Marc Kimball had joined them—his dressing gown was more elegant than the rest, made of an exceptionally fine fabric. And, of course, the minute he was out, his little assistant, Emmy, came running out as well, and more state police seemed to materialize from nowhere.
Clara felt like a deer caught in blinding headlights.
Marc Kimball broke through to set his hands sympathetically on her shoulders. “I’m so sorry. What can I do to help you through this ghastly night?”
She tried desperately to think quickly, wishing that sensations and emotions were not racing through her like wildfire. The image of Amelia Carson had just disappeared again—right when the state cop had come to stand exactly where she had been.
It might have been a projected image?
She lowered her head—also feeling clammy and almost dirty somehow because Marc Kimball was touching her, because it seemed that she breathed in something that wasn’t evil, but...
Slimy.
“Clara,” Jackson said, coming through the crowd. “I guess we’re all having trouble trying to get some sleep. Perhaps, since you’re awake, you wouldn’t mind coming into the office? I think you might be able to give me a hand with something—a timetable?”
She had lost her mind for a few minutes there. No way in hell would Jackson Crow be involved in such a farce and no way in hell would he chance anything ridiculous for his precious Krewe of Hunters.
She swallowed hard, wanting to scream and shake off Marc Kimball’s touch. Thor Erikson had risen and done so in such a way that he forced Marc Kimball back.
She didn’t particularly want to feel she owed the man in any way, but at that moment, she was eternally grateful.
“I’m so sorry—I had no idea I was speaking so loudly,” she said to everyone. “Forgive me. Please, try to get back to sleep. Jackson, of course I’ll help,” she added, looking over at him.
“Come on, folks, break it all up!” Mike Aklaq said.
They all began to disperse.
“Really, Miss Avery, if there’s anything...” Marc Kimball said.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” she told him. And she fled toward Jackson. She realized that her three friends—Simon, Ralph and Larry—looked at her with grave concern.
“I’m all right, I swear!” she whispered to Larry as she passed him.
Following Jackson to the office, she heard Becca speaking with one of the policemen. “Please, this is rough. If you’ll really keep an eye on my door...”
“Of course, Miss Marle,” one of the officers assured her.
Then Clara found herself in the office with Jackson—and Thor Erikson and Mike Aklaq. She wound up seated on the sofa that faced the desk; the three men were perched on the edge of it, arms folded over their chests, looking at her with grave expressions.
“Clara, what happened?” Jackson asked her.
“I think maybe the, uh, the film crew is still at it somehow,” Clara managed. “I saw Amelia—I saw Amelia Carson in the kitchen. Twice. And she was...she was in one piece. I’m sorry. I guess I freaked out. I assumed that maybe all of you were in on it.”
“She thought I was a stripper!” Thor said indignantly.
“There are many legitimate places where people work,” Clara said, cringing inwardly.
Jackson and Mike both laughed. “Stripper!” Mike repeated, grinning. “Hey, there, Magic Mike!”
Thor looked at him, a brow hiked.
“I’m sorry!” Clara said again.
“No one is playing tricks here,” Jackson said quietly.
Clara winced, lowering her head. “So, she’s—real. As in really dead—and really a ghost?” she whispered.
She’d have given her eyeteeth for Alexi to be there. Alexi took all such things in stride; she believed that ghosts had come to help her on the Destiny.
“The thing is,” Thor said, coming to hunch down before her, causing her to meet his eyes, “Amelia apparently thinks you can help her. She appeared before you.”
“You saw her!” she told him. “I know that you saw her!”
Clara hoped he would deny it.
He did not.
“Yes, I saw her because...”
“He saw her because he can see the dead,” Jackson said flatly. “Actually, many people can. Most of them never know it. Some feel a presence. Some actually see things. And some—well, I guess the dead pick and choose who they wish to speak with, just like the living. And the dead are like the living—some can barely appear. Some can learn to shift the air and make noise, even to move small objects, while some cannot. I know you’re aware that Alexi has always quietly had something extra. You know about the Destiny.”
She was surprised when Thor set a hand gently on her knee. “It’s hard to grasp. When you’re older...an adult. I knew very young that I saw things that others didn’t. That I heard things. That dreams could be warnings, the dead entering our subconscious minds. It’s hard. Truly hard. But, once you let yourself accept that while a large majority of the world might think you’re crazy despite the fact that you’re not at all, it gets easier.”
“And you find that you can embrace it—and do a lot of good with it,” Jackson said.
Thor was looking at her earnestly. She looked back at him and shook her head.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why would she come to me? Members of her film crew are here. You all are here...people she could just chat with at will, apparently!”
Thor glanced at Jackson before looking at her and answering. “She might not trust the members of her own crew.”
Clara sat in silence for a minute.
“We need you to be open to her,” Jackson said.
“What?” she asked.
“Amelia may well know her killer,” Thor said.
Clara looked at him. She was amazed that this strong and serious man could be speaking to her about ghosts.
