But this wasn’t the time to tell McManus that he’d lost his mind, not when he had his gun trained on Kieran.
“Hey, lady, you lost your gun?” Craig said, still using his best drunken slur. “I’ll help you find it.”
He pretended that he was reaching under the stool.
Instead, he took a calculated risk.
He made a dive for Jimmy.
McManus’s gun went off, and Craig hit the floor.
* * *
Kieran heard a loud scream, then realized that it was hers.
But she was only paralyzed for an instant. Then she raced toward the drunk lying on top of Jimmy McManus. The impact had knocked the gun from Jimmy’s hand, but it was still within reach, and the bastard was already reaching for it.
The woman was making a dive for it, as well, but Kieran saw that Marty Salinger and the cops had sprung into action, too.
She slammed a foot down on Jimmy’s hand just as his fingers started to curl around the grip of the gun.
It looked like a big gun, too, and then she realized that half of it was a silencer.
What the hell difference did it make what kind of a gun it was? It shot bullets that killed people.
One of the cops was already tugging on the drunk’s body, rolling him over.
The other was wrestling Jimmy onto the floor and putting cuffs on him.
Marty, by the book, was reading the woman her rights as he put the handcuffs on her.
As Kieran heard the first cop call for an ambulance, she hurried over to the drunk, praying that she could do something to save the life of the man who had saved all of theirs.
The first thing she saw was that there was no blood.
How? He’d been shot point-blank in the chest. And then she saw that a patch of facial hair was coming off.
“Craig!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes. “Craig, oh, my God...”
He blinked and looked up at her.
He was alive, but he gasped wordlessly as he tried to talk.
“Get the vest off him. The bullet is in the vest,” Marty told her.
She ripped at Craig’s clothing. When she got to the vest he winced.
“Broken...” he whispered.
“You’re alive, and there’s an ambulance on the way,” she said. She could tell she was going to cry and betray all the fear she was feeling.
“Broken ribs,” he managed.
“Lie still,” she said.
“Hey!”
Everyone went still.
Gary had made an appearance.
“Julie!” he said. “What about Julie?”
Kieran didn’t even have a chance to get up. Declan walked over to Jimmy, grabbed the man by the lapels and said, “If anything has happened to Julie Benton, I don’t give a damn about the law. I’ll skin you alive. You’re lower than a rat, a roach. You’re the worst fucking piece of crap in the world.”
McManus stared back at Declan with hatred in his eyes. “Don’t be an ass. Gary is so fucking stupid, he’ll believe anything. All I needed him to do was get in here and get Kieran on his side. We watched him flip out and waited outside until the time was right, and then we were going to take care of you and get out of here for good.” He looked over at Kieran. “She ruined a perfect plan. I wanted her dead.”
Kieran felt a chill sweep through her. She rose and walked over to Jimmy McManus. “You used Finnegan’s. You used this place, our hospitality—you used our friendship. You made us a part of killing people. I hope to God someone knifes you to death in prison.”
“He could get death. This might be a federal case, since it crosses state lines,” Marty pointed out.
“I’m fine if he’s just locked away to rot slowly, thinking about the fact that I’m alive and well and enjoying my life,” Kieran said. She was shaking, and she felt sick. Jimmy had been a customer forever.
He’d probably been using them forever, too, learning things to help him cheat and steal—and kill.
She was glad she didn’t have a weapon, because she was afraid she would have used it, she was so angry.
She spit on him instead.
“Did you see that?” McManus demanded. “I want her charged with assault.”
“You have to be kidding,” one of the cops muttered.
“I didn’t see a thing,” the other said.
“You know what? I didn’t see anything, either,” Marty said, and he grinned down at Craig, who smiled back at him, then started trying to get up.
Kieran watched her spittle drip down Jimmy’s face, then went back over to Craig and knelt down beside him. An ambulance was coming.
She would be in it with him.
As she took his hand, she looked at the woman, who was staring angrily at McManus. “You are a moron!” she said. “If you hadn’t had such a stick up your butt about this stupid girl—”
Marty jerked her cuffs, and she cried out.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, not looking sorry at all.
“Who the hell is she?” Kieran asked Craig.
He managed to smile at her and squeeze her hand. “I believe she’s about to be an inmate at a federal prison.”
“He did it! He killed them all!” the woman cried.
“Bitch!” Jimmy said. “You were the one who wanted Maria dead!”
Detective Mayo and assistant director Eagan walked in just then, followed by a pair of EMTs, and suddenly the night was alive with people and action.
Kieran followed Craig into the ambulance, but before the doors could close, Declan put out a hand to stop them.
“Only one escort, I’m afraid,” the EMT said.
Assistant director Eagan stepped up and said, “I think we can make an exception.”
The EMT, clearly faced with a power greater than his own, gave in.
Declan climbed in and hunkered down on the floor while Kieran held Craig’s hand and the EMT checked his vitals.
The siren blared as the ambulance raced through the late-night streets.
