Darkest Journey
Darkest Journey
Heather Graham
They say it's about the journey, not the destination…Charlene "Charlie" Moreau is back in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to work on a movie. One night, she stumbles across the body of a Civil War reenactor, the second murdered in two days. Charlie is shocked to learn that her father—a guide on the Journey, a historic paddle wheeler that's sponsoring the reenactment—is a suspect.Meanwhile, Ethan Delaney, new to the FBI's Krewe of Hunters, is brought in on the case. He and Charlie have a history of their own, dating back to when he rescued her from a graveyard—led there by a Confederate ghost!Charlie arranges a Mississippi River cruise so she and Ethan can get close to the reenactors, find out who knows what, who has a motive. They discover a lot more as they resume the relationship that ended ten years ago…but might die, along with them, on the Journey.
They say it’s about the journey, not the destination...
Charlene “Charlie” Moreau is back in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to work on a movie. One night, she stumbles across the body of a Civil War reenactor, the second murdered in two days. Charlie is shocked to learn that her father—a guide on the Journey, a historic paddle wheeler that’s sponsoring the reenactment—is a suspect.
Meanwhile, Ethan Delaney, new to the FBI’s Krewe of Hunters, is brought in on the case. He and Charlie have a history of their own, dating back to when he rescued her from a graveyard—led there by a Confederate ghost!
Charlie arranges a Mississippi River cruise so she and Ethan can get close to the reenactors, find out who knows what, who has a motive. They discover a lot more as they resume the relationship that ended ten years ago...but might die, along with them, on the Journey.
Praise for New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
“Graham is a master at world building and her latest is a thrilling, dark, and deadly tale of romantic suspense.”
—Booklist, starred review, on Haunted Destiny
“Intricate, fast-paced, and intense, this riveting thriller blends romance and suspense in perfect combination and keeps readers guessing and the tension taut until the very end.”
—Library Journal, starred review, on Flawless
“With an astonishing ease and facility, this talented and hard-working writer can cast her stories in any genre.”
—Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels
“A masterfully created psychological thriller...leaving readers shocked and enthralled.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Hexed
“Dark, dangerous and deadly! Graham has the uncanny ability to bring her books to life, using exceptionally vivid details to add depth to all the people and places.”
—RT Book Reviews on Waking the Dead, Top Pick
“Murder, intrigue...a fast-paced read. You may never know in advance what harrowing situations Graham will place her characters in, but...rest assured that the end result will be satisfying.”
—Suspense Magazine on Let the Dead Sleep
“Graham deftly weaves elements of mystery, the paranormal and romance into a tight plot that will keep the reader guessing at the true nature of the killer’s evil.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Unseen
“Suspenseful and dark.... The transitions between past and present flow seamlessly, and the main characters are interesting and their connection to one another is believable.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Unseen
Darkest Journey
Heather Graham
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
In memory of one of the finest friends I was ever privileged to know.
Greg Varricchio
Incredible musician, husband and father, Greg made hard times easier, brought laughter and smiles to so many so often, and lived every day with honor and an incredible ethic. The world is truly a poorer place without him.
CAST OF CHARACTERS (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
The Main Players
Charlene “Charlie” Moreau, actress
Ethan Delaney, FBI agent, Krewe of Hunters
From the Movie Set
Brad Thornton, writer and director
Mike Thornton, cameraman
Luke Mayfield, sound
Barry Seymour, electric and lighting
Jennie McPherson, makeup artist
Grant Ferguson, actor/extra (responsible for budget and accounting)
George Gonzales, in charge of location, setting and props
Jimmy Smith, actor/extra
Blane Pica, actor
Harry Grayson, actor
Krewe of Hunters
Thor Erikson
Jude McCoy
The Civil War Dead
Anson McKee, Confederate cavalry captain
Ellsworth Derue, Union medical corps
Other Characters
Jonathan Moreau, Charlie’s father, historian and tour guide on the riverboat Journey
Emily Watson, café owner
Farrell Hickory, owner of Hickory Plantation and Civil War reenactor
Albion Corley, professor and Civil War reenactor
Nancy Camp, Charlie’s high school friend
Randall “Randy” Laurent, high school friend of Ethan’s, parish detective
Sherry Compton, high school friend
Terese, Ethan’s great-grandmother
Chance Morgan, photographer
On the Journey (Celtic American Lines Ship)
Timothy Banks, captain
Gerard “Gerry” Amerind, doctor
Haley Howell, nurse
Rebecca Jennings, nurse
Ricky Simpson, entertainment director
Contents
Cover (#u3845d692-e3b6-5a1d-9bf1-df9ba2bb1e69)
Back Cover Text (#u22481364-5a9d-56b7-855c-a883132d9992)
Praise (#u65e5fe65-f265-52fc-bee0-46cfd31fe347)
Title Page (#ubcb61b50-9015-52f5-ba4c-6ba446fa6d47)
Dedication (#ua4ac396c-1d6b-556b-92cd-2e4a0d278bdd)
CAST OF CHARACTERS (#u7488756c-1cea-5e14-83c3-405086aeaef5)
Prologue (#u021fc5da-5af5-55a4-90c0-19a59862c204)
Chapter 1 (#u2b1b566d-33ec-5572-945c-680b534db880)
Chapter 2 (#u453d24b7-e24f-5496-b7cf-96450ef7a7b9)
Chapter 3 (#ud610c66d-0da0-55b8-b3a0-4206960ebaab)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
High School
“What are we doing?” Charlene—Charlie—Moreau demanded, surprised that both her escorts—senior girls high up in the hierarchy of one of their high school service clubs, the Cherubs—had suddenly taken hold of her arms. “Where are we going?”
She’d started out blindfolded in a car with five of her friends—all of them giggling girls ready to claim the prestige of being a Cherub. They’d been accepted into the club. They’d gone through ridiculous weeks of pledging—running, fetching, even doing homework for the “older sisters” in the club, and now it was their final night. Their great hazing. But the five of them had been split up about twenty minutes earlier; she’d been put in a car with Nancy Deauville and Sherry Compton, who’d gently led her out a little while later.
Now both girls were gripping her arms, nothing gentle about it.
Nancy Deauville laughed softly. “They say your mama’s family has the ‘sight.’ We’re just leaving you where you’ll have to ask some of your ghostly friends for help.”
“Come on! What are you going to do? Tie me up in the Grace Church graveyard?” Charlie asked, feeling her temper flare.
“Oh, Charlie, no!” Nancy said.
Sherry giggled. “We’re tying you up outside the graveyard—in the unhallowed section.”
“That’s ridiculous. And dangerous,” Charlie said angrily, a spark of fear entering her. “Three girls have been killed close to here, just north of Baton Rouge!” Her mom had been emphatic about her being careful, about her staying in the company of friends. A serial killer was at work in and around Baton Rouge.
“Don’t be alone, Charlie,” her mom had warned sternly. “He’s preying on young women who are on their own. Make sure you stay with your friends.”
Charlie had thought these people were her friends. Now she wasn’t so sure.
She tried to wrench free, but someone stronger had her arms now, and she heard multiple footsteps nearby.
Nancy and Sherry weren’t alone. They’d met up with others.
The two were superrich brats whose dads held great positions with one of the local oil companies—while her dad was a hardworking historian!
She didn’t know why she was pledging anyway, except that Cathy Corcoran, her best friend, had insisted that they at least try. The Cherubs were respected at school, plus they had the best parties.
Charlie had managed to handle the weeks of doing what the older girls asked. She’d even shocked Nancy, dropping a pack of cigarettes on her lap after the other girl had demanded that she get them, even if she had to beg, borrow or steal them. Charlie hadn’t had to do any of those things; someone on one of her dad’s tours had left a pack behind on the dock.
But this...
She didn’t tend to be scared of much. Tonight, she was.
She wasn’t afraid of the graveyard. She never had been. But girls had been murdered—and not at all far away.
She was angry now, and that anger mixed uneasily with a fear that had nothing to do with the dead.
“You know what? Don’t bother. I don’t want to be in your club,” she said. “This is ridiculous. Where are Cathy and the others?”
“Cathy is taking a little swim,” Nancy said, and laughed.
Charlie felt her temper flare another few degrees. Cathy couldn’t swim—and she was terrified of water.
“That’s it. Let me go,” Charlie said. “I’m done with you and your stupid club.”
They didn’t let her go. She heard a male voice whispering—probably Todd Camp, Nancy’s football-star boyfriend. Or maybe it wasn’t Todd. At least three other people had joined Nancy and Sherry; she could tell where they were all standing by listening to where their voices came from. All told, there were at least five people there, probably including some of Todd’s football goon friends.
“We should just let her go. Come on, Nance.”
Todd was there, Charlie was certain. But he wasn’t the one who had just spoken. Todd did anything that Nancy said. Probably—as Charlie had heard whispered in the hallways—Nancy only “gave it up” for Todd when he behaved.
“Listen to whichever of your juvenile delinquent friends was just speaking. This is criminal. You should let me go this instant,” Charlie said.
“No way, so shut up, you whiny pledge. You’ll be glad when we come back for you. Everyone wants to be a Cherub, and tomorrow you’ll be glad you didn’t chicken out,” Nancy said.
Someone approached her and whispered into her ear. She recognized the voice. It was a friend. Jimmy Smith. “Charlie,” Jimmy said urgently, “it won’t be that long. Tomorrow you really will want to be in the club. I’m so sorry, but just go with this, okay?”
“I do not want to be a Cherub,” she yelled—and meant it. “I will never be a Cherub. You are the most immature group of brats I’ve met in my entire life. Let me go!”
“Chicken!” Nancy laughed.
Charlie was strong; she worked out in the dance troupe and was also on the gymnastics team. She could have easily taken Nancy and Sherry.
But the two girls weren’t alone, and whoever was holding her now was stronger than she was. Her captor forced her down to the ground, and someone tied her wrists and ankles around something cold and hard. A tombstone, she thought.
“Assholes!” she hissed, struggling against the ropes that held her.
“Watch your tongue, pledge,” Nancy snapped. “Or you won’t get to be a Cherub.”
“Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be in your damn club!” Charlie shot back.
“Maybe we should just let her go,” she heard Jimmy plead.
“Shut up! You’re ruining my speech,” Nancy said. “Oh, pledge. May all cherubs and angels everywhere look over you this night. For you are not in the sacred graveyard of the church but in the unhallowed ground beyond, where criminals—hanged for their sins—lie, where many a Yankee was hidden in the earth, where the most evil among us rest uneasily for all eternity. But you, should you survive the hours ahead, will rise triumphant, a Cherub for all time,” Nancy said dramatically.
Charlie’s blindfold was slipping; from where she lay she could just see Nancy’s arms upstretched to the night sky. She was wearing her cheerleading uniform, which seemed to be a disservice to the entire school at that moment.
Nancy’s arms dropped, and she turned, presumably to face the others. “Let’s get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
“Damn you all!” Charlie swore. “Let me up! I don’t want to be one of you stupid people.”
Her words did no good. Laughing, the group hurriedly left, heading back to Nancy’s car and whatever vehicle Todd and the others had come in.
She screamed for a few minutes more—to no avail. Still, it made her feel better, and she realized she was at least ridding herself of the blindfold. It was just a piece of white cotton, probably someone’s ripped-up shirt.
She fell silent and worked harder at the blindfold. Eventually she dislodged it by rubbing her head back and forth against the headstone she was bound to. It finally came unknotted and fell down by her side. She laughed bitterly. Nancy and her crew weren’t even capable of tying a decent knot.
The boys were, though. She couldn’t dislodge the ropes around her wrists and ankles, which were secured tightly against the tombstone.
She let out a sigh, reminding herself that she wasn’t afraid of a graveyard. Even an unhallowed one. Her father had brought her here many times and told her of the injustices that had been perpetrated over the years. The townspeople had strung up an innocent slave instead of admitting to the guilt of a rich white man who had raped and strangled a young woman in the 1830s. His grave was unmarked. A horse thief—who was admittedly guilty but hadn’t killed anyone—was strung up in 1860. Apparently horse theft had been a major crime back then, since horses were needed for the militia units forming in the lead-up to the Civil War.
Charlie closed her eyes for a minute. She could hear the river—the mighty Mississippi—churning far below the bluff. She could hear tree branches swaying, the leaves rustling. She opened her eyes. Even though this was unhallowed ground, loved ones of those long gone had erected stones and monuments to mark their graves. A broken-winged angel looked mournfully down at her from a pedestal. Tombs and all manner of funerary art graced the area, some of it half-hidden by overgrown grass and shrubbery.
Time passed as she continued to fight with the ropes that bound her. She cursed out loud and then quietly to herself. She prayed that Cathy—who was truly terrified of water—was going to be all right.
Then she heard the sobbing.
“Hey!” she called out.
There was no reply. She inhaled, then let her breath out in a rush.
Yes, her family often saw ghosts or just felt their invisible presence. She’d known that Uncle Jessup had come to his own funeral; she’d seen him stroking her mother’s hair, as if trying to assure her that he was all right.
She wasn’t at all sure she was ready to see a ghost tonight, though, not while she was tied to a tombstone. Especially not here on unhallowed ground. Some of the people buried had been truly evil. There was even rumor that a vicious voodoo queen—a woman who had poisoned a number of people—had been brought out here, hanged and left to rot, then buried with no marker. It might only be a tale meant to scare away couples who liked to come to the cemetery and drink among the old tombstones, maybe do drugs or have sex...whatever.
She wished she could see her watch. She felt as if she’d already been there for hours.
More likely it had only been thirty minutes or so. Maybe she had imagined the sobbing.
No, she hadn’t.
Because the sound came again. She blinked hard. A young woman seemed to be materializing right in front of her, just to the left by the base of an old moss-draped oak tree. The woman’s hair was swept up, and she was wearing a pretty blue gown. For a moment Charlie thought that she had come from a different era in history, but then she realized that the blue dress was a beautiful and entirely contemporary formal gown. The woman bent down; she looked like she was trying to pick something up.
But she couldn’t. Whatever it was, it slipped through her ethereal fingers.
The woman seemed to sink against the tree and down to the ground.
And then she disappeared.
Charlie watched for a moment, then hung her own head.
Time was passing. Someone would come for her.
She looked up and blinked.
A Confederate soldier was walking toward her. He wore a frock coat lined in a yellow-buff color.
Cavalry. And an officer. She couldn’t be her father’s daughter and not know that.
He wore a handsome plumed hat, and his sword was encased in a sheath belted around his hips.
She closed her eyes, wondering what a Southern soldier had done to end up buried out here.
Please, please go away, she thought. Because she was afraid. The air here on top of the bluff was growing chilly in the dark, and she still felt as if she could hear—in her head, at least—the soft sound of sobbing.
The cavalryman was still walking toward her.
Screw the damned club. What an idiot she’d been.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to help you.”
At first she thought it was the ghostly Confederate who had spoken. But it wasn’t. It was someone made of flesh and blood, someone real, and that realization startled her so badly that she let out a horrified scream.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he protested, stepping closer and starting to work at the ropes that bound her. “It’s all right. I’m Ethan Delaney. I’m here to help you.”
She blinked. Ethan Delaney. She knew him, even if she didn’t know him well. His father was a teacher and had recently taken a job at a music school in New Orleans. His mother taught piano. Ethan had graduated soon after she’d gotten to high school; he was three years her senior. She’d really only seen him from afar. When she’d been about eight or nine, he’d gotten stuck babysitting for her and some other kids because their parents were all friends.
What she knew about Ethan—what everyone knew about him—was that he was considered special, but not in a bad way. In a good way, in fact. He’d excelled at sports and qualified for scholarships at a bunch of schools. He’d ridden a motorcycle—when he hadn’t been riding around on Devil, his dad’s big buckskin quarter horse. People nodded when they heard his name and said things like That boy’s gonna make something of himself.
He’d been gone from town for a while now. Gone off to college in New Orleans. Soon his parents would move to New Orleans, too, and there would be little reason for him to come back to town.
But—amazingly—he was here now and about to free her from her misery.
“Ethan. Delaney,” she said, still not entirely sure that he wasn’t an apparition. She hadn’t seen him coming; she’d been distracted by the Confederate soldier just in front of him.
She stared as he kept working at the ropes. She could smell him, and he smelled good. He’d been riding earlier, she thought. He smelled of leather. He leaned back, focusing on one of the knots. She watched him as he concentrated. He had cool eyes. They were a golden green color. He was tanned. He had a lean face, and a thick strand of dark hair fell over one eye.
He was gorgeous.
She wasn’t in his league.
But here he was, helping her.
“Thank you,” she managed to say.
“How the hell did you get here?” he asked.
“Pledging,” she told him.
“Stupid.”
“I know. I told them I’d had it, I didn’t want to be in their presence, much less their club,” Charlie said, her voice tight. “They didn’t listen.”
“I see that.”
She was suddenly freed, and immediately she tried to stand. Her legs wobbled, and he reached out to steady her. She looked up.
Suddenly she was in love.
She couldn’t let him see it.
Charlie cleared her throat and fought to quickly maintain her balance on her own as she forced a smile to her lips.
“Thank you, Ethan. I owe you big-time.”
“It was nothing...” He hesitated. “Nothing at all.”
He doesn’t even know my name.
Their parents were friends; he’d been to her house. But had he ever thought of her as anything other than a little kid? Did he even recognize her?
He was smiling at her. “Listen, I walked here. I don’t have a car. But when we get back to my parents’ old place—he’s in NOLA, and Mom is there picking up stuff, ’cause she’s in the middle of moving—I can use her car and drive you home.”
“I hate to trouble you. I can walk home now that I’m not tied up, thanks to you.”
His smile deepened. She noticed that he had a dimple in his chin. “I’m sorry, miss, but I was raised Southern, and my mama would probably still tan my hide if I didn’t see you home safe.”
He turned, holding her elbow—probably worried that she might trip on a gravestone, she thought.
“I have a name,” she told him, sounding more strident than she’d meant to.
He stopped and looked down at her, that shock of hair still covering one of his eyes. “Of course. I’m so sorry. It’s just that I don’t know—”
“Charlie. Charlene, actually. Charlene Moreau.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Moreau. You used to hang at my house when you were little. Our parents are friends. Your dad is Jonathan Moreau, right?”
“Yes.” She waited, afraid that somewhere along the line her father might have done something to bug him.
“Wow,” he said with admiration. “He’s brilliant. He knows more about local history and politics than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Yep, that’s him.”
“Come on, then. My mom can make you some tea or something, and then I’ll take you home.”
He started to walk, not holding on to her this time, and she followed. “How did you know I was here?” she asked him. “I mean, you don’t seem the kind to be spending his Friday night hanging out at the graveyard.”
He paused, his back to her.
“Was it the Confederate cavalryman?” she asked softly, not even worrying that if he hadn’t seen the ghost he might think she was nuts. “Did he lead you here? If so, I wish I could thank him.”
He turned then and stared at her. “You saw...a cavalry soldier?”
“I did,” she said.
He studied her intently. Then he nodded slowly. She felt the intensity of his gold-green eyes. He’d heard exactly what she’d said, and he seemed to accept her words at face value.
“Best not to mention such things,” he said simply, and started walking again.
And, once more, she followed. Except that the sobbing she’d heard earlier suddenly echoed in her mind again.
“Come on,” he called back.
“Wait!” she said.
“What?”
“There was—there was someone there before. By the tree. Give me just a second.”
She hurried over the tree roots, fallen branches and broken headstones that stood between her and the tree in question, hoping he noticed that she didn’t need any help, even in rough terrain.
“There!” She saw something shiny in the grass and sank to her knees—her jeans were already filthy anyway—then parted the weeds and grass to reveal a bracelet. It was gold, with a single gold charm studded with what might have been a diamond or might have been glass.
Suddenly Ethan was there, too, down on his knees beside her, reaching curiously for the bracelet.
She picked it up and handed it to him. “A bracelet,” she murmured, completely unnecessarily.
He looked up at her suddenly, those strange eyes of his intent on her. He flinched, staring at her.
“What? What is it?” she whispered.
He opened his hand. The bracelet lay on his palm, but she saw something else there, as well. Something gleaming and darker than the night.
“What is it?” she repeated.
“Blood,” he said quietly.
Charlie didn’t realize then that, for her, the night, along with the rest of her life, was just beginning.
1 (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
Ten Years Later
They rose from the earth one by one, spectral shapes that slowly crept to the top of the high bluff where the church had long held dominion over the landscape. If a watcher blinked, they might have seemed like a part of the mist, they were so ethereal. And yet, seen with eyes open and focused, they were clearly real, soldiers rising from their graves, worn, war-weary, dirty, sweaty and exhausted, yet ready to stand and fight for what they believed to be right. Here in this narrow strip of Louisiana between Baton Rouge and Port Hudson, the Civil War had one day come to a halt, and thus the men who rose from the earth wore both tattered butternut and gray or Union blue. They had been good men all, fighting for what they believed to be just when death stopped their fighting, though not forever. They rose together now, for even at a time when the nation had been torn apart in tragic and horrific conflict, they had found moments of peace and friendship.
They were a ghost army, ragged and unearthly, chilling and terrifying shadows of vengeance in the moonlight.
Now they moved slowly in unearthly splendor, spectral shapes, faces hardened, joined together to protect the innocent and destroy evil.
Charlie Moreau kept running forward, through the mist and straight toward the ghostly apparitions. They were no threat to her; it was the men in pursuit behind her who threatened her with fatal danger, those men whom she had to escape. She brushed by the apparitions, feeling a cold mist against her flesh. And then she fell...
She heard screaming from the men pursuing her, who were now being stopped in their tracks by the ghostly Civil War soldiers who had risen in her defense. She rolled over, braced herself on an elbow and looked back, both fear and a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
“Cut!”
Brad Thornton, director of the movie, stood and smiled broadly, applauding. “Wonderful! Charlie, you’re the perfect Dakota Ryan. The rest of you guys, you were everything you were supposed to be. All y’all, come on over here. You’ve got to see this footage. It’s fantastic.”
Charlie smiled and called back, “Great!” She was pleased to see how happy Brad was. He’d put everything into this, his heart, his soul and his best fund-raising efforts. Young, earnest—not to mention darkly good-looking—he was extremely professional and had done well in a tough business. Even so, he was still an independent filmmaker, so he needed every break he could get. She was happy to work with him as lead actress on his latest film.
