The Unseen

Chapter Three

This is not going to work! Kelsey thought.

Jackson Crow seemed pleasant enough, like a man who could be a team player. But Logan Raintree seemed almost hostile. Except that he’d pitched in with information about the Longhorn and he’d also risen to her defense when Crow had been hammering away about what she’d seen at the inn. Still, it was pretty obvious that he didn’t want to be a member of any team, and if he wasn’t part of the team—was there a team? There would be a task force, she supposed. Now that the FBI had become aware of the number of corpses, there’d have to be. The fact that a serial killer was suspected of targeting the area was bound to become known, and the public would demand it.

But did she want to be part of it?

Something inside her wanted to recoil. And something else wanted to go with the two men, go and look at the available evidence.

So she went. She had certainly seen violence and death as a U.S. Marshal. Gun battles happened on the open sea when drug traffickers found themselves under siege. Bodies were dragged out of the Gulf and the Atlantic. She’d seen the ugly side of human nature. Despite that, the murders of the women seemed far more horrific than the cold and impersonal violence she most frequently witnessed. Cocaine dealers shot their rivals and their enemies—people who worked for the law.

True, she’d found those bones in Key West… . And because she had, the victim had been identified, and a family had learned the sad truth.

She forced herself to appear cool, professional, stoic as they reached the police station and passed through the outer areas, where petty offenders were being booked. San Antonio was not without its share of prostitutes and thieves, and a number of them were being interviewed, along with traffic offenders and others brought in by the police for their various misdeeds. But Jackson Crow barely noticed them. With a brief word to the desk sergeant, he led her and Logan through a hallway to a large room enclosed by smoked glass. Within that room were several desks, a free-standing, forty-inch computer screen, a small lab area, a board with marker notes and a private snack station with a large coffeepot and a small refrigerator and microwave oven. It was almost its own little fortress.

This could be her place. For now at least.

A man sat at one of the desks, but rose when they all entered. He was tall and striking in a lanky, easy way, and was quick to shake their hands when Jackson introduced him as Jake Mallory. On Jackson’s own team, he was adept with cameras, recorders and, he admitted dryly, a guitar.

“Only one member of your team’s here,” Logan pointed out.

“I told you,” Jackson Crow said. “We’re stretched too thin. There’s been a murder at an old hotel in D.C. Some of my people are there.”

Logan Raintree merely nodded.

“So what do you have?” Kelsey asked Jake Mallory.

“You’ve given them the information about Chelsea Martin and Tara Grissom?” Jake asked Crow.

Again, Crow nodded. Jake sat at his computer and hit a key. The large screen against the far wall came to life. “That’s Chelsea Martin on the left, Tara Grissom on the right,” he said. “Both photos were taken a few months before they disappeared.”

No matter how long a person worked in law enforcement, Kelsey thought, it was heartbreaking to see the image of a young woman in life—and to know how that life had ended. Chelsea Martin had huge blue eyes and dark brown hair. Tara Grissom was a blonde, with green eyes. Chelsea’s face had been round, while Tara’s was slim with high cheekbones. Chelsea peered out at them, smiling. The close-up had been cropped, and it looked as if her face had been taken from a picture with kids in it. She’d presumably had her arms around some of them. They must’ve been children she’d taught. Tara’s picture had probably been a publicity photo, because it had a neutral background and she smiled at them from a posed angle.

“These are the young women we know, and they’re at the morgue, along with six we have yet to identify,” Jake said. “The killer isn’t going for a particular look, or not that we can pin down from these two, at any rate. One’s a brunette, the other a blonde. One was plump, and one was lean. And although we haven’t identified the other remains, there’s hair on most of them, or remnants of hair, and the colors vary.” He cleared his throat. “I was listening to Chelsea’s last phone conversation when you arrived.”

“Her phone conversation? How was it recorded?” Logan asked. “If her friend answered the phone, there wouldn’t be a recording.”

“Apparently, she answered right when the recording began. We got lucky. Nancy McCall had an old-fashioned answering machine,” Jake said. “It’s strange—I’ve been isolating sounds on the tape, but…well, you want to listen to the original recording first?”

Crow nodded.

“This is the conversation,” Jake said, hitting another key.

Chelsea Martin, with her wide cheeks and big eyes, smiled at them from the screen as they listened. “Nancy! Hey!” said her voice, sweet and excited.

“You were supposed to call me when you landed,” came the reply.

“I’m sorry. I went straight to the Alamo, which is crazy, ’cause I’m dragging around a bag and all. But I had to come here! I’ve read so much about it, so many stories about the siege and the battle and the people who were here…oh! Too funny! There’s a man in costume. I’ve been flirting with him. He’s pretty cute, too!”

