Читать книгу Haunted Destiny - Heather Graham, Heather Graham - Страница 8
ОглавлениеThey’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, where two women were murdered, their bodies found in churches; the actual crime scenes had never been discovered. That was eight 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 people 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 farther south, taking two lives in Miami, Florida, and quickly followed by two more, just up the coast in Fort 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 traveled on to Mobile, Alabama. There, he’d killed three young women and a young man—the boyfriend of one of them, by all accounts. He’d arrived too late to save the last female Mobile victim, and was 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 telltale blood line around her neck—as if it was 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. He also had the ability, in a short span of time, to choose and stalk his victims and silence them quickly, although he never sexually assaulted them. 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 success rate hovering at almost 100 percent.
For Jude, the change of partners was not only an abrupt change, it was also one he wasn’t sure he felt comfortable with. His usual partner, Gary Firestone, was at the scene, as well. In fact, with all the law enforcement agencies involved, the greatest danger was that evidence might get lost because of the number of people messing around.
But Crow seemed aware of the danger and quickly organized staff into work units. Somehow, he seemed to manage it all without incurring resentment. He was spare with words, determined, efficient in movement.
Working with him, so far, anyway, was all right; they had an easy rapport, probably since they were both focused on one thing—finding the demon responsible for such heinous deaths.
However...Jackson Crow was Krewe of Hunters. And thinking about his own past, particularly a strange event that had haunted him since he’d been in the military, he was a little wary of Jackson Crow. He was intrigued that Crow had sought him out, yet slightly troubled because of it.
He quashed the feeling. He didn’t have time for that kind of emotion; they were in pursuit of a killer.
While the medical examiner worked inside the church, he and Crow had stepped outside. Uniformed police were cordoning off the area with yellow tape. A crowd of onlookers had gathered.
“Look,” Jude said quietly to Crow.
There was a man lurking on the outskirts of the crowd.
Summer in New Orleans. Hotter than the devil’s own seat in hell. And the guy was dressed in a sweatshirt, holding his head down, shuffling his feet, watching. There was something odd about his manner—and his appearance. His face was almost gruesome, and his nose was huge.
“I see him,” Crow muttered.
The man might have been a voyeur, the kind who slowed down at the scene of a car accident.
And yet his behavior made him typical of killers who returned to see the aftermath of their work, getting their kicks all over again by seeing the police run around, the crowd gawk—and the relatives break down in tears and denial. Jude carefully started moving toward him.
Just then the man looked up. Jude froze behind one of the columns. It was important, he thought, that the man not see him.
His face was...unnatural. Not as if he was wearing a mask, but makeup. Prosthetic makeup, perhaps, giving him a larger nose, a bulbous chin, harder cheek bones. The man turned to run, as if he’d sniffed out the fact that he’d been noticed. Jude shouted to Crow and began to run in pursuit.
Jackson Crow was already beside him.
Running.
They tore across Rampart Street and into the Quarter...down, all the way down to Bourbon. And there they lost him. By then, of course, there were dozens of officers around.
“Every bar, every damn bar!” Jackson ordered. “The guy in the gray sweatshirt. Black hair.”
It was still daytime, around three o’clock, but a summer festival was in full swing. Music of all kinds was blaring, tourists were crowding around and beads were being flung from balconies. There were hawkers on the street, and the sheer flow of people, from the slightly inebriated to the out-and-out drunk did not make for easy movement. Jude thought he saw the man head into a place called Piccolo’s. He followed.
A four-piece band was playing a Journey number, and the crowd was gathered by the stage, singing along. Waiters and waitresses worked their way through the revelers.
Police and other agents were bearing down on the bar, as well.
Jude quickly scanned the bar and the people inside it.
Crow was still right behind him.
“There!” Crow called out.
Their prey had leaped on top of the bar; a girl giggled and started toward him, ready to stuff some dollar bills in his pocket, or so it appeared. But the man jumped down from the bar, a stool crashed over and she went flying back, sending others onto the floor as she did. Chaos erupted to the refrain of “Don’t Stop Believing.”
