Flawless (30 page)

He couldn't deny the truth of what she said.

Whatever lay between the two women, he thought, it had obviously ended well, and he would let it lie.

He smiled at her. “You know, I have some time on my hands. Time I could use to do some traveling.”

“And I have a job.”

“I'll bet you could take some time off if you wanted to.”

She laughed, and he realized just how much he loved the way her whole face brightened and her beautiful blue eyes sparkled.

“Special agent Frasier. We haven't even known each other a full two weeks and you're asking me to go off with you already?”

“There's this lovely place in the Poconos,” he said. “After everything you've been through, I bet your bosses would be happy to see you get a little rest and relaxation. ‘Any decent person would lend a hand,' right?”

“Or take a bullet,” she said, searching out his eyes.

He shrugged. “I was wearing a vest.”

“A point-blank bullet.”

“What do you say?” he asked.

“I don't know, Craig. The pub is so busy. You'd think people would stay away after what happened, but it's been crazy busy. Declan has had to hire on two more people.”

“He would tell you to go,” he said.

“Should we go find out?” she asked, leaning against him.

He laughed softly, pulling her closer. “It's funny. I'm with this lovely young woman,” he said softly, “and yet I seem to be dating an entire family.”

She smoothed back his hair, watching him anxiously. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head. “I'll take a Guinness,” he told her.

She smiled and took his hand.

They would head to the pub, he thought, and then home.

Where she would make very careful love to him.

Life was good, he thought, and he pulled her closer still, then kissed her thoroughly.

He wondered what else the future might hold.

* * * * *

Keep reading for a sneak peek at
HAUNTED DESTINY
, the eighteenth book in the
KREWE OF HUNTERS
series by
New York Times
bestselling author Heather Graham, from MIRA Books.

Looking for more heart-pounding suspense from
New York Times
bestselling author Heather Graham? Then you won't want to miss a single story in the spine-tingling Krewe of Hunters series, featuring the FBI's elite team of paranormal investigators:

Phantom Evil
Heart of Evil
Sacred Evil
The Evil Inside
The Unseen
The Unholy
The Unspoken
The Uninvited
The Night Is Watching
The Night Is Alive
The Night Is Forever
The Cursed
The Hexed
The Betrayed
The Silenced
The Forgotten
The Hidden
Haunted Destiny
(June 2016)

And discover the electrifying Cafferty & Quinn series, where an antiques collector and a private investigator are drawn together in New Orleans as they investigate the city's most unusual crimes:

Let the Dead Sleep
Waking the Dead
The Dead Play On

“Dark, dangerous and deadly! Graham has the uncanny ability to bring her books to life.”
—RT Book Reviews
on
Waking the Dead

Order your copies today!

Connect with us on
Harlequin.com
for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Other ways to keep in touch:

Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com

Haunted Destiny

by Heather Graham

T
hey'd started out on foot that morning—not long after the murder was reported.

The murder that would soon bring the Big Easy to its knees, the eleventh attributed to the man the media had dubbed the “Archangel.”

And who had now, apparently, moved into New Orleans.

The perpetrator had already left his mark on other cities. The first two killings had taken place in Charleston, South Carolina. Two women were murdered there, their bodies found in churches; the actual crime scenes had never been discovered. That was six months ago.

After that, there'd been a lull. At that time, the Archangel hadn't been given his moniker yet and he hadn't been on the nation's radar as a serial killer.

Some wanted to believe that the killer himself was dead, or that he'd been incarcerated on other charges, the true extent of his crimes never known.

But those first two murders had held a strange signature—both victims displayed in churches with a saint's medallion around their necks. And most investigators expected the killer to strike again.

Which he did, four months later.

The killer had come further south, taking two lives in Miami, Florida, and quickly followed by two more. just up the coast in Ft. Lauderdale.

Then, for another four months, nothing.

Law enforcement worked day and night, certain that he'd strike again—but not knowing where.

He did.

He'd travelled on to Mobile, Alabama. There, he'd killed three young women and a young man—the boyfriend, by all accounts, arriving too late to save the last Mobile victim—and not at all prepared for the homicidal knife-wielder he'd come to meet. An actor returning home after his show, he'd obviously put up a fight. The young woman had been left on church steps, the boyfriend dumped in an alley. They knew this time, however—from various cell phone calls and messages—that the couple had been attacked at the young woman's home, a small bungalow in a wooded area of the city.

But despite the disarray and the traces of blood in the bathtub, the killer had left behind no fingerprints, no fibers—no hint of his identity.

The last four had died in a period of three days, all while local law and the FBI scrambled after the Archangel like ants, certain they were getting close. They'd called out the National Guard in Mobile—only for the killer to refuse to strike again.

