Sloan and Logan made their way through the crowds on the street to the Gilded Lily. When they arrived, Valerie was perched on a bar stool singing a Civil War ballad to an appreciative audience of drinkers.
Liz came up to him. “Sloan, want me to get you a table? Hello,” she said, smiling at Logan.
“A table would be great, but it doesn’t look like you have any,” Sloan replied.
“Give me a minute. I know how to squeeze people.”
She did; Liz managed to get one couple to join another, freeing up a table. Sloan thanked her and introduced her to Logan.
“You’re FBI, too?” she asked.
“He works with Jane,” Sloan told her.
“That’s good. We’re glad you’re here.” Liz bent low to the table as if listening closely to get their orders.
“Thank you,” Logan said. “I hope we can be of some help.”
“I’m sure you will be—and just having more officers around...well, that’s good.” Liz shook her head. “I can’t afford to quit, but I don’t feel great when I come into work anymore.”
“Has anything else happened?” Sloan asked.
“Besides Jennie being attacked and still in a coma?” Liz responded. “And someone digging up Sage McCormick’s skull? Or the murders? Or the attack on the Hough family?”
“Sorry. I meant here at the Gilded Lily,” Sloan said.
“No. I mean, not that I’ve heard. I don’t come in now until I know someone else is with me. Never bothered me before to be the first one in for the night. The actors and Jennie and Henri live here, so there was usually someone around, and it never bothered me to hear noises from upstairs or the theater or even the basement, but now...anyway, I’m terrified of the place. I wouldn’t be alone in here for the world!”
“Did you hear noises from the basement a lot?” Sloan asked her.
“Well, sure. Old buildings creak. Oh! Maybe we have rats or something down in the basement? Or ghosts. This place is haunted. We all think so. But the ghosts always seemed to know I’m a complete coward—they never gave me any trouble. I should move along. What can I get you two?”
“For now? Draft?” Sloan said, looking at Logan.
“Yeah. We’ll call Kelsey and Jane in a few minutes. I doubt they’ve eaten,” Logan said. “How’s the food?”
“The food here is good,” Liz assured him. “I’ll be right back.”
She returned swiftly with the drinks. As she did, Cy Tyburn came into the bar; he walked up to Valerie where she was singing and stood, hat in hand, sighing. She smoothly switched songs, and he joined her in a sweet duet. The heroine and the hero, singing together. When the song was over, Cy slipped away, coming to their table. “Sheriff. How’s it going?” he asked anxiously.
“Sit down,” Sloan said. Cy glanced at Logan and smiled awkwardly. “Hey.”
“Cy, this is Logan Raintree, an old friend of mine who now runs Jane’s FBI unit. Logan, you’ve seen him perform already. This is our hero in residence, Cy Tyburn.”
Cy and Logan shook hands. “Glad to have you here. Have you learned anything else?” Cy asked, turning nervously from one man to the other.
“We’re working on it. Hey, you need to calm down some,” Sloan said. “How about a beer?”
Cy glanced at his watch. “Yeah, sure, one before the show and I’m actually a better performer. Thanks. That would be great.”
“Your day went well?” Logan asked him.
“Everything was fine. Had so much fun acting out the stories and doing improv with people that I forgot someone might’ve been trying to kill me yesterday,” he said.
Before either could respond, Valerie made her way over to the table. She immediately offered Logan her hand. “Hi. You have to be another officer, right?”
Logan nodded and stood, taking Valerie’s hand, then pulling out a chair for her. She sat, lowering her voice as she spoke. “Have you found out anything? Your friend here—” she nodded at Sloan “—nearly bit my head off today for going to visit people at the hospital.”
“You went to the hospital?” Cy asked her. “Why?”
“Well, I tried to see Zoe and Jimmy—but a muscle-bound suit came after me, and then Sheriff Suspicious here stopped me on the road coming back,” Valerie said indignantly.
Sloan lifted a hand and smiled at Liz. “Can we get two more here?”
“Of course,” she called back.
“Is one for me?” Valerie asked.
