The Unseen

by Heather Graham

Page 4

 

  He wasn’t surprised that he was noticed—and hailed—by many people. He’d spent his life in San Antonio, and he’d been called on during many a “situation” at the riverfront, so he knew a number of bartenders, shopkeepers and restaurant owners. Of course, the tourists and visitors were something else entirely. One teenage boy called out, “Look! It’s Chuck Norris! Hey, Walker, Texas Ranger!”

  He tipped his hat to the kid. No need to make their visitors think Texans weren’t hospitable and friendly.

  He was dressed in standard departmental wear—boots, white hat and gun belt. He was carrying a Colt . 45, his weapon of choice, and a popular gun among Rangers. He guessed that, in a way, he did look like Chuck Norris—or the character he’d played on a long-running TV show. Except, of course, that Norris was blond and light-skinned and he had dead-black hair and hazel eyes. People did stare. There weren’t even two hundred Rangers in the whole state, so he supposed that made his appearance especially interesting for tourists.

  Another reason not to carry out an important meeting in a public place.

  He did, however, recognize the man he was supposed to see, despite never having previously met him. Agent Jackson Crow was seated at one of the tables lining an iron fence that arced right out over the water, a cup of coffee in front of him. He was dressed in a black suit that seemed to scream FBI, to Logan’s mind at least. He wore dark glasses and seemed perfectly comfortable, sitting at ease while he waited for the meeting. Whatever people thought of him, he obviously didn’t give a damn.

  Logan walked straight to the table. Crow was aware of him; he stood.

  “Raintree, I presume,” he said, smiling as he offered his hand.

  Logan shook hands, studying Crow. Yep, Indian blood. He assumed Crow was staring back at him, thinking the same thing. “Yes. I’m Logan Raintree. ”

  “Comanche?” Crow asked.

  “All-American mutt in every way,” Logan told him. “One ancestor was Comanche, one was Apache—and two were European. Norwegian and English. You?”

  “Cheyenne and all-American mutt, as well,” Crow said. “I like the concept of that. Sit, please. Thank you for meeting with me. ”

  “You’re welcome, but I wasn’t really given a choice—I was given an order. ”

  Crow didn’t respond to that. “Coffee?”

  “Coffee sounds good,” Logan said, pulling out a chair. He noted that the table had been set for three. “Someone’s joining us?” he asked.

  “Yes—a U. S. Marshal,” Crow said. “We’ll eat when she gets here. ”

  Logan slowly arched his brows. “All right, what kind of felon, madman or serial killer do we have running around San Antonio?”

  “We don’t know much about him as yet. That’s where you come in,” Crow explained. “And I’m meeting with you first. Marshal O’Brien isn’t due for another half hour or so. ”

  “Doesn’t that mean you have to go through all of this twice?”

  Crow gave him a grim half smile and shrugged. Logan had the feeling that there was always method to his madness, though at the moment, he sure couldn’t tell what it was.

  A leather briefcase lay on the table. Crow reached into it and produced a sheaf of papers—photos, Logan saw.

  He didn’t immediately recognize what he was looking at. At first glance it appeared to be a trash pile, but then, peering closer, he saw human bones beneath the branches, boxes and other refuse.

  He looked back at Jackson Crow. “I wish I could say that a dead body was something unusual,” he said.

  “It’s the circumstances that are unusual,” Jackson murmured. “Here’s another. ”

  The next picture was of a half-decayed body on a gurney in an autopsy room. This was a far more gruesome sight, resembling a creature imagined by a special-effects wizard; the flesh was ripped from most of the jaw and the cadaver seemed to be grinning in a macabre manner.

  “Where was this body discovered? He? She?” Logan asked.

  “She. Both sets of remains belong to women. Both disappeared from the San Antonio area, one a year and a half ago, one about a year ago. Both had made it to San Antonio and were never seen again. Or not alive, anyway,” he added.

  “I’m assuming traces were done on their credit cards, and the usual procedures carried out. ”

  Jackson nodded. “Neither actually checked into a hotel. The bones in the first picture belonged to a young woman named Chelsea Martin—schoolteacher, part-time gemologist. The cadaver on the gurney was once a dancer named Tara Grissom. She worked out of New Orleans. ”

  “Dancer? As in stripper?” Logan asked.

