Krewe of Hunters 1 Phantom Evil (29 page)

“He said that he didn't kill Regina,” Jackson said. “He said that the senator killed her, that Holloway broke her heart.”

“What does that mean?” Andy asked.

“Did you miss the part where DuPre died?” Jackson said, disgusted.

“Ah, come on,” Andy interrupted. “Look, I'm an officer of the law, and I respect my office. I don't shoot to kill, and I bring a man in every time rather than shoot a bloody murderer, child molester and so on, but don't expect me to weep over this one, Jackson Crow,” Andy said.

“It's not that,” Angela explained quietly. “We still don't know what happened. Jackson's explaining that they were listening to DuPre when Conroy burst in.”

Andy nodded. “Yeah, well, we'll have to piece together the rest.” He stared at Jackson. “You'll have to come down to the station. We'll need a slew of statements. DuPre is dead, we'll have the bodyguard questioned at the hospital, and the senator won't be in shape for any information until tomorrow. But I'll need you, Jake and the nurse—she came into the house,” he said apologetically.

Jackson nodded. “Right.”

The ambulance was leaving with the senator on a stretcher. The EMTs were walking with Jenna, who was still holding Holloway's hand. The senator now had an IV in his arm and an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.

Medical pathologists from the coroner's office had arrived, but they'd be working in the house for a while. Blake Conroy had already been situated in the back of another ambulance. He glared at them all with red, angry eyes.

Jackson glared back with anger.

Conroy suddenly jumped out of the ambulance, racing toward Jackson. Andy stepped between the men.

“You shot me!” Conroy accused Jackson. “You shot me! The bastard was going to kill the senator. It was my job to shoot him.”

“We had it covered, Conroy. And you killed the truth when you shot DuPre!” Jackson told him.

“Stop it!” Andy said. “We'll sort this all out at the station.”

“I'm bringing charges against you,” Conroy threatened Jackson.

“And you could be facing murder charges yourself,” Jackson told him.

“He had a gun,” Conroy said.

“Get back in the ambulance. Get back in the damn ambulance!” Andy said. “And get to the hospital… Charges are possible, Conroy, so cut the temper tantrums. And it's 2:00 a.m., dammit,” he said irritably. “Let's move this. Move it!”

He got Conroy back to the ambulance. Jackson stood with Angela. She wasn't sure what to say. “Well, Martin DuPre did become a monster,” she said quietly.

“It wasn't finished,” Jackson said. “It wasn't finished. I still don't trust Conroy. Hey!” he called to Andy. “He's going to be in custody, right?”

Andy looked back at him, his expression tense. “He'll be at the hospital, and then down at the station.”

Jackson nodded, then turned to Angela, taking her shoulders. “All right, then, go back, you, Will and Whitney. Try to get some sleep, and we'll try to figure out if we can make
any more sense out of it all tomorrow. Something still just isn't right.”

“We can all come to the station,” she told him.

He shook his head wearily. “That won't make sense, that's for sure. Get some sleep. Get in, lock up and get some sleep. At least I won't be that worried. DuPre is dead, and Blake Conroy will be occupied. Our time at the station will be as quick as I can make it.” He gave her a pained and rueful smile. “And it had been one of my best nights, oddly.”

She grinned in return.

“I can wait up.”

“Jackson! You coming with me?” Andy scowled at him.

Jackson gave Angela a quick kiss on the lips. “Soon,” he promised.

He got into Andy Devereaux's unmarked car with Jake and Jenna. Will and Whitney came over to stand by Angela.

“He's so upset,” Whitney remarked.

“He wanted to know more from Martin DuPre,” she explained.

“Well, he managed it in the best possible way,” Will said. “He may have to be happy with that.”

“Hey, handsome, you did all right, too!” Whitney teased him. “You caught DuPre breaking into that house.”

“Yeah, I did, didn't I?” Will said. “Come on. Let's try to get some rest. My eyes are killing me from staring at those screens.”

“I think a glass of wine is in order,” Whitney said. “Then, maybe, my adrenaline will be down enough for me to sleep.”

