Krewe of Hunters The Unseen Read Online Free PDF Page A

so.”
    “Doesn’t that mean you have to go through all of this twice?”
    Crow gave him a grim half smile and shrugged. Logan had the feeling that there was always method to his mad-ness, though at the moment, he sure couldn’t tell what it was.
    A leather briefcase lay on the table. Crow reached into it and produced a sheaf of papers—photos, Logan saw.
    IN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012
    9780778313298_HC.indd 30
    11-12-01 3:55 PM

    31
    He didn’t immediately recognize what he was looking at. At first glance it appeared to be a trash pile, but then, peering closer, he saw human bones beneath the branches, boxes and other refuse.
    He looked back at Jackson Crow. “I wish I could say that a dead body was something unusual,” he said.
    “It’s the circumstances that are unusual,” Jackson murmured. “Here’s another.”
    The next picture was of a half-decayed body on a gurney in an autopsy room. This was a far more gruesome sight, resembling a creature imagined by a special-effects wizard; the f lesh was ripped from most of the jaw and the cadaver seemed to be grinning in a macabre manner.
    “Where was this body discovered? He? She?” Logan asked.
    “She. Both sets of remains belong to women. Both disappeared from the San Antonio area, one a year and a half ago, one about a year ago. Both had made it to San Antonio and were never seen again. Or not alive, anyway,” he added.
    “I’m assuming traces were done on their credit cards, and the usual procedures carried out.”
    Jackson nodded. “Neither actually checked into a hotel.
    The bones in the first picture belonged to a young woman named Chelsea Martin—schoolteacher, part-time gemologist. The cadaver on the gurney was once a dancer named Tara Grissom. She worked out of New Orleans.”
    “Dancer? As in stripper?” Logan asked.
    Jackson shook his head. “She was with a modern dance company. The show she was in closed down and they IN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012
    9780778313298_HC.indd 31
    11-12-01 3:55 PM

    32
    weren’t due to cast the next show for a few months. She headed out to Texas. According to friends, she was fascinated with the Alamo. She f lew from New Orleans to Houston and on to San Antonio, and she was never heard from again after she waved goodbye to the fellow who’d been sitting next to her on the plane.”
    “What about the other girl?”
    “Similar story. She was a new teacher, and when budget cuts came down, she lost her job. Chelsea Martin left New York City for San Antonio, took a cab straight to the Alamo and wasn’t seen again.”
    Logan frowned. “I should’ve heard about this by now.”
    “You probably did. Think about all the missing-persons reports,” Crow said with a shrug. “There are hundreds of them—thousands. Some people go missing on purpose.
    You have to remember that. Thing is, until you really start digging, you don’t always know if someone’s disappeared on purpose or not.” He pulled out more sets of pictures.
    They were all of bodies in various stages of decay. Female bodies.
    Logan frowned at Jackson Crow. “All these corpses—
    they’re from here?”
    Crow nodded. “Most of these women have yet to be identified. A number of them might have been prostitutes or women living on the edge. When someone doesn’t have family or close friends, there’s no one to hold law enforcement to task once the case has gone cold. We wouldn’t have known about this if an enterprising young officer hadn’t stumbled on the first body in a trash pile—just a block from the Alamo. Don’t look so appalled. No unit of IN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012
    9780778313298_HC.indd 32
    11-12-01 3:55 PM

    33
    Texas law enforcement has been neglectful in this case. First off, we still don’t know if the cases are related, although studying the way the killer disposed of the bodies, it seems likely.” He grimaced. “There may be a few who were killed by someone else—someone who happened upon a body-disposal system