The Night Is Alive

“That’s great to hear, even though it’s something I know—that Gus was great to work for,” Abby said.

She turned and went back to the front. Sullivan was behind the bar. Macy was collecting glasses that had been left at the tall bar tables.

Aldous, Dirk and Bootsie remained on their bar stools.

“What happened to your new friend?” she asked him. “The man from the bureau?”

Dirk frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe he took off. He wasn’t actually a friend of yours, right? Just a rep from the government?”

“I’d thought he’d speak with me again before he left,” Abby said. “But...I guess not.”

Bootsie stood, his peg leg wobbling. “Listen, Abby, we know today’s been hard on you. Now, the boys and I, we can hang around here as long as you like. Or, better still, we can take you off somewhere else and give you a break from this place.”

She shook her head. “No, thanks. It’s okay. To be honest, I’m looking forward to some time alone.”

“Alone?” Bootsie said, surprised.

“Do you want us to walk you to your parents’ house?” Dirk asked her. “I mean, do you really want to stay here right now? You have that beautiful house on the square....”

“She should come with us,” Aldous said. “The house is where...and this is where...” He broke off. The house was where her parents had died; this was where Gus had just died.

“I love my house—it’s beautiful. I really should rent it out again.” The previous tenants had been a writer and his family, and they’d gone back to New York a few months ago. She’d rented the place furnished. Not sure what she wanted to do with it yet, she’d brought over some extra clothes and retrieved boxes of her old belongings from the basement, returning them to her childhood bedroom. “I’m not unhappy in either the house or the Dragonslayer, guys. I have good memories here—and there. I’m fine. Just need a little time to take a deep breath now that the funeral’s over, and then get everything in order. So...out with the three of you! Go wander along the riverfront and give another innkeeper your business tonight. Come back tomorrow. With or without Gus, this remains your place. I don’t know what I’d do if I came home and didn’t find the three of you here. But for now, scat!”

They looked like a group of fathers forced to leave their children for a first day at school.

“Hey, come on now. Out, out,” Abby told them.

They finally left her with a bit more grumbling and a lot of hugs.

Sullivan cleared his throat. “I’ll just get these last glasses....”

“No, no, Sullivan, that’s all right. I’ve got it. I’d like something to do,” Abby said.

“I’m exhausted,” Macy said. “Grant’s upstairs. He’s checking on supplies for the week. After that, I think he plans on leaving for the night. But, Abby, I don’t feel you should be alone here.”

“I’ve spent most of my life here!”

Macy walked behind the bar to get her purse. “All right,” she said with obvious reluctance. “Make sure you lock up. The city can be scary. I don’t ever remember so many people—”

“Dying?” Sullivan finished. “Come on, Macy. Abby doesn’t want us here. I’ll walk you home.”

Macy nodded as she stood behind the bar, looking at Abby. “You have my number. If anything comes up. Or if you just need to talk...”

“You were both wonderful to Gus. He loved you and appreciated your loyalty to the Dragonslayer. And so do I. Now, I’m fine. You two go on home.”

“You know you control the music from behind the bar,” Sullivan said.

“I know,” Abby assured him.

“I wish Gus had gotten a solid alarm system for this place.” Macy glanced at Abby and flushed. “I’m not criticizing. He had cameras put in the front and over by the parking lot, and there’s an emergency police buzzer behind the bar. Most of the downstairs windows are sealed now, but...”

“He thought his security installations were a big deal. State of the art. He started them more than fifteen years ago, when we were nearly broken into,” Abby said. “But, Macy, don’t worry. I’ll see about getting a real alarm system before I go back to Virginia,” Abby promised. She looked up; she heard Grant coming down from the offices upstairs. He joined them, giving her a hug.

She loved Grant. He’d worked for Gus, first as a pirate entertainer. Grant had spent seven years getting his hospitality degree, he’d told her some time ago. He couldn’t decide between acting, modeling and going into the restaurant or hotel business. Once he had his degree in hand, the first person to really believe in him had been Gus.

“I heard the words alarm system,” Grant said. “I have brochures up in my office. Gus asked me to look into a good system just a few days ago,” Grant said.

