Darkest Journey

by Heather Graham

  “So how are you doing?” he asked her quietly. “Other than stumbling across a dead man.”

  She smiled. “Good. Thanks. In a nutshell, college, performing-arts major, some theater, some webisodes, a few nicely paying commercials. I’ve really been enjoying filming here. I love the project, love that we’re all a part of the production as a whole—and glad to be home again. I don’t get here often—not on purpose or anything. It’s just I’ve been living in New Orleans, because that’s where most of the work is. But it’s great being here, because I get to see more of Dad, though the Journey’s home port is NOLA, so I get to see him when he’s in town. I’m talking too much. Sorry. How about you?”

  He shrugged and smiled. Talking too much? She’d managed to cover ten years in a pretty compact nutshell.

  “College, service, master’s degree, FBI Academy, a few years with a regular unit, and now the Krewe of Hunters.”

  “I heard.”

  He nodded. “So I gather. You’re friends with Alexi Cromwell and Clara Avery, right? You’ve all worked together in New Orleans?”

  “Yes, in Godspell,” Charlie agreed. “Alexi was the musical director, Clara and I were in the show. They’re both from the NOLA area. And I saw the news about what happened on the Destiny and the Fate, and how they were involved... So I knew from them what you’d been up to and the work you’re doing now.”

  He nodded. “I know about some of your work, too.” He grinned. “I’ve seen you on that new cop series they film in NOLA.”

  “It’s just a recurring role right now, but I keep hoping that I’ll get upgraded to series regular,” she said lightly.

  “I especially liked that condom commercial you did.”

  “Hey. I made good money on that!”

  At that, he took off his glasses, and they both laughed softly.

  Then the laughter faded, and they were left staring awkwardly at each other.

  Business, he reminded himself. He was here on business. To break the tension he said, “Okay, so our head honcho is getting me on the task force looking into the murders, but in the meantime, want to bring me up to speed on what happened the other night?”

  She nodded somberly. “I didn’t know anything about the first murder until one of my friends on the film told me about it after we finished shooting for the day. Apparently the information hit the news after I left for the set, and I’d been blocking and rehearsing and filming all day long.” Her face lit up. “It’s really a good movie, Ethan. I think you’d like it. Brad’s captured the flavor of the Civil War era in the historical scenes, a real sense of what people were thinking and feeling. There’s a great scene with one of the ghosts. He talks about the way a man’s home state was everything to him back then. You get a real feel for people, and why they did what they did. And the soldiers... Did you know they would throw away their pipes and playing cards before they went into battle, anything it might have upset their families to find if they were killed. Of course, the movie’s really about our present day—ecologists, big oil, and the need to preserve the land while also making sure that people have jobs and can afford to eat.”

  Ethan nodded, loving how passionate she was about the project. “I’m sure it’s going to be a great movie. But what I need to know now is what happened to you last night.”

  “Right, last night.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’m never in that area without remembering, you know? I’m not afraid, not usually, despite what happened out there. I mean, the whole unhallowed ground thing doesn’t matter to me, because...because too many people were buried there just because they weren’t from here or up to local standards at the time, or whatever. But then I heard my name being called. I don’t really know if it was the murdered man calling me or if it was Anson McKee—Captain McKee, the cavalry commander who led you to me back when I was stupid enough to think I wanted to be a Cherub.” She let out a breath. “But I found him. Farrell Hickory, I mean. Brad called the police, and the rest you know.”

  “I gather both men performed aboard the Journey,” Ethan said.

  Charlie nodded, looking around. “Most reenactors own their own uniforms, swords and other props. So when someone’s looking for actors to fill specific historical roles, they can find the people they need easily enough, and the same people end up working together a lot. Friends of mine do it for fun—and for pay, when they can. They filmed a Civil War epic down near Houma not that long ago, and a lot of my friends worked as extras and made nice money at it.”

  “Right. So we need to find out who has a grudge against one or both men, who else was on the ship when the victims were, who might have been fighting with whom....” He sighed. “Hell, maybe some idiot just decided to refight the Civil War.”

  “It’s not some idiot refighting the war. The victims represented both sides of the conflict. If you were a bitter Confederate, you’d kill Union men. And if you lost a relative fighting for the Union during the war, you’d want to bring down the Confederates.”

  “It’s not race. One man was half black, and the other one was white,” Ethan said. “But they were both in that reenactment on the Journey, so my gut tells me it has to go back to that somehow.”

  “Maybe someone on the Journey had a fight with both of them,” Charlie said.

  Ethan shrugged. He still had a lot of investigating ahead of him. It was much too early to settle on any one theory. He’d just gotten to town—and he’d headed straight out to see Charlie. He didn’t ask himself why that had seemed like the most important thing to do.

  Now he’d seen her.

  And while so much was different after a decade had passed, everything he felt about her was just the same.

  “I have to meet with the police and find out what they know,” he said.

  “Can I go with you?”