Before her friend could respond, another voice broke in. It was deep and husky, and had a rattling sound, almost as if someone were speaking through a mouthful of dust.

“Come away, come away, now. You’re in danger!”

They heard Chelsea giggle. “The battle’s over,” she said.

“You’re in danger,” the rattling voice said again, “Please, listen to me.”

That voice. Kelsey had been in dire situations several times, but she couldn’t remember when any sound had caused such a chill to suddenly sweep through her.

“Nancy, I think a ghost is playing with me,” Chelsea said, and she laughed again.

“Chelsea, what’s going on?” her friend asked.

“I—”

And that was it. Silence. For a moment, those in the room were silent, as well.

“And just how do you figure the third voice got on the phone?” Logan Raintree asked. His voice was hard and cold. “For it to be that clear, he had to have his mouth right next to the phone. What did the friend say when you questioned her about it?”

“I called Nancy McCall earlier this afternoon,” Jake said. “She didn’t hear the other voice when she spoke to Chelsea, and she has no idea how it can be so clear on the recording—or even how it managed to record at all. I told you, I’ve been isolating sounds, but I can’t separate this voice from Chelsea’s when I try to bring them onto different frequencies. I just played you the original. I can isolate Chelsea’s voice, and you’ll hear that it’s still in there.”

He played the recording again.

Afterward, Jackson walked over to Jake’s desk, which held a pile of folders. He picked up two of them. “Take these,” he said, handing one to Logan and one to Kelsey. “They have all the information we’ve got on Chelsea and Tara, and the times and dates the six unidentified bodies were discovered. Please take a look at the folders. If you decide to join the team, I’d like you to come to the morgue with me tomorrow.”

“Have those bodies been there all this time?” Logan asked.

“No. We’ve exhumed them,” Jackson told him. “They were buried by the city as unknowns.”

Logan shook his head, eyes narrowed. His expression was impassive, and yet Kelsey felt that some kind of emotion was seething inside him. “Why now?” he asked. If he exploded, he’d be frightening.

Yet she was equally certain that he never just exploded. He controlled himself at all times.

“It’s in the folder,” Jackson said.

Next, Jake passed out pages he’d obviously printed for them. “I was looking up information on another case when I found out that a young woman, Vanessa Johnston, has recently disappeared—on her way here,” he told them. “Right now, she’s a missing person. She was driving in. Neither she nor her Honda has been seen since she stopped at a gas station near the county line. I brought the problem to Jackson’s attention. Everything’s on those sheets I gave you.”

Kelsey slipped hers inside the folder.

“I spoke with your captain about this case, Raintree,” Jackson was saying. “And he invited us in.”

Kelsey watched as Logan Raintree nodded curtly and headed toward the door.

He paused and turned to face them. “What time are we going to the morgue?” he asked.

“9:00 a.m.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

He left the room.

“I’d like to hear the recording again, please,” Kelsey said.

She found a chair at one of the empty desks and sat, listening as Jake replayed it. Once more she felt the strange chill, but along with the sense of fear and dread, she felt…

A sense of something being oddly right. Not about the recording. About her. She might miss the water, miss home, miss being a Marshal, but she knew she could help on this case. And she wanted to.

She held her folder with hands that seemed to freeze around it. When the recording finished, both men were watching her.

“Nine?” she asked. She’d heard Jackson the first time. She’d just needed to say something.

“Yes,” Jackson said. “I’ll pick you up at the Longhorn.”

“One more thing.” Jake touched a key. The picture on the large computer screen changed.

Another young woman of about twenty-five smiled out at her. She was wearing a tiara on sandy-colored hair.

“That’s our missing girl,” he said. “Vanessa Johnston. Last year’s Miss Maple Queen of Montpelier, Vermont.”

Kelsey rose. “I’ll have these read by tomorrow and be completely up to speed,” she told Crow. “I’m in, provided you still want this team to exist if Raintree opts out.”

She was surprised when Crow smiled grimly. “He’ll be at the morgue tomorrow, and he won’t opt out.”

Kelsey decided not to answer. Raintree hadn’t looked as if he planned to agree. Not in her opinion, anyway.

But then, maybe she was better at understanding the dead than the living.

“Good afternoon,” she said. And she left the two men, still feeling the same sense of dread.

And the same sense of purpose.

