Krewe of Hunters 1 Phantom Evil (9 page)

“I'm sorry,” Jackson said quietly.

“Some were pulling out their cell phones, trying to say goodbye to loved ones. Most were just screaming. Then it happened fast. The pilots struggled, I'm sure—but they were attempting to land against a terrible wind shear—I learned that later. The plane broke up as it hit the ground. Luggage flew, no matter how it had been stowed. A wing broke off. The plane spun around. The next thing I knew, I was sideways down on the tarmac, and fire was bursting all over in spurts along with the remnants of the plane. I managed to undo my seat
belt and fall face-first to the ground. I shouted for my mother and father. I tried to crawl through the wreckage.”

She stopped speaking. Jackson urged her on. “And what then?” He almost whispered the words.

“Games in my head? In my heart?” She looked at him. “I saw them. My fellow passengers. They had turned into yellow light, and they rose from the ground, heading for a greater source of light, and I wanted to get up and follow them. I saw my mother, and I shouted for her, but she was ahead with my father. They had found one another, and my father was looking at my mother with a pained expression that still held hope and love. I cried out for them both to wait. They didn't seem to hear me, but there was someone next to me. A man in some kind of white shift, so it seemed, and he hovered down by me. He smoothed back my hair and he said gently, ‘No, little one, they have to go, and you have to stay. It's all right. If you look, you'll see all the light and the splendor, and you can know in your heart that you're always safe, for the light shines down upon you.' He touched my face, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the sound of sirens blaring was all around me, and I was in excruciating pain. Luckily, I blacked out again. I spent weeks in the hospital. But Eamon was there for me, my brother. He hadn't been on the plane with us because he's three years older than me, and he was away at football camp.”

“And so you made it,” Jackson said. “And you believe that…you saw your parents walk toward the light—heaven?—and that you were told by an entity of good that you had to stay behind?”

She shrugged. “Yes, that's more or less the gist of it. And,
so now, you think I'm crazier still, but maybe I have a right to be crazy?”

“You survived,” he said.

“Yes, I survived. My broken bones mended, and my burned flesh peeled away, and thankfully, I don't even bear a scar.”

“I don't quite believe that, but you went into law enforcement, and you've helped in many cases,” he said. “Any connection?”

She smiled ruefully. “Not really. I fell in love, lost the man I loved to cancer, and knew that I had to use whatever I possessed to try to help others. I am not a particularly good soul or anything of the like—it was what was left for me to do that seemed important.”

“Actually, I do think that you are a good soul,” he told her.

He didn't want to. He liked her. Very much.

Despite the way he had met her. Pickax in hand.

They were caught there, in that intimate moment, not just physically intimate, but somehow, as a meeting of something that might be of the souls, though that sounded somewhat ridiculous.

“So what about you?” she asked quietly. “None of us got to see your file, if you'll recall.”

He was saved from having to answer her when they heard the doorbell ring, and shouts arise from the front, the sound carrying easily to them where they stood outside on the balcony.

“Hey, please! Carrying a heavy load out here, you know!”

That came from Whitney.

The doorbell rang again, insistently.

Jackson stepped back.

“Ah, gee, honey,” he said lightly. “I guess the kids are home.”

In the next few hours, bags of groceries were put away, and Whitney and Jake settled in.

Angela spent the time in her room—Regina Holloway's room—arranging her own clothing in drawers and closets, and pausing now and then to see if she could get a sense of the children again, and she wondered if finding them would really help the team in their quest to discover the truth. But she didn't see or feel anything; the room was just a room at that moment, a beautiful one. She kept the balcony doors open because the city had yet to grow hot and humid; spring was still in the air, the humidity was not at the eighty or ninety percent it could be and the breeze that came in was just beautiful.

She found herself wondering more about Jackson Crow. He had become human to her; she still couldn't believe that she had told him about the plane crash—and the man who had
spoken to her, telling her that it wasn't time for her to go to the “light.”

A tap at her open door interrupted her thoughts.

Jackson leaned against the door frame, his stillness so familiar despite their short acquaintance. Adam wouldn't have him heading up this unit if there wasn't a core of belief in life after death. She knew he had to be shaken up about his last experience in the field; people had died. Friends had died.

And despite the fact that two of the kids had only just arrived, making her the more senior team member, she could barely imagine what he had felt. She was certain that Adam had taken great care when putting their team together. They were people who were very different, but who had the talents and personalities that would complement one another.

“Are you busy?” he asked her.

She nodded at the open drawers. “Just finishing in here.”

“I wasn't sure if you'd sensed more bones in the wall. I wanted to be able to duck quickly,” he said.

“No, the pickax is in the basement,” she told him, able to smile. He was actually joking. “You're safe.”

He nodded and walked in. “Do you have a hang-up about people sitting on the end of your bed?” he asked. “Nope.”

He sat. “So, what was your take on the senator?”

“Well, you heard him—I think he really wanted ghost hunters.”

“But what did you feel about him? About his emotions?”

