The Unseen

1800s. San Antonio, Texas: In room 207 at the Longhorn Saloon, in the long shadow of the Alamo itself, a woman renowned for her beauty was brutally murdered. Her killer was never found.

One year ago: In that same historic room, another woman vanished without a trace. Her blood was everywhere...but her body was never recovered.

Now: In the last month, San Antonio has become a dumping ground for battered bodies. All young women, many of them long missing, almost all forgotten. Until now.

Texas Ranger Logan Raintree cannot sit by and let his city’s most vulnerable citizens be slain. So when he is approached to lead a brand-new group of elite paranormal investigators working the case, he has no choice but to accept the challenge. And with it, his powerful ability to commune with the dead.

Among Logan’s new team is Kelsey O’Brien, a U.S. marshal known for her razor-sharp intuition and a toughness that belies her delicate exterior. Kelsey has been waiting all her life to work with someone who can understand her ability to “see” the past unfolding in the present. Now she has her chance.

Together, Kelsey and Logan follow their instincts to the Alamo and to the newly reopened Longhorn, which once tempted heroes with drink, cards and women. If the spirits of those long-dead Texans are really appearing to the victims before their deaths, only Kelsey and Logan have the skills to find out why.

And if something more earthly is menacing the city’s oldest, darkest corners, only they can stop it—before more innocent women join the company of San Antonio’s restless ghosts....

The Unseen

Heather Graham

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Kathryn Falk, Ken Rubin, Jo Carol Jones, Sharon Murphy,

Lisa and Chris, Barney, and the Cumbess family in memory of “Maw.”

And to all the great friends I’ve made

who live in and love the Great State of Texas!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Texas Recipes

Prologue

Galveston Island, Texas

Spring, 1835

The moon that night was enchanting. Rose Langley walked barefoot on the beach, looking up at the splendor in the sky. She had no idea what had caused this beautiful spectacle; she just knew she’d never seen anything like it. It was a large and shimmering half crescent, and behind it, like a silent and glowing echo, was a second half crescent. Once upon a time, she might have gone to her tutor, Mr. Moreno—so old, soft-spoken and wise—and asked him where such an intriguing sky had come from. He would have studied it and perhaps told her that one of the other planets was aligned with the moon. Or, perhaps, he might have said it was an illusion created by cloud cover or by tiny dewdrops in the air that didn’t quite become rain.

But, of course, she couldn’t ask Mr. Moreno anything. She’d given him up, along with anything that resembled decency and a respectable life when she’d become convinced that her father was cruel and unreasonable, incapable of seeing what a wonderful, illustrious man Taylor Grant would prove to be.

She’d run away from the gentility of her home in New Orleans, certain that Taylor loved her and that her world with him would be wonderful.

She tried to think only of the moon and feel its enchantment. But she could hear the men back at the saloon. Pirate’s Cove—an apt name for a saloon, since Galveston Island had first been settled by the pirate Lafitte. Lafitte was long gone. Older men, remnants of the pirate’s day, still sat in the bar, where they drank and cursed and spoke of the days of Spanish rule and French rule, Spanish rule again and the coming independence of Texas. It was all talk. Galveston was a rising port city, and there were plenty of ill-gotten gains to be found here. Maybe a few of the men would be leaving to take up arms for Texas, but for the most part, they were lecherous miscreants who seemed to sit around all day drinking, smelling worse and worse by the hour. And they’d get Taylor drinking, and he’d have no money, and he’d convince them to pay for her services—and convince her that they’d pass out as soon as they were alone with her. They generally did, though not always quickly enough… . She winced, staring up at the moon. She would feel sweaty and horrid, and the stench of them would stay with her long after they’d passed out, and even walking into the waters of the bay would not erase that stench.

She could hear the laughter and the curses and the bawdy remarks. And sometimes, she could hear the feigned laughter of one of the saloon whores—women who were mostly old and used up, who poured on the perfume and accepted small amounts of money and whiskey or rum for their quick services.