Jimmy Smith, an extra who’d played one of the ghostly soldiers, reached a hand down to her. One of Charlie’s best friends from both high school and the Tulane Department of Theater and Dance, he had a quick grin and shaggy hair, and his smile was warm. “Come on, Charlie. Sounds like this is one scene our mighty captain has decided he’s gotten in one take.”
“I’m kind of muddy—sorry,” she apologized, happy to take his hand. He’d tried to help her on that horrible night long ago when the Cherubs had tied her up in the cemetery. He’d even cried as he’d apologized to her afterward. They’d stayed friends through everything, and she was glad to be working with him now.
Jimmy laughed. “And I’m a lovely mix of sweat and makeup and mud myself. We’re both fine. Except they made me play a Yankee. That was the winning side, of course, but I doubt that mattered much to the men who died in battle, whether slowly and in pain or quickly, life snuffed out in an instant.”
“I think most of them believed in what they were fighting for, other than the ones who fought because they’d been drafted and had no choice.”
“All I know is I’m damned lucky I didn’t opt to go into the military,” Jimmy said, grimacing. “Whenever I see a reenactment, I shudder. Even when I’m part of one. I mean, those soldiers walked straight toward a line of people firing right at them. They had to know they could be hit by a bullet any minute, but they had to keep on walking.”
“Never sure myself how people managed to do that,” Charlie said. “We’re playacting when we do a reenactment. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for real. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the guys who go in the military today.”
Suddenly she found herself thinking about Ethan Delaney. She knew that he’d gone into the service out of college.
Jimmy knocked at his ear. When she looked at him curiously, he said, “Just mud—I hope.”
“No bugs,” she assured him, studying the dirt caked on him from the ground where the “troops” had lain before rising. “Just mud.”
“If only I didn’t have to play a Yankee,” he said, grinning.
“Remember the guy who played Robert E. Lee for the flashback scene?” Charlie asked. “His great-great-grandfather was a Union general. That’s the biz. Around here, history is especially near and dear to us, that’s all. Anyway, this movie is contemporary—these stupid shoes I’m running in are far too contemporary—but I love that the ghosts from both armies rise up to save the heroine from the bad guys.”
“I like it that we get some of the soldiers’ past, too. It’s really sad, what with the captain killing himself,” Jimmy said.
“The captain was fighting a terrible fever. He wasn’t in his right mind. I forget the statistics—my dad could tell you—but more soldiers died of sickness and infection than gunshot, cannon fire or bayonet.”
“I know—I’ve played a surgeon in a few reenactments.”
“Oh, yeah. Nurse Moreau, here,” Charlie said. “I think that’s why people keep coming to reenactments, because of the human side of war. I mean, the generals who fought each other were often friends—some of them had studied together at West Point—or even family. No matter how you look at it, the Civil War was probably the most heartbreaking era in this country’s history. I’m so happy we didn’t live back then.”
Jimmy grinned. “I agree, and I actually love the point Brad is making with this movie. You know, that people are people, flesh and blood, beating hearts, the same desire to find love and happiness. There may be a constant tug-of-war between environmentalists and oil companies, but I love how he doesn’t make everything black or white.”
“I love Brad’s script, too, especially the way he shows how the Confederate and Union soldiers found common ground before they died, and then their ghosts work together to save me from being killed.”
Jimmy’s grin disappeared. “Speaking of which, did you hear about the murder?”
“What murder?” Charlie said. “When?” She’d been in bed early the night before, because her call that morning had been at the crack of dawn, so they could film the just-completed scene when she’d confronted an oil exec and a state senator after discovering the oil exec had bribed the senator to let him drill where his efforts would destroy the water source for their fictional town of Mary Elizabeth. That had led to tonight’s scene, with her on the run from an oil exec and a crooked senator.
She hadn’t seen any news before bed, and she hadn’t had time to catch any that morning, either.
“They haven’t said what happened yet. Only that a man was murdered. He was from Baton Rouge, and I feel like we might know him, because he was a reenactor, too. His name was Albion Corley. A nice guy, they said on the news.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar to Charlie. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe he’d been someone she’d met through her father, who was often brought on as a consultant for the local reenactments.
“Where did it happen?” Charlie asked. “Was it anywhere near here?”
“Between here and Port Hudson. His body was found just outside an old family cemetery, poorly buried under less than a foot of earth.”
“How awful,” Charlie said, genuinely dismayed. This was a small, close-knit area. The population of St. Francisville was under two thousand. They were just over thirty miles north of Baton Rouge. Of course, the population there was growing and spreading out. Still, murder wasn’t common around here.
Ten years ago, yes, there had been a local serial killer, but he’d been crazy, plus they’d caught him. He’d killed nine people; he’d nearly killed Charlie. Ethan had saved her, and the killer had died five years ago of a stroke while still on death row.
“Is that all you know?” she asked.
“Yeah. It was major-league news this morning, but that was all they seemed to know. They did show a quick clip of a press conference, but it was just double-talk by a Detective Laurent. He basically said they can’t give out any information because the case is under investigation.”
“I can’t believe no one mentioned it all day today.”
“The news just broke this morning, so most people on set probably don’t know about it. I wasn’t on call until later in the day, and that’s why I heard about it. It’ll probably turn out to be some family thing, a fight between friends, or even some idiot playing around with a firearm. It’s sad, but something terrible happens somewhere every day.” He paused and looked around. “And, as your dad once told me, we just never seem to learn our lessons about cruelty and violence.”
“I’ll bet my dad knew him,” Charlie said. “The victim, I mean.”
“I didn’t realize it would upset you so much. I’m sorry I told you.”
“Why? I had to know.”
“But we’re making a movie, and that needs to be our focus. Yours, especially. And Brad’s calling,” Jimmy said, brushing a smudge of caked mud off her face. “Let’s go see that footage.”
“Hey, guys, come on,” Grant Ferguson—another friend who was working as one of the ghosts—said, joining them. “Let’s hurry and see what Brad’s so excited about, because after that we get to bathe.”
Grant was playing a soldier who’d been gruesomely wounded before his death. On top of that, his face prosthetic was peeling off in the heat, which made him look all the more ghastly. At forty-two he was older than most of the others, which was a plus, because soldiers of all ages had fought in what, down here, was still called the War of Northern Aggression.
Charlie struggled to shake off the news she had just heard and tried to smile. “Grant, you look horrible,” she said. “And I mean that as a compliment. Jennie outdid herself.”
It was true. Jennie McPherson, the makeup artist, had worked wonders on a shoestring budget.
Despite the fact that they were all unpaid, every person involved in the film was glad to be there. In exchange for volunteering their efforts, they were all shareholders in the film. Of course, it needed to achieve a pretty broad distribution and earn a fair bit if they were to make any money, but they were all friends, along with a few friends of friends. Most of them had gone to school together and most of those had even graduated in the same class. Some had become friends through other acting jobs. Charlie had met Grant when they’d filmed a spot for a local car dealership. And he, like many of the other extras, had a day job. He was an accountant when he wasn’t acting. That had proved to be a huge asset, because he was also an associate executive producer and kept the books for the film, making sure they spent the budget wisely, especially the state’s money.
Louisiana had made a concerted effort to woo the film industry, and Brad had received a state grant to help him cover expenses for props and equipment.
Charlie and her friends weren’t tabloid names—yet. But most of them were making a decent living at their craft, just like thousands of other actors who weren’t yet household names and might never be. This film was her first chance at a lead role, and since she hailed from St. Francisville herself, she was also in love with the historical incident on which Brad’s script was based.
It had occurred one day in the middle of the Siege of Port Hudson during the Civil War. Port Hudson had been incredibly important to both sides, since it was at the junction of the Red and Mississippi Rivers. Admiral Farragut from the North wanted it taken, so the US Navy was determined to take it.
In that effort, they shelled Grace Episcopal Church.
But one day, suddenly the shelling went silent. And a small boat, bearing US Navy men and a white flag of truce, made its way to the shoreline below the bluffs.
The commander of the Albatross, one of the ships involved in the shelling, had died by his own hand. Since he’d exhibited no signs of depression in a loving letter written to his wife just days before, it was later assumed that he’d grown despairing during a fit of delirium, perhaps due to yellow fever. A good commander and a Mason and a kind man full of concern for the wounded of both sides, he had been well loved.
Two of his officers and best friends aboard ship hadn’t wanted to consign his body to the waters of the Mississippi, so they’d gone ashore to find out if there might be brother Masons anywhere near, and if there was any way that Commander John E. Hart could be afforded a proper service and burial. One of the largest Masonic lodges in Louisiana—Feliciana Lodge #31 F&AM—was nearby. The White brothers, who lived in the area and were touched by the plea of Hart’s friends, set out to see what they could arrange.
The Grand Master of the lodge was serving in the Confederate Army. But the Senior Warden, William W. Leake, also with the Confederate Army, had his “headquarters in the saddle” and was in the area. The White brothers found him and explained the situation, and Leake said he couldn’t imagine any military man—not to mention a brother Mason—not having a proper burial.
Word was sent back to the Albatross, and the ship’s surgeon and a few fellow officers made their way, carrying the body in the June heat, swearing and determined, up the bluffs to the church. They were met by the White brothers, W. W. Leake, a number of other Masons, the Reverend Lewis and a company of Confederate States Marines.
For a few precious moments in time, on June 12, 1863, there was peace. Commander John E. Hart was buried with full military and Masonic honors in the Grace Church graveyard.
Of course, the war went on afterward. Vicksburg fell on July 4, Gettysburg turned the tide in the East on July 3, and Port Hudson was surrendered on the 9th, following the longest siege of the war. There were five thousand Union casualties and more than seven thousand Confederates. Once Vicksburg had fallen, General Gardner felt that to continue to hold out would simply cause more useless bloodshed and death. He was right, but he was overruled by his superiors. From then on it was more blood and the tragic loss of life for both sides until the day at Appomattox Courthouse almost two years later when, for all intents and purposes, the country was reunited.
William Leake went on to become Grand Master of the Feliciana Lodge, and for forty-nine years, he tended to Hart’s grave. When Leake died, he was buried next to Hart, and the two were now honored every year with a reenactment ceremony called The Day the War Stopped.
The whole story was covered in Brad’s movie, which made it very special to Charlie. Her mother’s great-great-grandfather had been one of the Confederate States Marines who had attended the funeral services for Commander Hart. She’d always loved the story, because it was about the goodness that could be found in people even amid the tragedy of war.
But Brad’s movie wasn’t historical; it was a suspense movie about a piece of land hallowed by the blood of the soldiers who’d died there and was now threatened by drilling, people trying to save it and other people sabotaging efforts at negotiation, while a few evildoers were ready to kill to have things their way. It was timely, and those on both sides were drawn as complex characters. At the end, the would-be killers were stopped by the very ghosts who made the land so special. Or, possibly, by what they saw in their own imaginations. The truth was, the ending of his movie was left to the eye—and the imagination—of the viewer.
As Charlie and the decaying soldiers, along with Harry Grayson and Blane Pica—who played the scuzzy oil baron and sleazy senator trying to kill Charlie—and assorted crew members got a look at the footage, she had to agree with Brad. It was great. Also really creepy. If the rest of the footage was as good, they would have a surefire hit.
“Thank you, and that’s a wrap for the day,” Brad said, smiling. “You’re free—until your 7:00 a.m. call if you’re in the fight scene. Check your schedules and have a good night.”
Grant laughed and called out, “Brad, check your schedule. It’s a 7:00 p.m. call tomorrow.”
Brad winced. “Sorry. Go and enjoy your night.”
Charlie smiled at Grant. She wasn’t on call at all for the next several days. Due to her commitment to a web series she was also filming, she had returned to Francisville only five days earlier, and she’d been on call pretty much nonstop since. Now she had only a few scenes to go.
“Sounds good to me,” Jennie McPherson said, as she glanced over at George Gonzales—another Tulane classmate—who was doing double duty in set design and as a prop master. The extras had been returning their hats, swords, guns, belts, buckles and the rest of their accessories—everything but the period uniforms they were still wearing—and George was frowning.
“Missing a belt buckle, a canteen and a knife,” George said.
“Come on, let’s go. Showers for one and all,” Jimmy said, wrinkling his nose as he got a whiff of himself.
“I’m going to stay and help George and the set guys retrieve whatever fell in the fields,” Charlie told him. “We can’t afford to lose any of our props.” She loved George. He was one of the hardest-working and funniest friends she had, claiming descent from both slaves and also from their Confederate masters. He loved to chime in on their historical discussions, especially since his mother—who, confusing things even more, was Israeli—had been born in New York City. He considered himself a Confederate/Yankee/African American, and liked to say that gave him a unique perspective.
“Yeah, don’t want to leave George in the lurch,” Jimmy said. “I guess I can stay, too.”
“You have a call tomorrow night. I don’t. Go have fun, then get some sleep,” Charlie said.
“Oh, man, thanks, Charlene! There is so much we have to be so careful with! Money, you know,” Jennie said. She was a petite blonde, and with her hair in a ponytail, as it was now, she looked to be about fifteen, but she’d actually turned thirty on her last birthday. Brad had met Jennie working on a project in New Orleans. She liked to lord it over George, who was her junior by a year. “We have to be so careful about costs.”
“I’ll stay and help, too,” Grant offered.
“No, you do the books, you do the budgeting, you write the checks—and you’re an extra every time Brad needs one. I’ve got this,” Charlie said. “Go.”
Jimmy and Grant left, looking more like ghostly apparitions than ever as they headed toward their cars. Brad didn’t notice; he was studying shots with Mike, his brother and main cameraman.
“I’m off to look for your missing props,” Charlie said. “Can Barry light up the field for me?” Barry Seymour was in charge of lighting. He was also an electrician, which made him perfect for the job, because he could fix any problems at minimal cost. He came from Baton Rouge, and like Grant, he was in his early forties. He could not only take the time to work on the film but he could invest in it, as well, because he’d once worked as an electrician on one of the big oil rigs in the Gulf. He’d taken his pay and invested heavily in the oil company, and it had paid off.
“Barry! Light the field!” Jennie yelled.
Charlie cringed. She could have yelled herself.
“I can help, too,” Luke Mayfield, their sound engineer and another friend, just a few classes ahead of Charlie and Brad at Tulane, walked over and said to Charlie.
“Great,” she said.
She hurried toward the field where they’d been filming, followed quickly by Luke and George, and then Barry, Mike and Brad.
Even the director worked at keeping costs down.
As she walked, head down, eyes searching the ground, she was glad to be alone with her thoughts. Jimmy telling her about the murdered man had been unnerving. Especially here. She couldn’t help but remember the past. And now something bad had happened again.
Yes, something bad happened somewhere every day, but that was no consolation.
She paused for a minute and looked up at the church.
The area held strange memories for her—some pleasantly nostalgic, some not so great. Now, though, the church and the surrounding landscape had an eerie beauty in the moonlight. The church wasn’t immense or grand, like a cathedral, but it stood proud on its bluff overlooking the Mississippi, and there was even something unexpectedly poignant about it. The cemetery around the church was filled with graves of all kinds, in-ground, “box” graves—literally stone or marble in the shape of boxes—and family mausoleums. Cherubs and angels stood guard everywhere. Grace Episcopal Church still served the people of the parish, and the building and graveyard were well kept without looking manicured.
The mist created by their fog machines was dispersing, but slowly, so a low fog still hovered over the ground, making her search difficult and rendering the scene deceptively surreal.
For a moment Charlie found herself thinking that she could see a distant past when war had raged—and a temporary peace had been found. She could almost see those soldiers, some who had lived and some who had died, making their way through the mist and the moss-draped oaks.
She remembered being young and playing in the graveyard when she shouldn’t have. She’d imagined seeing things then, too....
And then there had been that night in high school when she’d been pledging the Cherubs and ended up tied to a headstone, even though they all knew there was a killer at work not far away.
A serial killer who targeted young women.
Ethan had found and freed her. And she knew, though she hadn’t said anything to Jimmy, that she was especially upset because...
Because she’d become entangled in that last murder when she’d found a dead girl’s bracelet.
Charlie gave herself a serious shake. She’d been living in New Orleans since she’d graduated from college; that’s where the work was. She’d done some national commercials and even a few guest spots on network shows. But...
This was home. She loved it here. And she would be damned if she was going to be afraid out here now. She wasn’t tied up; she wasn’t a kid. She was an adult—ten years older, and making a good living in her chosen field.
Still, she couldn’t help but remember the past.
She’d looked up information on the men who had died in and around the area, especially those who had been buried here. She was pretty certain she’d found the cavalryman whose ghost she’d seen all those years ago; his name was Anson McKee. Anson had been a married man with one son, and he’d been a graduate of West Point. The week before his death he’d written the most beautiful letter to his wife, a letter now preserved in a museum in New Orleans. He’d written of his love for her, his fear not of death, but of leaving her.
Know that I will whisper your sweet name with my last breath. Know that whenever Almighty God may choose to take me home, my time on this earth was the sweetest and most precious any man could ask for. I was blessed to know you, to live with you, to hold you and call you wife.
She sometimes wished that she could see him again and tell him that she’d been blessed because of him.
Anson was buried in hallowed ground. She had visited his grave and brought flowers to it.
And while the cemetery could feel very creepy at night, there was no reason for her to be afraid—not now. Any ghosts there had been good people. Good people did not return to do mischief.
Her own mother had been interred in the family mausoleum at Grace Church. It was a handsome and historic old family tomb that she and her father kept in immaculate shape.
She bit her lower lip. The dull throb of that loss always lived with her, just below the surface. But she and her dad both remembered the good and the love, clinging to the beauty of their memories.
Still, she had too many recollections associated with the graveyard, and that one memory was very scary. If it hadn’t been for Ethan, things might have been much, much worse.
Someone surely would have come back for her—eventually.
But would they have come in time?
The moon shifted. She was close enough to the edge of the bluff that she could see the Journey, the meticulously restored paddle wheeler on which her father worked and lived for large parts of every week, as she made her way up the Mississippi.
The Journey had been in port earlier and would be there early tomorrow morning, as well. She’d gotten to see her dad when he’d had a few minutes of free time after taking his tour group through the Myrtles Plantation and on to see Rosedown Plantation. She would have a few minutes with him again in the morning before the Journey headed to New Orleans.
She was glad of the chance. She was an only child, and her mom was gone, but she had her father, and while these days he was almost always aboard the Journey, its home port was New Orleans, so she was able to see him often when she was home.
“Charlie.”
She turned when she heard her name, trying to figure out who’d called her. The others were busy searching farther away, and no one seemed to even be aware of her.
She caught her breath. The mist from the foggers should have dissipated by now, but it seemed that a real one was rising.
“Charlie.”
There it was. Someone had spoken her name again, and her coworkers were still involved in their own searches.
She could have sworn she saw shapes moving in the mist, just as she had seen ghosts, long ago as a terrified teenager tied to a tombstone before being rescued by a young man who also saw the ghosts in the moonlight but was not afraid.
The ghosts hadn’t been out to hurt her. Ironically, Brad’s movie had hit on the truth—or her truth, at least. She and Ethan had never spoken about it, but she knew that the ghost of the cavalry officer had led him to her that night. He’d seen her distress and found help. She’d wondered time and time again if there was a way to help that soldier. Did he want to pass on? Or did he stay to help others?
Or did he stay because he wasn’t alone? There had been others with him, just none she had seen as clearly as she had seen him.
A long time ago now.
She reminded herself that she was supposed to be working. She was the lead actress and a shareholder. And given their budget, she was also looking for costly props.
She straightened and gave herself another mental shake. She was letting the shadows and the moonlight and history infiltrate her mind and strip away all the logic and common sense she had acquired as an adult.
But she could never be here without first remembering her mother, and then that time, before she’d lost her mom, when she’d been tied to that tombstone.
When she’d heard the sobbing. When Ethan had come to save her...
When she’d found the bracelet that had belonged to a murdered girl...
“Hey!” she called, wanting to hear her own voice. “What are we looking for again? A buckle, a knife and a canteen?”
She didn’t need to be afraid. Jennie, George, Mike and Brad were within easy shouting distance. She could see them moving across the ground where the “ghosts” had so recently walked.
“Yeah,” George called back. His voice came from much farther away than the sound of her name had.
“Found the belt buckle,” Mike announced.
“Got the canteen,” George said a moment later.
Charlie walked closer to the outskirts of the church, moving slowly and carefully over the ground, nearing the old outer, unhallowed, graveyard.
“I see something!” she cried, noticing a gleam in the moonlight.
She told herself to forget about the past—and the ghosts of the past.
She was safe now, surrounded by friends, and any ghosts here were helpful ones.
She dropped to her knees, reaching for the shiny metallic object.
“Think I’ve found something,” she called over her shoulder.
At first she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. It was just something shining in the dirt. It wasn’t until she reached for it that she realized that it was a ring. A signet ring.
And it was attached to a finger....
A finger that was attached to a hand, a hand that was protruding from the earth...
Because it was attached to a barely buried body.
It took a few seconds to resonate in her mind, and then...
A dead man. She had found a dead man.
Only then did she begin to scream.
It was happening again.
2 (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
Ethan Delaney tapped on the partly open door to Jackson Crow’s office, then pushed it wide and walked in.
He’d been with the Krewe a little more than a month. He was still becoming accustomed to working in this office in Northern Virginia, which had its own low-key friendly ways. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been used to camaraderie among agents—he was. He’d been in the New York office for the last several years, and, due to the stress level that went with working in the Big Apple, the agents there often resorted to humor to lighten the tension.
Here, though, office doors were seldom closed, and they were never locked.
Crow was their Special Agent in Charge, directly beneath Special Assistant Director Adam Harrison, who made himself equally available. Adam had helped Crow interview Ethan before inviting him to join the elite unit. They had both treated it like an easy dinner out, but he’d known full well that his answers had been carefully weighed, and that they’d been keeping track of his body language, as well.
Relief.
He hadn’t really thought about it before, but that was exactly what he felt in his new position. In his customary work in the criminal division, he’d often needed to watch his words carefully. He’d constantly had to come up with explanations for his decisions. He’d read about the Krewe of Hunters and in fact had a good friend who had transferred over before him. Aiden Mahoney had been professional when they’d talked, not lying to him and not trying to hedge, but not saying exactly what the Krewe’s specific rules and responsibilities were, either.