“Sounds good,” Angela said.

They walked slowly back to the house, tired but wired.
Angela decided that when Jackson returned and had gotten some sleep, they could start inspecting the walls. He'd been angry, frustrated and disconcerted when he'd headed toward the station; a dead man still lay in the house next door. Tomorrow would be time to tell him what discoveries they might make through the ghosts.

They walked into the grand ballroom. Will checked the door and set the alarms. “Should I forget about the cameras and film? I guess we are working on taxpayer money.”

“Keep them up for tonight,” Angela told him.

“Is it over? Is it really over? Did we solve it? No ghosts—just a very evil man?” Whitney asked.

“Well, we know there are ghosts,” Angela said. “But Jackson was right—evil is done by the living.”

She headed into the kitchen, leaving them to do whatever their wonderful technical minds did with their technical equipment. For the moment, she slid her Smith & Wesson into one of the kitchen drawers.

She walked to the refrigerator and found a bottle of chilled Chablis. She took out the wine, opened the bottle and went to the cupboard for glasses. She noted that Jake's computer was on the counter bypass and she went to look at the screen.

He'd had a search engine at work. Jackson had told him to research the projector they had found. He'd gone to a number of sites, and she glanced at them curiously—the projector was in high demand by magicians.

She started backtracking through his system, and he'd been busy, using what codes she didn't know, but he'd done some hacking.

As she stood there, growing absorbed, little blips alerted her to responses coming in from the questions he'd been asking.

She clicked on the mouse, and it brought up another screen. It was listings of the trace he had made on the purchases of the projector.

She gasped suddenly.

“Will!” she called.

He didn't answer her.

“Whitney, Will! Come in here.”

There was still no answer. She stepped into the hall, “Hey!”

A muffled laugh made her shake her head. Well, they were young, and the case was apparently over.

She walked down the hallway, aggravated. But when she reached the grand ballroom, she didn't see either of them. She walked around to look at the screens.

And when she did, she froze, berating herself for her stupidity.

One screen showed Whitney, knocked flat in the upstairs hallway; Angela couldn't tell if she was dead or alive.

Will could be seen in a like position on the landing of the central stairway, just above her.

They had all run out at the sound of the shots next door; they had run out, leaving the Madden C. Newton house open and vulnerable.

And they weren't alone.

She knew before she turned that someone was behind her.

She even knew who.

But the blow against her head took her down before she could turn to face their attacker.

 

Jackson gave his statement at another desk across from where Jake gave his statement. Jenna had come in after the fact, but she sat at another desk, telling the officer the senator's condition
as she had seen it, and the emergency treatment she had helped administer.

Andy finished typing up the document, printed it out and gave it to Jackson to sign.

“Where's Conroy now?” he asked.

“Hey, there's an officer with him at the hospital. He'll be here with an escort, don't worry. He's not out on the streets.” Andy chuckled. “He will need surgery on that hand.”

“I shot for the gun,” Jackson said wearily. “And I was a split second too late.”

“Hey, the senator is still alive.”

“Shots should never have been fired, period,” Jackson said.

Andy shrugged. “But they were. And the senator is going to live, and a bad man is dead. Come on, Jackson, I can live with that. You're going to have to. Let's see, when it all comes out—that the senator's aide was in on fleecing and seducing young women in the name of the church—I'd say that fellow's career may be over, but then again, he may be so damn broken now he'd be no good in politics anyway. He had to have been slipping, to have ignored everything that was going on in his own house, so to speak.”

“Come on, Andy. We can't let this go. We really don't know yet if the senator was heavily involved with those people,” Jackson said. “Or…just how deeply others around him were involved.”

“Fine,” Andy said wearily. “But it looks like we did find out the murderer.”

But Jackson had heard the conversation between DuPre and Holloway. And DuPre had denied killing the senator's wife.

“Anyway, we can meet in the morning and try to sort more out,” Andy said.

“Is that it for now? Can we get back?” Jackson asked.

