Praise for the novels of Heather Graham
An incredible storyteller.
Los Angeles Daily News
Graham wields a deftly sexy and convincing pen.
Publishers Weekly
A fast-paced and suspenseful read that will give readers chills while keeping them guessing until the end.
RT Book Reviews on Ghost Moon
If you like mixing a bit of the creepy with a dash of sinister and spine-chilling reading with your romance, be sure to read Heather Grahams latest Graham does a great job of blending just a bit of paranormal with real, human evil.
Miami Herald on Unhallowed Ground
Eerie and atmospheric, this is not late-night reading for the squeamish or sensitive.
RT Book Reviews on Unhallowed Ground
The paranormal elements are integral to the unrelentingly suspenseful plot, the characters are likable, the romance convincing, and, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Grahams atmospheric depiction of a lost city is especially poignant.
Booklist on Ghost Walk
Grahams rich, balanced thriller sizzles with equal parts suspense, romance and the paranormalall of it nail-biting.
Publishers Weekly on The Vision
Heather Graham will keep you in suspense until the very end.
Literary Times
Mystery, sex, paranormal events. Whats not to love?
Kirkus on The Death Dealer
Sacred Evil
Heather Graham
www.mirabooks.co.uk
For NYCan amazing place, and for a few of the people who have also made it more amazing by being there.
For Aaron Priest, and all those at the agency: Lucy Childs, Lisa Vance, Nicole James, Arleen Priest, and John Richmond.
And, of course, for my MIRA Books editors in the Big Apple: Adam Wilson, Leslie Wainger,
Margaret Marbury, and Krista Stroever, who went above and beyond and walked the streets of the old Five Points region with me. Thank You!
Yes, ready for my cemetery tour now !
Prologue
Someone was following her.
Stalking her.
Shed heard the footsteps. Among the deserted streets and the canyons of tall buildings; the sound seemed to echo from everywhere.
The night was extremely dark, and, Ginger Rockford thought, you would have believed that the streets were lit by centuries-old gas lamps, as theyd supposedly been during the filming that day.
A hot afternoon had turned into a chilly, misty night, and a fog was rolling in from the river.
The area seemed ridiculously quietexcept for that sound she heard now and then, a click-click, like a footfall, and then a shuffling noise, as if her stalker dragged a foot.
Great. Chased through the streets by a gimp.
It was New York City, for Gods sake. Millions lived on this tiny island.
So where the hell were they all now?
Ginger turned around to look back in the direction from which she had come. She could still see the row of trailers on Whitehall Street; she had just left one. Sammy Vintner, fat-old-ex-cop studio guard, was still on duty, but she saw that he was on the phone.
He was the only living soul she saw.
There were markers where the tape had been that had held the crowd back during the day, separating the filmmakers from the plebs hoping to catch a glimpse of megastar Bobby Walden.
She cursed Bobby Walden. While shed waited, believing that he was really going to call her, Bobby had surely been picked up by a big black limousine.
Bobby was a somebody. She was a nobody.
But at least Bobby had spoken to her. The female lead, Sherry Blanco, had almost knocked her over, and she hadnt even apologized. Well, maybe Sherry would learn. Ginger had done a lot of studying up on actors and their careers. She estimated that Sherry Blanco had about three years leftshe was nearly thirty-five, and it was starting to show. Sherry was pretty, but she couldnt really act. Nor had she been known for any kindness to the young hopefuls with whom she had worked. Ginger hoped with her whole heart that she might be a rising star when Sherry was a burned-out has-been.
At least Angus Avery, the up-and-coming director, had noticed her. Okay, so his words werent every girls dream. Perfect! I mean, damn, do you look the role of the immigrant prostitute, her dreams already vanquished! That was how she had gotten to be the one on Bobbys arm, and how she had managed to flirt with him.
And then he had said that they needed to hook up, and taken her phone number.
So she had sat in the trailer well past time to leave; Missy Everett and Jane Deaverwho had played the other two young prostitutes in the scenehad begged her to leave with them. Their day of extra-stardom was over. They should celebrate, and wonder if theyd wind up on the cutting-room floor.
