Ghost Shadow

8

Katie woke up early. Lazy, smiling, she’d turned to David, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he was there with her. They made love again, slowly, leisurely, feeling the heat of the day grow and glow upon them as the sun rose.

When she drifted off again, David left her a note, telling her that he’d be at his grandfather’s house.

He still couldn’t call the place his own.

He wanted to spend more of his time with the files Liam had left for him. The police reports were filled with sheets on the detectives’ door-to-door questioning of neighbors. No one had seen anyone enter the museum other than the Becketts and tourists.

Many neighbors saw him.

There were the statements, sworn by his grandfather and others, that he had worked at the museum until midnight, and then been at home and with his family until the next morning, when he had left to go to the museum once again.

Danny Zigler had been questioned; he was one of the few people with a key to the museum. But a set of keys had hung just inside the kitchen door of the Beckett house, and many people knew that they were there. It had been determined that there hadn’t been a break-in, so someone had come in with a key. There hadn’t been an alarm system, despite the expense that had been poured into the place over the years.

Forensics had yielded little other than the fact that Tanya had been strangled; an injury to her knee was at least a week old. She had apparently skinned it. The autopsy report noted that Tanya Barnard had not been tortured-a small blessing.

David dragged his fingers through his hair, and began drawing a chart of the timeline. First, time of death. Second, time in which to get into the museum. It had been open until midnight the night before. That meant her body had been elsewhere for several hours, then moved into the museum. Whoever had put her in the museum either had a key, or knew where the keys were kept. Many people knew about the key. But the Becketts had all been home and together after midnight on the night of the murder. Which meant, David thought, that it had been planned. Meticulously planned. Days before, someone had to have taken the key and had it reproduced. He had a key, there was a key they kept in the house, Danny Zigler had a key and Liam had a key.

David drummed his fingers on the table.

It hadn’t been a random killing. Tanya had been targeted, and the display of her body had been planned ahead of time. Likely, it was someone who had come and gone from the Beckett house. Himself, Liam. Danny Zigler, any member of Tanya’s family, his friends at the time, his grandfather’s friends…

He was going over the names, trying to think of anyone else. Craig Beckett had been smart, but he’d also had an open heart. They’d welcomed underprivileged kids in for tea, supported the police, the firefighters and every poor wretch who stumbled upon their family. The house had been an open highway.

Sam Barnard thought that Danny was shady. David had a hard time accepting the fact that he might be guilty of murder.

Who then? Who had been around? Himself, Liam, Sam, Jamie O’Hara…no, they said that he hadn’t left his bar that night, not until the wee hours of the morning. Still, he could have hidden the body-but he hadn’t been gone between the hours of seven and nine.

She had last been seen at O’Hara’s.

There had to be something in the files.

There were pictures. Bizarre pictures, still barely real. He rubbed his finger over one of the photographs, touching Tanya’s cheek. Had she been targeted and killed because someone wanted to punish her?

For being free and loose, for finding a new lover while she’d still been engaged?

He read more of the interview notes and realized that there was a small notation next to the name Mike Sanderson. Itvw b p; subject oos. What the hell did that mean?

He frowned. They were a policeman’s notes to himself. Guy Levy. He was still a cop; he’d gotten transferred over to investigation from being a beat cop. Guy had at least ten years with the force now.

Interview by phone; subject out of state?

David pulled out his cell phone and called the station, asking for Guy. To his surprise, he reached him immediately.

“David! Saw you at the station the other day but you were gone before I could say hello. How are you doing? Dumb question. We hear about-and see-your success all the time. It’s good that you’re back.”

“Thanks. Hey, Guy, I wanted to ask you a question about Tanya’s case.”

There was silence, and then a groan. “Hey, you know, I wasn’t really in on the case. I wasn’t an official investigator. I was just doing interviews.”

“I know, I was just curious. Did you go up and see Mike Sanderson, Tanya’s new boyfriend?”

“No, no. I interviewed him by phone. He was gone, you know.”

“Right. So I heard. Where was he when you spoke to him?”

“Uh-home?”

“You sure?”