“You're free to go,” Andy told him. “Just as soon as the others wrap up. The patrolman over there, Smith, will give you a ride back.”

They left the station. Two blocks down, they passed a police car on the side of the road. There were two silhouettes visible.

“Stop, go back,” Jackson said.

“Sir?” Smith said.

“Go back—there were two officers in that car, and they didn't look right,” Jackson said.

Even Jake, next to him in the backseat of the car, looked at him as if he was losing it.

“Smith, go back, please.”

“They're probably just on break.”

“Please,” Jackson said firmly.

With a sigh, Smith did as he was asked. He parked the police car and Jackson hopped out. He walked toward the car.

Both occupants were slumped over.

Dead.

The driver was a police officer.

The passenger was not.

 

Angela woke with her head pounding. For a moment, she was lost—completely lost. Disoriented, and in pain.

Then she remembered clearly what had happened. She was in Regina Holloway's bedroom, on the floor. The pain of rug burns on her flesh told her that she'd been dragged there.

Something was touching her foot. Whitney's body, she realized.

“It's time,” she heard.

She looked up. Grable Haines was grinning down at her, a gun in his hand. “Ghost busters, busted! Cool. The legend of this house is going to grow and grow.”

She stared at him, knowing that he wasn't alone when she heard the giggle behind him. It was Lisa Drummond, of course.

“Be careful. The ghosts will get you,” Lisa said.

He laughed again. “I've got the gun. Ghosts don't get guns, I don't think.”

“You'd be surprised at how powerful they can be,” Angela said.

“Make her shut up, Grable,” Lisa said.

He ignored Lisa.

Angela shook her head. “The senator is an amazing actor. I believed he was horrified by the images the projector put out. But he ordered the projector,” she said.

“Right. Well, Lisa ordered the projector. But, yes, the sainted Senator Holloway knew. He wanted his wife to think that she was meeting her son. He thought that she would die happily that way. He never saw the images we created,” Grable said.

“Everyone in this was a liar,” Angela said. “And you should know this—I think the senator actually brought us in, knowing what would finally come out and planning on getting rid of DuPre and all of you, through us.”

“Oh, no,” Grable said. “You don't understand politics. The senator will come out of all this just fine—after you're dead, of course. And we'll be just fine as well.”

“Shut up, she doesn't need to know any of this!” Lisa said.
“Everything will fall on Martin DuPre, and they'll think street thugs got hold of Blake and that cop. And everything went just perfectly, so let's just finish it.”

“The senator will get you—just as he got DuPre,” Angela said.

“We know what we're doing,” Lisa insisted. “Oh, yes, we'll be just fine.”

“No, you won't. Don't you see—the senator really has to clean house. And speaking of which, that leads to one more question—you obviously slept with everyone,” Angela said to Lisa. “Which one are you really trying to be with?”

“Obviously, I'm going to be the next Mrs. Holloway,” Lisa said with disgust. She didn't seem to mind explaining things to Angela, as long as she was the one doing the talking. “And once you're dead, taken by the ghosts, it will be clean and clear. Martin DuPre went insane. He was responsible for everything. And Blake is dead now, too. So we've survived, horrified and grieving.”

“Why are you back here to kill us? That makes no sense,” Angela said.

Lisa smiled. “I'm not a dumb blonde. I know all about Jackson Crow—and the members of his last team! They died. And now, he's lost so many people on this new team. His word will be worthless. Nothing he says against the senator will mean anything—because DuPre was the killer.”

“They'll know we died after DuPre,” Angela said.

Lisa shook her head. “Time of death is never that specific.”

“Yes, it can be,” Angela said.

“Get up!” Grable said. “The ghosts will be blamed for anything that doesn't fall on DuPre.”

“Oh, please! You can't believe that! This may be New Orleans, and people love their stories and their legends, but they'll never blame it all on ghosts!”

“Don't kid yourself—when men can't find an explanation, they look to legend all the time, and to superstition!” Grable said. “You're just trying to waste time. And you're not going to do it anymore.”