Krewe Of Hunters: Haunted Destiny Part 8

"He was really here," she said softly. "Sometimes...well, I think it takes a tremendous amount of energy to appear so...completely and to talk and... He'll be back."

He didn't say anything.

He should have thanked her. He didn't.

Nodding curtly, he turned and left her room.

There were a few things, unusual things, in his past-like the dead appearing to him-and he was going to have to deal with it all, the then and the now.

Cruise ships tended to be happy places.

The cruise line did everything possible to ensure that guests were happy; music played constantly, most of it live. Frenetic tour directors carried on bingo parties, pool parties, disco parties and more.

And in the Caribbean, the sun shone down on sparkling water most of the time, shimmering as if the sea were scattered with diamonds. On the Destiny, people seemed to be complying with the cruise "regulation" that they have fun.

Jude needed to go talk to Jackson.

But for a few minutes, he had to be alone, hoping the sweet-salt breeze would wash away the heavy fog of darkness that had settled over his mind.

He left the crew's quarters, mounting the richly carpeted steps from floor to floor until he reached the top deck and walked aft, leaned against the rail and let the sun soak into him while the breeze swept around him. Neither had any effect on the chill that seemed to have crept into his bones.

Once, in the military, he'd believed that he was experiencing PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Later in his life he'd used the very situation that sometimes made him think he was crazy to become a crack field officer with the bureau. Only he called it "intuition." Or talked about "hunches" and "gut feelings" to explain his success at solving crimes.

The Caribbean still rippled with that diamond effect, but Jude stared into a haze of dusty darkness. Time seemed to collapse, and he saw himself seven years earlier, moving with his company in the small village where insurgents had taken hold. Felt the way his heart had thundered that day, the way he'd known he couldn't see everything, couldn't see into every home, around every corner.

Some of the soldiers with him had served too long; they shot when something moved-a child, a chicken, a dog, a goat or a pig.

Some still had illusions of morality; they took greater care.

And some, in their desperation to believe in the sanct.i.ty of life, died-not firing when they should have.

Corporal Al Bellingham had been one of those men. Hand-to-hand combat, a tiny village, insurgents who lived only to kill...and dozens of mothers, children, the aged.

Every corner could mean death, and Jude had turned one of those corners to see Al on the ground, writhing. He'd looked around, then hunkered down by his comrade and friend, the man with whom he'd played cards, baseball, music, enduring the hours in the hostile desert. He'd taken Al by the shoulders and dragged him back behind the small and desolate house that had been his own shield, lying low against the ricochet of stray bullets as he did.

He spoke into his radio, calling the medics, who would do their best. Automatic rifle fire beat a rat-tat-tat just beyond the little enclave where Jude had dragged the wounded man.

Al opened his eyes and gazed up at Jude. He didn't address him as "Lieutenant" the way he usually did, even when the men were doing nothing but whiling away the hours, waiting for their call to action.

He addressed him as "fool."

"Your head was out there, fool," Al said. "Head down at all times!"

"The medics are coming. Don't try to talk. Save your breath," Jude said.

But Al had clutched his arm and looked desperately into his eyes. He rattled off a series of numbers. "Got that? Please, Jude, tell me you got that."

"Al, medics are coming! You have to fight to live."

Al's grip tightened. "Please, Jude. I have a wife. Mellora. Remember? And a baby daughter. You give Mellora that number. Got it?"

He wouldn't be able to keep him alive long enough for the medics to come.

Jude repeated the numbers.

Then suddenly, Al shouted, "Behind you, man, behind you!"

Jude whipped around fast enough to fire first at an insurgent bearing down on him.

He could still picture that moment as if it had been yesterday. The littered courtyard between desert-dusted homes. Al bleeding on the ground; his enemy dead by the corner of the house.

And him-alive-because of Al.

The rat-tat-tat of firepower growing more distant and then fading away, the medics rushing in...

Not until they were back at base had he learned from their company physician that he couldn't have spoken with Al Bellingham. Bullets had severed his spinal column and pounded through his skull; the man had died almost instantly.

Somehow Jude had kept it together long enough to get through his tour of duty.

He'd imagined it, he'd told himself. He'd imagined the entire encounter.

And yet he'd felt compelled to speak with Al's wife. He'd called and told her that he'd been with her husband at the end. He told her how much Al had loved her-and what a brave man he'd been, saving others, refusing to let war make him less of a man.

And he'd given her the set of numbers.

A year later, when he was back in the States, Mellora Bellingham had called to thank him. The numbers had been for an insurance policy Al had purchased only days before his death.

She might never have found it without the numbers he'd given her.

It wasn't until he'd applied at the academy that he'd been advised to go into therapy. And he'd gone. He'd thought he understood. PTSD. Sure. Made sense. He'd lived in a world where it was often a case of kill or be killed. Back in North America, he was entering a world where danger often lurked below the surface and the monsters were hidden.

But he wanted that world. Nothing on earth was perfect; he'd seen the good, the bad and the hideous and learned about imperfection. He found he loved his country with an even greater pa.s.sion, and out of the war zone, he wanted to fight the monsters who lived beneath the civilized veneer.

He had tried to consign Al to the far reaches of memory, although the man had continued to haunt his soul. Especially when they'd lost Lily, and he'd sat with her lifeless body for hours, praying that he would hear her whisper a single word.

The truth was that he'd spoken with a ghost before. He'd spoken with Al.

He was so lost in his thoughts that at first he didn't hear the buzz of his cell phone. He snapped out of his trance and answered.

Good agents did not become lost in the fog of the past, he reminded himself.

