Darkest Journey (Krewe of Hunters #20)(17)

She’d found the bracelet; he’d called the police. He’d known it would be important for them to know exactly where the bracelet had been found, so he’d insisted on waiting there until the cops arrived.

Restless, Charlie had gotten up and perched on a headstone, while he’d walked off and leaned against a tree. Neither one of them had seen the killer when he’d come, searching for the bracelet, his trophy from his last victim. Then something, a rustle, a whisper, a movement—maybe even the Confederate officer who had led him to Charlie—had alerted him, and he’d turned just in time to see a man bearing down on Charlie with a raised butcher knife.

Luckily for him, the killer was nothing but a coward with a knife—a sick little bastard who didn’t even put up a fight when Ethan tackled him. He screamed and cried like a baby when Ethan brought him down, knocking the knife from his hand.

By the time the police arrived, the killer had been caught.

He and Charlie had been credited with bringing him down.

Charlie had quit the Cherubs and sworn she would never have anything to do with such a ridiculous organization again.

And Jonathan Moreau had despised Ethan ever since. He said a real man would have gotten Charlie to safety, not made her stay anywhere near the site of a murder when the killer could return at any moment. Charlie had almost been killed, and as far as he was concerned, that was entirely Ethan’s fault.

Charlie’s mother, on the other hand, had applauded the fact that his quick thinking and determination had saved Charlie.

And Charlie herself...

She’d visited him once after he’d gone back to college. They’d talked a lot about seeing the dead. They’d wondered why some spirits stayed and others didn’t, wondered why, when loved ones died, the living rarely got to speak with them. They agreed that they would never fathom it, not while they were here on earth. They’d come so close....

And then he’d made her leave.

He hadn’t wanted to. Even at sixteen, she was already elegant as well as beautiful. Some might have said that a three-year age difference wasn’t enough to make him give up the attraction—intellectual as well as physical—that sparked between them.

But in his mind, it wouldn’t have been right; she was still a kid, still in high school. He was grown and out of the house, already in college.

Not to mention that he couldn’t help thinking maybe her father had the right to hate him.

Looking at her now, he realized she’d grown even more beautiful, even more elegant.

“The killer was caught and tried, and it was all over and done with quickly, Charlie,” he said.

“Really? Quickly? It still haunts me,” she said. “I’d really like to go with you to talk to the police, now that it’s all happening again.”

“Do me a favor,” he said after a moment. “For now, just do what you told your father you would and go home, okay? I’ll let you know if I learn anything after I’ve had a chance to talk to Randy.”

“Randy?”

“Randall Laurent, the detective heading up the case. He’s an old friend, so I’m hoping things will go smoothly between us.”

“I can’t imagine they won’t. I only vaguely remember him from school. Like you, he was three years older—a huge difference back then—and I know you were both on the football team. He seemed like a decent man when I talked to him last night. He wanted all the facts, but he was very understanding about asking. I guess he knew I was pretty much in a state of shock.”

“That sounds like him,” Ethan agreed. He wished her eyes weren’t so blue. And that she wouldn’t look at him the way she was, as if he’d become a stranger.

She walked past him, moving toward the path down to the road. They still hadn’t touched, but he could smell her perfume, something as light as air and yet inexplicably provocative.

“Charlie?”

She waved to him without turning around. “I’m going home. Call me when you’ve got something.”

Ethan watched her go. She might be going home now, but he had a very strong feeling that she wasn’t going to stay there.

With a soft groan he decided to locate Laurent and find out everything he knew about the victims and whatever they’d pieced together about the killer.

Charlie just might be investigating on her own, relying on that special talent of hers.

And that could prove very dangerous.

*

Charlie paced the old house her dad owned just on the outskirts of St. Francisville. It was a wonderful old place, built sometime right before the start of the Civil War. It wasn’t a plantation house and had never been a working farm. It had been built by a man who had worked the riverboats, which made it a perfect fit for her father, with his passion for history and his current position on a riverboat himself. It wasn’t a large place, but there had always been enough room for their family, with three bedrooms upstairs plus a living room, dining room, office and library/family room—and modern kitchen—downstairs. Each bedroom had a fireplace, as did the living room. It was furnished with a mishmash of antiques that somehow worked, and her dad knew the origin of each piece of furniture. Only the big-screen television and entertainment center were new.

She loved her home....

Loved to remember her mom working in the kitchen or the seasonal flower beds she was so proud of. The sense of loss remained, of course, but Charlie thought both she and her dad had adjusted well, loving the memories and embracing them, but also finding satisfaction, even joy, in the lives they led now.