* * *
The impact of the bullet had caused three fractured ribs. Other than that, he was fine, and happy to vent his annoyance at being forced to stay in the hospital overnight.
Kieran told him that he was a horrible patient, but really, it wasn’t so bad. Julie and Mary Kathleen and the Finnegan men all stayed at the hospital through the night, going from his room to Bobby O’Leary’s.
Even Mike came, and Craig was glad to have him there to field questions about the case and explain what they knew about Sylvia Mannerly and Clean Cut Office Services.
When morning came, they learned that Sylvia and Jimmy had actually met online through a dating service, of all things.
They’d discovered how much they had in common. As in a desire to pull off enough robberies to get rich enough to retire to the tropics.
They’d agreed on copycatting the original gang but going further and killing witnesses, because witnesses could get you caught.
But when Kieran had become involved and that involvement had led to the original thieves being caught, Jimmy had been convinced that she knew something, that she’d overheard something and was going to get him caught, too.
From there it had just been a short step to him deciding she had to die.
The next day, Craig was let out of the hospital, but he was, as Mike had been, forced to take medical leave.
And that meant he was free when Kieran asked him to go and see someone with her.
The someone was Tanya Lee Hampton. They met her at a small duplex in the Bronx with a little playground in front. Her two toddlers were there, and they were delighted with the presents Kieran had brought them. They talked about Tanya’s legal situation, which was looking up. Her lawyer had made a
deal with the district attorney’s office; she was on probation and would do community service. But Dr. Miro had also found her a job that she could do with her children. She was going to become a secret shopper, testing out restaurants and stores that that were geared toward kids and families.
When it was time to go, Kieran and Tanya hugged tightly, and Kieran thanked her as they exchanged a speaking look.
“What was that all about?” Craig asked her as they walked back to his car.
She was thoughtful and then turned to him.
“We have to accept that sometimes we’re going to have secrets. It comes with our jobs. Like the other night. I’d never even heard of Sylvia Mannerly or whoever she really is. You can’t tell me everything all the time. And in my line of work, people have to be able to talk to me and expect confidentiality.”
He couldn’t deny the truth of what she said.
Whatever lay between the two women, he thought, it had obviously ended well, and he would let it lie.
He smiled at her. “You know, I have some time on my hands. Time I could use to do some traveling.”
“And I have a job.”
“I’ll bet you could take some time off if you wanted to.”
She laughed, and he realized just how much he loved the way her whole face brightened and her beautiful blue eyes sparkled.
“Special agent Frasier. We haven’t even known each other a full two weeks and you’re asking me to go off with you already?”
“There’s this lovely place in the Poconos,” he said. “After everything you’ve been through, I bet your bosses would be happy to see you get a little rest and relaxation. ‘Any decent person would lend a hand,’ right?”
“Or take a bullet,” she said, searching out his eyes.
He shrugged. “I was wearing a vest.”
“A point-blank bullet.”
“What do you say?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Craig. The pub is so busy. You’d think people would stay away after what happened, but it’s been crazy busy. Declan has had to hire on two more people.”
“He would tell you to go,” he said.
“Should we go find out?” she asked, leaning against him.
He laughed softly, pulling her closer. “It’s funny. I’m with this lovely young woman,” he said softly, “and yet I seem to be dating an entire family.”
She smoothed back his hair, watching him anxiously. “Do you mind?”
He shook his head. “I’ll take a Guinness,” he told her.
She smiled and took his hand.
They would head to the pub, he thought, and then home.
Where she would make very careful love to him.
Life was good, he thought, and he pulled her closer still, then kissed her thoroughly.
He wondered what else the future might hold.
* * * * *
Keep reading for a sneak peek at HAUNTED DESTINY, the eighteenth book in the KREWE OF HUNTERS series by New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham, from MIRA Books.
Looking for more heart-pounding suspense from New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham? Then you won’t want to miss a single story in the spine-tingling Krewe of Hunters series, featuring the FBI’s elite team of paranormal investigators:
Phantom Evil
Heart of Evil
Sacred Evil
The Evil Inside
The Unseen
The Unholy
The Unspoken
The Uninvited
The Night Is Watching
The Night Is Alive
The Night Is Forever
The Cursed
The Hexed
The Betrayed
The Silenced
The Forgotten
The Hidden
Haunted Destiny (June 2016)
And discover the electrifying Cafferty & Quinn series, where an antiques collector and a private investigator are drawn together in New Orleans as they investigate the city’s most unusual crimes:
Let the Dead Sleep
Waking the Dead
The Dead Play On
“Dark, dangerous and deadly! Graham has the uncanny ability to bring her books to life.”
—RT Book Reviews on Waking the Dead
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Haunted Destiny
by Heather Graham
They’d started out on foot that morning—not long after the murder was reported.
The murder that would soon bring the Big Easy to its knees, the eleventh attributed to the man the media had dubbed the “Archangel.”
And who had now, apparently, moved into New Orleans.
