Phantom Evil

“No, but my time with the therapist made me extremely careful about what I say to other people!”

He laughed, his green eyes still bright. “Well, I do know people who see them—ghosts—and see them easily.”

“Really?” she asked.

“I’ll introduce you,” he said.

“They live here?”

He nodded.

“Does Adam know about them? Why wouldn’t he have brought them in on this team?”

“Well, frankly, Nikki and Brent have three small children now. I’m sure Adam would have liked to have them on a team, but they’re busy parents. I don’t believe they would work away from the city, not with their children growing up. They have their schools, their church, their sports teams…they’re good people, though. I met Adam through them, actually…” Jake paused in thought.

“I see. And I understand—I think. Adam wants a team that will stay cohesive for a while, a group that starts out together and learns to work together,” Angela said.

“You think Regina Holloway committed suicide?”

Angela simply looked at him for a moment and admitted, “No.”

“You think the house is haunted?” he asked her.

She laughed. Once again, she chose her words. “Say I believe that a house can be haunted. Perhaps things go bump in the night—or ghosts prowl the hallways. I don’t think that ghosts pushed Regina Holloway over the balcony.”

“Good conclusion.”

The voice came from the doorway and Angela turned quickly to see that Jackson Crow had finished whatever work he was doing and stood there, watching them. She felt color flood her cheeks. Just how long had he been there?

“I wanted you to let Jake know that he needs to go ahead and pick a room,” Jackson said, his blue eyes as enigmatic as ever. “The rest of the crew will be arriving soon. You might want to get settled. The two maids who worked in the house when Regina was alive won’t come back to work here, but they should be here in a few minutes to show us where the linen can be found, towels, cleaning articles, all that.”

“All right, I think I’ll go ahead and take that third room in the hallway where you two are,” Jake said. “And I’m pretty good at picking up after myself. I can cook, too,” he assured them.

“I’ll help you,” Angela said.

“I just have my guitar and my bag,” he said.

“I’ll get the guitar for you—and treat it like gold,” Angela assured him. “You wouldn’t want to drop it on the way up the stairs.”

“Sure,” he said, and they both walked past Jackson. Angela felt that he watched them, and she wondered why. She was equally curious as to why she was suddenly trying to avoid him.

Because the meeting over the pickax remained between them—and she didn’t really want him knowing that, despite her credentials, she definitely still had her vulnerabilities.

She wasn’t sure. She was confident, and she knew how to keep her own counsel. But there was something about the way that he looked at her…

She usually didn’t care, she realized. She wanted Jackson Crow to like her.

“Hi!”

The fourth member of his team, Whitney Tremont, had just rung the bell. She’d been born and bred in New Orleans just like Jake, but with the difference that Jake came from an “English” background and Whitney was pure Creole.

She was, he thought, a compelling little bundle of energy. She was little, no more than five–two or five–three, slim, with curly hair and hazel eyes, and skin the color of amber. She had a smile that was infectious, and a soft, sweet voice.

They had sent him another child.

No, there was a keen intelligence in her eyes. She had been a straight–A off–the–charts student; she had studied ethnicity, religion, philosophy, modern and ancient beliefs, while also receiving her degree in film from NYU. Her maternal great–grandmother was a noted contemporary voodoo priestess, and owned a shop called As You Believe up near Rampart Street. She had helped the local police crack down on a cult of would–be voodoo worshippers who had taken it upon themselves to bastardize the beliefs for the sake of human sacrifice—two young people had died during blood–drinking rituals. According to her file, she had a chameleon–like ability to slip into any group and be accepted as one of them—and somehow manage to film or video events and people who had never allowed such a thing before. Her expertise was cameras and film, and Jackson knew that she, like Will Chan, whom he had yet to meet, had been brought in for their work with cameras and sound.

“Hi,” he said, reaching for her large, tapestry travel bag. “Come on in. Whitney, right? Miss Whitney Tremont.”

“Jackson Crow. Love the name,” she assured him.

“Thanks.”

“So, you’ve already been digging up bodies—I’m late to the party,” she said.

He grimaced. “A skeleton. Angela Hawkins found it.”

“I’m impressed, and the majority of the people in the city are convinced that now all the ghosts who might not have been busy yet will be crawling out of the woodwork. Anyway, if they do, I’m hoping that we catch them on film. I have a lot of equipment out in the van.”

He looked over her head. There was a fellow in the driver’s seat who looked so much like her that he had to be her brother. The man waved to him; Jackson waved back.

“I’ll open the courtyard gate. And call the troops to help. Well, the two who are here now,” Jackson told her.

“Okay,” Whitney said. “That’s my brother, Tyler, over there. I’ll get him to come around the corner,” she said cheerfully.

Whitney went out; he called for Angela and Jake, and soon they were all in the courtyard, meeting Tyler and hauling heavy boxes out of the van. They decided to set up in the grand entry slash ballroom, so Jackson shut off the alarm entirely in order for them to open the middle courtyard doors and take the shortest route.

It didn’t take them more than thirty minutes to bring everything in.

Tyler was as tall as his sister was short, ranging a good foot over her head. He was as pleasant with the others as if he had been leaving his sister at summer camp, but when he was actually ready to leave, he gave her a huge hug and said seriously, “You be careful, and you don’t take any chances, and you don’t go getting your nose in where it shouldn’t be.”

“I’m all grown up now, Tyler,” she reminded him, but she hugged him in return.

“She has a tendency to rush in—right into people who have guns,” he said.

Jackson grinned. “We’ll watch out for her. I promise.”

Tyler nodded. “Adam wouldn’t have set her up with you if you weren’t good people. And if she wasn’t going to be safe.” He paused, looking around. “So this is the Newton house. It doesn’t look like a dark torture chamber, but…I’m sure it’s creepy as hell at night. You all be careful, huh? I remember when the kid took a header when the cops were after him about a decade ago. Brought it all back. And now Mrs. Holloway…it’s a shame, and it may just be that the place is bad.”

“We’ll all be looking out for each other,” Jake said solemnly.

Hugging his sister and warning her to call him, Tyler left at last.

Jackson looked at the four members of his team and the mass of boxes in the living room. “Well,” he said.

Whitney shrugged. “It’s not bad, really! Somebody else is in film, right?”

“Will Chan, but he’s not here yet,” Jackson said.