gone missing, both of them beautiful young girls. But I couldn’t find a trail, not a drop of blood, not a broken branch. It’s as if the girls wandered into another dimension.”
“I’ll try to get out that way, too,” Cody said. “So where do Milo and his band hole up during the daylight hours?”
“No one knows,” Dave said.
“Brigsby, I’m thinking,” Cole said. “But I haven’t had a chance to get back out there to check. We had a gunslinger go through here a few weeks back, and he thought he was tougher than solid stone. He went out to Brigsby. We found what was left of his body on the ground out by where the horses went crazy on Dave and me.”
“We need to get out there as soon as we can manage it,” Cody said. “I’d like to be sure what we’re up against. Men like Milo … they can deceive, build traps. We need to find out everything we can if we’re going to fight them. Anyway, Sheriff, what you and your deputy here need to be doing is warning your townsfolk not to open their doors to strangers—and especially not even to be on the streets at night. I tried to tell the girls at the saloon that it was important to be … cautious, but that may have been a lost cause. Thing is—” Cody broke off, hesitating. The thing was, Cole Granger was going to have to accept some of the truth of the matter—or else the sheriff would be running him out of town before he could count to three.
“Inviting folks in just leads to danger,” Cody finished lamely. “This place needs to be locked up tight at night. We’ll talk more in the morning, if that’s all right with you, Sheriff. I think we’re all worn to the bone right now.”
“Good night, then,” Cole said, and Cody and Brendan started out of the graveyard. “Hey,” Cole said, calling them back. “Where are you staying?”
“Miss Alex is back in town. They’re over at the boardinghouse,” Dave said.
“Right. Alex is home,” Cole said thoughtfully. “Good night, then. And thank you for your help this evening. I offer you a true welcome to Victory.”
Cody waved a hand in acknowledgment, wondering at the sheriff’s tone when he’d mentioned Alex’s name. Was something going on there? Long-ago lovers? She had gone back East to marry, so the story went. But now that she was back in town, maybe things would be rekindled out here. Why not? The sheriff seemed like a good man, young, good-looking. And Alexandra Gordon was … beautiful. More than that. She was a fighter. There was a life inside her that was like a shimmering flame, beckoning everyone to her.
Even him.
He tamped down the thought. He’d decided long ago that his life was meant to be a solitary one.
“You think the boardinghouse is safe?” Brendan asked as they walked together along the street.
Cody shook his head. “It’s a boardinghouse. Its business is opening its door to strangers.”
“Someone in there knows something, though. There are crosses all over the place, garlic festooned around the window.”
“Doesn’t matter. Milo has already been in there,” Cody said.
“Maybe we need more crosses,” Brendan suggested.
“What we need is to kill Milo,” Cody said, and kept walking.
Brendan looked after him. “Right. And then pierce his heart, chop off his head and burn the body to ash.”
AS THE TWO OF THEM walked back to the boardinghouse, Cody thought back to how he and Brendan had met. It had started with the murderer Aldridge had needed his help in stopping. He could still remember bending over the first two bodies….
The first of the two latest victims was lying on his back, a look of abject terror on his face. His wife was in worse condition. Her tormentor must have played with her first, because her eyes were closed, as if she had clenched them hard against the sight of her impending death.
Both bodies bore stab marks about the chest and abdomen, but neither was lying in the expected pool of blood, and both were curiously white.
“It beats everything I’ve seen,” Aldridge said quietly, watching as Cody moved the woman’s hair aside to reveal the marks he’d been sure he would find. Cody hesitated, wondering just how much of the truth Aldridge might be able to accept.
The evidence was actually encouraging, at least as far as putting an end to the killing spree went. He was pretty sure he was looking at a rogue killer, someone who was trying to blend in with the population of the city. The stab marks had been made to fool whoever found the bodies, and it was only luck—good for Aldridge, maybe not so good for Cody himself—that someone had connected these killings to the case Cody had put an end to.
Cody looked up at Aldridge. “I’ll go after your killer, sir, but it’s unlikely I’ll be able to bring him in for trial. This … person will fight to the death.”
Aldridge stared at him. “You do what you have to do. I need you to catch this man.”
“I can’t be held to any curfew.”
“You’ll have free rein,” Aldridge promised.
That night, Cody prowled the streets.
He tried the bars first, but found nothing unusual. Then, as he walked along Dauphine Street, he noticed a gate standing ajar. Curious, he pushed the gate open and stepped into a dark courtyard.
He scanned the courtyard quickly, then winced, seeing what looked like a pile of clothing off to one side. He hurried over and found the body of a young woman, still warm to the touch, but dead.
Quite, quite dead.
Still warm, he thought. Which meant the killer might still be near.
He heard piano music and a songstress at work coming from one of the nearby restaurants, so he walked over to see what he might find.
He stood by the bar and sipped bourbon as he looked around the room. Several soldiers were at a table close to the piano, where they watched a dark-haired and quite beautiful woman as she played and sang, all the while flirting openly with them.
As he watched, the songstress rose, whispered in the ear of one of the men, then left him sitting and staring hungrily after her as she walked toward the back and the alley Cody knew ran behind the building.
As subtly as he could, he followed.
He had to stop the death toll. Now.
She was waiting, leaning against the wall, a wicked smile upon her face as she waited with supreme anticipation. He stared at her for a moment, realizing with a sick feeling that she wasn’t the intended victim at all.
“Excuse me?” she said, surprised when she saw Cody, and not the young man with whom she’d been flirting.
“Good evening,” he said.
She smiled and shivered, though it was far from cold. “Lovely night, actually. I’m Vivien La Rue. How do you do?”
She stretched out a hand, and when he took it, she allowed her fingers to wander over his flesh.
“You
