Krewe of Hunters The Unholy (38 page)

Logan slowly arched his brows. “All right, what kind of felon, madman or serial killer do we have running around San Antonio?”

“We don’t know much about him as yet. That’s where you come in,” Crow explained. “And I’m meeting with you first. Marshal O’Brien isn’t due for another half hour or so.”

“Doesn’t that mean you have to go through all of this twice?”

Crow gave him a grim half smile and shrugged. Logan had the feeling that there was always method to his madness, though at the moment, he sure couldn’t tell what it was.

A leather briefcase lay on the table. Crow reached into it and produced a sheaf of papers—photos, Logan saw.

He didn’t imme dis, Logadiately recognize what he was looking at. At first glance it appeared to be a trash pile, but then, peering closer, he saw human bones beneath the branches, boxes and other refuse.

He looked back at Jackson Crow. “I wish I could say that a dead body was something unusual,” he said.

“It’s the circumstances that are unusual,” Jackson murmured. “Here’s another.”

The next picture was of a half-decayed body on a gurney in an autopsy room. This was a far more gruesome sight, resembling a creature imagined by a special-effects wizard; the flesh was ripped from most of the jaw and the cadaver seemed to be grinning in a macabre manner.

“Where was this body discovered? He? She?” Logan asked.

“She. Both sets of remains belong to women. Both disappeared from the San Antonio area, one a year and a half ago, one about a year ago. Both had made it to San Antonio and were never seen again. Or not alive, anyway,” he added.

“I’m assuming traces were done on their credit cards, and the usual procedures carried out.”

Jackson nodded. “Neither actually checked into a hotel. The bones in the first picture belonged to a young woman named Chelsea Martin—schoolteacher, part-time gemologist. The cadaver on the gurney was once a dancer named Tara Grissom. She worked out of New Orleans.”

“Dancer? As in stripper?” Logan asked.

Jackson shook his head. “She was with a modern dance company. The show she was in closed down and they weren’t due to cast the next show for a few months. She headed out to Texas. According to friends, she was fascinated with the Alamo. She flew from New Orleans to Houston and on to San Antonio, and she was never heard from again after she waved goodbye to the fellow who’d been sitting next to her on the plane.”

“What about the other girl?”

“Similar story. She was a new teacher, and when budget cuts came down, she lost her job. Chelsea Martin left New York City for San Antonio, took a cab straight to the Alamo and wasn’t seen again.”

Logan frowned. “I should’ve heard about this by now.”

“You probably did. Think about all the missing-persons reports,” Crow said with a shrug. “There are hundreds of them—thousands. Some peopndskquote wile go missing on purpose. You have to remember that. Thing is, until you really start digging, you don’t always know if someone’s disappeared on purpose or not.” He pulled out more sets of pictures. They were all of bodies in various stages of decay. Female bodies.

Logan frowned at Jackson Crow. “All these corpses—they’re from here?”

Crow nodded. “Most of these women have yet to be identified. A number of them might have been prostitutes or women living on the edge. When someone doesn’t have family or close friends, there’s no one to hold law enforcement to task once the case has gone cold. We wouldn’t have known about this if an enterprising young officer hadn’t stumbled on the first body in a trash pile—just a block from the Alamo. Don’t look so appalled. No unit of Texas law enforcement has been neglectful in this case. First off, we still don’t know if the cases are related, although studying the way the killer disposed of the bodies, it seems likely.” He grimaced. “There may be a few who were killed by someone else—someone who happened upon a body-disposal system that has eluded the law—but I believe most of these women met the same killer. They all just disappeared. And of all the corpses and skeletal remains we’ve discovered so far, we’ve only been able to match two of the women to missing-persons reports.”

“Are you putting together a task force?” Logan asked him.

“More or less. I’m putting together a team.”

Logan began to feel uneasy. He’d looked up Jackson Crow. He had a reputation for being a crack behavioral profiler; he also had a reputation for running a crew of—for lack of a better term—ghost hunters. Hired by a somewhat reclusive government bigwig, Adam Harrison, he investigated the unusual. To the man’s credit, it seemed that his team generally found real human beings who’d perpetrated the crimes and brought them to justice.