“Well, he’d left Key West, you know. Like a day or two before the murder. I didn’t talk to him until the following Monday. I’m sure he could have reached Ohio by then.”

“Did you speak to him on a landline?”

“I spoke to him on the only number I had. He was all broken up. Said he wasn’t surprised when he didn’t hear from her right away-he’d been afraid that once she’d seen you, she’d change her mind.”

Sloppy work, David thought. Well, they’d dragged in patrolmen. Men who did what they were told, and didn’t think to hunt down the man and talk to him in person.

He didn’t tell Guy that someone should have really traced Mike Sanderson’s movements; he could have been hiding out somewhere in the Keys. He could have surprised Tanya. She wouldn’t have fought him. She would have never suspected that he wanted to do her harm.

He thanked Guy and clicked the end button on his phone. He needed to get Liam going through official channels to draw credit-card receipts and find out if Mike Sanderson had really left the island.

The crime-scene photos were not good. The murder had been just ten years ago; the photos should have been better, more extensive. He turned on a high-powered light and ruffled through the desk for a magnifying glass.

There was something he hadn’t noticed before. Spots. He tried to rub them off the photos. They didn’t rub off. Was it poor photography? No, he thought. There was something there. Something that looked like light blue bruising on her nose and her lips.

He pulled out the autopsy photos and report. There was no mention of the bruising on the face.

Maybe it had been so light at the time that the coroner hadn’t seen it?

Impossible to tell at this late date, and it wasn’t evident until now, until he took out the magnifying glass.

Death was officially suffocation by strangling. The bruises on the neck were evident. There had been nothing beneath her nails. Tanya hadn’t fought her attacker. She had been taken completely by surprise.

That suggested someone strong, and, probably, an assault from behind.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine someone coming up behind her, someone with the strength to encircle her neck with his hands and choke the life out of her before she could put her hands up to resist. It would have been natural for her hands to dig into the hands that were on her, for her nails to have curled into flesh.

Not if her attacker was wearing gloves, and not if he stole her air so quickly she couldn’t scream or do more than lift her hands.

His phone started ringing and vibrating on the desk. He picked it up and checked his caller ID before answering it.

Pete. Lieutenant Pete Dryer.

“I thought I’d call you right away,” Pete said.

“What’s happened?” Was he calling because Guy had told him about his questioning?

“Oh, God,” Pete said.

David felt a quickening of dread; he’d made sure that the museum was locked, but he still had a sinking feeling.

“What’s happened?”

“I’m down off Front Street at the new oddities museum,” Pete said.

Thank God, a different museum, thank God…

But he knew, he knew something terrible had happened, and he had a feeling that it didn’t matter much where the body had been discovered, just that one had been.

“I found my missing stripper,” Pete said. “And God knows, maybe something is going on again, maybe your mumbo jumbo about an agenda is right. So I’m trying to unofficially let you in on this. Come on down, and I’ll do what I can.”

David was frankly surprised that he was permitted to pass by the yellow tape with Liam.

There was already a good crowd on the sidewalk as they made their way through the outer doors to the tourist attractions. People were whispering, pointing, speculating.

The museum was a medium-size place, much as the Beckett family had operated, but it was new since he’d been gone. One-storied, it occupied an old warehouse building that was just about ten thousand feet square. It was called the Eccentricities Museum, a good enough name for the exhibits it boasted on the posters flanking the doorway.

See Carl Tanzler and his Elena! Get to know Robert the Doll! Become a member of the Conch Republic-yes, it was real, for just a few hours. Find out about the secession! Meet Samuel Mudd, take a virtual tour out to the Dry Tortugas and learn what it was like when yellow fever struck.

Just as in most other museums, other exhibits came first.

There was a young woman talking to an officer at the entry, sobbing as she did so. She had been the cashier, he realized. There weren’t tours here-visitors walked through at their own pace, he saw.

Liam was moving quickly, and David followed at the same speed. He almost bumped into a model of Hemingway-in death, the man was everywhere.

Pete was already at the crime scene. He was hunkered down by the body, speaking with the M.E., who had already been working on the corpse.

