Darkest Journey (Krewe of Hunters #20)(24)

“You were not!”

“Yes, I was. I was ten, Brad was seven. My mother made me. She and Brad’s mom were pretty tight. He and Mike were already playing with cameras. He wanted to make a cowboys and Indians movie. He made me be a cowboy.”

“You don’t like cowboys?”

“In Brad’s film, the Choctaws were victorious. Cowboys had to die. I did so pretty dramatically, if I remember correctly.”

“So you’d really be in Brad’s film?” she asked him.

“Why not?”

“You wouldn’t get in trouble with the FBI?”

“With enough makeup, no one would even recognize me. And extras aren’t credited, so who would even know?”

Charlie looked at him doubtfully. “Whatever. So, I’ve got my car. I can meet you on the bluff and—”

“No, we’ll leave your car here. I’ll drive.” He met her eyes, his expression serious. “This is important, and we both know why.” He started walking toward his car.

“Because a dead man spoke to me?” Charlie asked.

“That would be it, yes. But afterward, you’ve got to stay out of the investigation,” he told her firmly.

She’d been walking briskly alongside him, but now she stopped abruptly.

“You said it yourself. You’re only on this case because of me,” she reminded him.

“Yes, and I’m not taking chances with your safety again.”

“We didn’t take chances. You called the cops. We waited for them to get there. It was the right thing to do. Period. No one could have known the killer was going to come back to find the bracelet,” she said emphatically.

“And no one can deny the terror we felt when we saw the bastard with his knife out,” Ethan said.

“You weren’t terrified. You always planned on being a cop, and you knew just what to do,” she said.

“I was terrified, because I saw him coming at you with a knife,” Ethan said quietly. “And I was lucky he was nothing but a skinny coward who relied on the fact that his victims were weaponless and not as strong as he was. I was a fool kid. I just jumped at him, and he went down.”

“Yes, and even though you didn’t plan to, you stopped a serial killer,” she said firmly. “I found Farrell Hickory. I didn’t start out the day wanting to find a body. It happened. I’m part of this.”

“Do you have a death wish or something?” Ethan demanded.

“No. Do you?”

He let out a sigh of aggravation and walked ahead of her. Charlie followed. If he wanted to drive, he could drive.

He opened the passenger side door for her, and she slid in. They didn’t speak as he headed toward the bluff.

They still didn’t speak when he stopped the car. She hopped out quickly and headed toward the place where she had found the body. Trampled crime-scene tape remained, but the crime-scene techs had finished their work and the site was deserted.

“Here, obviously. Right here,” she said quietly.

She stood still. There was a gentle breeze blowing that high up, and it was the time right before true darkness fell. The nearby trees seemed to sway and move like great dark beings with a life of their own. Traces of sunset remained, thin, quickly fading streaks of color in the sky. She stood there and relished the sensual movement of the breeze across her skin.

Ethan walked over and stood beside her, but she knew he wasn’t feeling the breeze. He looked toward the area with the unhallowed graves, and then beyond, toward the church.

“So he was killed right here,” he murmured.

“Could the killer have brought the body here?” Charlie suggested.

Ethan shook his head. “Died right here.” Then he added quietly, “The ME could tell by the amount of blood in the ground.” He hesitated. “There was a lot—he was stabbed in the heart. Thing is, what the hell was he doing up here? In uniform?”

“He wasn’t part of the movie,” Charlie said. “And we’d been out here for several hours before I...before I found him.”

“He told people the night before that he had a meeting, but he didn’t say where. We do know he was killed with something long and sharply pointed, like a bayonet.”

“Are you suggesting that his meeting was with someone involved with the film? Someone with access to props?” she asked, trying to keep a defensive note out of her voice.

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m saying that both of these men put on their reenactment uniforms, went out to meet with someone and wound up dead. I’m trying to think of reasons for why they were in their uniforms. If you can come up with any, please feel free to share.”

“People are always doing things in uniform around here. There are historical reenactments around every corner, living-history plantations... There’s the Journey, the riverboat my dad works on, and when it’s in port—”

Charlie broke off. Something in Ethan’s face had changed. She stared at him for a moment, realizing that the police were suspicious of reenactors, which meant they were suspicious of her friends on the film.

Worse, she could tell that they were also suspicious of everyone involved with the Journey—including her father. And the way Ethan was looking at her...

“No! Oh, no, no, no. You can’t possibly think my father had anything to do with this in any way,” Charlie said.