Taylor had turned her into one of them.

Tears stung her eyes. She tried to pretend she’d never left home and she was just a young woman walking on a beach beneath a whimsical moon. But it didn’t change a thing. And it couldn’t ease the pain that suddenly filled her.

She still loved Taylor. After everything he had done to her. She was such a fool!

“Rose!”

The sound of his excited cry made her turn. Taylor had come out of the saloon, and he was running toward her. She saw, as he breathlessly reached her, that his eyes were glittering.

His excitement, however, was no longer contagious to her.

“What is it, Taylor?” she asked him.

“Finally! Finally, I’ve made the play that will get us out of here. Rose, my darling Rose, look at this!”

He produced a ring.

She remembered jewelry. She remembered good jewelry, like the cross her father had bought on a business trip to Italy, and the beautiful little pearl-drop earrings her mother had given her on her fourteenth birthday. She’d never owned magnificent pieces, just the gold and semiprecious gems that were the cherished items of a young girl on a working plantation.

Still, she knew good jewelry.

And this piece was far more than simply good. It was probably worth her father’s entire plantation. The glowing illumination of the strange moon picked up on the brilliance of the diamond in the delicate gold setting. The diamond was multifaceted, shimmering with an assortment of colors; it had to be five carats, if not more.

And it seemed to have a life of its own. It was almost as if the fiery brilliance of the gem burned in her hand.

Rose stared at Taylor. He’d been drinking, but he was sober. His beautiful blue eyes were on her with tenderness, and his lips—weak lips, in a beautiful but weak jaw—were curved into a loving and tremulous smile.

Yes, despite all that he had done to her, he loved her, really loved her.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“I started playing poker, and the other fellows had taken their winnings and moved on, and I was still playing with old Marley—you remember, the decrepit old man who says he sailed with Lafitte. He put this on the table, and he said Lafitte himself had called it the Galveston diamond. Once upon a time, it belonged to the Habsburg kings! It came off a Spanish ship Lafitte took in the days before the War of 1812. Rose! Marley swears Lafitte gave him the diamond, although he likely stole it. But that doesn’t matter. He had it—and we have it now. It’s the key to our salvation. We can go anywhere. You never have to be with those old bastards again, and we don’t have to sleep on a beach. We can get married, buy horses, join the Texans, make a land claim—”

“Taylor, Texas is going to war! We have to get out of here. And we’ve got to do it tonight—before someone realizes you have this.” Rose felt his excitement, but despite its beauty, there was something about the gem she didn’t like. She wanted to go—right then. And she wanted them to sell the stone—at whatever price. They’d have to be paid enough to get by, but after that… The most important thing was that they escape now. Quickly. She was willing to leave what paltry items they had in the tiny room that was all they could afford and just run down the beach. Along with her own growing excitement, she felt a growing sense of danger.

Was it the diamond? Was it warning her—or was it causing her fear?

“Oh, the others don’t know about it, and even if they did, the thing is supposed to be cursed,” Taylor said. “It seems the princesses or whoever had it died young. I’ve got a bit more in winnings. We’re going to buy horses and get out of here. We’ll leave at first light. And if we can’t buy land, we’ll go back east. We’ll go to Virginia or maybe all the way to New York!”

For a moment, the curious moon appeared to be luminescent, shining down on them with the sweetest of blessings.

And then she heard a commotion, coming from the saloon.

“Taylor, what’s happening?” she whispered.

There were men running toward them. She started to back away, but there was nowhere to run. This was an island. The beach stretched on for miles here and headed into bracken.

Nowhere to run.

“There he is. Get the bastard!” one of the men shouted.

She felt pressure on her hand. Taylor was thrusting the ring into her grasp. She took it. And she knew that if these men were after the diamond, they would strip her down and search her on the beach. She pretended to push back a stray lock of hair and stuck the diamond in her chignon.

