She went straight to the front door, allowing the others to follow. Inside, she moved through the narrow entry hall to the parlor at the left of the house and into the dining area, where she took a seat. She sat stoically with her hands folded before her.

The others joined her at the table.

“Well, all right, I’ll begin,” Adam said. “Axel and I are here at the request of the local police. Because of the nature of the crime, they know they’ll be dealing with rumors, truth and myth. I became involved with this on a personal level when Katie did.” He stared at Dan Oliver. “I know how hard you fought to bring a killer to justice. Whether you had the right man or not, we don’t know.”

“It wasn’t George,” Katie said flatly. She gave Dan what he construed as an extremely hostile glance.

“Maybe not,” Adam agreed. “And Axel is willing to start back from scratch, but he’ll consider all the accumulated knowledge of the crimes that have occurred.”

“What about you?” Katie demanded, her stare on Dan.

Dan nodded. “I am willing to go back over everything I know and to investigate these murders to the best of my ability.”

Axel gave him a nudge with his foot beneath the table.

Dan gritted his teeth but added, “With an open mind to the fact I might have been wrong.”

“Really?” Katie said doubtfully.

He met her gaze; she was so sure. As sure as he had been the man had been guilty.

“With an open mind,” he said, and suddenly he meant it.

Hell, just this morning, he’d believed there were no such things as ghosts. And while the couple on the Delaney boat that long-ago day had seemed to be specters, they might well have been real.

Real killers.

“There will be many in law enforcement who believe the killings are copycats of one another, and here in New Orleans, copycats of the killer who struck in 1918 and 1919 and perhaps before that as well.”

“About that,” Axel interjected. “Dan has a...contact who might be able to help us with the historical murders.”

“And who might that be?” Adam looked at Dan with curiosity.

Dan hesitated. Was Axel really expecting him to talk about this in front of Adam right now? In front of Katie Delaney? He glanced at Adam, still trying to grasp everything Axel had told him about the man—and his Krewe of Hunters. Adam nodded encouragingly. Dan let out a sigh. “Her name was...is Mabel Greely, and she was best friends with one of the Axeman’s victims,” he said.

To his surprise, no one mocked him.

Not even Katie Delaney.

“She was a friend of a victim—not a victim herself?” Adam inquired.

Dan nodded. After the different ways Katie had looked at him—most of them hostile—she was now looking at him without doubt.

She seemed thoughtful.