statue of himself upstairs, but we knew that. He did knock it over, though. And, Diego, he did find gold, and that’s why his killer was torturing. He wanted to know where it was. Nathan would have given it to him, too, but he didn’t know where it was himself. He would have done anything to protect Jillian, except that he’d given her the gold to hide for the future, for their son. Oh! And his killer wore a burlap bag over his head, just like our killer. I told him I thought it was Rollo, and why—did Matt and Meg explain when they got up to the house?”

  Diego nodded. “They did.”

  “Good. Anyway, I think Nathan agrees with me about Rollo, even though he never saw his killer’s face and didn’t recognize his voice.”

  “We’re tight as a drum down here,” Brett said.

  “Good. Let’s try to get some sleep,” Diego said.

  They headed upstairs, where, by rote, he and Brett went through the apartment, even though someone had been there all night.

  In the hallway, they said their good-nights and went to their separate rooms.

  The minute the door was closed behind them, Scarlet turned into his arms. There was a sweet rush of urgency about her. They didn’t speak as they struggled out of their clothing, and when they fell into bed, he thought he might drown in the silk of her flesh and the fall of her hair. The night was electric. They should have been exhausted after everything that had happened, but they made love as if it might be the last time, as if the earth might open and take them away with the morning’s light.

  As in fact he feared it might.

 
After they climaxed, when they lay replete, Scarlet didn’t speak and he thought that she might have fallen asleep, curled against him, her head on his chest, one long leg draped over his body. He thought about their marriage and the way it had been destroyed, and he wondered again how they had managed to tear each other apart so completely.

  And then she spoke.

  “I understand now,” she said softly. “I understand how you can’t walk away from a case like this.”

  “No. It’s not right—it will never be right—for a job to take precedence over a marriage,” he said. “Most people would have thrown me out long before you did.”

  She sat up and looked down at him, a hand on his chest. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not most people.” She grinned slightly. “Though I might have been stupid and acted as if I was.”

  He only meant to hold her, but the minute he pulled her into his arms the urgency returned, the feeling that they had to cling tightly to one another because the cataclysm was coming and it would try to pull them apart.

  They made love again. Afterward, when she curled up against his side, he held her close and they slept.

  Diego began to dream, and in his dream the old Cuban refugee woman was back. She walked up to him through a sunlit field, and he realized he was standing on the mountain, and in the distance he could see the Rocky Mountains tipped with brilliant, sparkling snow.

  “You’re a good man,” the old woman said. “But sometimes that isn’t enough. You have to listen, listen with your soul. Only then will you know how to survive.”

  She smiled as she stopped speaking and faded into the sunlight. He stood on the mountain alone as a chill breeze began to blow, flattening the grass around him. In seconds the daylight was gone and it was full night. The white mountaintops began to move closer, but they weren’t mountain peaks dazzling with snow anymore.

  They were gravestones.

  He woke with a start and realized that his phone was vibrating under his pillow.

  It was Lieutenant Gray.

  “They’ve lost Charles Barton,” he said without so much as a hello. “My men watched the damned hotel all night and never saw him leave, but his wife called us this morning, crying hysterically, saying he was gone. I’ve got her down here right now. You want to come talk to her? She’s a mess—certain the killer got hold of him somehow.”

  * * *

  Scarlet was still feeling the effects of a very deep and comfortable sleep when Diego woke her to tell her what was going on.

  Charles Barton had eluded the police, and they were torn between suspecting that he was a victim, or the killer. Gwen was a basket case down at the station, and Diego was going down to question her. He explained that he was going to take Ben and Trisha down with him, which the group had decided on the night before.

  Linda had gotten dressed and gone out very early; Jane and Adam were following her. Meg and Matt were watching Angus, while the police were still assigned to keep an eye on Terry and the Levins.

  Scarlet said she would be fine with Brett and Lara, but he promised that if he was going to be detained long at the station, he would send someone to pick her up and bring her down to be with him.

  She nodded vaguely when he left her.

  She started to drift back to sleep and then woke with a start. She looked around, suspicious that someone was in her room, but it seemed to be empty. Still, she decided to shower and dress, then head into the kitchen.

  Company would be good right now.

  The company of the living.

  She found Brett and Lara at the kitchen table. They’d brewed coffee, and cereal, milk and juice were on the counter. Lara was working on her laptop, and Brett was pacing back and forth by the window that looked out on the stables.

  Lara grinned at Scarlet and told her in a whisper, “He hates sitting around watching. He’s an action kind of a guy.”

  “I heard that,” Brett said. “And I’m absolutely fine.”

  “We’re supposed to stay right here, right?” Scarlet asked.

  “Unless there’s a compelling reason to be somewhere else,” Brett said. “If there is, I let Diego know I’m taking eyes off the stable, then stick to you like glue. He’s really afraid for you, Scarlet. You know that. And he’s not being overprotective. You are in danger here.”