* * *

Logan drove straight to his own office. Others greeted him as he walked through the main room, both those sworn in as Texas Rangers and civilians busy at other tasks. The world hadn’t changed for any of them; they waved at him, smiled, chatted. He went to Captain Aaron Bentley’s office, tapped on the door, but walked in without waiting for an answer. Bentley was on the phone. He was a big man with snow-white hair, as rugged-looking as any man who’d ever run a Texas Ranger division.

Bentley seemed to be expecting him. He lifted a hand in greeting and ended his conversation.

“What the hell did you send me into, sir?” Logan demanded.

“Sit down,” Bentley told him. Logan stood there stiffly for a minute, then sighed and took the chair in front of Bentley’s desk. “Sir—”

“Oh, don’t ‘sir’ me,” Bentley said. “We’ve been together too long for that.”

“I’ve been good at my job,” Logan said.

“You have.”

“So…”

“So, I’m trying to get you onto a team where you can really be of service. Is that going to be on the Texas level or on the national level?” Bentley murmured. “I had to ask myself where you could do the most good, Logan. And if I’m honest, it’s with this new team. Your instincts have helped us in hundreds of cases. You have the sort of mind that reads others, and you’ve predicted the course of a perp’s actions a dozen times. I thought we’d lost you after Alana died, but you headed out to that rock you love so much and your grandfather’s place, and you came back stronger. I’d like to keep you, but when the request comes down from the top of the food chain, you do what you need to do.”

“I’m told I have a choice.”

“You do. You have time to think about this.”

“What time? Captain, do you know what’s been going on? And if I’m so damned good at this kind of thing, why the hell didn’t I know?”

“The FBI has just shared its information,” Bentley said. “We’re in process of analyzing it, and supplying them with whatever info we can find. Every law enforcement agency in the area will be on the hunt now. But, Logan, you…”

Bentley’s voice trailed off. Bentley’s voice never trailed off. Logan knew they were both thinking about the same thing—what had happened with Alana.

“The Rangers have changed over the years, Raintree,” Bentley said, recovering his voice. “We’re a true law enforcement agency under the Texas Department of Safety. You know as well as I do that we’re actually older than Texas as a republic, a state, a Confederate state and a U.S. state again. Hell, when Stephen Austin organized Rangers to protect the frontier while the Anglos were first moving in, we were frontier guards, and that was our business for a long time. Then we battled the Mexican government, and the Native American tribes, and the outlaws. We kept peace on the frontier until there was no more frontier. We had our valiant moments in the sun, and we were some of Zachary Taylor’s finest troops in the Mexican-American war. At times we also acted like a law unto ourselves. Those days are over—for all their brilliance. We’re a respected law enforcement agency. We serve a higher god, you might say. And that’s the thing, Logan. No matter how you look at it, we’re part of the greater good.”

He had neatly sidestepped the real conversation.

Alana.

Logan remained silent.

“Logan, the feds have way more power than I can ever have or give,” he said in a resigned voice. “And this team the government wants to set up—it has a direct connection to the most powerful law enforcement men in the country. Anything that can be done within constitutional limits will be done. Warrants achieved at all hours of the day or night. In any city, any state of the Union. The right to cross geographical boundaries to chase the truth. I’ve heard that the man responsible for creating these teams has the White House on speed dial. But more than that, Logan, they have what you need, and you have what they need.”

He had what they needed.

Sitting there, he suddenly felt defeated. Nothing seemed real. He’d been pretending that his life could return to normal. Playing at being a good Ranger, following the clues, investigating leads. If he didn’t think about Alana, he could look back on his life as if it were history, as distant as the events at the Alamo.

“It’s a unique opportunity,” Bentley said.

Logan didn’t have anything more to say to Bentley. Except this, “I still have time,” he said as he rose from his chair.

“Yes.”

He exited the office, pausing at the door to turn around. “Thanks, Captain.”

“Raintree, you’re a great officer. I’ll be sorry to lose you.”

Logan didn’t deny that Bentley had lost him. But he wasn’t sure yet. He’d know in the morning.

* * *

Kelsey couldn’t decide where to go.

Her mind was spinning. She should get back to the Longhorn, log on to her computer and look up everything she could find on Jackson Crow and Adam Harrison and the Krewe of Hunters. But she wasn’t ready to go back yet; she wasn’t ready for questions or even for Corey Simmons and the ghosts of a century gone.

She needed to mull over the meeting.

She parked her rental car by the Alamo. She’d taken the tour several days ago. But there was something special about the place, an aura of a certain time, the acts of men who’d changed history.

And she couldn’t forget the recording she’d just heard. Chelsea Martin at the Alamo, laughing at first, happy as she talked to a friend. Then…gone.