“Then we’ll take care of it,” Abby promised. “Grant, sometime tomorrow, if you want to go through the different companies with me, that’d be great.”

“Absolutely,” Grant said. “I’m going to head out now—if you’re sure you’re okay.”

Grant, who was gay, had been with his partner, Alden Blaine, for well over ten years. Alden worked for the fire department and had left the tavern earlier, since he had an early call the next day.

“Go home, yes, go home. My Lord, getting you people out of here is a real project.”

At last, with everyone still protesting, she got them all out the door.

As she closed and locked it, she smiled, wondering what they were worried about; she’d been staying here every night since she’d arrived, and—except for today—the Dragonslayer didn’t close until 2:00 a.m. That meant the staff never left until three or four. She’d been going to bed much earlier, leaving Grant to lock up.

And she’d been fine.

Maybe it was the fact that people were here so late—and that the first of the setup crews were usually in by six in the morning, although they didn’t open until eleven. So there were only a few hours when she’d been alone and despite, or because of, the circumstances she’d come home to, she’d been sound asleep during those hours.

They were probably worried about what she might imagine in the darkness, worried that she’d be afraid.

But she wasn’t afraid. She knew what they didn’t know.

Blue Anderson watched over the Dragonslayer.

In the days that had followed her grandfather’s death, she’d hoped Blue would make an appearance. She’d hoped as well, that she’d be haunted by her grandfather.

But no one had appeared to her, upstairs or down, by day or night. Blue had stood by the burial site in the graveyard, though....

With the door finally closed and locked, Abby walked around the downstairs. Figureheads from ships of many centuries stared down at her. She walked past the hostess stand and behind the bar, gathering up the last of the glasses as she did so.

A copy of the day’s paper lay on the bar. She set the glasses by the sanitizer and picked it up.

There was no mention of a serial killer in the article; it stated simply that the body of Felicia Shepherd, twenty-two, had been found on the river embankment by the bridge. The cause of her death would be determined by the medical examiner.

Thoughtfully, Abby walked back to the hostess stand and searched through the papers collected there until she came to the one she had picked up the day she arrived.

The first victim had also been a young woman, aged twenty-five. Her name was Ruth Seymour and she’d come to Savannah on vacation. She’d wanted to stay in the historic city for a night on her own before meeting up with friends at Hilton Head. She had checked into her bed-and-breakfast—the clerk remembered her as bubbly and charming—and that was the last anyone could remember seeing her until her body was discovered.

The second victim was Rupert Holloway, a salesman for a mobile phone company. He never arrived at his hotel. His wife told police he’d planned to meet business associates on the riverfront for lunch.

The associates had gone to lunch; Rupert Holloway had not. He had next appeared on the river embankment—dead.

No cause of death was mentioned for Holloway, either. An autopsy had been pending for both at the time the article was written.

“Foul play suspected,” she read aloud.

She set the first paper down and picked up the most recent one.

Abby didn’t care what the police were saying. Ruth Seymour, Rupert Holloway and now Felicia Shepherd were all out-of-towners, all found by the river.

Serial killer.

She shook her head. The victimology was so different. A serial killer usually liked a type. With Ted Bundy, it had been young women with long dark hair. Jeffrey Dahmer had gone for boys or young men. Some killers preyed on couples.

Maybe he was after young women—and the businessman had been a mistake or had stumbled upon him when he’d been engaged in some other illegal act?

“Ms. Anderson?”

Abby was so startled by the voice that she screamed and threw the newspaper in the air. She swung around.

To her astonishment, she wasn’t alone.

She’d locked herself in, all right, but somehow she’d managed to lock herself in before confirming that everyone else was out.

It was the agent, and he was staring at her from the left dining room. But the lights had been dimmed in the dining rooms, so he would’ve known they were closing.

He hadn’t gone, after all.

He walked toward her quickly, apologizing as he did. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“What the hell are you still doing here?” she demanded. “You did scare me—you scared me out of my wits.”

“I might have frightened you because of the circumstances,” he said. “You did just come from the academy, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Mr. Gordon?” she asked. “A certain amount of fear is healthy for all of us. It keeps us from being reckless.”