Her heart thundered. Five men had come out; one was Matt Meyer, known for scalping Indians in Tennessee. He was surrounded by his henchmen—rough frontiersmen who’d seen better days, but who had never lost their talent for brutality.

She stepped forward. “Gentlemen, what is the problem?” she demanded. She moved past Taylor, praying they’d hesitate before actually offering physical violence.

She was forgetting herself. And them.

Meyer grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her on the sand. “Cheater!” he said to Taylor. “Where the hell is my watch and fob?”

“What?” Taylor shrieked. “I didn’t cheat, and I don’t have your watch and fob! I swear, I swear on all that’s holy, I—”

“Men,” Meyer said quietly.

They descended on Taylor. They beat him as they stripped him naked and left him half-dead in the sand. Rose cried out in horror, but her one attempt to stop them was quickly diverted as one of the men backhanded her in the face and sent her down again, her mind reeling.

“He ain’t got it,” another of the men finally said to Meyer.

And then, of course, they looked at Rose.

“He was telling the truth!” Rose screamed in fury and despair. She staggered to her feet and stood as proudly as she could, with all the old disdain she could summon. “He doesn’t have your watch or fob, never had it, and neither do I.” She knew, however, that her protest would be in vain. And she was worried sick about Taylor. He lay bleeding and naked in the sand. She’d heard him groan once; now he was silent.

“You’ve murdered him,” she accused Meyer.

There was more commotion coming from the tavern. Others, hearing the fracas on the beach, were spilling out of the saloon.

“Take the whore,” Meyer said to his men. “Let’s move out of here.”

“Wait! You can’t just leave him!” Rose sobbed. “He could be alive!”

Meyer, who was a big man, perhaps forty, and strongly muscled, walked over to her and jerked her toward him. “How did you wind up with such a pathetic excuse for a man?” Suddenly he smiled. “All those airs, my dear Miss Southern Belle! Well, well. I’ll find out later if you’ve got my property. Come on, boys, time to leave this island and move inward. If there’s going to be a war, I think we’ll be part of it. Hmm. And, Miss Southern Belle Rose, I guess you’re going to be my whore now!”

“Let go of me, you bastard!” She had to play for time. People were streaming out of the saloon and she had to tell them Taylor was innocent and that these men had halfway killed him. It was one thing to have a fight, or even shoot at a man, but to do this, to gang up on someone and beat him so badly…

Meyer hauled back and hit her again with such force that she would’ve fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her. The world around her was whirling as Meyer tossed her over his shoulder. She tried to free herself, tried to protest, but his voice grated in her ears. “You want your boy to have a chance to live? Then shut up! You’re with me now, Rose. Ah, yes, Miss Rose, you’re with me. Think of the glory! We’re on to fight for Texas!”

He started to laugh.

For Texas…

She fought against his hold. She raised herself, clutching his shoulders, and for one moment, she saw the moon again. Or moons. Now there seemed to be ten of them swimming in the sky, still absurdly beautiful crescents.

Then the moons all disappeared. Yet as her world faded to black, Rose could feel the gem somehow burning against her skin through the tight knot of hair.

Meyer, these men, didn’t even know she had the diamond, but it had already destroyed her life.

Chapter One

San Antonio, Texas

April

Logan Raintree had just left his house and was walking toward his car when the massive black thing swept before him with a fury and might that seemed to fill the air. He stopped short, not knowing what the hell he was seeing at first.

Then he saw it. The thing was a bird, and he quickly noted that it was a massive bird, a peregrine falcon. Its wingspan must have been a good three feet.

It had taken down a pigeon.

The pigeon was far beyond help. The falcon had already ripped the left wing from the creature and, mercifully, had broken the smaller bird’s neck, as well.

As Logan stood there, the falcon stared at him. He stared back at the falcon.

He’d seen attacks by such birds before; they had the tenacity of jays and the power of a bobcat.

