Haunted Destiny

“His fiancée was killed. He came home, and he was killed, as well. He was attacked from behind, so he couldn’t tell me much.”

Agent Crow nodded. “He and his fiancée, Elizabeth Williams, were murdered in Mobile, a week ago.”

“The medallion around her neck was that of St. Bernardino—patron saint of advertising. Elizabeth was a graphic designer with an advertising company.”

Alexi hadn’t known that.

“The young woman found at the New Orleans church had a St. Luke’s medallion around her neck. Patron saint of physicians, among other similar vocations and careers,” Jackson said. “But Byron, the only male victim, was left in a Dumpster in an alley. No medal.”

Alexi nodded. “He...he hasn’t reappeared,” she said, and caught herself looking at Jude again. She could tell from his speech that he’d grown up near her, somewhere around New Orleans. Had Jude absorbed enough of the city’s mysticism to accept the realities that were beyond anything science had yet acknowledged?

Was Crow humoring her? Or had McCoy convinced him? “The thing is,” Jackson was saying, “Mr. Grant found you. He saw in you an ability to help him. Helping the dead is necessary and commendable, but it can be dangerous, too.”

Alexi almost felt as if something cold and sharp was at her throat.

“I intend to be very careful,” she said.

“I just want you to come to us whenever you see the ghost, with any information the ghost can give you.”

Alexi nodded toward Jude. “Mr. Grant has spoken with Agent McCoy. He knows you two are FBI and that you’re on board.”

Crow’s smile grew wider. “But he sought you out. It’s important that you be extremely careful, especially at night. We don’t have proof, but the coroners in the different cities where this man has struck believe he kills at night. That doesn’t mean you’re safe by day. It’s just that he’s never killed in front of witnesses before.”

“Don’t worry,” Jude McCoy said, and she saw the flicker of a smile on his lips. “I’ll be ‘haunting’ your piano bar. I’ll see that you’re safely back in your cabin every night.”

“We’re in Cozumel tomorrow,” she reminded them.

“Don’t get off the ship without one of us,” Crow warned.

“I don’t always get off the ship,” she told them. “But sometimes a group of us heads over to have lunch at Three Amigos or Señor Frogs.”

“Let us know what you’re doing,” Jackson said. “And let us know anytime Byron Grant is near.”

Jackson got to his feet; Jude did the same.

Naturally, she rose, as well.

“You...you both seem to believe me. This is strange. It’s almost as if I’m becoming friends with a stowaway, but one you happen to know about,” she said.

The two men glanced at each other and then back at her. And once again, she thought that Jude McCoy gave her a rueful smile, as if he’d discovered that there’d been a sad joke at his expense.

“He is sort of a stowaway,” Jude said. “His name won’t be on the passenger manifest.”

“But...you... Agent Crow, you believe me, too?”

“I do, Ms. Cromwell. Completely. And we’re going to do our best to enlist your help—and see that you don’t end up in any danger. We need your cooperation on that, too. Let us protect you and don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“I’m all for that,” she murmured.

Jackson left the cabin and Jude followed him, but turned back at the door. “Stay with friends, at all times. You and Ms. Avery—Clara?—stay close, please.”

She nodded.

“We’ll be watching over you,” he promised.

Then they were both gone.

Alexi sat back on her bed. It was lunchtime; she was hungry.

And she was too unnerved to eat.

* * *

Their working conditions were hardly ideal, Jude thought, although David Beach had given them a cabin near his office for meetings, as well as computers, videoconference capability and a printer.

Back in their makeshift office, they sat at the table and stared at each other for a minute. “You haven’t blinked an eye,” Jude said. “You believe we chased a dead man onto the ship, and that this dead man meant to bring us here. You have no problem accepting that other people might have seen him—without knowing he was dead.”

“Correct,” Crow told him.

“And it doesn’t surprise you that I seem to have accepted this, too?” he asked.

“McCoy,” Crow said, “did you think I randomly asked that you be assigned to me in the Quarter yesterday morning?”

Jude felt that sense of creeping frost again.

“You looked me up and, naturally, you have access to all my records. Even the ones with the therapist, which should have been sealed.”

“Yes—and those records were sealed. But your history of solving unusual cases was noticed by others. Including Adam Harrison, who established the Krewe.”

“I see,” Jude said. He wasn’t sure he did, not completely. But...yes, he did. He was still fighting all of this.

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