Krewe of Hunters: The Hidden Part 21

"Dumb-a.s.s cops. They don't even know that yet."

"It's not as if we have a lot to go on. We've only just gotten a good likeness of you to send around," she said. She realized she'd used the word we. Was she becoming one of them?

Or had she always been one with Diego?

"So?" she asked.

"So...what?"

"So what is your name?"

"Daniel. Daniel Kendall." He grinned. "Nice to meet you-cousin. A zillion times removed, of course."

"You, too. I guess. Having your name will make it easier for us to help you, at least," she said. "I'm a.s.suming you want help, of course."

"I do. Unfortunately, I don't know who killed me."

"So you were killed," Scarlet said, saddened by the information. "But how can you not know who did it?" Scarlet demanded, her frustration showing.

"I didn't see his face."

"How were you killed?" she asked. "Do you know that?"

"Yeah, that I know. I was up in the tundra, striding along, amazed at how high up I was, amazed by how blue the sky was in the clear air, and then I felt a rush behind me. I turned, saw him coming, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, bleeding to death. Slowly. I didn't feel the knife. I did feel the dying."

"So the killer was wearing a ski mask?"

"No, it wasn't a ski mask. It was odd, like a bag over his head. Not paper. Something like a burlap sack."

"A burlap sack," Scarlet repeated. "And neither one of you said anything. He just rushed you from behind, stabbed you-and left you?"

"Oh, he said something," Daniel told her.

"What?"

"He said, 'You're one.'"

"One what?" Scarlet asked.

"That's what I wondered," Daniel said. "But then I started drifting, I thought I'd become a snowflake or something, and I began to think he meant the number one. He sounded proud, as if he'd taken the first step on a fantastic adventure or something. Anyway, I'd planned to come here to the ranch the next day. See if there was a room, take a tour of the museum for sure. I'd seen your name and picture in the brochure and recognized it from the ancestry site. After he killed me, I wanted to warn you. I wanted to warn Ben, too, but he didn't see me. And while I was trying to warn you, that poor couple was being killed. And now he's just killed number four."

Scarlet stared at him blankly. "You're a ghost, and you're talking to me. Stalking me. And you can't even help catch your killer," she said.

"Nice appreciation for me trying to save your life."

She winced. All this was still so hard to believe.

At least she didn't have to wonder anymore if she was crazy or not, though crazy might have been easier. But Diego and the Krewe had suspected her stalker was a dead man.

And they'd been right.

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I just, I wasn't... I never... I've spent half my life in graveyards and I've never felt so much as a cold spot, much less talked to a ghost before. Or even really believed that ghosts exist. Thank you for trying to warn me, and I mean that sincerely, but I can't help but wish you could identify your killer."

He lowered his head, smiling. "Apology accepted. I wouldn't have believed in ghosts, either, before I became one."

"Scarlet?"

Meg's voice came from the top of the stairs, and Scarlet could hear her footsteps coming up the hall.

Daniel's image began to disappear. He was almost gone when Meg stepped into the room.

But Scarlet could tell that she saw him immediately.

She stopped just inside the doorway, looking at what was almost thin air by then. "h.e.l.lo," she said. "I'm Meg. Meg Murray."

She sounded so natural that she could have been introducing herself to someone at a party.

Daniel's image solidified again. "Daniel. Daniel Kendall," he said. "Pleasure, Miss Murray."

"You're a Kendall," Meg murmured.

"Yes, he's been trying to warn me," Scarlet said.

Meg looked at Scarlet. "You're okay? You're not going to pa.s.s out or anything?"

"No, I'm not going to pa.s.s out," Scarlet said. "I'm fine. Absolutely fine."

Was she?

Meg turned her attention back to Daniel. "Do you know how you-"

"No, he doesn't know who killed him. That would be too easy," Scarlet said drily.

"You don't know?" Meg asked, shocked.

"He was wearing a bag or something over his head," Daniel said. "Like he took a potato sack and cut eye holes in it."

Scarlet gasped. "I can't believe I didn't think of it right away! Nathan Kendall wrote in his journal that he and his friends wore hoods when they robbed banks and stagecoaches and things." She looked at Meg. "The killer has read the diaries. And we know that his friends came here, so maybe that will help us figure out who killed Nathan, too."

"Hey!" Daniel protested. "Don't go all history buff on me. You need to find out who killed me. That's what's important, Scarlet. Because if you don't find out who killed me, he's eventually going to kill you."

11.

"Ca.s.sandra had only been here about a month," Mary Peterson said, sniffling, her eyes welling with tears again. "She came from Kansas City. Kansas City, Kansas," she said with emphasis, as if that was really important. "Not Missouri. She grew up in different foster homes and finally tracked down one of her grandmothers-her mother's mother. She was in a nursing home, but she filled Ca.s.sandra's head with stories about the Rockies and how she was related to Nathan Kendall. She couldn't wait to come here, and she got a job right away at the Moose Pot Pie here in town. That's where we met. I work there, too. She was so pretty and so nice, and all the guys liked her. But she wasn't a flirt! She was a hard worker and a good roommate, and she planned to go back to school and get a good education. She had such a tough life...and now this."

Their victim was Ca.s.sandra Wells, and she was local.

Diego was sorry that he'd been right.