  “No, not this time, anyway. Besides, when I was headed up here, I overheard you telling your father you were going straight home.” When she looked as if she might object, he added, “Charlie, this doesn’t really involve you, you know.”

  “Neither did the last murder,” she said sharply.

  Once again they looked at one another in silence, and he thought back to that night in the graveyard.

  She’d found the bracelet; he’d called the police. He’d known it would be important for them to know exactly where the bracelet had been found, so he’d insisted on waiting there until the cops arrived.

  Restless, Charlie had gotten up and perched on a headstone, while he’d walked off and leaned against a tree. Neither one of them had seen the killer when he’d come, searching for the bracelet, his trophy from his last victim. Then something, a rustle, a whisper, a movement—maybe even the Confederate officer who had led him to Charlie—had alerted him, and he’d turned just in time to see a man bearing down on Charlie with a raised butcher knife.

  Luckily for him, the killer was nothing but a coward with a knife—a sick little bastard who didn’t even put up a fight when Ethan tackled him. He screamed and cried like a baby when Ethan brought him down, knocking the knife from his hand.

  By the time the police arrived, the killer had been caught.

  He and Charlie had been credited with bringing him down.

  Charlie had quit the Cherubs and sworn she would never have anything to do with such a ridiculous organization again.

  And Jonathan Moreau had despised Ethan ever since. He said a real man would have gotten Charlie to safety, not made her stay anywhere near the site of a murder when the killer could return at any moment. Charlie had almost been killed, and as far as he was concerned, that was entirely Ethan’s fault.

  Charlie’s mother, on the other hand, had applauded the fact that his quick thinking and determination had saved Charlie.

  And Charlie herself...

  She’d visited him once after he’d gone back to college
. They’d talked a lot about seeing the dead. They’d wondered why some spirits stayed and others didn’t, wondered why, when loved ones died, the living rarely got to speak with them. They agreed that they would never fathom it, not while they were here on earth. They’d come so close....

  And then he’d made her leave.

  He hadn’t wanted to. Even at sixteen, she was already elegant as well as beautiful. Some might have said that a three-year age difference wasn’t enough to make him give up the attraction—intellectual as well as physical—that sparked between them.

  But in his mind, it wouldn’t have been right; she was still a kid, still in high school. He was grown and out of the house, already in college.

  Not to mention that he couldn’t help thinking maybe her father had the right to hate him.

  Looking at her now, he realized she’d grown even more beautiful, even more elegant.

  “The killer was caught and tried, and it was all over and done with quickly, Charlie,” he said.

  “Really? Quickly? It still haunts me,” she said. “I’d really like to go with you to talk to the police, now that it’s all happening again.”

  “Do me a favor,” he said after a moment. “For now, just do what you told your father you would and go home, okay? I’ll let you know if I learn anything after I’ve had a chance to talk to Randy.”

  “Randy?”

  “Randall Laurent, the detective heading up the case. He’s an old friend, so I’m hoping things will go smoothly between us.”

  “I can’t imagine they won’t. I only vaguely remember him from school. Like you, he was three years older—a huge difference back then—and I know you were both on the football team. He seemed like a decent man when I talked to him last night. He wanted all the facts, but he was very understanding about asking. I guess he knew I was pretty much in a state of shock.”

  “That sounds like him,” Ethan agreed. He wished her eyes weren’t so blue. And that she wouldn’t look at him the way she was, as if he’d become a stranger.

  She walked past him, moving toward the path down to the road. They still hadn’t touched, but he could smell her perfume, something as light as air and yet inexplicably provocative.

  “Charlie?”

  She waved to him without turning around. “I’m going home. Call me when you’ve got something.”

  Ethan watched her go. She might be going home now, but he had a very strong feeling that she wasn’t going to stay there.

  With a soft groan he decided to locate Laurent and find out everything he knew about the victims and whatever they’d pieced together about the killer.

  Charlie just might be investigating on her own, relying on that special talent of hers.

  And that could prove very dangerous.

  * * *

  Charlie paced the old house her dad owned just on the outskirts of St. Francisville. It was a wonderful old place, built sometime right before the start of the Civil War. It wasn’t a plantation house and had never been a working farm. It had been built by a man who had worked the riverboats, which made it a perfect fit for her father, with his passion for history and his current position on a riverboat himself. It wasn’t a large place, but there had always been enough room for their family, with three bedrooms upstairs plus a living room, dining room, office and library/family room—and modern kitchen—downstairs. Each bedroom had a fireplace, as did the living room. It was furnished with a mishmash of antiques that somehow worked, and her dad knew the origin of each piece of furniture. Only the big-screen television and entertainment center were new.

  She loved her home....

  Loved to remember her mom working in the kitchen or the seasonal flower beds she was so proud of. The sense of loss remained, of course, but Charlie thought both she and her dad had adjusted well, loving the memories and embracing them, but also finding satisfaction, even joy, in the lives they led now.

