Ghost Shadow

“You never know,” he told her.

“The police already questioned me,” she told him.

“Well, it makes sense,” he told her.

“They questioned everyone in the club. One of the guys is your relative, isn’t he? A cop named Liam Beckett.”

“He’s my cousin.”

“Yeah, you can tell.”

“He’s a good guy,” David told her.

She nodded. “He was real respectful. He didn’t treat us like we were all whores-or the underbelly of society.”

David smiled. “Well, you are gainfully employed. And, by the way, I thought you might have been a dancer-as in musicals-at some time. Were you?”

Her face lit up. She was almost pretty. “You could tell that? Really?”

He nodded.

“I started off in the Big Apple-New York City,” she said. “I even worked Off Broadway. But then I met Joe, and Joe introduced me to…a few friends who weren’t friends at all. Cocaine and heroin, and before I knew it… Never mind. You’re not here to listen to my story, are you?”

“You can dance,” he assured her simply.

She sipped her coffee. “I can’t tell you anything I haven’t already told the cops. Stella did have a thing with Da

“So you can’t name anyone else she might have had a regular relationship with?”

Morgana sniffed. “You got a cigarette?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “No, but I’ll get you one.”

The bar itself was still open. The fellow ru

The bartender didn’t know him, and he accepted the money for the cigarettes with no comment on his past or the day’s events.

David brought the cigarettes to Morgana. She lit up and inhaled greedily, looking at David. “Yeah, yeah, they’re going to kill me one day. But they keep me off the hard stuff.”

“I’m not a judge, I promise,” David told her.

She managed a laugh. “No, no you’re not, are you. All right, what else can I tell you? Whoever local she was seeing who was in the higher echelon or whatever, I don’t know. She did care about Da

“Thank you for helping me, for telling me that. What I need to know now is what happened that night. When did you last see Stella?” David asked.

Morgana inhaled deeply and was silent for a few seconds. When she spoke at last, it was thoughtfully. “We worked that night, but she took off early. No, no, wait, that wasn’t right. She took a break and went down the street. Then she came ru

David smiled. “I guess there’s some logic to that.”

Morgana’s smile deepened, and then faded.

“She really wasn’t a bad person,” she said. “She just-well, you know. She just didn’t get the real opportunities in life. Both her folks are dead, at least that’s what she told people. Whatever, she went from foster home to foster home and I guess she kind of learned how to survive. You understand?”

David nodded. He set a hand on Morgana’s. “Morgana, you certainly don’t have to excuse your friend to me. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. She had her quirks, she might have been a petty thief and even a prostitute. But I understand. She’d never physically hurt anyone.”

Morgana nodded vehemently. “That’s it, exactly. I’ve seen the news. Some of those reporters are making it sound like she almost deserved what happened because of the life she led.” Tears formed in Morgana’s eyes again. “Oh, God, it must have been horrible. I can just imagine… I hope she didn’t suffer long.”

David said, “Morgana, I saw her. I think it was very quick. She might not have known anything at all-until it happened. And she probably lost consciousness very quickly, and died after she had passed out.”

“You think?” she asked. “I mean, we’re all going to die, aren’t we? I just pray that she didn’t suffer.”

He waited for her to go on, but she seemed lost in thought.

“Morgana, please, help me,” he said softly.

She stared at him and nodded. “Right. She came back in, and she worked until late. Three or four in the morning. But she was all excited. She’d met a college kid. He’d been in here earlier with friends. I think she was seeing him after. She didn’t tell me, she wouldn’t-because I don’t turn tricks. I won’t. Okay, maybe I’m a fairly naked dancer and I do posture in front of old, hairy men, but I don’t turn tricks!”

“So she wouldn’t tell you about it-but you think she went back out to find someone. Was it a real date, do you think? Or was she out looking, hoping to make it a real date?”

Morgana was thoughtful. “I’m trying so hard to remember what she said… All right, I think she had a run-in with the police. No! Wait, not a run-in. I think she escaped because someone else got nabbed, but let go.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She said something about the ‘poor kid’ being a cutie and she sure hoped that she could make it up to him.”

“All right. She was out-picking a pocket. She returned, and she went back out again. But you think the kid-or young man-she went out to find had been in the club?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Would you recognize the men who had been in?”

“Probably. Maybe,” she said softly.

David leaned back. “You’ve been helpful, Morgana. You’ve been great.” College kids. He was sure they were the kids he’d helped Pete with on the street the other night. He was already making a mental note of the local places that he’d need to go to find them again. Liam was already on the case, of course, and he’d already done a lot of the questioning that might be pertinent to this new information. “Let me walk you home,” he told her.

“I’m way down on the south end. Off the really far south end of Duval.”

“It’s all right. I’ll walk you,” David assured her.

She smiled. Just as she did so, someone suddenly burst out from the bushes behind them, streaking into the light of the bar’s patio area. She was ru

David stared in amazement while Morgana said, “What the fu-?”

David jumped up to steady the whirlwind, already confused and angry.

Even before she looked at him with wide, green eyes, he knew who it was.

Katie O’Hara.

“When I said wait for me, I didn’t mean in a dark alley. There’s a murderer on the loose.”

David was seriously aggravated with her. Even before they had dropped Morgana at her apartment, his jaw had seemed locked, his words had been stilted and, when he touched her, it certainly wasn’t with affection.

And what in God’s name did she say?

You’ll never believe this, but I see ghosts. And yes, they can startle me at times, but I’m not afraid of them-they’re just looking for something. They’re here because they need help.

Her brother had already warned her. She didn’t want to be known as the crazy woman who lived in Key West.

She didn’t know what to say. She decided that she had to be on the offensive.

She shook her head. “David, look. I like you. I really like you. But I grew up here. I work here. This is my home. I have walked these streets thousands of times. I can’t lock myself in and forget about my life just because you’ve suddenly come home, determined to catch a murderer, certain that what went on in the past is relevant to today.”