Heart Of Evil

Praise for the novels of Heather Graham

“An incredible storyteller.”

—Los Angeles Daily News

“Graham wields a deftly sexy and convincing pen.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A fast-paced and suspenseful read that will give readers chills while keeping them guessing until the end.”

—RT Book Reviews on Ghost Moon

“If you like mixing a bit of the creepy with a dash of sinister and spine-chilling reading with your romance, be sure to read Heather Graham’s latest … Graham does a great job of blending just a bit of paranormal with real, human evil.”

—Miami Herald on Unhallowed Ground

“Eerie and atmospheric, this is not late-night reading for the squeamish or sensitive.”

—RT Book Reviews on Unhallowed Ground

“The paranormal elements are integral to the unrelentingly suspenseful plot, the characters are likable, the romance convincing, and, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Graham’s atmospheric depiction of a lost city is especially poignant.”

—Booklist on Ghost Walk

“Graham’s rich, balanced thriller sizzles with equal parts suspense, romance and the paranormal—all of it nail-biting.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Vision

“Heather Graham will keep you in suspense until the very end.”

—Literary Times

“Mystery, sex, paranormal events. What’s not to love?”

—Kirkus on The Death Dealer

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author HEATHER GRAHAM has written more than a hundred novels, many of which have been featured by the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild. An avid scuba diver, ballroom dancer and mother of five, she still enjoys her South Florida home, but loves to travel as well, from locations such as Cairo, Egypt, to her own backyard, the Florida Keys. Reading, however, is the pastime she still loves best, and she is a member of many writing groups. She’s a winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and is currently vice president of the Horror Writers’ Association. She’s also an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. She is the founder of The Slush Pile, an author band and performing group.

For more information, check out her Web sites:

TheOriginalHeatherGraham.com,

eHeatherGraham.com

and HeatherGraham.tv.

You can also find Heather on MySpace and Facebook.

Heart of Evil

Heather

Graham

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Dedicated with gratitude

to the beautiful Myrtles plantation,

and to Teeta LeBleu Moss, owner,

Teresa David, the General Manager,

Hester Eby, Director of Tours,

Taryn Lowery, Tour Guide

and to Scout and Sprout

and The Peace River Ghost Trackers

And to Dennis, Jason, Shayne,

and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere;

Teresa Davant, Kathy Pickering, Kathy DePalo,

Juan Roca, Bridget LeVien, Matthew Green,

Phinizy Percy Jr., and Connie Perry.

Prologue

Blood.

She could see it, smell it.

Hear it.

Drip … drip … drip …

The air was heavy with black powder, and the brilliant red color of the blood seemed to form a mist with the powder, and she was surrounded by a haze, a miasma of gray-tinged crimson. The day was dying, becoming red, red like the color of the blood seeping to the ground, making that terrible, distinctive noise. Drip, drip, drip …

Ashley Donegal was there. She wasn’t even sure where there was, but she knew that she didn’t want to be there.

Suddenly, the mist seemed to swirl in a violent gust, and then settle softly, closer to the ground. It parted as she walked through. She could see her surroundings, and, at that moment, she knew. She was in the cemetery. She had played here so often as a child—respectfully, of course. Her grandfather never would have had it any other way. Those elegant tombs, all constructed with such love, and an eye to the priorities of the day. The finest craftsmen had been hired, artists and artisans, and the place was truly beautiful. Angels and archangels graced the various tombs, winged cherubs, saints and crosses. She had never been afraid.

But now …

From a distance, she could hear shouts. Soldiers. Ridiculous. Grown men playing as soldiers. But they did it so well. She might almost have been back in time. The powder came from the howitzer and the Enfield rifles. The shouts sounded as the men played out their roles, edging from the river road to the outbuildings and then the stables, to the final confrontation on the lawn and in the cemetery. The blood would come from stage packets within their uniforms, of course, but …

This was real blood. She knew because it had a distinctive odor, and because, yes, damn it, she could smell it. Nothing smelled like real blood.

She looked at the ground, and she could see the puddle where the blood was falling, but she was afraid to look up. If she looked up, she would see a dead man.

But she did so anyway. She saw him. There was a hat pulled low over his face, but soon he would lift his head.

He did. And she saw a man in his prime, handsome, with strength of purpose in the sculpture of his face. But there was weariness in his eyes.

Weariness and death. Yet they were just playacting; that past was so, so long ago now….

She didn’t speak. Neither did he. Because his face began to rot. It blackened, and while she watched, the scabrous decaying flesh began to peel away. Soon she was staring into the empty eye sockets of a skull.

She started to scream.

Above that sound, she could hear someone calling to her. Someone calling her name. The sound was deep, rich and masculine, and she knew it….

It was Jake! He would help…. Surely he would help.