The one male victim had been dumped in an alley with no ceremony, while the young women's bodies had been discovered at a church, sometimes on the outside steps, sometimes by the altar. The Archangel had left each female victim laid out as if prepared for burial, arms folded over her chest—a silver saint's medal around her neck, almost covering the ribbon of red where he'd slit her throat.

Jude McCoy had seen the pictures; practically every agent in every city in the country had seen the crime scene photos of the victims.

And they'd all looked just like this young woman he gazed down at now. She lay before the altar of a church on the outskirts of the French Quarter, arms folded over her chest, a medallion of St. Luke around her throat.

Her name was Jean Wilson. She lay there, in front of the altar, a choir robe draped over her naked body, the tell-tale blood-line around her neck—as if it were a chain for the medallion on her chest. She'd been young and beautiful with long, luxurious dark hair and coffee-colored skin.

Seeing her, Jude McCoy felt a mixture of horror, pity, rage—and helplessness.

He knew that no one in law enforcement was to blame. Not the bureau, Homeland Security, or any branch of the local police. There were, according to the FBI specialists and scholars at various universities, anywhere between twenty and several hundred serial killers operating in the United States at any given time. This one, however, had been making headlines and had the entire nation on edge.

No one had known where he'd strike next.

Before this morning, Jude and the other members of his division had already been alerted. They'd sat through lectures by the bureau's behavioral sciences professionals. What they learned was that this killer was organized, and he was smart. He was either independently wealthy or had a job that allowed travel. He was aware of the need to wear gloves, and leave nothing behind. This killer didn't sexually assault his victims. He also had the ability, in a short span of time, to choose and stalk his victims, and silence them quickly. They'd all been found in or near churches; murdered elsewhere, their bodies weren't dumped there, but
displayed
. They hadn't been killed in the churches; two, at least, were murdered in the victim's own home. Under most circumstances, Jude McCoy would have remained with the police and other FBI officers on the scene, since it was apparent that the victim had been moved from the crime scene and that the killer was long gone. He would have walked the church over and over again, making note of any little detail. He would have studied the street and determined just how the killer had traveled there with the body, how he'd brought it into a locked church and displayed it—without being seen.

But not that day.

After the medical examiner had arrived and Jude and Jackson Crow listened to his on-site findings, Jude moved back to the steps of the two-hundred-plus year-old church to survey the sidewalk and the street.

Not surprisingly, nothing was
usual
that day. Everything felt different. The murder, of course. And maybe it was because he'd been abruptly paired with a stranger. And, maybe because he'd heard things about Jackson Crow and his elite Krewe of Hunters unit. The Krewe had been formed right here in NOLA several years ago. Jude had received directions that morning. He would be on special assignment with an agent who knew the area well and had followed the trail of victims from Miami to New Orleans—Assistant Director Jackson Crow. When the body of Jean Wilson had been discovered, Crow had already been on his way in from Mobile, Alabama; he'd made an educated guess that the killer's next strike might well be the City of New Orleans. He'd been on the case for some time, or so Jude understood, and in this situation FBI involvement, , was expected. Jackson Crow headed up a
paranormal
sector of the FBI—that was the rumor, anyway. They were unofficially known as the Krewe of Hunters—ghostbusters, some people said. Whether that was true or not, Jude didn't know. He'd looked up their records out of curiosity; they did have an uncanny solve rate hovering at almost a hundred percent.

For Jude, the change of partners was not only abrupt change, it was one he wasn't sure he felt comfortable with. His usual partner, Gary Firestone, was at the scene as well. In fact, with all the law enforcement agencies involved, the greatest danger was that evidence might get lost because of the number of people missing around.

But Crow seemed aware of the danger and quickly organized staff into work units. Somehow, he seemed to manage it all without incurring resentment. He was spare with words, determined, efficient in movement.

Working with him, so far, anyway, all right; they had an easy rapport, probably since they were both focused on one thing—finding the demon responsible for such heinous deaths.

However... Jackson Crow was Krewe of Hunters. And thinking about his own past, particularly a strange event that had haunted him since he'd been in the military, he was a little wary of Jackson Crow. He was intrigued that Crow had sought him out, yet slightly troubled because of it.

He quashed the feeling. He didn't have time for that kind of emotion; they were in pursuit of a killer.

While the medical examiner worked inside the church, he and Crow had stepped outside. Uniformed police were cordoning off the area with yellow tape. A crowd of onlookers had gathered.

“Look,” Jude said quietly to Crow.

There was a man lurking on the outskirts of the crowd.

Summer in New Orleans. Hotter than the devil's own seat in hell. And the guy was dressed in a sweatshirt, holding his head down, shuffling his feet, watching. There was something odd about his manner—and his appearance. His face was almost gruesome, and his nose was huge.

“I see him,” Crow muttered.

The man might have been a voyeur, the kind who slowed down at the scene of a car accident.

