The Uninvited (Krewe of Hunters #8) 3

“If you wish, my dear.”

“Please.”

Tyler admired the effect Adam had on others. He knew that Harrison had once had a son, Josh, and that Josh had been killed in an accident at a young age. Josh had apparently been born with a sixth sense, and when he’d died, Adam had spent years trying to reach him. Tyler had recently heard that the father could finally talk to the son, although Adam didn’t usually have the ability to communicate with the dead.

What he did have was an uncanny ability to connect with the living.

Tyler definitely wished he had a little more of that ability himself. He wasn’t sure why he seemed to lack it. Maybe it was his height, which people often considered intimidating, since he stood at about six-five. From the time he was a kid, he’d wanted nothing but to be a Texas Ranger and now, although he loved the change in what he was doing, he wondered if he carried some kind of aura from the years he’d spent working in tough areas of Texas. He didn’t know if it was his appearance or his no-nonsense demeanor, but people seemed to find him imposing, and it always took him a while to convince them that he wasn’t a swaggering, gun-toting cowboy.

“Well, then, let’s get going,” Adam said. “I know you must be emotionally drained, my dear, but we’ll get you home soon.”

“That’s it? I can just walk out?”

“That’s it.”

She stood, a bit clumsily. Tyler saw that she was a respectable height for a woman, maybe five-eight or nine, and that she wore the historic dress exceptionally well. She seemed fragile for a second, as if she’d been sitting too long and couldn’t quite find her feet. She didn’t shake him off when he touched her, but she said regally, “Thank you. I’m fine.”

He released her elbow and they exited the station. Detective Jenson was waiting for them at the precinct door. “Thank you, Ms. Leigh. Thank you for your patience with us. And please accept my deepest sympathies.”

She nodded. “If I can do anything, provide any more information…” She paused. They’d already kept her long enough to glean anything she was likely to know.

Tyler’s SUV was just outside the station and he nodded toward it. “We’ll get you home as quickly as we can,” he promised.

Adam politely ushered Allison into the passenger seat and took the rear himself, insisting that even at his age, he’d show courtesy to a lady until he keeled over.

Although he was silent during the drive, Allison began to speak. “It seemed like such an ordinary day,” she murmured.

“There were a lot of tours?” Tyler asked her.

“Yes, it was busy, which is good. We work hard to make the tours interesting and informative, and to keep the house sustaining itself.”

Tyler asked a few questions about historical tours as he drove, trying to put her at ease. They reached the house, parking in the adjacent lot.

Maybe it was fitting that there’d be a full moon that night. The house seemed large and alive in the light, encased by the shadows surrounding it.

By day, he thought, it was probably a handsome Colonial house, built to withstand the ages. But now…

Now it seemed as if it were waiting.

There were warnings posted by the police. No Trespassing! Invasion of the Premises in Any Manner Will Result in Immediate Arrest!

The warnings covered the sign beyond the podium that usually advertised the property’s hours of admission and the prices of tours.

“There’s—there’s tape all over the house.” Allison spoke blankly, obviously too tired to be shocked.

“Yes, your chairman has ordered the house closed for a few weeks, long enough for a real investigation,” Adam said.

Tyler slipped a knife from his jacket pocket to cut through the tape. He keyed in the code on the gate alarm.

“A real investigation?” Allison repeated.

“Yes,” Tyler said. “We’re trying to find out if the security’s been breached and determine whether there’s another access. Also, if there’s someone who knows the code and has dangerous concepts of history, dangerous beliefs about this house. That’s why it merits investigation.”

Allison’s eyes narrowed again as she studied him. “You’re a ghost hunter.”

“I’m not a ghost hunter—I’m an agent,” Tyler said. “Hunting ghosts would be a rather useless effort.” He forced a smile. “They only appear when they choose to. Inviting conversation—now, that’s another thing.”

Leaving her to Adam, he strolled up the walkway. He wanted to spend some time in the house alone.

At the front door he once again slit the tape before typing in the alarm code and using the key he’d received from Detective Jenson to let himself in. When he entered the foyer, it felt as if he’d stepped back in time.

