Unholy Magic by Stacia Kane Page A

murderers often attempted to recreate their crimes.
    Whoever the Cryin Man was, he’d be here, if they had any information at all.
    The picture she found when she opened the file nearly made her drop the whole thing. As it was, she gasped loud enough for Goody Glass to give her a disapproving frown.
    The Cryin Man—aka Charles Remington—had murdered ten prostitutes, all in the area that now covered Downside, back in the early nineteenth century.
    And he’d taken their eyes. The photograph on the top of the stack of yellowed documents could have been the one on the memory chip in Chess’s camera, from the ragged, sawing cuts to the ice crystals forming in the coagulated blood. The poor woman.
    Fuck. Just what she needed. A murderous ghost, come back for another round. So much for not getting too deeply involved in this one.
    Her first glimpse of Pyle’s house—or rather, of the white stone wall surrounding it—did nothing to dispel her concerns or take her mind off the uneasy waiting sensation she’d had ever since she photocopied that file. The wall, broken by a wooden gate, hid the building itself but allowed a glimpse of treetops and the crest of a gray slate roof. Chess pulled up before the gate and rolled down her window, shoving Charles Remington, his victims, and Daisy out of her head. Time to work.
    A mechanical voice emanated from a small steel box. “Name and business, please?”
    “Cesaria Putnam, from the Church. I’ve come about your haunting.”
    The gate glided out of the way and she drove through.
    No, money was probably not a concern for Pyle. White walls, interrupted by shining windows, stretched wide across the winter-dead lawn. The house stood between naked trees, branches jutting aggressively like arms trying to hold it back. It might have been graceful, even beautiful, in summer, when the grass was green and the leaves softened the sharp edges. Now it simply stared at her with dozens of blank eyes, daring her to discover its secrets.
    Chess followed the curving drive along the front—it seemed to have been designed so those approaching were forced to watch the building for as long as possible, or vice versa—until she reached a gleaming guard shack.
    A second guard stepped out, clad in bulky dark-green trousers and a jacket of the same color that turned his shoulders into mountains. Not as big as Terrible, but not far off. A hat turned his features into a generic authoritarian blank, and he carried a clipboard like a weapon.
    “Miss Putnam?”
    “Yes, that’s me.”
    His blue eyes ran over every detail of her face, impersonally, as though she were a sculpture he was going to have to draw from memory later. Finally he gave her a short nod. “Pull your car around there.” His pen stabbed at the air to his left. “Someone will escort you inside.”
    “Where—,” she started, but he’d already turned away and encased himself back in his little booth. Warmer in there, she imagined, although for winter it was actually rather balmy outside.
    She rolled her window back up and followed the drive farther until it cut back behind a copse of pine trees. There a garage sprawled, large enough for six cars, with a wide blacktop in front of it. Several more guards stood at the edge waiting for her. Was this a private home or a fucking prison? They looked like they were expecting a riot any minute.
    For a moment she sat there in her car, feeling a little like she was in a standoff, before turning the key. The engine coughed into death and she opened her door, feeling their eyes on her. She should have bumped up before she arrived; comedowns made her edgy.
    “Chessie?”
    Her bag fell from her hand as she spun around, into the face of one of the guards. He looked familiar, yes, even under that damned hat, but she couldn’t quite place him….
    “Merritt Hale, remember me?” He took off his hat, and the memory snapped into place.
    “Merritt? Wow, how are you?”
    They shared an awkward moment,