“That’s the line at the academy, is it?” he asked.

She frowned. A small trickle of fear assailed her again. Who the hell was this man? She didn’t know him; he’d said that he’d come from the FBI but he’d done nothing to prove it.

“You don’t remember the academy?” she asked him.

“Remember it? I never went to it.”

There was, she knew, a gun below the bar in the strongbox. A nice safe place during the business day—hard to get to right now. And this guy was probably a full six-foot-four, lean, muscled and hard as nails.

Unease slithered alone her spine.

Serial killer?

He didn’t look like a serial killer.

But, of course, she had just come through the academy, as he’d said. So she was well aware that a serial killer could be charming, credible and handsome. They’d seen enough examples of that.

“I’m sorry. You really are frightened. And you’re thinking that getting your gun from under the bar won’t be easy, and since it was your grandfather’s funeral service today, you aren’t carrying your regulation Glock,” he said.

“I’ve been around this place since I was a kid, Mr. Gordon—or whoever you are. I’m lethal with a broken bottle and I can grab one and smash it before you can blink!”

He smiled and shook his head, frowning. “I told you, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have been hiding in a darkened restaurant. If you needed to speak with me, you might have stayed around and done so instead of just vanishing.”

“I wasn’t hiding in a darkened restaurant—and I didn’t vanish.”

Abby arched her brows and looked toward the dining room.

“I went down into the tunnel,” he told her. He took a step toward the bar. She reached for a bottle and held it by the neck. He stopped, lifting his hands, smiling grimly. “Your grandfather did die in the tunnel, right?”

“The grate from the restaurant to the tunnel is locked.” She could tell that her voice sounded thin.

“Perhaps it’s supposed to be,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

“That tunnel is almost pitch-black.” Her voice was growing even tighter and thinner.

And while she wasn’t armed, she realized he did have a gun worn discreetly beneath his jacket. She wasn’t sure what kind, because the flap of his jacket was covering it.

Her fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle she held.

He reached into his pants pocket; she drew back, slamming the bottle against the wall.

He let out a sigh and stepped back again. “Man, that’s going to be a bitch for someone to clean up,” he said. “I was only getting my light. It’s finger-size but casts a glow big and strong enough to light up Pluto.”

He held up a small flashlight. To add insult to injury, he turned it on. It nearly blinded her.

“What were you doing in the tunnel?” she asked.

“Investigating, Ms. Anderson. That’s what you wanted, right? You think your grandfather was murdered. I’m here to investigate.”

She shook her head in denial. “No one paid any attention to me,” she told him. “And you just said you hadn’t been to the academy—”

“I haven’t been. Yet. I’m here on a trial basis.”

“I don’t understand.”

“At the moment, I’m a consultant. I’ve been asked to join the Krewe and we’re seeing if I work out as a Krewe member. Whether they like me enough—and whether I like the job enough to accept it.”

Wary, Abby said, “Mr. Gordon, you really need to leave. You haven’t been through the academy, so no one I know sent you. And I’ll see to it that the grating is locked. Thank you so much for letting me know it isn’t. Now...”

“Now—yes, now. Can we please have a discussion? A rational discussion. Look, you’re the one who sent for help!” he said irritably.

“Talk about what? I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here if you don’t have the credentials—”

“I was sent here because you asked for help!”

“But—”

“I have a copy of your email, Ms. Anderson. I’ll show you, as long as you don’t drag the whole bar down if I reach into a pocket again. You wrote to Jackson Crow, from the Krewe of Hunters. Jackson Crow sent me. Take me or leave me, Ms. Anderson, but I’m your man. If I agree you’ve got the right kind of problem—and there is a strong possibility that your grandfather was murdered, possibly in connection with those murders you were just reading about—then more Krewe members will step in. For now, you’ve got me.”

Abby swallowed. There were a number of agents in the Krewes who’d been with the FBI for some time now. This man was saying he hadn’t even gone to the academy.

“You’re not an agent?” she asked in a whisper.

“Not yet.”