Then again, she’d wanted to believe that he was a stripper/actor and that it was all make-believe.
“So,” she said, slowly and carefully, “you think that this ghost will just walk up to me and tell me who killed her? And then you’ll make an arrest and go to court and convince a jury to convict someone on a ghost’s testimony?”
“No, but if Amelia approached you, she did so for a reason,” Thor replied.
She let that settle in and then she said, “You want me to go back to bed by myself and just wait and see if the ghost shows up—in my dreams? Or, um, in person?” she asked.
“Of course not,” Thor said, the corners of his mouth turning up. He actually had a nice smile. To her surprise, he kept smiling gently as he smoothed a strand of hair back out of her eyes. “We don’t mean to terrify or make anyone miserable. Do you think you could get some rest on the couch here? Either Jackson, Mike or I will be in the office at all times.”
It beat the hell out of lying alone in a shadowy room by herself!
She nodded. “If, uh...if you think I can help,” she murmured.
She didn’t really want to help—no, that wasn’t true. She’d love to help. She just didn’t think that she could.
She didn’t want to see the dead—that was the issue.
But neither did she want to be alone, not now. Not in the Alaska Hut, where she was afraid of the dead—and made very uneasy by the living. As in Marc Kimball.
“I’ll get a pillow and blanket,” Mike said.
“And we need to move back into taking shifts in the spare room,” Jackson told him.
“You go on,” Thor told Jackson, rising to his feet. “Mike got about an hour or so of sleep already. I’ll sit with Miss Avery.” He smiled at Clara. “It will be getting light soon—morning twilight, that’s what we call it.”
“Shadow time,” Mike said. He shrugged. “You know i
t’s all because of the sun on the horizon. Twilight comes when the sun is rising, and when it sets. It’s right when the ball of the sun slips down past the horizon of wherever you may be in the world.”
She nodded, trying a smile herself. It was weak. “I was anxious to come to Alaska,” she told him. “The pictures I had seen were so beautiful, and friends who have sailed these cruises told me there was nothing like it. I came up here early to see the sights and I stayed awake the first night to marvel at the amount of light there could be in a day.”
“And darkness in winter,” Thor murmured. “But, lucky for us, it is still summer.”
Lucky. Easier to catch a killer in the light? Wasn’t everything easier when one could see clearly?
Just as she had clearly seen a ghost?
Mike stepped out and Jackson paused by her. “You’re going to be okay?”
She nodded.
Jackson left. Mike returned with a pillow and blanket. She thanked him and adjusted them on the sofa, then lay down.
“Try to rest,” Thor said.
He sat behind the desk. She realized that he was studying something on the computer—studying it so intently that he might have forgotten that she was there.
She readjusted; she didn’t want to interrupt him, but she was unnerved and didn’t feel much like sleeping.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry. Just restless.”
“You should try to get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
He looked up from the computer. “Yeah, I know the feeling,” he said.
“Have you always—seen the dead?” she asked him.
He hesitated, lowered his head and seemed to be smiling again. She noted that he really was exceptional.
Stripper. Great.
But she could imagine him with a Viking helmet and sword—and a bunch of furs!
“Always,” he murmured, and shrugged. “I don’t really know. I had one Norse grandmother I spent time with and she loved to believe that there were different places where the soul lingered once the body was gone or used up. She was Catholic—she didn’t believe in ancient Gods or myths. But, like most people, she had her own way of believing. Since I was a kid, I would have hunches or gut feelings, and I would see things in dreams—real ones and daydreams. Jackson and I worked well together because...because we didn’t ask each other a lot of questions. When one of us had a strong feeling, we went with it.”
“When one of you talked to the dead?” she whispered.
Once again, he was vague. “Speaking to the dead—seeing or feeling something that others didn’t. Whatever. It has worked for both of us. Jackson became part of the Krewe of Hunters... I’ve worked in my own way. Thing is, we’ve both always gone the way we felt we needed to go. Alaska was home. I believed I needed to be here. It’s kind of a like an often frozen Wild, Wild West. And Jackson felt strongly he needed to move in another direction. It’s good to see him again, good to be with him again. Especially now.”
“Now—because of this?” Clara asked.
He hesitated. There was something more, and it was obvious, but he wasn’t going to say. Clara wasn’t sure why, but in that moment, she decided he wasn’t such a jerk.
“This is pretty bad,” he said quietly. “You should try to get some rest.”
He was dismissing her; he wanted quiet. Fine. She laid her head down.
Then she bolted back up.
“Footage! Film footage! Everything at the Mansion was being filmed. Maybe if you get that film footage, you’ll find the killer on it—find out if Amelia made it to the Mansion before she met up with the killer. You can see if—”
She broke off; her eyes locked with his.
She felt like a fool.
“You’ve already gone through all the footage, right?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
“What’s on it?”
