Read The Betrayed (Krewe of Hunters) for Free Online Page B

house? It means I’m going to have to look that up, the difference between a cottage and a house.”
    Rollo had no answer, other than a wriggle in the passenger seat. She assumed he was trying to wag his tail, but he barely fit in the car.
    Her home was surrounded by trees and stood about a quarter of a mile off the road.
    It had always astonished her that you could leave New York City and less than an hour later, you’d reach a countryside of hills and vales and streams and trees. The wonder of it had been with her from the time she was a child.
    She parked beneath the porte cochere at the side of her cottage. Once, the parking spot had been a carriage drop. She hadn’t closed it in, although sometimes, in the dead of winter, she ended up scraping a lot of ice off her windshield. She just couldn’t bring herself to add clunky garage doors to a spot that was so lovely.
    Rollo went bounding out of the car, ready to find a tree of his own choosing.
    Mo walked down to the river and gazed out toward Sunnyside. She shielded her eyes against the late-October sun that had risen through the clouds and the mist. And there he was.
    Repair work was going on at Sunnyside, with scaffolding up by the porch where Washington Irving had often sat, enjoying the peace of the river—when the trains weren’t rattling by. There was no train at the moment.
    Irving wasn’t sitting. He was walking, as if taking a midday constitutional. Shoulders high and squared, he moved slowly but with dignity, handsome in a jacket, vest and cravat. She watched him for a few minutes—and she saw him look down the slight bend in the river to where she stood. She wasn’t anywhere near close enough to see his face clearly, but she knew he was watching her, too. He waved at her, and she waved back.
    She doubted he knew yet that his beloved Tarrytown–Sleepy Hollow area had been visited by a flesh-and-blood demon who was killing people—and taking heads.
    During his life, people had often asked Irving whether he believed ghosts existed. Irving always said that if they did, and if he came back as one, he’d certainly haunt a place he’d loved. Sunnyside.
    And, of course, there were frequent sightings of “the ghost.” He was often caught in “orbs” and “patterns” on film and digital cameras
    This amused Irving no end. He’d told Mo once that he derived great pleasure from studying people as they walked around Sunnyside gaping at their photos—and swearing they’d captured his image in a slew of dust motes when he’d actually been standing right behind them as they’d taken the pictures.
    She didn’t have the opportunity to speak with him often. It only happened on days when she went back to Sunnyside to walk the grounds and revel in the peace and beauty of the place.
    And to shop in the gift store. She loved going in at this time of year; they always had delightfully spooky things for sale. Sometimes, the “essence” of Irving—as he liked to refer to himself—followed her into the store and teased her as she did her shopping. He was quite a prankster and particularly liked making her look as if she were talking to herself—ostensibly driven crazy by the ghosts of Sleepy Hollow.
    “Rollo! Let’s go in,” she called to the dog.
    He came loping over to her from the woods, where he’d no doubt had a number of good sniffs and marked several trees—an Irish wolfhound was capable of a lot of “marking.” She stooped to give him a massive hug. She’d taught him long ago not to jump on people, since he’d knock most of them to the ground if he did.
    In the early 1800s, her home had been a one-room wooden farmhouse. Sometime before the Civil War, the Ahern family had come from Boston and purchased the house. They’d added a wing as well as a second story. During the war years, Sean Ahern had built another wing. He’d had a son killed at Shiloh and had turned his pain into a passion for helping wounded soldiers. He’d taken in many who