Sacred Evil. Heather Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ they’re preserving it, too. Wonder what it was like back in the day. I mean, New York moves like a bullet. I love the city.”

      “It’s a great city,” Whitney murmured. Whitney noted that the hallway had probably been the grand meeting room of the house; parties had probably been held right there with indentured servants or slaves walking the room at times with silver trays. A grand piano sat against the wall at the rear; she wondered just how old it might be. But she’d have to explore later. Whatever happened with the New York City police, she wanted to make sure that she was there from the get-go, and that her prep work had been done. They were there to assist the police, not to take over an investigation, no matter how much pull they might have with different power structures. She’d spent the trip reading email on the current murder—preliminary notes only—and, since the cry was out that the murder seemed to be mimicking that of a long-ago Ripper victim, she had spent most of the time during her flight on her iPad, downloading the best books she could find on the elusive killer from the past.

      “I’ve only been in this house a few times,” Jude told her. “When I was a kid on school tours, before it was closed down for renovations. I’m going to suggest you snag the first room up the stairs on your left. The last owners—who gave it to the government about twenty years ago—had a nice bathroom installed up there.”

      “Thanks,” she told him.

      “Go on, take a peek. I’ll carry your bag on up, and then I’ll get you down to the morgue.”

      “Thanks,” she told him again.

      He was an imposing presence. His features were as rugged as his muscled form—handsome, masculine, strong, with the right amount of rough around the edges.

      Not a good thought, she told herself. She had to be blunt and strong herself; in fact, she was going to have to make sure that she remained smoothly professional in every way. They needed his respect. In her case, at five-three, she was fighting physical odds right from the start.

      “I can really carry my own bag—”

      “Simple courtesy, Agent Tremont. We’re not without it,” he said.

      The bedroom was nice. She glanced in the doorway as Jude Crosby set her travel bag on the footrest at the end of the bed. She took a minute to dig into her overnight bag for her better camera to be added to the shoulder bag.

      “You’re a photographer?”

      “Film is the best record of what we see, isn’t it?” she asked.

      The room smelled sweetly and lightly of lavender cleaning solution. It was a beautiful room, and she was convinced that it did have a feel for the past, just as venerated old churches and other historic buildings often seemed to have.

      Would it be more than just the sacred feel of history? she wondered.

      “Great,” she said. “Let’s go.”

      Jude arched a brow. “That’s it? You don’t want to look around longer? Settle in?”

      “Nope.” She was grateful that she’d been able to come so quickly; they’d received the call almost immediately after they saw on the news that a gruesome murder had taken place in New York. While Jackson had calmly spoken about travel arrangements and equipment, explaining the circumstances in which they’d be working, she’d been online and discovered that if she left within the next ten minutes, she could be on a plane to LaGuardia that was scheduled for departure at ten, and would have her on the ground in New York by one. She’d jumped at the chance, although not without a few minutes of stern warnings from her associates. They mostly consisted of: Be careful. We’ll be right behind you. You know not to take chances. Remember that we work best when we can earn the cooperation of the local police.

      “Okay,” Jude said. “You need anything else?”

      She tapped her shoulder bag, a big soft leather sling she hadn’t released since she’d gone through the security lines at the airport.

      “I’m good. I have everything I need for the moment.”

      He gave her a crooked smile. “You travel light for a woman.”

      She felt her own smile tighten just a bit. Was he mocking her? She was fairly small and slim, she knew. Her appearance and gender often worked in her favor. She wasn’t threatening in size and, sometimes, that was good.

      Get along with the locals, she reminded herself. “Don’t think of me as a woman, Detective. Think of me as an agent,” she said. “And I won’t think of you as a boy or a man—I’ll think of you as a top-notch NYPD detective.”

      He laughed. Apparently, he did have a sense of humor. And he could laugh at himself.

      As they left Blair House, Whitney found herself pausing to look at the large construction site next door.

      “I’m assuming whatever was there wasn’t protected by any historical society,” she said.

      “No, there had been an ugly building there from the 1920s, or something like that,” Jude said. “Before that, it had been some kind of society building—not like high society. I mean … I don’t know. Some people claimed that it was a spiritualist house, or a place for Satanists, or something like that. Odd, though. Construction there has had to halt several times. A few workers were injured. I think one was killed. And then, of course, last night happened. The film company had acquired permits to use the area. They bought mega-insurance for the shoot, but I don’t think it helps, because the murder was off-site.”

      “And the woman who was murdered had been working there,” Whitney said.

      “Yep, playing a gaslight prostitute, I believe. Honestly, it’s really no wonder that folks are crying ‘Jack’s back.’ Poor girl. There’s been some insinuation in early news reports that our victim didn’t always get along with the other actresses. But maybe that’s not a fair assessment—we haven’t even really begun the investigation. From what I’ve learned, the old Jack the Ripper found victims who were used up, missing teeth, old and ugly, but I guess none of his victims had a reputation for not being nice. Now, that’s an interesting question. Does being nice or not nice have much to do with being a victim?”

      Whitney glanced at him. He was thoughtful, really thoughtful. She decided that he might have made a decent behaviorial scientist himself.

      “That is an interesting question,” Whitney said, still looking at the cheap mesh fencing and the occasional ugly green plastic sheets that surrounded the construction site. It appeared that the majority of the old structure had been demolished; there were planks over what looked like foundations that were still in the process of being dug out and cleared. There were also piles of new timber lying about—remnants, she presumed—of the sets that had been hastily constructed for the on-location shooting that had been done the day before.

      She thought the site was empty and then she realized that there was a gate around the other side, and by the gate there was a small section with a tented roof. Sitting beneath it, watching the entrance and reading a magazine, was a guard.

      “One guard watching the area,” Whitney murmured.

      Jude pointed to a row of trailers on the other side of the street. “Yesterday, throughout the day, there was tons of security. That’s the tail end of the movie crew. There was СКАЧАТЬ