Darkest Journey (Krewe of Hunters #20)(44)

“I’m sure they’re going to do well,” Charlie said. “They’re both so talented, and I would know, because I’ve worked with both of them.”

“I know. I’ve seen the pictures,” Jude reminded her.

Charlie grinned. “It was great when we were all based in NOLA. It’s a great place for performers of any kind. You can hear better music on the streets of the French Quarter than you can for big bucks in any city in this country.”

“So how’s the movie going?” he asked her. “It’s good to know the film industry is busy here at home.”

She smiled. Jude didn’t much look as though he was “home.” Of course, he was from New Orleans, but they were both from Louisiana. He was very formal in his dark suit. She’d always envisioned FBI agents wearing dark suits, and he was exactly what she’d imagined. Tall, dark, striking, assured—which made her very happy for her friend Alexi, since Jude and Alexi were definitely a couple.

“What are you grinning at?” he asked her.

“Are all FBI agents tall and fit and forced to wear suits?”

“Of course not,” he protested.

“So you don’t always wear suits?”

“No, we’re not all tall,” he told her. “So tell me about your movie.”

“It’s really good. It’s not a horror flick, even though there are ghosts. It’s social commentary wrapped up in a great suspense story. It should do a lot of good for the area. Of course, it was already doing a lot of good, providing jobs, getting some nice PR—until I found a dead man on our set,” she added softly.

“What about your role? With you leaving for a week, will you mess up the filming schedule?”

She shook her head. “A lot of my scenes are already in the can, filmed before all the ‘ghost’ stuff happened. You know movies are seldom shot in order, right? We filmed some of the ghost scenes the first day I arrived. They shot some of the other characters’ scenes before I even got here. I was finishing up a webisode.”

“I’ve seen your webisodes. Alexi watches them religiously.”

“She’s a good friend.”

“She says the same of you,” he told her. Then his cell rang, and he excused himself and walked away to take the call.

When he returned, he told her, “Ethan’s spoken with Brad Thornton and cleared you for the week. He had you penciled in for tomorrow, but he rescheduled you for this afternoon. Can you pack up and be ready to go in about thirty minutes? Brad needs you for about two hours, and then he’ll do pickup shots when you’re back.”

“Um, sure,” Charlie said. She leaped up, feeling guilty. She’d made a point of telling her dad she couldn’t leave Brad and his movie, but when the ghost had pointed to the Mississippi, she’d known she had to get aboard the Journey somehow. Clara and Alexi had made it easy for her.

“Good. We’ll probably get in fairly late. Ethan wants to stop in Baton Rouge on the way, so we’ll probably hit NOLA around eleven or so.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “I’ll be ready to go ASAP.” She hurried up the stairs.

As she prepared, she thought about Ethan’s strange behavior the night before—not when he’d knocked angrily at her door, but before that, at the café, when he’d been riveted to the story of the cleaning woman who’d been killed in Baton Rouge.

That had to be the explanation for why he wanted to stop there on the way to New Orleans, but why did it matter so much to him when they had two murders to solve right here in St. Francisville?

Baton Rouge was a major city, the capital of Louisiana. It had more crime, and certainly more murders, than tiny St. Francisville.

But Ethan wanted to know more about this particular murder, and she didn’t need Jude to tell her so.

But why?

And then she realized that the Journey had been in Baton Rouge yesterday. With her father aboard.

And no matter what Ethan said, she knew that her father was a suspect.

Ridiculous.

Ethan had said he didn’t believe her father was the killer, and she was certain he wasn’t lying. She didn’t need to feel fear for her father—no matter what Detective Laurent might think.

But even though Ethan didn’t suspect her father, for some reason he did think the murders of Albion Corley, Farrell Hickory and the woman in Baton Rouge were connected.

But how?

And more important, who was the killer and how could he be stopped?

*

Randy Laurent still had nothing. They’d spent time doing background checks. They’d sent officers to Baton Rouge to question anyone involved with Albion Corley. No one knew anything useful.

“I’m planning on a trip to Baton Rouge myself,” Ethan told him.

“Don’t trust us locals anymore, huh?” Randy asked him.

Ethan shook his head. “You know it’s not that. I just need to get the feel of the place again, ask around myself.”

Randy nodded. “Just remember those are my friends over there, okay?”

“I will. So on another note, what’s going on with the Hickory Plantation?”

“Farrell’s son is there now, and he’s not a suspect. We have a dozen sworn witnesses who say he was in school when his dad was killed. And by school I mean Harvard, so, no, he didn’t slip back here from Boston to kill his dad, then take off again.”