But she could only stare at the skeletal mask in front of her.

Smell the blood.

And scream.

A strange sound in the middle of the night awoke Ashley. She sat up with a start and realized she was doing the screaming. She clamped her own hand quickly over her mouth, embarrassed and praying that she hadn’t roused the household. She waited in silence; nope, no one.

That was pretty pathetic. It must have been a horrifically pathetic scream. If she ever really needed to scream, she’d probably be out of luck.

Lord, that had been some nightmare.

She didn’t have nightmares. She was the most grounded human being she knew; hell, she had grown up next to a bayou full of alligators and cottonmouths, and she had lived in a downtrodden area of New York City near Chinatown in order to afford NYU. She knew all about real monsters—ghosts were creations to reel tourists in.

So …

With a groan, she threw her head back on her pillow and glanced at the clock. She needed to sleep. In a week’s time, they’d be celebrating Donegal Plantation’s biggest annual event: the reenactment of the skirmish here that had cost her ancestor his life.

Ah, yes, and she had been dreaming about the skirmish—or the reenactment?

That was it, she thought, grinning. She was dreaming about the events at Donegal Plantation because they were preparing for the day.

History was always alive at Donegal. The plantation house was furnished with antiques, most of which had been in the family forever. There was an attic room that contained more artifacts from the Civil War than many a museum, down to letters, mess kits, knapsacks, pistols, rifles and bayonets. Still, the reenactment remained a major undertaking.

But they’d been running it since before she had even been born. It was rote by now. All the same, there was still plenty of bustle and confusion, along with everything that had to happen before the event could take place, including a mound of paperwork on her desk that had to do with the “sutler’s tent,” the pop-up shop where period clothing and curios and other paraphernalia, such as weapons and antiques, were sold. Which meant registrations and taxes. Then there was the insurance they needed for the day, and the officers to direct traffic and so on.

That was it. She just had a lot on her mind.

And the reenactment always reminded her of Jake. He’d never been a soldier, North or South. But he’d dressed up, and he’d played his guitar and sang music from the era. And sometimes she had played with him, and he’d always known how to make it just right, to bring back the past, with the light of truth.

She eased down in her covers, determined to forget both her anxiety and Jake.

Not so easy, even though it had been a long time since Jake had been in her life.

Finally, she started to drift again. She was comfortable; she loved her bed and her room, even if she had lived here her whole life other than college. Though she loved to learn about new people and new places, she also loved to be home.

She started again, certain that she had felt a touch; something soft and gentle, smoothing her hair, stroking her cheek.

She sat up. Moonlight streamed into the room, and there was no one else here; with so many guests around, she had locked her bedroom door. She looked at her pillow and decided that she had merely rubbed against a side of the pillowcase.

As she did so, she glanced at her dresser.

There was something different about it. She studied it for a moment, wondering what it was.

Then she knew.

She kept a picture of her parents there, on her dresser. It had been taken almost twenty years ago. They were together, holding her between them, when she had been five. It had been developed in sepia tone, and they’d had it done when one of the guests at a reenactment had found a way of making nice money by pretending to be Matthew Brady, the famed Civil War photographer. Throughout the day, he had answered historical questions about photography and its place in the Civil War.

As was the custom of the day, none of them was smiling, but there was still something exceptionally charming about the picture. There was a light in her father’s eyes, and just the hint of a curl at her mother’s lips. Her father’s arm was around her, his hand coming to rest tenderly on her mother’s shoulder. She was sandwiched close between them, and in her mind, the picture had been filled with love. It had become an even greater treasure when she had lost them.

It usually faced at a slight angle toward her bed.

The picture was turned away, as if someone had been looking at it from a different angle. It was such a little thing, but …

Maybe someone had wandered into her room. Cliff ran the property and she ran the house, but they employed extra housekeepers in the main house when they had guests. They hadn’t had guests in the house in the last few weeks, but the house was usually open, and her grandfather loved to walk anyone staying on the property through it. Depending on his mood, a tour could get long.

And the picture …

She turned over, groaning. It was just the angle of the picture.

Jake Mallory should have slept well, with a hard case finally settled.

But he didn’t.

The odd thing about his nightmares was that they were a recent phenomenon. When he had begun to realize and make use of this gift or curse—those things he somehow knew—there had been no dreams.

During the summer of the storms, during Katrina and the flooding, they had all been so busy. While it had been happening, he’d never explained to his coworkers that he was so good at finding the remains of the deceased because they called out to him; they spoke to him. It was heartbreaking; it was agony. But the dead needed their loved ones to know, and so he listened. And he didn’t dream those nights.

Later, the dreams had come, and they were always the same.

He was alone in his small, flat-bottomed boat, though he’d never been alone during any of the searches.