The exhibit displayed Elena in wedding gown, with Carl Tanzler standing by her side. A plaque announced that they were Tanzler and his bride-he had married her in a private ceremony officiated by himself, in his airplane on the beach. One day, he had believed, he and his bride would sail away to the heavens in his airplane.

David’s muscles seemed to knot and contort; no model of Elena lay on the bed.

This time, the girl had dark hair. Long, dark, slightly kinky hair.

There was a photographer on hand, but Pete seemed to be impatient with him. “Angles-I need the angles. Come on, you should have a couple dozen shots by now.”

David shot wildlife. Nature. He wasn’t experienced with crime-scene photography. Luckily, there had been a few classes at college on the techniques. But they weren’t much to help him as he tried to use his small digital camera discreetly to get a few snaps.

The woman’s eyes were open wide. She stared in distorted horror into the air.

Déjà vu.

Pete, the M.E. and the police photographer-who mumbled something about the real guy being on vacation-stepped back.

Flash, flash, flash, flash, flash. The bruises on her neck. Flash, flash, flash…the way her body was situated on the bed. Flash, flash, flash, her eyes, her eyes, her eyes, just like Tanya’s.

“This one has been dead for twenty-four hours,” the M.E. told Pete, pointing his gloved hands at the body. “She was held somewhere else while lividity set in…note the blood and the coloration on her arms.”

“The museum had just opened. Liam, you might go and interview the first group through here today, the ones who found her.” He gave directions to other officers and techs, staring at the body and shaking his head. “Hell. I wanted to throw her in jail for a night or two, but this…”

“She was strangled?” David asked the M.E. It seemed obvious, but nothing could be taken for granted.

The man looked up at him curiously. “Same as before.”

Flash, flash, flash. A sheet had been pulled up, but it seemed to have been done hastily. She wasn’t pretty, as Pete had said. In life, she’d had a hard look about her, David thought. There was none of the innocence and youth that had made Tanya so stunning, even as a corpse in a tableau. The woman wasn’t unattractive; she just wasn’t beautiful. Nor had she been laid out with care. There was something off about the scene, something discordant with the last.

And the last he could remember as if it had been yesterday.

Pete looked over at him. “This one isn’t as pretty, maybe it’s a copycat. Or maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe, just maybe, you’re right. Someone has an agenda. And…”

Pete’s voice failed. David knew what he meant to say.

And look who is back on the island after ten years?

It was Pete. Because of Pete, he could be here, he was sure Pete’s superiors would see that he was ejected from the scene soon.

David stared at the dead girl, trying to take in every detail that he could. Bruises rounded her throat. The petechia in her eyes was pronounced. She wore lipstick, but it was smudged. Her blouse had been buttoned out of whack.

Had she done it herself?

There was the sheet that had been tossed over her-it almost looked as if the murderer had been forced to hurry. Where Tanya had been laid out to appear perfectly beautiful, it seemed that this girl had been quickly dumped.

“Lieutenant!”

One of Dryer’s top men came in and whispered to him. Pete glanced at David, sighed and nodded. He came to David and whispered, “Well, my men are beginning to comment on the fact that I’ve got a civilian in here. This is it-time for you to go.”

David lifted a hand. “Thanks for calling me, Pete,” he said.

Pete inhaled. “You were so adamant about not reopening the Beckett museum. But…hell, where there’s a psycho… I’m afraid that it’s not just you, David, who needs to worry about their displays. Now we know that. Any museum is up for grabs, so it seems. And Fantasy Fest is nearly here. Good God. We’ve got a murderer, and the streets are about to become wall-to-wall people. Heaven help us.”

“People may start canceling.”

“Hell, no. Okay, maybe. Some will. But a little thing like the murder of a prostitute isn’t going to stop anyone from partying. Lord, I hope the crime-scene folk can get something!” Pete said with disgust. “Why can’t we have a few more normal bar fights?”

“What about security cameras here?” David asked.

Pete gave him a dry look. “Ah, come on, David. This is your home-we’re not the damned backwoods. We checked that out first. Tape is gone. They’re dusting all over for prints, but…”

One of the techs finished for him. “The guy wore gloves. Seems like he knew just what we’d be looking for.”