  Right now, though, she didn’t want to be home. She didn’t want to care for her mother’s flowers, look through scrapbooks or even learn lines for her upcoming scenes. She didn’t want to read or catch a movie on Netflix, not when two people had been murdered and either a newly dead man or a long-ago ghost had called out to her by name. She felt connected to this case, compelled to do something to help solve it, but Ethan had sent her home instead, leading to her current restless frustration.

  Ethan.

  She really didn’t want to think about Ethan, which was pretty much impossible, seeing as she was the one who had asked him to come back and look into this case. Because while she wasn’t afraid of graveyards—or even the dead, when it came to that—she was afraid. Something very bad was on the horizon.

  No, very bad things had already happened!

  And she knew he would help with the situation, because she could tell him things, like the fact that she’d heard a dead man call her name, things she couldn’t possibly tell the police.

  She just wished he’d turned stodgy and perhaps developed a giant beer belly.

  No, she didn’t wish that, she just wished...

  Wished she didn’t still find him so incredibly compelling.

  She told herself to forget about Ethan for now.

  Which was next to impossible when the rest of the day seemed to stretch out boringly forever, even if it was actually more than half over and so far talking to him had been the best thing in it.

  She couldn’t help marveling at the speed with which he’d arrived; she’d talked to Clara last night, telling her what had happened, but she hadn’t reached Krewe headquarters until this morning.

  She would definitely go crazy if she kept thinking about Ethan—and the dead.

  She had to get out.

  She hadn’t lied; she’d come home just as she’d promised. Ethan couldn’t possibly object if she hung out with other people and made sure she was never alone, could he? She quickly texted Brad.

  Going crazy. Need any help on set? she wrote.

  A few minutes later, he texted her back.

  Always. Left the field to the cops. Filming at Dad’s office downtown—he donated the space. Come on in. Help with mikes and lighting.

  She quickly responded On my way, then grabbed her bag and keys, and headed out. It didn’t take her more than a few minutes to reach the downtown office building Brad’s father owned. The security guard downstairs, whom she’d known since she was a child, greeted her by name. He immediately directed her to the second floor, where Brad was filming in the back conference room.

  She waited outside in the quiet hallway before she heard Brad call “Cut!” Then she knocked and went in. There was no crowd of extras on hand for this scene, just Jennie with her makeup box, Mike Thornton with his camera, Luke Mayfield handling sound, Barry Seymour for lighting and George Gonzales keeping an eye on continuity. The only two actors in the room were those playing the oil-company exec and the senator, Harry Grayson and Blane Pica. And Jimmy Smith was standing on the sidelines, observing.

  Despite the unexpected interruption in his planned shooting schedule, Brad was going with the flow. He beckoned her over as she entered. She waved to the others and walked toward him. Brad immediately invited her to watch the footage he’d just shot.

  She looked into the camera as he replayed the latest scene. Afterward she looked over at Harry and Blane, and smiled. “Great stuff. Do you two sound scuzzy or what?”

  “Thanks,” Blane said, accepting the compliment with a pleased nod. He was from New York, and had been a couple of years ahead of Charlie and Brad at Tulane. He was heavyset, though a lot of his weight was muscle, and he was slightly balding, making him a perfect movie villain. Harry, on the other hand, was older, a seasoned actor Brad had met when working on a music video in New Orleans for a major producer. He was thin and wiry, with a sharp face that usually wore a pleasant smile
unless the part called for something else. When he chose to, he could do grim and threatening very well.

  The scene Brad had just shot came before the one he’d finished the other night, when the two men had been chasing her, ready to kill her because she’d discovered their plans.

  “They only look good because of the great lighting,” Barry said teasingly. The actors only rolled their eyes.

  “Yeah, right. Everyone goes to see a movie for the great lighting,” Jennie said drily.

  “Actually, sometimes they do. They just don’t know it,” Barry said. “Lighting can be everything.”

  Brad cleared his throat. “Movies really belong to the director. All film buffs know that.”

  “Go ahead and delude yourself,” Mike teased. “Real aficionados know the cameraman is everything.”

  “Think what you want. I know what really matters,” Luke said, waving one hand dismissively. “Ever since the ‘talkies,’ sound has been the heart and soul of a film.”

  “I don’t even pretend people come to see who the makeup artist was,” Jennie said.

  “Or the prop master,” George put in. “But if you want my opinion, I say we stop this ridiculous conversation and head out for something to eat—and a beer.”

  “But I just got here to help,” Charlie said.

  “Too late. You can help us choose a restaurant,” George said. “What’s the cool place to see and be seen in St. Francisville these days? Or, even better, relax and have a great, hassle-free meal?”

  Charlie thought of Mrs. Mama’s, a local café tucked away on a side street, where they could order some of the best shrimp and grits she’d had anywhere. “I know just the place,” she said.

  Twenty minutes later they were seated, and a waitress was hurrying over to them. Charlie was looking at her menu when she realized the waitress was standing behind her, waiting for her drink order.

  “What will you have, honey? Beer? Iced tea?”

  Charlie turned and started to speak, and then she gasped softly and said, “Nancy? Nancy Deauville?”