He was alone, and the heat of the day had cranked down to the lesser heat of the night, and he was searching specifically for someone, though he didn’t know who. As the boat moved through the water that should have been a street, he began to see people on the rooftops, clinging to branches here and there, and even floating in the water.

They saw him; they reached out to him. And he felt like weeping. They weren’t living people. They were those who had lost the fight.

As he drifted along, he looked back at them all, men and women, old and young, black and white and all colors in between. He wanted to ease their suffering, but he could no longer save them. Their faces had an ashen cast, and the bone structure was sucked in and hollow; they didn’t seem to know that there was nothing he could do for them anymore. In the dream, he knew that he, like many law-enforcement officers, scent dogs and volunteers, would be called upon to find the dead in the future.

But now he was seeking the living.

They called out to him; they were trying to tell him something. Bit by bit, he saw they were trying to show him the way. He thought that there should have been sound, but there was none. He didn’t hear his passage through the water, and nothing emitted from the mouths of the corpses he passed.

Then he saw the figure on the roof far ahead. He thought it was a woman. She seemed to be in something flowing, which was not unusual. Many victims, living and dead, had been found in nightgowns or boxers or flannel pajamas. What was strange was that she seemed to be the only one alive. She was in tremendous peril as the water rose all around her. He felt that there was something familiar about her, but he didn’t understand what it was that seemed to touch him. The light of the full moon turned her hair golden and gleaming, her white gown flowed in the breeze. Amidst the destruction, she was a beautiful survivor.

He tried to get closer.

The watery road grew more clogged and congested. Downed tree branches and appliances floated by. A soaked teddy bear with big black button eyes stared at him sightlessly as it drifted. He ached inside; it was an agony to fight the river, but it was also something he knew he had to do. Especially when she waited; when he could save her. He just had to reach her before the water level rose higher and higher, and swept her away.

He grew close …

And that was when he felt the darkness at his back.

He tried to turn, but he could not. The wind had picked up, and the effort was too much. No matter how he strained, he couldn’t see what evil thing seemed to be tracking him.

There was suddenly sound. The woman. She was calling out to him.

She called him by name.

But he could feel the thing behind him gaining on him. He could almost reach out for her, but he had to turn, had to find out what seemed to be breathing fetid air down his back….

She called out again.

Jake!

If they were to survive, to outrun whatever horror was behind him, they would have to do so together.

Jake!

Her voice rang out almost as clearly as if she were next to him in the boat.

But the darkness was on him, so close….

He could feel it then, enveloping him, crushing the sound of her voice as it did.

And he woke with a jerk.

Jake sat up in bed, deeply disturbed by the reappearance of his frequent dream. For the first time, he knew who he had seen on the roof of the house, about to be swallowed up by the floodwaters.

It was Ashley. Ashley Donegal.

He stood and stretched, irritated. The clock on his mantel indicated it was still early.

He swore and got dressed. He knew why he’d had the dream—and made Ashley the woman on the rooftop. He knew the date. The reenactment was coming. Donegal Plantation would be busy and alive; Ashley would still hurt from the fact that her dad had passed away and would no longer be playing Marshall Donegal, his ancestor. But she’d never show it. She’d be the grand mistress of the ceremonies, beautiful and regal in her Civil War attire.

He wondered if he would ever fall out of love with her. And then he wondered if the dream had meant something more. Angela—who seemed to have the best sixth sense in what the FBI called their special unit—had told him that dreams could open many doors. In REM sleep, the mind was at the stage where dreams came, and those dreams could easily focus on what the conscious mind rejected. When she was trying to reach memories of the past, she often used sleep.

If that were the guide, he could easily convince himself to think that Ashley now wanted him. Needed him. And that this was the sign.

Of course, that was just Angela’s way of seeking the ghosts of the past—even in their own group, they weren’t sure about all the rules of seeking out the help of ghosts.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh at himself or not.

Their team was legitimate; they were on-the-books federal agents. They had just spent days at the local training facility, improving their weapons skills, computer literacy and understanding of the mission policy.

But they were a one-of-a-kind unit, and their true designation wasn’t written down anywhere. Among themselves, they were the Krewe of Hunters; on paper, they were Adam Harrison’s Special Unit. In bizarre situations, they were supposed to smoke out the fakers—and find what might really be remnants of the past.

The world was filled with ghost hunters and would-be ghost hunters. The problem that most people didn’t see was the fact that few ghosts would really appear for a television crew. Some ghost lore did seem to be true. There were the residual hauntings—ghosts that played out a situation, such as a battle scene at Gettysburg, over and over again. And there were intelligent hauntings: ghosts that lingered for some reason. Ghosts didn’t seem to have rules. Some could find certain individuals who saw them as clearly as day; they could carry on long conversations, appear and disappear, and interact. Sometimes ghosts were frightened of the living, and they hid, and only someone with a real ability to suspend disbelief could coax them out. It was complicated; he was still learning. Sometimes ghosts tried to warn those they cared about when something evil was about to occur, and ghosts often entered into the REM sleep of those they hadn’t managed yet to really touch in the conscious world.

