Ghost Shadow

“Hello?” she said, feeling a strange sense of trepidation.

“Katie, it’s Sean,” her brother’s voice said.

“I was home because it was summer,” Sam Barnard said to David as they sat in the sidewalk bar. “I’d gone to college for a straight business degree, then decided I wanted a minor in marine sciences. It was going to take me five years to get my degree. I never went back for the last year. Doesn’t matter-I never wanted to breed trout anyway. I have a good business-I learned enough to keep up five charter boats and a Gulf-side house right on the water up in Key Largo. I was fishing with my dad during the day, and I saw Tanya around four when we came in. I think I told her she was a jerk. Because of the Ohio State guy. I was on your side, though, of course, now I know that none of us can ever tell anyone else what to do. But like I said, she didn’t tell me to fly a kite, kiss my ass or any other such thing. She said she knew she had messed up, but that if you didn’t want her, she was leaving. She asked me if I thought she was a bad person, not knowing until you were back-all in one piece-before thinking that she’d made a mistake. I told her, yeah, she’d kind of been a selfish bitch. She’d wanted everything-the parties, the good times and then the guy she’d cheated on. She didn’t even get mad. I was a jerk, and it was the last time I ever saw my sister alive.”

“So she left the house after four that afternoon?” David said after a moment.

Sam nodded.

“Da

“You’ve seen the police reports?” Sam asked, curious and surprised.

“My cousin is working it as a cold case,” David said.

Sam pointed a finger at him. “I remember something. Your cousin, Liam, was one of the people who saw her at O’Hara’s.”

“At least ten people saw her at O’Hara’s that night,” David pointed out.

“The question is, which of those ten people weren’t seen in the bar after? Or, oh, hell, that would be the point here, huh? No one knows who saw her once she left that pub. Somewhere, in the next hour, someone found her and killed her. That’s nothing new, not really. I’m sure the police must have narrowed down the timeline when it happened. And, of course, the problem around here isn’t that there was no one on the streets. There were hundreds of people on the streets. And it was a long, long time ago now,” Sam said. He hesitated. “She wasn’t raped. So it’s not as if they can suddenly find a miraculous match with honed DNA science.”

“No,” David agreed.

This time, Sam let out a long sigh. “They figured it was some kind of psycho who lived here and then moved on. Hell, he could have driven north that night, or taken a puddle jumper up the state. But you don’t think that a whacko killed my sister?”

“I don’t know anything. I just don’t think it was a psycho. I think it was someone who knew the area and had an agenda.”

“Like what?”

“That’s what I need to find out.”

“I still don’t understand. I mean, obviously, I really wish we knew what happened-who killed my baby sister. But, what’s different now? The cops swore they chased down every lead, no matter how small. What’s different now? How do you think you can solve anything?”

David stared at him and smiled tightly. “I’m different now. I’m not a kid. And I don’t intend to stop, or be stopped by anyone. I know that I had nothing to do with her death, and I know that someone did. Someone got away with murder, and I believe that we do know the person who killed her. The truth exists. And I want it.”

“Hey! Where are you?” Katie asked her brother. “Far away still, I take it. It’s great to hear from you.”

“We talked a week ago on Skype,” he reminded her.

“Skype is great-when you have a sibling halfway across the world.”

“I’m in Hawaii now. I’m coming home for a while, kid.”

“That’s wonderful! It will be like old-home week.”

“I know,” Sean said.

She frowned. “How do you know?”

“David Beckett left me a message about going back.”

“He left you a message?”

“E-mail,” Sean explained.

“But I thought-”

“I didn’t have access for a few days, but the filming project finished up. I’m in Hawaii, and I head back to California the day after tomorrow. Then Miami the following morning-”

“I’ll come pick you up.”

“No, no, I’m going to rent a car. I’ll be there sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“That’s wonderful, Sean! Oh, watch the traffic. The first events for Fantasy Fest are starting soon.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the traffic. It will just be aggravating. I could hop a puddle jumper in Miami, but I kind of want to drive down. Even with the tourists clogging the road.”

“Okay. That’s super, Sean!”

He was quiet. She thought that she had lost the co

“What?”

“Don’t go telling anyone that…that you see things.”

It was her turn to be quiet. Sean had been amused the first time she had seen a ghost. She had been six, in first grade, and they’d been playing at the church. The ghost she had seen had been a nun. Sean had taken it all as a joke. Her feelings had been terribly hurt, but she had quickly realized that he had been trying to defend her. The other kids meant to torment her and laugh at her-which they did, until Sean turned it all around, laughing at them for falling for the joke.

Later, Katie had been alone at the playground. The nun had come to her, and spoken gently, assuring her that she had a gift, and that she must guard it carefully.

But when her grandfather had died, her mother’s tears had shaken her. She had seen her grandfather, trying to comfort her mother. She told her mother. Her mother believed she was just trying to comfort her-until she told her mother where Grandpa had left his old gold pocket watch, and that he wanted Katie’s father to have it.

Her mother had been looking everywhere for the pocket watch.

Katie was careful then. She didn’t tell anybody about the sailors, servicemen and pirates who roamed the docks.

She avoided eye contact with the ghosts. It hadn’t worked with Bartholomew.

She had thought that her brother had forgotten about her ghosts, because she never mentioned a ghost again. Sometimes, though, she had information or could tell him things because a ghost had pointed something out. She would remain stubbornly silent when he asked her how she knew something.

“Katie?”

“What?”

“Don’t go saying anything, anything at all-especially not to David. I know why he’s in town. If God himself comes down to speak to you, don’t say anything-do you understand?”

“I think God is busy, Sean. The world is a mess, if you haven’t noticed. I don’t think that he’s coming down to talk to me,” she said.

“Katie, please. I know you…think you see things,” Sean said. “I’m just…”

“Sean, you think that whoever killed Tanya Barnard is still around? It’s been ten years.”

“David has come home to find the killer, Katie. I’m willing to bet that he’s making that pretty clear. And if he’s right, the killer is going to be afraid. Please, Katie…listen to me?”

“Love you to death, big brother,” she said. “And I’m listening. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t see things.”

“That’s what I need to hear, kid,” Sean said. He was quiet for a minute. “And be careful.”

“Of what?”

He was silent, but it was as if she could hear a single name in the silence between them.

David.

“Big brother, you either believe he’s guilty, or you don’t.”

“I don’t.”

“Then?” she asked.