She, like a fool, had refused to leave; shed been waiting for Bobby. And she should have left. The set was a construction site. The ugly old building that had been there had been razed to the foundations and a few structural walls. There were rumors about the site; bad things had happened there. She didnt really know whatshe wasnt into history. Maybe it had been an old burial ground. But it had been perfect for the set designers when they had installed their prefabricated backdrops and facades, and it had been right next to Blair House, a truly creepy old place. She hadnt been spooked during the day. The day had been chaotic with actors and crew, one shot being set up while another was being shot, sometimes over and over again if Avery didnt like the lighting or the camera angle.
How had she managed to be the very last one on set? Oh, yes, waiting and praying that Bobby would really call her.
Sammy had emerged from his guard post. Hey! she called back, hoping that he would pay attention, see her and wait for her to come running back. Shed even take a ride with disgusting fat Sammy at this point.
He wasnt looking her direction. He was going off duty, heading away from her. She should have accepted a ride from him when hed offered, but shed been convinced shed find a taxi right away.
Who the hell knew that the area dried up like a prune once it got late at night?
The guard disappeared behind one of the trailers; hed been anxious for her to go, of course, once shed refused to ride with him. Shed been the last one near the trailers, the only one left who had been working on the on-location day-plus shoot for OLearys, a tale about crime and prostitution in the eighteen hundreds in New York City. One of the pubs in the area had had the right interior, and the buildingsexcept for the gap where the old Darby Building had so recently stoodwere perfect. The gutted area and the work tents set up on the old site were shielded by a blue screen for the moviemaking; New York was not a city to make do without the income a permit for such work would secure for the city. Nor, with the preservationist-supporting liberals to be found in the area, could a recently discovered historic site be disturbed.
Even so, the area around the demolished building was surrounded by cheap wire fencing that any schoolboy could scale, and closed by a gate with a two-bit combination lock. It looked like a war zone in a third world country.
She was beyond it, though, and she hurried; the gaping hole in the landscape seemed alive, mocking her for her fear of darkness and shadows.
Now she cursed Bobby Walden. Megastarjerk!
So, maybe, she had been too easy, too wide-eyed and too hopeful. But hed really been into her during the shoot; hed whispered such cool stuff to her between takes that day. She was ready; she knew how to get her name in the paper, and how to move ahead. In film, in the real world, perception was everything. She wasnt a fool; she didnt expect a happy-ever-after with Bobby Walden. Just a dateor a night in his hotel room, a place she could pretend to slip out of while being sure that she was spotted by the media. That was all she needed. Her picture on Page Six, maybe. People would start talking about her, and it would make it worthwhile that shed slept with the pimple-faced assistant at the casting agency to get the job as an extraa down-and-out historical hookerfor the movie. And, she should still be glad, because shed wound up with a few lines, enough to quality for her SAG card.
B movie. That was okay. Many a star had gotten his or her start as an extra-suddenly-given-lines. It took something like being singled out by Bobby Walden to get noticed.
Hey! Hey, Sammy! she called, walking back toward the site and Sammy. But Sammy didnt appear from behind the trailer that was just about two blocks away now. He had to have heard her, but even if she ran, shed never catch him. Sammy! You fat ass! she muttered.
Sammy was gone. Probably down in the useless-to-her Whitehall subway station already.
She thought she saw a man; a different man standing by the trailers. He must have been an actor; he seemed to be wearing a stovepipe hat and a long black all-encompassing coat. Whoever it was would be in big trouble with the costume department.
The moon shifted; there was no man standing there. She was making herself bizarrely nervous; it was simply because shed never imagined that anywhere in New York could become so devoid of people.
She turned and retraced her steps. If she reached Broadway and started running
She was almost at the corner when she heard the noise again. Click-click-drag.
Was it coming from behind her? Or before her?
She turned the corner and screamed; there was a man standing there. He looked dazed. He was in dirty jeans, a dirtier denim jacket. He hadnt shaved in days, and his hair was tangled and greasy.
