“No! You’re staying right here. I’m not renting this room to macho men, cowboys or hunters. I’m keeping things calm. I have to make a living on this place!”
“Okay, then, not to worry. I’ll stay, and I’ll be just fine,” Kelsey said again.
“So, how did your day go? What’s up? What was the big meeting about?”
“Well…I’ve been asked to join the FBI,” Kelsey said.
“Really? Wow! I didn’t know the FBI went out and asked people to join it! Don’t they have an application process and training, and all that?”
“I imagine that’s the usual case.”
“Wow. You must be special!”
Kelsey shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know about that.”
“Why?”
“Pardon?”
“Why you? I mean, honestly, I think that’s amazing!” Sandy said.
“I am a United States Marshal,” Kelsey reminded her. “I have all the training that went along with that, and they’re both federal agencies.”
Even with Sandy, she didn’t want to talk about the reasons. And, in fact, those reasons hadn’t actually been discussed. Oddly enough, it hadn’t been necessary. They’d all understood.
“I don’t really know,” she lied.
Sandy came in and perched on the foot of her bed. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” she said evasively. “Sandy, forgive me, but I’m not at liberty to discuss any of this yet.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Of course not. I’d just love it, though, if you moved to Texas. I mean, I know you love your home and all, but Texas is a great state.”
Kelsey made a point of casually closing the folder she’d been reading, then sat up straighter in bed. “I’ll make a decision by tomorrow.”
“And you can live right here!” Sandy said excitedly.
Kelsey laughed. “Don’t worry, the scuttlebutt about the room will die out. Or you can bring in one of those ghost expedition groups. Either way, you’ll get lots of business. But I’ll probably stay for a while. So, thank you.”
“This is great,” Sandy said happily, as if it was all settled. “I know Sean is off working now, but you have a cousin here. And you have me. It’ll be like home.”
“I’m sure it will.” Despite herself, Kelsey yawned.
Sandy stood quickly. “Okay, well, I’ll let you get some sleep. But I’m so thrilled you’re going to be here! Yay!” She walked to the door. “Good night.”
“Good night. Thanks, Sandy.”
When Sandy had gone, Kelsey got out of bed and went to the door. She hadn’t thought to lock it earlier; now she did.
She looked at the files again, but she really was tired. Facts, figures and faces were beginning to swim before her eyes. She left the bathroom light on, but turned off the others, set the files on the bedside table and slipped back into bed.
She should’ve realized she wasn’t going to sleep well that night… .
At first she felt as if she’d been disturbed by the sound of someone whispering. It was annoying, but not enough to completely wake her. Then she began to see it all again. The room changing, ever so slightly. The Oriental divider by the bathroom door.
She noticed something different about the darkness with the glow of just the bathroom light.
No, there was a gas lamp burning.
Kelsey saw the two people in the room, the man and the woman. She, so beautiful with her dark curling hair piled atop her head and tumbling around her face with a few stray dark locks. The dress lay on the floor, and the woman wore old-fashioned stockings and garters. The man stood in his dark suit.
As he’d done in her earlier vision, he strode across the room and grabbed the woman. “You won’t hold out on me!” he shouted. “I want it, and I want it now.”
“I don’t have it,” she said.
“You’re a liar! I know what happened in Galveston that night, and I know that your pretty-boy lover won it. I want it, and I want it now!”
“No, it’s mine,” she responded.
The rest of the scene played itself out, just as it had earlier that day.
When the man squeezed the life out of the woman, she went limp. He picked her up and threw her down, the same way he had before.
Then they both disappeared into the darkness. Seconds later, light began to show from the bathroom and the room resumed its earlier appearance. She’d been unable to move; she’d really never wakened.
A tiny light seemed to hover directly in front of her. She realized she was seeing a woman’s face. In dream, in vision, in half sleep, in the tormented corners of her mind, she saw a face. She thought it would be Rose Langley, the pathetic creature murdered in this room.
But it wasn’t. It was a face she’d seen in a picture that day.
The face of the missing girl, Vanessa Johnston. She wasn’t smiling now. She was sad. She looked at Kelsey and whispered, “Too late.”
Too late, too late, too late…
There was a whir of flapping black wings in the room, and the sound they made seemed to mock the words that had been spoken.
Too late, too late, too late…
The flapping stopped, and the wings seemed to merge and create a shape.
A man.
She saw him only as a silhouette at first. Then he turned to her, his expression grave. It was Logan Raintree, so tall and lean and solid, his face like chiseled marble, his hazel eyes alive and burning.
“You saw a man?” he asked her.
She heard wings again, and now she seemed to be outside. The black birds, the crows, settling all around them, on the ground, the benches and the nearby power lines and poles.
And then he was gone, and the darkness swept around her.
When she woke in the morning, she remembered her dream about the murder of Rose Langley, her vision of Vanessa Johnston.
And the appearance of Logan Raintree in her room.
Surrounded by crows.
* * *
The Bexar County morgue was large, and a special room had been set aside for the victims