So the dream meant that Ashley needed him….

Or he wanted the dream to mean that Ashley needed him.

He stood up and walked over to his hotel window and looked out over the dark streets of the French Quarter. There was so much history here. So many lives had been lived; so much drama had taken place. Sometimes it was impossible to believe that the energy of the past didn’t remain. Ghosts didn’t have to be old; he knew that himself, though he hadn’t wanted to accept the truth until he had met Adam Harrison and become a part of the unit Adam had started for the FBI. He had been glad of his ability to feel where people were; to imagine that he heard them telling him to come, please. Sometimes he had even been able to find the living. And sometimes he had heard the voices of the dead, when he hadn’t known that they were dead.

His “gift” had cost him Ashley.

So why now, all these years later, was he seeing her, adrift, about to be engulfed, and yet reaching for him, even as he reached for her?

1

“Ah, dammit! I don’t want to be a Yankee,” Charles Osgood said.

It was there; it had finally come, and Ashley was grateful.

And the semi-drama going on here surely meant her mind had been trying to warn her that the day was not going to come without its share of trouble, because it was already proving to be one hell of an afternoon.

Morning had brought the business of breakfast, visitors pouring onto the property to spend time at the campsites. Now they were coming close to the main event of the day, the reenactment of the battle that had taken place at Donegal Plantation.

She’d never expected the real trouble to come over the sad situation of an ailing faux-Yankee.

“Dammit!” Charles exclaimed again.

Ashley thought that the man sounded like a petulant teenager, though she knew that he didn’t really want to argue. Not on a day like today. He flushed as the words came out of his mouth, and cast her a quick glance of dismay. She wasn’t even the one handing out the assignments, though she was the only Donegal among them now. The relish the group was taking in telling Charles his new role unsettled her a bit. Charles Osgood was the newest in the “cavalry unit” of reenactors, which meant that he got the assignment to play for the other side. Yet this seemed to be turning into a college hazing; they were all friends, and they were usually courteous to one another.

“Charlie, come on! Being a Yankee will be fun. Okay, so they were jerks—well, the ones here—who couldn’t spy on a neon sign, couldn’t hunt, couldn’t shoot…. But come on! Being a Yank will be fun!” Griffin Grant teased.

Ashley shook her head; how could grown men be so immature?

In her mind, although she truly loved the living history that took place at the plantation, she thought the units clinging to so-called glory were nothing more than inane. The event had ended with the death of one her ancestors—not a party.

“Hey, hey, all of you!” Ashley said, addressing the men around her and using the voice she would utilize when working with one of the school groups—the grade-school groups. “I know you all like to cling to the magical illusion that the antebellum South was a place of beauty, grace and honor—where men were men. Real men, hunting, riding, brawling—but honorable. Yes, we reenact what was. But this is now, and that was then! None of you would seriously want to go back to the Civil War, and no one here is prejudiced. The slavery of any person was a horrendous way of life.”

“Ashley—you’re making it sound like being a real man is bad thing!” Cliff Boudreaux commented, laughing. Cliff, horse master at Donegal, was clearly amused and having a good time.

“Well, of course, Ashley, it’s not like we take this too seriously,” Griffin Grant said, staring back at her as if she was the one who didn’t understand the question. Griffin was a striking man in his early thirties, sleek and slick, a CEO for a cable company in New Orleans, though his ancestors had lived out here, two hours down the road from the big city. “We know reality—and like it. But this is important playacting!”

She groaned softly.

They were good guys, really.

It was playacting, and for the playacting they were able to believe truly with their whole hearts that it had been about nothing other than states’ rights. Ashley knew all the statistics about the fighting men—most of the men who fought and died for the South during the war couldn’t have begun to have afforded a slave—and war was seldom caused by one issue. But her parents and her grandfather had never been the types to overlook the plantation’s complicated history. Cliff was part of that with his gold-green eyes, bronze-colored skin and dark tawny hair. She knew that half their visitors were immediately enthralled with him. He was one of the reenactors on the Southern side because of the Donegal blood that ran in his veins. Early on, a Donegal widower had fallen in love with a slave, creating the first racial mix in his background. In the 1920s, his great-grandfather had married a Donegal cousin, something that caused a serious scandal at that time in history, but which now gave both halves of the family a sense of pleasure and pride. She wasn’t sure how to count second and third or twice-removed relatives, so she considered Cliff to be her cousin.