They also had the beaks and talons of their distant ancestors—the raptors, who’d once ravaged land and sea. This kind of bird could blind a man or, at the least, rip his face to shreds.

Logan stood dead still, maintaining his position as he continued to return the bird’s cold, speculative stare. There seemed to be something in its eyes. Something that might exist in the eyes of the most brutal general, the most ruthless ruler. Touch my kill, and you die! the bird seemed to warn.

Logan didn’t back away; he didn’t move at all.

He knew birds, as he knew the temperament of most animals. If he ran away, the bird would think he should be attacked, just to make sure he did get away from the kill. Come forward and, of course, the bird would fight to protect it. He had to stay still, calm, assured, and not give ground. The falcon would respect that stance, take its prey and leave.

But the bird didn’t leave. It watched Logan for another minute, then cast its head back and let out a shrieking cry. It took a step toward him.

Even feeling intimidated, Logan decided his best move was not to move… .

“I have no fight with you, brother,” he said quietly.

The bird let out another cry. It hopped back to the pigeon, looked at Logan and willfully ripped the second wing off, then spat it out and stared at Logan again.

This was ridiculous, he thought. He’d never seen a peregrine falcon so much as land in his driveway, much less pick a fight with him.

He reached with slow, nonthreatening movements for his gun belt and the Colt .45 holstered there; he had no desire to harm any creature, but neither would he be blinded by a bird that seemed to be harboring an overabundance of testosterone.

As if the bird had known what the gun was, it leaped back.

Logan had the gun aimed. “I don’t want to hurt you, brother bird,” he said. “But if you force my hand, I will.”

The bird seemed to understand him—and to know he meant his words. It gave yet another raucous cry, jumped on the pigeon and soared into flight, taking its prey. Logan watched as the bird disappeared into the western sky.

Curious about the encounter and very surprised by it, he shook his head and turned toward his car again.

He took one step and paused, frowning.

It suddenly looked as if he’d stepped into an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

The Birds.

They were everywhere. They covered the eaves of his house, the trees and the ground, everything around him. They sat on the hood and the roof of his car. Every bird native to the state of Texas seemed to be there, all of them just staring at him. Jays, doves, grackles, blackbirds, crows and even seabirds—a pelican stood in the center of his lawn.

It was bizarre. He was being watched…stalked…by birds!

None made a move toward him.

As he started to walk, a sparrow flapped its wings, moving aside. He continued to his car, wings fluttering around him as the smaller birds made way. When he reached his car door, he opened it slowly, carefully, and then sat behind the wheel, closing the door. He revved the engine and heard scratching noises as the birds atop his car took flight.

Logan eased out of the driveway. As he did so, a whir of black rose with a furious flapping of wings. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, they were gone.

Every last bird was gone.

He looked back at his old mission-style house, wondering if he’d somehow blacked out, had a vision, and yet managed to get into his car. But that was not the case. He didn’t black out. For him, visions were dreams. They occurred only when he slept, and he usually laughed them away. His father’s people believed that all dreams were omens, while his mother’s father—psychiatrist and philosopher William Douglas—believed that dreams or “visions” were arguments within the human psyche. In William’s view, fears and anxiety created alternate worlds seen only in the mind; their role was to help resolve emotional conflicts.

Whichever approach was correct didn’t matter much. He’d seen what he had seen. This hadn’t been a vision or a dream.

But it was odd that it had happened when he was on his way to meet with Jackson Crow, FBI agent and head of the mysterious Krewe of Hunters—a unit both infamous and renowned.

* * *

San Antonio. It was different, that was all. Different.

Kelsey O’Brien looked out the Longhorn Inn’s kitchen window. From here, she could see the walls of the old chapel at the Alamo. The city was bustling, pleasantly warm now that it was spring, and the people she’d met so far were friendly and welcoming.

She still felt like a fish out of water.

That’s what she was missing—the water.