“Footprints?” David asked.

The man shook his head. “He might even have worn some kind of bootie. Umm, not that we know if we’re dealing with a he,” he added, and looked away, busying himself with his work. He was a tech-the detectives were supposed to be doing the thinking.

David thanked Pete again.

He took shots as he left, shots of the entry, shots of ground. Shots of the locks, which seemed to have been undisturbed. He did so carefully, and still, he was surprised that none of the officers seemed to notice or stop him; maybe they were all in a bit of shock.

David left then, afraid that he’d be shown out soon. Just outside, he saw Liam questioning the people who had been the first through. They were two young girls and an elderly couple. He nodded to his cousin, who realized why he was leaving. Liam nodded in acknowledgment.

The crowd was growing. News stations were setting up, and several reporters were already on air.

As he walked out, he thought about Katie. He called her quickly to tell her about what had happened.

“I already saw the news,” she said.

Katie stared at the television.

The dead woman was Stella Martin. She had worked at a strip club on Duval, and most of the locals on the street who didn’t know her well still knew her. The club owner denied that any of his girls engaged in any illicit activity. Stella had been a good girl.

But the next person the reporter talked to was a pretty young girl from the Czech Republic. She worked in the bikini shop downstairs and next door.

“Stella…well, it is sad, so sad. But Stella…left with men often. She-she could not come in my shop anymore, the manager said. She propositioned men here, and my manager, he would not have it happening in here. A stripper is one thing…well, it is illegal here to charge for sex.”

A stripper.

A minute later, Lieutenant Pete Dryer was introduced by an anchor. “Lieutenant! Isn’t this a copy of one of the last unsolved murders to take place in Key West?” the reporter asked.

“A copy, just that,” Pete said.

“How do you know? The previous killer was never arrested, or known,” the reporter said.

“There are differences.” A barrage of questions started coming his way and he lifted his hand. “Naturally, we don’t want to give out details. We need to keep some information quiet so that we can investigate this killing and solve it. We have a lot more scientific investigative techniques now, and we’ll find out the truth this time, I swear.”

“But isn’t it true that the last murder involved the Beckett family-and isn’t it true that David Beckett has just returned home?” a reporter asked.

Pete was silent a second. Just a second too long.

“No further comment,” he said.

“Hey, what about Beckett? Supposedly, all those years ago, he had an airtight alibi, didn’t he?” someone else asked. “Airtight-through Grandpa!”

Liam must have been nearby. She heard an explosive sound, and the camera angle jiggled for a moment before it settled on Liam Beckett. “Trust me-David had an airtight alibi, and he’ll have one now. Watch it, unless you want to find yourself in court!” Liam said angrily.

The doorbell rang and she nearly jumped out of her chair. Bartholomew was watching her. “I’d get it for you if I could,” he said.

She ran to the door and looked through the peephole. It was David. She threw the door open.

“This isn’t something I was expecting,” he said.

“Come in. Come on in,” she said.

“You sure?”

She frowned. “Of course.”

He stepped in. “All the old crap is being thrown back up,” he told her.

“I know.”

“You still believe in me?”

“Unconditionally,” Katie said.

He smiled, closed the door and drew her close to him.

“Pete’s trying to help-I mean me, specifically. He managed to get me in to see the crime scene. And I managed to get a few of my own pictures.”

“Oh?” she seemed worried.

“Hey, I went to school for this. I took a couple of courses in crime-scene work.”

“So-you think that this will help you find out what happened in the past?” She stared at him frankly. She stepped back and put her hands on her hips as if she were indignant for him. In no way did it seem to occur to her that it was just too odd that this had happened right after he had returned.

“It’s either the same killer or a copycat,” he said. “Thanks to Pete, I won’t have to rely on the memory of what I just saw.”

“Shall I send out for some food?” she asked. “I can cook something-”

“No,” he said. “Let’s head out.”

“On the streets?” she asked, surprised.

“Duval Street, as a matter of fact. I’m not hiding. I didn’t do anything then, and I sure as hell didn’t kill a stripper I’ve never seen before. Hell, if they’re going to come at me, I’m going right out where they can do it!”