“Yes, I’m sorry. Didn’t you want one?”
“Sure. But I would’ve ordered a double Scotch.”
“We do have a show, Valerie,” Cy reminded her.
“Yeah, one that could wind up putting us in a hospital, too,” she muttered.
“If you’re afraid to perform, I can close this place down,” Sloan said.
Valerie sniffed. “If you closed it down, we’d have nowhere to go. And no money to get someplace else, anyway.” She leaned into the table. “I don’t think anywhere in this town is safe, so it doesn’t matter, does it?”
Liz delivered two more glasses of beer. “You could get out of town,” Logan said politely.
“Do you know how hard it is to get acting jobs these days? If I were in L.A., there’d be a million girls like me trying for one role. I have a great character to work with here, and I want to stay with the ensemble for another year. That’ll help my résumé... I can’t leave here now,” Valerie told him.
“I could,” Cy said thoughtfully.
“Stop it, Cy!”
“Hey, you weren’t told that there were live rounds in guns that should have held nothing but blanks!” Cy protested.
“Oh, Lord, Henri’s coming in.” Valerie stood instantly and raised her glass. “Three cheers for the Gilded Lily bartenders and servers!” she called, and moved away from the table, starting another song.
Sloan arched his brows at Logan. There goes our beer glass!
“Well, that girl sure knows how to suck up!” Cy stood, as well, following Valerie around the room, adding his voice to hers in harmony.
“They are good,” Logan commented. “Those two definitely know when and where to pick up on each other’s moves.”
“They do,” Sloan agreed. “I want to keep an eye on those beer glasses, though.”
Henri Coque saw Sloan and Logan and immediately came over to join them. He seemed as eager as anyone else to greet Logan and welcome him, expressing hope that he could help solve whatever was happening to their formerly peaceful town of Lily.
“Sit, Henri, have a drink with us,” Sloan invited.
“Should you be drinking?” Henri asked. “Being on duty and all.”
“I think I’m fine with a beer,” Sloan said, nodding slowly.
“Do you have any information about what’s going on?”
Same question they were all asking, Sloan thought. That made sense, although at least one person—and as yet he didn’t know who—had a private agenda.
“No, but we’re expecting more information back from county anytime now,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Trace evidence. You’ve heard the old theory that you take something and you leave something everywhere you go. They’ll find some evidence that will pin the killer,” Sloan explained. The theory was solid; it didn’t always work. Fingerprints could belong where they were found, and dozens upon dozens of prints could be lifted from any one place. DNA was great—as long as you had a sample for comparison. Legally obtained, of course.
“So, let’s get you a beer,” Sloan said.
“If you’re buying, I’ll have a bourbon,” Henri said. “No ice. My usual.”
Sloan waved a hand to order as Logan asked Henri where to find the restrooms. Henri gave him directions.
As Liz brought Henri his drink, Sloan saw that Logan had casually slipped his hand around the beer glass Cy had left on the bar.
“So, Sloan,” Henri said, “today seems to be going fine. The actors are working. The theater is open!”
“It’s a great day...so far,” Sloan agreed pleasantly. He watched Valerie glide around the room. When he saw Logan on his way back, he nodded toward the glass she’d just placed on the bar. Logan nodded in return.
Henri sipped his drink.
* * *
The spirit of Trey Hardy had disappeared when Jane and Kelsey entered the Old Jail.
Mike Addison was behind the sheriff’s desk, giving directions to a couple who wanted to ride out and see the old cemetery. His “concierge,” a woman of about twenty, was serving complimentary wine to guests in the old gun room, along with nachos and cheese.
When the couple moved on, Jane approached him and introduced Kelsey, then asked for the key to her room.
“Calling it a night, Agent Everett? It’s still early.”
“I’m just showing Kelsey what a wonderful bed-and-breakfast you have,” Jane told him.
Mike beamed. “I do love it,” he said with enthusiasm. “Silverfest days are great. Halloween is great. But sometimes...well, Lily is off the beaten track. So if you want to go on any travel sites and rave about the place, I’d be very grateful! Oh, and, ladies, it’s wine and snacks time in the gun room.”