But now that he was here, he’d discovered the rules weren’t written down or formally agreed upon; rather they were assumed and tacitly understood by every member of the Krewe.
He was learning, day by day, to relax completely in this new realm. Here he could be totally honest about what he saw and sensed, things others might consider extrasensory. Truthfully, most solutions were based on logic and physical evidence, but others, the solutions to the crimes the Krewe investigated, included something more.
He had all the right training for his position: Loyola, where he’d studied criminal psychology and forensics; a stint in the military; a master’s degree in forensic sciences from George Washington University; then the FBI Academy. He knew that training helped, but it by no means superseded something he’d been born with, something inherited from one or more of his ancestors, a mixture of Spaniards, Creoles, English, Irish, Italian and, as with so many Louisiana natives, Haitian and Choctaw. He had one living great-grandmother on his mother’s mother’s side who believed in the mysterious ways of true voodoo. He also had a great-grandfather from his mother’s father’s side who loved to teach him Choctaw legends. One great-grandmother on his dad’s side had emigrated from Norway, while one great-grandfather had come over from Scotland and married a woman of Italian descent, all of which meant that the stories Ethan had heard growing up covered a vast array of myth and legend.
The tales were different and yet, oddly, much the same. In most of them, the supernatural played a key role, and since that agreed with his own experience of the world, it had caused him a few problems early on in school. He’d quickly learned to guard his thoughts in regard to the world around him and to keep his mouth shut about many things he might have had to say, and he’d pretty much stuck to that plan into adulthood.
Then he’d heard about the Krewe.
On their most recent case, his first, he’d discovered that his quick ability to communicate with the lost and disfranchised—the dead—was a bonus and not something to hide. One of the dead men, a powerful lobbyist, had spoken to him, and after that the clues had been easy to follow. The murders had not been politically motivated, but rather rooted in a family financial dispute.
Ethan was glad he and the Krewe had been able to solve the case and especially pleased that he had proved his worth.
“Jackson?” he said now.
His supervisor was busy reading through a file and frowning as he did so. He quickly looked up as Ethan spoke.
“Ethan, thanks for coming so quickly,” Jackson said, indicating the chair in front of his desk. He passed the file across the table.
There were two pictures on the first page, men between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five, both in business suits, one a muscular Caucasian, the other handsome and looking to be of mixed African American and Caucasian descent.
“Farrell Hickory and Albion Corley,” Jackson said, indicating the men in the pictures.
“And they’re both...?” Ethan asked.
“Dead,” Jackson clarified. “Local police are investigating. Everything they’ve got is all there in the files, and I’ve also emailed you.”
“They’re sure the murders are related?”
“Both men were found in replica Civil War uniforms in shallow graves—and not in graveyards but near them.”
“Union uniforms?” Ethan asked. A twisted get-even spree by a deranged local? The Civil War had ended in 1865. Reconstruction had officially ended with the Compromise of 1876.
Long over—or so one would think. But down here, things were different.
As much as Ethan wanted to believe people, in both the North and the South, had escaped the prejudices of that era, the Klan, neo-Nazis and various supremacist groups were still around. While laws could protect people, they couldn’t always deal with old hatreds that still had a pernicious hold on too many minds. Still, he believed he lived in a better world now than the one he’d been born into. And being of such mixed ancestry himself, it was painful to suspect that any murder might be motivated by prejudice.
“Here’s the interesting thing,” Jackson told him. “Farrell Hickory was in a Confederate cavalry officer’s uniform. Albion Corley was wearing a Union naval uniform.”
“That is interesting. You wouldn’t kill your own side, so that seems to rule out someone still stuck in the Civil War,” Ethan said.
Jackson nodded. “Anyway, both men were stabbed in the heart. The forensics experts believe that both men were stabbed with a bayonet or something similar that could be wielded with a certain precision.”
“If a bayonet was the murder weapon, that seems to indicate the killer is a Civil War reenactor,” Ethan said.
“That’s what the police think. But what’s the motive? And why these two men? Both of them were descended from men who fought in the Civil War but on opposite sides. Both of them had roots in or around the area, but their jobs weren’t related, and there doesn’t seem to be any obvious connection between them.”
Ethan listened, surprised he hadn’t seen anything about the murders on the news yet. He believed the country was trying to change the mind-set that had been so common at one time. He would have seen a clearer motive if descendants of known Klansmen had been murdered, for example, even more so if the victims were current members of the Klan or one of its spiritual cousins.
He didn’t know the particulars of either man, since he had yet to read the files, but he was sure Crow would have mentioned anything that obvious.
And he had yet to hear why the Krewe were involved. Unless the local police had asked for help. Unless one of the men had been kidnapped or state lines had been crossed.
Under most circumstances, three murders with the same signature were seen as the calling card of a serial killer, which was when the Bureau got involved, and so far they only had two. Of course, since the War on Terror had begun, everything, even in the FBI, had changed. And especially with the Krewe of Hunters, there really wasn’t such a thing as a norm.
“Jackson, I need to look through that,” he said, indicating the folder.
Jackson nodded. “You can study it on the way.”
“On the way? Where am I going?”
“Baton Rouge,” Jackson said, watching him for his reaction.
“Okay,” Ethan said slowly. “I’m just curious, and I’d like to play with a full deck. The Bureau has an office in New Orleans. Granted, it’s not a Krewe office, but even here I’m not the only Louisiana agent on staff. Am I going with someone else? Were we invited in? Or will I be stepping on toes when I get there?”
“Adam is speaking with the proper authorities. You won’t have any problems, though you’ll be working with a local detective—Randall Laurent.”
“Randy!” Ethan said.
“You know him?” Jackson asked.
Ethan nodded. “We’re both from St. Francisville. He’s a good guy,” he added, pausing to grin. “He quit opening beer bottles with his teeth years ago and became a solid, tough and decent man. Seriously, he’s a good guy. We were actually at Loyola together, too. But—”
“I’m sending you because Angela referred the call to me. She receives all our ‘invitations’ and inquiries, and she has a great way of reading between the lines and determining if the case is right for us.”
Ethan knew Angela, a special agent with the Krewe who handled a lot of the administrative and back-end business. They were often inundated with cases, and she had an amazing ability to determine which ones might best benefit from the Krewe’s assistance.
She and Jackson were also married and had been among the original six members of the Krewe.
“Yes, of course,” Ethan said.
“I believe you’re the perfect man for this situation. You know the area. If I’m not mistaken, you even used to live in the parish.”
“I’ve been gone a long time,” Ethan said. “I have family in the area, but they’re mostly in New Orleans now.”
“But you know people there. The lead detective is an old friend, you said. That’s always a good thing.”
Ethan was still curious. So far he’d always worked with at least one other Krewe agent, but it sounded as if he was being sent on his own.
He knew there were other Krewe agents who came from Louisiana, even if they didn’t come from West Feliciana Parish. Jude McCoy, another recent addition to the Krewe, had been an agent in New Orleans before he joined the Krewe.
“If you find something, I’ll head down with Jude McCoy by the end of the week,” Jackson said, as if he’d read Ethan’s mind.
“All right,” Ethan said. He hesitated and then shrugged. He might as well just throw it out there. “I love this job. I’m ready to go wherever the assignment leads, do whatever needs to be done. You know that. But I’m surprised. There are other agents who’ve been with the Krewe a lot longer than I have. Even Jude. He’s pretty new, but not as new as me. We’ve even become friends because we’re both from Louisiana. The Krewe started out in New Orleans. So...not to take anything away from my own abilities, but...why me?”
“We were specifically asked if you were available,” Jackson said, his light eyes, so striking against his dark hair and tanned flesh, hard on Ethan.
“By?” Ethan asked.
“A woman who found one of the bodies. She spoke with some friends of hers with connections here, and they made a persuasive case. She’s a local actress, name of Charlene Moreau.”
“Ah.” Ethan hoped that the memories suddenly flooding through him weren’t visible on his face.
“You do know her, then?” Jackson asked.
“I did know her,” Ethan said. “When we were kids. And I know of her now. I’ve seen her on a new cop show they’re filming down there, and in a couple of commercials. I haven’t actually seen her, though, since I was nineteen. She must have been fifteen or sixteen.”
“How close were you?” Jackson asked.
How close?
Jackson must have seen his confusion, because he went on. “When we’re young, we’re often more open to what’s around us, to seeing the kinds of things we here in the Krewe see every day.”
Ethan remembered being home from college, talking on the phone to his mother about something boring like his laundry. He was already taking criminology courses, and his mother brought up the killings that had occurred just north of Baton Rouge and how people were growing nervous in the entire area around the capital city.
And then he’d seen the soldier at the window. A Confederate cavalry officer. The man had seemed to be beckoning to him, and at first he’d naturally thought the man was a lost reenactor needing help.
But the soldier had led him across fields, pausing only to glare at Ethan when Ethan stopped, irritably demanding that the ghost explain what he wanted. Somehow Ethan felt compelled to follow him despite his silence and his strange behavior.
In the end he’d followed his spectral guide to Grace Episcopal Church.
That was when he’d seen Charlene Moreau. She’d been tied to a gravestone.
Her head was bent as she pulled against the knots that had held her there, and despite the situation she’d been ethereally beautiful in the moonlight, hair tumbling over her shoulders, a flesh-and-blood version of the worn stone angel that stood over a nearby grave with her head bowed deep in prayer.
Ethan pulled himself back to the present when Jackson spoke.
“Apparently Ms. Moreau is friends with Clara Avery and Alexi Cromwell, two young actresses I know from previous cases. They’re here in our area at the moment, involved with Adam Harrison’s theater project—he’s restoring a historic theater and has hired them to deal with creative management—although they’re both from the New Orleans area originally. Both of them are also gifted—or cursed—the same way we in the Krewe are.” He paused, then went on. “And speaking of previous cases, there’s another strange association here, too,” Jackson said.
“That being?”
“We’ve recently worked two serial-killer cases involving the Celtic American cruise line. The cruise company wasn’t at fault, of course, but both killers carried out their work aboard their ships.”
Ethan frowned, wondering how the recent deaths of the two reenactors could be related to the cruise line.
Then he saw it. A slim connection, but a connection nonetheless.
“The Journey,” he said. “Celtic American owns the Journey, and she does a run from New Orleans to Vicksburg, with a stop at St. Francisville. And of course, I know about the cases involving the Destiny and the Fate. Anyone in the world with media access knows about the cases.” He hesitated. “We’re sure there was no direct connection to the cruise line or the Journey?”
“We can’t know for sure, not yet,” Jackson said, his tone tight. “But not as far as the owners, operators or employees of Celtic American go. But Charlene Moreau’s father is the cruise director and resident historian aboard the Journey.”
“I know Charlene’s father. I promise you, he had nothing to do with murder.”
“I’m not suggesting anything like that. But here’s where the connection to the cruise line comes in. Both of the dead men took part in a reenactment aboard the Journey. The ship does themed cruises. A week ago, the theme was the Civil War. Considering the route, a lot of their cruises are Civil War–themed, but this was their once-a-year extra-special Civil War cruise. Celtic American’s claim to fame is that they specialize in historic cruises. Interestingly, the Journey offers ghost tours as well as your standard history-based ones.”
“The Journey actually has a legitimate historical claim of its own. She was conscripted to move Southern troops up and down the Mississippi when the war began. She was seized by the Union forces when they took New Orleans in 1862, then used to move wounded Union troops. For a brief time she fell back into Confederate hands, when a small troop of Confederate soldiers slipped aboard and took her over. She went back to the Union, though—a trade was arranged that allowed for injured Rebels being held by the Union to be exchanged for the Union men aboard the ship. There had been an outbreak of fever on board, so the Confederates were only too happy to hand the ship and the men over to the Yankees, and the Journey continued on her way, mainly doing hospital runs for the rest of the war.”
“See?” Jackson said softly. “You know your local history—something that can be invaluable in cases like this. So...back to the connection,” he continued. “Both the murdered men were involved in that extra-special reenactment aboard the ship about a week ago. That’s one of the reasons the police are so sure the killings must have been planned by someone in the reenactors’ group.”
“But you don’t believe that,” Ethan said.
“It’s certainly possible, given what we know so far. But I don’t like to grasp at the easy answer.”
“Sometimes the obvious answer is the truth,” Ethan said.
“And sometimes it’s not.”
“No,” Ethan agreed, and stood. If he was heading to Baton Rouge and then up river to St. Francisville, he was eager to get started. “What are my travel arrangements?”
“A car’s waiting to take you home to pack and then to the airport. The plane leaves as soon as you’re aboard.”
“As soon as I’m aboard?” Ethan asked.
Jackson smiled. “I guess you haven’t gotten used to our form of ‘troop movement’ yet. We have a nice, new private jet. Adam financed it himself. No taxpayer dollars.”
“Ah. Well, then, nice I won’t have to change planes in New Orleans.”
Jackson grinned. “Report in to me as soon as you have a feel for what’s going on. Jude and I can join you early if you think we can help. That plane goes back and forth whenever we want it to.”
Ethan took the folder and headed out of the office.
Within an hour he was on the private plane provided by Adam Harrison.
As he flew, he read the dossiers on the dead men.
Then he looked out the window and gave himself up to memories of Charlie Moreau.
* * *
“It’s going to be all right, Charlie—really. This situation has nothing to do with you or Brad or the movie. You stumbled on something very bad that someone else did. You can’t go letting it affect your life. In fact, you should be glad you found the poor man, because now the police can try to find some justice for him.”
Jonathan Moreau set his arm around Charlie’s shoulders and hugged her gently.
She was sitting with her father on a bluff high above the Mississippi. It was a short distance from Grace Church and the place where she’d found the body of a man who’d been identified as Farrell Hickory dressed in his Confederate cavalry uniform.
That area still had crime-scene tape around it.
From her perch atop the bluff she could see the people she assumed were forensic investigators searching the area. The police had told her that they hoped to finish by that evening. Meanwhile, Brad had rearranged the shooting schedule until they were free to use the fields again.
Since then she’d spent a lot of time on the phone in a three-way conversation with Clara Avery and Alexi Cromwell, good friends she’d worked with a number of times in the past. They were now working with the FBI and knew a number of agents, including Ethan.
“You can’t let it get to you, Charlie,” her father said.
She knew he was right. The murder had nothing to do with her or the film crew. A vicious killer had murdered Farrell Hickory, and it was likely that the same person had murdered Albion Corley, as well. He’d been of mixed African and Caucasian descent, and had been wearing a replica Union uniform when he’d been killed.
Not long before Albion’s death, he and Farrell Hickory had performed with a number of other reenactors on the same riverboat, the Journey, where her father worked, as part of an in-depth Civil War–themed cruise.
Charlie turned to her father and asked, “Why, Dad? Why them? This is nuts! I mean, one victim was half black and one was white, one was reenacting the Confederate side and the other the Union side. What was the killer thinking?”
“Maybe he’s just someone who hates war,” her father said.
“That doesn’t make any sense. He hates war, so he commits cold-blooded murder instead?”
“Charlie,” her father said, “if you ask me, murder never makes sense. Taking another man’s—or woman’s—life is brutal, cruel and ultimately senseless. But the police are investigating, so leave it to them. You’re an actress, and a darned good one. You’re not a cop. You...” He paused, looking off into the distance.
Charlie loved her father. Her mom had died suddenly the summer after her first year of college. It had been an aneurysm—one day a minor headache she laughed off, the next day...gone. She and her dad had been devastated. Her father was a handsome man, fifty-four years old. But he still hadn’t even gone on a date. When she’d actually tried to get him to go out with one of the entertainers on the riverboat, he’d just smiled and told her, “Maybe one day I’ll be ready for someone, but let’s face it—in my heart and mind, no one can begin to live up to your mom.”
She’d decided to let him be. When he was ready, she would be ready, too. She knew that—right or wrong—if he’d gotten involved with another woman right after her mother had died, she would have been bitter. Now, though, enough time had passed that she could deal with equanimity with the idea of him falling in love again. More than anything, she wanted to see him happy. Of course, she knew he loved her, and she made him happy—as did his work. He loved the old riverboat—the Journey—and he loved talking to people about history. He excelled at it. Still, she thought he would be happier if he had someone in his life. However, finding someone who loved the Mississippi, an old riverboat and being regaled with historical tales at every turn might be a bit of a challenge.
“You’re not a cop,” he repeated softly. “Even if you do play one on TV every now and then,” he added lightly. “Sometimes you know things, but you’re not trained law enforcement. You know how to shoot because I taught you when you were a kid, not so you’d shoot anyone or anything, but because we live out in the sticks, and I wanted you to be able to defend yourself. But snooping around...well, that could be dangerous. So don’t even think about it, okay? No matter what you...know.”
She understood he was talking about what her family called “insight.” It wasn’t really insight at all, of course. Most people called it the “gift” or the “sight.” Her family seemed to think if you referred to seeing ghosts or speaking with the dead as insight, people wouldn’t immediately think you were slightly daft or totally out of your mind.
Her father didn’t see the dead. Her ability had come from her mother’s family. However, Jonathan Moreau didn’t doubt the existence of the insight for a minute. He’d delighted in her mother’s abilities. How else could he possibly have learned some of the historical detail he cherished so much?
“Dad,” Charlie murmured, and then hesitated. She looked at her father. He had deep blue eyes, the color of her own, but now they seemed even darker with concern. He knew what she was going to say, she thought.
Now, that was actually insight.
“He called my name, Dad. The dead man, Farrell Hickory, he called me by name. Or at least I think it was him.” She hesitated; she had never told her father about the Confederate cavalry officer who had led Ethan to her that horrible night ten years ago. She’d told her mom, but her mom was gone now. Her father had been so upset about the entire situation that she’d never told him the whole story. Would it seem strange to him now that she thought a different dead man had called to her for help? “He called my name,” she said again. “That’s how I found him.”
Her father shook his head. “Charlie, I barely knew him. How would he have known your name. Did you know him at all?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, if I’d met him, I didn’t recognize him. I haven’t been around that much in years, so I don’t know how he’d know my name.”
“Farrell Hickory’s family’s owned a sugarcane plantation downriver for over two hundred years,” Jonathan reminded her drily.
“I think I’ve been there once,” Charlie said. She loved history, too; she had to, to survive in her father’s house. But few people had his passion for the past. “Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure he was part of a reenactment I saw that revolved around the Confederate capture of the Journey. That was years ago, though.” She paused, then asked, “Did you see him the day he and Albion Corley worked together?”
“I might have, Charlie. It was a crazy busy day, and I didn’t really have much to do with the reenactors. I just put on my white cotton shirt and period breeches, added a straw hat and a pipe, and stepped ashore to give lectures in the old boathouse at the dock. And while we’re a pretty small parish, I move in a pretty circumscribed orbit, and like a lot of locals, he might not have been around that much. Lots of people hail from here, but head down to New Orleans for the oil business.”
“I doubt he was in the oil business, Dad. Like you were saying, his family has that plantation on the river. I was there with a school group when I was a sophomore in high school. The teachers love taking classes to the Hickory Plantation for a firsthand look at what working a plantation really meant. Mr. Hickory kept his private rooms on the second floor, and the ground floor was open to the public. I know the Hickory Plantation isn’t grand like Oak Alley or San Francisco or some of the others, but I loved the fact that it was all about the way life was and the work people did and still do.”
Her father looked at her, nodding. “Charlie, I know. And I’m sorry he’s gone, even if I can’t say he was a friend or even a close acquaintance. But I’d met the man, and I know a fair amount about the family plantation.” He sighed. “According to the news, he left behind a twenty-four-year-old son. I hope he’ll keep the plantation running, not just the tourist part but the sugarcane business, too. I probably saw his son around sometime over the years, but...”
“I don’t know him,” Charlie said. “He would have been two years behind me in school.” She looked out over the water for a long moment, then said, “It just doesn’t make sense, Dad. At first the press were theorizing that Albion Corley was killed because of some dispute with another reenactor. Something about him getting better parts than someone who’d been part of the group longer. But now, with another reenactor murdered, too... The two of them had nothing in common, other than that they were both reenactors and they were both in that program on the Journey.”
“Don’t forget, both men were born in Louisiana,” her father reminded her. “And both of them were apparently killed with what looks to be a Civil War–era bayonet or a damn good replica.”
“You know how they were killed?” She couldn’t keep the amazement from her voice.
“I heard about Corley on the news yesterday, and I heard a cop theorizing about Hickory at the diner this morning.”
She fell silent, thinking back to everything that had happened after she’d discovered the body. The police had arrived quickly, and she’d told a uniformed officer what had happened. Later a Detective Laurent had shown up, and she’d told him what had happened, too. But she had talked, and the police had listened. She hadn’t thought to ask questions. She’d screamed once when she found the body, but after that she’d become almost numb, unnaturally calm, when she spoke to the police, her usual curiosity tamped down by her shock.
Every member of the crew had been questioned, as well. They’d all been asked if they’d seen any strange people hanging around the set.
In their ghostly makeup, half the actors had looked very strange indeed, but nobody had noticed anyone who might have been the murderer. Brad had told the police he had lots of film of the field, and they were welcome to see the footage. Naturally they’d accepted his offer.
Charlie had heard the medical examiner talking to Detective Laurent, telling him that Mr. Hickory had been dead at least twenty-four hours. But she hadn’t heard anything about how he’d been killed, and it had never occurred to her to ask.
“I wish I had thought to ask the police more questions,” she murmured.
“You should go back to New Orleans,” her father told her gruffly.
“I can’t! I can’t walk out on Brad’s movie.”
“You’re with me today.”
“I’m not scheduled to work today.”
Jonathan sighed deeply. “Well, I am. I’ve got to get back.” He stood, reached down a hand and pulled her to her feet. “Stay and film your movie, Charlie. But go home—”
“Dad, I told you—I can’t walk out on Brad.”
“I mean our home, the one you grew up in. And stay there unless you’re surrounded by friends. Stop fixating on this, sweetheart. You don’t need to be asking any questions. Leave it alone and watch out for yourself. Promise?”
“I promise. I’ll go home right now,” she told him, then kissed him on the cheek. “Our home—the one I grew up in. And I won’t fixate. Okay?” She smiled, feeling like a horrible liar even though she hadn’t actually lied. She had simply neglected to tell him that she’d asked to have Ethan Delaney assigned to the case because she knew he had joined the FBI and was part of an elite team tasked with dealing with the unusual.
