Krewe of Hunters: The Hidden Part 36

Scarlet tried to register just where Gwen was standing. Voices had a strange habit of ricocheting around the stones and mausoleums in a cemetery. She was hiding behind the Vickers mausoleum, ironically enough, and she thought the two of them were near the old wrought-iron gates, but she didn't dare look, in case they spotted her.

She had to be careful when she made her move. Terry might not be the best shot unless his victim was right in front of him, but even if she was only winged or wounded, she would be in trouble.

She started thinking about the six-shooter he was carrying. He'd obviously shot Angus, and he'd used another bullet on Lieutenant Gray. He'd shot her foot. He had three shots left.

Scarlet heard rustling and realized Terry and Gwen were on the move, and it sounded as if they were flanking her hiding place.

Was Gwen Barton carrying a gun? Did the disgustingly perky ex-cheerleader even know how to shoot?

Yes, she did, Scarlet thought. She was the one who had killed Ca.s.sandra.

Scarlet knew she might be signing her own death warrant, trapping herself, but she carefully opened the wrought-iron door to the mausoleum and slipped inside the cold stone darkness, hoping she could silently push the door shut and slide the lock into place from inside.

To her amazement, she accomplished the task with a minimum of noise-easily hidden by the rustle of her pursuers' footsteps.

Then she nearly screamed.

There was a woman inside the mausoleum with her.

The long lost ghost of Jillian Vickers Kendall, appearing at last?

No.

The woman was real-well, real as in carved from wood. The matching piece to the statue of Nathan Kendall was standing at the far end of the vault. Scarlet couldn't see her clearly, because the only illumination was the moonlight slipping through the wrought-iron door, but the workmans.h.i.+p looked to be as exquisite.

No one had been entombed in the mausoleum since the early 1900s, Scarlet knew. Had the mannequin been there since then?

And what the h.e.l.l difference did it make? Terry and Gwen were out there looking for her, and they had at least one gun.

"Come out, come out, Scarlet, its playtime!" Terry called.

She could hear him coming closer. She had trapped herself.

To her left were the sealed coffins of her long gone family members. To the right, more of the same.

And at the back, the mannequin.

"Quit f.u.c.king around, Terry. She has to be in there, so go in and get her!"

"All right, all right!" Terry said, and shot at the lock.

Once. Twice.

The lock gave. Terry entered the mausoleum, and Scarlet shoved the mannequin of Jillian Vickers Kendall at him as hard as she could.

Terry screamed.

And shot the mannequin.

Diego reached the cemetery and slid off his horse's back, racing as silently as he could through the cemetery, hoping that he was right about where the shots had come from.

As he neared the Vickers mausoleum, he saw Gwen Barton looking shocked and Terry lying on the ground beneath...

...a statue of a woman?

Diego couldn't be bothered to worry about that, because Gwen was holding what had to be the missing antique Colt and Scarlet had to be somewhere nearby.

"Drop the gun, Gwen, or I'll shoot," he said, his Glock aimed at her heart. He'd meant what he'd said, and he was sure she knew it.

"My, my, my, we do have a dilemma here, don't we? Honestly, men screw everything up. Terry turned out to be as big a buffoon as that idiot I had to marry to make this work."

"Why did you have to marry Charles?"

"Alibi, of course. He's always been a cheating idiot, so between his habits and my 'sleeping pills,' I knew I'd have my nights free. But forget all that. It's time to make a deal. You want your sweet little ex to live? Drop your gun," Gwen said.

Terry struggled to his feet. "We'll offer you the same deal we promised Scarlet. She tells us where the gold is and we kill you both quickly. We won't renege, I promise."

"Shut up, you a.s.shole!" Gwen told him.

"Well, aren't you a b.i.t.c.h," he told her. "I should never have gotten into this with such a b.i.t.c.h. I could have managed on my own."

"You idiot-you would've been caught right away if that stupid housekeeper hadn't used you as camouflage so she could sleep with my loser husband," Gwen snapped. "It all seemed to work out-Linda so ready to lie for you so you'd both look good. She thought you were such a poor sweet innocent, she couldn't bear to see anyone distrust you."

Terry laughed. "I was caught-and I talked my way out of it. Of course, that wouldn't even have happened if you hadn't planted that d.a.m.ned key in my room."

"I didn't put the key in your room," Gwen said. "Anyway, shut the h.e.l.l up. Where's the gold? And drop your Glock, Agent McCullough. What a stupid name. Who the h.e.l.l names their kid Diego McCullough?" Gwen said.

Scarlet suddenly stepped out of the tomb. Her hair was a tangled mess, her clothes were dirty and her face was gray with tomb dust.

But she didn't seem to be injured.

Scarlet met Diego's eyes and said, "Shoot her."

"Go ahead-but I can pull this trigger before your bullet hits me," Gwen said. "Grab her, Terry."

As Terry moved toward her, Diego was amazed to see Scarlet react instantly, delivering a hard right hook to Terry's jaw.

"s.h.i.+t!" he yelped, staggering back.

"Do I have to do everything?" Gwen demanded, wrenching Scarlet in front of her as a human s.h.i.+eld.

"Shoot this bimbo!" Scarlet commanded Diego. "d.a.m.n it, shoot her!"

"Let's talk about this," Diego said, striding toward them. He had to get close enough to take Gwen out before she could shoot Scarlet.