“Lost him!” Crow said, swearing under his breath.
Jude was already climbing over the bar himself, past the stunned bartender—standing with his mixer in hand—and through the dingy kitchen to the side street. They were on St. Ann.
From there he saw the man step into the passenger seat of an old Chevy around the corner from the club—and even as Jude raced after him, the car pulled out into the street.
“Hey!” he roared to Crow. His new partner as of the morning was already outside.
“This way!” Crow shouted.
They moved down St. Ann at a run until they reached a bureau sedan. The driver stepped out.
“Assistant Director Crow,” the man began, ready to leap into action as driver.
“We’ll take it, Hicks,” Crow said, accepting the keys and tossing them to Jude. “Drive. You know the streets better than I do.”
Jude was surprised but pleased that Crow had the sense to realize that. And it was true. He knew the one-ways and he knew the cutoffs that happened so often when New Orleans was in festival mode.
The man driving the Chevy should have been stopped by the sheer volume of pedestrian traffic. So far, he’d banged on his horn and plowed through. Jude hopped into the driver’s seat while Crow got into the passenger side.
Streets were closed; there was no way to traverse them.
Jude shot across to a side street, but the suspect was nowhere to be seen. Moving on instinct, he sped toward Canal, hoping to cut him off.
“Where are you going?” Crow asked.
“We’ll catch him on the border of the Vieux Carre,” Jude said.
And they did.
There they saw the Chevy surging ahead, and Jude did his best to follow without running over a pedestrian. Even on Canal, people were wandering on and off the road.
“Where’s he going? What the hell?” Crow asked, shaking his head. “And who’s driving? Are we dealing with a pair of killers?”
The man in the Chevy didn’t seem to have a destination. He was driving erratically, avoiding the dozens of cop cars now on the road.
“Airport...train station...” Crow mused. “Hey! That was him, down Tchoupitoulas!”
“Might be going to the port,” Jude said, still trying to follow the Chevy. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that the driver was now maneuvering around a one-way street toward the Riverwalk area—and the massive cruise port.
Yes.
The car was going to the port!
As Jude drove hard, the siren blasting, Jackson Crow got on the radio, advising all law enforcement in the area to watch out for the car and the two men, giving a description of their suspect’s clothing and appearance.
So many ships, so many cruise lines.
“There! Up ahead. The Celtic American line,” Crow said. “I see the car.”
The Chevy was in front of the entry to the Celtic American line. More chaos was breaking out as last-minute cruisers competed for positions to park or drop off passengers.
Jude jerked the sedan off to the side of the road. Crow was out of the sedan before it was in Park. Seconds later he had the driver standing on the sidewalk beside the old Chevy.
He looked like a man in a trance. He was fifty-five or sixty, a slightly pudgy and balding businessman who seemed completely bewildered—as if he didn’t know who he was or why he was there.
“Who were you driving? Why didn’t you stop?” Crow demanded.
“I’m Walter Bean. I was supposed to pick up my daughter after her shift at the Red Garter... She’s a hostess there.”
“We need you to tell us about your passenger.”
“I’m not even sure he was real, he showed up so fast! I don’t know... I don’t understand... Suddenly he was in the car, making me drive, telling me there was a killer after me.”
“Where did he go just now?” Jackson asked. “Think. Where did he go?”
Walter Bean was very red and sweating profusely. He shook his head. “I don’t know. He said to stop here. I stopped. He got out of the car. I don’t know if he...if he was a killer. I believed he would kill me. He was frantic. He said a killer was after me, and then he said he’d kill me if I didn’t drive, didn’t get him to the port. Oh, God, oh, God...”
The man clutched his chest.
“Heart attack!” Jude warned.
They patted his shirt for aspirin; Jude found the bottle, and Jackson got a pill in the man’s mouth. Other agents ran up.
“Get him an ambulance!” Crow yelled, gesturing to a cop in uniform who rushed forward to help.
“Let’s move,” Jude said. He could hear sirens already. Walter Bean would now receive the medical care he needed.
Once again, he and Crow were running.