“He's really devastated by his wife's death,” she said. “And he
is
the one who found her. What did you discover in regards to his companions?”

“Every one of them is a possible suspect. The day she died,
they were all in New Orleans. Senator Holloway was working. Blake Conroy was at his home gym, so he says, and Grable Haines was gambling.”

“What about Martin DuPre?”

“He was at the office with the senator, but I doubt they were in clear view of one another all the time. You can walk here from the Central Business District. I'd say it would take someone twenty to thirty minutes, walking briskly. A cab would take a few minutes, depending on traffic. Perhaps he has his own car. I didn't want them all together when I got into specifics.”

“Where do you want to go from here?” she asked.

“Tonight? We're heading toward dusk, you know. I thought we should lie low, help set up the cameras and get started taking video or film or whatever they work with, and see if we have any surprises showing up on the screens.”

“And are you expecting anything?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “I never say never.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He glanced at his watch. “It's almost seven, it's been a long day—I'm heading down for a beer. Oh, Jake Mallory is a sushi freak—and an expert sushi chef, so he claims. Do you eat sushi? He's doing up some noodles and stir-fry, too.”

“I'm pretty safe on almost anything,” she told him. “Well, I don't want to try monkey brains, or anything, but otherwise…”

He grinned, rising. “You coming down?” he asked her.

It was twilight. Part of her wanted to just go with him; a beer did sound appealing at the moment. But this was near when Regina Holloway had died, and if there were things that might be seen in the room, this was the time. She should
be open to allowing the past to talk to her now, whether that meant ghosts, or just something that she did with her mind.

She remembered talking to Jake, though, and Jake telling her ardently that he
knew
people who saw ghosts.

Jake and his friends were crazy. That was all she'd allow.

“I'll be down in just a few minutes,” she said.

“I'll keep your beer on ice,” he said, leaving.

Sensations could indeed be strange. The room seemed empty when he left; drained of life. She tried to dismiss the thought, reminding herself that she had only known him one day. Last night, he'd put her on the defensive. But maybe that was what he had felt he needed to do as the head of the team. Today, she felt as if she had seen behind his facade. He was vulnerable, too. He knew that he hadn't caused the deaths that had befallen his last team. Yet, he still blamed himself.

And, it was possible that he still believed that he'd been assigned to some kind of slightly crazy unit, a babysitting unit—a unit not actually meant for the hundreds of serial killers active in the country at any given time.

Regina Holloway was dead. There was no saving her now.

Angela lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. She tried to imagine the children as she had seen them before, on the floor, playing jacks. It was horrible to think how the children had died, and she wondered how Newton had managed such horrendous murders without being heard. She was pretty sure many of his torture-killings had taken place in the basement, but she thought that the children might have been killed in this room. She thought about Percy, trying to be an older brother, trying to reassure his little sister.

It hurt to imagine the fear that must have seized them both
when the man who was supposedly trying to help their father had come after them with an ax.

She found herself praying, so many years later, that somehow, they had died quickly, and that the pain hadn't gone on too long. And still…had Percy watched Madden C. Newton chop up his sister? Or had the older brother been the first to die?

Darkness was settling over the room. She hadn't opened her eyes, but she could feel it, just as she could feel the breeze that wafted in, and the way that it lifted the curtains by the French doors.

She opened her eyes slowly.

The little boy was there. He was watching her sorrowfully.

She didn't move; she was afraid to blink. His face was old for his years, and his eyes seemed to carry the wisdom of the ages.

“Be careful, please, be careful,”
he told her.

Was she dreaming?

“Percy?” she asked softly.

But as if the breeze could dissipate illusion, he was suddenly gone.

She waited. She felt frozen. She realized that she was afraid, and yet she wasn't afraid of the little boy who had to be Percy.

She was terrified, she realized, because it hadn't been a dream. It had been real; she had thought about him, and he had appeared.

The mind; a scientist would say that she could do such things only through imagination.

Anticipation and dread rushed through her body and she
closed her eyes. Fear followed hope. She opened her eyes, but there was no one, nothing there.

She sat up, and felt the darkness in the room, alleviated by lamps that had come on in the courtyard, and from the light in the hallway. The room was drenched in shadow. The closet door was slightly ajar, as was that to the bathroom. For a moment, she had a child's ridiculous fear that a monster would suddenly rush out of the closet and attack her.

She waited, determined she would not be frightened out of the room. She did believe that something
evil
—ill will? Something more tangible?—resided in the house. But, whatever evil might lurk in the minds of men had nothing to do with the appearance of the child. She wanted to see the little boy again, the little boy she was certain had to be Percy.

But laughter drifted up to her from the kitchen, and she heard the sound of a guitar being strummed.

Jake, the musician, and computer and sound expert.

It was time for that beer Jackson had promised to keep cold for her.

 

Jackson read the newspaper article on the discovery in the house, surprised to find himself comfortable on a stool near the counter pass-over to the courtyard. Jake was strumming his guitar while calling out orders to Whitney to do his prep work—insisting it would come out to be a feast.

