Ghost Shadow

He kissed along her breasts. Ribs and abdomen. Teased beneath her thighs.

Moved ever more erotically.

And when she nearly reached a pi

Eventually they lay together sated, exhausted and replete, and still touching while the cool air moved over their flesh.

She curled more closely to him.

“Ever so eloquent, in so many ways!” she whispered to him.

“Aye, but you make it so very easy to speak ever so ardently!” he assured her.

Smiling, she lay against him, and slept.

An hour later, she opened her eyes.

A breeze was blowing.

A breeze shouldn’t have been blowing. The windows were all closed.

But…

She thought that her drapes were billowing, blowing inward.

A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky.

And for a moment, it seemed that Da

She gasped, blinking.

She bolted up, and next to her, David bolted up, as well.

“What is it?”

“The window!” she said.

He jumped out of bed and went over to the window. The drapes were flat; there was no breeze. He moved the drapes.

The window was closed. And bolted.

He turned back to her in the shadows of night.

“David…I’m sorry. I must have had a nightmare,” she said. “I’m truly sorry to have wakened you.”

“That’s all right. It’s all right, perfectly all right,” he assured her, climbing back in bed with her and taking her into his arms. “I’m probably the reason you’re having nightmares,” he said, smoothing her hair back.

She felt cold, chilled, and yet he was warming her.

She didn’t speak, she just curled against him.

He wasn’t the reason for her nightmares, she might have said. He was far more a dream of something real and wonderful.

But time here and now was suspended; she didn’t know where it could take him, and pride was a wonderful thing. Something that was great to cling to-when the warmth went away. If it went away. She just didn’t know what the future would bring.

She lay silent.

She drifted off, and it wasn’t until morning that she opened her eyes and really wondered about what had happened the night before. What she had seen in her mind’s eye, or in her soul, or with the strange gift/curse that was just part of who she was.

A sense of dread and pain filled her.

Da

Coffee had already brewed when David came down the stairs. He was surprised; he’d never seen her set a timer the previous night, but the coffee was good.

He had come down quietly, trying not to wake Katie after slipping into Sean’s room for a shower. He didn’t dress, just put on a towel, but swept up his clothing, needing his cell phone, which was in the back pocket of his jeans.

It had seemed that Katie had tossed and turned much of the night. He didn’t want to awaken her until she was ready; she might want to sleep late. He didn’t want to leave the door unlocked, but he was also anxious to get to his house-they’d left the books there.

But he could at least make phone calls.

After he poured himself coffee, he called Liam.

“So?” he asked his cousin.

“So, we spent a couple of hours with Mike Sanderson. I have a bunch of computer geeks following all the information he gave me. He said that he wasn’t in Key West when Tanya was killed, that he had gone up to Miami, and he can surely find the charge-card slips to prove that he’d taken a room-and if he can’t find them, we can get them from the credit-card company. We found the one for St. Augustine, but not Miami, and he claims he had a bunch of student cards.”

“Even if he was in Miami, it’s a three- or three-and-a-half-hour drive down. You could easily book a room in Miami and come back down here.”

“It’s possible. But I’m not taking Mike Sanderson to be a boy genius. I just don’t see him renting a room, getting down here, killing Tanya and getting her into the museum.”

“Do you see Da

“Don’t know. We still can’t find hide nor hair of Da

“Did you pick up the kid? Lewis Agaro?”

“Picked him up and questioned him. And I had the lab analyze the substance on the credit card. It was sticky, and might have given us a clue as to where Stella had gone once she took the card. Of course, the kid might have gotten the stuff on the card himself, but we can’t leave anything to chance. Have to follow up on everything.”

“It was chocolate ice cream,” David said.

“How did you know?”

“I just do. I think Stella was pretty tight with Da

“Like what?”

“I went into his place. He was researching Key West, and had thousands of dollars in one of the books he was using. Liam, for now, let’s not let this get out to others, or to the press.”

Liam laughed. “I can’t! I’d have to admit my cousin was guilty of breaking and entering.”

“I didn’t break anything,” David assured him.

“Pete has called the D.A. about getting a warrant to get in there, but if Da

“No. Don’t worry-I watch TV.”

“Great.”

“So how did it go with the kid? Was he able to give you anything?”

“No-I don’t believe he’s guilty of anything other than a wild crush on a wicked older woman,” Liam said. “Now that you’ve told me about Da

“I think that Da

“Then why would he be dead now?”

“I believe that he suspected or knew something before-and that he might have pieced whatever it was together-and knew who killed Stella. Liam, I know you’re a cop, a detective, and that you have to carry on an active investigation. But you only know about that because I’m guilty of a crime, so until you get that search warrant, can you keep what I’ve told you to yourself for your own investigation?”

“You’re asking me to… Ah, hell. I’ll follow whatever angles I can on that in confidence-for now.”

“Thanks. Do you know anything else? What about forensics?”

“I’m pretty sure you know what I do. She wasn’t violated-she’d had sex with condoms, don’t know how much, but there was no evidence of sexual force or violence of any kind. She had chicken nuggets and fries for di

“Amara? It’s a synthetic leather, used in making warm-water dive gloves,” David said.

“Right. Our killer wears dive gloves.”

“Half of Key West might own dive gloves with amara,” David said.

“True.” Liam sighed. “Look, at this point, it eliminates half of Key West, so that’s good. Oh, yeah, the gloves have silicone on the fingertips. That might narrow down the brand. Look, I’m grabbing at every straw out there, and so is the entire force.”

“Are you holding anyone?”

“We still have Sanderson, but we can only keep him until tonight. He hasn’t called an attorney, because we aren’t going to call his wife-unless we find something on him. I let the kid, Lewis Agaro, go. I don’t think he’s staying for Fantasy Fest anymore. It was his first year down here as a twenty-one-year-old. Guess he’s going to be looking back at being underaged as the good old days.”