Jackson flashed his badge as they moved through the passenger terminal. They were asking questions at a checkpoint when Jude found himself studying a man who had boarded the ship. He’d just crossed the air bridge, and Jude could see him through the window.
No one there had seen a man who fit the description of the man they were chasing.
But Jude did.
He couldn’t see him clearly; there were too many people boarding at the same time.
He turned to Jackson Crow. “He’s on the ship. It makes perfect sense. Every city where the Archangel has killed has been a port city—a port where cruise ships depart and return. Some crew members are on for nine months or more at a stint. Some hire on for two, four or six months, especially if they’re entertainers or celebrity hosts, that sort of thing. Crow, it’s what we’ve been trying to figure out! How and why the murders happen and then stop. He’s either an employee or a passenger on a ship, and I have strong feelings it’s that ship.”
“Why do you think it’s that ship?” Jackson asked.
“I think I just saw him. Or at least, I saw the man we were chasing.”
“You’re not certain?”
“No. Not 100 percent certain.”
“McCoy, we don’t even know if he’s the killer! He could be some gawker jerk who’s guilty of some minor crime—and afraid of all the law enforcement. He could also be late for a sailing.”
“If he was just late for a sailing, he would’ve had to go through the line. But he’s here on the ship. And no one runs like that because of a parking ticket. He’s guilty of something major—probably these murders—and I believe he’s on that ship.”
Jackson Crow stared at him a moment longer; Jude didn’t blame him. They’d met less than three hours ago. Crow had Native American in his heritage, and although Jude wasn’t in any way enamored of stereotyping, Crow had the “stoic” attributed to Native Americans down pat. Jude couldn’t begin to tell what he was thinking.
“Gut feeling,” Jude told him, determined to be honest and equally determined to be convincing. “I have one hell of a gut feeling.”
Jackson Crow brought out his credentials and started a rapid-fire discussion with a Celtic American security guard. Within seconds another man came down; some senior person with the cruise line.
When they’d finished speaking, Jude and Jackson were each handed a boarding pass.
“Ever been to Cozumel?” Jackson asked drily.
“Spring break, a thousand years ago.”
Jackson shrugged. “Then you should remember it well enough. Anyway, let’s hope to hell we’re off by then—with him in cuffs. Because if we’re not...”
“He’ll kill again,” Jude said quietly. He looked up at the behemoth they were about to board.
The Destiny.
She wasn’t one of the largest ships sailing the seas by far. She was, Jude knew—thanks to the publicity at her most recent relaunch—the pride of the Celtic American line, owned by an Irish American who had come to the States as a college student and gone on to become a billionaire. The ship was old, commissioned in the late 1930s by an English lord who was hoping to give the Queen Mary a run for her money. The timing, for obvious reasons, had been bad. She wound up serving as a hospital ship during World War II, her cruising days curtailed by the devastation facing the world. Following the war, she’d gone through numerous hands until she’d been purchased and completely refurbished by Celtic American. The company specialized in historic ships, making that history part of their charm.
No, she wasn’t one of the largest. She still carried about seven hundred crew members.
And over 2,400 passengers.
She was, in essence, a small city.
Jude looked at Crow, then studied the ship again.
“What?” Crow asked.
“He might be feeling the heat’s on him now. And that means he just might kill again before we reach our next port.”
* * *
“I really think you should be playing more ballads.” Minnie Lawrence said, her painted red lips forming a pretty pout. “This is, after all, a piano bar.”
Minnie had draped herself on one of the velvet lounge chairs near the piano. She was beautifully clad in a slinky blue gown with a matching headband around her short blond hair. She managed to smile while maintaining her pout, behaving as the 1930s idol she’d once been. But she was truly sweet and very charming. Alexi could understand why she’d been so beloved in her day.
“I believe she means old ballads,” Blake Dalton said, coming behind Minnie to lean rakishly against the chair as they both stared at Alexi Cromwell with their most beguiling smiles. “Well, what you’d call old ballads, at any rate!”
Blake definitely had some Valentino mystery-charisma, as well.