“He doesn’t look overly agitated,” Bartholomew commented. He was perched on a stool next to her at an open-air bar on Duval; David had just been cornered by the press again.

He could have gone into public speaking, Katie thought. He managed the press well. He spoke about leaving Key West after Tanya’s death because his home memories were far too painful. He managed to make the Becketts sound like the typical American family, and when he spoke about Craig and his grandmother, affection was apparent in his tone. He admitted that he didn’t understand how such bizarre murders could have occurred so far apart; yes, there might be a copycat at work, especially since some aspects of the crime seemed to be different. He had every confidence that the police would find the killer. Someone wanted to know how they thought they would find a killer now-when they hadn’t done so years ago. Someone else suggested that they wouldn’t try as hard. Stella Martin had been a stripper and probably a prostitute.

David clearly stated that he was sure the police would work every bit as hard; a human life was a human life, none less valuable than others.

Katie sipped a rum and Coke, listening to him. Bartholomew watched him, and turned back to her. “Ah, if I could but taste that grog,” he moaned. “Hey!” He straightened in his seat. “Look. There.”

Katie looked down the bar. There was a woman with huge breasts and tight shorts sitting at the end of the counter, shaded by some of the palms that covered the bar.

“I’m looking,” she said.

“I don’t know her name, but she works at the strip club.”

“And you know this because…?” Katie asked.

“Well, I may be dead, but I can watch!” Bartholomew said.

Katie stood up and came around the bar slowly. She didn’t recognize the woman. Strippers, however, had a tendency to be very transient. She might not have been in Key West long.

“Hi,” Katie said, sliding up on the stool beside her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, fine,” the woman said, trying to act as if she hadn’t been crying. She seemed defensive. And scared.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. You just appear to be very sad, as if you’d lost a friend, and I just wanted to say that I’m so, so sorry.”

The woman had been twirling her swizzle stick in her pink drink; she looked over at Katie. She nodded slowly. “Yes, we were friends. Stella had a few bad habits, but…she liked money. She wanted to travel one day-far, far from Florida. She was born in a trailer up in Palatka, and she always wanted to get out of the state.”

“Well, we can imagine heaven as a place far away, and maybe as wonderful as anyplace she might have wanted to see.”

The woman stared at her. “You-you’re Katie-oke, right?”

Katie nodded.

“Stella liked to stand outside and listen. She had a nice voice.”

“She should have come in to sing,” Katie said. “Do you know who…was she fighting with anyone? Do you know where she’d been?”

“She picked up a kid the night before… Well, they say she died Sunday afternoon sometime. Yeah, she was with a kid. I might recognize him if I saw him again. But…he was young. He didn’t look like a killer. Then again, that’s what they always tell us-God alone knows what a killer looks like. Oh, Lord-she was murdered!” the woman said, and huge tears formed in her eyes again.

“Hey, hey,” Katie murmured. She didn’t try to tell the woman that everything was all right-murder wasn’t all right. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Morgana,” the woman said.

“Um-is that your real name?” Katie asked.

The woman managed a smile. “Yeah, it’s my real name, not my stripper’s pseudonym. My mom was a big fan of the King Arthur tales and fantasy.”

“It’s a pretty name,” Katie told her. “Just unusual, even today. Umm, did Stella see anyone regularly?” Katie asked.

“Anyone?” Morgana asked. She blushed and looked away. “Lots of anyones. Stella said that these days, people came to bars-men and women-just to hook up for the night. She was smarter. You could get paid for sex, and why the hell not?”

“I meant like…like, almost a boyfriend, maybe?”

The woman sat up and stared across the street. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes.”

“Yes-who?”

The girl pointed.

Katie followed her line of vision.

She was pointing at Danny Zigler.

The museum was closed for the day, but as the afternoon rolled in, reporters announced on radio and television that it would be reopened the following day.

Fantasy Fest was coming.

Key West might have once been one of the wealthiest cities in the United States, but the days of privateers, wreckers and sponge divers were long gone.

