Heart of Evil (Krewe of Hunters #2)

Heart of Evil (Krewe of Hunters #2) Page 39

“We will verify, of course,” Jackson said.

“Please do.”

“We have another question,” Jake told him.

“Yes.”

Jackson pulled out his organizer and said, “We’re looking to find someone who might have gotten hold of these two drugs. Can you help us?” He handed the organizer to Benjamin Austin so that he could read benzodiazepine and chlorzoxazone himself.

To Jake’s surprise, the man seemed stunned. His face became white.

“What is it, doctor?” Jackson asked.

“I had a robbery—but it was more than a year ago,” Austin said, swallowing. “I have a nurse anesthetist on my staff, and I do some minor surgery right here in the office. Our nearest hospital is a bit of a trek,” he explained. “The muscle relaxants are more common, but…this office was sacked. We were missing a lot of drugs.”

He saw the way they were looking at him.

“I filed a police report—you can check on that, too,” he said. “Oh, God…this killer might be using drugs he stole from me?”

“So it appears, Dr. Austin. So it appears,” Jackson said. On that slightly ominous note, they bid him farewell.

Beth had chosen to wait for them in the car. “Anything?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Jake said. She stared at him with such concern that he sighed. “Drugs were used on the victims—you’ve been around everything going on; you probably know that.”

“Then—oh, my God, it was him? The doctor?” Beth asked.

Jake shook his head. “He said that his office was broken into—over a year ago.”

“I’m checking on that,” Jackson said, and Jake knew that he was dialing Detective Colby.

Jake, driving, tried to listen, but he couldn’t hear Mack.

Jackson hung up. “Good Dr. Austin seems to be telling the truth. He reported the drugs stolen, and he did give a speech at the Best Western. Mack is checking with the hotel to find out if he had room service or anything else—if he was seen. I believe the man was telling the truth.”

“But someone out there is lying, that’s for sure,” Jake said.

Ashley didn’t know if her eyes were just closed, or if she had dozed. She heard her own words from the recesses of her mind.

Help me.

I’m here, he told her.

I need to see the battle.

No, you don’t. Battle is ugly and horrible, and no one should see it.

I need to see, please.

Somehow, in the dream, she was Emma again. Marshall Donegal was in front of her, shouting at her, telling her to get the children and get them up to the attic. His voice was rough, commanding, and she was shocked, because he didn’t speak to her like that.

But then he paused. She felt his passionate kiss on her lips, and then he held her away, torment in his eyes. “The children, Emma, please—protect our children.”

She turned as he’d ordered and hurried the children up the stairs. When she reached the attic, she made the little ones hunch down by the wall.

And she went to the garret window to watch.

First she saw the black powder; it exploded and filled the day. The howitzer managed to put holes in the ground, but it didn’t hit the buildings.

No matter; the Yankees were coming.

She heard the squeal of the horses. Shouts came from the area of the stables; then she saw the defenders rush out and head toward the cemetery walls.

Rifles flared, and flared again. She saw Marshall retreat behind the walls, calling his men around them, but they weren’t all there; they were engaged closer to the house. The men in blue began to enter the cemetery.

From her vantage point, high above the roofs of their family “city of the dead,” she could see as they began to surround her husband. He brought one down with a direct hit from his rifle; then the fighting was too close. They were going after one another with bayonets. Marshall was a fighter. Two more died at his feet. And then, with one of his men shouting a warning and rushing in, Marshall was stabbed himself. She saw her husband’s eyes as he returned the blow. The last of the men in the cemetery was dead. Two more rushed in but saw the three dead in their own colors. They turned and fled, and in seconds she heard the sounds of horses’ hooves as they rode away. Six Yankees altogether; four dead and two running.

“Nancy, stay with the children!” she pleaded, calling to her housemaid and then rushing down the attic stairs and out to the cemetery. She pushed by her husband’s men, who were at his side, and fell down beside him, taking his head onto her lap. He opened his eyes once. He mouthed the words, “I love you. I’m so sorry.”

And then he died.

They came around her, her husband’s men. One of them pulled her gently to her feet. “He’s gone, now, Emma. We’ll see to him. He’s gone, please….”