The perpetrator had already left his mark on other cities. The first two killings had taken place in Charleston, South Carolina. Two women were murdered there, their bodies found in churches; the actual crime scenes had never been discovered. That was six months ago.
After that, there’d been a lull. At that time, the Archangel hadn’t been given his moniker yet and he hadn’t been on the nation’s radar as a serial killer.
Some wanted to believe that the killer himself was dead, or that he’d been incarcerated on other charges, the true extent of his crimes never known.
But those first two murders had held a strange signature—both victims displayed in churches with a saint’s medallion around their necks. And most investigators expected the killer to strike again.
Which he did, four months later.
The killer had come further south, taking two lives in Miami, Florida, and quickly followed by two more. just up the coast in Ft. Lauderdale.
Then, for another four months, nothing.
Law enforcement worked day and night, certain that he’d strike again—but not knowing where.
He did.
He’d travelled on to Mobile, Alabama. There, he’d killed three young women and a young man—the boyfriend, by all accounts, arriving too late to save the last Mobile victim—and not at all prepared for the homicidal knife-wielder he’d come to meet. An actor returning home after his show, he’d obviously put up a fight. The young woman had been left on church steps, the boyfriend dumped in an alley. They knew this time, however—from various cell phone calls and messages—that the couple had been attacked at the young woman’s home, a small bungalow in a wooded area of the city.
But despite the disarray and the traces of blood in the bathtub, the killer had left behind no fingerprints, no fibers—no hint of his identity.
The last four had died in a period of three days, all while local law and the FBI scrambled after the Archangel like ants, certain they were getting close. They’d called out the National Guard in Mobile—only for the killer to refuse to strike again.
The one male victim had been dumped in an alley with no ceremony, while the young women’s bodies had been discovered at a church, sometimes on the outside steps, sometimes by the altar. The Archangel had left each female victim laid out as if prepared for burial, arms folded over her chest—a silver saint’s medal around her neck, almost covering the ribbon of red where he’d slit her throat.
Jude McCoy had seen the pictures; practically every agent in every city in the country had seen the crime scene photos of the victims.
And they’d all looked just like this young woman he gazed down at now. She lay before the altar of a church on the outskirts of the French Quarter, arms folded over her chest, a medallion of St. Luke around her throat.
Her name was Jean Wilson. She lay there, in front of the altar, a choir robe draped over her naked body, the tell-tale blood-line around her neck—as if it were a chain for the medallion on her chest. She’d been young and beautiful with long, luxurious dark hair and coffee-colored skin.
Seeing her, Jude McCoy felt a mixture of horror, pity, rage—and helplessness.
He knew that no one in law enforcement was to blame. Not the bureau, Homeland Security, or any branch of the local police. There were, according to the FBI specialists and scholars at various universities, anywhere between twenty and several hundred serial killers operating in the United States at any given time. This one, however, had been making headlines and had the entire nation on edge.
No one had known where he’d strike next.
Before this morning, Jude and the other members of his division had already been alerted. They’d sat through lectures by the bureau’s behavioral sciences professionals. What they learned was that this killer was organized, and he was smart. He was either independently wealthy or had a job that allowed travel. He was aware of the need to wear gloves, and leave nothing behind. This killer didn’t sexually assault his victims. He also had the ability, in a short span of time, to choose and stalk his victims, and silence them quickly. They’d all been found in or near churches; murdered elsewhere, their bodies weren’t dumped there, but displayed. They hadn’t been killed in the churches; two, at least, were murdered in the victim’s own home. Under most circumstances, Jude McCoy would have remained with the police and other FBI officers on the scene, since it was apparent that the victim had been moved from the crime scene and that the killer was long gone. He would have walked the church over and over again, making note of any little detail. He would have studied the street and determined just how the killer had traveled there with the body, how he’d brought it into a locked church and displayed it—without being seen.
But not that day.
After the medical examiner had arrived and Jude and Jackson Crow listened to his on-site findings, Jude moved back to the steps of the two-hundred-plus year-old church to survey the sidewalk and the street.
Not surprisingly, nothing was usual that day. Everything felt different. The murder, of course. And maybe it was because he’d been abruptly paired with a stranger. And, maybe because he’d heard things about Jackson Crow and his elite Krewe of Hunters unit. The Krewe had been formed right here in NOLA several years ago. Jude had received directions that morning. He would be on special assignment with an agent who knew the area well and had followed the trail of victims from Miami to New Orleans—Assistant Director Jackson Crow. When the body of Jean Wilson had been discovered, Crow had already been on his way in from Mobile, Alabama; he’d made an educated guess that the killer’s next strike might well be the City of New Orleans. He’d been on the case for some time, or so Jude understood, and in this situation FBI involvement, , was expected. Jackson Crow headed up a paranormal sector of the FBI—that was the rumor, anyway. They were unofficially known as the Krewe of Hunters—ghostbusters, some people said. Whether that was true or not, Jude didn’t know. He’d looked up their records out of curiosity; they did have an uncanny solve rate hovering at almost a hundred percent.