Was it unusual that two men involved in Civil War reenactments had been murdered?
Maybe not. Maybe it should be a matter for the local police. Except...
Except she was certain a corpse had called her name.
“You can always come and stay on the Journey with me. I’ve been with them so long that my original cabin has been upgraded to a pretty nice suite. It’s not huge, but you could have the bedroom, and I’d take the sofa.”
“Dad. I’m fine. I promise. I love the Journey, but I’m doing a movie, remember?” she told him. “I promise I’ll go right home from here, okay?”
This was a beautiful spot, she thought. They’d been coming here to sit and talk since she’d been a little girl. He had to get back to the port now, though. The Journey was heading on to Baton Rouge, Houmas House and then New Orleans, where her passengers would debark, new ones would board, and the cycle would begin again, NOLA to Oak Alley in Vacherie to Houmas House in Darrow to Baton Rouge to St. Francisville, Natchez, then Vicksburg. The itinerary stayed basically the same, but specific tours with different emphases were planned for aficionados of country music, history, art, theater and fine dining. As her father said goodbye and bent to kiss her on the cheek, Charlie really did intend to go home. But as he walked away toward his car, parked behind hers on the road just below the bluff, she noticed that someone was walking up the slope from that road. Her heart began to beat too quickly.
It wasn’t because Ethan was back, she was certain. The years had stretched into an eternity between them. She hadn’t asked for him to come for any reason other than that she knew he would take her seriously when she said she’d heard the dead talking to her again.
It was just that his timing was so damned bad.
Her father turned and saw Ethan. And then he turned and looked at her, and she felt as if she’d run over a puppy or slapped an infant. Why couldn’t he let go of the past, of the way he’d felt about Ethan ten years ago...
“You called Ethan?” he asked.
“Dad, I called on a special group of FBI agents who are used to dealing with...insight. My friend Clara—you know Clara, she used to work for Celtic American, too—is seeing a guy who works with Ethan, so I asked her to contact him for me,” she said quickly. “Ethan’s law enforcement now, federal law enforcement.”
It was actually impressive that she was making something resembling a living by acting, she thought, hearing the pleading tone in her own voice when she’d hoped to project confidence instead.
“I see,” her father said, staring at Ethan as he approached them.
He’d changed. The Ethan she’d known had been a tall boy, still slender with youth, not muscular like the man walking her way now. His hair had been on the shaggy side, and he hadn’t yet shed the small-town football-hero swagger half the young men she’d known at school had affected. He’d been nineteen.
He’d filled out since the last time she’d seen him. Character seemed to have been etched into his face. He’d been a striking teenager, but this Ethan, with those green-gold eyes, dark hair and features that could have been painted by an Old Master, was something else altogether. His hair was cropped short now, his eyes had a sharper edge to them, and his chin had squared. He’d been a boy, she realized. Now he was a man.
As he walked up to them, he slipped on a pair of sunglasses against the brutal rays of the sun, and suddenly he became a total stranger.
“Ethan Delaney,” her father said in an unreadable tone.
“Mr. Moreau,” Ethan said, his voice now deep and rich. “Hope you’re doing well, sir.”
“We were doing well enough,” Jonathan said gruffly. He turned and looked at Charlie again, then nodded toward the two of them and started to head down the slope.
He stopped after a moment and turned back. He stood very tall and straight, and said, “Don’t let her get involved in this, Ethan. You watch out for her. Don’t you let anything happen to Charlie.”
“I didn’t before, sir,” Ethan said quietly. “And I won’t now.”
Charlie watched her father go, feeling a little ill. She loved him so much.
Then he was gone, and she was left alone with Ethan Delaney.
3 (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
They stood some distance apart still, neither one rushing forward to initiate a warm old-friends’ hug.
It had been a long time.
But, looking at her now, Ethan wished he could just walk over and take her in his arms.
Charlie had changed.
He would never forget the way she had looked when he’d found her that night—truthfully, he would never forget anything about that night. Charlie had always been beautiful.
She had become more so over the last ten years. The bone structure of her face was sharper. Her eyes, the deepest blue he’d ever seen, seemed even larger. She had delicately shaped brows, a nearly perfectly straight nose and a generous, well-defined mouth. She was tall—five-ten, at a guess—and carried her height well. She was thin, but had all the right curves. Everything about Charlie was...
Pretty damned perfect. Her hair was a rich chestnut. She wore it long, and it seemed to move with her at all times, even when she was standing still. In fact, when she’d had a crush on him, it had seemed like manna from above.
But, of course, he’d been nineteen. In college. She’d been sixteen, still just a sophomore in high school. Any thought of a relationship was simply doomed. And so, despite every objection posed by his heart—and his libido—he had turned her away. He wondered if, with age, she’d understood. He hadn’t seen her since Frank Harnett’s trial. She’d never tried to contact him.
Until now.
He wondered if she had any clue to the way she had haunted his dreams. The way he remembered her face when she’d looked up at him, her beauty, her hope—her faith.
“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?”
It was the same woman who, ten years ago, had directed the action on the night Charlie was tied to a tombstone.
Like everyone involved with that horror show, Nancy had apologized. She and Charlie had even managed to act cordial for the rest of the year; then Nancy had graduated, and Charlie hadn’t seen her since.
“Charlie, great to see you here,” Nancy said. She seemed a little anxious and a little shy.
As if she meant what she was saying.
Charlie nodded. “Good to see you, too.” She meant it herself. Time had gone by; they were no longer teenagers.
Nancy nodded. “I hear you’re a movie star now.”
“Hardly. Just a working actress. How about you? How is everything?”
Nancy smiled, but Charlie thought it looked a little forced. “I married Todd Camp. The quarterback. We have two kids.”
“Congratulations.”
“Twins.”
“Great.”
“Sometimes,” Nancy said, then shrugged. “Sometimes when Todd is working at the garage all day, I bring the kids here with me, and sometimes they even behave. But I love them. Anyway, I’m so happy for you. You always wanted to act.”
“Well, thanks. I’m not exactly a fixture on the red carpet, though, you know?”
“You’re doing what you want to do, and that’s what counts.”
“Thanks. Hey, how’s Sherry doing? You two were so close. Is she still around, too?”
“Sherry got married and moved to New Jersey.”
“That’s nice.”
“New Jersey? After here? I don’t know. But she has a family, became an LPN.”
“So. Twins,” Charlie said into the awkward silence that followed Nancy’s updates. “No kids for me yet, but one day, I hope.”
“I’m sure it will happen for you. As for me, I just hope for a vacation one of these days. Anyway, what can I get you?”
“Iced tea and gumbo, please.”
“You got it,” Nancy said, and moved on.
She and Jimmy chatted for a minute, and then Jimmy looked down the table at Charlie and mouthed, “Didn’t know she was working here.”
Charlie shrugged. It had been ten years since that awful night, and it was a relief to discover she didn’t really care what had happened to Nancy and the rest of them.
Once Nancy left, they chatted companionably as they waited for their food; they were almost evenly split between gumbo and shrimp and grits, breaking along pretty much the same lines for iced tea vs. frosty beers. For a few minutes the talk revolved around how to film the upcoming confrontation between Charlie and an oil baron. Brad wanted a live location, but Luke was worried about getting the clean sound that he believed the scene warranted. And then, because it couldn’t be ignored forever, the subject of the dead man, Farrell Hickory, finally came up. They were all a little spooked because he was the second reenactor to be killed.
“And we all knew them both,” Jimmy said.
Charlie turned to look at him. “We did?” she asked.
“Most of us did, at any rate,” Barry said, nodding solemnly.
“Can’t say I knew either man well,” Mike Thornton said, pushing back a lock of dark hair. He was a lot like his brother, in both looks and mannerisms. He and Brad had been making movies together since they’d been kids.
“And,” Jimmy said to Charlie, “you didn’t know either one of them, unless it’s from when you were a kid, because you weren’t there for the special reenactment they did on the Journey a week ago—like so many of us were.” He was wearing a brave face, but she could see he was deeply upset by the murders.
He had never really forgiven himself for being involved the night a serial killer had almost killed her.
“Right, I was doing that webisode series. Banshees on the Bayou.”
Brad smiled. “I hope this film is as successful as Banshees on the Bayou.”
“A bunch of us were involved because there was a corporate sponsor, so we were paid pretty decently,” Jennie said, then went quiet for a long moment. “That’s when we met the men who’ve been killed.”
“Who—who else was working that day?” Charlie asked, more worried than she wanted to let on.
“Well, your dad, for one,” Luke pointed out.
“Yeah, my dad. I know. Who else?” she asked.
“Let’s see,” Brad said, looking around. “Me and Mike, Barry and Luke... Jennie did makeup.”
“Todd and I were there, too.”
Charlie spun around to see that Nancy Camp—née Deauville—was standing right behind her. “We earn extra money any time we can. We didn’t hang around, just did the bit they were paying us for, then left. You have to try to make more money than day-care costs or it’s not worth it to work. Tons of locals were there, not just us.”
“Jimmy Smith and Grant Ferguson,” Brad added, then shook his head. “We were just extras. There was a scene between Hickory and Corley, though. I’m sure you already know this, but there was supposedly a meeting between a black Union orderly and a Confederate cavalry captain when the Journey was turned over to the Union. We were extras in that scene. We brought our own uniforms, so they cast us a lot.”
“I have my Confederate infantry uniform and a Union artillery uniform,” Barry said. “I can make money on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line.”
Charlie grinned at that. But her smile quickly faded. “Did you notice anything wrong, anything that was even a little bit off, that day? Was anyone fighting?”
“I think there was a bit of a tiff between Corley and Hickory,” Luke said. “They were both convinced they were historians, not just reenactors, and they disagreed about some detail of the scene. It got a little heated, but then your dad stepped in and calmed them down. But...well, they’re both dead, so it’s unlikely they killed each other.”
“It’s pretty damned stupid for anyone to kill someone over a reenactment,” Jennie said.
Brad shrugged. “People can be crazy sometimes.”
There wasn’t much of an argument to be made against that, so they all fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. Then Jennie made a comment about how good the food was, and the conversation turned to everyone’s favorite restaurants in their favorite cities.
Charlie found herself smiling and laughing along with the others. But all the while she was making mental notes of things she needed to tell Ethan.
Farrell Hickory and Albion Corley had both taken part in the special reenactment aboard the Journey.
They had argued, and her father had intervened.
A number of her friends had also been involved in the reenactment: Brad and Mike Thornton, Jennie McPherson, Barry Seymour, Luke Mayfield, Grant Ferguson, George Gonzales and Jimmy Smith.
She didn’t want to think that any one of them could be the killer.
Of course they were all innocent, she thought, giving herself a mental shake.
Because if one of them was the killer, surely he—or she—would have acted strangely while they were filming the rise of a ghostly army so close to the place where one of the victims lay dead.
* * *
“Wow. Ethan Delaney! As I live and breathe. Back and slumming it all in small-town America.”
“Nice to see you, too, Randy,” Ethan said, greeting his old friend outside the parish morgue on Oak Street.
The two of them were only about a month apart in age. They’d been friends throughout high school, making a lot of the same mistakes, going through the same wild stages, cleaning up their act when the world demanded they had to be adults. They’d lost contact when they went their separate ways after college. Since Ethan’s parents had moved to New Orleans, he hadn’t had much occasion to get back out to St. Francisville.
“Never thought of us as coming from the slums,” Ethan said.
Randy grinned. “Yeah, we were all right, growing up, huh? I love this part of the world. I guess you can tell, seeing as I came back here. Look at you, though—a real live Fed.”
“And look at you, a big-shot cop,” Ethan said. “Not bad for a kid who got hauled in on more Saturday nights than anyone else I knew.”
“Detective, West Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Office, I’ll have you know. The deaths actually occurred in two different towns in the parish, so we were called in on lead,” Randy said, and grinned. “Special Agent Delaney. I have to say, I’m kind of surprised to see you down here for something like this. Wait, no, I’m not surprised you’re here at all. This has to do with Charlie Moreau being back in the area, too, right? Bad business back then. Though I never did understand Jonathan being so pissed at you. You threw yourself on the guy.”
“That was ten years ago,” Ethan said.
“Bet you Jonathan is still pissed,” Randy said.
“Thing is, I really have been sent down here on the case,” Ethan said. “So what have you got?”
He studied his friend, noting the man the boy had grown into. Randy was lean, but deceptively so. He had excelled on the school’s wrestling team, as well as being the football team’s top field-goal kicker. He’d told Ethan once that he knew he was never going to have the bulk and broad shoulders of some other men, so he had to make up for it with lean muscle.
“Nothing new. You probably know everything I do, since I’m sure they brought you up to speed before they sent you down here. You have the case folders, crime-scene photos, all that, right?”
“Yeah.”
Randy met his eyes and nodded. “Okay, so West Feliciana Parish has just under fifteen thousand people. Our annual crime rate is about two murders a year, and that includes negligent homicide, so it’s not like you’re looking at a major city where the cops are accustomed to investigating murders. We’re not total newbies, though, so don’t think we’re all a bunch of toothless rednecks doing alligator wrestling for reality TV.”
“Randy, I grew up here. All my friends had their teeth, although the way you showed off opening beer bottles with yours, I’m surprised you kept yours.”
Randy shrugged. “Guess I’m glad they sent you and not some big-city know-it-all. Okay, so here’s where things stand. At first, when Albion Corley was found, we were a little worried that some kind of race thing might erupt in town. We thought maybe some bigot was pissed at him for having the nerve to wear the uniform and take part in that big-deal reenactment, even as a Union orderly. Everyone liked the guy, though. Smart, a professor. Passionate about no-kill animal shelters and saving the wetlands and all that kind of thing. Then Farrell Hickory’s body turned up, found by your old girlfriend.”
“Randy, we were never a couple,” Ethan said patiently.
“Proof of fatal stupidity on your part,” Randy said.
“Might be true. She was only sixteen, though.”
“Shakespeare’s Juliet was thirteen, or something like that.”
“Wouldn’t have been right,” Ethan said.
“Okay, okay, Mr. Morality, I’m moving on,” Randy said. “So now we have one dead black man in a Union uniform, and one dead white man who played a Confederate cavalry officer. Our investigations found that the two of them had some kind of dustup during what was billed as ‘Journey Day.’ You probably remember that every year there’s a big reenactment of The Day the War Stopped. But this year, because it’s a situation that also draws a lot of interest, some enterprising person with a tour group of teachers had a brilliant idea—reenact the day the Confederates traded the Journey and her Union wounded to the Yankees for a bunch of their own prisoners. There was so much sickness aboard ship, the Rebels didn’t even want it, but the Union didn’t know that. Anyway, the cruise line offers special tours each year that focus on the Civil War, and this year they decided to feature a special reenactment of the Journey handover. To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long for someone to realize that there could be big bucks in that kind of thing, but then again, Celtic American has only owned the ship for six or seven years. The reenactment was subsidized by Gideon Oil, so the participants even got paid. Half the people I know around here were involved. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But a lot of locals turned up as extras. As far as we know, that was the last time the two victims saw each other. We actually questioned Farrell about Albion’s death once we heard they’d been seen arguing. He had an alibi for the night Albion was killed, though, and then, of course, Farrell turned up the same way. I guess you’re here to see the bodies?”
“It’s a place to start,” Ethan said.
Inside the morgue, they found Dr. Earl Franklin on duty. He had to be nearing retirement age, Ethan knew, but he was also one of the brightest and most thorough men Ethan had met in the field, and not only in Louisiana but anywhere. He greeted Ethan warmly. When he’d been young and had already set his sights on a career in law enforcement, Ethan had plagued the man relentlessly, wanting to learn everything he could, and Franklin had been unendingly patient, as well as informative.
“Great to see you,” Franklin said to Ethan now. “Sorry you’re here under such unfortunate circumstances, though.”
The ME was a stout man with wire-rimmed glasses and a head full of white hair. He would have looked at home on a big front porch, wearing a white suit and sipping a mint julep, Ethan thought wryly. Instead the man preferred libraries and skiing vacations in Colorado to sitting around anywhere.
“Good to see you. Though I’m sorry about the circumstances, too,” Ethan said.
“Well, both of you put your masks on and come in. I’ve got Mr. Corley and Mr. Hickory ready for your visit.”
Both men were laid out on steel gurneys. Their autopsies had already been performed. Sheets draped their lower extremities, revealing the Y incisions on their chests.
“No reason not to get right to it,” Dr. Franklin said. “Mr. Hickory was my only client this morning—both a good thing and a bad thing. My last was Mrs. Delsie Peterson. Do you remember her? Sorry to cut her up, but she died in her own home, alone in her bed, so the law required an autopsy, despite the fact she was ninety-eight. The old girl went easily. Just fell asleep and her heart stopped.”
“Glad to hear that. I do remember Mrs. Peterson. She fixed all our collars when we were kids and on our way into church,” Ethan said.
“Aren’t you proud of the man, Doctor? He remembers his roots.” Randy grinned.
“A very good thing. Meanwhile, here are my notes. Both men were in good health, other than stabbed through the heart by something long and sharply pointed. Like a bayonet,” Franklin said.
Ethan took a moment to look over the notes the ME handed him. Then he studied each man in turn.
There was something incredibly sad about a person’s earthly remains, no matter how they had died. When the spark of life left the body, it seemed to take everything important with it. No matter what, the body had a gray, pasty color. It didn’t matter if the person had been Caucasian, or of African, Asian, Native American or any other descent, or represented a combination of nationalities. The flesh sank in until there was nothing real left of the person who had once made the physical being vital. He’d loathed open coffins all his life. What was the point, when the person was simply gone?
Most of the time.
He made a point of touching each icy cold body. He lingered, looking over the still-visible wounds to their hearts. Both men had exercised or at least been active enough to keep their muscles tight. Neither one had been young—the wrinkles creasing their flesh testified to that—but both could have looked forward to several more decades of life if they hadn’t, somewhere and for some reason, crossed the path of a murderer.
“No bruising or defensive wounds to indicate a struggle?” Ethan asked, reluctantly accepting the fact that the dead weren’t going to speak with him.
“If you ask me,” Franklin said, “and I’m not the detective, of course, Randy is—it appears that both men were taken completely by surprise. They were facing their killer when he struck, and he murdered each man the same way. Quickly. No defensive wounds. I believe they knew their killer.”
“And both men were killed where their bodies were found?” Ethan asked, though he knew the answer; he’d read it in the files Jackson had given him. It never hurt to have these things confirmed, though, especially when he was talking to the medical examiner who had been at the scene.
“Definitely. The soil beneath the bodies was drenched with their blood. We’re still waiting for chemical analyses in the hope that something might turn up other than the victims’ blood, but...like I said, I feel strongly that both men knew their killer and were taken completely by surprise.”
“And dressed up in their reenactment uniforms,” Ethan murmured.
“And for that reason we’re looking at everyone—men and women—who were involved with the victims’ final reenactment,” Randy said, sounding very much like a cop and very little like the old friend with whom Ethan had gone to school.
Ethan nodded. “Last meals, Doc?”
“Gumbo—both of them,” Franklin said. “Probably from someplace here in town. They died twenty-four to forty hours apart. They weren’t at dinner together or anything. If they had been, they would have been at different stages of digestion, which they weren’t. And, actually, I’m waiting for the lab results before I can be definitive with regard to Mr. Hickory. I’m going by my own gut, if you’ll excuse the pun, in his case.”
Ethan nodded; Franklin had been at this long enough to recognize what he saw and smelled.
“They eat long before they died?” he asked.
“A couple of hours,” Franklin said.
Ethan turned to Randy. “Is there a reason why they would have been in their uniforms?”
Randy shrugged. “There’s been a photographer in town paying people to pose. He said he hadn’t asked either of them, though. He was at the reenactment, though, and took some shots there. As I’m sure you know, Brad Thornton and his brother, Mike, are making that movie with Charlie Moreau. Maybe they wanted to be extras. Hickory told his housekeeper he would be going out for a meeting, and she didn’t need to leave him dinner. His people closed up the public part of the plantation right at five. The housekeeper was the last person to see him, right about that time, and he wasn’t in uniform then. As far as Corley goes, no one seems to know anything definitive. He was on a research sabbatical, so he wasn’t expected in class. He called a friend and asked her to feed his cats for the next few days, and that’s the last we know of his whereabouts. His home is just this side of Baton Rouge, where he taught.”
“He didn’t happen to tell the friend what he was up to, did he?” Ethan asked.
“Said he had some meetings in St. Francisville. That was it,” Randy told him.
“Well,” Dr. Franklin said, pulling the sheets fully over both bodies, “I’ll let these gentlemen get back to rest. Any more questions, Ethan?”
Ethan shook his head. “Not now, Doc. But—”
“You can call me anytime. You know that. I’m here.”
“Thank you.”
Ethan and Randy didn’t speak again until they were back out on the street.
“You coming in to the office?” Randy asked. “You want to see what else we’ve got?”
“What else do you have?” Ethan asked.
“Nothing except a pretty damned good crime board with times and pictures and everything laid out in one place. I’m going to start interviewing the rest of the people involved in that Journey reenactment, and, after that, everyone else who was on board. Is that what the Feds would do?”
“Yep. It is.”
“So...you coming?”
“Give me an hour?” Ethan asked. “There are a few things I’d like to do. Haven’t even opened up my folks’ old house yet.”
“You all still own the place?”
“Yep. My folks rent it out, but they’re looking for new tenants now, so it’s empty. Worked out nicely for me.”
“An hour, then. I’ll make some phone calls while I wait for you, get some of the St. Francisville police going door to door to see if anyone heard or saw anything. It’s always quieter and easier to call when the night shift’s on,” Randy told him.
“See you soon,” Ethan said.
Just then Randy’s phone rang, and he motioned to Ethan to wait while he answered. After a one-sided conversation consisting mostly of “Uh-huh” and “You’re sure?” he thanked the caller. His expression serious, he turned to Ethan and said, “Ethan, I just got some news, and it’s something you need to know.”
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Heather Graham
They say it's about the journey, not the destination…Charlene "Charlie" Moreau is back in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to work on a movie. One night, she stumbles across the body of a Civil War reenactor, the second murdered in two days. Charlie is shocked to learn that her father—a guide on the Journey, a historic paddle wheeler that's sponsoring the reenactment—is a suspect.Meanwhile, Ethan Delaney, new to the FBI's Krewe of Hunters, is brought in on the case. He and Charlie have a history of their own, dating back to when he rescued her from a graveyard—led there by a Confederate ghost!Charlie arranges a Mississippi River cruise so she and Ethan can get close to the reenactors, find out who knows what, who has a motive. They discover a lot more as they resume the relationship that ended ten years ago…but might die, along with them, on the Journey.
