The Hidden

He shook his head. “I know you from...watching.”


She almost smiled. “Haunting, you mean?”

“I guess.”

Scarlet stared in amazement. They seemed to have forgotten that she existed.

“If I’d known you were in danger, I would have found a way to save you,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” Cassandra said.

Scarlet felt as if she’d walked into a bizarre case of speed dating. She cleared her throat. “Cassandra, I’m sorry to interrupt, but time is of the essence here, and I’m hoping you can you help us. We need to know what happened the night you were killed. You were in the Twisted Antler. You talked to a man who’s staying here at the ranch, Terry Ballantree. You also talked to a woman. I need to know who else you saw,” she said. “I need to know who killed you.”

Cassandra shook her head. “I should have stayed at the Twisted Antler,” she said quietly.

“What happened?” Scarlet asked.

“I listened to the music for a while, but I was tired and needed to get home. I was walking down the street, heading for the lot where I’d left my car. I heard a noise from an alley as I passed. I turned to look and saw a guy wearing a bag—like canvas or burlap or something—over his head. And that was it. He dragged me into the alley. There were still people around, but I never managed to scream.” She stopped speaking for a minute. “He threw me into a car and drove up the mountain, then dragged me into the woods and...and shot me. The gun—it’s as if I can still hear it ringing in my ears.” She paused again, laughed, and then cried. “I don’t have ears anymore, though, do I? I’m not real. I’m air, a figment of your imagination. I’m...I’m dead.”

Scarlet felt the ridiculous temptation to put her arms around Cassandra, to hold her close and comfort her.

She couldn’t, of course.

But apparently Daniel could.

For a moment Scarlet wasn’t sure where one ghostly image began and the other one ended. But she kept silent, her heart in her throat. Cassandra was sobbing. Daniel was soothing her.

At that moment Diego came into the kitchen. He obviously saw the ghostly pair in the doorway, because he slipped carefully past them, just as if they were real.

“I take it that’s Cassandra,” he said to Scarlet.

“Yes, she’s here,” Daniel said. “What about the couple who were killed the first night I tried to warn Scarlet?”

“The Parkers? What about them?” Diego asked him.

“Have you seen them?” Daniel asked.

“No,” Diego said. “No, they haven’t...returned.”

Daniel looked questioningly at Scarlet, and she shook her head.

“They might know more than Cassandra and I do,” Daniel said. “Larry Parker was sliced up just like Nathan Kendall was. And maybe they got a look at the killer’s face, not just his mask.”

“The mask was simple but so creepy,” Cassandra said. “I remembered thinking, what the hell? It was just a bag with eye holes ripped out, but it was terrifying.”

“Creepy or not, it makes it impossible for anyone to identify him,” Diego said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Why don’t you try to find them?” Daniel asked.

“Daniel, you know yourself—the two of you came to Scarlet,” Diego said. “We can’t search for them the way we do the living. We just have to hope they’ll come to us.”

“Where are they? Their bodies, I mean,” Daniel asked Diego.

He’d been about to take a sip of his coffee. The cup never made it to his lips. “The morgue,” he said quietly.

“Where my body is,” Cassandra said.

Daniel looked right at Scarlet. “You could go there and see if they—”

“No,” Diego said quickly. “She doesn’t need to go to the morgue. You know yourself, there’s no good reason whatever for a spirit to hang out at the morgue. Candace and Larry won’t be there.”

“They could be. I was there for a little while,” Cassandra said, and began to cry.