The Hidden

17

It was getting late. Diego saw to it that the guests left—escorted—and got rooms at a brand-new name-brand hotel down by the highway. Lieutenant Gray promised that officers would be assigned to watch both couples and Terry Ballantree, tracking their movements 24/7. He shook his head like a sad old bulldog when he took his leave. “Hope you know what you’re doing, Agent McCullough. Hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Lieutenant Gray, I always hope that myself,” Diego said drily.

After Linda, Ben and Trisha went up to bed, Diego joined Matt and Meg, who had returned to the main house, along with Adam and Jane. They sat up late, discussing the events of the night and their plan to keep watch through the hours ahead.

“I was here most of the day, and other than Ben, I didn’t see anyone in the dining room,” Adam told them. “It would have taken a while to set up such an elaborate weapon, so my money is on it having been in place for a while.”

“Yes, but until today,” Jane said, “no one knew we were going to have a séance.”

“True,” Diego admitted, “which means whoever rigged that moose head was playing the long game.”

“And that points to Ben,” Adam said.

“Too conveniently?” Matt suggested.

Diego turned to Adam. “Scarlet believes that Nathan Kendall was killed by Rollo Conway, the original owner of this property. She thinks Rollo was bitter about having to sell, certain that Nathan had found the gold Rollo had spent years looking for with no luck. Rollo never found anything worthwhile on his other property, so it must have burned him up to think Nathan had gotten rich on what should have been his gold. So Rollo tortured Nathan to get him to give up the location of the gold. I think Rollo wore the burlap bag over his head to look like one of the thugs Nathan had ridden with. He probably didn’t know they were all dead at that point. If that theory’s true, our killer might not have any connection to Nathan Kendall, he might be distantly related to Rollo Conway. Can we get our researchers on that?”

“I’ll make the call now,” Adam said.

“I think it’s about three in the morning back East,” Diego said.

“The Krewe never sleeps,” Adam said lightly.

Meg grinned at Diego. “Our tech office is staffed 24/7—just waiting to hear what we might need.”

“Nice,” Diego said.

The Krewe of Hunters. He liked it. What the hell had he been thinking, not to jump right on immediately with Brett?

He’d been thinking that if he just stuck to his comfortable life in Miami and worked hard, somehow he would learn to live, really live, again without Scarlet.

“Do you think we’ll find out that someone in our suspect pool is a descendant of Rollo Conway?” Matt asked.

Diego mulled that over for a moment. “I don’t know. But there’s real logic to the theory, so let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I keep wondering if we should have cleared this place out at the start,” Adam said.

“I don’t think we’d have saved any lives,” Diego said. “In fact, I think we would have made it easier for the killer to search this place for the gold or whatever it is he’s after, and that he still would have killed people, because that’s his cover for what he really wants. Anyway, I’m hoping we scared our killer tonight, and a scared killer makes mistakes.”

“Ready to run, or do something desperate because he believes the ghost really saw something and Scarlet knows what it is?” Jane asked.

“Except that if she does know something, it seems pretty clear she has no idea what it is,” Meg said thoughtfully.

“I have no idea whether she knows anything or not,” Diego said, “but after tonight everyone will think she does, and I have to admit that worries me.”

“We’re missing something—something we should know from the journals,” Jane said.