“Oh, Lord,” she said shaking. “Then...then what are your credentials?”

“Ah,” he murmured. “Well, I’m a private investigator legitimately licensed. At one time I was a detective with the New Orleans police. And now I’m legitimately on the books as a consultant to the feds. Perhaps most important, Ms. Anderson, I just had a conversation with an ancestor of yours. Calls himself Blue. Will that do for starters?”

3

Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned the fact that he’d seen Blue Anderson, Malachi thought. But, then again, the young woman seemed to think he was a serial killer himself, so he had to say something.

It hadn’t occurred to him that the place would have emptied out by the time he came back. But the tunnel had fascinated him, and he’d followed it from the tavern to the riverbank and back more than once, marveling at the pirates who had constructed the escape—or kidnapping or shanghai—route. Once in the tavern again, he’d had no choice but to make himself known.

Or maybe he should just have told her he was an agent. Except that he wasn’t. Not yet. If he chose to accept an appointment with the Krewe of Hunters, then, yes, he’d have to go through a course at the academy. But he was still skeptical.

And neither had he expected to be sent out on his own. But, apparently, that was the way Adam Harrison, Jackson Crow and Logan Raintree felt it should be done.

Sort of like a baptism by fire.

Malachi was game, though. Especially after he’d read about the two bodies that were discovered on the riverbank. He hadn’t been convinced that the death of a man in his nineties was murder, but since the man’s granddaughter had just graduated from the academy and had written such an impassioned letter, someone needed to come out here. And these recent murders did give a degree of credence to her beliefs.

So it was a test. For them, and as he’d said, for him. A chance to find out if he was really willing to join a unit or “create his own,” as he’d been offered. They needed more units in Jackson Crow’s specialized area and apparently they thought he was a man who could head up another one.

Actually, it didn’t seem like a bad deal. Work with people who didn’t think he was crazy or that he was a psychic. Trying to convince some people that he wasn’t a psychic was as hard as convincing others that he did have certain...talents.

As Abby Anderson stared at him, Malachi tried to sum her up. She was tall, a stunning woman with a headful of the darkest, richest black hair he’d ever seen and eyes so blue they appeared to be violet or black. Her features were delicate and beautifully chiseled, and while she was lithe and fit, she was still well-endowed. Slim and yet curvy—hard to achieve.

She had to have ability and intelligence; he refused to believe she could have made it through the academy without both. What agents sometimes lacked, in Malachi’s opinion, was imagination and vision. Though not, he had quickly discovered, the agents who wound up in what Adam Harrison had created—the Krewe of Hunters or, as it was generally called now, the Krewes. There was the original Krewe and then the Texas Krewe, although even adding a second was proving to be insufficient. Adam Harrison had told him passionately that it wasn’t a calling that came to just anyone. No two ways about it, forming a new Krewe was difficult. Very few people had the talents they needed—and the ability to physically and mentally work in law enforcement.

She continued to stare at him as time ticked by. She seemed almost frozen, as if she were in a tableau. He feared she had to be in shock, although she didn’t reveal her emotions.

“Hello?” he said, somewhat awkwardly. “Look, Ms. Anderson, I know what I’m doing around a crime scene and I generally know what I’m doing around people. Alive and dead. No, I don’t see hundreds of ghosts walking the streets, but when someone’s hanging around a place like this the way your Blue Anderson seems to be doing, it’s usually for a reason, like safeguarding someone.”

Was he wrong? Had she never seen the ghost of the pirate? If not, he’d just shown himself to be a real quack in her eyes.

No, in her email to Jackson she’d stated there was a ghost at the tavern, a ghost reportedly seen through the centuries. She hadn’t come out and said she’d seen the ghost, but reading between the lines, he was certain she had.

And even if she did think he was a quack, so what? He still wasn’t completely sure he wanted to be here or be part of this. He’d spent the past five years working for himself and he liked it that way. Maybe he should’ve started off with the fact that he’d served in the military and been a cop in New Orleans for several years before Marie’s death from cancer, when he’d come home to his family property in Virginia. That was when he’d chosen to work for himself, getting a P.I. license.