Tyler stood there for a minute. You didn’t need to be a Krewe member to “feel” a house, a battlefield or any other historic place. He’d seen the most skeptical, steel-souled Texas Ranger take on a look of grim reverence when standing at the Alamo. It was a feeling that touched most people on the battlefields at Gettysburg or in the middle of Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame or other such historic places.

This house had it. That feeling. It was a sense of the past, a past that was somehow still present. Perhaps the energy, passion and emotion of life that had once existed here lingered in these rooms.

This was a beautiful house and maintained in a period manner that no doubt added to the feel.

Tyler didn’t stay in the entry long. He could hear Adam and Allison following behind him, Adam explaining that what they investigated was history rather than ghosts.

He knew that Julian Mitchell’s death had occurred in the old study, and he strode down the hallway toward it. He stared at the old maple desk; blood stained the wood and the Persian rug beneath it where the deceased man had been found. A few spatters lay on the reproduction ledgers and account books covering the desk. Initial contact with the blade had caused a spurt, and the blood had drained straight down. A lot of it.

Tyler tried to picture the scene as it had been described to him—the young man seated in the chair, the musket between his legs, the bayonet through his throat and mouth as if he’d used it to prop himself up. He had bled out quickly, according to the pathologist who’d first examined him. He hadn’t appeared distressed and he didn’t appear to have fought with anyone. He had simply sat down, set his chin upon the bayonet as though to rest on it…and skewered himself with it.

Who the hell accidentally put a bayonet blade through his own chin?

But he hadn’t cried out. Tourists leaving the premises would have heard or, at the very least, Allison Leigh would have as she locked up for the night.

Tyler remained near the entrance to the room, noting its location. There was the door that opened off the entry hall, and another that led from the study to the next room. This meant there were two points of access, as well as a way to exit.

But how did you get someone to die on a bayonet in such a position and leave no sign of a struggle? Talk him into it?

He looked at the paintings on the wall, which were authentic period pieces. Two men had been depicted at somewhere between the ages of thirty and forty. Beneath one, he made out the name Angus Tarleton; the other was labeled with the description Brian “Beast” Bradley.

The eyes of the latter seemed to have an unusual power. The artist had managed to depict a handsome man—and also a cruel and cunning one. He’d read that the Mona Lisa’s eyes seemed to follow her viewers. Bradley’s did the same, apparently focusing on him as he moved about the room.

He turned to the hallway. Allison Leigh was pale as she stood next to Adam, who watched and waited for Tyler to take the lead.

“Allison, can you tell me exactly what happened leading up to your discovery of Julian?” he asked her.

She winced. “I should’ve written it down earlier, I’ve had to repeat it so many times,” she muttered. She was hostile again, he thought. Hostile and angry, but that was good. If she’d fallen apart, broken into tears, she wouldn’t have been much help.

“I didn’t run into a bloodthirsty ghost,” she told him.

“I would’ve been surprised if you had,” Tyler said. “I’m sorry, but you do want to catch the killer, right?”

She stared back at him with eyes that were as clear and beautiful as a summer sky.

“I don’t think there was a killer,” she said. “Julian could be a clown. He was full of himself, an entertainer. He had a tendency to piss the rest of us off with his unwillingness to accept responsibility, but he also made us laugh and…he was a friend.” She took a deep breath. “It looked as if he sat down, started fooling around with the musket and set his head right on the blade. Yes, we use real muskets and bayonets, and never, ever, have we had a problem. The costumed interpreters don’t carry bullets or gunpowder and no one’s ever gone crazy and tried to bayonet a tourist. Who’d imagine that anyone could die on one?”

“He wasn’t in any way suicidal?” Tyler asked.

“Julian? He was convinced the world was waiting for him,” she said. “No, I don’t believe he committed suicide.” She hesitated for a moment. “We were all angry with him, figuring he’d had some kind of great offer and decided just to disappear.”

“He was supposed to be working—and he wasn’t?”

“Yes. Well, he showed up for the morning tours. He took off after lunch, probably for an audition.”

“But you found him in his period costume?”

She nodded. “He was with a bar band that had higher aspirations. They did a lot of auditioning and sometimes they had permits to play in the historic areas, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to stay in his work clothing.”

“But none of you saw him after lunch?”

She shook her head.

“Are there places in the house where he could’ve been and you wouldn’t see him?” Tyler asked.