She was blinded by her tears. She was barely aware as she was led into her house, led to her room. “Drink this. Drink this, Emma—it will steady your nerves.”

She had no nerves; she had nothing. Marshall was dead.

Four days later, Marshall was laid to rest in the family vault. He was there; he told her he’d be back; he’d help her until it was time for him to ride to war.

And then he came back again.

To help her, so he said.

And he was kind at first. He helped her haul in some water. He made her sit by the fire, and he poured her a whiskey, telling her that she needed whiskey. She drank it. She would have enjoyed the entire bottle. It warmed her. It numbed her. She could barely hear what he was saying, and she didn’t really care.

But then he knelt by her feet and started to rub them, and she was instantly alarmed.

“Emma…”

“No, no, stop!”

“You need me here.”

“My husband is barely dead!”

“It’s a harsh world, Emma. It will only get worse with the war. You know you need me; you need help through this, and by God, if I’m to be a man for you, you will be a woman for me.”

She was shocked.

But when she tried to stand, she began to teeter. She fell, and fell into his arms. He kept speaking, words that made no sense. The world began spinning, but it was still full of agony.

Then she felt him.

Felt him on her. Felt his hands on her, ripping at her clothing.

No!

But his hand fell over her mouth; he was strong and brutal, and her clothing was being ripped from her. She couldn’t believe it. This was a friend….

No…

She was powerless.

Help…

The word escaped her.

And she still felt him, the bastard on top of her, felt her flesh, his flesh, but it wasn’t her; no one could really touch her anymore.

Then help came at last, and he was ripped from her. She tried to stumble up, tried to call out….

Ashley jerked up.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Her body felt bruised—and violated.

But nothing had happened. She was in her own bedroom. Her clothing was intact. She hadn’t been touched.

Not in this world, not in this time.

Marshall Donegal stood by the window. He was looking out at the cemetery where he had died.

She realized that he had led her to the battle, but that something else had happened in her dream. She had seen what he had never seen.

One of his own men had betrayed him after his death and violated his wife.

He turned to her. “Battle is ugly. It is blood and slashed limbs and smashed brains. It’s horrible, and it’s ugly, and perhaps we all sin when we take up arms against one another.”

“Some battles have to be fought,” she whispered.

He came to her, and she thought she felt his hands on her shoulders. “Yes, battles must be fought for defense of all that is right and holy. But we need to be sure of what is right and holy before going to war.” He winced. “Those men who fight demons in their own mind, or join with demons to fight, they must be stopped. Because they are the transgressors.”

He pulled her against him. She was certain that she could actually feel the strength of his chest, and of his mind, and all that he had managed to learn—in his afterlife. She felt tears on her cheeks again, and she heard him whisper, “I’m here to try again to defend you. I failed my family once. I cannot do so again.”

Jake was surprised at how emotional it was to drop Beth off in the French Quarter. They were on Royal Street, in front of the hotel where they had stayed after the Holloway murder, and they knew that Beth would be able to stow her luggage easily for the day.

“You go on and solve this thing so that I can come back!” Beth told them. “And don’t worry about me. I’m just doing a little shopping. I’m going to indulge in a sugar-swamped beignet at Café du Monde, and then I’ll be on my way. You gentlemen get busy.”

And so they did, leaving the car at street parking on Decatur Street and starting off on foot. As they walked, Jackson made the necessary phone calls.

Fifteen minutes later, Justin Binder met them in front of the square as he was crawling down from a carriage ride with his family. He kissed his daughters and told them he’d meet up with them for dinner as they went off with his mother-in-law to view a Mardi Gras exhibit.

“We can go to my hotel room and talk there,” Justin told them.

Jake hoped immediately that Justin was all that he seemed: a family man who respected his mother-in-law and loved his children.

His hotel room was a little suite with a bedroom area where, apparently, his mother-in-law had been sleeping with the children while Justin took the couch in the parlor area. He apologized; the housekeeping staff hadn’t been up yet, and Justin closed the couch quickly so that they could sit.

“I heard about the latest,” Justin said, sitting. “The newscaster and Toby Keaton. He was all right. I was so sorry to hear about him. Eaten by gators. Well, hell, that’s just sad. The man grew up with the creatures, spent his life around them.”

“We don’t believe he was killed by the gators,” Jackson said.