She’d been in San Antonio almost three days and they’d been nice days. San Antonio was a beautiful city. Kelsey actually had a cousin living here, Sean Cameron, but he worked for a special-effects company, and they were currently out in the desert somewhere, trying to reproduce the Alamo as it had once been for a documentary. She was grateful that her old camp friend, Sandy Holly, had bought the historic inn and one-time saloon where she was staying. Sandy made her feel a bit less like a fish out of water, but it was strange not to be within steps of both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Her life—except for summer camp and college upstate—had been spent in the Florida Keys. Where there was water. Lots and lots of water. Of course, they had the river here, and she loved the Riverwalk area, with its interesting places to go and dine and shop. The history of the city appealed to her, too.

It was just…different. And it was going to take some getting used to. Of course, she still had no idea what she was doing here, or if she was going to stay. She might not be in San Antonio long; on the other hand, she could be transferring here. And she might be taking on a different job.

She was a United States Marshal, which meant she worked for a service that might require her to go anywhere. She’d certainly traveled in her life, but the concept that she could be moving here, making a life here, seemed unlikely—not something she would have chosen. Now that it might be happening, she had to remind herself that she’d always known she could be transferred. But her training had been in Miami, and because of her familiarity with Key West, where she had grown up, she’d been assigned, as one of only two Marshals, to the office there. She’d been doing the job for two years now, enjoying an easy camaraderie with Trent Fisher, her coworker. They reported in to the Miami office when required, and occasionally their Miami supervisor came down. Key West was small, and despite the friction that could exist between law enforcement agencies, she’d quickly established excellent working relations with the police and the Coast Guard and the other state and federal agencies with which the two Marshals worked. And then…

Then she’d suddenly ended up here. She was still wondering why, because Archie Lawrence, her supervisor, had been so vague.

“You’re going to love the situation,” Archie had assured her. “You go to this meeting, and then you’ll have a two-week hiatus to decide what you feel about an offer you’re going to receive. So, nothing is definite yet.”

“I’m being given a vacation so I can get an offer and think about it?” That hardly seemed typical of the government. “What’s the offer?” she’d demanded.

“That’s what your meeting is about,” he’d said.

And no amount of indignant questioning or wheedling would convince him to share the details. If he even knew them… “Look, your meeting is with an FBI agent and you may be transferring services,” Archie had told her. “That’s all I’m at liberty to say.”

“Why?” she’d asked him. “I don’t want to change agencies!”

“Hey, it’s come down from the brass, kiddo, and it sounds unusual—two federal agencies getting together on a friendly basis. Hallelujah!” Archie rolled his eyes. “No one’s going to force you to change. You’re being presented with an opportunity. You can say no. I mean it. If you don’t like this offer, you have the option to pack up and come home, with no harm done to your status here. So quit asking me questions. Go away. Don’t darken my door—for the time being, anyway. You have things to do, arrangements to make.” He’d sent her one of his lopsided grins. She liked Archie and considered him a great boss. He was always easygoing until he went into “situation” mode and then he could spew out orders faster and with more precision than the toughest drill sergeant.

Sometimes, of course, she wondered what Archie really thought of her. She was good at her job, although some of her methods were a bit unexpected. Luckily, a lot of criminals were still sexist. They didn’t realize that a woman could and would hold them to task, shoot with uncanny aim and manage handcuffs with ease. But she’d felt Archie’s eyes on her a few times when she hadn’t really been able to explain the intuition that had led to her discovery of a cache of drugs, a hiding place—or a dead body. She even wondered if he was hoping she’d take another position.

Today, soon, she’d attend a meeting with a man from the FBI: He had an offer for her that presumably had to do with the unique abilities she’d shown during her two years with the government, and due to the status of this particular branch of service, various government offices were cooperating. On the one hand, she felt like telling someone that if she’d wanted to work for the FBI, she would have applied to the FBI. But she was curious, and she wasn’t prone to be difficult; it was just the mystery of the situation.