The Unseen

Chapter Four

A murder could be easier to solve than the case of a missing person, Kelsey reflected. When a body was discovered, there was a chance to collect evidence and—usually—a trail to follow. When a person had simply disappeared, you had to assume someone must have seen something, but finding that someone was often next to impossible.

The files they’d been given contained all the known information about Vanessa Johnston, who was last seen purchasing gas at a station near the county line.

She’d spoken briefly with a young cashier when she had gone in to buy coffee, saying she was excited about going to San Antonio, and then she’d gotten back into her Honda and driven off. Neither she nor the car had been seen since.

Her cell phone records indicated that she’d made no calls. Nor had she used her charge card again.

“A car has to show up somewhere,” Kelsey murmured aloud to herself.

There was a tap on her door. She was in bed—having moved into Room 207—and she rose up, leaning against her pillow.

“Kelsey?” Sandy called.

“Come on in,” Kelsey said.

She hadn’t had a chance to speak with Sandy since she’d gotten back; the inn was now full, and there’d been a number of bartenders and waitresses in the busy downstairs area, along with the singer who was reprising old tunes with a piano player. The saloon had been bustling. She’d been glad, since she wasn’t ready to share anything about her day. Yet.

When she’d returned, however, Corey Simmons had been waiting for her, hoping to buy her a drink. She’d declined. Sandy had packed up his belongings, brought them to Kelsey’s room, then packed up Kelsey’s stuff. He wanted to thank her, he’d said rather sheepishly, for moving into Room 207.

“Hey, just wanted to make sure you’re okay in here,” Sandy told her, stepping inside. Sandy was wearing an apron, since she’d pitched in with the serving downstairs.

Kelsey smiled. “I’m fine, absolutely fine. Nothing’s going to happen to me in this room,” she assured Sandy.

Sandy let out a soft sigh. “Well, thank you. You were wonderful. I can hardly believe Corey decided to stay here.”

“Well, you know, if the inn’s filling up and someone else wants this room, I can always go to another hotel,” Kelsey told her.

“No! You’re staying right here. I’m not renting this room to macho men, cowboys or hunters. I’m keeping things calm. I have to make a living on this place!”

“Okay, then, not to worry. I’ll stay, and I’ll be just fine,” Kelsey said again.

“So, how did your day go? What’s up? What was the big meeting about?”

“Well…I’ve been asked to join the FBI,” Kelsey said.

“Really? Wow! I didn’t know the FBI went out and asked people to join it! Don’t they have an application process and training, and all that?”

“I imagine that’s the usual case.”

“Wow. You must be special!”

Kelsey shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know about that.”

“Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why you? I mean, honestly, I think that’s amazing!” Sandy said.

“I am a United States Marshal,” Kelsey reminded her. “I have all the training that went along with that, and they’re both federal agencies.”

Even with Sandy, she didn’t want to talk about the reasons. And, in fact, those reasons hadn’t actually been discussed. Oddly enough, it hadn’t been necessary. They’d all understood.

“I don’t really know,” she lied.

Sandy came in and perched on the foot of her bed. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” she said evasively. “Sandy, forgive me, but I’m not at liberty to discuss any of this yet.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! Of course not. I’d just love it, though, if you moved to Texas. I mean, I know you love your home and all, but Texas is a great state.”

Kelsey made a point of casually closing the folder she’d been reading, then sat up straighter in bed. “I’ll make a decision by tomorrow.”

“And you can live right here!” Sandy said excitedly.

Kelsey laughed. “Don’t worry, the scuttlebutt about the room will die out. Or you can bring in one of those ghost expedition groups. Either way, you’ll get lots of business. But I’ll probably stay for a while. So, thank you.”

“This is great,” Sandy said happily, as if it was all settled. “I know Sean is off working now, but you have a cousin here. And you have me. It’ll be like home.”

“I’m sure it will.” Despite herself, Kelsey yawned.

Sandy stood quickly. “Okay, well, I’ll let you get some sleep. But I’m so thrilled you’re going to be here! Yay!” She walked to the door. “Good night.”

“Good night. Thanks, Sandy.”

When Sandy had gone, Kelsey got out of bed and went to the door. She hadn’t thought to lock it earlier; now she did.

She looked at the files again, but she really was tired. Facts, figures and faces were beginning to swim before her eyes. She left the bathroom light on, but turned off the others, set the files on the bedside table and slipped back into bed.

She should’ve realized she wasn’t going to sleep well that night… .

At first she felt as if she’d been disturbed by the sound of someone whispering. It was annoying, but not enough to completely wake her. Then she began to see it all again. The room changing, ever so slightly. The Oriental divider by the bathroom door.