Still…

Somehow, he felt Crow knew something about him. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

“And you want me to be on this team?” Logan asked.

“We have one special unit working now—a team of six, and six seems to be the optimal number. I’m starting a second team. I don’t just want you to
be
on the team—I want you to head the team.”

“Why?”

“You’ve had incredible success finding missing people,” Jackson said smoothly.

Logan didn’t blink. “Logic,” he told Crow. And a little luck…

“Logic is the most important tool we have,” Crow agreed. “I’m a man of logic myself.”

Logan winced, then said flatly, “You look for ghosts.”

“I look for killers,” Crow said, correcting him. He indicated the briefcase. “I have a lot of info on you, too, of course. I know you’re
exceptionally
talented.” Crow hesitated, thoughtful for a minute. When he spoke again, it was with both respect and empathy. “And I know that your wife was kidnapped by the brother of a drug runner you put in jail. I know you found her—buried in a pine box. The killer had been playing a game with you, but he screwed up. He didn’t provide enough oxygen. You were able to find her, although no one ever really knew how. You just found her too late.”

Logan felt tension seep into his bones. Alana had been gone nearly three years, yet he still couldn’t think about her without a sense of loss and rage burning in his gut. She’d died because he was who he was. She’d been a shimmering spirit of laughter and giving, and she had died because of him. His
exceptional
talents had been useless.

Her death had sent him into the hills on a long leave; only a return to the land far from the city had somehow kept him halfway sane.

Maybe that was why he hadn’t been aware of what had gone on with these missing women. And maybe everyone had overlooked the real and horrendous danger for the reason Jackson Crow had just given him. Sad, but true. Those on the fringes of life were often simply not missed.

“You have what we need,” Crow told him.

No, I don’t,
Logan thought.
I failed the woman I loved.

“I’m a Texas Ranger,” Logan said, startled by the sound of his own voice, which was almost a growl.

“Yes. You returned to being a Ranger,” Crow said. “Because you can’t help yourself. You have to work in law enforcement. But, even as a Ranger, you have limitations. I can provide unlimited resources for you.”

“Thanks. I like being a Ranger. I’m not so sure about being a fed.”

“It’s a matter of choice. Texas pride aside, there are a few things you might want to keep in mind, such as the fact that theItfederal services have jurisdiction everywhere. In our case, of course, we work where we’re invited in, except when we’re talking about criminals and situations that cross state lines. That’s always our jurisdiction. Crossing state lines is something killers do often enough. It’s as if they know they can throw law enforcement into confusion and break chains of evidence when they do, and that’s one reason the FBI is so important. Of course, your superiors know about this offer, and although they’d be sorry to lose you, they understand the unique possibilities of the position I’m offering you.”

Logan shook his head. “Thank you. No. You’ve got a serial killer on your hands. Or—since one way or another, I’ll get involved—we’ve got a serial killer on
our
hands. We’ll dig in, too, work with the FBI. But I think I’ll stay right where I am. I don’t see any reason to change.”

Crow nodded. “As I’ve been saying, it is your choice. But there’s something different about this case that does require an extra ability to
see.
”

“See what?”

“Beneath the obvious.”

“And what’s that?”

“Chelsea Martin called a friend just before she disappeared,” Jackson Crow said.

“From the Alamo?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“She said she saw a ghost. She thought it had to be the ghost of a Texas hero. He was trying to urge her to get away.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“She phoned Nancy McCall, a friend in New York, when she reached the Alamo. At first, according to Nancy, she was laughing, telling her that a reenactor was playing a game with her. Then she was concerned, saying that the ‘performer’ was getting very dramatic, insisting she leave the Alamo, go and hide somewhere. At the end of the conversation, Chelsea seemed to believe she’d seen a ghost. She sounded frightened, and said this ghost or whatever he was had just disappeared.”

“And then?”

“Nothing. The line went dead. Her phone was never used again, and it was never found—and I fowidth="1’ve shown you what was left of Chelsea Martin.”