The city survived on tourism, cruise ships and snowbirds longing for the sun. Fantasy Fest drew people from around the globe, and it was one of the many local festivals that kept the local shopkeepers, innkeepers and restaurant owners and workers in business. The fest went beyond just the obvious; the business surging down the Keys kept construction workers, charter captains, meter readers, housekeepers, antiques dealers and jacks-of-all-trades surviving, as well.

David made a point of staying on Duval Street during the day. He spoke with any reporter who approached him.

Katie was glad to see that he intended to keep himself in the public eye.

She was somewhat annoyed because she couldn’t seem to get a minute to talk to him alone.

It was late when the news of the spectacular murder gave way at last to interviews about the upcoming festival days. David had made himself so available that by nightfall, he had spoken to just about every reporter who had rushed down to the city.

Morgana had disappeared by then. But as David slipped his arm through hers, suggesting that they pick up food somewhere and head back to her house or the Beckett home to eat in peace, Katie managed to tell him that she had talked to the woman, and that Morgana had told her that Stella Martin had carried on a somewhat long-term relationship with Danny Zigler.

He listened to her gravely, and then said that they should head to her place. Along the way, they picked up a few to-go meals from the Hog’s Breath Saloon. They headed to Katie’s.

Bartholomew was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Katie hadn’t seen him all afternoon.

They set up their meal on Katie’s dining-room table. “I know you’ve already been talking to Danny,” Katie said. She shook her head while chewing a piece of chicken. “But…I…Danny is kind of a skinny little guy. And we’ve known him forever.”

“Hey, women have lived with serial killers for years and not known what their husbands or boyfriends did at night,” David reminded her.

“Okay-but you seem to think that whoever killed Tanya had an agenda. So maybe he’s not your usual serial killer,” Katie pointed out. She shook her head. “But Danny! I can’t believe it, and yet…Morgana did say that Stella Martin saw him…regularly.”

“As a customer?”

“More like a boyfriend. That’s what I asked her-if Stella saw anybody more like a boyfriend,” Katie told him.

“That doesn’t necessarily make him a killer,” David said.

“Do you think that they’ll get anything from forensics?” Katie asked.

“I don’t know,” David said. He finished off his last bite of chicken and stood, slipping his hand into the pocket of his short-sleeved tailored shirt. “You have a computer here?”

“Sure-what’s that?”

“I’m going to study the photographs I have of the murder scene.”

“In the back,” Katie said, rising, as well. “In the family room.”

David nodded and walked on through. He hit the power button and waited for the computer to boot up, then slid in the small memory stick he held.

He looked at Katie. “You may not want to see these.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is the age of media-soldiers dead on the battlefield, et cetera. I’m fine.”

He studied her, then nodded and hit the key to open his photos. Despite her words of assurance, Katie wasn’t really ready for what she saw.

The scene. The scene of Tanzler and Elena she knew so well from being a kid growing up in Key West was familiar and yet horrible.

But there was Tanzler.

And there was a woman in Elena’s place on her bed who had lived and breathed at a different time. Elena had died of tuberculosis, the woman had been murdered.

And though Katie had never known her, she knew her.

She had seen her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She had seen the huge tear form in her eye, and trail down her cheek.

Stella Martin had not been a great beauty. In death, she was like a caricature of Elena.

“Just like Tanya, and yet…” David murmured.

“What do you mean? It’s a copycat killing?”

He shook his head. “I think the same person killed Tanya and this woman,” he said. “She is not laid out as carefully as Tanya had been. There’s something rushed about the display. And Stella was older and not as beautiful as Tanya. There’s something almost garish about Stella. I think she was a handy victim. I think the killer wanted her displayed because I’m here, because Sam is here. Why else would the killer wait all of this time to kill again? Nothing else makes sense.”

“What else makes you think it’s not a copycat?” Katie asked.

David enlarged the picture, showing her the face. “Petechia,” he said. “It’s a hemorrhage in the eyes…caused by strangling. Look, you can see the bruises on the neck. But there’s more-more like the crime-scene photos in Tanya’s file. See the slight bruises…not even bruises, really. But the blue-and-gray smudges on the nose…and there, on the chin.”

