Krewe of Hunters 2 Heart of Evil (26 page)

“I still don't know what you want.”

“What I want? Well, at this point, that should be obvious, Ashley. I want you. So listen to me, and listen to me good. Do exactly as I say. If you come out, I'll let Beth go. Even trade. You for her.”

“How do I know that you'll let her live?”

“I can't exactly sign a contract, can I? What if I were to swear to God? Hmm, I don't believe in any God, other than myself, really. So, here it is. You
meet me in the cemetery, or I kill Beth. I'll string her up on a tomb, just like good old Charles Osgood.”

“The cemetery?” she said. “You know that the group inside is watching screens. They'll see what I'm doing.”

“They will, but they won't think anything of it, because you're going to bring a dish of food out to Cliff.” He started to laugh. “Oh, yeah, you're going to bring a bowl of food out to Cliff! And then, Ashley, I'll take it from there. I see you heading across the yard to the stables in three minutes precisely, or Beth dies.”

The phone line died in her hand.

Interlude

J
ake chafed, growing restless. They'd had to make a detour to the coroner's office; Augie had called Jackson.

The facilities here were state-of-the-art. He'd been to the morgues plenty of times before—just the way that his life had gone—and he was impressed with the shiny steel gurneys and sinks and equipment, and the sterility of the place.

Too many times when he had been involved with death, the morgue had been an empty building somewhere, and the rats had already become kings.

Bright lights were now on over the bodies of Marty Dean and Toby Keaton; they had been cleaned up, and with the sheets partially covering their torsos, they looked far better than they had when he had last seen them.

Augie, in green scrubs, a cap and mask, held a chart in front of him and rattled off the amount of drugs that had been found in both bodies.

Jake wanted to grab the chart; it didn't matter
how much—the drugs had been present. And the two on the tables, though looking better, were still corpses.

“Here's what's interesting,” Augie said, using a gloved finger to point out Marty Dean's lips. “Marty was drowned. Her lungs were full of water, and you can see the blue coloration around her neck. Toby Keaton, on the other hand, was strangled.” He looked at them over his mask. “Despite the fact that they were drugged, I think you'll realize what this means.”

“He had to change tactics?” Jake asked. “What do you think happened?”

“It looks as if the two struggled. There were tufts of some kind of black material, which I've sent to the lab, caught up in Toby Keaton's clothing—hard to find, I assure you, when everything is the color black,” Augie told him. He smiled grimly. “Our lab is good. The tufts are not the same fabric as the jacket Toby was wearing.”

“Ashley did see someone else that night. She climbed up that tree to escape him,” Jake said.

His feeling of urgency and restlessness was growing. He needed to escape the morgue. He didn't give a damn how many times he had been in one. There was still the smell. The smell of chemicals. And death.

“We believe we've narrowed the field to three suspects,” Jake said. “Ramsay Clayton, Griffin Grant and Hank Trebly.”

“And Cliff Boudreaux,” Jackson said. “We can't
eliminate him yet. He's had access, he's on the property—”

“He was at the stables when I rushed out to find Ashley,” Jake reminded him.

“Yes, and he could have circled those woods around just about anyone. He has lived on that property all his life,” Jackson said.

“The police searched his apartment with his full cooperation,” Jake said, stating the fact.

“We still can't eliminate him—he knows the property like the back of his hand,” Jackson reminded him.

Jake didn't argue.

“Well, gentlemen, here's why I brought you in here,” Augie said. “Look at Toby's neck there.”

They both studied the neck. There was heavy bruising and signs of fingers having pressed in.

“He was strangled by hand, wouldn't you agree?

There are no ligature marks,” Augie said.

They both looked at him.

“Well,” he said, exasperated. “I can guarantee you, you're down one suspect. Hank Trebly didn't do this.”

“How do you know?”

“He had surgery in his left wrist about six months ago. I know, because we discussed it at an Elks meeting the other month. He wouldn't have been able to use both hands as they were used on this victim. So, you see, if you're right, you are down to three
men—Ramsay Clayton, Griffin Grant, or Cliff Boudreaux.”

When they left the morgue, they were no more than a twenty-minute ride away from the house, but the compulsion Jake felt—the mounting pressure—did not let up. He called Ashley; when he got her voice mail, he nearly drove off the road.

