The Hidden

“You knew her?” Meg asked him.

“I can’t say I knew her, really. But after I was killed, when I realized I wasn’t going anywhere, I’d walk around town at night, eavesdropping. I thought if I just listened long enough, maybe I’d find out who killed me. One night I went and hung out in the Moose Pot Pie. She seemed like a good kid, nice to everyone, and whenever she had a break, she had her head in a book. I used to go back there, and I got to know a lot about her. I knew she’d come here because of Nathan Kendall, too. I knew we were distantly related. I knew she was trying hard to make something of her life. She didn’t deserve to die that way.” He looked over at Meg then. “You’d better get this guy. This has to stop before someone else gets killed.”

“We will, Daniel. I swear it. My fellow Krewe members are out there now, interviewing everyone she worked with, her landlady, all her friends, to see if they saw anything suspicious or even just out-of-the-ordinary in some way. Her picture is going out over the media, and they’re asking for help from anyone who might have seen her. Killers make mistakes, Daniel. No matter how good they think they are, they make mistakes.”

“Scarlet,” Daniel said, “you’ve met her.”

“I have?” Scarlet asked.

He nodded gravely. “One night. I heard her talking to some guy about the great museum up at the Conway Ranch. She said one of the best things was the curator. Said you gave her a tour.”

“How recently was this?”

“Sometime in the last few weeks, I think,” he said.

She couldn’t believe she had met the dead woman. A wave of sadness rippled through her.

“They’ll catch him,” she said passionately.

“Some killers get away,” Daniel said.

“We won’t let that happen,” Meg vowed.

Daniel looked at Scarlet. She thought he seemed more upset about Cassandra’s death than his own. “Whoever did this is a monster, Daniel, and the Krewe won’t stop until they get him. They won’t give up.”

He studied her. “Your ex, you mean?”

“All of them,” she said firmly.

How the hell did he know about her situation?

He really did eavesdrop.

He suddenly stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders.

Just as she had that night in the bar, she felt his touch.

“You understand now, right? I was afraid it was going to be you. You were right here, working at the museum. I thought he’d go after you right away. You have to be so careful, really careful.”

And then he faded away.

Scarlet turned to look at Meg.

Meg shrugged. “You get used to it,” she said. “It takes tremendous energy for a ghost to make himself visible, not to mention to touch someone the way he touched you. He’s used up all his energy for now.”

“But he’ll be back?”

Meg nodded.

Scarlet walked back to her desk. Was it going to matter if they found out the truth about Nathan’s and Jillian’s murders? That was so long ago.

And the man who’d killed Daniel had stepped up his game. Three people in a week, dead.

She walked over to the statue of Nathan Kendall. He didn’t look anything like her or Daniel, yet she suddenly felt a fierce bond with the two of them.

Ghosts really did exist.

And mannequins didn’t move on their own.

She suddenly realized that it was almost certainly the killer who’d been in the museum while she slept.

The killer had moved the statue.

And yet, he had left her alive.

Why?

Suddenly she wondered if the killer was saving her up to be some kind of horrific finale, the last of the Kendall descendants to die.

*