The Hidden

“We’re not suspicious of you. We just want to talk to everyone who was here last night,” Diego assured them. “We’re trying to find out where Cassandra Wells went when she left here and whether she was still here when she met her killer.”


“Like I said, she was just standing at the back, but she wasn’t there very long,” Gwen said. “Although I did see her talking to someone.”

“What did he look like?” Diego asked.

“It wasn’t a he,” Gwen said. “It was a she.”

“A woman?”

“Yeah. She was—hmm, not sure. She might have been tall, or she might have been wearing heels. And I didn’t see her face, because she was turned away from me. She had long hair, though.”

“Was she still here after Cassandra left?” Scarlet asked.

“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “I was watching the band.”

“Do you think your friends might have noticed the woman who was talking to Cassandra?” Diego asked.

“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “You could go ask Bess, and Tim will be picking her up when her shift is finished. Neither one of them is related to Nathan Kendall as far as they know, but they called today to say they’re not taking any chances and neither should we.”

“Thank you,” Diego said. “Enjoy the band.” He glanced at Scarlet. “And they’re friends of Scarlet’s, by the way, if you want a CD or an autograph or something.”

Scarlet looked at him curiously. He’d almost sounded jealous. She knew he wasn’t, though.

Did she want him to be?

No, jealousy and possessiveness had never been a part of what they were and hadn’t been why they’d fallen apart. She’d always trusted him completely as far as being faithful to her went. She’d never hounded him about where he’d been.

She’d just stopped talking to him.

“They’re friends of yours?” Gwen asked. “Cool. I bought their CD last night.”

The band chose that moment to break, saying they would be back in a few minutes, and headed down the back hall to the stage door.

Scarlet excused herself, saying, “Hold on—I’ll ask them to come over and chat for a minute.”

Eddie was just stepping through the door into the alley when she made it to the hall. He didn’t smoke, but some of the band members did, so they tended to go outside and hang together during breaks.

She opened the door to find the alley filled with a thick fog.

“Eddie?” she called, moving forward. There was a Dumpster just steps from the back door, and Scarlet paused, noticing something lying on the ground in front of it.

A body, with nothing but blood and pulp where the face should have been.

She screamed.

Within seconds Eddie was there, and Diego and Meg came bursting out the back door a moment later, followed by Gwen and Charles and a spill of strangers.

Shaking, Scarlet pointed at the Dumpster.

But the fog had lifted.

And there was nothing on the ground.

Scarlet stared blankly at the empty spot while the image of what she’d seen still burned before her eyes.

The Krewe members would understand.

Or would they?

She hadn’t seen a ghost, she’d seen the ravaged body of a young woman who’d been attacked by an evil killer.

Despite her terror, she knew she had to reason her way out of the situation or risk having everyone think she’d lost her mind. “Over there—I saw someone. They ran down the alley, I think.”

“Which way?” Diego asked her.

She met his eyes and could tell that he knew she’d made up the story to cover for something else, and also that he would cover for her.

“I’ll go,” Matt said. “Brett, you with me?”

Brett nodded, and they left.

Diego and Eddie both started toward her.

She quickly lifted her hands. “I’m okay. I was just so startled. He scared me.”

“I didn’t see anyone when I came out,” Eddie said, as the rest of the band came up behind him. “Bastard must have been slinking around behind the Dumpster.”

“You guys have to be careful, too,” she said. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded thin.