“Thanks, but we’re going to my cell for a few minutes. Then we’ll head back out, of course. We’ll probably catch the show tonight.”
“Are you in it tonight?” Mike asked her. “I saw you outside when Brian Highsmith grabbed you and dragged you into the action. You’d think—especially as an actor—that he wouldn’t be so obvious in his attempts to accost a pretty woman. I had half a mind to walk up and say something to him!”
She kept forgetting she was wearing the Sage costume. It was almost unnerving, since she spent most of her days in very practical business suits. But she’d learned to move easily in the Victorian attire and forgot about it...until she walked in front of a mirror.
“I’m not in the show. I’ve enjoyed playing Sage out in the streets, but their show’s already cast—hero and heroine, vamp and villain. And don’t worry about me, Mike. I can handle myself very well.”
“I saw that,” he said with a wink. He smiled at Kelsey. “Welcome!”
They exchanged a few words, then she and Jane passed through the barred wooden door that led to the cells.
“What are we doing?” Kelsey asked her quietly as Jane fit her cell-block key into the room door.
“I saw Trey Hardy. Did you?”
“No, I didn’t. But he’s supposed to haunt the street and the jail, right?”
“Yes. I didn’t get a chance to tell you—Sage wrote his name on the mirror in my room. She doesn’t seem to speak, but she likes to write in the mist on a mirror. Oh, and she throws a mean hairbrush, too.”
They entered the Trey Hardy cell. The room had been updated effectively. The door made it feel like a jail cell, but the beds were plush, and the television stand looked new but was Victorian in style, as were the dresser and bedside tables. A wardrobe doubled as a closet in back. There wasn’t much extra space around the furniture, but then the Old Jail hadn’t originally been designed to offer luxury suites.
Jane stood in the bedroom, certain that the ghost had beckoned her here, and yet she didn’t see him now.
“So, are you really sleeping here?” Kelsey asked. “You have the Sage McCormick room, as well. Are you planning on spending part of the night there? Did you want one of us in here with you—or do you think that will hinder Trey’s appearance?”
“I hadn’t planned anything. I just saw the writing on the mirror and found out that the couple who were supposed to be here had left,” Jane said. “So I took the room.”
“Well, the question is, who knows more about what’s going on? Sage or Trey Hardy.” Kelsey lay on the bed and closed her eyes. “I’m feeling a bit of jet lag,” she murmured apologetically.
“No, lie there for a minute. I’ll just sit.”
Jane did. She sat on the foot of the bed and studied the room, seeing it as it was now—and trying to envision what it had been like in the past. She focused her mind, imagining the place without the bath and the wall separating it from the bedroom. The cell would have been plain, the floor uncovered. There might have been a few narrow bunks in it. The bathroom would have consisted of a chamber pot, nothing more.
The cell was at the end of the jail that almost abutted the Gilded Lily. From the bathroom area—closed-in now—there might have been a barred window that looked onto the Gilded Lily. Had Trey Hardy believed he was going to hang? He probably hadn’t expected to be gunned down in his cell, but he might well have expected that his life was about to end.
She rose and walked into the bathroom, glancing into the mirror above the sink. She was sure that, at one time, barred windows had hung where the mirror was now. Trey might have paced the room and looked over at the Lily. Right here, she stood only about twenty feet away from where the audience would be sitting at the Gilded Lily tonight.
And if the jail had a basement, the basement here would adjoin the room in the basement below the Gilded Lily, the one that held all the props and old mannequins.
She opened her eyes. Trey Hardy was there.
He stood behind her. He seemed as real as flesh and blood. His eyes were dark brown, his hair was dark, too, and he had a handsome, weathered face. The lines in it were attractive, as if he’d spent more of his life smiling than in anger. But now he looked grave as he stared back at her.
“Help me,” she said. “I’m trying to help you.”
