The Unforgiven, стр. 46
“That is the biggest crock,” Katie murmured to Dan, smiling up at him.
“I, uh... I don’t even know what to say,” he muttered.
Then he realized his answer didn’t matter. Katie was staring into the property.
“What is it?” he asked.
She pointed.
He looked, following the direction of her finger, wondering for a moment if Brenda had managed to arouse the spirit of the long-dead Gazelle.
But there was something by the remains of the old vault there. Something that stuck out in the growing dusk. White...
“Dan?” she whispered.
He didn’t reply. Brenda’s group was entranced by her performance, so Dan got down from the carriage and stepped over one of the broken chunks of fence. Then he jogged over to the chilling white thing they had seen.
He stopped short. It was a leg, or part of a leg, from the knee to the foot.
Beyond it, almost flush against the wall of the old vault, was the rest of the body.
It was a woman, he saw. There was little left of her face: it appeared an axe had sliced through her skull and between her eyes straight through the nose and mouth.
As he fumbled in his pocket for his phone, he felt Katie come up behind him.
“Don’t!” he warned her.
Too late. She was next to him, staring down at the corpse.
“Katie—”
“It’s all right. I can handle it.”
“But we have a group of tourists over there. Katie!”
She was just staring at the corpse. She hadn’t screamed. She was pale as she stared at the blood splatter on the body and the broken bricks and concrete and the twisted remains of the body.
The head bashed in, and nearly severed from the body.
And the left leg, removed jaggedly and just inches from the rest of the corpse.
There was really no telling who the body had once been...
Except Dan had an odd feeling he knew who she was, that he’d been seeking her all through the day.
Axel answered the phone immediately. He would send police, agents and Dr. Vincent right away.
Dan looked at Katie again. “We can’t let the group—”
“Right, right!” she mumbled.
She tore her gaze away from the gruesome sight. “I have to get them out of here, but what do I do? How do I get them away? I can’t force them all back into the carriage.”
“At least don’t let them see this or let them get into the yard. Tell them what you told me. History is often told by the victors, and then by those who feel wronged and are bitter and want revenge in legend, at least. Go tell them what might have been the real story, that there was no love triangle, people just tragically died. There are plenty of real horror stories from the Civil War.”
She nodded woodenly. But then she did as he asked. He heard her telling the group the different theories that might explain the loss of the beautiful home and family cemetery.
She didn’t have to keep them occupied for long.
In minutes, they heard sirens. The group was curious, but before they could start exploring, police arrived.
The mediums in the group might have believed they had their channels to the dead. Certainly, none of them had foretold the future.
Axel arrived with the first group of police who immediately steered the tourists away from the house, down to the end of the other block, setting up perimeters to keep them and any other curiosity seekers at a distance from the scene. The fenced-in ruins were fenced off in another way: crime-scene tape.
Naturally, the tour group began to speculate on what had happened. Katie offered to get them back to the French Quarter in her carriage, but even as she spoke, Ryder arrived. The police would be happy to take them back in patrol cars.
There was nothing to see here, even though they protested they could help if there had been a crime.
They were politely refused.
Dan had little to do at first except set his arm around Katie and stand out on the sidewalk. They would be interviewed and explain how they had found the body.
Media arrived quickly. With or without the internet, sensational news seemed to travel on the air. Still, the public would be held at bay.
Seeing the smashed remains, there was little way to identify the person. None of them touched the body. That was Dr. Vincent’s purview.
The FBI and NOPD had feared from the get-go that there would be more victims. No one was happy that they’d been right.
Dan settled Katie in her carriage, then walked back into the crime scene and hunkered down with Axel by the victim.
Unrecognizable.
But he knew when an analysis was done, it would prove this was the woman who had been attacked by the axe found in Katie’s yard.
He’d never seen her before, other than in images.
But he knew who she was.
Katie had seen her. Years before, and then now, here in New Orleans.
Despite the mangled face, Dan was certain they’d found the mysterious Jennie at last, and while she might have been in a partnership with this Axeman, she wasn’t anymore.
The partnership had ended.
Lethally.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dr. Vincent or his assistants had cleaned the corpse, making her as presentable as possible.
The blood had been washed away, but that couldn’t change the fact there was a massive gash that sliced the face open at an angle, tearing through the forehead, eye, nose, and mouth.
Staring through the glass at the corpse as she was displayed, Katie nodded.
It was the woman she had known as Jennie, the woman she had chased through the streets just the other day.
She couldn’t help but wonder if she was dead because