Darkest Journey (Krewe of Hunters #20)(49)

“Changing how?” Charlie found herself asking.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think she did, either.”

Ethan rose, offering a hand to the young man. Sean took it and nodded. “I’ll try to think of anything else my aunt said that might help you.”

“Thank you,” Ethan said, handing him his card. “Cell phone—you can reach me anytime.”

Charlie and Jude got up and joined Ethan, ready to leave, but Sean stopped her.

“Thank you,” he said. “You made my aunt very happy.”

Julio thanked them, as well, and walked them to the door. He said he, too, would try to think of anything that might help, though he didn’t think that was likely. He did, however, take Ethan’s card.

They made one more stop, and that was at the college, where they had arranged to meet up with Vince Raleigh, the local detective in charge of the case.

Raleigh couldn’t see any reason to associate the murder of a cleaning woman with that of a professor—even though they worked in the same place—when the circumstances of the two killings were so different. He accompanied them to speak with Albert Lacroix, the dean of the college, who unfortunately had nothing useful to offer. They hadn’t known that the professor was missing because he had arranged for time off and was supposed to be gone.

“I can’t believe we’ve lost two members of our staff in such a short time, and to think they were both murdered...”

“We believe,” Detective Raleigh said, “that Mrs. Rodriguez was walking in the wrong place at the wrong time, while Professor Corley seems to have been targeted. We’re putting all our resources into solving Mrs. Rodriguez’s murder, I promise you.”

Charlie could tell that Raleigh was trying to hide his annoyance at the FBI’s presence and their intrusion into his case, but his feelings simmered close enough to the surface for her to pick up on them.

“Dean Lacroix,” Ethan said, “do you have any idea who Professor Corley might have been meeting with in St. Francisville?”

“Old friends—that’s all he ever told me,” Lacroix said.

Ethan and Jude thanked the detective and the dean for their time, and Raleigh led them out of the dean’s office. The three men stopped in the hall to trade thoughts, and Charlie wandered away. She realized she was standing outside Albion Corley’s office. The letters of his name had recently been pried from the outer door, but the “ghosts” of their forms still remained.

She looked back and saw that the men were still talking and found herself compelled to step inside, closing the door behind her.

She saw a tiny woman, dark-haired, older, with a pleasant face, standing by the window. She was wearing a faded blue uniform with a white apron.

And, of course, she was dead. Charlie realized that immediately.

The woman turned, caught sight of Charlie and walked over to meet her; then, smiling, she reached up as if to touch Charlie’s face.

“Leticia...” the woman said.

“Charlie, Charlene Moreau,” Charlie said softly. “But, yes, I play Leticia on the show. You’re Mrs. Rodriguez, aren’t you? We’re trying to find whoever killed you.”

The smile on the woman’s face faded, and she looked as if she was about to cry.

Charlie wanted to kick herself for reminding the woman of what had happened to her. “I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me. But we really do want to help you.”

The woman nodded and walked back to the window.

It was as if she wanted to feel the sunshine just one more time.

“Who did this?” Charlie asked softly. “Can you describe them? Can you tell me anything at all?”

Selma Rodriguez turned back to her and shook her head slowly. “I was walking to the bus stop. It was late, because my shift starts when everyone else goes home. I like working late, though. It’s quiet, you know?”

Charlie realized Selma was speaking in the present tense, as if she still hadn’t fully accepted her own death yet, and glanced back to the door, wondering what would happen if Detective Raleigh were to step in and catch her talking to the empty room. “I understand,” she said. “Please...help us to help you.”

Selma shook her head and said something softly in Spanish, then switched back to English and said, “I don’t know anything.” She suddenly appeared angry. “I am a nice person, a good person, but if I knew who the bastard was...” She clenched her ghostly fists at her sides. “I’d—I’d haunt him! I’d learn, and I’d trip him and shove him when he was shaving and...” She broke off with a little sob, her hand at her throat.

Charlie hadn’t known how Selma had died. The police were holding on to that information, though she was sure Ethan and Jude knew.

And now she knew, too.

Selma’s throat had been slit.

“He came from behind,” Selma whispered. “I was so stunned, I barely felt the knife, just something warm, wet...the blood...and then the night faded, and I was looking down at myself, my blood drenching the ground.”

“Selma, I’m so sorry.” Charlie glanced at the door again. “Can you tell me... Did Professor Corley tell you why he was going to St. Francisville?”

“He said he was going to talk to an old friend and fix a...a situation. He said he knew what was going on, and so did others, and that they agreed it was wrong, and he said he would fix it.”