He slammed a fist against the wall, his expression bleak, frustrated. She jumped. “You can speak,” she encouraged him. “You can speak if you try.”
His mouth moved; a sound escaped but it was like a groan....
He slammed the wall again and stamped his foot. He was certainly practiced at causing bangs and bumps, even if his speech was nothing but a groan.
Suddenly she heard a knocking on the outer door.
“What the hell?” Kelsey cried, leaping up.
Trey Hardy disappeared in a flash.
“Agent Everett!” Mike Addison called. “Agent Everett! Are you all right in there?”
Kelsey was already at the door by the time Jane reached it. Mike was standing outside. “Your neighbors were worried. What on earth are you two doing in here?” he demanded, looking suspiciously from one to the other.
“I’m sorry,” Kelsey said, shrugging. “I was zoned out.”
“Well, they heard a tremendous thump and a bang,” Mike said. “This is a wooden building, you know. Sound carries!”
“Whatever they heard must have been from outside,” Jane said, meeting his eyes. “Kelsey was sleeping. I was just fixing my hair. I dropped my brush and hit my head when I bent down to get it. Maybe that was it?”
“Well, keep the noise down, please. Forgive me, but I do have other guests.”
“It wasn’t us, Mike, honest,” Jane said sweetly. “Maybe it was the ghosts—but the noise was probably because of whatever’s happening at the theater.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s what I’ll say,” Mike said, turning to leave.
Kelsey closed the door, rolling her eyes. “Honestly...”
Jane looked at her. “It was Hardy. He kept banging on the wall in the bathroom. He was trying to tell me something, but he can’t speak. In all these years, he hasn’t learned how to speak to those who can see him.”
“Where is he now?” Kelsey asked.
“I don’t see him. When Mike started pounding on the door...he disappeared.”
Kelsey angled her head. “I hope I can get one of your ghosts to speak with me, or at least make an appearance. You can’t be in two places at the same time.”
“A number of people have seen both of these ghosts. Most of their friends, of course, assume they’re crazy. Even a ghost-busting TV guy went running out of the Gilded Lily. But I’m sure they’ll eventually communicate with us. I just don’t know what they can tell us.” She paused. “Sage sent me some fairly general warnings, but aside from that...”
“Like you said, they’re definitely trying to tell us something.” Kelsey’s phone rang and she quickly picked it up. “It’s Logan,” she murmured a few seconds later. “He and Sloan are next door. They thought we should eat.”
“Yeah, food sounds great,” Jane said.
Kelsey shook her head and slowly smiled. “You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you? Logan told me that he’s a good cop and an all-around good guy. He wasn’t afraid to quit his job and come home to take care of his grandfather who was dying of cancer.”
“I’m that obvious?” Jane asked.
Kelsey shrugged. “Not to someone else. I work with you. I went through the academy with you. We see ghosts together and have rational conversations about them. That gives us a bond, you know?”
“Yes, it does,” Jane agreed. “And yes, I’m sleeping with him.”
“Fast worker,” Kelsey teased.
“It was...”
“The circumstances. Believe me, I know. Who instigated it?” Kelsey asked.
“Me.”
“Wow. I am impressed.” Kelsey laughed.
“Kelsey—”
“Sorry! But does this ghost talk to him?”
“I’m not sure.”
“We should find out,” Kelsey said. “For now, let’s eat.”
As they left the Old Jail, Jane waved to Mike at the desk where he seemed to be going through paperwork. He smiled at her. “Out to enjoy the evening? Oh, I guess you’re working, what with everything going on here. Shame about Caleb Hough—although I doubt anyone in town is really surprised.”
“I wonder if that’s why no one wanted to shut down Silverfest,” Jane watched Mike’s reaction. “I mean, I guess he was universally disliked.”
“Pity about the kid and his wife being hurt, though,” Mike said.
“Interesting that no one seemed to be deterred from coming here, despite everything that’s been going on,” Kelsey said.