They say it’s about the journey, not the destination...
Charlene “Charlie” Moreau is back in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to work on a movie. One night, she stumbles across the body of a Civil War reenactor, the second murdered in two days. Charlie is shocked to learn that her father—a guide on the Journey, a historic paddle wheeler that’s sponsoring the reenactment—is a suspect.
Meanwhile, Ethan Delaney, new to the FBI’s Krewe of Hunters, is brought in on the case. He and Charlie have a history of their own, dating back to when he rescued her from a graveyard—led there by a Confederate ghost!
Charlie arranges a Mississippi River cruise so she and Ethan can get close to the reenactors, find out who knows what, who has a motive. They discover a lot more as they resume the relationship that ended ten years ago...but might die, along with them, on the Journey.
Praise for New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
“Graham is a master at world building and her latest is a thrilling, dark, and deadly tale of romantic suspense.”
—Booklist, starred review, on Haunted Destiny
“Intricate, fast-paced, and intense, this riveting thriller blends romance and suspense in perfect combination and keeps readers guessing and the tension taut until the very end.”
—Library Journal, starred review, on Flawless
“With an astonishing ease and facility, this talented and hard-working writer can cast her stories in any genre.”
—Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels
“A masterfully created psychological thriller...leaving readers shocked and enthralled.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Hexed
“Dark, dangerous and deadly! Graham has the uncanny ability to bring her books to life, using exceptionally vivid details to add depth to all the people and places.”
—RT Book Reviews on Waking the Dead, Top Pick
“Murder, intrigue...a fast-paced read. You may never know in advance what harrowing situations Graham will place her characters in, but...rest assured that the end result will be satisfying.”
—Suspense Magazine on Let the Dead Sleep
“Graham deftly weaves elements of mystery, the paranormal and romance into a tight plot that will keep the reader guessing at the true nature of the killer’s evil.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Unseen
“Suspenseful and dark.... The transitions between past and present flow seamlessly, and the main characters are interesting and their connection to one another is believable.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Unseen
Darkest Journey
Heather Graham
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
In memory of one of the finest friends I was ever privileged to know.
Greg Varricchio
Incredible musician, husband and father, Greg made hard times easier, brought laughter and smiles to so many so often, and lived every day with honor and an incredible ethic. The world is truly a poorer place without him.
CAST OF CHARACTERS (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
The Main Players
Charlene “Charlie” Moreau, actress
Ethan Delaney, FBI agent, Krewe of Hunters
From the Movie Set
Brad Thornton, writer and director
Mike Thornton, cameraman
Luke Mayfield, sound
Barry Seymour, electric and lighting
Jennie McPherson, makeup artist
Grant Ferguson, actor/extra (responsible for budget and accounting)
George Gonzales, in charge of location, setting and props
Jimmy Smith, actor/extra
Blane Pica, actor
Harry Grayson, actor
Krewe of Hunters
Thor Erikson
Jude McCoy
The Civil War Dead
Anson McKee, Confederate cavalry captain
Ellsworth Derue, Union medical corps
Other Characters
Jonathan Moreau, Charlie’s father, historian and tour guide on the riverboat Journey
Emily Watson, café owner
Farrell Hickory, owner of Hickory Plantation and Civil War reenactor
Albion Corley, professor and Civil War reenactor
Nancy Camp, Charlie’s high school friend
Randall “Randy” Laurent, high school friend of Ethan’s, parish detective
Sherry Compton, high school friend
Terese, Ethan’s great-grandmother
Chance Morgan, photographer
On the Journey (Celtic American Lines Ship)
Timothy Banks, captain
Gerard “Gerry” Amerind, doctor
Haley Howell, nurse
Rebecca Jennings, nurse
Ricky Simpson, entertainment director
Contents
Cover (#u3845d692-e3b6-5a1d-9bf1-df9ba2bb1e69)
Back Cover Text (#u22481364-5a9d-56b7-855c-a883132d9992)
Praise (#u65e5fe65-f265-52fc-bee0-46cfd31fe347)
Title Page (#ubcb61b50-9015-52f5-ba4c-6ba446fa6d47)
Dedication (#ua4ac396c-1d6b-556b-92cd-2e4a0d278bdd)
CAST OF CHARACTERS (#u7488756c-1cea-5e14-83c3-405086aeaef5)
Prologue (#u021fc5da-5af5-55a4-90c0-19a59862c204)
Chapter 1 (#u2b1b566d-33ec-5572-945c-680b534db880)
Chapter 2 (#u453d24b7-e24f-5496-b7cf-96450ef7a7b9)
Chapter 3 (#ud610c66d-0da0-55b8-b3a0-4206960ebaab)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
High School
“What are we doing?” Charlene—Charlie—Moreau demanded, surprised that both her escorts—senior girls high up in the hierarchy of one of their high school service clubs, the Cherubs—had suddenly taken hold of her arms. “Where are we going?”
She’d started out blindfolded in a car with five of her friends—all of them giggling girls ready to claim the prestige of being a Cherub. They’d been accepted into the club. They’d gone through ridiculous weeks of pledging—running, fetching, even doing homework for the “older sisters” in the club, and now it was their final night. Their great hazing. But the five of them had been split up about twenty minutes earlier; she’d been put in a car with Nancy Deauville and Sherry Compton, who’d gently led her out a little while later.
Now both girls were gripping her arms, nothing gentle about it.
Nancy Deauville laughed softly. “They say your mama’s family has the ‘sight.’ We’re just leaving you where you’ll have to ask some of your ghostly friends for help.”
“Come on! What are you going to do? Tie me up in the Grace Church graveyard?” Charlie asked, feeling her temper flare.
“Oh, Charlie, no!” Nancy said.
Sherry giggled. “We’re tying you up outside the graveyard—in the unhallowed section.”
“That’s ridiculous. And dangerous,” Charlie said angrily, a spark of fear entering her. “Three girls have been killed close to here, just north of Baton Rouge!” Her mom had been emphatic about her being careful, about her staying in the company of friends. A serial killer was at work in and around Baton Rouge.
“Don’t be alone, Charlie,” her mom had warned sternly. “He’s preying on young women who are on their own. Make sure you stay with your friends.”
Charlie had thought these people were her friends. Now she wasn’t so sure.
She tried to wrench free, but someone stronger had her arms now, and she heard multiple footsteps nearby.
Nancy and Sherry weren’t alone. They’d met up with others.
The two were superrich brats whose dads held great positions with one of the local oil companies—while her dad was a hardworking historian!
She didn’t know why she was pledging anyway, except that Cathy Corcoran, her best friend, had insisted that they at least try. The Cherubs were respected at school, plus they had the best parties.
Charlie had managed to handle the weeks of doing what the older girls asked. She’d even shocked Nancy, dropping a pack of cigarettes on her lap after the other girl had demanded that she get them, even if she had to beg, borrow or steal them. Charlie hadn’t had to do any of those things; someone on one of her dad’s tours had left a pack behind on the dock.
But this...
She didn’t tend to be scared of much. Tonight, she was.
She wasn’t afraid of the graveyard. She never had been. But girls had been murdered—and not at all far away.
She was angry now, and that anger mixed uneasily with a fear that had nothing to do with the dead.
“You know what? Don’t bother. I don’t want to be in your club,” she said. “This is ridiculous. Where are Cathy and the others?”
“Cathy is taking a little swim,” Nancy said, and laughed.
Charlie felt her temper flare another few degrees. Cathy couldn’t swim—and she was terrified of water.
“That’s it. Let me go,” Charlie said. “I’m done with you and your stupid club.”
They didn’t let her go. She heard a male voice whispering—probably Todd Camp, Nancy’s football-star boyfriend. Or maybe it wasn’t Todd. At least three other people had joined Nancy and Sherry; she could tell where they were all standing by listening to where their voices came from. All told, there were at least five people there, probably including some of Todd’s football goon friends.
“We should just let her go. Come on, Nance.”
Todd was there, Charlie was certain. But he wasn’t the one who had just spoken. Todd did anything that Nancy said. Probably—as Charlie had heard whispered in the hallways—Nancy only “gave it up” for Todd when he behaved.
“Listen to whichever of your juvenile delinquent friends was just speaking. This is criminal. You should let me go this instant,” Charlie said.
“No way, so shut up, you whiny pledge. You’ll be glad when we come back for you. Everyone wants to be a Cherub, and tomorrow you’ll be glad you didn’t chicken out,” Nancy said.
Someone approached her and whispered into her ear. She recognized the voice. It was a friend. Jimmy Smith. “Charlie,” Jimmy said urgently, “it won’t be that long. Tomorrow you really will want to be in the club. I’m so sorry, but just go with this, okay?”
“I do not want to be a Cherub,” she yelled—and meant it. “I will never be a Cherub. You are the most immature group of brats I’ve met in my entire life. Let me go!”
“Chicken!” Nancy laughed.
Charlie was strong; she worked out in the dance troupe and was also on the gymnastics team. She could have easily taken Nancy and Sherry.
But the two girls weren’t alone, and whoever was holding her now was stronger than she was. Her captor forced her down to the ground, and someone tied her wrists and ankles around something cold and hard. A tombstone, she thought.
“Assholes!” she hissed, struggling against the ropes that held her.
“Watch your tongue, pledge,” Nancy snapped. “Or you won’t get to be a Cherub.”
“Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be in your damn club!” Charlie shot back.
“Maybe we should just let her go,” she heard Jimmy plead.
“Shut up! You’re ruining my speech,” Nancy said. “Oh, pledge. May all cherubs and angels everywhere look over you this night. For you are not in the sacred graveyard of the church but in the unhallowed ground beyond, where criminals—hanged for their sins—lie, where many a Yankee was hidden in the earth, where the most evil among us rest uneasily for all eternity. But you, should you survive the hours ahead, will rise triumphant, a Cherub for all time,” Nancy said dramatically.
Charlie’s blindfold was slipping; from where she lay she could just see Nancy’s arms upstretched to the night sky. She was wearing her cheerleading uniform, which seemed to be a disservice to the entire school at that moment.
Nancy’s arms dropped, and she turned, presumably to face the others. “Let’s get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
“Damn you all!” Charlie swore. “Let me up! I don’t want to be one of you stupid people.”
Her words did no good. Laughing, the group hurriedly left, heading back to Nancy’s car and whatever vehicle Todd and the others had come in.
She screamed for a few minutes more—to no avail. Still, it made her feel better, and she realized she was at least ridding herself of the blindfold. It was just a piece of white cotton, probably someone’s ripped-up shirt.
She fell silent and worked harder at the blindfold. Eventually she dislodged it by rubbing her head back and forth against the headstone she was bound to. It finally came unknotted and fell down by her side. She laughed bitterly. Nancy and her crew weren’t even capable of tying a decent knot.
The boys were, though. She couldn’t dislodge the ropes around her wrists and ankles, which were secured tightly against the tombstone.
She let out a sigh, reminding herself that she wasn’t afraid of a graveyard. Even an unhallowed one. Her father had brought her here many times and told her of the injustices that had been perpetrated over the years. The townspeople had strung up an innocent slave instead of admitting to the guilt of a rich white man who had raped and strangled a young woman in the 1830s. His grave was unmarked. A horse thief—who was admittedly guilty but hadn’t killed anyone—was strung up in 1860. Apparently horse theft had been a major crime back then, since horses were needed for the militia units forming in the lead-up to the Civil War.
Charlie closed her eyes for a minute. She could hear the river—the mighty Mississippi—churning far below the bluff. She could hear tree branches swaying, the leaves rustling. She opened her eyes. Even though this was unhallowed ground, loved ones of those long gone had erected stones and monuments to mark their graves. A broken-winged angel looked mournfully down at her from a pedestal. Tombs and all manner of funerary art graced the area, some of it half-hidden by overgrown grass and shrubbery.
Time passed as she continued to fight with the ropes that bound her. She cursed out loud and then quietly to herself. She prayed that Cathy—who was truly terrified of water—was going to be all right.
Then she heard the sobbing.
“Hey!” she called out.
There was no reply. She inhaled, then let her breath out in a rush.
Yes, her family often saw ghosts or just felt their invisible presence. She’d known that Uncle Jessup had come to his own funeral; she’d seen him stroking her mother’s hair, as if trying to assure her that he was all right.
She wasn’t at all sure she was ready to see a ghost tonight, though, not while she was tied to a tombstone. Especially not here on unhallowed ground. Some of the people buried had been truly evil. There was even rumor that a vicious voodoo queen—a woman who had poisoned a number of people—had been brought out here, hanged and left to rot, then buried with no marker. It might only be a tale meant to scare away couples who liked to come to the cemetery and drink among the old tombstones, maybe do drugs or have sex...whatever.
She wished she could see her watch. She felt as if she’d already been there for hours.
More likely it had only been thirty minutes or so. Maybe she had imagined the sobbing.
No, she hadn’t.
Because the sound came again. She blinked hard. A young woman seemed to be materializing right in front of her, just to the left by the base of an old moss-draped oak tree. The woman’s hair was swept up, and she was wearing a pretty blue gown. For a moment Charlie thought that she had come from a different era in history, but then she realized that the blue dress was a beautiful and entirely contemporary formal gown. The woman bent down; she looked like she was trying to pick something up.
But she couldn’t. Whatever it was, it slipped through her ethereal fingers.
The woman seemed to sink against the tree and down to the ground.
And then she disappeared.
Charlie watched for a moment, then hung her own head.
Time was passing. Someone would come for her.
She looked up and blinked.
A Confederate soldier was walking toward her. He wore a frock coat lined in a yellow-buff color.
Cavalry. And an officer. She couldn’t be her father’s daughter and not know that.
He wore a handsome plumed hat, and his sword was encased in a sheath belted around his hips.
She closed her eyes, wondering what a Southern soldier had done to end up buried out here.
Please, please go away, she thought. Because she was afraid. The air here on top of the bluff was growing chilly in the dark, and she still felt as if she could hear—in her head, at least—the soft sound of sobbing.
The cavalryman was still walking toward her.
Screw the damned club. What an idiot she’d been.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to help you.”
At first she thought it was the ghostly Confederate who had spoken. But it wasn’t. It was someone made of flesh and blood, someone real, and that realization startled her so badly that she let out a horrified scream.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he protested, stepping closer and starting to work at the ropes that bound her. “It’s all right. I’m Ethan Delaney. I’m here to help you.”
She blinked. Ethan Delaney. She knew him, even if she didn’t know him well. His father was a teacher and had recently taken a job at a music school in New Orleans. His mother taught piano. Ethan had graduated soon after she’d gotten to high school; he was three years her senior. She’d really only seen him from afar. When she’d been about eight or nine, he’d gotten stuck babysitting for her and some other kids because their parents were all friends.
What she knew about Ethan—what everyone knew about him—was that he was considered special, but not in a bad way. In a good way, in fact. He’d excelled at sports and qualified for scholarships at a bunch of schools. He’d ridden a motorcycle—when he hadn’t been riding around on Devil, his dad’s big buckskin quarter horse. People nodded when they heard his name and said things like That boy’s gonna make something of himself.
He’d been gone from town for a while now. Gone off to college in New Orleans. Soon his parents would move to New Orleans, too, and there would be little reason for him to come back to town.
But—amazingly—he was here now and about to free her from her misery.
“Ethan. Delaney,” she said, still not entirely sure that he wasn’t an apparition. She hadn’t seen him coming; she’d been distracted by the Confederate soldier just in front of him.
She stared as he kept working at the ropes. She could smell him, and he smelled good. He’d been riding earlier, she thought. He smelled of leather. He leaned back, focusing on one of the knots. She watched him as he concentrated. He had cool eyes. They were a golden green color. He was tanned. He had a lean face, and a thick strand of dark hair fell over one eye.
He was gorgeous.
She wasn’t in his league.
But here he was, helping her.
“Thank you,” she managed to say.
“How the hell did you get here?” he asked.
“Pledging,” she told him.
“Stupid.”
“I know. I told them I’d had it, I didn’t want to be in their presence, much less their club,” Charlie said, her voice tight. “They didn’t listen.”
“I see that.”
She was suddenly freed, and immediately she tried to stand. Her legs wobbled, and he reached out to steady her. She looked up.
Suddenly she was in love.
She couldn’t let him see it.
Charlie cleared her throat and fought to quickly maintain her balance on her own as she forced a smile to her lips.
“Thank you, Ethan. I owe you big-time.”
“It was nothing...” He hesitated. “Nothing at all.”
He doesn’t even know my name.
Their parents were friends; he’d been to her house. But had he ever thought of her as anything other than a little kid? Did he even recognize her?
He was smiling at her. “Listen, I walked here. I don’t have a car. But when we get back to my parents’ old place—he’s in NOLA, and Mom is there picking up stuff, ’cause she’s in the middle of moving—I can use her car and drive you home.”
“I hate to trouble you. I can walk home now that I’m not tied up, thanks to you.”
His smile deepened. She noticed that he had a dimple in his chin. “I’m sorry, miss, but I was raised Southern, and my mama would probably still tan my hide if I didn’t see you home safe.”
He turned, holding her elbow—probably worried that she might trip on a gravestone, she thought.
“I have a name,” she told him, sounding more strident than she’d meant to.
He stopped and looked down at her, that shock of hair still covering one of his eyes. “Of course. I’m so sorry. It’s just that I don’t know—”
“Charlie. Charlene, actually. Charlene Moreau.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Moreau. You used to hang at my house when you were little. Our parents are friends. Your dad is Jonathan Moreau, right?”
“Yes.” She waited, afraid that somewhere along the line her father might have done something to bug him.
“Wow,” he said with admiration. “He’s brilliant. He knows more about local history and politics than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Yep, that’s him.”
“Come on, then. My mom can make you some tea or something, and then I’ll take you home.”
He started to walk, not holding on to her this time, and she followed. “How did you know I was here?” she asked him. “I mean, you don’t seem the kind to be spending his Friday night hanging out at the graveyard.”
He paused, his back to her.
“Was it the Confederate cavalryman?” she asked softly, not even worrying that if he hadn’t seen the ghost he might think she was nuts. “Did he lead you here? If so, I wish I could thank him.”
He turned then and stared at her. “You saw...a cavalry soldier?”
“I did,” she said.
He studied her intently. Then he nodded slowly. She felt the intensity of his gold-green eyes. He’d heard exactly what she’d said, and he seemed to accept her words at face value.
“Best not to mention such things,” he said simply, and started walking again.
And, once more, she followed. Except that the sobbing she’d heard earlier suddenly echoed in her mind again.
“Come on,” he called back.
“Wait!” she said.
“What?”
“There was—there was someone there before. By the tree. Give me just a second.”
She hurried over the tree roots, fallen branches and broken headstones that stood between her and the tree in question, hoping he noticed that she didn’t need any help, even in rough terrain.
“There!” She saw something shiny in the grass and sank to her knees—her jeans were already filthy anyway—then parted the weeds and grass to reveal a bracelet. It was gold, with a single gold charm studded with what might have been a diamond or might have been glass.
Suddenly Ethan was there, too, down on his knees beside her, reaching curiously for the bracelet.
She picked it up and handed it to him. “A bracelet,” she murmured, completely unnecessarily.
He looked up at her suddenly, those strange eyes of his intent on her. He flinched, staring at her.
“What? What is it?” she whispered.
He opened his hand. The bracelet lay on his palm, but she saw something else there, as well. Something gleaming and darker than the night.
“What is it?” she repeated.
“Blood,” he said quietly.
Charlie didn’t realize then that, for her, the night, along with the rest of her life, was just beginning.
1 (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
Ten Years Later
They rose from the earth one by one, spectral shapes that slowly crept to the top of the high bluff where the church had long held dominion over the landscape. If a watcher blinked, they might have seemed like a part of the mist, they were so ethereal. And yet, seen with eyes open and focused, they were clearly real, soldiers rising from their graves, worn, war-weary, dirty, sweaty and exhausted, yet ready to stand and fight for what they believed to be right. Here in this narrow strip of Louisiana between Baton Rouge and Port Hudson, the Civil War had one day come to a halt, and thus the men who rose from the earth wore both tattered butternut and gray or Union blue. They had been good men all, fighting for what they believed to be just when death stopped their fighting, though not forever. They rose together now, for even at a time when the nation had been torn apart in tragic and horrific conflict, they had found moments of peace and friendship.
They were a ghost army, ragged and unearthly, chilling and terrifying shadows of vengeance in the moonlight.
Now they moved slowly in unearthly splendor, spectral shapes, faces hardened, joined together to protect the innocent and destroy evil.
Charlie Moreau kept running forward, through the mist and straight toward the ghostly apparitions. They were no threat to her; it was the men in pursuit behind her who threatened her with fatal danger, those men whom she had to escape. She brushed by the apparitions, feeling a cold mist against her flesh. And then she fell...
She heard screaming from the men pursuing her, who were now being stopped in their tracks by the ghostly Civil War soldiers who had risen in her defense. She rolled over, braced herself on an elbow and looked back, both fear and a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
“Cut!”
Brad Thornton, director of the movie, stood and smiled broadly, applauding. “Wonderful! Charlie, you’re the perfect Dakota Ryan. The rest of you guys, you were everything you were supposed to be. All y’all, come on over here. You’ve got to see this footage. It’s fantastic.”
Charlie smiled and called back, “Great!” She was pleased to see how happy Brad was. He’d put everything into this, his heart, his soul and his best fund-raising efforts. Young, earnest—not to mention darkly good-looking—he was extremely professional and had done well in a tough business. Even so, he was still an independent filmmaker, so he needed every break he could get. She was happy to work with him as lead actress on his latest film.
Jimmy Smith, an extra who’d played one of the ghostly soldiers, reached a hand down to her. One of Charlie’s best friends from both high school and the Tulane Department of Theater and Dance, he had a quick grin and shaggy hair, and his smile was warm. “Come on, Charlie. Sounds like this is one scene our mighty captain has decided he’s gotten in one take.”