Katie narrowed her eyes. She saw the little marks.

“What do you think they are?” she asked him.

“I think they’re from some form of plastic. I think the killer is putting some kind of plastic bag over their heads. They don’t see him until the last minute. He comes from behind, puts the plastic over their heads. While they’re desperately gasping for breath already, he strangles them.”

“So they really don’t know who their killer is,” Katie murmured.

“He steals their breath away so quickly, they can’t even fight,” David said thoughtfully.

Katie looked away. She didn’t want to see her ghost, the woman who had been a stripper and a prostitute but strong and gutsy in her own way, dead in a tableau.

David left the memory stick in the computer and stood, looking at his watch. He frowned. “You don’t work tonight?”

“Not tonight, though Uncle Jamie said something about doing karaoke all week next week for Fantasy Fest,” Katie told him. “I’m looking forward to my days off here.”

He was a few feet away. He nodded, and she was hoping, without being overt, that he meant to keep her with him, spend their time together, from now until then.

But that wasn’t the case.

“I have to go,” he told her.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“The strip club.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“No, it’s-it’s a strip club.”

She offered him a dry smile. “This is Key West, if you’ve forgotten. Men and women are more than welcome together.”

He shook his head. “Katie, trust me. This is something I really need to do alone.”

“David-Stella was discovered today. People in there…”

“They might be cruel to me? Treat me like a murderer?” he asked. He shook his head. “That’s why I made a point of staying on the street today. I’m old hat, and sadly, she was a prostitute, and half the people out there assume that it’s some kind of a copycat deal.”

He walked over to her, caught her shoulders and looked into her eyes. She stared back at him, her heart beating hard, and she wondered how she could possibly feel so strongly about him when just days ago she had barely known him.

“Katie, I need to speak with Morgana. You’re the one who told me about her, remember?”

She nodded. Great, she had told him about a stripper.

“Wait for me, please?” he asked huskily.

“Sure,” she told him.

He kissed her. On the mouth. But it was a quick kiss. A goodbye-for-now kiss.

But his hands lingered on her shoulders. “Katie, I…”

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for believing me.”

“You can’t really thank me for that,” she told him. “It’s the way I feel, it’s…intuition. Whatever, it’s not something we really choose. We believe or we don’t.”

He smiled. The man had fabulous eyes. She felt tension ripping through her, and she wanted to hold on to him, beg him to stay with her.

He touched her cheek. “Still, thank you,” he said.

She didn’t grab him; she didn’t hold him, speak to him or try to stop him.

She nodded, and his lips brushed hers once again.

She walked him to the door. When he was outside, she locked the bolt.

She looked through the peephole and saw him walking down the street, toward Duval. When he disappeared, she turned and leaned against the door.

“Bartholomew?” she said.

There was no answer. Her ghost was off for the day and night, so it seemed.

She waited, listening. But there was nothing to be heard, and she felt as if she were truly alone.

With a sigh she headed into the kitchen, and turned on the small television on the counter. She switched around on the news stations, but although Stella had barely been dead for twenty-four hours, the nation had moved on. There had been a bus accident in New Hampshire, killing five, and Cleveland police believed that they had caught a spree killer who was shooting the elderly in the streets. Nanny Nice, a nurse who had killed handicapped children in a California hospital, was planning on a psychiatric defense.

Finally, the bizarre murder of a prostitute in Key West, Florida, came on the local news. Stella’s name wasn’t even mentioned at first.

But, as the story wound down, Katie felt as if a chill was settling over her. The tiny hairs at her nape seemed to be rising.

In the television screen she saw a reflection.

She turned, and Stella Martin was back, standing in her kitchen, watching the television screen. She looked at Katie, her features twisted in torment.

“Help me,” she whispered.

“Who did this to you?” Katie asked.

But Stella shook her head, tears forming in her eyes again.

She lifted her hand, beckoning to Katie.

“Come with me,” seemed to hover on the air.

The ghost of Stella Martin walked to Katie’s front door, and beckoned again.

I’m an idiot! Katie thought.

And yet she followed.