Mike shrugged. “In big cities, you sometimes have a murder a day. No one leaves a city because of a murder. Now, I’ll grant you, our population is small in comparison, but, heck, we haven’t had a murder since before I moved here. I have faith in the sheriff. He’ll straighten it all out. Especially with the county—and you feds—working on it, too.”
“Actually, it was two murders in less than a week—and four assaults,” Jane said.
“Four?” Mike asked.
“You mean Zoe and Jimmy Hough and—”
“Jennie and me in the basement of the Gilded Lily,” Jane finished.
He gave her a patient smile. “The basement—it’s a death trap, you know. You should stay out of it. Those mannequins are unstable. Jennie probably fell. You just got whacked by one of those fake people.”
“Wow.” Jane grimaced, looking at Kelsey. “Imagine. Jennie fell—right on the rough end of a walking cane.”
“I’m always warning you about those mannequins,” Kelsey said jokingly.
Jane didn’t laugh, responding to Mike instead. “Mike, I’m not part of the theater—and I’m not known for overreacting!”
Mike frowned at them.
Kelsey took up the conversation. “Well, it’s really great to hear that you have faith in your law enforcement system, Mike.”
“Town, county—and federal!” he said pleasantly.
“See you later, Mike,” Jane told him.
“Take care now,” he said, returning to his paperwork.
They left the Old Jail and walked the few steps to the entrance of the Gilded Lily. Country music was playing on the stereo system when they arrived. The bar area was busy but they quickly saw Logan and Sloan at a four-top table.
They slid into seats to join them.
“Anything new?” Jane asked Sloan.
“A bit of an interesting twist,” he said, leaning close. “You know the mummified corpse in the desert? Well, it’s been stripped down to the bone for you to do a reconstruction. But the M.E. found something interesting—or rather, something lacking—in the skull when he removed the rest of the soft tissue.”
“What?”
“The tongue,” he replied. “Whoever our mystery corpse might be, he had his tongue sliced out before he was shot in the chest.”
“Gruesome.” Kelsey shuddered. “But that’s a classic punishment for talking too much, isn’t it?”
“Heretics sometimes had their tongues cut out,” Logan said. “I guess you could say they talked too much—against the establishment or the church. It’s beginning to look as if whoever we found in the desert was killed to prevent him from talking.”
Kelsey shook her head. “That was cruel and brutal, since they obviously meant to kill the victim, anyway. What difference did it make if he could talk. They were going to kill him. It doesn’t make any sense.
“Some people are cruel and brutal,” Logan said, “and we’ve all learned that cruelty doesn’t have to make sense. Sloan, I know Jane is still working on the skull you’ve already determined to be that of Sage McCormick, but if she did up a quick two-dimensional drawing from photos and scans of the second corpse, do you have old photographs or paintings we could make comparisons with?”
“Over at Desert Diamonds Grant’s got several books written by historians throughout the years, plus replica editions of books written at the time. There are pictures of Brendan Fogerty, Aaron Munson, Red Marston, Eamon McNulty—and, of course, Sage McCormick. But there’s also a nice painting of her over the bar, just behind you. Jane’s two-dimensional sketch was really all we needed to see that the skull had belonged to Sage. I’d asked her to finish her reconstruction for sentimental reasons, really.” He paused. “You’ve probably heard that she was an ancestor of mine.” When everyone nodded, he went on, “I believe the skeleton we dug up in the desert is going to prove to be Red Marston, but...that’s a theory at this point, nothing more. And I think if that body is Red Marston’s, then we just might be right about the gold.”
“I’ll get on it first thing in the morning,” Jane said. “So what’s your plan for the evening?”
“Have you gotten settled yet?” Sloan asked Logan and Kelsey.
Before either could answer, his phone rang, and he excused himself to answer it. Jane watched as first a frown and then an expression of relief came over his features. “I don’t want anyone else knowing,” Sloan said. “If she does have something to tell us, I don’t want her to be a target.”
He hung up and told them, “It’s Jennie, Jennie Layton. The stage manager—they call her their ‘stage mother.’ She’s conscious now. She’s doing well, and the doctor says I can speak with her.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll call you,” he said. “I don’t know what she’ll know. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll remember some of what happened.”