“I do my best,” Alexi assured the two, sorting through the book she kept for the passengers who wanted to sing. She looked up at them and sighed. “Honestly. I do. But this is the twenty-first century. And I play our passengers’ requests. That’s my job.”
“I’m a passenger, and I’m requesting!” Minnie said.
But you’re a dead passenger! Alexi wanted to say.
She refrained.
“I do a smashing version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’” Minnie said. “And it was in The Wizard of Oz. Surely, everyone knows that.”
“Or ‘In the Mood’!” Blake said. “Minnie sings that very well indeed.”
“You do way too much of that new fellow, that Billy Joel man,” Minnie said. “I just can’t fix on a key with him.”
“Most people these days don’t consider Billy Joel to be a new fellow and I’m sorry, but I never go a night without someone wanting ‘Piano Man.’ But a number of people really enjoy older numbers and ask for them, too. How about this? I promise I’ll do ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ tonight. How’s that?” Alexi asked.
Before Blake or Minnie could reply, a man came tearing into the Algiers Saloon, racing through the bar area—for employees only—to leap over a neighboring sofa and continue running down the hallway of the St. Charles Deck.
He moved so swiftly that Alexi never saw his face. She had a fleeting impression of his height and appearance—and something a little ghastly. He looked as if he was wearing makeup for a Shakespearean play or a classic Greek drama.
Gray sweatshirt, blue jeans, about six feet, maybe around two hundred pounds.
“Well, I never!” Minnie sniffed.
“How incredibly rude,” Blake said, trembling with the indignity of it all.
“We’ve seen plenty of rude. At least he didn’t jump over the sofa where you two are sitting!” Alexi told them, lowering her head so they couldn’t see her smile.
Sometimes, guests sensed the pair of ghosts. She would see them shiver and look around, remind themselves that they were on a floating island with thousands of people around them. She knew it disturbed both Blake and Minnie when people walked through them. It didn’t hurt them—they simply didn’t like it. Blake once explained to her that it felt as if someone had shoved you carelessly in a crowd. It was rude, just rude. “Some staff member who’s late reporting in, maybe,” Alexi murmured. “Anyway, my friends, I’m going to my cabin while the stampede of boarding takes place. I’ll see you soon.”
Alexi rose, scooping up her book, laptop and extra music pages. She smiled at Blake and Minnie. “I promise, we’ll start off with Judy Garland,” she assured them.
“Lovely!” Minnie called after her.
“Shall we stroll, darling?” she heard Blake ask Minnie.
“We’ll find a place high atop and watch as we sail away, watch the city disappear and the beauty of the moon upon the water,” Minnie agreed.
Alexi smiled as she hurried on, anxious to get to the elevators and down below where the crew members had their cabins.
She loved having Minnie and Blake on the ship. The Destiny had lost many employees to the ghosts they encountered on board. People had reported seeing images disappear and things being moved about. Sheet music seemed to do that a lot, according to people who’d worked on the ship. Actually, Alexi owed her position to the fact that the pianist who’d been preferred by the entertainment director had lasted only one cruise. As a result, Alexi had been hired. She was sure that the musician who’d left—disturbed by the way his sheet music constantly moved and keys played when he hadn’t touched them—would find a job that made him happy. He was a far better pianist than she was. But he hadn’t felt the same need to escape, to live this strange life of fantasy the way she had.
Escape.
She couldn’t escape. Her sister, her brother, her parents, her friends—everyone had told her that. Zach was dead. He’d come back from the Middle East in a box. She knew that. She’d never escape the fact that he was dead. But she could escape New Orleans, their little Irish Channel duplex and the places they’d frequented for years.
She realized, as she walked, that she’d been on the ship for almost a year. Well, four months on and one off, and then back on, accepting contract after contract with the cruise line. And although she might not have the astounding talent of some piano bar hosts, she did have a way with a crowd. Perhaps equally important, she never complained about ghosts or poltergeists.
She’d been aware of the dead as long as she could remember. Early on, her mom, not in so many words, but by careful suggestion, had let her know the sense ran in the family.