“I’m kind of muddy—sorry,” she apologized, happy to take his hand. He’d tried to help her on that horrible night long ago when the Cherubs had tied her up in the cemetery. He’d even cried as he’d apologized to her afterward. They’d stayed friends through everything, and she was glad to be working with him now.
Jimmy laughed. “And I’m a lovely mix of sweat and makeup and mud myself. We’re both fine. Except they made me play a Yankee. That was the winning side, of course, but I doubt that mattered much to the men who died in battle, whether slowly and in pain or quickly, life snuffed out in an instant.”
“I think most of them believed in what they were fighting for, other than the ones who fought because they’d been drafted and had no choice.”
“All I know is I’m damned lucky I didn’t opt to go into the military,” Jimmy said, grimacing. “Whenever I see a reenactment, I shudder. Even when I’m part of one. I mean, those soldiers walked straight toward a line of people firing right at them. They had to know they could be hit by a bullet any minute, but they had to keep on walking.”
“Never sure myself how people managed to do that,” Charlie said. “We’re playacting when we do a reenactment. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for real. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the guys who go in the military today.”
Suddenly she found herself thinking about Ethan Delaney. She knew that he’d gone into the service out of college.
Jimmy knocked at his ear. When she looked at him curiously, he said, “Just mud—I hope.”
“No bugs,” she assured him, studying the dirt caked on him from the ground where the “troops” had lain before rising. “Just mud.”
“If only I didn’t have to play a Yankee,” he said, grinning.
“Remember the guy who played Robert E. Lee for the flashback scene?” Charlie asked. “His great-great-grandfather was a Union general. That’s the biz. Around here, history is especially near and dear to us, that’s all. Anyway, this movie is contemporary—these stupid shoes I’m running in are far too contemporary—but I love that the ghosts from both armies rise up to save the heroine from the bad guys.”
“I like it that we get some of the soldiers’ past, too. It’s really sad, what with the captain killing himself,” Jimmy said.
“The captain was fighting a terrible fever. He wasn’t in his right mind. I forget the statistics—my dad could tell you—but more soldiers died of sickness and infection than gunshot, cannon fire or bayonet.”
“I know—I’ve played a surgeon in a few reenactments.”
“Oh, yeah. Nurse Moreau, here,” Charlie said. “I think that’s why people keep coming to reenactments, because of the human side of war. I mean, the generals who fought each other were often friends—some of them had studied together at West Point—or even family. No matter how you look at it, the Civil War was probably the most heartbreaking era in this country’s history. I’m so happy we didn’t live back then.”
Jimmy grinned. “I agree, and I actually love the point Brad is making with this movie. You know, that people are people, flesh and blood, beating hearts, the same desire to find love and happiness. There may be a constant tug-of-war between environmentalists and oil companies, but I love how he doesn’t make everything black or white.”
“I love Brad’s script, too, especially the way he shows how the Confederate and Union soldiers found common ground before they died, and then their ghosts work together to save me from being killed.”
Jimmy’s grin disappeared. “Speaking of which, did you hear about the murder?”
“What murder?” Charlie said. “When?” She’d been in bed early the night before, because her call that morning had been at the crack of dawn, so they could film the just-completed scene when she’d confronted an oil exec and a state senator after discovering the oil exec had bribed the senator to let him drill where his efforts would destroy the water source for their fictional town of Mary Elizabeth. That had led to tonight’s scene, with her on the run from an oil exec and a crooked senator.
She hadn’t seen any news before bed, and she hadn’t had time to catch any that morning, either.
“They haven’t said what happened yet. Only that a man was murdered. He was from Baton Rouge, and I feel like we might know him, because he was a reenactor, too. His name was Albion Corley. A nice guy, they said on the news.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar to Charlie. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe he’d been someone she’d met through her father, who was often brought on as a consultant for the local reenactments.
“Where did it happen?” Charlie asked. “Was it anywhere near here?”
“Between here and Port Hudson. His body was found just outside an old family cemetery, poorly buried under less than a foot of earth.”
“How awful,” Charlie said, genuinely dismayed. This was a small, close-knit area. The population of St. Francisville was under two thousand. They were just over thirty miles north of Baton Rouge. Of course, the population there was growing and spreading out. Still, murder wasn’t common around here.
Ten years ago, yes, there had been a local serial killer, but he’d been crazy, plus they’d caught him. He’d killed nine people; he’d nearly killed Charlie. Ethan had saved her, and the killer had died five years ago of a stroke while still on death row.
“Is that all you know?” she asked.
“Yeah. It was major-league news this morning, but that was all they seemed to know. They did show a quick clip of a press conference, but it was just double-talk by a Detective Laurent. He basically said they can’t give out any information because the case is under investigation.”
“I can’t believe no one mentioned it all day today.”
“The news just broke this morning, so most people on set probably don’t know about it. I wasn’t on call until later in the day, and that’s why I heard about it. It’ll probably turn out to be some family thing, a fight between friends, or even some idiot playing around with a firearm. It’s sad, but something terrible happens somewhere every day.” He paused and looked around. “And, as your dad once told me, we just never seem to learn our lessons about cruelty and violence.”
“I’ll bet my dad knew him,” Charlie said. “The victim, I mean.”
“I didn’t realize it would upset you so much. I’m sorry I told you.”
“Why? I had to know.”
“But we’re making a movie, and that needs to be our focus. Yours, especially. And Brad’s calling,” Jimmy said, brushing a smudge of caked mud off her face. “Let’s go see that footage.”
“Hey, guys, come on,” Grant Ferguson—another friend who was working as one of the ghosts—said, joining them. “Let’s hurry and see what Brad’s so excited about, because after that we get to bathe.”
Grant was playing a soldier who’d been gruesomely wounded before his death. On top of that, his face prosthetic was peeling off in the heat, which made him look all the more ghastly. At forty-two he was older than most of the others, which was a plus, because soldiers of all ages had fought in what, down here, was still called the War of Northern Aggression.
Charlie struggled to shake off the news she had just heard and tried to smile. “Grant, you look horrible,” she said. “And I mean that as a compliment. Jennie outdid herself.”
It was true. Jennie McPherson, the makeup artist, had worked wonders on a shoestring budget.
Despite the fact that they were all unpaid, every person involved in the film was glad to be there. In exchange for volunteering their efforts, they were all shareholders in the film. Of course, it needed to achieve a pretty broad distribution and earn a fair bit if they were to make any money, but they were all friends, along with a few friends of friends. Most of them had gone to school together and most of those had even graduated in the same class. Some had become friends through other acting jobs. Charlie had met Grant when they’d filmed a spot for a local car dealership. And he, like many of the other extras, had a day job. He was an accountant when he wasn’t acting. That had proved to be a huge asset, because he was also an associate executive producer and kept the books for the film, making sure they spent the budget wisely, especially the state’s money.
Louisiana had made a concerted effort to woo the film industry, and Brad had received a state grant to help him cover expenses for props and equipment.
Charlie and her friends weren’t tabloid names—yet. But most of them were making a decent living at their craft, just like thousands of other actors who weren’t yet household names and might never be. This film was her first chance at a lead role, and since she hailed from St. Francisville herself, she was also in love with the historical incident on which Brad’s script was based.
It had occurred one day in the middle of the Siege of Port Hudson during the Civil War. Port Hudson had been incredibly important to both sides, since it was at the junction of the Red and Mississippi Rivers. Admiral Farragut from the North wanted it taken, so the US Navy was determined to take it.
In that effort, they shelled Grace Episcopal Church.
But one day, suddenly the shelling went silent. And a small boat, bearing US Navy men and a white flag of truce, made its way to the shoreline below the bluffs.
The commander of the Albatross, one of the ships involved in the shelling, had died by his own hand. Since he’d exhibited no signs of depression in a loving letter written to his wife just days before, it was later assumed that he’d grown despairing during a fit of delirium, perhaps due to yellow fever. A good commander and a Mason and a kind man full of concern for the wounded of both sides, he had been well loved.
Two of his officers and best friends aboard ship hadn’t wanted to consign his body to the waters of the Mississippi, so they’d gone ashore to find out if there might be brother Masons anywhere near, and if there was any way that Commander John E. Hart could be afforded a proper service and burial. One of the largest Masonic lodges in Louisiana—Feliciana Lodge #31 F&AM—was nearby. The White brothers, who lived in the area and were touched by the plea of Hart’s friends, set out to see what they could arrange.
The Grand Master of the lodge was serving in the Confederate Army. But the Senior Warden, William W. Leake, also with the Confederate Army, had his “headquarters in the saddle” and was in the area. The White brothers found him and explained the situation, and Leake said he couldn’t imagine any military man—not to mention a brother Mason—not having a proper burial.
Word was sent back to the Albatross, and the ship’s surgeon and a few fellow officers made their way, carrying the body in the June heat, swearing and determined, up the bluffs to the church. They were met by the White brothers, W. W. Leake, a number of other Masons, the Reverend Lewis and a company of Confederate States Marines.
For a few precious moments in time, on June 12, 1863, there was peace. Commander John E. Hart was buried with full military and Masonic honors in the Grace Church graveyard.
Of course, the war went on afterward. Vicksburg fell on July 4, Gettysburg turned the tide in the East on July 3, and Port Hudson was surrendered on the 9th, following the longest siege of the war. There were five thousand Union casualties and more than seven thousand Confederates. Once Vicksburg had fallen, General Gardner felt that to continue to hold out would simply cause more useless bloodshed and death. He was right, but he was overruled by his superiors. From then on it was more blood and the tragic loss of life for both sides until the day at Appomattox Courthouse almost two years later when, for all intents and purposes, the country was reunited.
William Leake went on to become Grand Master of the Feliciana Lodge, and for forty-nine years, he tended to Hart’s grave. When Leake died, he was buried next to Hart, and the two were now honored every year with a reenactment ceremony called The Day the War Stopped.
The whole story was covered in Brad’s movie, which made it very special to Charlie. Her mother’s great-great-grandfather had been one of the Confederate States Marines who had attended the funeral services for Commander Hart. She’d always loved the story, because it was about the goodness that could be found in people even amid the tragedy of war.
But Brad’s movie wasn’t historical; it was a suspense movie about a piece of land hallowed by the blood of the soldiers who’d died there and was now threatened by drilling, people trying to save it and other people sabotaging efforts at negotiation, while a few evildoers were ready to kill to have things their way. It was timely, and those on both sides were drawn as complex characters. At the end, the would-be killers were stopped by the very ghosts who made the land so special. Or, possibly, by what they saw in their own imaginations. The truth was, the ending of his movie was left to the eye—and the imagination—of the viewer.
As Charlie and the decaying soldiers, along with Harry Grayson and Blane Pica—who played the scuzzy oil baron and sleazy senator trying to kill Charlie—and assorted crew members got a look at the footage, she had to agree with Brad. It was great. Also really creepy. If the rest of the footage was as good, they would have a surefire hit.
“Thank you, and that’s a wrap for the day,” Brad said, smiling. “You’re free—until your 7:00 a.m. call if you’re in the fight scene. Check your schedules and have a good night.”
Grant laughed and called out, “Brad, check your schedule. It’s a 7:00 p.m. call tomorrow.”
Brad winced. “Sorry. Go and enjoy your night.”
Charlie smiled at Grant. She wasn’t on call at all for the next several days. Due to her commitment to a web series she was also filming, she had returned to Francisville only five days earlier, and she’d been on call pretty much nonstop since. Now she had only a few scenes to go.
“Sounds good to me,” Jennie McPherson said, as she glanced over at George Gonzales—another Tulane classmate—who was doing double duty in set design and as a prop master. The extras had been returning their hats, swords, guns, belts, buckles and the rest of their accessories—everything but the period uniforms they were still wearing—and George was frowning.
“Missing a belt buckle, a canteen and a knife,” George said.
“Come on, let’s go. Showers for one and all,” Jimmy said, wrinkling his nose as he got a whiff of himself.
“I’m going to stay and help George and the set guys retrieve whatever fell in the fields,” Charlie told him. “We can’t afford to lose any of our props.” She loved George. He was one of the hardest-working and funniest friends she had, claiming descent from both slaves and also from their Confederate masters. He loved to chime in on their historical discussions, especially since his mother—who, confusing things even more, was Israeli—had been born in New York City. He considered himself a Confederate/Yankee/African American, and liked to say that gave him a unique perspective.
“Yeah, don’t want to leave George in the lurch,” Jimmy said. “I guess I can stay, too.”
“You have a call tomorrow night. I don’t. Go have fun, then get some sleep,” Charlie said.
“Oh, man, thanks, Charlene! There is so much we have to be so careful with! Money, you know,” Jennie said. She was a petite blonde, and with her hair in a ponytail, as it was now, she looked to be about fifteen, but she’d actually turned thirty on her last birthday. Brad had met Jennie working on a project in New Orleans. She liked to lord it over George, who was her junior by a year. “We have to be so careful about costs.”
“I’ll stay and help, too,” Grant offered.
“No, you do the books, you do the budgeting, you write the checks—and you’re an extra every time Brad needs one. I’ve got this,” Charlie said. “Go.”
Jimmy and Grant left, looking more like ghostly apparitions than ever as they headed toward their cars. Brad didn’t notice; he was studying shots with Mike, his brother and main cameraman.
“I’m off to look for your missing props,” Charlie said. “Can Barry light up the field for me?” Barry Seymour was in charge of lighting. He was also an electrician, which made him perfect for the job, because he could fix any problems at minimal cost. He came from Baton Rouge, and like Grant, he was in his early forties. He could not only take the time to work on the film but he could invest in it, as well, because he’d once worked as an electrician on one of the big oil rigs in the Gulf. He’d taken his pay and invested heavily in the oil company, and it had paid off.
“Barry! Light the field!” Jennie yelled.
Charlie cringed. She could have yelled herself.
“I can help, too,” Luke Mayfield, their sound engineer and another friend, just a few classes ahead of Charlie and Brad at Tulane, walked over and said to Charlie.
“Great,” she said.
She hurried toward the field where they’d been filming, followed quickly by Luke and George, and then Barry, Mike and Brad.
Even the director worked at keeping costs down.
As she walked, head down, eyes searching the ground, she was glad to be alone with her thoughts. Jimmy telling her about the murdered man had been unnerving. Especially here. She couldn’t help but remember the past. And now something bad had happened again.
Yes, something bad happened somewhere every day, but that was no consolation.
She paused for a minute and looked up at the church.
The area held strange memories for her—some pleasantly nostalgic, some not so great. Now, though, the church and the surrounding landscape had an eerie beauty in the moonlight. The church wasn’t immense or grand, like a cathedral, but it stood proud on its bluff overlooking the Mississippi, and there was even something unexpectedly poignant about it. The cemetery around the church was filled with graves of all kinds, in-ground, “box” graves—literally stone or marble in the shape of boxes—and family mausoleums. Cherubs and angels stood guard everywhere. Grace Episcopal Church still served the people of the parish, and the building and graveyard were well kept without looking manicured.
The mist created by their fog machines was dispersing, but slowly, so a low fog still hovered over the ground, making her search difficult and rendering the scene deceptively surreal.
For a moment Charlie found herself thinking that she could see a distant past when war had raged—and a temporary peace had been found. She could almost see those soldiers, some who had lived and some who had died, making their way through the mist and the moss-draped oaks.
She remembered being young and playing in the graveyard when she shouldn’t have. She’d imagined seeing things then, too....
And then there had been that night in high school when she’d been pledging the Cherubs and ended up tied to a headstone, even though they all knew there was a killer at work not far away.
A serial killer who targeted young women.
Ethan had found and freed her. And she knew, though she hadn’t said anything to Jimmy, that she was especially upset because...
Because she’d become entangled in that last murder when she’d found a dead girl’s bracelet.
Charlie gave herself a serious shake. She’d been living in New Orleans since she’d graduated from college; that’s where the work was. She’d done some national commercials and even a few guest spots on network shows. But...
This was home. She loved it here. And she would be damned if she was going to be afraid out here now. She wasn’t tied up; she wasn’t a kid. She was an adult—ten years older, and making a good living in her chosen field.
Still, she couldn’t help but remember the past.
She’d looked up information on the men who had died in and around the area, especially those who had been buried here. She was pretty certain she’d found the cavalryman whose ghost she’d seen all those years ago; his name was Anson McKee. Anson had been a married man with one son, and he’d been a graduate of West Point. The week before his death he’d written the most beautiful letter to his wife, a letter now preserved in a museum in New Orleans. He’d written of his love for her, his fear not of death, but of leaving her.
Know that I will whisper your sweet name with my last breath. Know that whenever Almighty God may choose to take me home, my time on this earth was the sweetest and most precious any man could ask for. I was blessed to know you, to live with you, to hold you and call you wife.
She sometimes wished that she could see him again and tell him that she’d been blessed because of him.
Anson was buried in hallowed ground. She had visited his grave and brought flowers to it.
And while the cemetery could feel very creepy at night, there was no reason for her to be afraid—not now. Any ghosts there had been good people. Good people did not return to do mischief.
Her own mother had been interred in the family mausoleum at Grace Church. It was a handsome and historic old family tomb that she and her father kept in immaculate shape.
She bit her lower lip. The dull throb of that loss always lived with her, just below the surface. But she and her dad both remembered the good and the love, clinging to the beauty of their memories.
Still, she had too many recollections associated with the graveyard, and that one memory was very scary. If it hadn’t been for Ethan, things might have been much, much worse.
Someone surely would have come back for her—eventually.
But would they have come in time?
The moon shifted. She was close enough to the edge of the bluff that she could see the Journey, the meticulously restored paddle wheeler on which her father worked and lived for large parts of every week, as she made her way up the Mississippi.
The Journey had been in port earlier and would be there early tomorrow morning, as well. She’d gotten to see her dad when he’d had a few minutes of free time after taking his tour group through the Myrtles Plantation and on to see Rosedown Plantation. She would have a few minutes with him again in the morning before the Journey headed to New Orleans.
She was glad of the chance. She was an only child, and her mom was gone, but she had her father, and while these days he was almost always aboard the Journey, its home port was New Orleans, so she was able to see him often when she was home.
“Charlie.”
She turned when she heard her name, trying to figure out who’d called her. The others were busy searching farther away, and no one seemed to even be aware of her.
She caught her breath. The mist from the foggers should have dissipated by now, but it seemed that a real one was rising.
“Charlie.”
There it was. Someone had spoken her name again, and her coworkers were still involved in their own searches.
She could have sworn she saw shapes moving in the mist, just as she had seen ghosts, long ago as a terrified teenager tied to a tombstone before being rescued by a young man who also saw the ghosts in the moonlight but was not afraid.
The ghosts hadn’t been out to hurt her. Ironically, Brad’s movie had hit on the truth—or her truth, at least. She and Ethan had never spoken about it, but she knew that the ghost of the cavalry officer had led him to her that night. He’d seen her distress and found help. She’d wondered time and time again if there was a way to help that soldier. Did he want to pass on? Or did he stay to help others?
Or did he stay because he wasn’t alone? There had been others with him, just none she had seen as clearly as she had seen him.
A long time ago now.
She reminded herself that she was supposed to be working. She was the lead actress and a shareholder. And given their budget, she was also looking for costly props.
She straightened and gave herself another mental shake. She was letting the shadows and the moonlight and history infiltrate her mind and strip away all the logic and common sense she had acquired as an adult.
But she could never be here without first remembering her mother, and then that time, before she’d lost her mom, when she’d been tied to that tombstone.
When she’d heard the sobbing. When Ethan had come to save her...
When she’d found the bracelet that had belonged to a murdered girl...
“Hey!” she called, wanting to hear her own voice. “What are we looking for again? A buckle, a knife and a canteen?”
She didn’t need to be afraid. Jennie, George, Mike and Brad were within easy shouting distance. She could see them moving across the ground where the “ghosts” had so recently walked.
“Yeah,” George called back. His voice came from much farther away than the sound of her name had.
“Found the belt buckle,” Mike announced.
“Got the canteen,” George said a moment later.
Charlie walked closer to the outskirts of the church, moving slowly and carefully over the ground, nearing the old outer, unhallowed, graveyard.
“I see something!” she cried, noticing a gleam in the moonlight.
She told herself to forget about the past—and the ghosts of the past.
She was safe now, surrounded by friends, and any ghosts here were helpful ones.
She dropped to her knees, reaching for the shiny metallic object.
“Think I’ve found something,” she called over her shoulder.
At first she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. It was just something shining in the dirt. It wasn’t until she reached for it that she realized that it was a ring. A signet ring.
And it was attached to a finger....
A finger that was attached to a hand, a hand that was protruding from the earth...
Because it was attached to a barely buried body.
It took a few seconds to resonate in her mind, and then...
A dead man. She had found a dead man.
Only then did she begin to scream.
It was happening again.
2 (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
Ethan Delaney tapped on the partly open door to Jackson Crow’s office, then pushed it wide and walked in.
He’d been with the Krewe a little more than a month. He was still becoming accustomed to working in this office in Northern Virginia, which had its own low-key friendly ways. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been used to camaraderie among agents—he was. He’d been in the New York office for the last several years, and, due to the stress level that went with working in the Big Apple, the agents there often resorted to humor to lighten the tension.
Here, though, office doors were seldom closed, and they were never locked.
Crow was their Special Agent in Charge, directly beneath Special Assistant Director Adam Harrison, who made himself equally available. Adam had helped Crow interview Ethan before inviting him to join the elite unit. They had both treated it like an easy dinner out, but he’d known full well that his answers had been carefully weighed, and that they’d been keeping track of his body language, as well.
Relief.
He hadn’t really thought about it before, but that was exactly what he felt in his new position. In his customary work in the criminal division, he’d often needed to watch his words carefully. He’d constantly had to come up with explanations for his decisions. He’d read about the Krewe of Hunters and in fact had a good friend who had transferred over before him. Aiden Mahoney had been professional when they’d talked, not lying to him and not trying to hedge, but not saying exactly what the Krewe’s specific rules and responsibilities were, either.
But now that he was here, he’d discovered the rules weren’t written down or formally agreed upon; rather they were assumed and tacitly understood by every member of the Krewe.
He was learning, day by day, to relax completely in this new realm. Here he could be totally honest about what he saw and sensed, things others might consider extrasensory. Truthfully, most solutions were based on logic and physical evidence, but others, the solutions to the crimes the Krewe investigated, included something more.