Now...

“He spoke to you?” she whispered.

“Ah, there’s life behind those eyes!” he murmured. “Yes, it seems to take him a great deal of effort. I don’t believe he’s practiced at speaking.”

“Practiced?” she asked, sounding startled. “Practiced? Ghosts have to practice...being ghosts?”

Curious. She didn’t seem worried that he’d seen the ghost. She was worried—or maybe confused—about its being a practiced ghost.

Jackson Crow had been certain, reading her email, that Abigail Anderson was of their own kind. A communicator, as Jackson referred to people who saw more than others did.

“Ms. Anderson, in my own experience, those who remain behind meet the same difficulties we do in life. Some are shy and don’t do much more than watch. They never manage to speak to the living, move objects, even make a room cold. Some discover that they can learn to speak, to move objects—and they can even create a cold wind. Just like some of us on earth speak many languages while others are lucky to speak one. And some can barely walk, while others have athletic talent and prowess or perform in dance or join the Cirque de Soleil. Every ghost is an individual, just as each of us is.”

“And you...saw Blue. And spoke to him?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you. He hardly ever appears. He’s never spoken.”

“Not to you, perhaps.”

“I’m his descendent!” she said indignantly.

He shrugged. “Well, have you ever tried speaking to him?”

She straightened, glaring at him with hostile, narrowed eyes.

No, Malachi decided, it didn’t seem he’d gone about this the right way at all.

“So, you’re old friends. Where is he now?” she asked.

“Certainly not old friends,” Malachi said. “And I haven’t met a ghost yet who appears on demand. I’m sure he’s around somewhere, though. I don’t think he leaves these premises. At least not often.”

“And you spoke with him where, exactly?” she asked.

“In the tunnel.”

“What did he say?”

“I didn’t know he was there at first. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘This is where he died. He was strong of heart. His death was not so simple.’”

She stared at him with such incredulity, Malachi found himself growing irritated. She saw Blue herself.

“Mr. Gordon, even if you are for real, I wish you’d leave right now. My grandfather died. We buried him today. But you know that. You were watching.”

He stared back at her. “I can leave, or we can get started. Your grandfather called you because he suspected something or knew something—at least, that’s what you wrote to Agent Crow.” He tapped the newspaper. “So Gus is dead, possibly a victim, and there are three more—in a city where the murder rate is customarily quite low. Four victims in a short period of time. Do you want to sit there doubting me, or do you want to piece together what we know? Shouldn’t take long. It isn’t a lot.”

“Almost nothing,” she agreed after a moment, disgust in her tone. She picked up the newspaper behind the bar. “Another girl dead, found on the riverbank. The police haven’t released cause of death, and when I tried to speak with them, I got nowhere. I tried to tell them Gus hadn’t just died—that there had to be someone else down there in the tunnel, someone who caused him to die.” She shook her head, studying him. “Look, you’re not even an agent. How are you going to get any information?”

He smiled. “I honestly have a private investigator’s license and I am now on the federal payroll as a consultant. Feel free to check that out. Call Jackson Crow. I think he’ll be expecting you.”

“Call him? I don’t have a number. All I could find in the material I have from Quantico was an email address. And I couldn’t reach him on an official line now. It’s nearly eight!”

“I have his cell number. And he might be in the office, anyway. He works long hours.”

“Right. So I could be calling anyone!”

He smiled at that. “Ever suspicious. That should make you a good agent, but you do have to go with your gut and trust someone at some point.”

“I’m really not seeing why that should be you,” she said.

“Ouch.”

“You could have approached me earlier—while there were still people here.”

“As you said, your grandfather’s funeral was today. And then, I wasn’t sure whether you wanted to advertise the fact that you’d called in...the ghost investigators.”

“Give me that number,” she said, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket.

He rattled off the numbers and she dialed. She watched him as she spoke. “Mr. Jackson Crow, please.”

Malachi could hear the deep murmur of Crow’s voice from where he stood.

“If you’re Jackson Crow, would you by any wild chance still be at work?” She was silent for a minute. “I see. Then...would you be good enough to call me back on an official line?”