“Halloween is tomorrow,” Corby reminded her.
“I know. And we’re going to do what we can,” she said. “You know that.”
He nodded gravely.
Roger Newsome was looking at her.
“My husband—Special Agent Crow—should be here any minute,” Angela told him.
He nodded.
“Great. We’ll go. Corby, young man, it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said.
Downstairs, he stood with Angela as they waited for Jackson to drive around.
“You have a beautiful family,” he told her.
“Thank you. Roger, and you—”
“Only child. Parents are deceased. I was in love once. And it was ironic. While I was in Viet Nam, she was hit and killed crossing the street by a hit-and-run driver. I never fell in love again.” He smiled. “Maybe she’s waiting for me,” he said softly.
“I like to think all those we loved are waiting for us,” Angela told him. “And I’m lucky; I get to believe it’s probably true!”
Jackson’s SUV came around the corner. He pulled over for them to hop in.
“You take the front,” Angela told Roger. “You can see better that way.”
Roger got into the car, introducing himself to Jackson. Jackson looked somber as he introduced himself to the man as well.
“You just saw my corpse!” Roger said.
“Yes. Sir, I’m so sorry—”
“Hey! I got to go out in style,” Newsome said lightly. “The thing is this, David Andre is going to kill people who shouldn’t die. I take it he has killed already. We need to stop him, and if I can help—well, then it gives purpose to my life—and death.”
Jackson glanced at Angela in the rearview mirror.
She knew they both wished they had known the man during his life.
They drove. Jackson—during the years in which the Krewe had existed—had learned the area like the back of his hand. He was familiar with areas in not just D.C., but Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
Darkness fell as they searched. But finally, after an hour and a half, the ghost of Roger Newsome shouted out excitedly. “There! That’s it—that’s the place!”
Jackson pulled the car into the driveway in front of the large, two-storied structure. There was a giant sign on the door reading, “Closed Until Further Notice.”
They got out of the car. Jackson and Angela both pulled out their weapons, though she doubted David Andre was there—not even a night light was lit within.
They pulled out flashlights as well and went in.
And it was much as Roger Newsome had described it—her light fell on a smiling, giant pig. And she almost started at the gruesome realness of the zombie beside it.
But there was more . . .
Cute little animals.
Mummies appeared ready to move.
Little green aliens.
“These creations are ready for the movies,” Newsome murmured. “As soon as they can be made.”
They were so realistic! Angela walked through a line of living dead—ironically grateful for the dead man walking behind her. One of the zombie creatures held something resembling a human brain in its hands. She turned, and nearly jumped despite her many years of experience when an alien did move.
It just . . . seemed to inch forward.
“What the hell?” the ghost of Roger Newsome murmured.
“Jackson!” Angela called.
And she stepped forward, pushing the alien aside. There was someone on the floor.
It was a woman—a real woman, flesh, and blood, trussed and hog-tied, the gag over her mouth so tightly Angela couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
“Jackson!” Angela cried again, and he hurried over to her. Together they worked at the gag and the ropes that bound her. Angela got the gag off the woman’s mouth and left Jackson to deal with the ropes binding her, dialing for help herself, and desperately hoping they had found the woman alive.
Chapter 5
“Yes, it was David,” Veronica Chastain said, sitting up in her hospital bed.
Jackson sat in a chair by her side, listening as the woman described her ordeal. “I had just gotten home from work. I was tired, not paying a lot of attention. I’m in an apartment. I have a great job and I love it, but my company is small and it’s not as if I’m rolling in riches. I walked into the kitchen and then bam—that was the last I remembered until I woke up there. I was already tied, but David was standing over me. He wanted me to wake up.” She hesitated, shaking her head. “He wanted a job with the company. When he came in, we weren’t hiring fulltime. A month later, it was determined that we did need another fulltime person and it happened one of the directors we work with frequently had a nephew who really is good and . . . he got the job. I knew David was angry; he wrote all kinds of horrible things on our review sites. But I never imagined . . . anyway, he told me he was sorry I’d never get to see just how good his work was going to be on me. And he showed me a picture of what he had done to Gerard Greenway . . . he’s gone insane. Or he always was insane. You know, he got into an argument in traffic once, having a fit because the car in front of him didn’t make the right—but you don’t have to make the right there, the lane also goes straight . . . he punched the guy out! I mean, he could be a loose cannon, but I never expected . . . thank you. Oh, my God, I’m alive! Thank you. How did you find me?”
“Luck. Or, who knows? The homeless man was Roger Newsome. He was a veteran and fought in Viet Nam. Maybe he guided us somehow,” he said lightly. “We knew David Andre was . . . out for those who didn’t care for his talents, and we should be searching empty spaces having to do with special effects.”
“But I heard that nice Detective talking—the homeless man—Mr. Newsome—didn’t have anything to do with the movies or special effects.”
“No. We believe he was a victim of . . . circumstance.”
“I’m sorry! The poor man.”
“If it’s any comfort, he was ill. He wouldn’t have lived long.”
Veronica was drawn and anxious; she was going to be fine. She had some bruises, a concussion, and she had been dehydrated. But David Andre had only taken her the night before, and the doctors had said she was going to make a full recovery. She was earnest and sincere, a pretty woman in her early to mid-thirties, he thought. She seemed to care about others.
“He’s still out there—David is still out there, right?”
“Yes. Police have searched his home. He had a black SUV, but it was found abandoned. I don’t know how he plans to move his—”
He had been about to say victims.
He rephrased.
“His materials around. We will get him,” he said, trying to be reassuring.
“I’m afraid, even here!” she murmured.
“We’re going to keep an officer on guard,” he promised her.
There were officers in the hall. Barry was still there, and he would make sure the police were watching over her through the night.
He’d talk to Barry and make doubly sure. He’d get one of his people in as well.
“I don’t think he’ll come for you, Veronica. I think he has something big planned for Halloween, and it would be too risky for him to come here—even if he knew we had found you.”