While they'd continued examining the crime scene, Lieutenant Gray had received a call from the station; a distraught young woman had called in because her roommate hadn't come home after work the night before.

And now Mary Peterson, best friend and roommate of the deceased, was at the police station, and Diego was questioning and consoling her at the same time. Normally, unless there were indications of foul play, an adult had to be missing for at least twenty-four hours before a report could be issued, but Lieutenant Gray had told his officers to take a report if a person had been gone for more than an hour or two.

Given the condition of the body, getting an ID might have proven difficult, but Ca.s.sandra had been bonded so she could handle money at the Moose Pot Pie, and the fingerprints matched.

"Did you notice anything or anyone special or suspicious in any way during the day?" Diego asked. "Was she dating someone?"

Mary shook her head dully. "No and no. Her education meant everything to her. She said she was getting old." More tears welled in Mary's eyes. "She was twenty-six."

"I'm so sorry," Diego said. "When did you last see her?"

"I was on the early shift. I left at five. Ca.s.sandra was scheduled to close, so she would have been there until eleven or twelve."

"Who else was working that shift?" he asked.

"Braxton and Stan," Mary said.

There was a pad on the table, and Diego gently pushed it toward her. "If you could give me their information, please?"

"Of course, anything," Mary said. "This just isn't fair. She was so excited to be living here. She felt like she'd come home. She said this was her place. She'd already been to the museum up at the Conway Ranch, and she'd met Ben and Trisha Kendall."

"She knew the owners?" he asked, a little too sharply.

"Of course. She adored the Conway Ranch." Mary suddenly lowered her voice, as if someone might overhear her. "I think they wanted to hire her. She said they'd talked about her coming on as manager."

"Great. Thank you, Mary. I'm curious-did she mention knowing anyone else who was descended from Nathan Kendall?"

She frowned. "No, I don't think so. I think maybe she'd been in contact with a few people online, but I don't know who, and I don't even know if they were from around here." She stopped, her eyes watering again. "What will I do? Her grandmother's dead, so she doesn't have any family. I work for minimum wage and tips, but I have to bury her. I can't let them just dump her in a hole without a headstone or anything."

Diego was glad he could help her with one thing, at least. "Don't worry," he said. "We can arrange for a funeral."

"Cops do that?" she asked incredulously.

"I'm not actually a cop."

"You're not a cop? And you're questioning me?"

"I'm FBI," he explained. "And I think Ca.s.sandra would be pleased to be buried in the old cemetery on the Kendall property. And..." He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he had the right to speak for a man he'd only recently met, then went on. "I have a friend who can help with whatever other arrangements need to be made. But you should know that the funeral can't take place right away. Not while we're still investigating."

He didn't think he should mention the word autopsy-not unless he wanted to see her start crying again.

He handed her his card. "Please, if you think of anything that could help, anyone who seemed especially interested in her, for instance, call me."

"Of course," she promised, then began to sniffle again.

He didn't try to tell her that it was going to be all right, because it wasn't. Her friend was dead. Nothing could ever fix that.

"Thank you," he said.

They both rose. She looked at him, wiping her eyes. "She would be glad to be buried in the family cemetery, I think. She was so excited to be a part of the Kendall legacy. She said that this was her permanent home. I guess now it is."

"Aha!" Scarlet cried.

She was back at her desk, reading further in one of Nathan's journals.

Meg, sitting across from her, was doing the same.

Daniel, who was clearly getting better at the art of visibility, was walking around, checking out all the artifacts in the museum.

Meg and Daniel both turned to look at her and said in tandem, "What?"

"We can cross one suspect off the list," Scarlet said.

"In my murder?" Daniel asked her.

She looked over at him and shook her head. "Daniel, you know that the police and the Krewe are working on that. I'm going at it from another angle, trying to find out who killed Nathan, on the theory that there's a connection between the deaths then and the deaths now."

"So you found out who didn't kill him. Wonderful," Daniel said.

"Process of elimination," Meg said.

"And what's this crew business? I thought the FBI was divided up into units?"

"Not that kind of crew," Meg said. "It's Krewe with a K, like the Mardi Gras krewes in New Orleans."

"I was in a Mardi Gras krewe once, back in college. My frat went down for it. One of the best times I ever had," Daniel said.

"Our Krewe is a special FBI unit formed by a man named Adam Harrison, who brought together a group of agents who, like me, can see ghosts like you. He needed them to work a haunted-house case in New Orleans, and the Krewe name just seemed right," Meg explained. "But much more important right now, Scarlet, what did you find?"

"Billie did die here about three weeks after he and the others arrived. They had a funeral and buried him in the cemetery up the mountain. There's no marker for him now, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one then. He probably had a cross that's long gone now, and the historical society must not know about him, so they never put up a new one."

"So that guy didn't kill Nathan. And that's important how?" Daniel asked.

"Process of elimination," Meg said again. "So what did you do for a living, Daniel?"

He grinned. "Tour guide. I took people hiking up in the Blue Ridge. I was pretty d.a.m.ned good, too." He paused. "Not good enough to hear a murderer sneak up behind me, though."

Instinctively, Scarlet stood and walked over to him-and then awkwardly realized that she couldn't put an arm around his shoulders.

"I'm so sorry," she said.