Krewe of Hunters 8 The Uninvited (8 page)

The poor guy’s son-in-law had figured he wasn’t leaving the
world soon enough and had helped him meet his Maker.

For a long time, he’d thought he was crazy. But as he and Logan
Raintree worked together, they each learned that the other saw unusual things.
That they both did. When Logan was approached by Jackson Crow, head of the first
Krewe, and then Tyler was asked to join, as well, he felt it was the right thing
to do. And it had been. They’d solved cases. Saved lives.

And they uncovered the truth.

He’d also learned that not all ghosts walked over to a man and
started up a conversation. Some chose to speak only to certain people.

Just like the living did.

He shook off his memories and returned to the information on
the four board members who ran the private Old Philly History Corporation.

Nathan Pierson, forty-five, real estate broker by day,
financially comfortable with excellent stock investments.

Sarah Vining, fifty-one, philanthropist, wealthy due to an oil
inheritance.

Cherry Addison, forty-three, a direct descendent of the
Tarleton-Dandridge family on the maternal side, a former model and sometime
actress with family money. Married to an artist of increasing renown.

Ethan Oxford, seventy-two, lawyer and politician.

He needed to meet them all. The best way to do that might be to
call an impromptu board meeting.

Tyler realized he wasn’t giving the attention he should to the
folders. He rose and stretched. As he did, he thought he heard something from
the rear of the house.

He left the study, looking at the rooms and the elegant entry
as he walked to the front door. Nothing seemed to have changed. He strode
through the rooms and then to the back door, unlocking it to step outside.

The moon was waning, but it still seemed to be full. And
beneath that light, in the middle of the yard between the kitchen and the
stables, he saw a horse. A majestic animal, huge, black and sleek.

He walked over to the horse and the animal gazed at him. He
felt a cold sensation as a large black head nuzzled his chest. He stroked the
cool air, seeing the animal’s dark eyes and fine brow.

“Hey, fellow, still pounding the beat, eh?” he murmured.

The horse whinnied but couldn’t answer any questions for him. A
ghost horse couldn’t speak any more than a living one could. But he was
encouraged. If the horse was here, the house itself was opening to him.

He heard another sound—whining. He glanced down. There was a
dog by his feet. a hound, large and tawny in color, with huge brown eyes that
looked up at him trustingly. He hunkered down to touch the dog, feeling air, but
aware that the hound knew it was being stroked. “Thank you, boy. Thank you for
coming to me,” he said softly. “If I can help, I will.”

He was so involved with visions of the family creatures that he
was startled when his phone rang.

“Montague,” he said quickly, grinning to himself. The ghost
hound had pushed him—nothing but a blast of air or imagination, but it had
almost knocked him over.

“Agent Montague, it’s Allison Leigh. I’ve, uh, had a nap. If
you want to talk, I’m willing.”

“I’ll be right by to get you,” he said.

* * *

Allison had managed to convince herself that she was
totally sane; she was just under intense pressure.

And she was going to do the sane and intelligent thing. See a
shrink.

Annette Fanning sat on a stool at the counter, looking at her
with concern.

She was grateful to Annette. Her friend had arrived just as
she’d come to, and when she’d let Annette in and continued to run through her
house searching for a sign that someone had been there, Annette had kept quiet
and helped. Now, she stared at Allison.

“You’re making more tea? What you need is a good shot,” Annette
told her sagely. “And if you won’t have one, I will. You’d barely gotten off the
floor when I got here. You could have hurt yourself! I still don’t understand
what happened. You
saw
someone in your house, or you
think
you saw someone?”

“I don’t think anyone was really here. I’m sure I’m just
mourning Julian, which is something I wasn’t able to do before. I mean, I found
him, and then the rest of the night I was with the cops and at the station and
back at the house, and then we found the office trashed....”

“You need a good shot of whiskey,” Annette said again, getting
up and going to the cabinet.

“I don’t want any whiskey. I just called that agent and said
I’d go out with him.”

“Now that’s a plan. He’s really hot-looking, Allison.”