And it was best not to share that with others. She was pretty sure her mom didn’t actually see or hear ghosts; with her, it really was a sense. She felt when they were close, felt the happiness that had existed—and the trauma and tears.
As Alexi walked down the hall to her cabin, she passed Clara Avery, one of the entertainers in the ship’s main show, Les Misérables.
Clara was supremely talented; she was a soprano with a genuinely impressive voice.
“Hey!” Clara said. “You were back-to-back cruises, too, huh? Did you take some time to get off the ship? Did you see your family?”
“Yes, they came and met me for lunch near the port,” Alexi told her.
“Good.” Clara hesitated. “It’s been a long time, Alexi. I can’t imagine having your wedding all planned—and him not coming home. But you can’t let your family lose you, too.”
“I know. I know that, really. I see them as often as I can. Honestly. I love my folks. I didn’t see my brother because he’s on tour and Sienna’s in Europe. On vacation. Well deserved, I imagine.” She grinned. “My poor parents. They’re so...mathematical and scientific! And they wound up with two entertainers and only one doctor, Sienna!”
“I’m sure they’re proud of all of you,” Clara said. She grinned. “I think my dad cried when he found out I wanted to go into theater. But he’s happy now!”
“And he’s a super guy. They came to the piano bar almost every night they were on the cruise—even when you couldn’t. Your mom is lovely, too.”
“Your folks haven’t taken the cruise yet,” Clara noted.
Alexi shrugged. No, her mother would never be on this ship. She didn’t see the dead the same way Alexi did, but she knew they were there. She worried not just because Alexi was a piano-playing hostess on a cruise ship; she worried because Alexi was on the Destiny.
“The things that happened on that ship!” her mother had warned her. “Terrible! And not just the poor soldiers who died. There were other incidents, too!” The Destiny, like most old ships with interesting histories, had the reputation of being haunted.
There’d been incidents aboard, yes. Such as the night in 1939 when Blake and Minnie had died, murdered in cold blood.
But Alexi wished she could explain that none of the ghosts on the ship were malevolent in any way. She’d come across a couple of soldiers who’d died in the infirmary: Privates Jimmy Estes and Frank Marlowe, handsome young men who’d been taken far too soon; Barbara Leon, a nurse who’d died of a fever she’d caught while tending to others; and Captain McPherson, who’d dropped dead of a heart attack at his retirement party, which had been held on the ship in 1967.
He still loved to tell her what the current captain was doing wrong.
All the Destiny’s ghosts were pleasant. The soldiers still believed they were convalescing, the captain was still watching over the bridge, and the nurse was still standing duty at the infirmary. They were polite and cheerful, thrilled that Alexi—and more often than not, her friends—could see them.
Her family really didn’t need to worry about her. She accepted the fact that Zach was gone. Time didn’t heal all wounds, but it allowed memories to offer consolation, to bring smiles instead of tears. She had simply become rather dependent on living on the ship. And she did love the Destiny, including all her history and her ghosts. Alexi didn’t lie awake at night anymore, the way she had at first.
She’d lain awake and wondered why, when the dead from so many different eras and generations found her, she’d never seen Zachary Wainwright, never had a chance to hold him and be held one last time. Never had a chance to say goodbye...
Alexi smiled. “My mom won’t be getting on this ship and without my mom—no dad. Mom’s convinced the ship is haunted, which of course it is, and she wants nothing to do with that. She’s... I don’t know...very Catholic, slightly Wiccan, possibly? She believes that spirits can find her. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my mother. But my dad always smiles and tells me that when they were married and moved into our home in the Irish Channel, she called in a priest to bless the house and cleanse it of ghosts.”
“She sounds like fun. And, hey, I agree with you that this ship is haunted! I try to say nice things to whatever gives me the chills as I walk by,” Clara said, shrugging. “In any event, they leave me alone.”
“I’ll see you in a little while,” Alexi told her. “I’m going to grab some downtime with a pillow.”
“And I’m going to pop into the lounge,” Clara said. “Come with me and say hi. We have some new people in the entertainment crew.”