Hey, lady, you got a dollar? Just a dollaror some change? Anythinga quarter? He took a step toward her with his hand outstretched, and she suddenly knew the direction from which the click-click-drag had come. She could smell him; he was absolutely repulsive.
No! she cried. Get away!
Lady, Im just a vet
Youre just an alcoholic or a junkieand youre disgusting! Take a bath! she said. She didnt even want to touch him to shove him in the chest, but she did so. She was desperate to get past him.
He fell against the wall of the building she was passing. She didnt look to see what type of office it was; she hurried on for a block, turned around. The ratty old homeless man was gone.
She leaned against a railing where she had stopped, panting, to stare back hard. She wanted to make sure that he was gonereally gone. She needed to get a hold of her fear. As soon as she got a little bit farther up Broadway, shed start to see people. Ha! Stalked by a derelict who would fall down in a breeze. Well, the louse-ridden bastard was gone now. She kept looking down the street, making sure.
It was amazing; she could hear the traffic on West Street, albeit in the distance. Battery City was no more than a few blocks away. Wall Street was mobbed with cutthroat brokers during the day, and tourists thronged Trinity and St. Pauls. But now the streets were dead, as dead as those rotting in the old graves and tombs of the citys churches.
Yes, the derelict was gone, too. She turned to hurry on up Broadway. She hadnt heard a thing; she hadnt suspected anyone might be in front of hershe had been looking behind, back to the dark abyss of the site.
Her turn brought her directly into his arms. Before she could open her mouth, his hand clamped over it, and he twisted her viciously around until she was flat against his body.
She tried to scream, but the sound was muffled by the gloved hand. She strained to see, to kick to fight
She barely even felt the knife across her throat; the blade was that sharp and the slice he made was swift and hard and sure. She was aware that, as the blood began to flow, he dragged her. She saw the lights of the street.
Seeming as pale as old gas lamps. As she died, the world growing dark and cold, she was dimly aware once again that it was all a matter of perception. Blood was rushing from her throat, and she was dying. She was even aware of the ironythat she might become really famous at last.
Somewhere, not far, car horns blared, neon illuminated the city and millions of souls worked, played and slept.
But to Virginia Rockford, the world beyond was no longer of any consequence.
Her last vision was that of a shadow-man. A man in a long black cape wearing a stovepipe hat. A shadow-man, coming at her again with the long wicked blade of his knife.
But she felt no more. Death became a gentle blessing.
1
One great thing about New York Citytourists.
And residents who behaved like tourists, every time he came to the scene of a murder.
Jude Crosby flashed his badge to the officers on duty and ducked beneath the yellow crime scene tape that was stretched across lower Broadway.
The murder site had acquired more onlookers than a movie premiere. Traffic downtown had grown to a snarl that was just about impassable even with the extra traffic cops manning the detour, and the sound of cursing drivers threatened to drown out the sound of their horns.
Fortunately, it was only just dawn; most finance workers werent even on their way in yet.
He made his way to the circle of men around the body. He was glad to see that the medical examiner who had been on call was Wally Fullbright, a man in his late fifties with ruffled white hair and big-rimmed glasses; he looked like an aged Beaker, from the Muppets. He was, in Judes mind, the finest in his profession. Yet, he never considered his own expertise as the zenith of knowledge, and was known to probe to the depths of any anatomical mystery.
Crosby! Fullbright said, acknowledging Jude without looking up. He knew he had a distinctive height, and in his off-hours he practiced at the ring. Pounding away at punching bags helped him release the tension that often bubbled up after dealing with some of the more bizarre crimes that plagued the city.
Even then, he had to make his way through more men; officers had formed a curtain of bodies, hiding the corpse from the view of the crowd that looked on.
He quickly saw why.
Lord, he said quietly, hunkering down across the body from Fullbright.
Hed seen a lot as a homicide detective in New York City. Dead drunks, prostitutes, drug addicts, mob hits and victims of domestic abuse. Hed seen the derelicts who had died in Dumpsters, in alleys, atop mountains of trash and hed seen the floaters who had popped up in the East River and the Hudson.