“She's not answering!” he told Jackson.

“I'll call Angela,” Jackson said calmly.

He smiled at Jake when Angela answered her phone. “Jake is in a dither. He just called Ashley, and she didn't answer.”

“I see. No, we're almost there,” he said. “Fifteen minutes or so.”

He hung up.

“So, where's Ashley?” Jake demanded.

“It's all right. Angela said that she's up with Frazier. She just brought him some tea, and she was sitting with him. She said that they've been following computer trails all day, but that going from site to site is about to make them all buggy. They're anxious to see you.”

“I'm anxious to see them,” Jake said.

He stepped on the gas.

“Hey, let's arrive alive!” Jackson said.

“Call Angela back,” he said. “Please, have her get Ashley to her phone.”

Jackson sighed, and called back.

This time, there was no answer on Angela's phone.

 

Ashley carried a big bowl of gumbo in her hand. She looked up to see that Angela had followed her into the kitchen.

“What's up?” Angela asked.

“Cliff just called. He's hungry.”

“He should come to the house.”

“It's no bother, and he knows you all are watching the grounds,” Ashley said.

“Jake called a few minutes ago. Hon, where did I leave my phone after that? Oh, hell, I have no idea. Anyway, they're almost back.”

“Thank God!” Ashley said.

“I'll reserve one camera to watch you walk over.”

“It's all right. Really, please.”

Angela wasn't stupid. She could see something in Ashley's eyes.

“All right.” Ashley let out a sigh. She wasn't alone; Ashley knew that she didn't dare do anything other than what she was doing.

She walked out of the house, relieved, knowing that someone would follow, someone would carefully follow, and stop whatever terrible thing was being planned.

She felt ill; now her stomach was churning, too.

Cliff!

She couldn't believe it.

But she couldn't forget the voice.
Cliff is hungry. Cliff wants food.

And then the laughter.

She walked toward the stables; she hadn't come unprepared.

She didn't know what she expected. She saw Cliff standing in front of Tigger's stall, his shotgun in his hand.

Where had he stashed Beth?

He turned to look at her and frowned. She hurried toward him, pretty certain that she was going to have only one chance.

“Here. Take it,” she said, thrusting the bowl of cold gumbo toward him.

Human instinct. He went to grasp the bowl; his shotgun was loose in his hand.

She dropped the bowl into his hands and grabbed the shotgun from him; before he could utter a word, she slammed the butt of it against his head as hard as she could.

He looked at her in disbelief as he fell back against the gate to Tigger's stall and slumped to the ground.

“Ashley,” he said.

And then the lights on the property went out. Someone had hit the breaker.

 

Jake drove the car down the long, oak-lined path to the house. Just when he reached the drive in front, the lights went out. All of them.

The world became a misty shade of gray; dusk was upon them.

Jackson swore; Jake set a hand on his arm. “The generators will kick in!” he said.

But the generators didn't kick in.

Jackson took off for the house; Jake started to follow him, but he stopped.

She was there.

Emma Donegal was there, and she was standing on the path by the side of the house. She beckoned to him.

He followed her. She led him around to the stables. He could barely see in the near dark. The moon was rising, not quite full, but it lent an eerie glow to his surroundings.

“Where, Emma, where?” he demanded.

He heard a groan. He hurried over to the sound. Cliff Boudreaux was down on the ground, holding the side of his head.

“Cliff, what the hell happened?” Jake demanded.

“Ashley…”

“Ashley did this to you?” Jake demanded.

“Behind her…someone behind her.” Cliff grasped his arm. “I couldn't see…couldn't tell…it went dark so fast. But I saw her face. He had to have called her out here. I didn't know what the hell was going on…the horses…I'll help you….”

Cliff caught his arm and tried to struggle to his feet.

He didn't make it. He slipped back down to the ground. His head slumped to the side.

Ashley was out there. The killer had her.

Where?

 

Ashley didn't know what in the hell had hit her; she'd felt a sting, and then nothing more.

And now, she didn't know where she was.

Her eyes were open, she thought. But the world was still dark.

She tried to blink; even blinking seemed an in credible effort.

Then she felt…something. She realized that she was being carried. Her head bobbed and smacked against a man's shoulders, and she had absolutely no control over it. She tried to focus, and she realized that she couldn't see because there were no lights. Struggling to regain some clarity, she decided that he must be carrying her away from the stables.

