Ghost Shadow

“Katie-”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Katie, that’s a lot to take in suddenly. Please, you have to realize that.”

“It’s all right. I understand. You think I’m…not right.”

“Katie, I think everything about you is right. Do I believe in ghosts? I don’t know-that’s asking a lot. But do I believe in you? My God, yes, Katie, please… Let me digest some of this, huh?”

She was tense. So tense, she was like a piano wire pulled taut.

“Let me just give it all to you then.”

“What?”

“There’s a fellow named Bartholomew. He was a pirate-no, no, a privateer. He’s-he’s been hanging around a long time. He was hanged for something that he didn’t do. It was your ancestor who came back and indignantly saw to it that the real culprit, Eli Smith, was hanged, as well. That’s when Smith cursed the Becketts. David, please, the killer really means to have his revenge on you. I can’t really communicate with all ghosts, but Bartholomew has been around a very long time. He’s very good at being a ghost.”

He didn’t reply. It was crazy.

He’d seen the pages of the ledger move. He’d been drawn to it, as if a force was trying to make him understand, help him.

“Katie, I can’t just…I can’t just…”

“I understand.” She was trying to slip away.

He really didn’t understand, but he didn’t give a damn. He would try.

“Katie…”

She must have heard something in his voice. The words he couldn’t express. Suddenly, she eased, and she fell against him.

He held her with strength and warmth, smoothing her hair back.

“Don’t patronize me?” she pleaded.

“I swear, I’m not. I don’t know what I believe…but…”

She looked up at him.

“Katie, I believe in you,” he whispered again.

16

Sean was awake, back out at Katie’s desk, working at her computer, when David came downstairs in the morning. He had showered and dressed quietly, not wanting to wake her, although a glance at the bedside clock had informed him that they’d slept until well past two in the afternoon.

That happened, he decided, when you finally had some sleep when the light was coming up.

“Morning,” Sean said, hearing David come down and head over to him. He looked up at David. “Or afternoon,” he said dryly.

“Yeah, it’s late. Have you been up long?”

“Only half an hour,” Sean said. “Did you put the coffee on a timer last night?” he asked. “If you were the one who did it, your timing was perfect.”

“No. Katie seems to have it rigged to start in the morning.”

“Just to be brewed fresh when the first person makes it down the stairs. And I sure didn’t wake up in the morning. Odd,” Sean mused.

“She must have set it. Great plan, in my opinion,” David said. He felt they had a great deal more to worry about than coffee. “I’m going to my place. Da

Sean nodded at him, studying him. “Sure. I won’t let her come alone. I promise you that!”

David thanked him. Sean locked him out of the house.

The newspaper lay on the front lawn. The headline blazed, Local Found Murdered and Decomposing in Festivity Decoration.

David read the article quickly. There was nothing there, except for the facts he already knew. Da

He started to leave with the newspaper, but then decided not to do so. Da

He reached his house and opened the door right when he heard wheels in the drive. He turned around to see that Liam was pulling into the driveway.

David walked to the driver’s side of the car. “Anything?” he asked.

“No answers,” Liam told him. “But we’re getting help. The streets will be filled with our own force tonight, and with officers down from Miami-Dade. The chief is considering canceling a lot of the events, the commissioners are going crazy and Pete has been nuts, prowling the streets.”

“It’s a good force. Your chief is a good guy-he’s been up the ladder, he’s local and he intends to make it the best force in the world, as he says,” David said.

“He put through a call to the FBI. We’re supposed to have a team of agents and profilers down here by the start of next week,” Liam said. He winced. “Some folks aren’t happy about that. We were the Conch Republic, briefly. Some of the guys are convinced we could have solved it all ourselves, but the chief says that pride isn’t worth a life. Anyway, I was actually headed to Katie’s place, looking for you. I’m going up to the M.E.’s office. Da

“Is that an invitation?”

“You hitchhiking?” Liam asked.

“Hell, yes.”

He got into the car. “Thanks.”

Katie woke with a start. She had been deeply asleep, but when she woke, she remembered the dream.

And that she had told David that-ghosts came to her.

He hadn’t believed her. Neither had he walked away. She had told him about Bartholomew. He hadn’t said that she was stark, raving mad.

She shivered, remembering herself as the corpse of Elena de Hoyos.

Maybe it meant nothing. No, it meant that two women had already been left that way!

They always came back to the hanging tree.

That was what was important, she thought.

When she came downstairs, she didn’t see David, but Sean was at the computer. She thought that he was working. But he was looking up sites on the Internet. Sites that had to do with Key West.

“Hey. Where’s David?” she asked.

“He went to his place. He wanted to read through the books that Da

“I remember, vaguely.”

“And you know where most of our investigations into u

“Accident victims? Drunk drivers?” Katie asked, pouring coffee.

Sean said, “No. Drowning and diving and snorkeling accidents.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Katie said. “Sean, what are you trying to do?”

He shook his head with disgust. “Find anything that we don’t know about Tanya’s murder. Instead, I think I’ve just become a walking encyclopedia of trivia on my hometown.”

“Nothing we learn can ever hurt,” she told him.

Bartholomew took a seat at the computer. “Morning, Katie,” he said.

She ignored him. He was purposely trying to a

“You really have to replace that thing, Katie,” Sean told her irritably. “Or is it the cable company? I think I had better service on the China Sea.”

“The Internet is great-when it works,” she said, staring at Bartholomew with a glare that meant, Behave!

“Sean,” she said to her brother, “I’m going to go on over to David’s.”

“All right. I’ll walk you.”

“It is broad daylight, and the streets are busy.”

“I’ll walk you.”

“All right, thank you.”

“I’ll walk you, too,” Bartholomew said. He stood up and fluffed her brother’s hair. Sean spun around, eyes narrowed.

“It’s just Bartholomew,” Katie said.

“What?” Sean demanded sharply.

She inhaled deeply. “Sean, for the love of God! You’re not blind, you’re not an idiot. I know you’ve spent your life afraid that people will think I’m crazy, and I get that! But you have to feel it, you have to have seen things move. Please, Sean, right now, it’s important that you believe in me!”