“How?”
“Well, your father and I saw the news, even if you didn’t. I was horrified, of course, and then I saw Cara was trying to get through on the computer.”
“You can use a computer?” he asked his mother, incredulous—and somewhat disgusted with himself.
“She does—I don’t,” his father said. “Your mom has always been the family communicator.”
“A new ghost managed to contact an old ghost?” he asked.
“It’s difficult to explain, but it’s like we Skyped,” his mother said.
“But how—Never mind. Never mind. I’m not sure I even want to know. So, Cara has shown herself to this young lady, this Marnie Davante?”
“If she hasn’t, she will,” Maeve said.
“I really hope so. And I hope, Mom, I can even get near her.”
“Of course—you’re our son. You can go just about anywhere, using the name,” Maeve assured him.
“I believe she is right on that,” his father said.
Bryan set down his ax and headed for the cabin.
“Where are you going?” Maeve asked him.
He turned to look at her wearily. “I’m going to go check out flights to LA. God knows you haunt me enough that I spend more time with the dead than the living.”
He saw the look of relief and pleasure on his mother’s face.
And his father’s approving nod.
Oh, hell.
Hollywood.
Well, he did have a bit of time on his hands. He’d spent enough time fishing and splitting logs and wondering if he and his brothers should form an agency.
Or if he should go ahead and look into the position that had been offered.
If he should join the FBI.
With the unit known unofficially as the Krewe of Hunters.
But his mother and father had come to him, and he wasn’t committed to any path as yet.
He was going to LA.
*
Marnie had definitely spent too much of her life in Hollywood.
It was impossible to grasp the fact that what happened was reality.
Someone was going to yell, “Cut!” Then the director was going to step forward and tell them what a great job they had all done; they had gotten the scene in one take.
And then Cara Barton would get up. She would straighten her shoulders and look at Marnie and say, “Of course! I’m a pro. I really was great, wasn’t I?”
And Marnie would laugh. Cara had been ambitious; she had even been obnoxious at times. But from the get-go, she had been good to Marnie, and they had been true friends.
And now Marnie had held someone she loved as she had died.
Even then, even as reality reared its ugly head, she expected everything would happen as it did in the movies or on television. The detectives would look like Josh Hartnett or maybe Ice T, and within an hour, they’d know who had killed Cara Barton.
That hadn’t happened. It had taken them way more than an hour just to sequester Marnie and her fellow surviving cast members, and to begin to round up all the Blood-bones who filled the convention hall.
The day had been a nightmare, endless. Filled with scores of police. With sirens, with medical personnel, with a medical examiner, with crime scene techs.
In the end, though, there were two detectives assigned to the case. One was an older man who, to be honest, in Marnie’s mind, would have been perfect for the movies.
For being a homicide detective, his voice was bizarrely soft and gentle. He was tall and thin, clean-shaven, and possessed a full head of silver-gray hair. His eyes were a powdery blue, as soft and gentle as his voice. His name was Grant Vining.
His partner was his total opposite. She was young, and when she spoke, it was apparent that she was not to be taken lightly. She was a tiny blonde with brown eyes and a powerful voice that apparently made up for her size—she had no problem being heard over any amount of chatter or noise. She seemed to do the corralling and instructing while Detective Vining did more of the intimate interviews. Her name was Detective Sophie Manning. She wasn’t mean—she was just blunt. She started a bit harshly with Marnie. But then Marnie had been holding Cara Barton as she had died.
Good cop, bad cop? Did cops really play it all out that way? Marnie didn’t know.
In the midst of it all, Detective Manning turned to her and said, “We’ve got your statement. I’m going to take you to the station. We’re going to need your clothing. Yes, I know you’re thinking this is horrible and the blood on you belonged to your friend. But the killer might have cut himself. His—or her—blood could be on you, too.”
“The killer was wearing black gloves,” Marnie told the detective.
“Yes, still, we need what you’re wearing. It will be returned.”
Marnie looked around. A group had gathered by Malcolm Dangerfield’s booth; the actor was just beyond the crime scene tape surrounding the Dark Harbor booth.
Close and yet oh, so far away! Marnie thought. To his credit, he appeared to be stunned and horrified.
Malcolm Dangerfield wasn’t paying attention to any of his fans. He was staring at Marnie and the police as if he were in shock. Someone spoke to him. He didn’t seem to notice. His publicist waved the person away.
Detective Grant Vining was speaking to Jeremy Highsmith, asking him about the numbers on the table. Jeremy shrugged and told him he imagined that it had to do with five of them being there—five chairs. What could the numbers mean other than that? Had they been there all day? Yes, they’d been at the table when they’d arrived, just as their nameplates had been there. It was all set up by the comic con people. Did they change anything around?
Jeremy looked at everyone else. No one seemed to have an answer.
“Who knows?” he replied, his voice sounding broken. “We just...sat. We’re all friends. We wouldn’t have cared where we sat. When we get together...we talk.” He swallowed and then said, “It makes these things bearable. For me, at least.”
“I think we more or less sat where our names were,” Roberta Alan said. “I have personally never seen numbers before, and we’re all friends. We don’t care where we sit, and I just honestly don’t remember if we sat by number. Oh, maybe Marnie and Cara switched around... I’m not sure. It’s honestly like I said—I don’t remember. It never mattered to us. We even sometimes play musical chairs. That way, we all got to talk to each other. Oh, yeah, and after these things, at least one of the nights, we’d head out for a meal together.”
“She loved those dinners we’d have,” Jeremy said. When he spoke, he looked old. He wasn’t a spring chicken, but he usually appeared like a very handsome and distinguished older gentleman with his thick iron gray hair and straight and elegant posture.
Now, he just looked old.
“Tonight,” Marnie said softly. “We were all supposed to be together tonight.”
“We really were her family!” Jeremy said.
There was a little more conversation, none of it really helpful toward finding out why a Blood-bone-costumed killer would have singled them out.
“God knows, maybe it was random!” Sophie Manning murmured to Grant Vining.
“No, no. It wasn’t random. Trust me,” Vining said.
Finally, Marnie found herself being led out by Detective Manning. She went to the police station, she turned over her clothing and she was given a strange rough outfit to wear—it made her feel as if she had been arrested herself.
Detective Manning wasn’t so bad; she asked Marnie if there was someone she should call.
Marnie’s parents were going to hear about what happened, but they were off on a dream trip to Australia and New Zealand. She would just text them that she was fine, and she was going to be home and trying to sleep, and she would talk to them in the morning.
She had friends, of course.
But no one that she wanted to talk to at that moment.
Her cousin Bridget lived in the other half of her duplex. She would hear about this soon, but Bridget was down in San Diego for the weekend, visiting one of her friends from college who was there for a writers’ retreat. There was no way she could have gotten home yet.