Alexi didn’t particularly want to say hi to anyone at the moment; she wanted to lie down. She’d had lunch with her parents on shore, and much as she loved them, an hour or two in their company could be exhausting.
“Just for a sec!” Clara encouraged.
Alexi followed her into the crew lounge.
They didn’t separate crew down here. It was a hallmark for most people who accepted employment with the Celtic American line. Entertainers and officers mingled with room stewards, even though the lounge space was small. But there was a television, a computer, lots of comfortable chairs, plenty of snacks, a refrigerator, coffeepot and a microwave.
And right now the lounge was crowded, mostly with entertainers, those who didn’t play or perform as the passengers boarded. “Hey, new guys! This is Alexi Cromwell, for those who haven’t met her yet. She runs the piano bar and she loves it when we stop by.”
“Hi, Alexi!” Ralph Martini was the first to hail her. She knew Ralph. He’d been on her first contract schedule.
Ralph continued with, “I’m not new. I’m just saying hi first!” Ralph was a friendly, easygoing guy. She thought he was about fifty. He had a great tenor and often did a one-man show. Balding, a little stout—and totally charming. Women on board loved him.
“Alexi. I’m Simon Green,” a man said, rising and offering her his hand. He was tall and lean, with a pleasant boy-next-door face. “In the cast, my first go at it. Just a chorus guy.”
“No such thing as just a chorus guy,” Alexi said. “I’m sure you’re very talented. Good to meet you, and please, come by anytime.”
Simon Green shrugged, giving her a smile. “I’m a happy guy. I’ve been on a few cruises with Celtic American as a passenger. So I’m thrilled to be on the Destiny and seeing how it all works from the other side!”
She went on to meet Larry Hepburn, early twenties, blond, beach-boy type, out of LA, and Leanne Wilburn, from Des Moines. As they were all greeting one another, Bradley Wilcox, head of entertainment, who’d recently transferred over from the Dublin, stuck his head in.
Alexi had met Bradley Wilcox before. He, too, had been on her first run with the ship.
She stayed away from him as much as she could. He organized excellent shows, hired great bands for the various dining spots and bars—and was a complete jerk. He didn’t seem capable of compliments.
“Guitar Hero Boys, you’re due on the promenade in fifteen minutes. You should be getting in place.”
The foursome who made up the group rose and marched out. Alexi heard one mutter as he passed her. “Are you set up? Yes. Ready to go? Yes. Are you an asshole, Brad? Yes!”
She tried not to smile. And when the band had gone by, she left, too, wishing them all well—those who were new and those who’d returned to the Destiny or had switched from other ships.
In her cabin, Alexi sank down on the bed and closed her eyes, wishing she could sleep. She found herself thinking about Blake and Minnie.
Their deaths had been tragic. Minnie, a star of stage and screen, had fallen in love with Blake when he’d played Romeo to her Juliet in a touring company in the thirties. The fact that she was taking the Destiny for a transatlantic voyage had been huge news at the time; reporters and fans alike had booked onto the voyage.
The fans had included a deranged former lover, convinced that if he removed Blake from the picture, he would have his Minnie back.
Minnie had been singing an impromptu number in the piano bar. Also known as the Algiers Saloon, it was located exactly where it was now. Her previous lover, Allan Snow, had leaped to his feet after one of her numbers and declared his devotion. Minnie had claimed her eternal devotion, as well—to Blake.
So Allan Snow had pulled out a gun and shot Blake, who’d jumped in front of Minnie to be her protector. Then he’d shot Minnie and himself.
The ghost of Allan Snow didn’t seem to be aboard. Minnie told Alexi that she’d never seen him and she’d figured that God had been good, allowing her and Blake a different way to be together. She’d smiled and said their love was eternal.
Alexi figured it was natural that they’d haunt the piano bar.
She turned and hugged her pillow. Since Zach had been in the service and deployed overseas, they’d talked about the possibility of his death. She’d promised that if it happened, she’d always remember him—and she’d go on with her life, be happy.