Allison frowned at her. “I don’t mean
go
out
in that sense. I’m going to answer questions for him and tell him
about people. It’s not a date.”

“That’s a pity,” Annette said. She was tiny and blonde and
struggled to reach the bottle shoved at the back of the cabinet. “You should get
a real life, you know. You can’t spend your life in the past.”

“I don’t spend my life in the past,” Allison said, getting the
bottle for her. “And I don’t want a shot, really.”

“I do—
really!
” Annette accepted the
whiskey bottle and poured herself a measure. “You haven’t gone out since you
were dating Peter Aubrey, right? I thought you two were great together.”

“When he was clean, we were great. I cared about Pete and it
was fun being with him. But I didn’t have the power to change him. I picked him
up from various gigs three times when his friends called to say he’d passed out
and needed help. And I went back to him twice when he said he’d kill himself if
I left him. I learned. It has nothing to do with me—he has to find a way to face
his demons. I went to Narcotics Anonymous and learned that I can’t change him.
Only he can do that. If he ever gets cleaned up, goes into rehab and is serious
about it, I’ll consider seeing him again,” Allison told her. “I’m not
antisocial. I’m not lonely. And now is not the time to worry about my social
life. Julian is dead, Annette, and the house is in the middle of some
investigation....” She let her voice fade away; Annette’s big brown eyes were
moist again.

“I still can’t believe it,” Annette said. “I can’t believe that
Julian’s dead.”

“I’m sorry, Annette, I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, I know.” She let out a long sigh. “I called Nathan to
find out if the board knew anything about funeral arrangements but no one’s
heard anything. The family wants the body shipped back to Indiana, but the
morgue isn’t going to release him until…until whatever, I don’t know. There are
still tests being done, I guess. Do you think he’d been drinking or that he was
high or something? This is all so mysterious. Oh! Nathan did say he’d make sure
we have a memorial in the next few weeks, no matter what. Julian had a lot of
fans in the city.”

“He was a decent musician and he had a great stage presence. I
guess that’s why he made a good guide,” Allison said.

“When he showed up,” Annette agreed. She walked back into the
living room. “Hey, where’s your broom? I’m going to sweep one more time. You
walk around barefoot—don’t want you cutting your foot.”

“Drink your whiskey. The floor is fine. I cleaned it over and
over again,” Allison said.

The doorbell rang, and Allison looked at Annette. “Not a word,
okay? Not a single word.”

“Not even ‘hello’?” Annette asked. “And here I’d been thinking
about adding something like ‘nice to meet you’!”

Allison went to the door, flashing Annette a warning frown.
Annette grinned.

Tyler stood there, so tall he nearly filled the doorframe.

“Hi,” she greeted him. “Come in.”

He entered. Allison quickly introduced him to Annette, who
giggled, offering him her hand.

“You’re
really
tall,” Annette
said.

Tyler nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Annette!” Allison whispered. “That’s…rude.”

“Not at all, Ms. Fanning,” Tyler said with a laugh. “It’s nice
to meet you. I’m sorry it’s under such circumstances.”

“Yes. Julian.” Annette shook her head. Denial would be with all
of them for a long time, Allison thought.

“Actually, I’m glad you’re here,” Tyler told Annette. “I wanted
to talk to you about the Tarleton-Dandridge House and about Julian.”

“I spoke with a police officer, but I’m happy to talk to you,
too. I last saw Julian at lunch. I didn’t think about it much. I had to leave
early myself. Root canal,” she explained. “But I’m not surprised he ducked out
for an audition. Music was everything to Julian. Oh, he liked his job and he was
good at it. But he did want to be rich and famous. A rock star.”

“Mind if we sit?” Tyler asked Allison.

She indicated the parlor. Her house, which had been built in
the early 1800s, wasn’t quite as old as the Tarleton-Dandridge. The original
owner’s grandson had sold it to her great-grandfather in 1890. Originally, the
kitchen had been outside, and the counter had been put in somewhere around 1910,
when the kitchen became part of the house. A lot of her furniture was pre-Civil
War.

Her sofa, however, was a purchase she’d made just a few years
earlier. It was plush and soft and nice, like the massive armchair to the side
of it.