And now…

Dead.

She wandered aimlessly for a while, watching as a group worked with schoolchildren, reenacting what had occurred at the fort. She gathered that one man was playing the role of Davy Crockett, and another, that of twenty-six-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Travis, who’d run the battle—since his co-commander, Jim Bowie, was in bed, probably dying, and probably of tuberculosis. A few men were playing other defenders, those who hadn’t gone down in history with such giant names and reputations, but who had died there nonetheless.

She listened to them, impressed. The actors were doing a brilliant job, bringing the situation to life. The men they portrayed were tired. They spoke of day-to-day things—their meals, scouting expeditions, their exhaustion, their desire for more comfortable beds.

She was so busy watching them that she hardly noticed when a man sat next to her. Then she caught sight of him in her peripheral vision, and became instantly aware. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was.

There was no mistaking Logan Raintree. The best of many cultures had mixed in his face, a face as cleanly sculpted as a marble bust, with high broad cheekbones and a determined chin. He wasn’t beautiful, but he was one of the most imposing men she’d ever met. The ever-simmering energy within him added a vitality and heat that made him even more intriguing, more attractive.

Seductive. She immediately tried to wipe that thought from her mind.

She didn’t speak but gazed at him solemnly. He’d known she was there. He hadn’t walked away when he saw her. Quite the opposite—he’d joined her.

She was almost shocked when he smiled at her. “I’d like to apologize, Marshal O’Brien. I’ve been an ass.”

She smiled in response. “Um, apology accepted. Except…you weren’t that bad,” she said with a laugh.

“What made you come here?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “It’s not that far from the Longhorn, where I’m staying. I wasn’t ready to go back and answer a bunch of questions about the meeting. I needed time.”

He nodded, looking toward the chapel. “I wondered if you’d come here because this is where Chelsea Martin was last seen.”

“It might’ve had something to do with that.”

“You going to accept Jackson Crow’s offer?” he asked her.

“I…don’t know. Maybe. You?”

“This morning, I would’ve given him a definite no. Now…I’m not sure. Either way, I want to find out what there is to see at the morgue tomorrow.”

She felt a tightening inside. Yes. The morgue.

They were both silent for a minute. Then he began to speak, his tone relaxed.

“The Alamo’s a shrine,” he said softly. “Of course, it’s different than it was at the time of the battle. The chapel and this area—including the long barracks—was just a small part of the original Alamo,” Logan explained. “The walls extended for a quarter of a mile. In fact, that was one of the problems for the defenders once Santa Anna’s men breeched the walls—the place was too big to protect easily. The men who fought here fought hard, and they fought knowing they were likely to die.” He glanced at her. “Courage is being afraid—and going ahead, anyway.”

Kelsey nodded in agreement.

“Santa Anna had his men raise a red flag in a nearby church tower, and that bloodred flag indicated there’d be no quarter given. But, of course, the Alamo was part of a bigger story, and like most history, it depends on who is doing the telling. The Spanish had been in control. They’d signed a treaty ceding Florida to the U.S. and creating a boundary between the United States and Spanish America. But before that, men called impresarios, Stephen Austin among them, had been luring Americans into Texas with land grants that required no down payment. Then the Mexicans fought the Spanish for independence and won. Santa Anna become president, or more accurately, dictator. Texians or Anglo-Americans, and Tejanos, Mexican-Texans, had been living under the Constitution of 1824 until Santa Anna rescinded it and pretty much pissed them all off.”

“Which led to what happened here,” she said, absorbed in what he was telling her.

“Right. But a lot of movies about the Alamo forgot to depict the Tejanos who were part of the effort—and part of the effort to create an independent Texas. Some of the early books and movies about the Alamo were downright racist. The good old Anglo-Americans were the heroes, while the Tejanos who fought just as hard were ignored. I’m glad to say we’re moving past that.” He smiled slightly. “But it’s also true that regardless of background, these men weren’t on some idealistic mission for freedom and honor. They were like most of us—looking for a way to make a better life for themselves.”

“And there would’ve been no Texas without both groups,” Kelsey remarked.

His smile deepened. “Santa Anna miscalculated. He thought that his ‘no quarter given’ policy would scare off the revolutionaries. Instead, ‘Remember the Alamo!’ became a battle cry. Soon after, the massacre at Goliad occurred. Santa Anna had everyone there executed, and the war became one of revenge as well as Texan independence. Of course, if they’d lost, the whole thing would’ve been described as the Mexicans putting down an uprising by a group of rebels.”