She noticed something different about the darkness with the glow of just the bathroom light.

No, there was a gas lamp burning.

Kelsey saw the two people in the room, the man and the woman. She, so beautiful with her dark curling hair piled atop her head and tumbling around her face with a few stray dark locks. The dress lay on the floor, and the woman wore old-fashioned stockings and garters. The man stood in his dark suit.

As he’d done in her earlier vision, he strode across the room and grabbed the woman. “You won’t hold out on me!” he shouted. “I want it, and I want it now.”

“I don’t have it,” she said.

“You’re a liar! I know what happened in Galveston that night, and I know that your pretty-boy lover won it. I want it, and I want it now!”

“No, it’s mine,” she responded.

The rest of the scene played itself out, just as it had earlier that day.

When the man squeezed the life out of the woman, she went limp. He picked her up and threw her down, the same way he had before.

Then they both disappeared into the darkness. Seconds later, light began to show from the bathroom and the room resumed its earlier appearance. She’d been unable to move; she’d really never wakened.

A tiny light seemed to hover directly in front of her. She realized she was seeing a woman’s face. In dream, in vision, in half sleep, in the tormented corners of her mind, she saw a face. She thought it would be Rose Langley, the pathetic creature murdered in this room.

But it wasn’t. It was a face she’d seen in a picture that day.

The face of the missing girl, Vanessa Johnston. She wasn’t smiling now. She was sad. She looked at Kelsey and whispered, “Too late.”

Too late, too late, too late…

There was a whir of flapping black wings in the room, and the sound they made seemed to mock the words that had been spoken.

Too late, too late, too late…

The flapping stopped, and the wings seemed to merge and create a shape.

A man.

She saw him only as a silhouette at first. Then he turned to her, his expression grave. It was Logan Raintree, so tall and lean and solid, his face like chiseled marble, his hazel eyes alive and burning.

“You saw a man?” he asked her.

She heard wings again, and now she seemed to be outside. The black birds, the crows, settling all around them, on the ground, the benches and the nearby power lines and poles.

And then he was gone, and the darkness swept around her.

When she woke in the morning, she remembered her dream about the murder of Rose Langley, her vision of Vanessa Johnston.

And the appearance of Logan Raintree in her room.

Surrounded by crows.

* * *

The Bexar County morgue was large, and a special room had been set aside for the victims who might have been associated with a single killer.

Jackson Crow did have all the right connections. Logan had been at the morgue often enough in years gone by, and he was familiar with various members of the staff. But he’d never seen anything like the way people scurried for Jackson Crow, nor had he been there when an entire facility was dedicated to one pursuit.

There were eight gurneys in the room. Each had a sheet draped over the length of a body.

One sheet was almost flat. He assumed it covered a victim who was little more than bones.

One of the bodies had already been in the morgue, along with those of Chelsea Martin and Tara Grissom. Five others had been exhumed. They walked from gurney to gurney with Dr. Frazier Gaylord, medical examiner. He carried a clipboard with his notes on the remains of Chelsea and Tara—and the unknowns. The unknowns, of course, had been buried by the county and exhumed by the county, but they had numbers rather than names. Gaylord was thorough in his discussion of each one. Logan kept silent as he followed Jackson and Kelsey. The first body was skeletal and the second had no discernible features. Medical reports indicated that all the women had been between twenty-two and thirty-five; none had borne children. Hair proved to be of every color. Five had been Caucasian and two were Hispanic. One, according to Gaylord, was Asian—Logan didn’t ask what had given him that impression. The girl still had a pretty face beneath the damage and decay. “Or possibly American Indian?” he suggested.

“No, I believe she was Chinese,” Gaylord told him. “Based on the set of the skull and the cast of the eyes. There’s enough left…as you can see.”

Kelsey O’Brien hadn’t said a word. He liked that about her. If she had a question, she asked it. If she didn’t, she listened. Absorbed.

“I’m puzzled as to why you’ve put these deaths together,” Gaylord mused, looking at Jackson Crow, “since the cause of death isn’t consistent.” He glanced at his notes. “There are nicks on this woman’s skeletal remains, suggesting that she was stabbed to death. Broken hyoid bone in the next one suggests strangulation. The young woman over there—” he pointed to the farthest gurney “—was drowned. So, we have, in our collection of Jane Does, two strangulations, three stabbings and a drowning. And, then, of course, we get to the bodies of the two young women who have been identified, Chelsea Martin and Tara Grissom. This is a big city, and that means big-city crime. These poor souls might have encountered any member of the criminal element. Or they might have been murdered by someone in a fit of anger.”

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