And yet his behavior made him typical of killers who returned to see the aftermath of their work, getting their kicks all over again by seeing the police run around, the crowd gawk—and the relatives break down in tears and denial. Jude carefully started moving toward him.

Just then, the man looked up. Jude froze behind one of the columns. It was important, he thought, that the man not see him.

His face was...unnatural. Not as if he was wearing a mask,
but makeup. Prosthetic makeup, perhaps, giving him a larger nose, a bulbous chin, harder cheek bones.
The man turned to run, as if he'd sniffed out the fact that he'd been noticed. Jude shouted to Crow and began to run in pursuit.

Jackson Crow was already beside him.

Running.

They tore across Rampart Street and into the Quarter...down, all the way down to Bourbon. And there they lost him. By then, of course, there were dozens of officers around.

“Every bar, every damn bar!” Jackson ordered. “The guy in the grey sweatshirt. Black hair.”

It was still daytime, around three o'clock, but a summer festival was in full swing. Music of all kinds was blaring, tourists were crowding around and beads were being flung from balconies. There were hawkers on the street, and the sheer flow of people, from the slightly inebriated to the out-and-out drunk did not make for easy movement. Jude thought he saw the man head into a place called
Piccolo's.
He followed.

A four-piece band was playing a “Journey” number, and the crowd was gathered by the stage, singing along. Barmaids worked their way through the revelers.

Police and other agents were bearing down on the bar, as well.

Jude quickly scanned the bar and the people inside it.

Crow was still right behind him.

“There!” Crow called out.

Their prey had leapt on top of the bar; a girl giggled and started toward him, ready to stuff some dollar bills in his pocket, or so it appeared. But the man jumped down from the bar, a stool crashed over and she went flying back, sending others on to the floor as she did. Chaos erupted to the refrain of “Don't Stop Believing!”

“Lost him!” Crow said, swearing under his breath.

Jude was already climbing over the bar himself, past the stunned bartender, standing with his mixer in hand, and through the dingy kitchen to the side street. They were on St. Ann.

From there, he saw the man step into the passenger seat of an old Chevy around the corner from the club—and even as Jude raced after him, the car pulled out into the street.

“Hey!” he roared to Crow. His new partner as of the morning was already outside.

“This way!” Crow shouted.

They moved down St. Ann at a run until they reached a bureau sedan. The driver stepped out.

“Assistant Director Crow,” the man began, ready to leap into action as driver.

“We'll take it, Hicks,” Crow said, accepting the keys and tossing them to Jude. “Drive. You know the streets better than I do.”

Jude was surprised but pleased that Crow had the sense to realize that. And it was true. He knew the one-ways and he knew the cut-offs that happened so often when New Orleans was in festival mode.

The man driving the Chevy should have been stopped by the sheer volume of pedestrian traffic. So far, he'd banged on his horn and plowed through. Jude hopped in the driver's seat while Crow got into the passenger side.

Streets were closed off; there was no way to traverse them. No siren was going to clear Bourbon of the happy drunks.

Jude shot across to a side street, but the suspect was nowhere to be seen. Moving on instinct, he sped toward Canal, hoping to cut him off.

“Where are you going?” Crow asked.

“We'll catch him on the border of the Vieux Carre,” Jude said.

And they did.

There they saw the Chevy surging ahead and Jude did his best to follow without running over a pedestrian. Even on Canal, people were wandering on and off the road.

“Where's he going? What the hell?” Crow asked, shaking his head. “And who's driving? Are we dealing with a pair of killers?

The man in the Chevy didn't seem to have a destination. He was driving erratically, avoiding the dozens of cop cars now on the road.

“Airport...train station...” Crow mused. “Hey! That was him, down Tchoupitoulas!”

“Might be going to the ort,” Jude said, still trying to follow the Chevy. He wasn't sure, but he thought that the driver was now maneuvering around a one-way street toward the Riverwalk area—and the massive cruise port.

Yes.

The car was going to the port!

As Jude drove hard, the sirenblasting, Jackson Crow got on the radio, advising all law enforcement in the area to watch out for the car and the two men, giving a description of their suspect's clothing and appearance.

So many ships, so many cruise lines.

“There! Up ahead. The Celtic American line,” Crow said. “I see the car.”

The Chevy was in front of the entry to the Celtic American line. More chaos was breaking out as last-minute cruisers competed for positions to park or drop off passengers.

Jude jerked the sedan off to the side of the road. Crow was out of the sedan before it was in park. Seconds later, he had the driver standing on the sidewalk beside the old Chevy.

He looked like a man in a trance. He was fifty-five or sixty, a slightly pudgy and balding businessman who seemed completely bewildered—as if he didn't know who he was or why he was there.

“Who were you driving? Why didn't you stop?” Crow demanded.

“I'm Walter Bean, I was supposed to pick up my daughter after her shift at the Red Garter... She's a hostess there.”