She wasn’t suicidal, never had been. She was willing to find a new purpose, a new role, a new way of being. Just as she’d promised. Happy was more difficult.
What worried her now was the fact that he was slipping away. She thought about him often, with love. Sometimes she was happy now. She laughed at the antics of passengers and enjoyed meeting them. She’d even roamed various ports with friends she made aboard. She knew she shouldn’t feel guilty, and yet she did.
She reached into the gloomy air of her cabin, as if she could touch him.
“I just wish I could’ve said goodbye,” she murmured aloud.
Then she was startled out of her reflections when it seemed that something slammed against her door.
She jumped up and hurried to open it.
A man stood there, tall, dark-haired and...bizarre.
He was wearing a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans and strange prosthetic makeup. The man who’d raced through the piano bar!
He looked at her with beseeching eyes.
“I must speak with you. I must!” he said.
She frowned. Was he new in the entertainment department?
There was a commotion at the aft end of the hallway, and Alexi peered in that direction.
More men were coming along the hallway, men she’d never seen down in the entertainment area before, but they were accompanied by Nolan Perkins, one of the stewards.
“Sir,” she began, turning back to the man who had knocked at her door.
He was gone. She thought she saw him disappear around a corner that led to midship. She looked in the other direction.
“Hey, Alexi,” Nolan said.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’m just showing these gentlemen the ship,” Nolan said. He lowered his voice. “They’re bigwigs with Celtic American,” he told her, then cleared his throat. “Alexi Cromwell, meet Jackson Crow and Jude McCoy.”
“How do you do?” the first man said, smiling as he reached for her hand. He was tall, good-looking and obviously had Native American ancestry. His dark hair and light eyes made for a striking contrast.
“Ms. Cromwell,” said the other. He was equally tall, broad-shouldered, sandy-haired. His eyes were unusual—blue and green with flecks of brown. His features were clean-cut, his jaw hard and square. Very attractive, in a rugged, austere manner.
He looked at her oddly.
As if he knew her? Or thought he did?
Or worse—thought she was guilty of something!
Both men wore tailored shirts and pants, not the usual tourist apparel. But then, they weren’t tourists. They were bigwigs with Celtic American.
“Nice to meet you,” Alexi said.
“Have you seen a man?” Nolan asked her.
That made her laugh. “A man? Nolan, I’ve seen hundreds of men. It’s a cruise ship.”
She understood exactly what he meant. And yet, for some reason, she was loath to tell him that yes, a man—a strange-looking man—had just gone by. She wondered why company VIPs were so interested in him.
“He’s tall, bizarre makeup of some kind, sweat shirt and jeans,” Jude McCoy said.
She lifted her shoulders. “I believe I did see him earlier,” she admitted, “running through the piano bar when the passengers were boarding.”
She had seen that same man again, just minutes ago. And she wasn’t telling these men. Why? Instinct? Pity?
But there’d been something even more peculiar about him than the prosthetic makeup or whatever it was he had on his face. A sense of anguish, perhaps.
She hesitated. She shouldn’t lie to these people. But the young man had seemed so desperate. In her heart, she felt that he’d come to her for help.
Still...
“Actually,” she said, “I think he was in this hallway. He ran in that direction. But where he is right now, I couldn’t say.”
That was mostly the truth. She didn’t know where he was. He’d run.
“Well, thank you, Ms. Cromwell. If you should see him again, can you report him to us, please? We’re in staterooms 312 and 314,” Jackson Crow said. “It’s imperative that we find him,” he added quietly. “But I’m not at liberty to discuss the details.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
As they walked down the hall, she was more suspicious than ever.
Why were company bigwigs staying down in the bowels of the ship with the crew? The larger rooms—staterooms with balconies, the suites—were on the upper decks.
She was about to return to her cabin when Clara came running down the hallway, leaning against the wall, gasping for breath. “Alexi! Did you have the news on?”
“The news? No, why?”
“Thank God we’re leaving! That guy, that horrible killer!” She gasped for more breath. “The Archangel—he murdered a woman in New Orleans!”