"No talking!" Gwen said, pointing the gun at him.

"Go for her," Scarlet said.

For a moment he caught her eyes in the moonlight.

There was something there, a message, telling him that he had to take the shot.

"One more step and I shoot one of you!" Gwen promised.

"Nathan Kendall won't let you get away with it," Scarlet said. "The others won't, either. They're all here, you know. My G.o.d!" she added suddenly.

"What?" Terry demanded.

"It's Jillian! It has to be Jillian Kendall. Don't you see her? She's right there, next to Daniel and Ca.s.sandra."

"She's right," Diego said. "They're all here, and they'll never let you leave."

That was when Gwen made her mistake. She turned to look. And Diego was just close enough. He didn't dare fire, for fear of hitting Scarlet. Instead he threw himself across the two feet between them and brought Gwen down to the ground-and Scarlet, too.

"The gun!" Terry shouted to Gwen.

But before Gwen could reach it, Nathan stepped forward and kicked it out of her reach. Diego got to his feet, dragging her up with him. Terry took one look at them and turned to run. He didn't get far. He seemed to trip on nothing at all and fell flat to the ground.

Standing right in front of him was Jillian Kendall, smiling with pride.

"Get up, Terry," Diego commanded quietly as he secured Gwen with plastic cuffs. Then he looked at Scarlet, who was standing and dusting herself off.

"You risked your life," he said accusingly.

She shook her head. "He was out of bullets," she said. She picked up the Colt and fired. It let out a silent click.

He smiled at her. "Good show," he said softly.

She smiled and turned to Terry, who was just standing there, a blank look in his eyes.

"Guess what, Terry? I do know where the gold is," she said.

"You do?" Diego asked her.

She shrugged. "I didn't until tonight. But that mannequin... It's the heaviest thing I've ever tried to move. Nathan Kendall gave the gold to his wife for safekeeping. Her father apparently decided to keep it safe, too. There's going to be some kind of panel in that statue. We'll find the gold behind it."

"I knew she'd find it," Terry said to Gwen.

She told him exactly what he could do with himself.

Diego ignored her, drawing Scarlet into his arms. "I nearly died a thousand deaths, watching her holding that gun on you," he said.

She smiled. "That's because you love me. And I love you," she said softly.

"Hey!" a voice suddenly thundered.

The cemetery suddenly seemed to be ablaze with light. Brett rode straight toward them, followed by a half dozen cops.

Diego turned to Scarlet. "They can take it from here."

Suddenly he realized just how badly he was shaking. He'd almost lost her.

She laid a hand on his face and met his eyes. "I think we can take it from here, too."

He smiled. And he suddenly knew, there in a mountainside cemetery, in the dark and surrounded by the dead, that they had wonderful lives ahead of them-together.

Epilogue.

It was the next day before the events were finally and entirely untangled.

John Williams, the man known as Terry Ballantree, was not only a descendant of Rollo Conway-through the b.a.s.t.a.r.d child back East-but also of Nathan Kendall, since his great-grandmother had headed west and met up with one of Zachary Kendall's mult.i.tude of grandchildren.

Gwen Barton had met Terry at the Twisted Antler when she and some friends had spent spring break in Estes Park, and they'd recognized each other as kindred spirits. Together they'd devised a way to get away with murder-and hunt for the gold. She hadn't known about the gold until Terry told her about it and explained how he knew, through family lore, that it existed. After that, they just needed to find it.

Her poor husband had been, in her mind, a necessary and completely disposable p.a.w.n.

Of course, things had started to go to h.e.l.l when their attempt to frame Ben failed, so eventually they'd realized that they had to kidnap Scarlet-who, they were both convinced, knew where the gold was-and escape before they were caught. Terry had managed to slip past Matt and Meg to get to Angus, but that was his last piece of good luck. He and Gwen hadn't counted on Scarlet's love of history and knowledge of antique weaponry, much less the spectral posse that had come to her a.s.sistance.

Adam and Scarlet had spent a lot of time talking about the fact that the Krewe always needed more historians and archaeologists, and they didn't have to be trained agents if they chose office work.

An understanding of life after death was always a plus.

Scarlet had to admit she liked Adam very much, along with every other Krewe member she'd met so far.

In Diego's mind, what was there not to like?

Not to mention love.

It was twilight-that perfect moment when the sun was falling and the sky was alive with crystalline color-and the Krewe were together on the porch of the main house. They had the ranch to themselves. Ben and Trisha were on an extended trip to the Caribbean, Clark and Gigi Levin-who'd been easily located having lunch after going missing-were headed "anywhere but here," and Linda Reagan was down at the station, tearfully begging not to be arrested for being an accessory to murder.

Terry and Gwen were under arrest, of course.

Angus was recovering from his head wound and accompanying concussion, thanks to Brett's quick decision to drive him straight to the hospital after finding him out in the woods. Gwen had hit him with a baseball bat and nearly killed him in her attempt to draw Brett away from the museum.

And Lieutenant Ernest Gray was alive as well, fighting for his life, but hanging on. Diego and Scarlet planned on heading to the hospital to see him in a little while.

But at the moment they had gathered solemnly with their friends, because those who had helped them were gathered before them. Nathan was at last reunited with the ghost of his wife, while Ca.s.sandra Wells held tightly to Daniel Kendall's arm.

The four of them were standing together in front of the porch as the sun fell.