Ghost Shadow

He made a dive for the trip wire.

“No!” David raged, flying after him.

“Get up, all the way!” Bartholomew screamed to Katie.

And she did so.

Just as her brother’s trussed and propped-up arm came crashing down on the bed where she had lain. The sad marital bed of the long-dead Elena de Hoyos.

But it was empty.

And this time, David laid a punch into Pete Dryer with such a fierce anger that the man went down like a limp rag.

It would be a long while before he gained consciousness again.

Katie ran over to David, and threw herself into his arms. He held her against him as if she were as fragile as blown glass for a moment, then he crushed her to him and buried his head against her shoulder, trembling.

“Ambulances, we have to get ambulances out here!” Katie said.

David worked his mouth. “Liam,” was all that he said. And then managed, “I’m sure they’re on their way by now.”

He was right. The night came alive with the sound of sirens.

Then a shout. “David! David, where the hell are you?” his cousin shouted.

“Up here!” David yelled in return. There was a clatter in the entry below as Pete Dryer’s trip-wire sound alarm went off. There were footsteps hurrying up the stairs.

David was staring in the shadows over Katie’s shoulder.

She spun around.

“Thank you,” David said. “Thank you, all of you.”

They were all there. Bartholomew, Da

Bartholomew swept off his hat and bowed elegantly. “Ah, yes, well, I owed a debt of gratitude to the Becketts, you know. And the O’Haras.”

Tanya’s spirit stepped nimbly past Bartholomew. She came to David, and Katie. She touched their cheeks.

She faded as she did so.

Then Stella was gone.

Then Da

“Bartholomew!” Katie whispered.

He smiled. “Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” he told her.

He stepped past them all, and Katie saw that his lady in white, Lucinda, was waiting for him on the other side of the room. He took her hands in his own.

“Dear lady, what a lovely, feisty creature you’ve proven to be! Lucinda, I’m Bartholomew.”

“David, Katie!” Liam was there, with officers behind him. The room became flooded with light. “Medics, get the medics up here!” he roared.

The worst of it all, to Sean, since they had all survived, was the humiliation.

Katie was released from the hospital in the early hours of the following morning.

Sean was not.

But Katie wasn’t going to leave him.

He was bandaged in a massive turban, and though his skull hadn’t been crushed, he had stitches that ranged over a large mass of it.

“I beat Sam practically to a pulp-did that bastard’s work for him, and sat there like a sitting duck while he creamed me!” he told Katie and David from his hospital bed. Then he mused, “How the hell could he have been so damned crazy, and none of us known it?” he demanded, bewildered.

“I wonder how we didn’t see so many of the clues staring us straight in the face,” David told him. “And you did what you thought you had to do-you defended your sister. Sam appeared to be the real enemy. Who the hell could know?”

Sean nodded bleakly, and looked at his sister. “You saved our lives, Katie. We’d have died for sure if you hadn’t kept us from suffocating in those bags.”

Bartholomew was seated in the one big chair in the room while David stood and Katie perched on the end of her brother’s bed.

He sniffed loudly. “Excuse me, but I do believe I get a little of the credit!”

“I’d hug you if I could,” Katie told him.

“Almost-I’m getting there,” Bartholomew said. “Look, you can all talk this out until you turn blue in the face. No one will ever be able to understand the human mind.” He waved a hand in the air. “Liam is down at the station now, where he will be for hours on end, filling out paperwork, and filling in the gaps from all the statements that were taken last night.” He pointed a finger at Katie. “You two-go home. Get rest. I’ll be looking after Sean. Have you seen your brother’s notes? He wants to get David in with him and start filming the shipwrecks of the Keys.”

“That’s marvelous! He’ll stay home,” Katie said.

“She’s talking to herself again,” Sean said.

“No, she’s talking to Bartholomew,” David corrected.

Sean’s jaw dropped. He stared at his sister. Katie shrugged.

“You mean, you can see him, too?” Sean asked David.

David shook his head regretfully. “No-but I did see him, for a brief minute last night. He’s real, and he’s looking out for you.”

Katie gri

Sean groaned. “My plans aren’t really solidified yet,” he said.

“You’re going to ask David to work with you,” Katie told him.

“Hey!” Sean protested.

“It’s all right. I think it’s a great plan,” David said. He lifted a hand toward Katie. “We really do have to get some sleep.” She stood to join him, glancing at Bartholomew.

“Get along now, you cute little kiddies,” Bartholomew told her. “I’ll be here, I swear.”

Katie kissed her brother’s cheek carefully. “We’re a short drive away. Call if you need anything! I’ll be back in the morning,” she promised.

David shook Sean’s hand. “Jamie is on his way up to spend some time with you. He’ll be here soon.”

“I’m all right. I’m really all right. I want to come home.”

“They’ll release you soon,” David told him.

“Hey, David,” Sean said.

“Yes?”

“You’re really interested?”

“I’m really interested. My intentions are not to leave home for quite a while now,” he said.

He took Katie’s hand and they left the hospital room. Katie peeked in on Sam, but his nurse said that he was resting comfortably, so they tiptoed away.

In the car, Katie was silent for a while.

“I heard you talking in the kitchen when I woke up,” she told him.

He glanced her way. “Yes, you did.”

“You were talking to?”

“Bartholomew, of course.”

“But-”

“I don’t see him. I can hear him.”

“Oh. What was he saying to you?”

“Ah. Well, they’ve gone on. Tanya, Stella and Da

“I’m so sorry for all of them.”

“Well, Stella and Da

“Poor Tanya.”

“I don’t know. Some people believe that we forget about the ones that were most important to us in this life. I don’t believe that. We don’t forget those who mean everything to us here.”

“You sound sure.”

“I am,” he told her.

“Why?”

He looked over at her, a slanted smile cutting his features.

“Because love is our finest human emotion,” he said. “And losing it is the true depths of hell.”

“That’s lovely,” she said.

He pulled off the road suddenly, turned to her and took her hands. “Katie, I know that I’ve barely had time to really get to know you, for you to have time to know the real me. Your brother asked me my intentions. Well, my intentions are to stay here. To be with you. And, I’m thinking, when the time is right, when you’re sure…well, then, my intentions become absolutely old-fashioned and honorable. I want to marry you. I want to raise a family-and live happily ever after, of course.”

“Ah!” she said.

“Ah?”

She leaned over and kissed him.

“I do know you,” she said softly. “And I already know that my life without you would be hell. So-ah! I love you. And yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you!”

He smiled.

They drove on home.

And that day, as they turned onto Katie’s street, it seemed only right that the angel parade was going on, and that fireworks went off as well, down at Mallory Square, just as they pulled into the drive.

They stood by the car, watching the lights in the sky.

David pulled her close.

“Home,” he said.

And so they were.