Jane set a hand on his arm. “Sloan, this may sound strange, but I’m not sure the person—or persons—who attacked Jennie and me can be the same as whoever killed Berman and Caleb Hough.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Jennie and I are alive,” she said quietly.
“Jennie got a pretty good hit on the head with that cane,” he argued. “And you were knocked unconscious.”
“But Berman was killed with a bullet. Caleb Hough had his throat from slit ear to ear,” she said.
“I’ll see what Jennie has to say,” he said. “I’ll call when I’m on my way back.”
“I take it you’re going to stay with Jane over at the Old Jail tonight?” Kelsey asked Sloan blandly. “If something’s going on in that room, two pairs of eyes would be better than one.”
Sloan seemed confused for a minute. Kelsey had left him a nice opening, though, Jane thought, lowering her lashes to hide her amusement.
“Certainly. Of course,” he said. He paused to talk to Liz and then walked out the door.
“We’ll eat first, and then you can show Kelsey and me where we’re sleeping,” Logan said. “And, if you don’t mind, you can show us the infamous Sage McCormick suite.”
“Of course. We can catch some of the show and I’ll give you a tour of the place—with Henri’s permission.”
“Charm him,” Logan suggested. “What’s good on the menu?”
“Everything I’ve had so far,” Jane said.
They ordered their meals. There was enough activity and noise in the bar so that Jane could really talk to them, put events in chronological order and get their feedback.
“People kill for different reasons,” Logan said. “Revenge, sometimes for presumed injustices. They kill for passion. Or because they’re mentally ill. And they kill out of greed. Lily’s past victims seem to have died because of the greed of others. And maybe the same thing is going on today. How many of the people in the town have ancestors who were here at that time?” he asked.
“Well, Sloan. As he mentioned, Sage McCormick was his great-great grandmother,” Jane said. “And I’m not sure who else. The actors working in the theater came from other places, and I believe Henri Coque came here from elsewhere, too. I don’t know about the others. We’ll have to ask Sloan.”
When they’d finished the meal, Jane found Henri. She requested a key for Kelsey and Logan, and asked if, after the show, he’d mind if she showed them around the theater. Henri agreed, smiling. He told her he liked her even better in the crimson dress than in the blue. “I’ve heard from a number of our audience members. They say you’ve been quite entertaining on the street. Thank you! Feel free to take your fellow agents around the theater.”
While Kelsey and Logan went out to retrieve their overnight bags and settle into Jennie’s room at the Gilded Lily, Jane decided to go to her room there. She was feeling strangely divided. She now had two of her Krewe with her, and yet she still felt it was important to be in both places—the Gilded Lily and the Old Jail.
And talk to the ghosts there.
She gathered a few things to put in a small bag to take over to the Old Jail later that night, then sat on the bed.
“Sage, I wish you’d talk to me,” she said.
She stood swiftly, feeling something cold but gentle and...yearning sweep by her. Walking into the bathroom, she closed the door and turned the sink faucet on hot until steamy water poured down the drain and a mist rose to cover the mirror.
“Sage? I don’t know why you won’t speak to me. We’re really trying to help. Trying to solve all this and prevent more deaths.”
She felt the air shift around her. The mirror was clouded with steam, but it was through the steam that she’d found the way these ghosts communicated.
Sage was behind her. Jane didn’t turn around; she spoke to the mirror image of the beautiful ghost.
“Help us. If you speak to me, I will hear you,” she said.
Sage stared back at her.
With a slight stirring of the air, the ghost moved around her...and began to write. She clearly saw the words.
SPEAK NO EVIL
A second later, the words were furiously erased.
SPEAK NO TRUTH!
Jane turned slowly around. The image of the ghost remained. Sage McCormick opened her mouth, and although she was a ghost, there was something Jane could clearly see.
Sage McCormick had no tongue; it had been sliced off at the base.
“Oh, God!” Jane said softly, “I’m so sorry, so, so sorry!”