Hallow Be the Haunt (Krewe of Hunters #22.5)(35)

Jake’s phone rang as she was speaking and he excused himself to answer it. She watched his face grow grim as he listened.

“That was Jackson,” he told her briefly. “I’m going to head out to Baton Rouge with Jude. The police there spoke with Angela, and they started to draw up a few of their own comparisons. These people might have been busy for a long time in Louisiana. We’re trying to work up a timeline—when people could have been where.”

“Jonathan Starling pointed out that our witches were working when Shelley was killed.”

“Maybe—and maybe not. Shelley Broussard’s body was set up. But still, she was dumped. She was killed elsewhere. And the M.E. can’t really pinpoint time of death."

“Jake, with everything that Angela discovered… And if the Baton Rouge police are right and anything they have corresponds with these killings, this trio might have been at this a very long time. There—there may be no solution here—even if the art shop is watched every day. Even if Jonathan Starling is in some way guilty of something.”

“No. They’re making mistakes. And we’ll catch them.”

A car pulled up and Jackson stepped out of it. Jude, who was driving, waved to Ashley. She waved back. Jake gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Jackson will be with you. He’s going to work at the plantation and…”

“And he’ll be there, watching over me, through all the Halloween shenanigans of the night,” Ashley finished.

“Precisely,” he said.

“Go,” Ashley directed. She smiled and he went out to join Jude.

Jackson walked up to her, carrying his computer case. “Seems like you get me for the evening. Sorry.”

She smiled at him. “I never mind having you for the evening. In fact, I’m honored. I’m being watched over by the best there is.”

“I’m sure that’s debatable,” he said. “But, onward. How did the morning go? Am I driving or are you?”

Ashley opted to drive. And as she did so, they spoke about the case. “The thing is, I don’t think that the killers knew most of their victims in any way, shape, or form. Except for Shelley. Then why are they associated? I mean, would vigilantes kill a girl so sweet and innocent?”

“The greater good,” Jackson said.

“The greater good?”

“If they felt that they were on an important mission, then maybe. Also, there’s another possibility.”

“What’s that?”

“Someone is so full of their own ego that it just doesn’t matter. If you can touch her… If you can find out what she felt or believed regarding people, it would definitely help.”

Soon enough, they reached Donegal.

Donegal, decked out in black drapes, spiders here and there, ghosts and goblins hanging about the porch.

Jackson told her he was going to head out and make sure that everyone was where they should be—and that it was the right people in the right place for Donegal in the evening.

Ashley found her grandfather in his study, seated at his desk. She walked behind him and slipped her arms around his neck. He patted her hand. “You stay up by the house tonight, you hear?” he asked.

“I’ll stay up by the house,” she promised.

“I’m imagining it now,” he said. “Lilies, gardenias, magnolias…white and light. And you and me walking down that stairway, Jake and his men coming from the other side, everything beautiful. The best of it all being that you’ve found the right young man—you’re going to lead a good life. Okay, a crazy life, but…with a good man. It’ll be a good life. And eventually, there will be little feet running up and down the stairways again.”

She smiled. Frazier was definitely ready for great-grandchildren.

“Little footsteps,” she said.

“Of course, these days, there could have been little footsteps already. But though I am anxious—and you two did take forever—I like the order we’re working in. Wedding, and then children.”

“Glad to please,” Ashley said lightly. “I’m going to go up and change into something 1860s so that I can help Beth wrangle our haunted-house-goers.”

“I shall be here—far from the cackling witches and madmen or whoever else you have out there,” he told her. “I’m looking at taking in a rescue horse from the Florida panhandle. Poor thing. No brand, just wandering off I-10. Call me if you need me.”

“Will do,” Ashley promised him.

The grand foyer was empty. If she wasn’t quite so caught up in what was happening, she would be marveling more about her own upcoming wedding.

But that time would come.

And she did have Beth and Cliff, and her amazing grandfather, and all kinds of people who would help, who would be there.

She hurried upstairs and went for the costume she used during re-enactments.

But chose not to use it. Standing in her underwear, she found herself staring at Shelley’s painting.

As she watched it, the character in the painting seemed to move. To reach out. The eyes grew even larger…

“Shelley, damn you, speak to me,” she said.

“I’m—I’m here.”

She turned.

At last, a very pale image of the woman she knew through the painting, through her dreams—and through the morgue—appeared. She stood just inside the French doors to the wraparound balcony like she was created of just a bit of substance and light from the day’s dying sun.