He had all the right training for his position: Loyola, where he’d studied criminal psychology and forensics; a stint in the military; a master’s degree in forensic sciences from George Washington University; then the FBI Academy. He knew that training helped, but it by no means superseded something he’d been born with, something inherited from one or more of his ancestors, a mixture of Spaniards, Creoles, English, Irish, Italian and, as with so many Louisiana natives, Haitian and Choctaw. He had one living great-grandmother on his mother’s mother’s side who believed in the mysterious ways of true voodoo. He also had a great-grandfather from his mother’s father’s side who loved to teach him Choctaw legends. One great-grandmother on his dad’s side had emigrated from Norway, while one great-grandfather had come over from Scotland and married a woman of Italian descent, all of which meant that the stories Ethan had heard growing up covered a vast array of myth and legend.
The tales were different and yet, oddly, much the same. In most of them, the supernatural played a key role, and since that agreed with his own experience of the world, it had caused him a few problems early on in school. He’d quickly learned to guard his thoughts in regard to the world around him and to keep his mouth shut about many things he might have had to say, and he’d pretty much stuck to that plan into adulthood.
Then he’d heard about the Krewe.
On their most recent case, his first, he’d discovered that his quick ability to communicate with the lost and disfranchised—the dead—was a bonus and not something to hide. One of the dead men, a powerful lobbyist, had spoken to him, and after that the clues had been easy to follow. The murders had not been politically motivated, but rather rooted in a family financial dispute.
Ethan was glad he and the Krewe had been able to solve the case and especially pleased that he had proved his worth.
“Jackson?” he said now.
His supervisor was busy reading through a file and frowning as he did so. He quickly looked up as Ethan spoke.
“Ethan, thanks for coming so quickly,” Jackson said, indicating the chair in front of his desk. He passed the file across the table.
There were two pictures on the first page, men between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five, both in business suits, one a muscular Caucasian, the other handsome and looking to be of mixed African American and Caucasian descent.
“Farrell Hickory and Albion Corley,” Jackson said, indicating the men in the pictures.
“And they’re both...?” Ethan asked.
“Dead,” Jackson clarified. “Local police are investigating. Everything they’ve got is all there in the files, and I’ve also emailed you.”
“They’re sure the murders are related?”
“Both men were found in replica Civil War uniforms in shallow graves—and not in graveyards but near them.”
“Union uniforms?” Ethan asked. A twisted get-even spree by a deranged local? The Civil War had ended in 1865. Reconstruction had officially ended with the Compromise of 1876.
Long over—or so one would think. But down here, things were different.
As much as Ethan wanted to believe people, in both the North and the South, had escaped the prejudices of that era, the Klan, neo-Nazis and various supremacist groups were still around. While laws could protect people, they couldn’t always deal with old hatreds that still had a pernicious hold on too many minds. Still, he believed he lived in a better world now than the one he’d been born into. And being of such mixed ancestry himself, it was painful to suspect that any murder might be motivated by prejudice.
“Here’s the interesting thing,” Jackson told him. “Farrell Hickory was in a Confederate cavalry officer’s uniform. Albion Corley was wearing a Union naval uniform.”
“That is interesting. You wouldn’t kill your own side, so that seems to rule out someone still stuck in the Civil War,” Ethan said.
Jackson nodded. “Anyway, both men were stabbed in the heart. The forensics experts believe that both men were stabbed with a bayonet or something similar that could be wielded with a certain precision.”
“If a bayonet was the murder weapon, that seems to indicate the killer is a Civil War reenactor,” Ethan said.
“That’s what the police think. But what’s the motive? And why these two men? Both of them were descended from men who fought in the Civil War but on opposite sides. Both of them had roots in or around the area, but their jobs weren’t related, and there doesn’t seem to be any obvious connection between them.”
Ethan listened, surprised he hadn’t seen anything about the murders on the news yet. He believed the country was trying to change the mind-set that had been so common at one time. He would have seen a clearer motive if descendants of known Klansmen had been murdered, for example, even more so if the victims were current members of the Klan or one of its spiritual cousins.
He didn’t know the particulars of either man, since he had yet to read the files, but he was sure Crow would have mentioned anything that obvious.
And he had yet to hear why the Krewe were involved. Unless the local police had asked for help. Unless one of the men had been kidnapped or state lines had been crossed.
Under most circumstances, three murders with the same signature were seen as the calling card of a serial killer, which was when the Bureau got involved, and so far they only had two. Of course, since the War on Terror had begun, everything, even in the FBI, had changed. And especially with the Krewe of Hunters, there really wasn’t such a thing as a norm.
“Jackson, I need to look through that,” he said, indicating the folder.
Jackson nodded. “You can study it on the way.”
“On the way? Where am I going?”
“Baton Rouge,” Jackson said, watching him for his reaction.
“Okay,” Ethan said slowly. “I’m just curious, and I’d like to play with a full deck. The Bureau has an office in New Orleans. Granted, it’s not a Krewe office, but even here I’m not the only Louisiana agent on staff. Am I going with someone else? Were we invited in? Or will I be stepping on toes when I get there?”
“Adam is speaking with the proper authorities. You won’t have any problems, though you’ll be working with a local detective—Randall Laurent.”
“Randy!” Ethan said.
“You know him?” Jackson asked.
Ethan nodded. “We’re both from St. Francisville. He’s a good guy,” he added, pausing to grin. “He quit opening beer bottles with his teeth years ago and became a solid, tough and decent man. Seriously, he’s a good guy. We were actually at Loyola together, too. But—”
“I’m sending you because Angela referred the call to me. She receives all our ‘invitations’ and inquiries, and she has a great way of reading between the lines and determining if the case is right for us.”
Ethan knew Angela, a special agent with the Krewe who handled a lot of the administrative and back-end business. They were often inundated with cases, and she had an amazing ability to determine which ones might best benefit from the Krewe’s assistance.
She and Jackson were also married and had been among the original six members of the Krewe.
“Yes, of course,” Ethan said.
“I believe you’re the perfect man for this situation. You know the area. If I’m not mistaken, you even used to live in the parish.”
“I’ve been gone a long time,” Ethan said. “I have family in the area, but they’re mostly in New Orleans now.”
“But you know people there. The lead detective is an old friend, you said. That’s always a good thing.”
Ethan was still curious. So far he’d always worked with at least one other Krewe agent, but it sounded as if he was being sent on his own.
He knew there were other Krewe agents who came from Louisiana, even if they didn’t come from West Feliciana Parish. Jude McCoy, another recent addition to the Krewe, had been an agent in New Orleans before he joined the Krewe.
“If you find something, I’ll head down with Jude McCoy by the end of the week,” Jackson said, as if he’d read Ethan’s mind.
“All right,” Ethan said. He hesitated and then shrugged. He might as well just throw it out there. “I love this job. I’m ready to go wherever the assignment leads, do whatever needs to be done. You know that. But I’m surprised. There are other agents who’ve been with the Krewe a lot longer than I have. Even Jude. He’s pretty new, but not as new as me. We’ve even become friends because we’re both from Louisiana. The Krewe started out in New Orleans. So...not to take anything away from my own abilities, but...why me?”
“We were specifically asked if you were available,” Jackson said, his light eyes, so striking against his dark hair and tanned flesh, hard on Ethan.
“By?” Ethan asked.
“A woman who found one of the bodies. She spoke with some friends of hers with connections here, and they made a persuasive case. She’s a local actress, name of Charlene Moreau.”
“Ah.” Ethan hoped that the memories suddenly flooding through him weren’t visible on his face.
“You do know her, then?” Jackson asked.
“I did know her,” Ethan said. “When we were kids. And I know of her now. I’ve seen her on a new cop show they’re filming down there, and in a couple of commercials. I haven’t actually seen her, though, since I was nineteen. She must have been fifteen or sixteen.”
“How close were you?” Jackson asked.
How close?
Jackson must have seen his confusion, because he went on. “When we’re young, we’re often more open to what’s around us, to seeing the kinds of things we here in the Krewe see every day.”
Ethan remembered being home from college, talking on the phone to his mother about something boring like his laundry. He was already taking criminology courses, and his mother brought up the killings that had occurred just north of Baton Rouge and how people were growing nervous in the entire area around the capital city.
And then he’d seen the soldier at the window. A Confederate cavalry officer. The man had seemed to be beckoning to him, and at first he’d naturally thought the man was a lost reenactor needing help.
But the soldier had led him across fields, pausing only to glare at Ethan when Ethan stopped, irritably demanding that the ghost explain what he wanted. Somehow Ethan felt compelled to follow him despite his silence and his strange behavior.
In the end he’d followed his spectral guide to Grace Episcopal Church.
That was when he’d seen Charlene Moreau. She’d been tied to a gravestone.
Her head was bent as she pulled against the knots that had held her there, and despite the situation she’d been ethereally beautiful in the moonlight, hair tumbling over her shoulders, a flesh-and-blood version of the worn stone angel that stood over a nearby grave with her head bowed deep in prayer.
Ethan pulled himself back to the present when Jackson spoke.
“Apparently Ms. Moreau is friends with Clara Avery and Alexi Cromwell, two young actresses I know from previous cases. They’re here in our area at the moment, involved with Adam Harrison’s theater project—he’s restoring a historic theater and has hired them to deal with creative management—although they’re both from the New Orleans area originally. Both of them are also gifted—or cursed—the same way we in the Krewe are.” He paused, then went on. “And speaking of previous cases, there’s another strange association here, too,” Jackson said.
“That being?”
“We’ve recently worked two serial-killer cases involving the Celtic American cruise line. The cruise company wasn’t at fault, of course, but both killers carried out their work aboard their ships.”
Ethan frowned, wondering how the recent deaths of the two reenactors could be related to the cruise line.
Then he saw it. A slim connection, but a connection nonetheless.
“The Journey,” he said. “Celtic American owns the Journey, and she does a run from New Orleans to Vicksburg, with a stop at St. Francisville. And of course, I know about the cases involving the Destiny and the Fate. Anyone in the world with media access knows about the cases.” He hesitated. “We’re sure there was no direct connection to the cruise line or the Journey?”
“We can’t know for sure, not yet,” Jackson said, his tone tight. “But not as far as the owners, operators or employees of Celtic American go. But Charlene Moreau’s father is the cruise director and resident historian aboard the Journey.”
“I know Charlene’s father. I promise you, he had nothing to do with murder.”
“I’m not suggesting anything like that. But here’s where the connection to the cruise line comes in. Both of the dead men took part in a reenactment aboard the Journey. The ship does themed cruises. A week ago, the theme was the Civil War. Considering the route, a lot of their cruises are Civil War–themed, but this was their once-a-year extra-special Civil War cruise. Celtic American’s claim to fame is that they specialize in historic cruises. Interestingly, the Journey offers ghost tours as well as your standard history-based ones.”
“The Journey actually has a legitimate historical claim of its own. She was conscripted to move Southern troops up and down the Mississippi when the war began. She was seized by the Union forces when they took New Orleans in 1862, then used to move wounded Union troops. For a brief time she fell back into Confederate hands, when a small troop of Confederate soldiers slipped aboard and took her over. She went back to the Union, though—a trade was arranged that allowed for injured Rebels being held by the Union to be exchanged for the Union men aboard the ship. There had been an outbreak of fever on board, so the Confederates were only too happy to hand the ship and the men over to the Yankees, and the Journey continued on her way, mainly doing hospital runs for the rest of the war.”
“See?” Jackson said softly. “You know your local history—something that can be invaluable in cases like this. So...back to the connection,” he continued. “Both the murdered men were involved in that extra-special reenactment aboard the ship about a week ago. That’s one of the reasons the police are so sure the killings must have been planned by someone in the reenactors’ group.”
“But you don’t believe that,” Ethan said.
“It’s certainly possible, given what we know so far. But I don’t like to grasp at the easy answer.”
“Sometimes the obvious answer is the truth,” Ethan said.
“And sometimes it’s not.”
“No,” Ethan agreed, and stood. If he was heading to Baton Rouge and then up river to St. Francisville, he was eager to get started. “What are my travel arrangements?”
“A car’s waiting to take you home to pack and then to the airport. The plane leaves as soon as you’re aboard.”
“As soon as I’m aboard?” Ethan asked.
Jackson smiled. “I guess you haven’t gotten used to our form of ‘troop movement’ yet. We have a nice, new private jet. Adam financed it himself. No taxpayer dollars.”
“Ah. Well, then, nice I won’t have to change planes in New Orleans.”
Jackson grinned. “Report in to me as soon as you have a feel for what’s going on. Jude and I can join you early if you think we can help. That plane goes back and forth whenever we want it to.”
Ethan took the folder and headed out of the office.
Within an hour he was on the private plane provided by Adam Harrison.
As he flew, he read the dossiers on the dead men.
Then he looked out the window and gave himself up to memories of Charlie Moreau.
* * *
“It’s going to be all right, Charlie—really. This situation has nothing to do with you or Brad or the movie. You stumbled on something very bad that someone else did. You can’t go letting it affect your life. In fact, you should be glad you found the poor man, because now the police can try to find some justice for him.”
Jonathan Moreau set his arm around Charlie’s shoulders and hugged her gently.
She was sitting with her father on a bluff high above the Mississippi. It was a short distance from Grace Church and the place where she’d found the body of a man who’d been identified as Farrell Hickory dressed in his Confederate cavalry uniform.
That area still had crime-scene tape around it.
From her perch atop the bluff she could see the people she assumed were forensic investigators searching the area. The police had told her that they hoped to finish by that evening. Meanwhile, Brad had rearranged the shooting schedule until they were free to use the fields again.
Since then she’d spent a lot of time on the phone in a three-way conversation with Clara Avery and Alexi Cromwell, good friends she’d worked with a number of times in the past. They were now working with the FBI and knew a number of agents, including Ethan.
“You can’t let it get to you, Charlie,” her father said.
She knew he was right. The murder had nothing to do with her or the film crew. A vicious killer had murdered Farrell Hickory, and it was likely that the same person had murdered Albion Corley, as well. He’d been of mixed African and Caucasian descent, and had been wearing a replica Union uniform when he’d been killed.
Not long before Albion’s death, he and Farrell Hickory had performed with a number of other reenactors on the same riverboat, the Journey, where her father worked, as part of an in-depth Civil War–themed cruise.
Charlie turned to her father and asked, “Why, Dad? Why them? This is nuts! I mean, one victim was half black and one was white, one was reenacting the Confederate side and the other the Union side. What was the killer thinking?”
“Maybe he’s just someone who hates war,” her father said.
“That doesn’t make any sense. He hates war, so he commits cold-blooded murder instead?”
“Charlie,” her father said, “if you ask me, murder never makes sense. Taking another man’s—or woman’s—life is brutal, cruel and ultimately senseless. But the police are investigating, so leave it to them. You’re an actress, and a darned good one. You’re not a cop. You...” He paused, looking off into the distance.
Charlie loved her father. Her mom had died suddenly the summer after her first year of college. It had been an aneurysm—one day a minor headache she laughed off, the next day...gone. She and her dad had been devastated. Her father was a handsome man, fifty-four years old. But he still hadn’t even gone on a date. When she’d actually tried to get him to go out with one of the entertainers on the riverboat, he’d just smiled and told her, “Maybe one day I’ll be ready for someone, but let’s face it—in my heart and mind, no one can begin to live up to your mom.”
She’d decided to let him be. When he was ready, she would be ready, too. She knew that—right or wrong—if he’d gotten involved with another woman right after her mother had died, she would have been bitter. Now, though, enough time had passed that she could deal with equanimity with the idea of him falling in love again. More than anything, she wanted to see him happy. Of course, she knew he loved her, and she made him happy—as did his work. He loved the old riverboat—the Journey—and he loved talking to people about history. He excelled at it. Still, she thought he would be happier if he had someone in his life. However, finding someone who loved the Mississippi, an old riverboat and being regaled with historical tales at every turn might be a bit of a challenge.
“You’re not a cop,” he repeated softly. “Even if you do play one on TV every now and then,” he added lightly. “Sometimes you know things, but you’re not trained law enforcement. You know how to shoot because I taught you when you were a kid, not so you’d shoot anyone or anything, but because we live out in the sticks, and I wanted you to be able to defend yourself. But snooping around...well, that could be dangerous. So don’t even think about it, okay? No matter what you...know.”
She understood he was talking about what her family called “insight.” It wasn’t really insight at all, of course. Most people called it the “gift” or the “sight.” Her family seemed to think if you referred to seeing ghosts or speaking with the dead as insight, people wouldn’t immediately think you were slightly daft or totally out of your mind.
Her father didn’t see the dead. Her ability had come from her mother’s family. However, Jonathan Moreau didn’t doubt the existence of the insight for a minute. He’d delighted in her mother’s abilities. How else could he possibly have learned some of the historical detail he cherished so much?
“Dad,” Charlie murmured, and then hesitated. She looked at her father. He had deep blue eyes, the color of her own, but now they seemed even darker with concern. He knew what she was going to say, she thought.
Now, that was actually insight.
“He called my name, Dad. The dead man, Farrell Hickory, he called me by name. Or at least I think it was him.” She hesitated; she had never told her father about the Confederate cavalry officer who had led Ethan to her that horrible night ten years ago. She’d told her mom, but her mom was gone now. Her father had been so upset about the entire situation that she’d never told him the whole story. Would it seem strange to him now that she thought a different dead man had called to her for help? “He called my name,” she said again. “That’s how I found him.”
Her father shook his head. “Charlie, I barely knew him. How would he have known your name. Did you know him at all?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, if I’d met him, I didn’t recognize him. I haven’t been around that much in years, so I don’t know how he’d know my name.”
“Farrell Hickory’s family’s owned a sugarcane plantation downriver for over two hundred years,” Jonathan reminded her drily.
“I think I’ve been there once,” Charlie said. She loved history, too; she had to, to survive in her father’s house. But few people had his passion for the past. “Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure he was part of a reenactment I saw that revolved around the Confederate capture of the Journey. That was years ago, though.” She paused, then asked, “Did you see him the day he and Albion Corley worked together?”
“I might have, Charlie. It was a crazy busy day, and I didn’t really have much to do with the reenactors. I just put on my white cotton shirt and period breeches, added a straw hat and a pipe, and stepped ashore to give lectures in the old boathouse at the dock. And while we’re a pretty small parish, I move in a pretty circumscribed orbit, and like a lot of locals, he might not have been around that much. Lots of people hail from here, but head down to New Orleans for the oil business.”
“I doubt he was in the oil business, Dad. Like you were saying, his family has that plantation on the river. I was there with a school group when I was a sophomore in high school. The teachers love taking classes to the Hickory Plantation for a firsthand look at what working a plantation really meant. Mr. Hickory kept his private rooms on the second floor, and the ground floor was open to the public. I know the Hickory Plantation isn’t grand like Oak Alley or San Francisco or some of the others, but I loved the fact that it was all about the way life was and the work people did and still do.”
Her father looked at her, nodding. “Charlie, I know. And I’m sorry he’s gone, even if I can’t say he was a friend or even a close acquaintance. But I’d met the man, and I know a fair amount about the family plantation.” He sighed. “According to the news, he left behind a twenty-four-year-old son. I hope he’ll keep the plantation running, not just the tourist part but the sugarcane business, too. I probably saw his son around sometime over the years, but...”
“I don’t know him,” Charlie said. “He would have been two years behind me in school.” She looked out over the water for a long moment, then said, “It just doesn’t make sense, Dad. At first the press were theorizing that Albion Corley was killed because of some dispute with another reenactor. Something about him getting better parts than someone who’d been part of the group longer. But now, with another reenactor murdered, too... The two of them had nothing in common, other than that they were both reenactors and they were both in that program on the Journey.”
“Don’t forget, both men were born in Louisiana,” her father reminded her. “And both of them were apparently killed with what looks to be a Civil War–era bayonet or a damn good replica.”
“You know how they were killed?” She couldn’t keep the amazement from her voice.
“I heard about Corley on the news yesterday, and I heard a cop theorizing about Hickory at the diner this morning.”
She fell silent, thinking back to everything that had happened after she’d discovered the body. The police had arrived quickly, and she’d told a uniformed officer what had happened. Later a Detective Laurent had shown up, and she’d told him what had happened, too. But she had talked, and the police had listened. She hadn’t thought to ask questions. She’d screamed once when she found the body, but after that she’d become almost numb, unnaturally calm, when she spoke to the police, her usual curiosity tamped down by her shock.
Every member of the crew had been questioned, as well. They’d all been asked if they’d seen any strange people hanging around the set.
In their ghostly makeup, half the actors had looked very strange indeed, but nobody had noticed anyone who might have been the murderer. Brad had told the police he had lots of film of the field, and they were welcome to see the footage. Naturally they’d accepted his offer.
Charlie had heard the medical examiner talking to Detective Laurent, telling him that Mr. Hickory had been dead at least twenty-four hours. But she hadn’t heard anything about how he’d been killed, and it had never occurred to her to ask.
“I wish I had thought to ask the police more questions,” she murmured.
“You should go back to New Orleans,” her father told her gruffly.
“I can’t! I can’t walk out on Brad’s movie.”
“You’re with me today.”
“I’m not scheduled to work today.”
Jonathan sighed deeply. “Well, I am. I’ve got to get back.” He stood, reached down a hand and pulled her to her feet. “Stay and film your movie, Charlie. But go home—”
“Dad, I told you—I can’t walk out on Brad.”
“I mean our home, the one you grew up in. And stay there unless you’re surrounded by friends. Stop fixating on this, sweetheart. You don’t need to be asking any questions. Leave it alone and watch out for yourself. Promise?”
“I promise. I’ll go home right now,” she told him, then kissed him on the cheek. “Our home—the one I grew up in. And I won’t fixate. Okay?” She smiled, feeling like a horrible liar even though she hadn’t actually lied. She had simply neglected to tell him that she’d asked to have Ethan Delaney assigned to the case because she knew he had joined the FBI and was part of an elite team tasked with dealing with the unusual.
Was it unusual that two men involved in Civil War reenactments had been murdered?
Maybe not. Maybe it should be a matter for the local police. Except...
Except she was certain a corpse had called her name.
“You can always come and stay on the Journey with me. I’ve been with them so long that my original cabin has been upgraded to a pretty nice suite. It’s not huge, but you could have the bedroom, and I’d take the sofa.”