He was adept on the guitar. The instrument he had brought with him was acoustic, and he kept his tunes low and mellow—but ridiculously bawdy at times—causing Whitney to stop in the midst of her tasks that he had assigned to her and giggle. He had to admit, Jake made him laugh now and then, and it seemed like a good thing that, so far, they all seemed so easy
and ready to get along with one another. But then, Whitney staged a revolt, laughing and telling Jake that she'd set the table, fixed his flipping rice balls, and it was time for him to get back in the act.

Jake sighed, set down his guitar and started to work, thanking Whitney for all her excellent preparation. Jackson looked at the newspaper again.

The article contained little more than the facts, but with, of course, the questions about the house being haunted being raised again, and the tragedy of Regina Holloway's death coming to the fore once again. He liked the spin in the article, though—the reporter had quoted Andy Devereaux's police spokesman as saying, “The investigation team that discovered the bones will be continuing to study the history of the house, and seek out any more such surprises, before Senator Holloway puts the house back up on the market. With its infamous past, it doesn't seem at all impossible that there may be more skeletons—literally—hanging in a few of the closets.”

Thankfully, the article didn't even hint at the unit being ghost hunters—or, thank God, any type of sci-fi-driven team claiming that the aliens did it all.

“Jackson?”

He looked up. Whitney, smiling and cheerful, was offering him a bite of something off her tongs. He smiled, remembering Angela's earlier words. “It's not monkey brains, is it?”

She laughed, and Jake, standing over the range top, joined her. “No, I've never had monkey brains. And, as long as I'm in the kitchen, there won't be any, I promise.”

“Salmon, avocado, tempura shrimp and cream cheese,” Whitney advised him.

He took the bite. The little piece of roll was delicious. “Wonderful. We've found ourselves a cook,” he said.

“Chef,” Jake said in protest.

“Oh, no, not every night,” Whitney said. “You're too bossy.”

“Hey—you're supposed to be the assistant. I give orders, you assist,” he said.

“Well, I guess I don't care who cooks, or if I have to follow a few orders—as long as you don't make me the main cook,” Whitney said. She wrinkled her face, taking over from Jake to stir the vegetables. “I can prepare one delicious dish—jambalaya. And it is good.”

“Jambalaya sounds great, too,” Angela said, entering the kitchen. “Wow. It smells wonderful down here,” she said. “Are we eating in here? Or in the dining room? Hey, do people actually eat in their dining rooms, ever? Or is that an only-when-company-comes kind of thing for real these days?”

“I say the courtyard…it's gorgeous outside,” Jake told them all. “Well, the dining room isn't for eating, we all know it's just for show. No, the dining room ain't for eating, just for company, just for show, just when you bring that Bourbon Street stripper-ho-ho home, oh, yeah, just for show!”

Whitney groaned.

“Hey, it's a good song!” Jake protested.

It wasn't a particularly good song, but Jake had an amazing musical ability. Jackson had a feeling that he sat with that guitar, strumming out solutions to his problems.

“Courtyard it is,” Whitney said.

It all moved quickly with the four of them taking out the food, lights and all that was needed. They were all aware, of course, of the place where Regina Holloway had fallen, but
then they were there to investigate the death—and therefore honor the life—of the woman.

“Hey, I'm pretty sure that Regina Holloway believed in spirits—in some form or another,” Whitney said, passing out the sushi rolls.

“Why?” Jackson asked her. “Your great-grandmother said that she didn't believe in ghosts. What do you mean—spirits?”

“Well, Regina Holloway went to my great-grandmother's shop sometimes for advice, but I think she was doing things on her own as well. I found red candles in the lower cupboard. They're part of a banishing spell that's used frequently here in New Orleans. And my great-grandmother didn't say anything about Regina buying candles from her. I'm just curious as to what she was doing on her own.”

“Good question,” Angela said.

“I'll stop by my great-grandmother's shop tomorrow,” Whitney said. “I wonder if she sold Regina the candles, and if she knows anything about it.”

“She must—your great-grandmother is a wonderful contact, Whitney. Angela, I think it would be great if you were to go to the store and spend more time with Mama Matisse. She just might say something else that we haven't thought about that could turn out to be really important,” Jackson said.

“I would like to go with you,” Angela said. “If you don't mind. I don't know a lot about voodoo.”

“It's not what you think,” Whitney said.

Angela laughed. “You don't know what I think.”

“True,” Whitney admitted sheepishly. “But most people believe it's all about black magic and zombies. For some people, it's a very serious religion. And for anyone who really practices voodoo, well, you wouldn't dream of doing anything evil.
It's like the Wiccan religion—anything evil that you do will come back at you. Take a banishing spell. I'm not sure how well we explained it earlier. You can't just wish that someone you don't like will disappear—that could mean that you wish a train would hit them, or that they would walk off a mountain, or, well, something bad. Say you have a pesky neighbor. You have to try to banish him by hoping that he gets a new job that will make him richer, and then he'll buy a new house. Or, you have to wish that he decides to go live with his sister in Cleveland, and that he'll be happy there.”