“The Wickedly Weird crew mugging in front of various cameras to check them out, and your friends—Ralph, Simon and Larry—arriving, freaking out, screaming and leaving. And then there’s footage of you. Silent—seeing the place—freezing and then leaving.”
“Yes, but I know that someone was upstairs. I heard footsteps!” Clara protested.
He hesitated. “Possibly.”
“What do you mean, possibly?” Maybe he was a jerk after all!
“The camera upstairs clicked off about two hours before you got to the house,” he said.
“Yes, but doesn’t that prove my point? Someone was there—someone who turned off the cameras!”
“We have tech people working on that possibility now.”
Screw resting; she was angry. “I told you that someone was in there. Do you really think that I made that up, that I’m a liar?” she demanded.
“No,” he told her impatiently. “It’s possible that you were completely unnerved and imagined that someone was in there. Whoever killed Amelia Carson didn’t do so at the Mansion. There’s no real reason to suspect that the killer was ever in there. He might have known what was going on and had no reason to go in.”
“So I just panicked and ran?” she demanded.
He sighed, trying to hide his impatience. “The main-floor cameras were working fine. You can’t get upstairs until you’ve been downstairs. Look, this is no insult to you. I’ve been with the Bureau for fifteen years—that scene at the Mansion was horrific and damned real.”
She knew that her eyes narrowed and her voice was strained and harsh. “I’m not an idiot who imagines things.” Except I’ve just seen a dead woman! she thought.
“That isn’t what I’m suggesting.”
“But it is!”
“Miss Avery,” he said, clearly growing agitated as well, “I don’t know what to tell you. Our reports say that while the cameras upstairs did an automatic click-off, the cameras downstairs were working away.”
“Maybe there are ways into the house that aren’t within camera range,” she said.
“That is possible,” he said.
Possible.
But it didn’t sound as if he believed it—not in the least.
She let out a sound of frustration and anger. “Stop playing hard-core Fed—I mean, you did see a ghost, too!—and pay attention to what I’m saying. Someone was in that house. Right now, you have a dead woman in a hotel room and a dead woman in the snow—two different places. You don’t know how either one of them wound up dead, by whose hand or why. Or even when! And I’m telling you—I heard someone in that house. It wasn’t Ralph, Simon or Larry, because they’d already been gotten. And apparently, the film crew were here, greeting them when they came screaming their way inside. And I’m assuming Magda and Justin Crowley were here, as well. So, that would mean that your killer is on the island somewhere.”
“And law enforcement officers continue to scour the area,” he told her.
“You’ll never find him,” she murmured suddenly. “This island... I’ve only seen it once before, but we all know it’s full of hiding places.”
He stood up abruptly and walked over to her. For a moment, his sheer size and the heat that swept off him scared her.
But he didn’t touch her. He stopped at the couch.
“We’ll catch him,” he said. “If it’s the last thing I do in this life, I will catch the bastard,” he swore.
Before she could respond, they both heard a thumping sound—as if someone or something had banged against the outer log wall of the office.
She definitely didn’t imagine it. She saw his frown and the tensing of his body. He turned and headed for the door.
She was up and after him in a flash.
“Get back in there!” he told her.
“I am not staying in there alone!” she said.
/>
Jackson had been sleeping on the sofa in the living room; he was up in an instant. The officers in the hallways came heading toward them, along with Mike. By then, Thor was exiting by the front door. Clara ran after him, terrified of being alone.
He was already walking down the length of the porch and into the surrounding snow. She and the others were behind him.
He stopped and she slammed into his back. “Get back in, please, for the love of God, will you?” he demanded, shouting to the others next. “Fan out around the house. Someone was out here!”
“I’m not staying alone!” she told him as he glared at her.
“Go in with one of your friends.”
“I’ll stay directly behind you!”
“You’re going to make me lose him!”
She stood still at that, wincing, and then turned around and returned to the house. She stood just inside the door, watching the night. One officer remained in front. The others had vanished into the darkness and shadows surrounding the house. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud—only the dim lights from within the house afforded illumination, and then seemed to play tricks on the mind, as well.
Clara was shivering.
It seemed that she stayed there for hours, keeping her eyes on the one officer left in front—afraid to look around in any direction.
If she did...she might find herself alone with a dead woman.
And then the men returned to the house in disgust.
“There was no one out there?” she asked anxiously. “Nothing?”
“Yes, there was something,” Mike said.
She looked at him, frowning.
“Bear,” he told her. “Some kind of bear, by the tracks. It made off into the woods.”
She nodded, swallowing. Just an animal.
So, besides a crazy killer, she might have met up with a pissed-off bear out here, as well!
But Thor was shaking his head, oblivious to Clara. He looked at Jackson. “Something about it I just don’t like. A bear doesn’t listen at windows.”
“They were bear tracks, for sure,” Mike said.
“They appeared to be,” Thor said.
“You think someone has some kind of a snowshoe that emulates a bear track?” Jackson asked him.