“Dad. I’m fine. I promise. I love the Journey, but I’m doing a movie, remember?” she told him. “I promise I’ll go right home from here, okay?”
This was a beautiful spot, she thought. They’d been coming here to sit and talk since she’d been a little girl. He had to get back to the port now, though. The Journey was heading on to Baton Rouge, Houmas House and then New Orleans, where her passengers would debark, new ones would board, and the cycle would begin again, NOLA to Oak Alley in Vacherie to Houmas House in Darrow to Baton Rouge to St. Francisville, Natchez, then Vicksburg. The itinerary stayed basically the same, but specific tours with different emphases were planned for aficionados of country music, history, art, theater and fine dining. As her father said goodbye and bent to kiss her on the cheek, Charlie really did intend to go home. But as he walked away toward his car, parked behind hers on the road just below the bluff, she noticed that someone was walking up the slope from that road. Her heart began to beat too quickly.
It wasn’t because Ethan was back, she was certain. The years had stretched into an eternity between them. She hadn’t asked for him to come for any reason other than that she knew he would take her seriously when she said she’d heard the dead talking to her again.
It was just that his timing was so damned bad.
Her father turned and saw Ethan. And then he turned and looked at her, and she felt as if she’d run over a puppy or slapped an infant. Why couldn’t he let go of the past, of the way he’d felt about Ethan ten years ago...
“You called Ethan?” he asked.
“Dad, I called on a special group of FBI agents who are used to dealing with...insight. My friend Clara—you know Clara, she used to work for Celtic American, too—is seeing a guy who works with Ethan, so I asked her to contact him for me,” she said quickly. “Ethan’s law enforcement now, federal law enforcement.”
It was actually impressive that she was making something resembling a living by acting, she thought, hearing the pleading tone in her own voice when she’d hoped to project confidence instead.
“I see,” her father said, staring at Ethan as he approached them.
He’d changed. The Ethan she’d known had been a tall boy, still slender with youth, not muscular like the man walking her way now. His hair had been on the shaggy side, and he hadn’t yet shed the small-town football-hero swagger half the young men she’d known at school had affected. He’d been nineteen.
He’d filled out since the last time she’d seen him. Character seemed to have been etched into his face. He’d been a striking teenager, but this Ethan, with those green-gold eyes, dark hair and features that could have been painted by an Old Master, was something else altogether. His hair was cropped short now, his eyes had a sharper edge to them, and his chin had squared. He’d been a boy, she realized. Now he was a man.
As he walked up to them, he slipped on a pair of sunglasses against the brutal rays of the sun, and suddenly he became a total stranger.
“Ethan Delaney,” her father said in an unreadable tone.
“Mr. Moreau,” Ethan said, his voice now deep and rich. “Hope you’re doing well, sir.”
“We were doing well enough,” Jonathan said gruffly. He turned and looked at Charlie again, then nodded toward the two of them and started to head down the slope.
He stopped after a moment and turned back. He stood very tall and straight, and said, “Don’t let her get involved in this, Ethan. You watch out for her. Don’t you let anything happen to Charlie.”
“I didn’t before, sir,” Ethan said quietly. “And I won’t now.”
Charlie watched her father go, feeling a little ill. She loved him so much.
Then he was gone, and she was left alone with Ethan Delaney.
3 (#u0994b767-8e00-551e-b919-76733dbfa56f)
They stood some distance apart still, neither one rushing forward to initiate a warm old-friends’ hug.
It had been a long time.
But, looking at her now, Ethan wished he could just walk over and take her in his arms.
Charlie had changed.
He would never forget the way she had looked when he’d found her that night—truthfully, he would never forget anything about that night. Charlie had always been beautiful.
She had become more so over the last ten years. The bone structure of her face was sharper. Her eyes, the deepest blue he’d ever seen, seemed even larger. She had delicately shaped brows, a nearly perfectly straight nose and a generous, well-defined mouth. She was tall—five-ten, at a guess—and carried her height well. She was thin, but had all the right curves. Everything about Charlie was...
Pretty damned perfect. Her hair was a rich chestnut. She wore it long, and it seemed to move with her at all times, even when she was standing still. In fact, when she’d had a crush on him, it had seemed like manna from above.
But, of course, he’d been nineteen. In college. She’d been sixteen, still just a sophomore in high school. Any thought of a relationship was simply doomed. And so, despite every objection posed by his heart—and his libido—he had turned her away. He wondered if, with age, she’d understood. He hadn’t seen her since Frank Harnett’s trial. She’d never tried to contact him.
Until now.
He wondered if she had any clue to the way she had haunted his dreams. The way he remembered her face when she’d looked up at him, her beauty, her hope—her faith.
“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?”
It was the same woman who, ten years ago, had directed the action on the night Charlie was tied to a tombstone.
Like everyone involved with that horror show, Nancy had apologized. She and Charlie had even managed to act cordial for the rest of the year; then Nancy had graduated, and Charlie hadn’t seen her since.
“Charlie, great to see you here,” Nancy said. She seemed a little anxious and a little shy.
As if she meant what she was saying.
Charlie nodded. “Good to see you, too.” She meant it herself. Time had gone by; they were no longer teenagers.
Nancy nodded. “I hear you’re a movie star now.”
“Hardly. Just a working actress. How about you? How is everything?”
Nancy smiled, but Charlie thought it looked a little forced. “I married Todd Camp. The quarterback. We have two kids.”
“Congratulations.”
“Twins.”
“Great.”
“Sometimes,” Nancy said, then shrugged. “Sometimes when Todd is working at the garage all day, I bring the kids here with me, and sometimes they even behave. But I love them. Anyway, I’m so happy for you. You always wanted to act.”
“Well, thanks. I’m not exactly a fixture on the red carpet, though, you know?”
“You’re doing what you want to do, and that’s what counts.”
“Thanks. Hey, how’s Sherry doing? You two were so close. Is she still around, too?”
“Sherry got married and moved to New Jersey.”
“That’s nice.”
“New Jersey? After here? I don’t know. But she has a family, became an LPN.”
“So. Twins,” Charlie said into the awkward silence that followed Nancy’s updates. “No kids for me yet, but one day, I hope.”
“I’m sure it will happen for you. As for me, I just hope for a vacation one of these days. Anyway, what can I get you?”
“Iced tea and gumbo, please.”
“You got it,” Nancy said, and moved on.
She and Jimmy chatted for a minute, and then Jimmy looked down the table at Charlie and mouthed, “Didn’t know she was working here.”
Charlie shrugged. It had been ten years since that awful night, and it was a relief to discover she didn’t really care what had happened to Nancy and the rest of them.
Once Nancy left, they chatted companionably as they waited for their food; they were almost evenly split between gumbo and shrimp and grits, breaking along pretty much the same lines for iced tea vs. frosty beers. For a few minutes the talk revolved around how to film the upcoming confrontation between Charlie and an oil baron. Brad wanted a live location, but Luke was worried about getting the clean sound that he believed the scene warranted. And then, because it couldn’t be ignored forever, the subject of the dead man, Farrell Hickory, finally came up. They were all a little spooked because he was the second reenactor to be killed.
“And we all knew them both,” Jimmy said.
Charlie turned to look at him. “We did?” she asked.
“Most of us did, at any rate,” Barry said, nodding solemnly.
“Can’t say I knew either man well,” Mike Thornton said, pushing back a lock of dark hair. He was a lot like his brother, in both looks and mannerisms. He and Brad had been making movies together since they’d been kids.
“And,” Jimmy said to Charlie, “you didn’t know either one of them, unless it’s from when you were a kid, because you weren’t there for the special reenactment they did on the Journey a week ago—like so many of us were.” He was wearing a brave face, but she could see he was deeply upset by the murders.
He had never really forgiven himself for being involved the night a serial killer had almost killed her.
“Right, I was doing that webisode series. Banshees on the Bayou.”
Brad smiled. “I hope this film is as successful as Banshees on the Bayou.”
“A bunch of us were involved because there was a corporate sponsor, so we were paid pretty decently,” Jennie said, then went quiet for a long moment. “That’s when we met the men who’ve been killed.”
“Who—who else was working that day?” Charlie asked, more worried than she wanted to let on.
“Well, your dad, for one,” Luke pointed out.
“Yeah, my dad. I know. Who else?” she asked.
“Let’s see,” Brad said, looking around. “Me and Mike, Barry and Luke... Jennie did makeup.”
“Todd and I were there, too.”
Charlie spun around to see that Nancy Camp—née Deauville—was standing right behind her. “We earn extra money any time we can. We didn’t hang around, just did the bit they were paying us for, then left. You have to try to make more money than day-care costs or it’s not worth it to work. Tons of locals were there, not just us.”
“Jimmy Smith and Grant Ferguson,” Brad added, then shook his head. “We were just extras. There was a scene between Hickory and Corley, though. I’m sure you already know this, but there was supposedly a meeting between a black Union orderly and a Confederate cavalry captain when the Journey was turned over to the Union. We were extras in that scene. We brought our own uniforms, so they cast us a lot.”
“I have my Confederate infantry uniform and a Union artillery uniform,” Barry said. “I can make money on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line.”
Charlie grinned at that. But her smile quickly faded. “Did you notice anything wrong, anything that was even a little bit off, that day? Was anyone fighting?”
“I think there was a bit of a tiff between Corley and Hickory,” Luke said. “They were both convinced they were historians, not just reenactors, and they disagreed about some detail of the scene. It got a little heated, but then your dad stepped in and calmed them down. But...well, they’re both dead, so it’s unlikely they killed each other.”
“It’s pretty damned stupid for anyone to kill someone over a reenactment,” Jennie said.
Brad shrugged. “People can be crazy sometimes.”
There wasn’t much of an argument to be made against that, so they all fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. Then Jennie made a comment about how good the food was, and the conversation turned to everyone’s favorite restaurants in their favorite cities.
Charlie found herself smiling and laughing along with the others. But all the while she was making mental notes of things she needed to tell Ethan.
Farrell Hickory and Albion Corley had both taken part in the special reenactment aboard the Journey.
They had argued, and her father had intervened.
A number of her friends had also been involved in the reenactment: Brad and Mike Thornton, Jennie McPherson, Barry Seymour, Luke Mayfield, Grant Ferguson, George Gonzales and Jimmy Smith.
She didn’t want to think that any one of them could be the killer.
Of course they were all innocent, she thought, giving herself a mental shake.
Because if one of them was the killer, surely he—or she—would have acted strangely while they were filming the rise of a ghostly army so close to the place where one of the victims lay dead.
* * *
“Wow. Ethan Delaney! As I live and breathe. Back and slumming it all in small-town America.”
“Nice to see you, too, Randy,” Ethan said, greeting his old friend outside the parish morgue on Oak Street.
The two of them were only about a month apart in age. They’d been friends throughout high school, making a lot of the same mistakes, going through the same wild stages, cleaning up their act when the world demanded they had to be adults. They’d lost contact when they went their separate ways after college. Since Ethan’s parents had moved to New Orleans, he hadn’t had much occasion to get back out to St. Francisville.
“Never thought of us as coming from the slums,” Ethan said.
Randy grinned. “Yeah, we were all right, growing up, huh? I love this part of the world. I guess you can tell, seeing as I came back here. Look at you, though—a real live Fed.”
“And look at you, a big-shot cop,” Ethan said. “Not bad for a kid who got hauled in on more Saturday nights than anyone else I knew.”
“Detective, West Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Office, I’ll have you know. The deaths actually occurred in two different towns in the parish, so we were called in on lead,” Randy said, and grinned. “Special Agent Delaney. I have to say, I’m kind of surprised to see you down here for something like this. Wait, no, I’m not surprised you’re here at all. This has to do with Charlie Moreau being back in the area, too, right? Bad business back then. Though I never did understand Jonathan being so pissed at you. You threw yourself on the guy.”
“That was ten years ago,” Ethan said.
“Bet you Jonathan is still pissed,” Randy said.
“Thing is, I really have been sent down here on the case,” Ethan said. “So what have you got?”
He studied his friend, noting the man the boy had grown into. Randy was lean, but deceptively so. He had excelled on the school’s wrestling team, as well as being the football team’s top field-goal kicker. He’d told Ethan once that he knew he was never going to have the bulk and broad shoulders of some other men, so he had to make up for it with lean muscle.
“Nothing new. You probably know everything I do, since I’m sure they brought you up to speed before they sent you down here. You have the case folders, crime-scene photos, all that, right?”
“Yeah.”
Randy met his eyes and nodded. “Okay, so West Feliciana Parish has just under fifteen thousand people. Our annual crime rate is about two murders a year, and that includes negligent homicide, so it’s not like you’re looking at a major city where the cops are accustomed to investigating murders. We’re not total newbies, though, so don’t think we’re all a bunch of toothless rednecks doing alligator wrestling for reality TV.”
“Randy, I grew up here. All my friends had their teeth, although the way you showed off opening beer bottles with yours, I’m surprised you kept yours.”
Randy shrugged. “Guess I’m glad they sent you and not some big-city know-it-all. Okay, so here’s where things stand. At first, when Albion Corley was found, we were a little worried that some kind of race thing might erupt in town. We thought maybe some bigot was pissed at him for having the nerve to wear the uniform and take part in that big-deal reenactment, even as a Union orderly. Everyone liked the guy, though. Smart, a professor. Passionate about no-kill animal shelters and saving the wetlands and all that kind of thing. Then Farrell Hickory’s body turned up, found by your old girlfriend.”
“Randy, we were never a couple,” Ethan said patiently.
“Proof of fatal stupidity on your part,” Randy said.
“Might be true. She was only sixteen, though.”
“Shakespeare’s Juliet was thirteen, or something like that.”
“Wouldn’t have been right,” Ethan said.
“Okay, okay, Mr. Morality, I’m moving on,” Randy said. “So now we have one dead black man in a Union uniform, and one dead white man who played a Confederate cavalry officer. Our investigations found that the two of them had some kind of dustup during what was billed as ‘Journey Day.’ You probably remember that every year there’s a big reenactment of The Day the War Stopped. But this year, because it’s a situation that also draws a lot of interest, some enterprising person with a tour group of teachers had a brilliant idea—reenact the day the Confederates traded the Journey and her Union wounded to the Yankees for a bunch of their own prisoners. There was so much sickness aboard ship, the Rebels didn’t even want it, but the Union didn’t know that. Anyway, the cruise line offers special tours each year that focus on the Civil War, and this year they decided to feature a special reenactment of the Journey handover. To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long for someone to realize that there could be big bucks in that kind of thing, but then again, Celtic American has only owned the ship for six or seven years. The reenactment was subsidized by Gideon Oil, so the participants even got paid. Half the people I know around here were involved. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But a lot of locals turned up as extras. As far as we know, that was the last time the two victims saw each other. We actually questioned Farrell about Albion’s death once we heard they’d been seen arguing. He had an alibi for the night Albion was killed, though, and then, of course, Farrell turned up the same way. I guess you’re here to see the bodies?”
“It’s a place to start,” Ethan said.
Inside the morgue, they found Dr. Earl Franklin on duty. He had to be nearing retirement age, Ethan knew, but he was also one of the brightest and most thorough men Ethan had met in the field, and not only in Louisiana but anywhere. He greeted Ethan warmly. When he’d been young and had already set his sights on a career in law enforcement, Ethan had plagued the man relentlessly, wanting to learn everything he could, and Franklin had been unendingly patient, as well as informative.
“Great to see you,” Franklin said to Ethan now. “Sorry you’re here under such unfortunate circumstances, though.”
The ME was a stout man with wire-rimmed glasses and a head full of white hair. He would have looked at home on a big front porch, wearing a white suit and sipping a mint julep, Ethan thought wryly. Instead the man preferred libraries and skiing vacations in Colorado to sitting around anywhere.
“Good to see you. Though I’m sorry about the circumstances, too,” Ethan said.
“Well, both of you put your masks on and come in. I’ve got Mr. Corley and Mr. Hickory ready for your visit.”
Both men were laid out on steel gurneys. Their autopsies had already been performed. Sheets draped their lower extremities, revealing the Y incisions on their chests.
“No reason not to get right to it,” Dr. Franklin said. “Mr. Hickory was my only client this morning—both a good thing and a bad thing. My last was Mrs. Delsie Peterson. Do you remember her? Sorry to cut her up, but she died in her own home, alone in her bed, so the law required an autopsy, despite the fact she was ninety-eight. The old girl went easily. Just fell asleep and her heart stopped.”
“Glad to hear that. I do remember Mrs. Peterson. She fixed all our collars when we were kids and on our way into church,” Ethan said.
“Aren’t you proud of the man, Doctor? He remembers his roots.” Randy grinned.
“A very good thing. Meanwhile, here are my notes. Both men were in good health, other than stabbed through the heart by something long and sharply pointed. Like a bayonet,” Franklin said.
Ethan took a moment to look over the notes the ME handed him. Then he studied each man in turn.
There was something incredibly sad about a person’s earthly remains, no matter how they had died. When the spark of life left the body, it seemed to take everything important with it. No matter what, the body had a gray, pasty color. It didn’t matter if the person had been Caucasian, or of African, Asian, Native American or any other descent, or represented a combination of nationalities. The flesh sank in until there was nothing real left of the person who had once made the physical being vital. He’d loathed open coffins all his life. What was the point, when the person was simply gone?
Most of the time.
He made a point of touching each icy cold body. He lingered, looking over the still-visible wounds to their hearts. Both men had exercised or at least been active enough to keep their muscles tight. Neither one had been young—the wrinkles creasing their flesh testified to that—but both could have looked forward to several more decades of life if they hadn’t, somewhere and for some reason, crossed the path of a murderer.
“No bruising or defensive wounds to indicate a struggle?” Ethan asked, reluctantly accepting the fact that the dead weren’t going to speak with him.
“If you ask me,” Franklin said, “and I’m not the detective, of course, Randy is—it appears that both men were taken completely by surprise. They were facing their killer when he struck, and he murdered each man the same way. Quickly. No defensive wounds. I believe they knew their killer.”
“And both men were killed where their bodies were found?” Ethan asked, though he knew the answer; he’d read it in the files Jackson had given him. It never hurt to have these things confirmed, though, especially when he was talking to the medical examiner who had been at the scene.
“Definitely. The soil beneath the bodies was drenched with their blood. We’re still waiting for chemical analyses in the hope that something might turn up other than the victims’ blood, but...like I said, I feel strongly that both men knew their killer and were taken completely by surprise.”
“And dressed up in their reenactment uniforms,” Ethan murmured.
“And for that reason we’re looking at everyone—men and women—who were involved with the victims’ final reenactment,” Randy said, sounding very much like a cop and very little like the old friend with whom Ethan had gone to school.
Ethan nodded. “Last meals, Doc?”
“Gumbo—both of them,” Franklin said. “Probably from someplace here in town. They died twenty-four to forty hours apart. They weren’t at dinner together or anything. If they had been, they would have been at different stages of digestion, which they weren’t. And, actually, I’m waiting for the lab results before I can be definitive with regard to Mr. Hickory. I’m going by my own gut, if you’ll excuse the pun, in his case.”
Ethan nodded; Franklin had been at this long enough to recognize what he saw and smelled.
“They eat long before they died?” he asked.
“A couple of hours,” Franklin said.
Ethan turned to Randy. “Is there a reason why they would have been in their uniforms?”
Randy shrugged. “There’s been a photographer in town paying people to pose. He said he hadn’t asked either of them, though. He was at the reenactment, though, and took some shots there. As I’m sure you know, Brad Thornton and his brother, Mike, are making that movie with Charlie Moreau. Maybe they wanted to be extras. Hickory told his housekeeper he would be going out for a meeting, and she didn’t need to leave him dinner. His people closed up the public part of the plantation right at five. The housekeeper was the last person to see him, right about that time, and he wasn’t in uniform then. As far as Corley goes, no one seems to know anything definitive. He was on a research sabbatical, so he wasn’t expected in class. He called a friend and asked her to feed his cats for the next few days, and that’s the last we know of his whereabouts. His home is just this side of Baton Rouge, where he taught.”
“He didn’t happen to tell the friend what he was up to, did he?” Ethan asked.
“Said he had some meetings in St. Francisville. That was it,” Randy told him.
“Well,” Dr. Franklin said, pulling the sheets fully over both bodies, “I’ll let these gentlemen get back to rest. Any more questions, Ethan?”
Ethan shook his head. “Not now, Doc. But—”
“You can call me anytime. You know that. I’m here.”
“Thank you.”
Ethan and Randy didn’t speak again until they were back out on the street.
“You coming in to the office?” Randy asked. “You want to see what else we’ve got?”
“What else do you have?” Ethan asked.
“Nothing except a pretty damned good crime board with times and pictures and everything laid out in one place. I’m going to start interviewing the rest of the people involved in that Journey reenactment, and, after that, everyone else who was on board. Is that what the Feds would do?”
“Yep. It is.”
“So...you coming?”
“Give me an hour?” Ethan asked. “There are a few things I’d like to do. Haven’t even opened up my folks’ old house yet.”
“You all still own the place?”
“Yep. My folks rent it out, but they’re looking for new tenants now, so it’s empty. Worked out nicely for me.”
“An hour, then. I’ll make some phone calls while I wait for you, get some of the St. Francisville police going door to door to see if anyone heard or saw anything. It’s always quieter and easier to call when the night shift’s on,” Randy told him.
“See you soon,” Ethan said.
Just then Randy’s phone rang, and he motioned to Ethan to wait while he answered. After a one-sided conversation consisting mostly of “Uh-huh” and “You’re sure?” he thanked the caller. His expression serious, he turned to Ethan and said, “Ethan, I just got some news, and it’s something you need to know.”
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Heather Graham
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: They say it′s about the journey, not the destination…Charlene «Charlie» Moreau is back in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to work on a movie. One night, she stumbles across the body of a Civil War reenactor, the second murdered in two days. Charlie is shocked to learn that her father—a guide on the Journey, a historic paddle wheeler that′s sponsoring the reenactment—is a suspect.Meanwhile, Ethan Delaney, new to the FBI′s Krewe of Hunters, is brought in on the case. He and Charlie have a history of their own, dating back to when he rescued her from a graveyard—led there by a Confederate ghost!Charlie arranges a Mississippi River cruise so she and Ethan can get close to the reenactors, find out who knows what, who has a motive. They discover a lot more as they resume the relationship that ended ten years ago…but might die, along with them, on the Journey.