Ghost Shadow

“Gee. What a concept,” he said, his tone grating. She looked at his face. If his features became any more tense, she thought that they might crack and then shatter, like glass.

He stopped dead. They were alone; the street was deserted.

He spun around to stare at her, not touching her, his hands at his sides and far too knotted to do so. “What the hell were you doing?” he demanded. “That was the most ridiculous excuse I’ve ever heard! I just decided to go the quiet way,” he mimicked. “And there was a rustle in the grass, and silly me, I just panicked. My God, is that a crock!”

Staring back at him, fighting for both composure and the right words, she felt ridiculously like crying herself.

It was really so hard. So hard to find someone in life who could make her feel the way that David made her feel. She’d spent so little time with him, and yet, when bizarre things hadn’t been happening, he hadn’t been just sensually and sexually amazing, he’d been someone who really knew her world, loved her world, diving, boats, the water, island life…

She lifted her hands. It hadn’t gone that far, and by the look of him, it wasn’t going any further. Stop it all right now before she was in deep, before it all hurt more than it already did.

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I felt that I needed to be out. I’d intended to stay on Duval with a zillion other people. Then I idiotically cut off and-this should please you-managed to scare myself half to death. Nothing happened. Nothing happened at all. I heard a leaf rustle, and in my present mood, I crashed back into light and noise as quickly as I could. How the hell did I know you were going to be there? Okay, sorry, I did know you were going to the strip club, but I didn’t know that you’d be out on the patio. I mean, they strip inside. Except at Fantasy Fest, and that’s not really stripping, that’s just folks who like to show off their body paint.”

He just stared at her incredulously. Then he shook his head.

“Why are you lying?”

“I’m not lying!” But she was.

He stared at her awhile longer. She realized that she had caught her breath.

“Please, I’m sorry, and yet I’m not. I live here, this is my life,” she told him. “You left, and now you’re back, but that doesn’t change the island and I-I can’t let it change me. Please understand.”

He let out a sigh of impatience.

He took her by the crook of her arm.

“All right. I’m not getting anything else out of you, not tonight anyway. Let’s get you home.”

At least he wasn’t going to walk off, just leave her in the street.

They started walking, almost ten blocks down Duval. Again, music grew loud.

They turned off and came to her house. She opened the door, and looked at him.

“Am I invited in?” he asked flatly.

“Yes, of course. To stay,” she added softly.

They walked in.

And there was truth to tension, passion and emotion creating something wild and turbulent. In the hallway, they were in one another’s arms.

As they moved up the stairs, they were already removing one another’s clothing and their own.

In her room, they didn’t touch a light or even the bedspread.

They just crashed down, naked and hot, seeking one another’s lips and flesh, and making love as if they had known one another forever…

And as if there would never be another tomorrow.

David talked to Liam first thing in the morning, asking him if anyone had reported a burglary-other than the pickpocket the night before Stella Martin had been found. Liam brought up the reports for the night and the next day and told him no.

“Why are you asking?”

“I talked to Stella’s friend Morgana.”

“So did I,” Liam told him.

“I know. She said that you were a gentleman.”

“Well, gee, shucks. Glad to hear it,” Liam said. “I’ve been checking out the angle you’re talking about. I’m assuming that the guy you and Pete met up with Saturday night-the guy who filed a pickpocket report-is the guy who Stella worked over. Maybe those college guys involved in the fight are the guys Morgana is talking about.”

“Morgana said she thought that Stella met up with a college student,” David said.

“But the thing is, I don’t think she was killed by a college student. Not that a psycho can’t be that age-just that I doubt one of the kids down for the weekend would have the what-have-you to get into that museum, steal the tape and disappear without leaving behind a fingerprint, hair or single skin cell.”

“Do you know that there was no physical evidence?” David asked.

“If there is, the crime-scene folk don’t have it so far.”

“Still, I’m going around to see if I can find out who was with Stella,” David said.

“I’ll give you a list of where I, or other officers, have already been,” Liam told him.

“Thanks,” David said.

“You’re going to double-check anyway, aren’t you?” Liam asked.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m doing my best on this, you know that,” Liam told him.

“I know. I know you’ve got my back, and I’m grateful,” David assured him.

He was just closing his phone when Katie came down the stairs. She was freshly showered, her hair wet and back, wearing a terry robe.

“Good morning,” he said a little huskily.

She came up to him. He was perched on one of the bar stools at the kitchen pass-through and she sat on the one beside him, setting her hands on his knees.

“I think I know where Stella might have been murdered,” she told him.

He frowned and asked carefully, “Oh?”

She nodded, her gaze meeting his steadily. But she didn’t speak again; she stood and walked around to help herself to coffee.

“Walk with me, and I’ll tell you what I think.”

She sipped her coffee black, staring at him over the rim of the cup.

“Why do you think you know?” he asked her.

“Logic,” she told him flatly.

“Maybe you want to explain that logic?” he said.

“Come with me. Give me a minute-I just have to hop into some clothes, and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”

“All right,” he said gravely.

She smiled, and he realized that she had been waiting for him to believe in her.

“I’d like to get home, though. I need to shower and change,” he told her.

“Go to Sean’s room, just grab something of his for this time,” she said.

“Isn’t Sean on his way home? I feel a little strange, helping myself to his belongings.”

She shrugged. “He told me ages ago that if he hadn’t taken things, they didn’t matter that much. And you two were friends. His room is down the hall from mine.”

“Okay, thanks. But I still have to get home for a bit.”

“Of course. But let’s do this first. I may really be able to help you.”

“All right.”

She still stared at him for a moment. Smiling.

He should know the feeling. She looked at him the way people had once looked at him. He remembered his grandparents, his aunts and his cousin. Remembered what it was like to know that they didn’t look at him with suspicion, but complete belief.

She turned and headed for the stairs. He followed her a second later. Sean and he were about the same size. He felt like an intruder, but he also hated putting on the same clothing after a shower. He figured Sean wouldn’t mind a friend borrowing a pair of button-fly jeans and polo shirt.

He came downstairs, perched on the bar stool again and waited for Katie.

As he sat there, the newspaper sitting on the table, with a headline reading Murder in Paradise, suddenly rustled-and moved.

He frowned. He walked over to the table, thinking that the air-conditioning system must have a vent over the table.

But there was no vent.

He moved the paper. Nothing happened; there was no erstwhile bug hiding under the paper.

His imagination?

No, he’d seen it move.

Even as he still pondered the strange rustling, Katie came ru