Free Krewe of Hunters 1 Phantom Evil by Heather Graham

right?”
    â€œWill Chan, but he’s not here yet,” Jackson said.
    â€œWe follow orders well,” Angela assured her.
    â€œAnd I’m way brawnier than I look,” Jake added, laughing.
    â€œThat’s good. Because you can all start while I check the doors, windows and the alarm system again,” Jackson told him. “Here are the rules—no one opens the gate without me knowing it. We’re going to be opening the balcony doors from our bedrooms, so I’ll have the alarm set during the day so that we can do that. Though it will sound if we don’t key ourselves in and out of the front door—everyone understand?”
    â€œYes, and thank God! I can’t imagine not going out on that beautiful balcony,” Whitney said. She didn’t seem the least disturbed by the house—simply fascinated.
    â€œWe’ll dig on in and help Whitney start getting set up,” Angela assured him.
    â€œI won’t be that long.”
    He was long, though. Longer than he intended.
    None of them had been up to the third floor yet. After taking the grand stairway to the second floor, he briefly checked each of the rooms on the front end of the house, and came around to the middle section, and the stairway there. He went up to the third level. Thankfully, the middle section was one big expanse of space. With remnants from the decades that the house had stood.
    No one had gotten up here yet to start on the cleaning. The area was rife with dust; it almost felt as if he took a step back into a different time. Dressmakers’ dummies were along the wall, near one of the three dormer windows. Jackson checked them; the alarm wires were in place. Clothing on the dummies ranged from an antebellum ball gown to a World War II–era swing skirt.
    A huge old sewing machine was in another corner, and a wire crate held toys from eons past, wooden soldiers, dolls that might have been collectibles, croquet mallets, balls and wickets. More—he couldn’t discern everything in the container.
    He walked through the low hallway at the one end, arriving at the area over the ballroom, and discovered that it had been set up as a row of dormitory-style rooms, and he assumed that the rooms had been slave quarters for the household staff at one time, and servants’ quarters at another.
    It was slow going, but he checked each of the dormer windows. He walked back through the main storage room and through the low-ceilinged hallway to the last ell; here, he found just two rooms, both of them large, and both of them empty. But the alarm wires were in place, and the windows were secure. He walked back down to the second floor and went through all the motions, finally reached the first, and checked that all the windows not facing the courtyard were secure.
    The place was huge. Despite the fact that the police had searched the premises, and despite the alarm system, Jackson still wondered if there hadn’t been a way for someone to slip in—uninvited, and unknown.
    Back in the ballroom he discovered that his crew had been busy. There was a set of television screens arranged at the far end of the room, cables, cords, lights and more equipment aligned against the wall.
    â€œWe’re trying to decide which rooms should get the cameras first,” Angela told him. She stared at him peculiarly.
    â€œWhat?” he asked.
    â€œYou look like a ghost yourself,” Whitney said, giggling.
    â€œLike you’ve been playing in a pail of plaster,” Jake added.“You went up to the attic? I’m guessing there hasn’t been a cleanup crew there.”
    He groaned and looked at his arm. The sleeves of his cotton shirt were white.
    Once again, the doorbell rang and he walked to the door, expecting the remainder of the team.
    A tall, slender woman of African descent stood there as straight as a ramrod, and as ancient as one. She frowned, seeing Jackson, and murmured something that seemed