Between the evil and the deep blue sea
A historic cruise ship, a haunted ship, the Celtic American Lines Destiny, sets sail from the Port of New Orleanswith a killer on board. Hes known as the Archangel Killer because of the way he displays his victims in churches. And how he places a different saints medallion on each body. No one knows exactly who he is or why hes doing this.
Jackson Crowhead of the FBIs Krewe of Hunters, a special unit of paranormal investigatorsis assigned to the case, along with local agent Jude McCoy. Then Alexi Cromwell, who works in the ships piano bar, is drawn into the situation when a victims ghost appears to herand to Jude. She and Jude share an attraction, and not just because of their mutual talent.
There are many suspects, but one by one theyre ruled out Or are they? In the end, Jude and Alexi have to rely on each other to catch the killer and escape his evil plans for Alexi.
Praise for New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham
With an astonishing ease and facility, this talented and hard-working writer can cast her stories in any genre.
Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels
Once again, Heather Graham has outdone herself. The Betrayed took me on a fantastic trip to Sleepy Hollow and Id travel with Graham anywhere This chilling novel has everything: suspense, romance, intrigue and an ending that takes your breath away.
Suspense Magazine
[Waking the Dead] is not to be missed.
BookTalk
Dark, dangerous and deadly! Graham has the uncanny ability to bring her books to life, using exceptionally vivid details to add depth to all the people and places.
RT Book Reviews on Waking the Dead, Top Pick
Murder, intriguea fast-paced read. You may never know in advance what harrowing situations Graham will place her characters in, butrest assured that the end result will be satisfying.
Suspense Magazine on Let the Dead Sleep
Graham deftly weaves elements of mystery, the paranormal and romance into a tight plot that will keep the reader guessing at the true nature of the killers evil.
Publishers Weekly on The Unseen
Suspenseful and dark. The transitions between past and present flow seamlessly, and the main characters are interesting and their connection to one another is believable.
RT Book Reviews on The Unseen
Haunted Destiny
Heather Graham
www.mirabooks.co.uk
For David Curtis Mutter, the best piano man out there. (Sorry, David! Yes, I turned you into a young womanquite beautiful, thoughfor the purposes of this story!)
And for FRW, surely one of the best writing groups out there!
CAST OF CHARACTERS
FBI Agents:
Jackson Crow (Head of the Krewe of Hunters)
Angela Hawkins (Special Agent and Jacksons wife)
Jude McCoy (Special Agent in the New Orleans field office)
Celtic American Cruise Line (on the Destiny)
In the Entertainment Division:
Alexi Cromwell, piano bar hostess
Bradley Wilcox, head of entertainment
Clara Avery, soprano, in the ships presentation of Les Miz
Ralph Martini, mature actor
Simon Green, chorus
Larry Hepburn, young heartthrob actor
Key Personnel on the Ship:
Xavier Thorne, Captain of the Destiny
Larry Beach, Head of Security
Johnny Morgan, Security Guard
Jensen Hardy, Cruise Director
Nolan Perkins, Crew Steward
Among the Passengers:
Hank Osprey, brilliant young computer magnate
Roger Antrim, retired executive, and Lorna, his wife
Flora Winters, widow
Ginny Monk, dating Hank Osprey
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Praise
Title Page
Dedication
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Extract
Copyright
1
Theyd started out on foot that morningnot 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 thered been a lull. At that time the Archangel hadnt been given his moniker yet and he hadnt been on the nations radar as a serial killer.
Some people wanted to believe that the killer himself was dead, or that hed been incarcerated on other charges, the true extent of his crimes never known.
But those first two murders had held a strange signatureboth victims displayed in churches with a saints 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 hed strike againbut not knowing where.
He did.
Hed traveled on to Mobile, Alabama. There, hed killed three young women and a young manthe boyfriend of one of them, by all accounts. Hed arrived too late to save the last female Mobile victim, and was not at all prepared for the homicidal knife-wielder hed come to meet. An actor returning home after his show, hed obviously put up a fight. The young woman had been left on church steps, the boyfriend dumped in an alley. They knew this time, howeverfrom various cell phone calls and messagesthat the couple had been attacked at the young womans 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 fibersno 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. Theyd called out the National Guard in Mobileonly for the killer to refuse to strike again.
The one male victim had been dumped in an alley with no ceremony, while the young womens 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 burialarms folded over her chest, a silver saints medal around her neck, almost covering the ribbon of red where hed 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 theyd 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 neckas if it was a chain for the medallion on her chest. Shed been young and beautiful with long, luxurious dark hair and coffee-colored skin.
Seeing her, Jude McCoy felt a mixture of horror, pity, rageand 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 hed strike next.
Before this morning, Jude and the other members of his division had already been alerted. Theyd sat through lectures by the bureaus 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. Theyd all been found in or near churches; murdered elsewhere, their bodies werent dumped there, but displayed. They hadnt been killed in the churches; two, at least, were murdered in the victims 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 hed brought it into a locked church and displayed itwithout 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 hed been abruptly paired with a stranger. And maybe because hed 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 OrleansAssistant Director Jackson Crow. When the body of Jean Wilson had been discovered, Crow had already been on his way in from Mobile, Alabama; hed made an educated guess that the killers next strike might well be the city of New Orleans. Hed 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 FBIthat was the rumor, anyway. They were unofficially known as the Krewe of Huntersghostbusters, some people said. Whether that was true or not, Jude didnt know. Hed 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 wasnt 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 thingfinding 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 hed 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 didnt 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 devils 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 mannerand 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 gawkand 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 hed sniffed out the fact that hed 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 oclock, 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 Piccolos. He followed.