She blinked and she could begin to see shapes around her; the moon was rising against the swiftly falling twilight. Her focus was bad, but she could try to see. She felt the man's exertion as she was hefted over some obstacle in his path.

Cliff!

She had practically shattered his skull, thinking that he was the one who had called. That he was the one who had somehow managed to kidnap Beth.

But it wasn't Cliff; she had just left him behind, staring at her as if she were the worst traitor known to man, which, of course, she was….

I'm so sorry, Cliff!
she thought. But what was that going to matter now?

Thump, thump, grind…

Her chin fell against the man's back. He was a big man. Strong, powerful in the chest and shoulders.

She heard a creaking sound. They were back in the cemetery, she realized. She was surrounded by the towering white architecture of her ancestral city of the dead. The tombs seemed to glisten a silvery white against the dusky sky.

She'd always been meant for the Donegal tomb eventually.

It seemed that time was now.

She could barely see; barely think, barely function. But she was aware! Was this how it had been for Charles Osgood, Marty Dean and Toby Keaton?

Had they known they were about to die but been unable to respond, to react in any way? Maybe not. Maybe the dosage of the drugs they had received had been stronger. Maybe…

Hope swelled, just the tiniest bit. She needed to do something, or she was going to die.

No, Angela thought that she was with Cliff.

And Angela was trapped in the dark. Angela wouldn't know until…

Suddenly, she saw Marshall Donegal at her side. He drew his phantom sword and swiped at her carrier's neck. The sword slashed right through it. Ashley tried to smile. She felt her lips move. She did have
some…some…no… She tried to lift her head, but she could not.

But a real-life rock in front of the man nearly tripped him; he stumbled. She was a deadweight, she remembered, even if she wasn't near the weight he must have struggled with when he attacked Charles Osgood.

She heard the faint sound of a creaking once again, and she realized that she was being brought into her family tomb; the temple tomb.

She felt it! She felt pain when her body was slammed down on the central altar in the tomb. Pain meant life. The still rising moon shed an eerie yellow illumination into the tomb through the grate in the far wall.

She heard her attacker working quickly, lifting the heavy marble siding from one of the shelf tombs nearby.

Marshall Donegal's tomb.

He turned to her, smiling.

She knew him before she saw his face. HJH. His wife had been Ginnie. Ginnie Hilton. And Ramsay Clayton had written a letter to her for her husband, Henry James Hilton, because Hilton's hand had been broken. It hadn't been broken in the skirmish; it had been broken when he had attacked Emma Donegal and Harold Boudreaux had set upon him, dragging him off the woman he had so brutally attacked.

“Ashley, you see me! I should have known that
you would see me. You were always so special. So precious. And now…”

He paused, listening. There was commotion going on; people shouting. She couldn't understand them, but she knew that they were searching the grounds. Angela had known where she was going, and by now they had surely found Cliff, and they would be looking for her.

She twitched her lips and managed to smile at him in return. She couldn't speak. She willed him to understand her thoughts.

They'll know that it was you. Angela will be reading those old letters, and they'll figure it out faster than I did. They'll know. They already know that it's a sick grudge you have against my family. So, your ancestor died in the war—because his hand was broken. No one blamed Harold Boudreaux for what he did to your ancestor, because his fellow rebels knew what had happened when they saw Henry's broken hand; they were appalled that he'd attacked Emma. They didn't string up Harold Boudreaux, but they didn't speak about any of it, either. All for honor! Well, the honor here died with Marshall Donegal, didn't it? And you can't stand that. Well, I may die, but you will, too. They'll catch you, and you'll rot in prison until they stick a needle in your arm, and that will be fitting, won't it?

He stared at her, his face growing mottled, as if he could hear her thoughts. Of course, he couldn't—he just saw that she had figured out the truth.

He slapped her, and she felt the sting again. Had he attacked so many people now that he was running out of his drug cocktail?

Perhaps she shouldn't be so happy to
feel.
She didn't know how he intended for her to die. And they were in the vault now with the gate locked. Even if they searched the cemetery, they wouldn't think to look
in
the vault. The gates hadn't been opened since her father had died; the tomb was sealed after every interment.