Free The Hexed (Krewe of Hunters) by Heather Graham

her pretty black dresses that came just below her knees; her white hair was swept into a bun, and her spectacles were in place. Her cheeks were rosy; her lips were pursed into a smile.
    Devin blinked. Aunt Mina didn’t go away.
    Instead, she spoke.
    “Yes, I’m here, child. Now please put that mayonnaise down before you drop it.”

4
    T he drive to Boston wasn’t a long one, but Rocky, sitting in the passenger seat beside Jack Grail, found that he resented the time the trip would take. Still, when Jack had called him over lunch, he knew it only made sense to go.
    He didn’t like being away from the active investigation, because this case was a confounding one. The murderer had struck once and stopped, and then again almost thirteen years later, when he had struck twice in two weeks.
    Either that, or they had a copycat on their hands.
    But how could a copycat mimic Melissa’s murder so precisely, when many of the details had never been made public?
    Now he and Jack stood in a sterile room that smelled of antiseptic and death, and listened to the report being given by Dr. Samuels. Dr. Samuels hadn’t performed the autopsy on Carly Henderson; that had been Dr. Smith, who was currently on vacation. His report was in Carly’s file, and she had been buried in Salem just three days ago.
    Their Jane Doe lay on the table. If she weren’t such a strange color and didn’t feel like ice—and didn’t have the Y incision that was the most obvious sign of autopsy—she might have been any young woman catching a few rays. Dr. Samuels droned through the necessary information. Female, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, five feet six inches, one hundred and fifteen pounds. There were no signs of rape or sexual molestation; she hadn’t even been sexually active in the days before her death. She had no tattoos or identifying scars, and she had nearly perfect teeth.
    In fact, other than the slice across the throat—performed, according to Dr. Samuels, by a double-edged blade of about six or seven inches and made from left to right—she had been unharmed. No one had beat her, strangled her, dragged her or done anything else to her. Her stomach contents were being tested. However, Dr. Samuels had read the report on Carly Henderson and believed that the two women had consumed identical meals—clam chowder and fish and chips—before they had met their demise. If that turned out to be true, Rocky thought, it could be a clue as valuable as the pentagram medallions.
    “So,” Rocky said, moving to use Jack as his mock victim, “the killer came up directly behind her, placed the weapon so—and slashed?”
    “Yes, that appears to be what happened,” Samuels agreed.
    “The same as Carly Henderson?” Jack asked.
    “From what I’ve read, yes.”
    “And what about Melissa Wilson?” Rocky asked.
    Samuels frowned. “I don’t think I know that name.”
    “She was killed thirteen years ago—she was found the same way.”
    “I’ll have to look up that report. I was working in San Francisco thirteen years ago,” Samuels told them.
    They thanked him for his time and headed back to their car.
    “None of them was molested,” Jack said. “I guess there’s a small comfort in that.”
    Small comfort? Rocky thought. Maybe. They were all still dead.
    “Yeah,” Rocky muttered. “I guess. I don’t think they had any idea they were going to die. It must have been quick.”
    “I don’t understand how he pulls it off. This guy has to be covered with blood once he’s done,” Jack said.
    “Not that much. He’s behind the victim, and the spray would go forward.”
    “But then he’s lowering his victim to the ground—laying her out. And placing the medallion on her,” Jack said.
    “Yes, some blood, but not so much that he couldn’t cover it if he’d stashed a jacket nearby. Soon as he’s done he goes home and cleans up. And since we don’t know where home is...”
    “Gotta be Wiccans,” Jack said.
    “I don’t