  Jackson shook his head. “She was with a modern dance company. The show she was in closed down and they weren’t due to cast the next show for a few months. She headed out to Texas. According to friends, she was fascinated with the Alamo. She flew from New Orleans to Houston and on to San Antonio, and she was never heard from again after she waved goodbye to the fellow who’d been sitting next to her on the plane. ”

  “What about the other girl?”

  “Similar story. She was a new teacher, and when budget cuts came down, she lost her job. Chelsea Martin left New York City for San Antonio, took a cab straight to the Alamo and wasn’t seen again. ”

  Logan frowned. “I should’ve heard about this by now. ”

  “You probably did. Think about all the missing-persons reports,” Crow said with a shrug. “There are hundreds of them—thousands. Some people go missing on purpose. You have to remember that. Thing is, until you really start digging, you don’t always know if someone’s disappeared on purpose or not. ” He pulled out more sets of pictures. They were all of bodies in various stages of decay. Female bodies.

  Logan frowned at Jackson Crow. “All these corpses—they’re from here?”

  Crow nodded. “Most of these women have yet to be identified. A number of them might have been prostitutes or women living on the edge. When someone doesn’t have family or close friends, there’s no one to hold law enforcement to task once the case has gone cold. We wouldn’t have known about this if an enterprising young officer hadn’t stumbled on the first body in a trash pile—just a block from the Alamo. Don’t look so appalled. No unit of Texas law enforcement has been neglectful in this case. First off, we still don’t know if the cases are related, although studying the way the killer disposed of the bodies, it seems likely. ” He grimaced. “There may be a few who were killed by someone else—someone who happened upon a body-disposal system that has eluded the law—but I believe most of these women met the same killer. They all just disappeared. And of all the corpses and skeletal remains we’ve discovered so far, we’ve only been able to match two of the women to missing-persons reports. ”

  “Are you putting together a task force?” Logan asked him.

  “More or less. I’m putting together a team. ”

  Logan began to feel uneasy. He’d looked up Jackson Crow. He had a reputation for being a crack behavioral profiler; he also had a reputation for running a crew of—for lack of a better term—ghost hunters. Hired by a somewhat reclusive government bigwig, Adam Harrison, he investigated the unusual. To the man’s credit, it seemed that his team generally found real human beings who’d perpetrated the crimes and brought them to justice.

  Still…

  Somehow, he felt Crow knew something about him. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

  “And you want me to be on this team?” Logan asked.

  “We have one special unit working now—a team of six, and six seems to be the optimal number. I’m starting a second team. I don’t just want you to be on the team—I want you to head the team. ”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve had incredible success finding missing people,” Jackson said smoothly.

  Logan didn’t blink. “Logic,” he told Crow. And a little luck…

  “Logic is the most important tool we
have,” Crow agreed. “I’m a man of logic myself. ”

  Logan winced, then said flatly, “You look for ghosts. ”

  “I look for killers,” Crow said, correcting him. He indicated the briefcase. “I have a lot of info on you, too, of course. I know you’re exceptionally talented. ” Crow hesitated, thoughtful for a minute. When he spoke again, it was with both respect and empathy. “And I know that your wife was kidnapped by the brother of a drug runner you put in jail. I know you found her—buried in a pine box. The killer had been playing a game with you, but he screwed up. He didn’t provide enough oxygen. You were able to find her, although no one ever really knew how. You just found her too late. ”

  Logan felt tension seep into his bones. Alana had been gone nearly three years, yet he still couldn’t think about her without a sense of loss and rage burning in his gut. She’d died because he was who he was. She’d been a shimmering spirit of laughter and giving, and she had died because of him. His exceptional talents had been useless.

  Her death had sent him into the hills on a long leave; only a return to the land far from the city had somehow kept him halfway sane.

  Maybe that was why he hadn’t been aware of what had gone on with these missing women. And maybe everyone had overlooked the real and horrendous danger for the reason Jackson Crow had just given him. Sad, but true. Those on the fringes of life were often simply not missed.

  “You have what we need,” Crow told him.

  No, I don’t, Logan thought. I failed the woman I loved.

  “I’m a Texas Ranger,” Logan said, startled by the sound of his own voice, which was almost a growl.

  “Yes. You returned to being a Ranger,” Crow said. “Because you can’t help yourself. You have to work in law enforcement. But, even as a Ranger, you have limitations. I can provide unlimited resources for you. ”