  “I know that,” she assured him. “Want to help me help you?” she asked.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “The morgue. I’d like to go to the morgue.”

  * * *

  “I don’t know what happened!” Gwen said. “I was having one of my headaches, so I took a pill—like the one I took the night the Parkers were killed. When I take those pills, I don’t hear anything. I’m so afraid. Charles has been acting so strange. He’s afraid—and he has a right to be. I mean, we’re not used to wide-open spaces and people carrying guns everywhere.”

  She was sitting across from Diego in an interrogation room, though everyone had tried to make the place comfortable for her. She had a cup of coffee right in front of her, and a plate of Danishes sat untouched nearby.

  She stared at him. “Fat lot of good you all have done us. He disappeared—even though there was a patrol car right outside the hotel. Someone came in and kidnapped him right out from under the cops’ noses.”

  “Gwen, I can’t help but feel that there’s something you’re not telling me,” Diego said. He waited a moment and then added, “It’s very unlikely that kidnappers walked into that hotel, then managed to walk out with your husband without being seen.”

  “Well, he was there, and then he wasn’t. Obviously he left somehow.”

  “That’s true,” Diego agreed, “but it’s easier to slip out unnoticed than it is to be forced or dragged out with potential witnesses everywhere.”

  Gwen gasped. “You think that Charles…! But I told you. Charles and I were together at the Conway Ranch when the Parkers were killed.”

  “And you had taken one of your pills that night,” he reminded her. “You just told me that they knock you out and you don’t hear a thing. How do you know where your husband was?”

  “I had taken a pill,” she murmured thoughtfully. “But…he’s my husband.” She sat back, her cheeks burning, stared at him for a moment and then looked down at her hands. “I’d know, wouldn’t I?” she asked, her voice breathy. “I’d know if my husband was a homicidal maniac. Wouldn’t I?”

  He realized that the last question was a plea.

  “Has he been behaving lately as if he was…a different man?” Diego asked.

  She looked away from him, staring at the wall as if it was a window and she was looking out. A little sob escaped her.

  “Not until we got to the Conway Ranch,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 18

  Scarlet had never been to a morgue before; to be honest, she’d never thought she ever would be.

  She’d certainly never thought she would ask to go to one.

  She hadn’t expected the reception area to resemble a doctor’s office. But to everyone who worked there—photographers, technicians and office staff, as well as the MEs—it was just the place where they went every day to earn a paycheck and everyone was pleasant. While they waited to see Dr. Robert Fuller, she eavesdropped as the staff talked about family and friends and plans for the weekend.

  Life always went on, she thought. Even when you were surrounded by the dead.

  Diego had been silent when she’d told him that she wanted Brett to take her to the morgue. For a moment she’d been afraid he would use his authority as lead agent and forbid her to go.

  But while she was certain he wasn’t happy about it, he hadn’t protested. He’d warned them that Charles Barton had disappeared despite police surveillance, and that the man’s own wife had admitted to being unaware
of his whereabouts during the time of the Parkers’ murders. But, he’d pointed out, whether Charles Barton was a victim or the killer, someone was still out there. She needed to be careful at all times.

  Brett assured him that they would be careful. And then he, Lara and Scarlet had set the alarm, locked up and headed out.

  Scarlett was impressed with Dr. Fuller when she met him. He was young and bright and enthusiastic. He was also curious that Brett wanted Scarlet to see Candace and Larry Parker’s bodies, but given that she was in the company of a federal agent, he didn’t object to letting her in.

  She realized that for some reason she’d expected the medical examiner to be older, matter-of-fact if not actively chilly, and definitely a bit strange.

  Instead, Dr. Robert Fuller seemed like a regular guy. A regular guy whose job involved corpses on a daily basis.

  “Have they found that murder weapon yet?” Fuller asked Brett.

  “You mean the 1849 Colt pocket percussion revolver,” Scarlet said. His look of surprise prompted her to continue. “I’m the curator of the historical museum at the Conway Ranch. And just such a weapon disappeared from our collection.”

  “So I’m right!” Fuller said, pleased.

  “Yes.”

  “Hot damn,” he said. “I do historical reenactments, so if you’re ever interested, let me know. We have several events coming up.” Then he blushed, as if realizing that he was digressing, and said, “Well, come with me. Mr. and Mrs. Parker are shelved at the moment. Lieutenant Gray hasn’t released the bodies yet, since the investigation is still open.”

  They accompanied him down a hallway to what looked like a safety deposit vault with very large boxes. He checked the notepad he pulled from his pocket, escorted her over to one drawer and opened it.

  Candace Parker lay there, a sheet covering her so that only the top of the Y incision made at the autopsy was visible.

  Scarlet wondered how people ever said that the dead looked as if they were asleep. They didn’t look as if they were asleep, because sleep implied life and color and breath. The dead had none of those things, and no one with eyes would ever mistake them for anything but the corpses they were.