Tyler Montague took the chair; Annette sat close by, on the
edge of the sofa, clearly fascinated. She rested an elbow on one arm of the sofa
as she stared at him.

“What do
you
think happened at the
Tarleton-Dandridge House?” Tyler asked her.

Annette blinked. “Do you mean about Julian—or someone trashing
the office?”

“Both, either,” Tyler said.

“I’m sad, of course, and horrified. We talked about Julian all
the time. He knew it and didn’t really care. He held on to his job at the house
because he was good, very dramatic. But he wasn’t responsible. We all liked him.
It was hard not to. He was just…ambitious. He wanted to be a rock star, like I
said. But he did love history.” She paused. “And he loved to play online
games—Words with Friends—all kinds of stuff. He acted like a blowhard sometimes,
but he was very smart.” Tears welled up in Annette’s eyes. “It’s sad. It’s so,
so sad. But it was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Tyler said.

“But…he was alone in the house with Allison, wasn’t he? She
would
never
have hurt him. She won’t even put out
poison to kill rats.... I think she gives half her income to societies that save
animals. Of course, it’s true that people who love animals don’t always love
people, but to suspect that Allison could have hurt Julian in any way—it’s
crazy! Okay, he’s made us so mad at times that she might have wanted to smack
him. And he did try to pick her up when he first started working there a year
ago. She was seeing Peter Aubrey back then, and besides, she isn’t the type to
play around at work and—”

Allison finally interrupted her rambling. “Annette. I think
Tyler wants to talk about the house.”

“All impressions are important,” Tyler said smoothly. “So, you
do believe Julian Mitchell was intelligent?”

“Julian was definitely smart,” Allison replied. “He was
brilliant with the English language.” She hesitated and then admitted, “He and I
did have a competition on Words with Friends. His ability was uncanny.”

“I didn’t even bother to play with him, I was so bad,” Annette
said.

“Would Julian have trashed the attic for any reason?” Tyler
asked.

Annette and Allison looked at each other. “I don’t know why he
would—Julian had access to the attic. He could go up there whenever he wanted.
But I don’t understand why
anyone
would trash the
attic. We never keep money there. Cash receipts and credit card payments are
kept in the lockbox in the little pantry where we get changed. Every couple of
days, one of us took the deposit to the bank. And there’s never enough cash
worth stealing. These days, reservations are mostly done online or with credit
cards.”

“So what
is
kept in the attic?”
Tyler asked.

“Paperwork, records—copies of records. Everything historically
significant is in locked display cases,” Annette said.

“What kind of paperwork?”

“The usual.” Annette shrugged.

“Financial logs, schedules, events, reservations and some of
the research we do,” Allison explained.

“It’s Allison’s research. She’s always writing some paper or
other,” Annette said. “She’s a professor! And she’s the best guide they’ve ever
had, because she knows so much about the families and their history. Julian was
interested in her research, but he wouldn’t need to trash the attic. None of us
would. Allison is always happy to show us her work.”

Tyler watched her intently. Allison decided she was a little
uncomfortable with Annette being so much of a champion.

“I write papers, yes, articles, on select periods of American
history or focusing on a certain event,” Allison said. “Eventually I hope to
complete a book.”

“But right now?”

“Right now I’m working on a paper about the British occupation
of Philadelphia, focusing on the Tarleton-Dandridge House and Bradley’s
relationship with the family, especially Lucy. I’m also looking at Lucy’s
relationship with her fiancé, Stewart Douglas. There’s a lot of mystery around
her death. No one was called in to investigate and historians assume that’s
because Beast Bradley killed her and it was all shoved under the carpet. The
British were evacuating at about the same time.” She paused, impatient. “I’m
hungry. I’m really hungry. Could we go somewhere for food?” She had groceries
but wanted to bring this inquiry to an end—and wanted to escape her house for a
while.

“Oh!” Annette said with dismay. “I have to get back. I told
Barrie I’d only be a few minutes, but I was so worried about Allison I forgot
the time.”

“You were worried about Allison? Why?” Tyler asked.