It was Jackson Crow, of course.

"I've met with Beach and his men," Jackson told him. "They're on high alert, although it would be nice if they really believed me about a killer being on board. What about Alexi Cromwell?"

"I've talked to her," Jude said. "And Byron Grant."

"Byron Grant?" Jackson Crow's voice was controlled and even. "Byron Grant was the second-last victim of the Archangel-that we know about, at any rate."

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Jude said.

Krewe of Hunters, huh?

"Meet me back at her cabin. With any luck, she's still in," Jackson said, not skipping a beat.

When the ship was first built, tiny peepholes had been set in each cabin door, including those in the crew quarters. No unwary cabin girl or waitress would be taken by surprise on the Destiny.

Alexi had never been more grateful for that-even as she realized she'd seldom used it before.

She'd half expected Clara, since she knew how nervous her friend was feeling.

But it was Jude McCoy. He was back, this time with his partner.

She opened the door for them and waited. This man-Jackson Crow-might believe that she was more illusionist or charlatan than pianist and entertainer. She was afraid he'd come to confront her.

He hadn't. He smiled and merely asked if she minded talking to them again. She agreed.

Her cabin seemed entirely too cramped. Jackson Crow sat at the dressing table; Jude McCoy was next to her on the bunk. For a few minutes she found it hard to breathe and wondered if she was having a panic attack. It was impossible not to be aware of the man sitting beside her, of his intensity, which seemed to burn around her-almost as if it held her in a strange grip. She tried to concentrate on Crow, but she was acutely conscious of Jude McCoy. He sat so close to her they were almost touching.

"You've met this man Byron Grant?" Crow asked her. He smiled; he had an intriguing face, his smile both gentle and enigmatic.

She looked at Jude, whose face was impa.s.sive. He studied her in return, but she saw no mockery in his eyes. Not anymore.

Because he'd stood there just an hour ago, talking to the ghost himself.

"His fiancee was killed. He came home, and he was killed, as well. He was attacked from behind, so he couldn't tell me much."

Agent Crow nodded. "He and his fiancee, Elizabeth Williams, were murdered in Mobile, a week ago."

"The medallion around her neck was that of St. Bernardino-patron saint of advertising. Elizabeth was a graphic designer with an advertising company."

Alexi hadn't known that.

"The young woman found at the New Orleans church had a St. Luke's medallion around her neck. Patron saint of physicians, among other similar vocations and careers," Jackson said. "But Byron, the only male victim, was left in a Dumpster in an alley. No medal."

Alexi nodded. "He...he hasn't reappeared," she said, and caught herself looking at Jude again. She could tell from his speech that he'd grown up near her, somewhere around New Orleans. Had Jude absorbed enough of the city's mysticism to accept the realities that were beyond anything science had yet acknowledged?

Was Crow humoring her? Or had McCoy convinced him? "The thing is," Jackson was saying, "Mr. Grant found you. He saw in you an ability to help him. Helping the dead is necessary and commendable, but it can be dangerous, too."

Alexi almost felt as if something cold and sharp was at her throat.

"I intend to be very careful," she said.

"I just want you to come to us whenever you see the ghost, with any information the ghost can give you."

Alexi nodded toward Jude. "Mr. Grant has spoken with Agent McCoy. He knows you two are FBI and that you're on board."

Crow's smile grew wider. "But he sought you out. It's important that you be extremely careful, especially at night. We don't have proof, but the coroners in the different cities where this man has struck believe he kills at night. That doesn't mean you're safe by day. It's just that he's never killed in front of witnesses before."

"Don't worry," Jude McCoy said, and she saw the flicker of a smile on his lips. "I'll be 'haunting' your piano bar. I'll see that you're safely back in your cabin every night."

"We're in Cozumel tomorrow," she reminded them.

"Don't get off the ship without one of us," Crow warned.

"I don't always get off the ship," she told them. "But sometimes a group of us heads over to have lunch at Three Amigos or Seor Frogs."

"Let us know what you're doing," Jackson said. "And let us know anytime Byron Grant is near."

Jackson got to his feet; Jude did the same.

Naturally, she rose, as well.

"You...you both seem to believe me. This is strange. It's almost as if I'm becoming friends with a stowaway, but one you happen to know about," she said.

The two men glanced at each other and then back at her. And once again, she thought that Jude McCoy gave her a rueful smile, as if he'd discovered that there'd been a sad joke at his expense.

"He is sort of a stowaway," Jude said. "His name won't be on the pa.s.senger manifest."

"But...you... Agent Crow, you believe me, too?"

"I do, Ms. Cromwell. Completely. And we're going to do our best to enlist your help-and see that you don't end up in any danger. We need your cooperation on that, too. Let us protect you and don't take any unnecessary risks."

"I'm all for that," she murmured.

Jackson left the cabin and Jude followed him, but turned back at the door. "Stay with friends, at all times. You and Ms. Avery-Clara?-stay close, please."

She nodded.

"We'll be watching over you," he promised.

Then they were both gone.

Alexi sat back on her bed. It was lunchtime; she was hungry.

And she was too unnerved to eat.

Their working conditions were hardly ideal, Jude thought, although David Beach had given them a cabin near his office for meetings, as well as computers, videoconference capability and a printer.

Back in their makeshift office, they sat at the table and stared at each other for a minute. "You haven't blinked an eye," Jude said. "You believe we chased a dead man onto the ship, and that this dead man meant to bring us here. You have no problem accepting that other people might have seen him-without knowing he was dead."

"Correct," Crow told him.